Skip to main content
Members of the California National Guard touched down in Portland this morning at the direction of the Trump administration, Gov. Tina Kotek confirmed today. The deployment comes just one day after a federal judge ruled in Oregon’s favor by blocking the president’s deployment of the Oregon National Guard.
The move shows Trump’s determination to station troops at the South Portland office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the scene of small-scale protests. His latest gambit appears intended to circumvent a temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut on Saturday, which blocked the deployment of 200 Oregon National Guard members to Portland.
Within hours, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced that the state would amend its federal lawsuit and ask that Immergut’s order be expanded to apply to the California National Guard.
“What was unlawful yesterday is unlawful today,” Rayfield said in a Sunday afternoon press conference. “What was unlawful for the Oregon National Guard is unlawful for the California National Guard.”
Rayfield said he hoped to receive a hearing in front of Immergut as soon as Monday. “The president is trying to out-hustle us in this process,” he said. “There’s a reason we are able to get into court so darn fast. That’s because we were prepared. We cannot be complacent. We cannot be the frog in boiling water.”
Trump has falsely characterized the city as a “war-ravaged” place in need of federal intervention. In federal court, the administration argued that leftist protesters were preventing immigration agents from carrying out their duties, a characterization Immergut, a Trump appointee, said was “untethered to facts.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom posted on X Sunday morning that California would sue over the Oregon deployment.
“BREAKING: We’re suing Donald Trump. His deployment of the California National Guard to Oregon isn’t about crime. It’s about power,” Newsom wrote. “He is using our military as political pawns to build up his own ego.It’s appalling. It’s un-American. And it must stop.”
In a statement, Gov. Tina Kotek, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said they’d received no notice from the Trump administration about the deployment of another state’s troops to Oregon.
“My administration is aware that 101 federalized California National Guard members arrived in Oregon last night via plane, and it is our understanding that there are more on the way today,” Kotek said. “We have received no official notification or correspondence from the federal government regarding this action by the president. This action appears to intentionally circumvent yesterday’s ruling by a federal judge.”
In a 4 pm press conference, Kotek said that those 101 service members had arrived at Camp Withycombe, a National Guard training facility in Clackamas County. They were joined Sunday by an additional 99 members of the California National Guard, she said.
“I directed that those troops at Camp Withycombe should remain at that facility,” Kotek said. But she added that she did not know if the president would order the guardsmen to Portland on Sunday night. “We have no information about their whereabouts and whether they will be at the ICE facility tonight.”
But Rayfield added that such an order would violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which bars the president from using the military as a domestic police force. “I would expect and hope that the president would not order his troops to violate the Posse Comitatus Act”—and if he did so, Oregon would challenge him in court.
Both Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said that Federal Protective Service agents stationed at the ICE facility had grown increasingly aggressive after Immergut’s initial ruling—an assertion that matched Oregon Public Broadcasting reports on the ground—and appeared to be stoking a volatile situation on the South Waterfront in order to provide Trump with the chaotic images he wants.
“They are clearly trying to antagonize the crowds,” Kotek said. “That’s got to stop. I believe they are creating a public health emergency with the use of tear gas.”
Wilson went further, suggesting that some federal agents had committed crimes on city of Portland property and hinting that the city could file a federal civil rights lawsuit, or become party to a legal action filed by its residents.
“Criminal activity is criminal activity. The federal government is not immune from criminal law. The law is the law.”
