Judge blocks Trump’s deployment of National Guard in Portland, Oregon

Protesters gathered outside an apparent ICE detention center in Portland, Ore. during nationwide “No Kings” protests, on Saturday, June 14, 2025. Trump declared on Sept. 27 that he had directed troops to be sent to Portland, and authorized them to use “full force” to put down protests directed at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. (Jordan Gale/The New York Times)

By ANNA GRIFFIN

A federal judge Saturday blocked the Trump administration from using Oregon National Guard soldiers in response to nightly protests at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, Oregon.

Judge Karin Immergut, of U.S. District Court in Oregon, sided with Democrats who run the state government when she issued a temporary restraining order blocking the mobilization. President Donald Trump and the Defense Department had ordered 200 Oregon soldiers for a 60-day deployment.

In her ruling, Immergut wrote that she expected a trial court to agree with the state’s contention that the president exceeded his constitutional authority in mobilizing federal troops for local work and likely violated the 10th Amendment.

The soldiers have been training on the Oregon coast and were expected to be in place by the weekend, though federal officials have not said what duties they would perform beyond assisting ICE.

The restraining order expires in two weeks. During that time, the judge is expected to rule on a request for a longer injunction against the deployment. Federal lawyers have appealed the restraining order, which is part of a larger lawsuit filed by Oregon and Portland that accuses the president of violating his constitutional authority.

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

The decision comes as the president pushes to deploy the National Guard in several major U.S. cities to combat crime and support immigration enforcement. On Saturday, Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, said that Trump planned to send 300 Guard troops to Chicago soon.

During almost two hours of arguments Friday, lawyers for Oregon’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, contended that the president did not have the authority to use the National Guard at the ICE facility and warned that the arrival of federal forces would lead to greater violence.

State and city attorneys described Trump’s selection of Portland for deployment as “at best, arbitrary, and at worst, a politically motivated retaliation for the adoption of policies” that the president viewed as too liberal.

The president’s actions “represent one of the most dramatic infringements on state sovereignty in Oregon’s history,” Scott Kennedy, an attorney for Oregon, said in court. “They radically reshape the balance of federal-state power,”

State lawyers also questioned the timing of Trump’s decision, noting records from the Portland Police Bureau that showed the size of the nightly demonstrations had dwindled before the president posted on his social media website last Saturday that he planned to ask the Department of Defense to use federal troops to “protect” Portland.

Portland police commanders checked in with ICE officials every evening, according to records they filed in support of the temporary restraining order, and for several weeks prior to the president’s declaration, ICE employees reported that things were relatively quiet and that they did not need help.

Immergut, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, agreed that the timing of the president’s order did not meet the legal standard for calling in the National Guard, saying the state provided “substantial evidence that the protests at the Portland ICE facility were not significantly violent or disruptive in the days — or even weeks — leading up to the president’s directive.”

Kennedy also said the situation in Portland did not meet the standard required for mobilization of federal soldiers for domestic work; the law allows federal troops to be used domestically in times of foreign invasion, rebellion or when normal law enforcement efforts are not capable of maintaining order.

Federal lawyers contended that the protests in Portland constituted both a potential rebellion and a law enforcement challenge beyond what federal officers on the ground could handle. But Kennedy said the federal government was defining “rebellion” so broadly it could include any political demonstrations or “opposition to its authority.”

Immergut agreed, writing that the federal government had shown evidence of “sporadic violence” but not “any evidence demonstrating that those episodes of violence were part of an organized attempt to overthrow the government as a whole.”

Eric Hamilton, a Justice Department lawyer, told the judge the decision to use National Guard soldiers was prompted by the Sept. 24 shooting that killed two detainees at a Dallas ICE facility and months of demonstrations in Portland that have left federal employees frightened and exhausted.

“Violent and cruel radicals have laid siege,” he said. “The evidence we have submitted at least reflects a danger of a rebellion, monthslong targeting of the Portland ICE building with violence, intimidation and threats.”

In the order released Saturday evening, Immergut wrote that the president’s argument about the need for mobilization was contradicted by evidence that recent protests had been comparatively quiet and nonviolent, supporting the state’s case that the decision to use troops “was not ‘conceived in good faith.’”

The nightly demonstrations at Portland’s ICE building began in early summer and have included occasional skirmishes between protesters and federal agents as demonstrators tried to block vehicles from entering and exiting a parking garage. Multiple times a day, ICE agents in riot gear march out of the building to clear the driveway. During daylight hours, the crowd disperses quickly. At times federal officers have used pepper balls, tear gas and other crowd dispersal weapons to move people back.

The Portland Police Bureau reported 27 arrests since early June outside the building, and court records show at least two dozen arrests by federal officers.