Federal Judge Again Blocks Trump’s Portland National Guard Deployment

A federal judge in Oregon for the second time in as many days barred President Donald Trump from sending National Guard soldiers to Portland.

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, who was appointed by Trump in his first term, said in a hearing Sunday evening that by deploying troops from California and Texas to Portland, Trump appeared to be attempting to sidestep her previous order that blocked the president from deploying Oregon National Guard troops in the city. 

Immergut said the effort was “in direct contravention” of her earlier decision, which paused a memo from Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth federalizing 200 members of the Oregon National Guard for deployment in Portland.

In her initial order, Immergut found that Trump lacked authority when he attempted to federalize Oregon Guard troops for deployment in Portland. White House officials claimed recent protests near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in southwest Portland constituted a “rebellion” against the U.S. government.

The judge concluded that the president’s assessment of Portland was “simply untethered to the facts” and that he violated Oregon’s state sovereignty in federalizing its troops under false claims.

In response to Immergut’s order, the Pentagon announced it was reassigning about 200 federalized members of the California National Guard from the Los Angeles area to Portland. Hegseth also issued a memo Sunday night calling up 400 members of the Texas National Guard to be deployed “where needed,” including in Portland.

California joined Oregon’s lawsuit against Trump’s attempt to send troops to Portland, arguing that redeploying California Guard troops into a separate state was illegal. Immergut granted Oregon and California an expanded order prohibiting the Trump administration from deploying any federalized members of the National Guard in Oregon.

In addition to Portland, Hegseth’s memo said federalized Texas Guard troops may be sent to Illinois over the objections of that state’s governor, JB Pritzker (D), who warned in a statement Sunday that Trump was sending “troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or cooperation.”

“We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion,” Pritzker said. “It started with federal agents, it will soon include deploying federalized members of the Illinois National Guard against our wishes, and it will now involve sending in another state’s military troops.”

Pritzker called on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) to withdraw the troops. However, Abbott said he authorized Trump to call up Texas Guard troops and fully supported Guard troops being used against Illinois or Oregon.

“You can either fully enforce protection for federal employees or get out of the way and let Texas Guard do it,” Abbott said. “No Guard can match the training, skill, and expertise of the Texas National Guard.”

Legal experts warned that Trump’s attempt to use outside state Guard personnel against a nonconsenting state raises severe state sovereignty issues. 

“Folks we are watching the adjudication of some of the most important constitutional issues of federalism, executive discretion, and judicial review since the 19th [century],” Lindsay Cohn, an associate professor on national security at the U.S. Naval War College, said on social media Monday.

Department of Justice (DOJ) attorneys defending Trump’s attempted deployment in Portland have argued that the president has near limitless power to federalize Guard troops under 10 U.S.C. 12406, an archaic statute.

The rarely used law allows the president to mobilize the Guard when the country faces foreign invasion or rebellion, or when the president is unable to execute laws with regular resources. 

However, DOJ attorneys say the law allows him to deploy troops while citing events that occurred months ago in an unrelated city in another state. 

In Sunday night’s hearing, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton expanded on this claim, adding that nothing in the statute prevents Trump from using California Guard troops he federalized months ago in a different state.

“You are missing the point,” Immergut responded to Hamilton. “My order was based on conditions in Portland. That there was no legal basis to bring the National Guard into Oregon.”