A federal judge on Saturday temporarily blocked President Trump’s deployment of 200 National Guard members to Portland, Ore.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut granted Oregon and Portland officials’ request for a temporary restraining order, barring implementation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s memo that authorized federalizing the troops over the state’s objection.
“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” the Trump-appointed judge wrote.
Immergut denied the Trump administration’s request to pause her order while the administration appeals. Her order is set to expire in 14 days but could be extended, and she set a trial for Oct. 29.
State and city officials jointly sued the Trump administration last month after the president vowed to protect “war-ravaged” Portland and its U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices he described as “under siege.”
Lawyers for the officials argued at a Friday hearing that Trump’s reasoning for sending in the troops was unsound.
Scott Kennedy, Oregon’s senior assistant attorney general, called it “based largely on a fictional narrative” about public safety in the city. Caroline Turco, who represented Portland, said Trump’s perception of what’s happening in the city is “not the reality on the ground.”
Trump has long vilified Portland as the seat of the far left, since peaceful protests in the wake of George Floyd’s 2020 police killing devolved into riots and stretched on for months.
The Trump administration argued that the courts must give a “great level of deference” to the president’s determination to federalize the National Guard.
Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyer Eric Hamilton said that “vicious and cruel radicals” had “laid siege” on Portland’s ICE facility in recent months, forcing the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to close it for three weeks during the summer.
The judge at one point questioned if there isn’t still a “sovereign interest in play,” referencing the state’s leadership, but Hamilton insisted that the National Guard’s mission is a federal operation.
In her Saturday ruling, Immergut agreed that the president is “certainly entitled” to a great level of deference but said that is not equivalent to “ignoring the facts on the ground.”
“The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” the judge wrote.
Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sept. 27 that he was directing Hegseth to provide troops to protect Portland and its ICE facilities from “Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” authorizing “Full Force, if necessary.”
The next day, Hegseth issued the memo authorizing deployment and federalization of 200 Oregon National Guard members, despite Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek’s (D) objection.
The National Guard has also been called up in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
A federal judge in California ruled that Trump illegally federalized the National Guard, ordering him to turn over control to Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), and that the troops violated a centuries-old law that generally bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement when Trump sent them to Los Angeles. A federal appeals court has paused both orders for now.
In the nation’s capital, a federal judge is weighing the city’s request to block the administration’s takeover, as well.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) said earlier Saturday that the Trump administration will imminently federalize the state’s National Guard to aid in law enforcement efforts in Chicago and elsewhere in the state.
Updated at 8:40 p.m. EDT.
