Hours after California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed suit against the Trump administration Sunday seeking to prevent the president from sending 300 California National guard troops to Portland, Ore., a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order blocking federalized deployment from any state to Oregon.
The order came during an extraordinary Sunday night hearing after Oregon and California attorneys revealed that in addition to trying to send California troops to Oregon, President Trump’s War Secretary, Pete Hegseth, had ordered Texas National Guard members to deploy as well.
Oregon District Court Judge Karin Immergut interrupted Department of Justice attorney Eric Hamilton repeatedly during the hearing, saying the administration was trying to circumvent an order she issued Saturday temporarily halting the use of Oregon Guard troops in Portland.
She said that she sees the conduct of the Trump administration, and its federalization of 400 Texas National Guard troops, as a “direct contravention of the order that this court issued yesterday.” The Texas National Guard was also slated for Chicago and other locations, a legal document said.
At another point in the hearing she asked, “aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order, which relies on the conditions in Portland, and nothing has changed? Another point in the hearing. “So why is this appropriate?”
Hamilton, a deputy assistant attorney general, argued that the White House was authorized to send in the California National Guard, despite Immergut’s Saturday order, because the California troops were called up under a different Trump memo in June. Immergut dismissed that line of reasoning. “Mr. Hamilton, you are missing the point, because here it’s the conditions on the ground in Oregon that was a basis for my finding” yesterday. And those conditions haven’t changed.
After the 30-minute hearing, which was delayed nearly an hour for technical reasons, Bonta issued a statement applauding Immergut’s ruling.
“The President’s move to deploy the National Guard of one state over the objections of a Governor to another state over the objections of a second is well outside of the norms or practices of any President in recent history.” Bonta wrote. “This fight isn’t over, but today’s rebuke of the President’s illegal actions is a step in the right direction.” This was California 42nd suit against Trump in 36 weeks.
Stephen Miller, a senior White House advisor, condemned the judge’s decision Sunday in a social media post. “A district court judge has no conceivable authority, whatsoever, to restrict the President and Commander-in-Chief from dispatching members of the US military to defend federal lives and property.” Federal appeals court judges, including those appointed by Trump, disagree and have ruled that they can review a president’s decisions, but with deference.
He also called the ruling “one of the most egregious and thunderous violations of constitutional order we have ever seen — and is yet the latest example of unceasing efforts to nullify the 2024 election by fiat.”
On Saturday, Immergut temporarily blocked the administration from activating a contingent of the Oregon National Guard to combat what President Donald Trump calls lawless behavior emanating from immigration protests in Portland.
Hegseth responded by calling in California troops. As of Sunday evening, 100 California Guard members had already arrived in Portland.
“The stakes could not be higher,” Bonta said before Sunday’s hearing. “People should understand clearly what is happening here: The president is seeking to deploy the California National Guard as federal military police indefinitely anywhere in the country. He’s not even hiding the ball.”
He and legal representatives for Portland and Oregon sought a temporary halt to the deployment of California troops.
Bonta’s messaging echoes Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said in a statement Sunday morning that: “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.”
By Sunday morning 100 California National Guard troops arrived in Portland by plane from Los Angeles, the amended suit says. Hegseth intends to send another 200 California National Guard troops soon, Bonta added.
Trump has characterized Portland and other Democratic-run cities as dangerous, high-crime zones and last week told a gathering of U.S. generals that the military should “use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
Trump’s moves are ‘unique’
In the suit filed Sunday evening, lawyers for California and Oregon argue that the White House is again failing to meet the standards of the federal law that would permit Hegseth to federalize any National Guard troops — Title 10, Section 12406.
It also says that the initial reason for federalizing the California National Guard to Los Angeles is “wholly unrelated” to the Trump administration’s goals in Portland.
Bonta expressed dismay over the shifting reasons to deploy California’s troops. The White House does “not have the carte blanche … to deploy whatever military they want, whenever they want,” he said at the press conference.
The suit also argues that the Trump White House is violating a 19th century federal law prohibiting federal troops from acting as law enforcement.
The dynamic is highly unusual, in no small part because Trump is essentially pulling troops from one state that has opposed his use of the National Guard to another state where political leaders also reject Trump’s moves.
“I don’t think we’ve seen this scenario before, I think it is unique,” Bonta said.
Trump claims he must deploy federalized troops because Portland is under siege by protesters opposing the administration’s immigration enforcement actions.
But Immergut, the Oregon judge, ruled Saturday that the protests there are “not significantly violent or disruptive” enough to justify Trump’s use of Oregon’s National Guard. Immergut, a Trump appointee, issued her decision as part of a temporary restraining order against the federal government after Oregon and city of Portland sued the administration last week.
Protesters there set up “a makeshift guillotine to intimidate federal officials” while others flashed bright lights into the eyes of federal officials driving, Immergut summarized. “These incidents are inexcusable, but they are nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces,” Immergut wrote.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in an email that “President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement.”
The Trump administration on Saturday appealed that decision to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
What’s likely new
Immergut’s order over the weekend was narrow, said Loren Voss, a fellow at the legal affairs publication Lawfare who’s taught classes on domestic deployment of the military. In an interview with CalMatters, Voss said the order specifically blocked Hegseth’s federalization of 200 members of the Oregon National Guard — it wasn’t a restraining order on all National Guard deployments.
“But 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 said.
She expects several overlapping legal proceedings to unfold. In addition to Newsom’s vow to sue, the Ninth Circuit may weigh in shortly on Immergut’s Saturday decision in response to the Trump administration’s emergency appeal, which could shape how future legal challenges unfold.
Voss noted that Trump federalized the California National Guard because of protests in Los Angeles, but now they’re being assigned to duties in Portland for a different purpose. “This is an interesting legal question,” she said. “I think there is a good challenge that can be made there.”
Trump sent thousands of troops into L.A.
California sued Trump in June after the president federalized 4,000 of the state’s National Guard troops and 700 Marines to protect federal property and provide support for federal immigration law enforcement officers after protests across Los Angeles County erupted over immigration sweeps.
A district judge, appointed by President Bill Clinton, sided with Newsom by issuing a temporary restraining order against Trump’s use of the National Guard in June. But a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit blocked that decision, giving Trump control of the federal troops again.
The 300 California National Guard troops Trump is deploying to Oregon are a holdover from his June activation. After most of the 4,700 troops left Los Angeles, Trump in August ordered 300 California National Guard troops to remain deployed in Southern California. Those are the troops Hegseth is sending to Oregon. Bonta had already sued to stop that extended deployment before Sunday’s suit.
The Oregon judge’s decision doesn’t conflict with the higher court’s reasons for returning the federal troops to Trump, said Kelly Simon, a legal director at the ACLU of Oregon, during a press conference.
The appeals court said judges can review such military decisions, rejecting an argument by Trump administration lawyers. And while the “courts have to give a substantial deference” to a president’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to a state against the wishes of a governor, the White House still has to make that “determination rooted in fact,” Simon said. “The president’s determination was untethered from the facts.”
The California federal lower court judge also ruled in September that federal troops were used for law enforcement purposes, a violation of a 19th-century law banning the military from such activity.
“There were indeed protests in Los Angeles, and some individuals engaged in violence,” wrote Judge Charles Breyer. “Yet there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.”
He blocked the Trump administration from using the military to engage in “arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control, evidence collection, interrogation, or acting as informants, unless and until” the Trump administration presents valid constitutional or legal exceptions.
The Trump administration has also appealed that decision to the Ninth Circuit, putting Breyer’s September block on a temporary hold.