Federal judge temporarily blocks any deployment of National Guard to Portland
By Lauren Mascarenhas, Amanda Musa, Danya Gainor, Hanna Park, Josh Campbell, Riane Lumer, CNN
(CNN) — A federal judge on Sunday temporarily blocked the Trump administration from sending any National Guard troops to Portland – a ruling which came as the administration stepped up attempts to send out-of-state National Guard troops to the city after the judge earlier denied mobilizing Oregon National Guard troops.
Shortly before a Sunday evening hearing prompted by President Donald Trump’s mobilization of the California National Guard to Portland, Trump also ordered the deployment of hundreds of Texas National Guard members to Illinois, Oregon and “other locations” in the US, according to the states’ governors.
US District Judge Karin Immergut – a Trump appointee – voiced skepticism toward the administration’s arguments to deploy the National Guard from the start of the hearing, expressing frustration over what she characterized as an apparent attempt to sidestep her original Saturday order.
Addressing Deputy Assistant Attorney General Eric Hamilton late Sunday, she said: “Mr. Hamilton, you are an officer of the court. Aren’t the defendants simply circumventing my order?”
The tense hearing, which lasted less than 30 minutes, saw Immergut press the Justice Department lawyer, occasionally interrupting him to insist he answer her questions directly.
In recent weeks, Trump has ordered the deployment of federal troops in Democrat-led cities such as Chicago and Portland, arguing military deployments are necessary to protect federal immigration personnel and property amid “violent protests” carried out by “domestic terrorists.”
The anarchy described by the president is strongly disputed by Democratic state officials and locals who say they don’t want or need federal help.
On Saturday, Immergut granted a temporary restraining order blocking Trump from mobilizing the Oregon National Guard to Portland, the state’s largest city, ruling that city and state officials “are likely to succeed on their claim that the President exceeded his constitutional authority and violated the Tenth Amendment” in ordering the deployment of federal troops.
The state on Sunday amended its original complaint against calling up the Oregon National Guard in federal district court and filed for a second temporary restraining order to pause the president’s efforts to mobilize National Guard troops from other states.
About 100 California National Guard troops have already arrived in Oregon and more are on the way, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said Sunday, calling the president’s move an apparent attempt to intentionally sidestep Immergut’s initial ruling.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement before Sunday’s ruling, “At the direction of the President, approximately 200 federalized members of the California National Guard are being reassigned from duty in the greater Los Angeles area to Portland, Oregon.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is planning to sue over the deployment of National Guard troops from his state, he said in a statement, calling it “a breathtaking abuse of the law and power.”
Kotek also said Sunday that the Department of Defense has ordered the Texas Adjutant General to deploy 400 Texas National Guard members to a number of states, including Illinois and Oregon.
“We must now start calling this what it is: Trump’s Invasion,” Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, said in a statement Sunday after the Illinois National Guard was informed of the pending deployment to his state.
Kotek said she had received no direct explanation from the president or Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth about “the specific need for this action,” saying: “It is unclear how many will go to what location and what mission they will carry out.”
“There is no need for military intervention in Oregon. There is no insurrection in Portland. No threat to national security. Oregon is our home, not a military target,” Kotek said in a statement Sunday.
Referring to the president, she told reporters: “I kind of don’t even care at this point where he is getting his information, because he is intentionally disregarding the facts on the ground.”
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield praised the Sunday ruling by Immergut, writing in a post on social media: “The president can’t keep playing whack-a-mole with different states’ Guard units to get around court orders and the rule of law.” In a video response, he added, “We do expect the federal government to attempt to appeal this ruling.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller issued a scathing critique of the Sunday ruling, calling it “one of the most egregious and thunderous violations of constitutional order we have ever seen.”
“There is no legal distinction between a state volunteering guardsmen to guard the border and volunteering guardsmen to guard a federal immigration facility,” Miller said. “Either we have a federal government, a supremacy clause, and a nation, or we don’t.”
CNN has reached out to the Justice Department for comment.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said earlier in a statement responding to the amended complaint: “The facts haven’t changed: President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement.”
The Saturday decision by Immergut to block the deployment of the Oregon National Guard said the president appeared to have federalized the Oregon National Guard “absent constitutional authority” and protests in Portland “did not pose a ‘danger of a rebellion.’” The judge said Oregon attorneys showed “substantial evidence that the protests at the Portland ICE facility were not significantly violent” leading up to the president’s directive.
While the judge noted that recent incidents cited by the Trump administration of protesters clashing with federal officers “are inexcusable,” she added “they are nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces.”
Immergut warned some of the arguments offered by the Trump administration “risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power – to the detriment of this nation.”
Last month, a federal judge in California ruled the Trump administration broke the law when it deployed thousands of federalized National Guard soldiers and hundreds of Marines to suppress protests against ICE actions in Los Angeles.
The decision barred troops from carrying out law enforcement in the state, but the White House has appealed the decision.
Immergut, in her opinion, said incidents in Portland are “categorically different” from the violence seen in Los Angeles when the president federalized troops there.
“Neither outside the Portland ICE facility nor elsewhere in the City of Portland was there unlawful activity akin to what was occurring in Los Angeles leading up to June 7, 2025,” the judge wrote.
This story has been updated with additional information.
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