An anti-I.C.E. protester in a frog costume holds a sign at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building on October 12, 2025 in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images)
A federal court issued a preliminary injunction Sunday blocking the Trump administration’s deployment of National Guard troops in Oregon, with plans to issue a permanent injunction later this week.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, an appointee of President Donald Trump, held that “[p]laintiffs are entitled to a preliminary injunction on their claims that Defendants’ federalization and deployment of the National Guard to Oregon violates 10 U.S.C. § 12406 and the Tenth Amendment.”
Immergut wrote that the protests against immigration enforcement actions that the administration cited as an urgent threat that justified deploying the Guard were, in fact, “generally uneventful.”
Her order blocks Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from deploying National Guard units in Oregon, including troops from Texas and California.
President Donald Trump ordered the federalization and deployment of the National Guard to Portland, Ore., amid claims that the city was awash in anarchy and violence stemming from protests at a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility — despite video evidence showing a few dozen demonstrators, some dressed in inflatable costumes, peacefully assembling in opposition to the administration’s policies.
While the federal government may appeal this decision, the underlying legal issues have already been litigated extensively in the circuit court. The federalization and deployment was first challenged by Oregon and Portland in late September, with Immergut soon issuing a pair of temporary restraining orders. The first order was then stayed by a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals opinion by two Trump appointees, which allowed the National Guard federalization while still blocking the deployment.*
Then that appellate decision was immediately appealed at the urging of a 9th Circuit Judge to the circuit sitting en banc. Meanwhile, Immergut presided over a trial in district court, during which Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers admitted some of the evidence they had submitted earlier was incorrect.
In her preliminary order, Immergut said she would issue a final opinion by Friday evening with a permanent injunction. In addition to barring deployment, Sunday’s order grants the preliminary injunction against federalizing the National Guard, but — in order to preserve the status quo until a final decision — immediately stays it until the final opinion.
The final opinion will presumably also bar troop federalization.
While noting that a president’s grounds for deployment are entitled to considerable respect in these matters, Immergut nonetheless emphasized that courts still have a role to play in assessing the validity of the government’s claims.
“Applying ‘a great level of deference to the President’s determination that a predicate condition exists,’ …this Court nonetheless concludes that the President’s invocation of Section 12406 was likely not made ‘in the face of the emergency and directly related to the quelling of the disorder or the prevention of its continuance,’” she wrote, which is U.S. Supreme Court precedent. “Critically, the credible evidence at trial established that … the protests outside the ICE facility between June 15 and September 27, 2025, were generally uneventful with occasional interference to federal personnel and property.”
In the face of the Trump administration’s assertions of sweeping executive powers, federal courts have slowly but steadily grown more skeptical of the purported factual justifications cited by it.
*Correction: This report originally misstated the procedural background leading up to Sunday’s ruling.
