“They need to get the heck out,” he said.

A CBS poll found that 42% of Americans favour deploying the National Guard to cities, compared to 58% who oppose it.

Trump, who last week spoke of using the military for a “war from within”, shows no sign of backing off his hardline campaign.

He has claimed: “Portland is burning to the ground. It’s insurrectionists all over the place.”

Key ally Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House of Representatives, echoed the President’s rhetoric, telling NBC that National Guard troops deployed in the US capital Washington had responded to a “literal war zone”.

No to ‘martial law’

But Trump’s campaign to use the military on home soil hit a roadblock in Portland, Oregon, when a court ruled the deployment was unlawful.

Trump has repeatedly called Portland “war-ravaged” but US District Judge Karin Immergut issued a temporary block, saying “the president’s determination was simply untethered to the facts”.

“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” Immergut wrote in her ruling.

Although Portland has seen scattered attacks on federal officers and property, the Trump administration failed to demonstrate “that those episodes of violence were part of an organised attempt to overthrow the government as a whole” – thereby justifying military force, she said.

One of Trump’s key advisers, Stephen Miller, called the judge’s order “legal insurrection”.

Chicago shooting

Aside from the deployment of troops, the Trump crackdown is being spearheaded by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). The department is being rapidly expanded both in personnel and duties.

ICE raids around the country – primarily in cities run by Democrats – have seen groups of masked, armed men in unmarked cars and armoured vehicles target residential neighbourhoods and businesses, sparking protests.

Days of tense scenes in Chicago turned violent at the weekend when a federal officer shot a motorist that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said had been armed and rammed one of their patrol vehicles.

DHS officials have said that ICE officers also shot and killed 38-year-old immigrant Silverio Villegas Gozalez during a traffic stop on September 12, accusing him of allegedly trying to flee the scene and dragging an ICE officer with the vehicle.

-Agence France-Presse