A federal judge on Sunday extended her order blocking President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops to Portland, continuing the legal battle over the president’s power to use the military in American cities.
After a three-day trial last week, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut issued a preliminary injunction barring the deployment of National Guard troops from any state to Portland until at least Friday.
Judge Immergut concluded that the attempt to send troops to Portland was prompted by exaggerated claims of violence in the city, where federal and local law enforcement already contained isolated protests.
“Based on trial testimony, this Court finds no credible evidence that during the approximately two months prior to the President’s federalization order, protests spiraled out of control or involved more than isolated, sporadic instances of violent conduct that did not result in serious injury to federal personnel,” he wrote.
Judge Immergut also concluded that the Trump administration likely violated a federal law allowing the takeover of the National Guard in the event of rebellion or invasion, as well as infringed on the sovereignty of the state of Oregon. The protests in Oregon, Immergut wrote, resulted at most in “isolated sporadic cases of violent behavior toward federal agents and property damage to a single building” and did not meet the standard definition of “rebellion.”
Members of the National Guard patrol 14th Street, working with Washington DC Metropolitan Police on August 24, 2025 in Washington, DC. An increased law enforcement presence has been seen throughout the nation’s capital since U.S. President Donald Trump ordered in federal agents and the U.S. National Guard.
Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
“However, the defendants have not presented any evidence to demonstrate that those episodes of violence were perpetrated by an organized group engaged in armed hostilities for the purpose of seizing an instrument of government by illegal or undemocratic means,” he wrote.
The trial and decision follow a protracted legal battle over the use of the National Guard in Portland. After Judge Immergut last month blocked the use of the Oregon National Guard, the Trump administration moved to send troops from Texas and California.
He similarly blocked those troops from being sent to the city, and the Trump administration later appealed his order.
The Ninth Circuit briefly lifted its decision, but agreed to rehear the case en banc, when the entire court hears the case, rather than just a panel, thus reestablishing the block on the deployment.
With Immergut’s two previously issued orders set to expire Sunday, he issued a preliminary injunction tonight that will expire Friday, at which time he plans to issue a full ruling based on the testimony and evidence presented at trial.
