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A federal appeals court ruled Monday that the Trump administration can deploy National Guard troops in Oregon over the state’s objections, pausing a lower court’s order that had barred the move and siding with the White House’s broad claims of presidential authority.
In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said President Donald Trump had likely “lawfully exercised his statutory authority” when ordering the deployment, rejecting U.S. District Judge Karen Immergut’s ruling that found Trump’s claims of violent unrest in Portland were “untethered to the facts.”
The majority opinion, written by Judges Ryan D. Nelson and Bridget S. Bade, both Trump appointees, faulted the lower court for failing to grant the “great deference” traditionally afforded to presidential determinations of security threats.
“Even if the President may exaggerate the extent of the problem on social media, this does not change that other facts provide a colorable basis to support the statutory requirements,” the judges wrote.
Dissent Warns of Constitutional Risks
Judge Susan P. Graber, the lone dissenter, blasted the ruling as a “dangerous expansion of executive power” and mocked the government’s depiction of Portland as a war zone.
“Given Portland protesters’ well-known penchant for wearing chicken suits, inflatable frog costumes, or nothing at all when expressing their disagreement with the methods employed by ICE, observers may be tempted to view the majority’s ruling … as merely absurd,” Graber wrote. “It is not merely absurd. It erodes core constitutional principles including sovereign states’ control over their militias and the people’s First Amendment rights.”
Oregon Vows to Appeal
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, said the state will ask the full 9th Circuit to review the decision.
“Today’s ruling, if allowed to stand, would give the president unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification,” Rayfield said. “We are on a dangerous path in America.”
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson praised the decision, calling it “a reaffirmation that the President is lawfully exercising his authority to protect federal assets and personnel following violent riots that local leaders have refused to address.”
Background and Wider Legal Fight
Judge Immergut, also a Trump appointee, had found that by late September, conditions in Portland had largely calmed, citing law enforcement reports describing only a handful of peaceful demonstrators near an ICE facility.
The Justice Department argued that the deployment was necessary to protect federal property and personnel, saying protesters had blocked vehicles, spat on officers, and set fires outside the immigration facility.
The 9th Circuit’s decision applies only to the Oregon National Guard, but Immergut’s separate order blocking out-of-state National Guard troops from entering the city is expected to face a similar outcome.
Elsewhere, the administration’s efforts to deploy troops have met mixed results. A Chicago federal judge barred similar actions there, and the 7th Circuit has temporarily kept that ruling in place while the case proceeds. The Trump administration appealed the Chicago decision to the Supreme Court on Friday.
