A federal appeals court on Oct. 9 seemed sympathetic to President Donald Trump’s bid to deploy National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, to deal with violence directed at federal immigration facilities, while hearing arguments in a case brought against the president by the state.
The hearing dealt with the federal government’s emergency appeal of the Oct. 4 order of Judge Karin J. Immergut of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, who blocked a move by Trump to deploy members of the Oregon National Guard to Portland.
Responding to a lawsuit filed by Oregon, Immergut issued a temporary restraining order directing the Trump administration not to deploy federalized National Guard troops to Oregon. A president may take over, or federalize, state National Guard troops on an emergency basis in certain circumstances. The order expires on Oct. 18.
In her order, Immergut noted that Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sept. 27 that he was sending troops “to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”
The judge ruled that the president lacked a legal basis to federalize the National Guard and rejected the federal government’s argument that the situation in Portland was so severe that it prevented federal law enforcement officers from executing the law.
“The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” the judge said.
On Oct. 8, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit restored Trump’s control over Oregon National Guard troops but said he may not deploy them for the time being. The panel granted what lawyers call an administrative stay of Immergut’s order, which gives the circuit court judges more time to consider the federal government’s emergency appeal.
During a hearing on Oct. 9, the same panel, consisting of Circuit Judges Ryan Nelson, Bridget Bade, and Susan Graber, suggested that Oregon Assistant Attorney General Stacy Marie Chaffin was downplaying the extent of the violence aimed at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Portland.
Chaffin told the panel that the anti-ICE protests in September had been “generally calm and sedate.” According to her, the minimal interference with ICE business that these activities have caused does not justify a National Guard deployment in Portland.
Nelson said Chaffin’s description of the extent of the violence was “clearly erroneous.”
“There’s still violence going on,” the judge said.
Nelson said the violence in Portland has been diminishing over time, but only because the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent 115 members of the Federal Protective Service to the scene.
Bade said the ICE facility was forced to shut down from June 13 to July 7. There have been at least two attempts to burn the building down, she said, and it is currently boarded up.
Nelson asked Chaffin whether she was defending the city of Portland’s decision to give the federal government a notice of a zoning violation for boarding up the federal facilities.
Chaffin said the city’s zoning enforcement action has no bearing on the case before the court, so there was no need to address it at the hearing.
Nelson said that the president is entitled to some level of deference as the nation’s chief executive.
The judge said he was struggling with the idea that “the president gets to direct his resources as he deems fit, and it just seems a little counterintuitive to me that the city of Portland can come in and say, ‘No, you need to do it differently.’”
Representing the federal government, attorney Eric Dean McArthur said Immergut’s order was “the second time in recent months [that] a district court in this circuit has entered a heretofore unprecedented order enjoining the president from calling up the National Guard to protect federal personnel and property from violence aimed at thwarting federal law enforcement.”
The first order was quickly stayed by the Ninth Circuit, and this order should be stayed as well, he said at the hearing.
McArthur said that the ICE facility in Portland and federal law enforcement officers there “have faced a steady stream of violence, threats of violence, and harassment from violent agitators bent on impeding federal immigration enforcement.”
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed suit against the Trump administration on Sept. 28 after the president said he would send troops to defend immigration facilities in Portland from “domestic terrorists.” The state wants the court to find the deployment unlawful and block it, saying Trump was exaggerating the threat of protests to justify taking control of state National Guard troops.
On Sept. 28, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth issued a memorandum to the leadership of the Oregon National Guard requesting that 200 service members be temporarily moved to federal service, as allowed under Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code.
According to the memo from Hegseth, 200 members of the Oregon National Guard “will be called into Federal service effective immediately for a period of 60 days.”
The White House stated last week that Trump is legally permitted to act, citing months of violent unrest outside federal immigration facilities in Portland.
“President Trump is using his lawful authority to direct the National Guard to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following months of violent riots where officers have been assaulted and doxxed by left-wing rioters,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Epoch Times at the time.
“The President’s lawful actions will make Portland safer.”
This article by Matthew Vadum appeared Oct. 9, 2025, in The Epoch Times.