A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump’s call-up of 200 National Guard troops in Oregon, ruling that Trump’s claims of daily unrest in Portland were “untethered to facts” and risked plunging the nation into an unconstitutional form of military rule.

“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” wrote U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee.

Immergut said Trump’s decision to enlist members of Oregon’s National Guard was based on false claims about nightly unrest targeting federal immigration authorities and buildings in Portland. Though Trump described the city as “war-ravaged” and wracked with violence, police said immigration-related protests had been small, manageable and largely peaceful in the days leading up to Trump’s pronouncement.

“These incidents are inexcusable, but they are nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces,” Immergut wrote.

“President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement — we expect to be vindicated by a higher court,” said White House spokesman Abigail Jackson in a statement.

The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The ruling is the latest brushback as Trump expands the number of cities to which he has deployed troops over the objection of local leaders. Trump on Saturday ordered National Guard troops deployed to Chicago, despite fierce protest from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, and has similarly sent troops to Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., where local officials have filed lawsuits seeking to block the deployments.

Though federal law prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement, the president has the authority to deploy troops to protect federal property and personnel if he determines that civil unrest verges on rebellion against the United States government — or if it is impeding the ability of federal authorities to execute the law.

The administration is certain to appeal Immergut’s decision to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which previously restored Trump’s ability to call up the National Guard in Los Angeles after a federal judge in San Francisco ruled it should be halted. But Immergut said the protests in Portland were far less severe than those in Los Angeles and did not come close to the threshold Trump must meet to justify federalizing a state’s National Guard troops.

The administration, she said, has “made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power – to the detriment of this nation.”

Immergut noted that protests against ICE had swelled in June but largely subsided after June 25. By late September, she noted “these protests typically involved twenty or fewer people.” Even when some grew larger, they were well controlled by local police, who she noted routinely coordinated with multiple law enforcement agencies to ensure public safety.

The Trump administration has argued that the president’s determination that federal officials were unable to execute immigration laws — a legal standard that justifies federalizing a state’s National Guard troops — is subject to enormous deference by the court. In a hearing Friday, Justice Department attorney Eric Hamilton said pockets of violence in September more than met the threshold for Trump to invoke his authority. And he said the relatively small number of troops, compared to the thousands called up in Los Angeles, underscored the minimal burden the call-up posed to Oregon.

Immergut agreed that Trump is owed great deference in his judgment, but she said even under that standard, his decision was not made in good faith.

“‘A great level of deference,’ Immergut ruled, “is not equivalent to ignoring the facts on the ground.”