U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut issued an order late Sunday temporarily prohibiting the president from deploying or relocating any federalized members of any state’s National Guard to Oregon.
The restraining order — Immergut’s second in as many days — capped a dramatic 24 hours that saw California join Oregon’s efforts to block the Trump administration from sending hundreds of federalized members of the California National Guard to Portland.
Immergut, who was appointed by Trump, issued an earlier ruling Saturday that blocked Trump’s plan to federalize 200 members of the Oregon National Guard to protect the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland.
In a surprise development, the U.S. Department of Defense on Sunday summoned up to 400 members of the Texas National Guard to Portland and Chicago, according to a memo filed with the court. Immergut’s order would seemingly stop that from happening.
“I am certainly troubled by now hearing that both California and Texas are being sent to Oregon, which does appear to be in direct contradiction of my order,” Immergut said.
The restraining order will remain in effect until Oct. 19.
The state’s attorney general and governor put out a late night statement alongside Portland’s mayor, applauding the ruling, while acknowledging their legal fight over the Trump administration’s deployment of federalized National Guard troops was not over.
“President Trump’s actions are an effort to occupy and incite cities and states that don’t share his politics,” Gov. Tina Kotek said in a statement, “and I believe that we should expect him to continue to push the limits of his authority.”
Part of Sunday night’s hearing delved into the statute outlining “predicate facts” for when a president can federalize a state’s guard: an invasion from a foreign nation, a rebellion or an ability to carry out federal laws.
In a tense exchange with Eric Hamilton, a deputy assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice, Immergut asked why the administration had not followed her first temporary restraining order, a 31-page document issued Saturday afternoon.
“Is there any legal authority for what you’re doing?”
Hamilton responded that the law “has not been utilized many times in history” and there were few legal precedents on the use of this form of presidential authority.
“Tell me,” Immergut interjected. “Why do you think it has not been utilized?”
Hamilton said he could not speak to that. Rather he pointed to the fact that the guard members sent from California were already under the president’s authority — and no new guard members were called into federal service under Title 10.
Elsewhere during the exchange, Immergut asked how bringing in federalized guard members from California could “not be in direct contradiction” of the restraining order she issued the day before.
“Mr. Hamilton, you’re an officer of the court,” Immergut stated. “Aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order, which relies on the conditions in Portland? Nothing has changed. Why is this appropriate?”
Hamilton said federalized guard members aren’t limited to the state where “the problem is.”
Immergut told Hamilton he was “missing the point” saying the conditions in Oregon were such that “there’s no showing that military help is necessary to protect law enforcement or the one federal building for ICE.”
A wild day
Immergut’s order came just a few hours after a press conference featuring Kotek, Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson.
“Oregon is our home,” Kotek said during that press conference. “It is not a military target.”
But less than four hours later, Kotek was again issuing a statement, this time decrying the revelation that Texas guard members were similarly summoned across state lines.
“This is a continuation and escalation of the President’s dangerous, un-American misuse of states’ National Guard members and hard-earned taxpayer dollars,” Kotek said in that statement.
But Sunday’s developments raised an entirely different and more alarming possibility: a Republican president sending troops from a Republican-led state to a state controlled by a different political party, against the wishes of that state’s leaders.
Even before the Texas guard deployment was widely known, Rayfield said he expected further efforts from the Trump administration to stretch the limits of its power. “We just can’t become complacent as these attacks to our democracy continue to happen,” he said. “We cannot be the frog in boiling water.”
A “Department of War” memo filed with Immergut just before Sunday’s hearing announced the Trump administration’s deployment of the Texas National Guard.
“On October 4, 2025, the President determined that violent incidents, as well as the credible threat of continued violence, are impeding the execution of the laws of the United States in Illinois, Oregon, and other locations throughout the United States,” the memo stated, also citing Portland and Chicago specifically.
Kotek and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, both Democrats, called on Texas. Gov. Greg Abbott for assistance. Abbott, the Republican leader of Texas for the past decade, showed no inkling of supporting his fellow governors’ calls. “You can either fully enforce protection for federal employees or get out of the way and let Texas Guard do it,” Abbott said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
President Trump on Sunday continued to make verbal attacks and false claims about Portland, which he has termed hell on Earth and war-ravaged. “Portland is burning to the ground,” Trump told reporters in his latest remarks. “Its insurrectionists are all over the place. It’s Antifa.”
State and city officials have repeatedly pushed back against the president’s assertions, saying that deploying guard members is unnecessary — and risked injecting new energy into what had been a mostly dwindling number of protesters outside the facility, angry about the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement policies.
The president is seeking to deploy the guard members to Portland’s ICE facility, and support federal agents there. The building, which sits less than two miles south of Portland City Hall, has recently been the site of regular protests.
Hours after Immergut’s ruling Saturday, Trump began deploying National Guard members from California to Oregon.
Brigadier General Alan Gronewold, Oregon’s adjutant general, said in a signed statement Sunday filed with the court that “approximately 100 federalized members of the California National Guard landed in Oregon, at the Portland Air National Guard Base after midnight this morning.” An additional 99 federalized members of the California National Guard would arrive by 5 p.m., Gronewold added.
Gronewold said the 200 federalized California National Guard members have already received the training required for the deployment.
“I am therefore unaware of any impediment to these members of the California National Guard being deployed in Oregon for those purposes as early as today,” he stated.
The California National Guard troops who arrived in Oregon were sent to Camp Withycombe, in Clackamas County, which is owned and operated by the Oregon Military Department.
The president’s move was first disclosed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who lambasted Trump’s decision as “a breathtaking abuse of the law and power.”
Federal force Saturday
Immergut said in her initial ruling that protests around the ICE facility have remained small since July, with no more than 20 protesters in front of the building on average. She said the federal government does not have the justification to take control of Oregon’s National Guard.
Saturday saw some of the largest protests in front of the building in the past couple of months. Federal law enforcement escalated tactics against protesters, firing tear gas and pepper balls while pushing the crowd several blocks away from the facility.
It’s unclear why the crowd was ordered to disperse. OPB reporters did not observe anyone who appeared to be trespassing.
“We saw events last night that went far beyond the pale of what we’ve seen in the past,” Mayor Wilson said during Sunday’s press conference. He said federal officers shoved veterans and elderly people to the ground, and that a sniper was stationed on the facility’s roof.
“This is an aggressive approach trying to inflame the situation,” Wilson said.
Earlier in the day Sunday, Kotek said she didn’t care where the president was getting his information, as he once again claimed the city was on fire.
“He’s intentionally disregarding the facts on the ground,” Kotek said.
She noted the Portland Marathon was held Sunday, and that thousands of people ran safely through the city streets, right past the protested ICE facility.
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
