On Sunday, November 3, 2025, the legal standoff between the federal government and Oregon’s state officials reached another critical juncture as U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut extended her order blocking President Donald Trump’s administration from deploying National Guard troops to Portland. The preliminary injunction, now in place through at least Friday, November 7, 2025, continues to prevent the deployment of federalized National Guard units from Oregon, Texas, and California into the city, pending a final decision on the merits of the case.
This latest extension follows a contentious three-day trial that concluded just two days prior, during which Judge Immergut and the court reviewed more than 750 exhibits and heard extensive testimony from federal, state, and local officials. At the heart of the dispute lies the Trump administration’s claim that escalating violence at protests outside Portland’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility justified extraordinary federal intervention. But Judge Immergut’s order, as reported by ABC News, CNN, and Fox News, found those claims to be unsupported by credible evidence.
“Based on the trial testimony, this Court finds no credible evidence that during the approximately two months before the President’s federalization order, protests grew out of control or involved more than isolated and sporadic instances of violent conduct that resulted in no serious injuries to federal personnel,” Judge Immergut wrote in her decision. She further observed that the unrest in Portland did not rise to the level of a “rebellion,” the legal threshold required for the federal government to override state authority and deploy the National Guard.
The dispute began in late September, when President Trump announced the deployment of National Guard troops to Portland in response to ongoing protests at the ICE facility—a flashpoint for daily demonstrations since June. State and city attorneys quickly challenged the move, arguing that the administration’s actions represented “one of the most significant infringements” on Oregon’s sovereignty in its history. According to CNN, Oregon and Portland officials jointly sued on September 28, 2025, leading to a series of temporary restraining orders from Judge Immergut.
The Trump administration, for its part, insisted that federal agents faced systematic disruption and assault from protesters, describing the demonstrations as coordinated and violent. Justice Department attorney Eric Hamilton told the court, “It is a frequent occurrence for agitators to carry bats, improvised weapons and shields.” Federal attorneys maintained that it was within the president’s authority to respond to what they characterized as a dangerous situation outside the ICE facility.
However, the evidence presented at trial painted a more nuanced picture. Surveillance videos introduced by Oregon’s legal team showed federal agents using what state attorneys called “disproportionate” force against demonstrators. In one August incident, an agent was seen running into a protester from behind and knocking the person to the ground without apparent provocation. Another video from October 2 depicted a protester stepping across a line marking ICE facility property, only to be quickly surrounded and detained by more than a dozen agents. These videos, obtained by the Oregonian and cited by CNN, raised questions about the necessity and proportionality of federal and military intervention.
Between early June and mid-October, nearly 250 arrests or citations were issued to protesters at the ICE facility, according to data from the FBI and Portland Police Bureau. Yet, as Judge Immergut noted, “The majority of violence that did occur during this time period involved violence between protesters and counter-protesters and isolated sporadic incidents of low-level unlawful conduct.” There was no evidence, she wrote, of “an organized group engaged in armed hostilities for the purpose of overtaking an instrumentality of government by unlawful or antidemocratic means.”
One of the most surprising revelations from the trial was that National Guard troops were present at the ICE facility even after Judge Immergut’s initial restraining order on October 4, 2025. Justice Department attorney Hamilton acknowledged that as many as 10 soldiers remained at the facility until midnight, while another government lawyer, Jean Lin, stated they were there until 2 a.m. Hamilton explained, “My clients were working to end the mission,” arguing that it took time to implement the judge’s order.
Testimony from local law enforcement officials proved crucial to the judge’s assessment. Portland Police Bureau command staff, who had firsthand knowledge of the protests, testified that the demonstrations did not constitute a rebellion or pose a danger of rebellion. As Fox News reported, Judge Immergut relied on this testimony to conclude that the Trump administration “likely did not have a colorable basis” to invoke statutory authority for federalizing and deploying the National Guard to Portland’s ICE facility.
Judge Immergut’s order also cited constitutional concerns, ruling that the federalization and deployment of the National Guard in response to protests outside a single federal building “extended beyond delegated statutory authority under 10 U.S.C. § 12406 and violated the Tenth Amendment.” She described the attempt to send troops from one state into another as “an injury to Oregon’s sovereignty under the Constitution, and Oregon’s equal sovereignty among the States.”
The legal battle has played out not only in the district court but also in the appellate courts. After Judge Immergut blocked the deployment of Oregon National Guard troops, the Trump administration attempted to send in units from Texas and California. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals briefly lifted the block, but then agreed to rehear the case en banc, restoring the prohibition on deployment. Meanwhile, National Guard troops have remained staged at Portland training bases, effectively in limbo while the courts deliberate.
The case has broader implications for the ongoing national debate over the limits of presidential power, particularly regarding the use of military force in domestic affairs. The Trump administration has faced similar legal challenges in other cities, including Chicago, where a federal court last month blocked the deployment of National Guard troops. The Supreme Court has also taken the unusual step of requesting additional briefing in the Chicago case, signaling heightened judicial scrutiny of the executive branch’s authority in these matters.
With both sides presenting starkly different narratives—federal officials warning of organized, violent agitators, and state and local officials insisting that existing law enforcement could manage the unrest—Judge Immergut’s ruling underscores the importance of credible evidence and constitutional limits. She has indicated that a final, comprehensive opinion based on all trial testimony and evidence will be issued by Friday, November 7, 2025. Until then, the question of whether the federal government can override state sovereignty to deploy the National Guard in Portland remains unresolved, but the latest extension of the injunction keeps the president’s hand tied, at least for now.
As Portland’s protests continue and the legal saga unfolds, the city—and the nation—waits for a definitive answer on the balance of power between Washington and the states in times of civil unrest.
