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Emergency motion goes before judge tonight to stop CA National Guard to Portland

Updated: Oct. 05, 2025, 7:49 p.m.|Published: Oct. 05, 2025, 6:38 p.m.

By Maxine Bernstein | The Oregonian/OregonLive

The state of Oregon and City of Portland added California on Sunday to an amended lawsuit filed against the Trump administration and sought a new emergency order to block California National Guard troops from mobilizing in Portland.

U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut agreed to hold a hearing by phone at 7 p.m. Sunday on the new motion for a new restraining order, the latest development in a weekend of last-minute legal maneuvers. (Some technical difficulties delayed the hearing until 7:49 p.m. )

Attorneys for the two states and city argue that President Donald Trump is still restricted by federal law that says any federalization of National Guard members must be “necessary.”

They’ve asked the judge to block the deployment of the California National Guard members, or in the alternative, prohibit the Trump administration from sending any National Guard members from any other state under his command to Oregon.

(By Sunday night, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said she was told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered 400 Texas National Guard members to Oregon and Illinois, though she said she received no direction explanation from Trump or Hegseth.)

In a sweeping 31-page ruling issued Saturday, Immergut decided that there was no “threat of rebellion” or any credible legal justification for the deployment of National Guard members to Portland.

Title 10, Section 12406 allows the President to “call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary,” to either repel an invasion, suppress a rebellion or ensure federal laws can be executed.

“What was unlawful yesterday is unlawful today,” Attorney General Dan Rayfield said at a joint news conference Sunday with Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson. “What was unlawful with the Oregon National Guard is unlawful with the California National Guard. The judge’s order was not some minor procedural point for the President to work around, like my 14 -year-old does when he doesn’t like my answers.”

Lawyers for the two states and Portland argue that Trump is now “circumventing,” Immergut’s order and the deployment of California-based Guard members to Oregon is illegal.

“Even accepting arguendo that the California National Guard were properly federalized in Los Angeles in June, that does not give Defendants carte blanche to use those soldiers anywhere, for any purpose, and for any amount of time,” lawyers for Oregon, California and Portland wrote in their motion for a new restraining order.

“They cannot continue to hold the federalized National Guard members hostage by altering their mission and sending them to another State,” they argued.

The federal government’s initial order federalizing California National Guard members in June “clearly did not contemplate the use of the California troops for completely unrelated activity in Oregon,” they wrote.

The public interest considerations have intensified since Saturday, as California now also is harmed by having its National Guard members over 800 miles away from Los Angeles, where they were initially deployed, the emergency motion says.

The potential harm is also great to Oregon and Portland, officials said Sunday.

Without a new court-granted restraining order, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said the state will have no authority to block California National Guard troops from showing up at the ICE facility in Portland, which Trump administration lawyers have argued is “under siege.” She spoke at the joint virtual news conference Sunday.

“Plaintiffs seek to protect their sovereignty, retain control over local law enforcement and public safety, and prevent unnecessary disruption to Oregon’s largest city,” wrote the lawyers for Oregon, California and Portland.

They also contend the federal government breached the 10th Amendment by asserting authority over a state militia that the U.S. Constitution expressly assigns to the states. The 10th Amendment says that powers not delegated to federal officials are reserved “to the States.”

Trump initially sent up to 4,000 California National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles to support federal officers. But in early September, U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer of San Francisco issued an injunction, finding the federalization of California National Guard and deployment of military troops violated federal law. By then, the number of Guard members remaining in Los Angeles had dwindled to about 400. Breyer barred the troops from engaging in any police actions, including arrests, searches, or traffic, crowd, security or riot control.

But the California judge’s federal injunction is on hold while the case is pending appeal before the 9th U.S Circuit Court of Appeals.

On Saturday night, after Immergut issued her temporary restraining order blocking Trump’s attempted use of Oregon National Guard troops to support federal officers at Portland’s ICE facility, the U.S. Army Northern Command informed the California Military Department’s leaders that the federal government was sending 200 California National Guard members from Los Angeles to Portland, according to court filings by the two states and Portland.

Sometime after midnight early Sunday, 101 California National Guard members landed in Oregon at the Portland Air National Guard base, and another 99 were set to arrive between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m., officials said.

The California Military Department also was told Sunday that the Trump administration was extending the federalization of the remaining 300 California National Guard members currently deployed through Jan. 31, 2026, the filings said.

The California National Guard members sent to Oregon have already received “the training and other preparations that would ordinarily be needed,” according to Oregon Brigadier General Alan R. Gronewold, in a sworn declaration to the court.

“I am therefore unaware of any impediment to these members of the California National Guard being deployed in Oregon for those purposes as early as today,” he wrote in his Sunday declaration.

REQUEST TO APPELLATE COURT

Separately, the Trump administration on Sunday filed an emergency motion with the federal appellate court to put a hold on Immergut’s order temporarily blocking the deployment of Oregon troops to the Portland ICE building.

Lawyers for Oregon and the city of Portland are challenging that motion.

In her ruling issued about 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, Immergut rejected the federal government’s assertion that Portland faces a “danger of rebellion” and said she wasn’t persuaded by the U.S. Justice Department’s argument that “regular forces” are unable to execute federal law.

Lawyers for the U.S. government also failed to show that federal officers need backup from the National Guard to protect the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building or themselves, Immergut found.

The state and the city of Portland, the judge wrote, provided substantial evidence that the protests at the ICE field office in South Portland “were not significantly violent or disruptive in the days - or even weeks - leading up to the President’s directive” issued last weekend.

U.S. Department of Justice lawyers called Immergut’s order “extraordinary,” arguing that the district judge doesn’t have the authority to second-guess the “Commander in Chief’s military judgments,” and must give deference to the president.

They contend that Trump had more than “ample grounds” to justify the deployment, arguing that the existing large assignment of federal officers to protect Portland’s ICE facility and its officers is “unsustainable,” and local police have been unwilling to control protesters’ “violent actions.”

In opposition, lawyers from the Oregon Department of Justice and the Portland City Attorney’s office reiterated Immergut’s findings, namely that Trump failed to meet any of the required legal criteria to justify the mobilization of state National Guard troops to Portland. The larger demonstrations and clashes with federal officers occurred mostly in June, some 90 days before he mobilized the Oregon National Guard into federal service on Sept. 28.

“Defendants’ actions infringe on Oregon’s sovereign power to manage its own law enforcement activity and its own National Guard and cause economic and other harms to the city of Portland,” wrote Oregon Assistant Attorney General Stacy M. Chaffin and Senior Deputy City Attorney Denis M. Vannier.

“What is worse, they do so based entirely on inaccurate information,” they wrote. “The public interest is served by a judicial order preserving the rule of law in the face of unprecedented and unlawful Executive action that threatens grave and irreparable damage to our State and the Nation.”

The federal government has asked the appellate court for a ruling sometime Monday on its motion to put a hold on Immergut’s order.

“The hope is that we’ll have a little bit of finality on that within the next 24 hours for the governor, so that she can operate as she needs to for the state,” Rayfield said at Sunday’s news conference.

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Maxine Bernstein covers federal court, law enforcement and criminal justice issues after spending two decades covering Portland police. She joined The Oregonian in 1998 after a seven-year stint working for The Hartford Courant. She graduated from Cornell University, where she majored in history. Reach her at 503-221-8212.