On a brisk October weekend in 2025, a new chapter in America’s ongoing debate over federal authority, civil protest, and the boundaries of presidential power unfolded between the West Coast and the White House. President Donald Trump’s deployment of 300 California National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, has sparked legal threats, political outrage, and a fresh round of courtroom battles—underscoring the deep divides over how the nation responds to civil unrest and the use of military force on domestic soil.
According to CalMatters, the drama began after federal judge Karin Immergut, herself a Trump appointee, issued a temporary restraining order on October 4, 2025, blocking the president from federalizing the Oregon National Guard. The judge’s reasoning was clear: the protests in Portland, which had centered around the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, were not “significantly violent or disruptive” enough to warrant such a dramatic federal intervention. In her ruling, Immergut wrote, “These incidents are inexcusable, but they are nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces.”
But the ink was barely dry on the judge’s order when, overnight, 101 California National Guard troops arrived in Portland—unannounced and under federal orders, with nearly 200 more expected over the following day. Governor Gavin Newsom of California, who has clashed repeatedly with the Trump administration over immigration and law enforcement, was quick to respond. In a press release cited by KATU News and SFist, Newsom declared, “The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens. We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the President of the United States.”
Newsom’s stance was echoed by Oregon officials, who said they had received “no official notification or correspondence from the federal government regarding this action by the President.” Oregon Governor Tina Kotek called the move “intentional to circumvent yesterday’s ruling by a federal judge.” Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield was similarly blunt: “Oregonians know what’s really happening here. Portland isn’t a war zone. As a community, we need to come together and take this moment to show the world who we are: keep Portland safe while our fight in the court continues to move forward.”
The Trump administration, for its part, has remained unapologetic. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told CalMatters that “President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement.” Senior advisor Stephen Miller went further on social media, describing the situation as “an organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officers,” and insisting that “the deployment of troops is an absolute necessity to defend our personnel, our laws, our government, public order and the Republic itself.”
President Trump himself, speaking to reporters on his way to a Navy event in Virginia, did not mince words. “Portland is burning to the ground. It’s insurrectionists all over the place. It’s Antifa, and yet the politicians who are petrified,” he said, according to KATU News. Trump also expressed frustration with the judicial process, stating, “I wasn’t served well by the people that pick judges.”
The legal battle is now set to escalate. Governor Newsom has vowed to sue the federal government to halt the deployment, though as of Sunday, spokespeople for his office and California Attorney General Rob Bonta had not provided specifics about when the suit would be filed or its precise arguments. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has appealed Judge Immergut’s ruling to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking to overturn the temporary restraining order and expand the president’s authority to deploy state National Guard units across state lines.
This is not the first time the courts have been drawn into the fray over Trump’s use of the National Guard. As CalMatters and SFist report, California sued the Trump administration in June 2025 after the president federalized 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines in Los Angeles to support federal immigration enforcement during protests. A district judge initially sided with Newsom, issuing a temporary restraining order against the federalization, only for a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit to reverse that decision and return control of the troops to Trump. The 300 California National Guard troops now in Oregon are, in fact, a holdover from that June activation.
The legal questions at play are complex and, frankly, unprecedented in some respects. Loren Voss, a fellow at Lawfare and an expert on domestic military deployments, told CalMatters that Judge Immergut’s order was narrowly tailored—it blocked the federalization of the Oregon National Guard, not all National Guard deployments. “One of their (Oregon’s) big arguments, and one that Judge Immergut found persuasive, was a diversion of their National Guard members from state responsibilities, right, which would not apply here,” Voss explained. She expects multiple overlapping legal proceedings to unfold, with Oregon potentially seeking a new restraining order to halt the California deployment and the Ninth Circuit poised to weigh in on both the Oregon and California cases.
For Portland, the arrival of out-of-state troops has only heightened tensions. Mayor Keith Wilson urged federal leaders to “honor the court’s judgment and suspend any deployments that defy it,” adding, “Portland will defend the rule of law and the rights of our residents.” The city, which has seen nightly protests at its ICE facility, now finds itself at the center of a constitutional showdown over the limits of federal power and the meaning of martial law in modern America.
Judge Immergut’s ruling, which has been quoted by both supporters and critics of the deployment, sums up the stakes: “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law.” She warned that accepting the administration’s arguments “risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power—to the detriment of this nation.”
The legal and political battles over Portland’s streets are far from over. With lawsuits looming, appeals underway, and both sides digging in, the outcome could set precedents for how America responds to civil unrest, the use of military force at home, and the balance of power between the states and Washington. For now, the eyes of the nation—and the courts—remain fixed on Portland, waiting for the next move in a conflict that shows no signs of cooling down.
