Trump barred from sending National Guard troops to Oregon for another week
The Trump administration remains barred from deploying National Guard troops from any state to Portland, Oregon, at least through the end of this week under a preliminary injunction issued Sunday.
U.S. District Judge Karen Immergut in Portland extended two orders she previously issued barring such deployments after lawyers for President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth refused to agree to wait a week while she prepared her verdict in a bench trial on the matter that ended on Friday.
The case is one of several pending in federal courts around the country, as Trump has moved to deploy the Guard to cities he views as supporting Democrats, saying the troops are necessary to protect immigration officials as they conduct dramatics sweeps at workplaces, apartment blocks and other locations where they believe undocumented immigrants are present.
In her ruling on Sunday, Immergut said the facts as established during the trial and other proceedings show that the state of Oregon, which is suing to stop the deployment, has a good chance of prevailing. An appeal of her earlier order on the subject is currently before all 11 judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Immergut, who was appointed to the bench by Trump in 2019, said that conditions in Portland in late September when Trump took over the state Guard did not meet the legal requirement for a “rebellion” or an inability to enforce the law at the high level required before a president may take such action.
“Following a few days in June, which involved the high watermark of violence and unlawful activity outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, Oregon, the protests outside the ICE facility between June 15 and September 27, 2025, were generally uneventful, with occasional interference to federal personnel and property,” Immergut wrote.
“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,” she continued.
Lawyers for the White House thave argued that the law gives the president broad discretion to decide when troops are needed, and that violence in June can still be used as a reason to call up the Guard months later.
Smaller panels of appellate judges have sided with the Trump administration, but a larger panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed to rehear the case, raising the possibility that Immergut’s rulings could be upheld.
Immergut said she would issue her ruling in the case by 5 p.m. Friday, at which time the preliminary injunction she issued on Sunday would expire.
