Judge bars Trump’s National Guard moves in Oregon

Protester in chicken costume stands amid tear gas outside ICE facility in Portland, Oregon (Image credit: Ethan Swope / AP Photo)

What happened

A federal judge Sunday night temporarily barred President Donald Trump from sending any National Guard units to Portland, after the Trump administration moved to work around her block on federalizing the Oregon National Guard. U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, said the deployment of hundreds of troops from California and Texas was “in direct contravention” of her temporary restraining order from Saturday, as well as a violation of federal law and the 10th Amendment.

Who said what

In her ruling Saturday, Immergut said Trump’s “determination” that the situation in Portland required a military response was “simply untethered to the facts,” and judicial deference to presidents was “not equivalent to ignoring the facts on the ground.” Trump then ordered 200 federalized California National Guard troops to Portland, and California joined Oregon’s lawsuit. When Trump subsequently called up 400 Texas National Guard members for deployment to Portland and Chicago Sunday, Immergut held an emergency hearing last night and expanded her restraining order.

Trump told reporters Sunday that Immergut “should be ashamed of himself.” Portland is “burning to the ground,” he claimed. “Look at your television.” On the ground, Portland residents and tourists were “largely reveling in a sunny fall morning,” The New York Times said, while outside the ICE facility south of downtown, “about 70 protesters chanted, barbecued and passed out bottled water.” Oregon’s lawsuit said Trump targeted Portland last month after Fox News showed footage of “substantially larger and more turbulent protests” in the city in 2020.

Immergut’s ruling did not extend to Trump’s pending deployment of Illinois and Texas National Guard troops in Chicago, where in recent days Homeland Security Department agents have detained kids and U.S. citizens after “storming an apartment complex by helicopter as families slept,” used “chemical agents near a public school” and shot at least two drivers, one fatally, among other “increasingly brazen and aggressive encounters,” The Associated Press said. “They are the ones that are making it a war zone,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) said on CNN Sunday.

What next?

Immergut’s temporary order is set to expire Oct. 19, unless she extends it. But the “fate of the deployment is likely to rest, at least initially, with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals,” Politico said.

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.