Federal officers atop the ICE building in Portland on Sunday, Sept. 28, 2025. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
This is a breaking news story that will be updated throughout the day.
The Oregon Department of Justice is asking a federal judge to temporarily block President Donald Trump from federalizing and deploying Oregon National Guard troops to protect federal buildings in Portland.
A judge is expected to rule on the temporary restraining order order Monday, according to Jenny Hansson, a spokesperson for the department. If granted, it would immediately halt Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s deployment of 200 Oregon Guard troops to Portland for 60 days. According to a memo Hegseth sent to Gov. Tina Kotek on Sunday, the troops would be under the orders of a joint federal military command based in Colorado. Kotek, head of the Oregon National Guard, has said repeatedly she would not deploy state troops.
Hegseth’s memo came the day after President Donald Trump declared in a social media post that he would deploy troops to “war ravaged” Portland. Trump did not give Kotek, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson or any other local leaders advance notice that he was going to order troops deployed to the city.
State Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced he filed the restraining order motion Monday on behalf of the state and the city of Portland as part of their broader lawsuit filed Sunday against Trump, Hegseth, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
That suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, alleges the federal leaders and their agencies by attempting to send troops to Portland are violating the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees police power within states resides with the states. They also allege the federal government is violating the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally forbids military members from conducting domestic law enforcement. The state and Portland also allege the city is being singled out for political retaliation.
“The President’s response to federalize 200 National Guard members for 60 days is not about keeping people safe — it’s about chasing headlines at the expense of our community,” Rayfield said in a statement.
Trump in his Truth Social post on Saturday said troops would protect “any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”
An ICE processing facility south of downtown Portland has drawn weekly protests of just a couple dozen people in recent months, and they have remained mostly peaceful. The local U.S. attorney has brought charges against 26 people since early June for crimes at the protest site, including arson and resisting arrest. Protests this weekend grew to a couple hundred following Trump’s call for federal reinforcement. The protests stayed mostly peaceful, with Portland Police arresting two men for assault for causing physical injuries.
Kotek, who said she spoke with Trump on Saturday and exchanged text messages with him Sunday, said she made clear that there is no insurrection or threat to public safety in Oregon.
A coalition of more than a dozen Portland-area mayors, as well as the mayors of Eugene and Bend, issued a joint letter Monday saying they would coordinate on monitoring federal law enforcement deployed to the state and enjoin lawsuits as needed against the federal government.
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