Judge Blocks Trump From Sending 200 National Guard Troops Into Portland

On October 4, 2025, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut in Portland issued a temporary restraining order barring the administration from deploying the 200 Oregon National Guard troops President Trump had federalized for duty in the city. Immergut found that the protests outside a Portland ICE facility did not amount to a rebellion and that there was no danger of one, and concluded that the federalization intruded on powers the Tenth Amendment reserves to the states. "This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law," she wrote. The order was set to run through October 18. Federal attorneys filed notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit within days.

The ruling was one of the first judicial tests of whether a president may federalize a state's National Guard over the governor's objection when the statutory predicates — invasion, rebellion, or inability to execute the laws with regular forces — are contested. It turned on judicial review of the factual basis for the president's determination rather than on deference to it.

Immergut later extended the restraining order. The administration's appeal proceeded in the Ninth Circuit through October and November 2025.