A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit voted 2-1 on Tuesday to vacate two separate preliminary injunctions that had restricted federal agents from defending a Portland, Oregon ICE facility against violent protesters. Both rulings landed the same day, from the same panel, in favor of the same administration that the 9th Circuit spent years trying to obstruct.

This is the court that made a cottage industry out of blocking Trump's executive orders during his first term.

The two cases — Reach Community Development v. DHS and Dickinson v. Trump — stemmed from the now-familiar chaos around Portland's ICE building, where protesters turned a federal facility into a nightly battlefield. Federal district judges Amy Baggio and Michael Simon had issued sweeping injunctions limiting the government's ability to deploy tear gas and chemical agents, requiring uniform marking for federal officers, and in Dickinson, certifying an entire class of plaintiffs against the Trump administration.

The 9th Circuit threw all of it out.

Judge Kenneth Lee, a Trump appointee who wrote for the majority in both decisions, didn't mince around the core issue. The lower courts had essentially tried to micromanage federal law enforcement tactics from the bench — dictating which crowd-control tools agents could use and under what circumstances. Lee's opinion stated plainly: "Courts cannot be the couture of the executive branch."

Judge Eric Tung, also a Trump appointee, joined Lee in the 2-1 majority on both cases. Judge Ana de Alba, a Biden appointee, dissented both times.

The legal architecture here is what makes this more than a Portland story. The plaintiffs in both cases built their arguments on substantive due process under the Fifth Amendment, claiming federal agents violated their constitutional rights. The 9th Circuit panel applied the framework from Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization — yes, that Dobbs — to evaluate the due process claims. The Supreme Court's 2022 abortion ruling narrowed the scope of substantive due process rights, requiring them to be "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." The 9th Circuit used that same standard to reject the protesters' claims that they had a fundamental right to be free from specific crowd-control measures.

So an abortion ruling written by conservatives is now the legal standard dismantling progressive protest litigation on the West Coast. The legal left spent years warning that Dobbs would ripple through constitutional law. They were right. They just didn't anticipate it would ripple in this direction.

The First Amendment claims fared no better. The panel found that the injunctions were overbroad — crafted not to protect specific constitutional rights but to hobble federal operations wholesale. The class certification in Dickinson collapsed once the appellate court determined the plaintiffs couldn't demonstrate the kind of uniform injury required to proceed as a group.

Portland spent the better part of 2020 treating its ICE facility like a piñata. Federal agents were bottled up inside while local politicians performatively refused to help. District courts piled on restrictions that made it harder for agents to do the job they were already barely allowed to do. The two injunctions vacated Tuesday were the legal residue of that era — court orders designed to punish the federal government for having the audacity to protect its own building.

As reported by RedState, the 9th Circuit just cleaned the slate. Two cases, two wins, same day, same panel, same result.

The 2-1 split tells you everything. Two Trump appointees applied Dobbs to due process, rejected class certification, and restored federal authority over its own operations. One Biden appointee disagreed both times.

The 9th Circuit used to be where Trump policies went to die. Now it's issuing the rulings that bury the injunctions.