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Federal Judge Blocks Trump From Sending Troops to Portland

Scott McClallen
Scott McClallen  |  November 07, 2025 10:14 PM

A federal judge has permanently blocked President Donald Trump from deploying the National Guard to Portland. 

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut issued the 106-page ruling on Friday for the lawsuit filed after Trump sent troops to secure U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. 

The state of Oregon, the city of Portland, and the state of California sued Trump, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, and Defense Secretary Kristi Noem. 

The ruling said that there wasn't enough violence at the protests to require the National Guard, and local police broke up the fights. 

"While violent protests did occur in June, they quickly abated due to the efforts of civil law enforcement officers," the ruling said. "And since that brief span of a few days in June, the protests outside the Portland ICE facility have been predominately peaceful, with only isolated and sporadic instances of relatively low-level violence, largely between protesters and counter-protesters."


 gov.uscourts.ord.189270.146.0_1  by  scott.mcclallen 


The judge wrote that Trump didn't have the authority to federalize the National Guard because there was no danger of a rebellion. 


"When considering these conditions that persisted for months  before the President’s federalization of the National Guard, this Court concludes that even giving great deference to the President’s determination, the President did nothave a lawful basis to federalize the National Guard under 10 U.S.C. § 12406."

Trump has also sent troops to reduce violent crime in Washington D.C. and Chicago. 

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-OR, welcomed the ruling on social media.