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A federal judge on Saturday issued an order temporarily blocking the Trump administration’s deployment of the Oregon National Guard to Portland.
In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut pointed to “a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach,” which she said dated back to James Madison and other Founding Fathers.
“This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” Immergut wrote. She said federal officials “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.”
Immergut’s order comes amid a pitched debate nationwide over when the deployment of military personnel is appropriate on U.S. soil. Judges elsewhere have in recent months been scrutinizing the question, and it came before the U.S. District Court in Portland in late September after the Trump administration moved to deploy 200 Oregon National Guard troops in the city.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and other state officials promptly sued to halt the deployment, describing the federalization of guardsmen as not only unnecessary but unlawful—and clearly motivated by Trump’s desire to normalize the use of military troops for ordinary domestic law enforcement activity, while also punishing politically disfavored places like Portland.
As part of its suit, Oregon sought a motion for a temporary restraining order—which the judge granted Saturday afternoon.
Kotek swiftly celebrated the ruling. “There is no insurrection in Portland,” she said in a statement. “No threat to national security. No fires, no bombs, no fatalities due to civil unrest. The only threat we face is to our democracy—and it is being led by President Donald Trump."
The Trump administration had argued that it needs the national guard to help it quell a potential rebellion in the city, and also to allow it to enforce U.S. law.
It focused on protests at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in South Portland, where it argues demonstrators have depleted its resources and threatened its personnel and property.
The judge was skeptical of this argument. The President, she wrote in her 31-page order, “is certainly entitled ‘a great level of deference,’ in his determination that he “is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States. But ‘a great level of deference’ is not equivalent to ignoring the facts on the ground.”
The order expires Oct. 18. In the meantime, litigation will almost certainly continue, as Oregon pursues a more durable ruling in the case.
It was not immediately clear what effect the order would have on the Oregon National Guardsmen’s preparations for the mission to Portland. Asked if the guardsmen who have been reporting would be sent home, United States Northern Command, which was running the deployment for the Pentagon, said Saturday that it is “deferring queries on this matter to the White House.”
The Trump administration indicates it is not backing down. In an emailed statement Saturday evening, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said “President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement—we expect to be vindicated by a higher court.”
Preparations for the mission had in recent days been underway, with United States Northern Command saying as of Friday that the troops assigned to the mission were undergoing training.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump and his subordinates have issued near daily statements justifying the mission, describing Portland in nightmarish terms—as being under siege, for example, by domestic terrorists.
While some with local ties—including Oregon House Minority Leader Christine Drazan—have backed the mobilization, numerous Portlanders have pointed out that the Trump administration’s characterization of the city clashes in obvious ways with the reality on the ground. Still, legal experts said this did not mean Oregon’s efforts to get a restraining order were a sure thing.
Tung Yin of Lewis & Clark Law School said Judge Immergut’s order in favor of Oregon did not surprise him, but its length and detail did. Temporary restraining orders are usually “quick and dirty”—nothing like the lengthy analysis the judge entered Saturday, a mere two days after she was assigned to the case.
“When you know that you have a national story, you have in this case a fairly litigious administration, whatever you can do to bulletproof your ruling I think is probably what a prudent judge would do,” Yin told WW in a phone interview. He says its notable that the order contains not just an assessment of legal questions, but also a factual account of the matter.
Appeals courts, he said, don’t give deference to a lower court’s legal analysis. But they generally defer to its factual findings about the situation on the ground.
The premise of the dispute is this: Normally, the Oregon governor is the commander in chief of the Oregon National Guard. But, against the objections of the governor, Trump assumed command of 200 guardsmen this past weekend after invoking Title 10 of federal law—which has a key provision allowing for the federalization of the guard in circumstances of invasion, rebellion, or when federal laws cannot otherwise be executed.
“None of those circumstances exist in Oregon,” the state said when it filed the suit. In its complaint, it argued that the President’s characterization of Portland as a “war ravaged” community is pure fiction.
“The protests contained to a small area near Portland’s ICE facility have been successfully managed by local law enforcement and do not in any way constitute a rebellion or danger of a rebellion,” the state said.
Oregon added that the Trump administration has failed to point to a single case in which it was unable to execute U.S. laws as a result of the demonstrations, arguing that the feds have “not identified an inability to detain or deport those who are unlawfully present in the United States due to protests in Portland.”
The Trump administration argued, in contrast, that the situation in Portland does in fact meet the conditions under which the president can legally federalize the guard.
“The violent actions and threats by large numbers of protestors, directed at those enforcing federal immigration laws and at federal property, constitutes at least a danger of a rebellion against federal authority,” it argued in court this week.
Meanwhile, it says, its ability to enforce federal law has in fact been undermined. From mid-June to early July, ICE had to close its Portland office for three weeks and board up windows to prevent damage, the Trump administration says. It adds that it has had to reassign its law enforcement staff to protect federal personnel and property, to the exclusion of many important law enforcement missions.
The Trump administration made another argument too—that Oregon’s characterization of the situation on the ground in Portland is essentially irrelevant.
It argued that the president alone has the exclusive authority to decide whether the necessary conditions for federalizing the National Guard have been met, and that his decision must be treated as conclusive.
The state argued that the service members’ deployment would only serve to agitate unrest and increase the scale of protests at the ICE facility. Immergut wrote that this argument was well supported by evidence, both in Oregon and elsewhere.
Indeed, at least 400 people marched to the building on Saturday, The Oregonian reported, where they were met by chemical munitions deployed by federal agents. That’s the largest gathering at the ICE facility since June.
