A federal judge in Portland, Oregon temporarily blocked President Trump’s federalization of 200 members of the state’s National Guard.
On Saturday, U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut granted a temporary restraining order filed by the City of Portland and State of Oregon, halting Trump’s deployment at least through Oct. 17, when she will hear arguments over whether to extend the restraining order.
“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote in her order.
“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” she concluded. “Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation."
The U.S. Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment and a question about whether the agency planned to appeal the decision on behalf of the Trump administration.
Immergut, who was appointed by President Trump in 2019, said Oregon would “suffer an injury to its sovereignty” as soon as federal troops are deployed.
Her decision in Portland comes amidst a larger push to deploy the National Guard to American cities. Trump sent troops to Los Angeles and Washington D.C. this summer despite local objections and has troops on the way to Memphis, where Tennessee’s governor has supported the deployment. Trump has also threatened to send troops to Chicago.
The temporary restraining order in Portland is part of a broader lawsuit the city and state filed Sunday asking the courts to declare Trump’s deployment unlawful. That case will move forward on a separate, slower track.
President Trump has said the deployments are needed to protect ICE agents as they carry out his mass deportation operations, as well as to reduce street crime. That’s despite crime trending down in Portland and other cities where Trump has talked about sending troops. Trump’s California deployment in June was the first time in 60 years that a president has deployed the National Guard over the objections of a state’s governor. The last time was to protect civil rights protesters in Alabama.
During Friday’s hearing in Portland, Immergut noted the “great deference” the law required her to give to the president in the matter of federalizing the National Guard. She also expressed skepticism about Trump’s order, noting the order he used to federalize the Guard in California appeared to be the same one he used months later in Oregon. She asked the Justice Department attorneys why they were pointing to the president’s Truth Social post as justification.
“Really? A social media post is going to count as a presidential determination that you can send the National Guard to cities? That’s really what I should be relying on?” Immergut asked.
Trump announced in a Sept. 27 social media post his plan to send troops to “war ravaged Portland.” The president said he was “authorizing Full Force, if necessary” to deal with “domestic terrorists.” Trump did not specify what he meant by “Full Force.”
The crux of Trump’s order is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility just a few miles south of downtown Portland.
By day, legal observers, clergy and leaders from other religious and spiritual denominations stand outside the building, prepared to assist people showing up for required “check-ins” with immigration officials. By night, a group of protesters has demonstrated outside the building. Those protests have varied in size, but they have been considerably smaller and tamer than the 2020 racial justice protests that gripped downtown Portland for months.
“The city of Portland is 145 square miles. And this is one city block,” Portland Police Chief Bob Day told reporters Monday about the ICE building.
Attorneys on either side of the case presented Immergut with starkly different pictures of that one city block.
Eric Hamilton, an attorney with the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Division, argued Friday in court “the record does show a persistent threat.”
He cited reports from the Portland Police Bureau showing that September protest crowds were “very energized” and included “over 50 to 60” clad in black bloc.
The Trump administration’s court filings argued it was necessary to federalize the National Guard to protect federal personnel who have “experienced significant unrest targeting both the facility itself and those who work in it.”
Protests in Portland required the facility to close for about three weeks in June and July because protesters blocked the entrance, spray painted threats and doxed ICE agents online, Hamilton and other attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice argued in court filings.
“Agitators have assaulted federal law enforcement officers with rocks, bricks, pepper spray and incendiary devices. They have damaged federal property, including by breaking office windows, security cameras, and card readers permitting entry to the building,” they stated.
Hamilton pointed to a ruling last month by a federal judge in California that found Trump’s troop deployment there unlawful. Even though the administration disagreed with the ruling, Hamilton said the judge said “federal troops can continue to protect federal property in a manner consistent with the Posse Comitatus Act.” The Act, passed in the wake of the Civil War, prohibits the military from domestic law enforcement.
Attorneys for the city and state, however, at the hearing Friday introduced records from the city of Portland that protests at the ICE building throughout nearly all of September rarely drew more than a few dozen. Police were in daily communication with federal officers, and most nights there was little to report.
There were nights with incidents, such as Sept. 20 when Portland Police noted that a Federal Protective Service officer called them “throughout the night with info about black blockers assaulting people,” referring to demonstrators who wear black clothing and face coverings during protests.
As a whole, the records show the majority of nights were calm, like the night before Trump’s Sept. 27 announcement to send in the National Guard.
Portland police observed 8-15 people at any given time.
“Mostly sitting in lawn chairs and walking around,” Portland Police wrote. “Energy was low, minimal activity.”
State and local officials have rejected the idea that the situation on the ground requires the National Guard ever since Trump announced it.
“In furtherance of a nationwide campaign to incorporate the military into civilian law enforcement—while also seeking to punish select, politically disfavored jurisdictions—they are preparing to deploy troops in Portland, Oregon,” attorneys for the city and state wrote in their motion for the restraining order. “The facts do not remotely justify this overreach.”
In the same document, they said the Portland Police Bureau made 25 arrests at the ICE facility between June 11 and June 19 of this year, but hadn’t had cause to make any more until administration announced they were deploying the National Guard.
After the President’s announcement Saturday, two more people were arrested Sunday. Cammilla Wamsley, a regional ICE supervisor, said in a sworn statement that federal law enforcement made more than 20 arrests over roughly three weeks this summer, separate from arrests by local police.
“In fact, on any given weekend, the nightlife in Portland’s entertainment district has warranted greater PPB resources than the small, nightly protests in front of the ICE facility,” Craig Dobson, an assistant chief with the Portland Police Bureau, wrote in a Sept. 28 signed declaration.
Caroline Turco, a senior deputy city attorney, told Immergut Friday that if Portland police did need more officers, “there are layers and layers” they can turn to before federalized troops. For example, neither the Oregon State Police nor local law enforcement in neighboring counties have been called on to assist.
Turco cautioned an “increased federal presence” could cause irreparable harm to the city and provoke a larger protest response.
Immergut wrote in her opinion Saturday that “protest activity in September generally did not involve violence against federal property or personnel.” She noted that evidence the Justice Department provided for one assault involved a protestors and a journalist, but not federal personnel. She said that, “along with the other isolated September incidents, do not approach the level of disruption to federal functions.”
Immergut said the National Guard deployment was in fact likely to inflame Portland protests, noting that it had done so in past deployments to Portland and Los Angeles.
This is not the first time that the courts have weighed in on Trump’s deployment of the National Guard over the objections of local officials. In June, when Trump sent 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles to confront protests against ICE operations, a federal judge ruled that the situation there did not constitute a level of interference with ICE or a “rebellion” against federal authority to justify sending in the troops.
But an appeals court overruled that finding, citing instances where ICE agents were “pinned down” and had “concrete chunks and bottles of liquid” thrown at them. Oregon officials tried to draw a distinction there.
“Those facts bear no resemblance to the recent ICE facility protests in Portland,” attorneys representing Portland and Oregon argued when they asked the court to block the deployment. “If the relatively small, contained, and largely sedated protests near Portland’s ICE facility in recent weeks can justify military intervention, then the President’s authority to federalize a state’s National Guard … would be virtually unlimited.”
On Sept. 2, a California judge ruled that the troops in Los Angeles violated long-standing law against military forces performing civilian law enforcement by assisting ICE agents with traffic control and cordons for their operations. That ruling is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.