A federal judge has, for the second time in two days, blocked President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops into Oregon, ruling that the administration appeared to defy her Saturday order that Trump lacked a legal basis for sending the military into Portland.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut said Sunday that the administration’s effort to circumvent her original order — in part by deploying Guard troops from California and Texas — was “in direct contravention” of her earlier decision, which prohibited Trump from federalizing 200 members of Oregon’s National Guard.
Though Trump had claimed the military was needed to combat daily violence against federal immigration officials, Immergut, a Trump appointee, concluded that Trump’s assessment was “untethered to facts” and failed to satisfy the legal basis to federalize the state’s National Guard troops.
Within hours of her ruling, however, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered hundreds of members of California’s National Guard to deploy to Portland and reached an agreement with Texas to send hundreds of that state’s National Guard troops to Chicago, Portland and other areas of the country.
Almost 200 California Guard troops arrived or were expected in Portland on Sunday, according to Alan Gronewold, the commander of Oregon’s National Guard. California Guard officials were told 300 of their personnel were being sent to Portland, although a Justice Department attorney said only 200 of those troops were dispatched to Oregon and the remainder would stay in California.
During an unusual Sunday night telephone hearing, Immergut said the Trump administration’s maneuvers appeared to be a deliberate attempt to circumvent her initial decision.
“I am certainly troubled by now hearing that both California and Texas National Guard are being sent into Oregon, which does appear to be in direct contravention of my order,” Immergut said, describing the latest deployments as a violation of federal law and the Tenth Amendment, which protects state sovereignty.
Immergut agreed with attorneys for California and Oregon, who said the new deployments appeared to be intended to outrun the court. She repeatedly pressed Justice Department attorney Eric Hamilton about whether he believed the administration had complied with her order.
“You are missing the point,” she scolded, as Hamilton noted the judge’s Saturday order only applied to Oregon troops.
In court filings Sunday, lawyers for Oregon, California and Portland had urged Immergut to expand her order to cover California troops. But with word that Texas Guard personnel might also be on the way, the attorneys opposing the administration’s moves asked Immergut to broaden her order to ban deployment of Guard troops from any state or Washington, D.C.
“It feels a little bit like we’re playing a game of rhetorical whack-a-mole here,” Oregon Senior Assistant Attorney General Scott Kennedy said.
Hamilton also asked Immergut to put her new order on hold, so the administration could appeal, but she declined to do so.
The fate of the deployment is likely to rest, at least initially, with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, where the Trump administration has already sought an emergency stay of Immergut’s Saturday order.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom praised Immergut’s late-night ruling: “Donald Trump tried to turn our soldiers into instruments of his political will, and while our fight continues, tonight the rule of law said ‘hell no.’”
Spokespeople for the White House and the Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
