A federal judge has granted the state of Oregon a temporary restraining order, legally prohibiting the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops to Portland through at least October 18. The decision comes a week after Trump announced in a Truth Social post he would be sending troops to the “war torn” city of Portland, and six days after the state and city of Portland filed a lawsuit to prevent the deployment, which included the plaintiffs’ motion for a temporary restraining order.
In a sharply worded order, US District Court Judge Karin Immergut said the US government failed to prove protests in Portland have risen to a level requiring National Guard intervention. Immergut wrote that if the Trump administration’s arguments for deploying troops were accepted, it would “risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation.”
“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote. “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.”
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson wrote in a statement that the outcome is “proof that Portlanders' commitment to peaceful expression and civic unity truly matters.”
"We have not met aggression with aggression. We've stood firm, calm and grounded in our shared values and that is why this decision went our way. Portland has shown that peace is power,” Wilson said.
During a court hearing on Friday, October 3, Immergut heard from attorneys on both sides of the case. Immergut, a Trump appointee, was assigned the case the day before the hearing, after Judge Michael Simon recused himself from the case. Simon, who was nominated for his position as a federal judge by former President Obama, is married to Oregon Representative Suzanne Bonamaci, a Democrat who has criticized Trump’s plan to send National Guard troops to Portland.
The plaintiffs, represented by Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney Generals Scott Kennedy and Brian Marshall and Portland Senior Deputy City Attorney Caroline Turco, believe Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are using “wildly hyperbolic” claims about a “war-ravaged” Portland to “infringe on Oregon’s sovereign power to manage its own law enforcement activity and National Guard.” The plaintiffs also argued deploying troops would cause serious economic harm to the city and further inflame protests, which are currently mild.
The US government, represented by Department of Justice attorney Eric Hamilton, claims that it’s necessary to send troops to Portland to quell protests outside the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. Hamilton said the protests have been destructive to federal staff and property, and present an active and ongoing threat. He cited a Truth Social post Trump made last weekend, which directed federal agents to use “full force” in Portland, as evidence of the president’s determination that it’s necessary to deploy troops to the city.
The state’s attorneys said the president’s social media statements do not reflect “good faith judgment or assessment of the facts in Portland.” Immergut, too, was skeptical that social media posts should “count as a presidential determination that you can send the National Guard to cities.”
The motion for a temporary restraining order calls the defendants’ actions to deploy National Guard troops to Portland “patently unlawful,” violating the Posse Comitatus Act, which sets strict parameters on when federal troops can participate in civilian law enforcement, as well as other US code restricting the actions of military personnel.
“Additionally, Defendants’ actions violate the Tenth Amendment’s guarantee that the police power, including the authority to promote safety at protests and deter violent crime, resides with the states, not the federal government,” the motion states. “And by singling out a disfavored jurisdiction for political retribution, these actions also eviscerate the constitutional principle that the states’ sovereignty should be treated equally.”
The US government holds that the plan to deploy 200 troops to Portland is appropriate and has been “tailored” to the situation here.
Hamilton set the US government’s case for deploying National Guard troops to Portland against the backdrop of the recent shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas.
The Dallas shooter killed two people detained at the immigration facility, injuring a third, but did not kill any ICE officers or staff. Still, Texas prosecutors and members of the Trump administration have called the suspect a “violent left-wing extremist” who intended to target ICE agents.
Hamilton said the Dallas shooting “underscores the importance to take very seriously the very intense violence that has been seen in Portland outside the ICE facility.” Later, he called the protesters “vicious and cruel radicals” who have “laid siege to the Portland ICE facility.”
That description doesn’t line up with what many people, including Portland police, have observed on the ground at protests. While Hamilton said protests outside the ICE facility caused the building to have to close down regular operations for three weeks in June, attorneys for the state argued activity that took place more than three months ago shouldn’t be used as evidence for sending National Guard troops in now.
“The facts matter, and [President Trump’s] perception of what’s happening in Portland is not the reality on the ground,” Turco said. “What happened in Texas is not relevant for what’s happening here in Portland.”
Immergut agreed with the plaintiffs, stating that “violence in a different state and the mere potential for future escalation do not provide a colorable basis” to allow the federalization of the National Guard.
“In other words, violence elsewhere cannot support troop deployments here, and concern about hypothetical future conduct does not demonstrate a present inability to execute the laws using nonmilitary federal law enforcement,” Immergut wrote in the order.
Hamilton said recently, Portland police have documented protesters shining flashlights into the windows of ICE vehicles, apparently in an attempt to “blind drivers,” as well as people making “lots of noise, flashing lights, swinging sticks.” A man was arrested by federal agents last weekend after allegedly aiming a laser pointer at a Customs and Border Patrol helicopter flying over the ICE facility. The US government also claims protesters have assaulted counterprotesters and doxxed ICE officers, allegedly following them home.
The latter two points were dismissed by attorneys for the state, who said fighting between protesters and counterprotesters does not constitute “any attempted assault on federal law enforcement officers.”
“This is a private altercation between two different factions fighting with one another,” Kennedy said. “The incidents of doxxing or invasion of privacy…didn’t take place at the federal facility. So, those incidents are important because by the defendant’s own description of the National Guard mission here, they would be outside the scope of that mission.”
Immergut also disagreed with assertions that the protests in Portland have been particularly violent and threatening. In her order, she wrote that the protests “were not ‘a rebellion’ and did not pose a ‘danger of a rebellion,’ especially in the days leading up to the federalization.”
“Defendants presented evidence of sporadic violence against federal officers and property damage to a federal building,” Immergut wrote. “Defendants have not, however, proffered any evidence demonstrating that those episodes of violence were part of an organized attempt to overthrow the government as a whole.”
Prior to Immergut issuing her ruling, protests at the ICE facility escalated during the day on October 4, with federal agents deploying tear gas, smoke canisters, and pepper balls to disperse a large crowd of mostly peaceful protesters. Several people were arrested.
The federal government also appears to be inflamed by the Portland Police Bureau’s (PPB) recent arrest of right-wing influencer Nick Sortor. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Friday the agency planned to send more federal agents to Portland as a result of Sortor’s arrest, apparently arguing the incident proves PPB can’t be trusted.
In a statement after the ruling, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield wrote that the judge’s decision “reaffirms what we already knew: Portland is not the president’s war-torn fantasy.”
“The president must demonstrate an actual threat based on real facts if he wants to put the National Guard on our streets,” Rayfield said. “Members of the Oregon National Guard are not a tool for him to use in his political theater.”
A representative from ICE or DHS did not immediately respond to the Mercury’s request for comment. As of press time, the Trump administration has not appeared to comment on the ruling publicly.
