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Hours before a temporary restraining order was set to expire, a federal judge blocked the Trump administration on Sunday evening from deploying troops to Portland for at least a few days more.
The order, by U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut, is not her final ruling on Oregon’s lawsuit to stop Trump from deploying federalized members of the National Guard to the city.
Rather, it is a preliminary injunction, which buys Immergut more time to review the record from the trial of State of Oregon v. Trump, which concluded this past Friday, before she issues a final ruling.
Still, the injunction order nonetheless offers insight into the judge’s thinking in the wake of the trial. In it, Immergut affirmed that the Trump administration’s federalization of the National Guard in Oregon still appears, as the plaintiffs have claimed, to violate federal law and the U.S. Constitution.
The high-profile legal dispute stems from the Trump administration’s efforts in late September to deploy the military to Portland, against the wishes of local officials.
White House officials argue the nightly protests that have occurred over recent months outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs enforcement facility in South Portland constitute a potential rebellion and render it unable to enforce federal law—conditions under which the president has legal authorization to deploy a state’s National Guard, whether the state likes it or not.
Suing to block the deployment, Oregon and other plaintiffs argued the president’s characterization of the ICE protests—and the city in general—is an absurd fiction, and that in fact none of the necessary legal conditions have been met for him to send in the troops.
In her Sunday order, the judge indicated that, after presiding over the three-day trial, she remained unconvinced the unrest outside the ICE building provided a legal basis for the president’s recent efforts to federalize the National Guard for a mission to Portland.
“Critically,” Immergut wrote, “the credible evidence at trial established that following a few days in June, which involved the high-water mark of violence and unlawful activity outside” the Portland ICE building, protests in the months leading up to Trump’s Sept. 27 announcement that he was calling in the troops “were generally uneventful with occasional interference to federal personnel and property.”
She continued, “Although there were sporadic instances of unlawful behavior, federal law enforcement, along with local law enforcement, were able to manage the situation and arrest and prosecute those responsible for criminal conduct.”
The decision to issue a preliminary injunction separate from a final ruling goes against the stated wishes of the Trump administration. At trial last week, Immergut had asked its attorneys if they would be open to extending the status quo—in which the troops were blocked—for another week, as she examined the trial record and prepared her final ruling.
The administration’s attorneys had declined the proposal, and also argued that, for technical reasons, the judge could not issue a preliminary injunction while she continued to review the entire trial record to determine more definitively if the plaintiffs had proved their claims.
Immergut evidently disagreed: The Trump administration attorneys, she wrote, had made the claim that she could not issue the orders separately “without offering any legal support.” She said she will issue her final ruling in the case by this coming Friday, Nov. 7.
“Today’s ruling is a step toward truth and accountability,” said Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield in a written statement. “From the beginning, this case has been about making sure the facts—not the President’s political whims—guide how the law is applied. We’re grateful the court is taking the time to get it right.”
Immergut’s decision, whatever it is, will likely be reviewed by an appeals court.
