With President Donald Trump raring to send National Guard troops to Portland, the response appears to be largely focused on the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, where small protests have taken place since early June.
For those worried the military could soon be sweeping homeless encampments in Portland, as they did in Washington D.C., experts say there are important legal distinctions that limit the role troops can play here, compared to their actions this year in other cities.
Earlier this year, Trump deployed the National Guard in Washington D.C. and Los Angeles.
In Washington, images soon emerged of military members in fatigues sweeping camps, displacing people and forcing the city to increase the number of temporary shelter beds — though the city still did not have the capacity it would need to shelter everyone.
In Los Angeles, 2,000 members of the National Guard arrived along with 700 Marines. Some patrolled alongside ICE agents, appearing to assist in detainments.
There are some parallels, but the deployment to Portland is different from the military presence in Washington D.C., according to Tung Yin, professor at Lewis & Clark Law School. Yin said the president has more expansive power to summon the military in Washington D.C. due to it being a federal district unlike any other city. Trump also invoked a different section of federal law to do it, and their mission was different from what they have been tasked with in Portland.
“If you are looking at what the President was able to do in D.C., that really was proclaimed as crime control,” Yin said. He added that Trump’s deployment to Los Angeles of both National Guard and Marines is a closer parallel, but both raise significant legal questions.
“There are two issues here,” Yin said. “First, can the president lawfully nationalize the state National Guard? And then the second question is, assuming the president can lawfully nationalize the state National Guard, what can the troops do?”
Yin said troops can likely defend federal property, as they are tasked with, but the military cannot engage in law enforcement in the U.S. That’s thanks to an 1878 federal law called the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the U.S. military from executing domestic laws.
In April, when Trump federalized the Metropolitan Police Department and deployed the National Guard to the nation’s capital, he made explicit reference to homeless residents, conflating homelessness and crime, and declaring on his social media platform Truth Social that homeless residents must move out “immediately.”
“We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” Trump announced via social media post. “The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong. It’s all going to happen very fast, just like the Border.”
Trump’s purported efforts to address crime in Washington D.C. hit homeless residents hard. Within days of Trump’s order, local and federal authorities started showing up at encampments, removing people’s belongings and pushing them into temporary shelters. Like Portland, Washington D.C. does not have sufficient shelter or affordable housing to meet the needs of its homeless population. The city quickly opened an additional 100 shelter beds to accommodate, but with at least 800 people living outside, according to the most recent Point-in-Time count, the services fell far short of the need.
The stated role for troops in Portland is different. The action here — named the Portland Force Protection Mission — is focused on protecting federal buildings and personnel, not explicitly to participate in removal of homeless encampments.
Mayor Keith Wilson said his office has no indication that National Guard members will oversee encampment removals in Portland as they did in Washington D.C.
“Portland has not requested and does not need a deployment from the Oregon National Guard,” Wilson said in a statement to Street Roots. “At this time, we have no reason to believe Guardsmen will conduct any direct intervention with our homeless community or engage in immigration action.”
In an email sent to Oregon National Guard members Sept. 29, Brigadier General Alan Gronewold outlined his expectations for the 200 members Trump deployed to Portland. Gronewold said the Department of Defense requested support through the U.S. Northern Command — which covers the continental U.S., Canada, Mexico, Greenland and other areas — with a mission to protect federal buildings and personnel in Portland.
“The mission is straightforward: protect federal facilities and the federal employees working in them,” Gronewold wrote. “I need everyone to understand the command relationship with this particular mission.”
Gronewold’s letter said once the National Guard is deployed, it no longer takes orders from Gronewold or Gov. Tina Kotek — the typical chain of command — but are now instead under federal authority.
Contrast that with Washington D.C. in April. There, Trump invoked the “Home Rule Act” and a different section of the U.S. code, Title 3, to bring the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control. According to his executive order, Trump’s stated effort in Washington D.C. was to declare a “crime emergency” to address violent crime, despite data showing the city’s trending decrease in crime.
Yin said the administration erred in equating homelessness and crime. However, it could give them a legal argument to sweep people anyway, specifically in the nation’s capital.
“If that’s their equation, then they can at least try to classify and argue that ‘this is crime control, and because it’s D.C., we have more latitude to do that with troops,’” Yin said.
But that power does not exist outside of Washington D.C.
That raises two issues if the military were to assist in sweeps of homeless Portlanders, according to Yin. First, it is not a federal crime to be homeless, so the military would have no jurisdiction to do so.
Secondly, even if local law enforcement was to request help from the National Guard, there would be legal issues with the military attempting to enforce any law — much less state law or city ordinances.
“One, it’s not their jurisdiction,” Yin said. “And two, it would be law enforcement, domestically, which the military can’t do.”
Asked whether National Guard members are expected to play any role outside of protecting federal buildings, like sweep homeless encampments or assist in immigration enforcement, Sean Parnell, Chief Pentagon spokesperson, did not answer directly but provided a statement to Street Roots.
“Members of the Oregon National Guard are reporting for duty, conducting training, and preparing to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other U.S. Government personnel who are performing federal functions, including the enforcement of federal law, and to protect federal property in Oregon,” Parnell said.
Whether that means National Guard members will assist ICE agents to enforce federal immigration law is still an open question.
City of Angels
In Los Angeles this summer, National Guard members went beyond simply protecting federal buildings, including assisting in immigration enforcement. That was the basis for a court injunction temporarily barring the practice.
Lucas Bezerra, Kotek’s deputy communications director, declined to answer Street Roots’ question asking if it had any indication that members would or would not do so.
“That question is best directed to the dept of war,” Bezerra said in a text message.
On its first day of increased enforcement in Los Angeles, June 6, ICE detained between 70 and 80 people and arrested 44, according to court documents. Trump said Los Angeles needed the National Guard to quell protests against ICE, which ramped up immediately following that expansive immigration enforcement.
“What happened in L.A. is, they actually did much more than protect federal buildings, and went so far as to help ICE do stuff,” Yin said.
But, he said, there is still uncertainty until troops arrive in Portland and legal observers can see what they actually do.
“We can suspect maybe, or we can look at what happened in Los Angeles and think maybe they’ll try the same thing,” Yin said. “But there’s a (legal) difference between anticipation versus actually looking at what has been done.”
Title 10 of the U.S. Code gives the president the authority to bring the National Guard under federal control under specific circumstances. That includes invasion or danger of invasion by a foreign nation, a “rebellion against the authority” of the U.S. government, or when the president is unable to execute federal laws with its regular forces.
A federal judge in San Francisco ruled Sept. 2 that Trump’s deployment was illegal as the National Guard operated beyond its legal limitations in its response in Los Angeles after the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on June 19 allowed the Trump administration to continue its military deployment during the appeal process.
In the lower court ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled Trump’s deployment there violated the Posse Comitatus Act. Breyer said the California case had sharp implications if Trump was to try a similar tactic in other cities, although his order only applied to California.
“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have stated their intention to call National Guard troops into federal service in other cities across the country — including Oakland and San Francisco, here in the Northern District of California—thus creating a national police force with the President as its chief,” Breyer said.
Trump’s authority to federalize the National Guard in Portland is currently under review in Oregon. As in California, the Oregon lawsuit argues Trump violated the Posse Comitatus Act by federalizing troops to engage in local law enforcement.
“(F)or over a century and a half, Congress has expressly forbidden federal military interference in civilian law enforcement,” the legal complaint said.
In a Sept. 28 press conference alongside Kotek and Wilson, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said the state has been prepared since January for the possibility that Trump would stretch the powers of the presidency to his will.
“We don’t use our United States military on our own citizens, except in extreme circumstances,” Rayfield said. “It’s actually un-American, if you think about it, to use the military against our own citizens.”
On Oct. 4, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut agreed.
“This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” Immergut wrote. “Defendants have made a range of arguments that, if accepted, risk blurring the line between civil and military federal power — to the detriment of this nation.” (See page 6 for more information on this case.)
The District
While the scenarios are different in each city, misleading narratives abound saying crime is out of control in American cities and blaming homelessness for a host of grievances.
Trump’s Aug. 11 executive order federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department said he intended for troops and local police, under federal control, to maintain law and order in Washington D.C. The order came just two weeks after Trump issued a July 24 order titled “Ending Crime And Disorder On America’s Streets,” claiming without evidence that homeless people were responsible for violent crime in cities across the U.S.
“Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens,” Trump’s order said. “My Administration will take a new approach focused on protecting public safety.”
Jesse Rabinowitz, National Homelessness Law Center campaign and communications manager, told Street Roots in August that the federal presence in Washington D.C. appeared to free up local police to increase sweeps of homeless residents, even if the military itself was not participating. He said homeless people there were simply moving around with no place to go, and some had lost contact with service providers despite the expanded shelter.
“D.C. did expand shelter capacity, which is good,” Rabinowitz said. “And, I want to be clear with folks that Donald Trump is not putting in a penny. This is, again, D.C. taxpayers footing the bill for his photo ops.”
Oregon leaders are also tracking the costs associated with deploying the National Guard to Portland.
“Our country and our state should be focused on solving real problems,” Kotek said in an Oct. 1 press release. “Wasting an estimated $10 million dollars on made up problems is an insult to Americans who are struggling with the cost of living, access to affordable health care, safety in their neighborhoods, and more. Not only is this an abuse of power, it is a dereliction of the president’s duty to solve real problems.”
In a follow-up email, Kotek’s press secretary, Roxy Mayer, outlined what $10 million could instead provide for Oregonians. She said rent assistance could help roughly 2,000 families stay housed, and nearly 11 million pounds of food could be purchased to feed people who are losing SNAP benefits due to federal cuts.
“This is on average 438,000 pounds of nourishing food per month for Oregonians,” Mayer said.
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This article appears in October 8, 2025.