Violence on the streets of Portland? Nope. At least, not yet. Social media posts, on the other hand, and camera crews embedded with federal officers to produce inflammatory content? That’s what’s real.
At least that seems to count as reality for the federal government, which on Friday argued before a federal judge in Portland that President Donald Trump’s posts on his social media platform amounted to the formal procedure necessary to launch arguably the most extreme action a president can take: deploying the nation’s military into U.S. cities.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut seemed incredulous as she presided over an emergency hearing in a lawsuit filed by Oregon and Portland claiming there is no legal justification to federalize Oregon’s National Guard.
Letter from the editor: Portland and Oregon electeds took the bait
“Really, a social media post is going to count as a presidential determination that you can send the National Guard?” Immergut asked Eric Hamilton, the Justice Department attorney arguing on behalf of the federal government. “That’s really what I’m going to rely on?”
Two days later, Immergut granted a second temporary restraining order, after the federal government brought in 200 members of the California National Guard and requested 400 members of the Texas National Guard. A government attorney claimed that was permissible because the judge’s first order only applied to the Oregon National Guard. Immergut was neither persuaded nor amused.
All that action unfolded within a little more than one week.
Maj. Gen. Timothy Reiger, acting vice chief with the National Guard Bureau, asked Gov. Tina Kotek to deploy the National Guard within 12 hours Sept. 27, or risk the federalization of the guard.
Kotek declined, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth issued a memo calling 200 Oregon guardsmen into federal service. Oregon and Portland sued, claiming there is no need for troops to guard the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Southwest Portland, where officers with the Federal Protective Service have faced small and dwindling protests in recent weeks.
Though the deployment of federalized National Guardsmen to Oregon appeared to rely on a June 7 presidential order directing guardsmen to Los Angeles, rather than a direct presidential order regarding Oregon, Hamilton insisted that Trump’s posts on his social media platform calling Portland “war-ravaged” counted as legitimate presidential directives.
Hamilton told Immergut on Friday that the law doesn’t specifically prohibit the president from launching troops domestically via social media post.
“These posts reflect his decision-making with Secretary Hegseth in first working with the governor of Oregon and then ultimately federalizing 200 guardsmen when that effort failed,” Hamilton said.
But Immergut didn’t buy it. She halted the government’s advancement, issuing a temporary restraining order barring the federalization of Oregon’s National Guard.
But the Trump administration wasn’t about to let the ruling of a federal judge stop it from launching what Hamilton called “a tailored federal invasion that is proportionate to the threat here.”
Just hours after Immergut issued her ruling, federal officials moved to bring 200 members of the California National Guard to Portland. One hundred arrived by plane in the middle of the night on Saturday, according to a declaration from Brigadier General Alan Gronewold, and 100 more were expected Sunday afternoon.
As of Sunday, those troops were already trained and ready for launch on Portland’s streets “as early as today,” Gronewold said in his declaration, since they had already been federalized and deployed in California.
On Sunday morning, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield moved to add California as a plaintiff in the lawsuit. He asked Immergut to add to the restraining order to also prevent members of the California National Guard from mobilizing on Portland’s streets.
But even that addition proved too limited. Three minutes before a second emergency hearing — this one scheduled for 7 p.m. on Sunday night — attorneys in the case added a new memo to the docket outlining the government’s move to use 400 members of the Texas National Guard in Portland and Chicago.
The memo, signed by Hegseth, asked Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas to “immediately coordinate” with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the commander of U.S. Northern Command.
Attorneys for Oregon asked Immergut to broaden her temporary restraining order to prohibit members of the federalized National Guard for any state from coming to Portland.
“It feels a little bit like we’re playing a game of rhetorical whack-a-mole here,” said Scott Kennedy, attorney with the Oregon Department of Justice.
Kennedy said it appeared that the government turned to California and Texas in response to Immergut’s Saturday order.
“I am certainly troubled by hearing that now both the Texas and California National Guard are being sent to Oregon,” Immergut said during the emergency hearing Sunday night. “That seems to be in direct contravention of the order I issued yesterday.”
For the second time in three days, Immergut, a former federal prosecutor and Trump appointee, turned her incredulity on the attorney for the federal government.
“How could bringing in federalized National Guard from California not be in direct contravention of the temporary restraining order I issued yesterday?” Immergut asked Hamilton.
Hamilton responded that Immergut’s order only applied to the Oregon National Guard.
“Mr. Hamilton,” Immergut cut in. “You are an officer of the court. Aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order — which relies on conditions in Portland, and nothing has changed? So why is this appropriate?”
“The reason is that the California National Guard were mobilized under a different presidential memorandum,” Hamilton said.
He began to cite case law that he said allows the president to mobilize National Guard troops from any state to wherever he sees unrest.
Immergut again broke in.
“Mr. Hamilton, you are missing the point,” she said. “Here it is the conditions on the ground in Oregon that were the basis for my finding that there is not a legal basis for bringing federalized National Guard into Oregon. Is there any legal authority for federalizing the National Guard for one purpose — that is, for California — and then divert them for another purpose in a different state, where there is no showing that there is military help that is necessary? What is the authority for what you are doing?”
The law the Trump administration is relying on to do so “has not been utilized at any point in history,” Hamilton said. “So there are not many previous precedents.”
“Why do you think it has not been utilized?” Immergut asked.
“I cannot speak to that,” Hamilton said.
Immergut issued a new order Sunday night. This time, she prohibited “the relocation, federalization or deployment of any National Guard under the defendants’ command” within the state of Oregon.
“I also find that it’s likely that defendants violated the 10th Amendment,” Immergut said.
That’s an argument Oregon made in the original lawsuit, saying federal troops on the streets of U.S. cities are “incompatible with democracy.”
“Defendants’ actions violate the Tenth Amendment’s guarantee that the police power — including the authority to promote safety at protests and deter violent crime — resides with the states, not the federal government,” the lawsuit states.
On Monday, attorneys for the federal government appealed to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, claiming Immergut “impermissibly second-guessed the Commander in Chief’s military judgments.”
They asked the appeals court to stay Immergut’s two temporary restraining orders. As of Tuesday, Oct. 7, the federal government’s appeals had yet to be heard by the Ninth Circuit.
Chicago and Illinois filed a similar lawsuit asking for a restraining order Oct. 6, though the judge refrained from issuing an immediate ruling, instead allowing the administration more time to respond.
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This article appears in October 8, 2025.