Ninth Circuit Restores Block on Trump’s Portland National Guard Deployment

By Yunior Rivas

PORTLAND, OREGON – OCTOBER 04: Protesters gather outside of a downtown U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility on October 04, 2025 in Portland, Oregon. The facility has become a focal point of nightly protests against the Trump administration and his announcement that he will be sending National Guard troops into Portland. A federal judge is currently hearing Oregon’s case against sending troops into the city, and a decision is expected on Saturday. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals voted to rehear President Donald Trump’s Portland National Guard case Tuesday — a step that vacates an earlier ruling that allowed Trump to federalize Oregon’s troops and deploy them against local protests.

Chief Judge Mary Murguia, appointed by former President Barack Obama, announced the decision stating that “upon the vote of a majority of nonrecused active judges, it is ordered that this case be reheard en banc.” The order explicitly dismisses the extreme panel opinion that had sided with Trump.

The immediate effect is sweeping as Trump’s claimed authority to seize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard is suspended once again. The lower court’s injunction — issued by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut on October 4 — now stands, barring any deployment while the full appeals court reconsiders the case.

Immergut, a Trump appointee, had ruled that the president’s attempted call-up violated Oregon’s sovereignty and lacked any factual or legal basis. She found Trump’s justification — that Portland was “war ravaged” and “under siege” by “domestic terrorists” — was false and dangerously detached from conditions on the ground.

“The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” Immergut wrote in her opinion earlier this month.

The earlier panel ruling by Trump-appointed Judges Bridget Bade and Ryan Nelson, had drawn intense criticism for vastly expanding presidential powers to use the military within the United States.

Elizabeth Goitein, a senior director at the Brennan Center for Justice, previously called that panel’s decision “one of the most dangerous and legally flawed court decisions I’ve seen this year.”

“It is hard to overstate how misguided and dangerous this ruling is,” Goitein said. “Even where protests involve acts of violence, deploying the military is illegal unless that violence reaches a level where state and local law enforcement are completely overwhelmed.”

With the panel opinion now vacated, Immergut’s courtroom once again becomes the center of the fight over Trump’s emergency powers. The judge is set to begin a fact-finding trial Wednesday to evaluate what was actually happening in Portland when Trump attempted to federalize the Guard.

The Ninth Circuit’s en banc process is unique. Instead of all 29 active judges, an 11-judge panel — the chief judge plus 10 selected at random — will rehear the case. The court’s decision to take it up, however, is a signal that a majority of active judges found the issues serious enough to warrant full review.

For now, Trump’s order federalizing the Oregon National Guard remains blocked. Immergut’s warning from her earlier opinion once again governs.

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” she wrote. “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”