After Judge Karin Immergut’s Saturday order preventing mobilization of the Oregon National Guard, the federal government ordered first California and then Texas troops to Portland
By Julia Shumway, Oregon Capital Chronicle
Saying the Trump administration directly contravened her Saturday order blocking the federal government from mobilizing National Guard troops in Portland, a federal judge on Sunday evening issued a broader order barring the federal government from relocating National Guard members to Oregon from any state.
Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, issued her temporary restraining order after 8 p.m. Sunday in a telephonic hearing. She said she was troubled to learn shortly before the hearing began that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered 400 Texas National Guard troops to Oregon, Illinois and other locations.
“I see those as direct contravention of the order that this court issued yesterday,” she said.
In her Saturday opinion, Immergut found that protests at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement processing facility in Portland were not by any definition a “rebellion” nor do they pose the “danger of a rebellion.”
“This is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law,” Immergut wrote in her opinion. “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.”
Her new order, which the federal government indicated it would ask the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to stay, applies to federalized military from any state or Washington, D.C. Immergut’s order will last 14 days.
Oregon, California and the city of Portland initially requested a second restraining order on Sunday after 101 federalized California National Guard troops arrived in Portland overnight.
A Pentagon spokesman said 200 federalized members of the California National Guard were being reassigned from duty in the Los Angeles area to Portland “to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal personnel performing official duties, including the enforcement of federal law, and to protect federal property.”
Shortly before the hearing was scheduled to begin, state attorneys obtained a memo from Hegseth stating that up to 400 members of the Texas National Guard would be federalized to “perform federal protection missions where needed, including in the cities of Portland and Chicago.”
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker both said in statements that they had received no communication from the federal government about plans to send troops from Texas to their states.
Scott Kennedy, Oregon’s senior assistant attorney general, urged Immergut during Sunday’s hearing to make the order broader because the Trump administration kept finding new states from which to deploy National Guard troops.
“It feels a little bit like we’re playing a game of rhetorical whack-a-mole here,” Kennedy said.
Immergut grilled Eric Hamilton, the federal government’s attorney, who argued that her Saturday order didn’t apply to already-federalized members of the National Guard from other states.
“You’re an officer of the court,” Immergut said. “Do you believe this is an appropriate way to deal with my order, or an order that a judge issues that you disagree with?
After the hearing, about 150 people had gathered peacefully around the ICE facility in Portland. Federal agents then deployed pink smoke and took two people into the facility.
State and local officials have urged protesters to keep their distance from the ICE facility while peacefully demonstrating.
Senior reporter Alex Baumhardt contributed to this report. Julia Shumway has reported on government and politics in Iowa and Nebraska, spent time at the Bend Bulletin and most recently was a legislative reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times in Phoenix, Arizona.
