US judge blocks Trump from sending any National Guard troops to Portland for now

By Dietrich Knauth and Phil Stewart

(Reuters) -A federal judge in Oregon on Sunday temporarily blocked Donald Trump's administration from sending any National Guard troops to police Portland, Oregon, a setback for the president as he seeks to dispatch the military to cities over the objections of their Democratic leaders.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut followed the Trump administration's decision to call in troops from California and Texas just one day after she temporarily blocked Trump from deploying 200 Oregon National Guard troops to Portland.

Immergut, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, said there was no evidence that recent protests necessitated the presence of National Guard troops, no matter where they came from.

"How could bringing in federalized National Guard from California not be in direct contravention of the (decision) I issued yesterday?" Immergut asked Justice Department attorney Eric Hamilton during a hearing on Sunday night.

“Is there any legal authority for what you are doing?"

Hamilton replied that the California National Guard was legally federalized on June 7, in a mission that was "not limited in any way to the state of California."

Sending those troops to Portland was a reasonable step toward fulfilling that earlier mission, to protect federal personnel and property throughout the U.S., Hamilton said.

Oregon's attorney Scott Kennedy argued the Trump administration's quick pivot to using other states' National Guard to police Portland was an exercise in "gamesmanship" that defied the intent of Immergut's earlier ruling.

"It feels like we're playing a game of rhetorical whack-a-mole here," Kennedy said at Sunday's hearing.

Immergut's ruling, which will remain in effect until at least October 19, means the Trump administration will be blocked from sending National Guard troops from any state or Washington, D.C. to Portland while Oregon and California seek a longer-term ruling in court.

There was no immediate comment from the White House or from the Pentagon on the judge's order.

Earlier on Sunday, Trump had said he did not know which judge issued Saturday's ruling, but that he was not "served well" by those who advised him to make the appointment in his first term. "That judge ought to be ashamed of himself," Trump said of Immergut, mistaking her gender.

PENTAGON CALLS CALIFORNIA, TEXAS TROOPS TO OREGON

The Pentagon said earlier on Sunday it was sending 200 California National Guard troops to Oregon to "support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal personnel performing official duties, including the enforcement of federal law, and to protect federal property."

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also called the Texas National Guard into federal service, saying 400 troops would be sent to Chicago, Portland and other locations around the country, according to a memo provided to the court.

National Guard troops are state-based militia forces that answer to their governors except when called into federal service. Trump has said their deployment in Portland is necessary to respond to protests at an immigration facility in the city.

Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom said before the judge's order that the troops were already on their way to Portland.

"This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power. The Trump Administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself," Newsom said in a post on X.

A federal judge blocked the Trump administration from using U.S. troops in California to fight crime on September 2, but that ruling is on hold while the administration appeals.

LOCAL OBJECTIONS

The move to deploy troops to Oregon is the latest example of Trump's expanding use of the U.S. military in his second term, which has included deploying troops along the U.S. border and ordering them to kill suspected drug traffickers on boats off Venezuela.

National Guard troops have been deployed to police Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and Trump has said he would send troops to several other cities, regardless of objections from local government officials.

Oregon challenged Trump's efforts to federalize its National Guard, saying Trump was exaggerating the threat of protests against his immigration policies to justify illegally seizing control of state units.

The state argued Trump's deployment violated several federal laws and the state's sovereign right to police its own citizens.

Speaking to reporters at the White House earlier on Sunday, Trump repeated his characterization of Portland as a city overrun by lawlessness. "You have agitators, insurrectionists," he said.

Immergut had said in her ruling on Saturday that although the president must be given "a great level of deference" in military decisions, he cannot ignore the facts on the ground.

Accepting Trump's legal arguments would mean that he could "send military troops virtually anywhere at any time" and "risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power - to the detriment of this nation," she added.

Immergut said on Sunday that "nothing has changed" since she ruled Saturday that the Portland protests did not warrant a military presence, and Hamilton was "missing the point" if he thought that troops from outside the state should be allowed to get around that ruling.

The Trump administration on Sunday appealed Immergut's decision on the Oregon troops, saying that judge had "impermissibly second-guessed the Commander in Chief's military judgments."

(Reporting by Dietrich Knauth in New York; Phil Stewart and Leah Douglas in Washington; additional reporting by Brad Brooks and Julia Harte; Writing by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Sergio Non, Richard Chang, Lincoln Feast and Alexia Garamfalvi)