On October 20, 2025, the debate over federal authority and local autonomy reached a fever pitch as a U.S. appeals court ruled that President Donald Trump could take command of 200 Oregon National Guard troops, opening the door to a potential deployment in Portland. Yet, for now, the actual movement of those troops remains blocked by a separate court order, setting the stage for a high-stakes legal and political showdown that has captivated the nation and stirred deep anxieties in Oregon’s largest city.
The ruling came from a divided three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which voted 2-1 in favor of the Trump administration’s claim that the president holds the statutory authority to federalize state National Guard units if he determines he is unable to enforce the law without them. According to The Associated Press, the majority opinion, written by Judge Bridget Bade, asserted, “After considering the record at this preliminary stage, we conclude that it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority.” Both Bade and fellow panelist Judge Ryan Nelson were Trump appointees. However, Judge Susan Graber, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, issued a pointed dissent, warning that the ruling "erodes core constitutional principles, including sovereign States’ control over their States’ militias and the people’s First Amendment rights to assemble and to object to the government’s policies and actions."
This decision does not immediately greenlight the deployment. U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, herself a Trump appointee, had earlier issued two temporary restraining orders (TROs) in rapid succession this month. The first prohibited the president from calling up Oregon’s National Guard for deployment to Portland, while the second—issued after Trump attempted to circumvent the initial order by sending California troops instead—barred the deployment of any National Guard members to Oregon at all. While the appeals court stayed the first TRO, the second remains in effect, preventing any immediate troop movement.
The Justice Department wasted no time following the Ninth Circuit’s decision, immediately petitioning Judge Immergut to dissolve her second restraining order. The administration’s lawyers argued, as reported by AP, that "the Ninth Circuit’s decision staying the first TRO is a significant change in law that plainly warrants dissolution of this Court’s second TRO." The Justice Department further contended that it is not the role of the courts to "second-guess the president’s determination about when to deploy troops."
Oregon’s top officials, however, are not backing down. Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, announced plans to request a broader panel of the appeals court to reconsider Monday’s decision. “Today’s ruling, if allowed to stand, would give the president unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification,” Rayfield said, according to Al Jazeera. “We are on a dangerous path in America.” Portland Mayor Keith Wilson echoed these concerns, vowing to appeal to the full Ninth Circuit. "Portland stands for democracy, dignity, and the right to peacefully protest," Wilson declared. "Our focus is simple and unchanging: we demand transparency, accountability, and community-led solutions, not troops on our streets."
The Trump administration’s push to deploy National Guard troops in Democratic-led cities has been met with fierce resistance and a series of legal entanglements. Earlier this year, a California judge ruled that Trump’s deployment of thousands of National Guard troops in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a longstanding law that generally prohibits the use of the military for civilian policing. The administration has also petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to allow the deployment of National Guard troops in the Chicago area.
At the heart of the administration’s argument is the claim that federal troops are needed to protect federal property in Portland from protesters, and that sending extra Department of Homeland Security agents to guard that property has hampered immigration enforcement elsewhere. Since June, small nightly protests—often limited to a single block outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building—have persisted in Portland. Occasionally, larger crowds have gathered, sometimes including counterprotesters and live-streamers, and federal agents have used tear gas to disperse demonstrators.
The Trump administration has painted Portland as a city "war-ravaged" by protesters, alleging that demonstrators are blocking immigration enforcement. Yet, as AP and Al Jazeera both note, there has been no serious emergency or crisis in the city. Judge Immergut previously rejected the administration’s dire descriptions, stating that the president’s claims about Portland being war-torn are “simply untethered to the facts.” Judge Graber’s dissent echoed this skepticism, noting that in the two weeks leading up to Trump’s September 27 social media post, “there had not been a single incident of protesters’ disrupting the execution of the laws.” She added, “It is hard to understand how a tiny protest causing no disruptions could possibly satisfy the standard that the President is unable to execute the laws.”
Protesters in Portland have become known for their creative demonstrations, donning costumes such as dinosaur and frog outfits, and blasting music outside immigration facilities. Federal agents, meanwhile, have faced criticism for using excessive force, with civil liberties groups raising alarms about the broader implications of aggressive federal intervention. Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, told Al Jazeera, “As the founders emphasised, domestic deployment of troops should be reserved for rare, extreme emergencies as a last resort, but that is far from what the Trump administration is doing in Portland, Chicago, Los Angeles, and DC.” Shamsi warned, “The presence of troops in otherwise beautiful vibrant American cities erodes a sense of safety and undermines the core freedoms to assemble and voice dissent.”
Despite the court’s ruling, the Trump administration faces several procedural and legal hurdles before any deployment can occur. According to Portland’s mayor and legal experts, the process of dissolving the second temporary restraining order could take one to three days, assuming the court grants the administration’s request. As of now, the 200 Oregon National Guard members affected by the ruling remain under the command of Northern Command and the U.S. Secretary of War, with no details released about their potential mission.
For many in Oregon and across the country, the case has become a flashpoint in the larger struggle over the balance of power between federal and state governments, the rights of citizens to protest, and the limits of presidential authority. With both sides digging in for a protracted legal battle—and with the eyes of the nation watching closely—the outcome in Portland may well set a precedent for how America navigates the fraught intersection of public safety, civil liberties, and executive power in uncertain times.
As the legal wrangling continues, the fate of Portland—and the broader principles at stake—hangs in the balance, with no easy answers in sight.
