A federal judge in Oregon on Friday blocked Donald Trump from deploying national guard troops to Portland, ruling there was no evidence of widespread violence to justify federal intervention.
The US district court judge, Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, delivered her final order in the case on Friday. She found that protests near Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility were “predominately peaceful, with only isolated and sporadic instances of relatively low-level violence”.
Earlier this week, Immergut barred Trump’s administration from deploying the national guard to Portland until at least Friday, saying she “found no credible evidence” that protests in the city had grown out of control before the president federalized the troops earlier this fall.
In Friday’s ruling, she concluded that most altercations occurred between protesters and counter-protesters, not between protesters and federal agents. Immergut also acknowledged that while she “may lack jurisdiction to enjoin President Trump in the performance of his official duties”, her injunction only bars the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, from deploying members of the national guard to Oregon.
This is the latest development in weeks of legal back and forth in Portland, Chicago and other US cities as the Trump administration has moved to federalize and deploy the national guard in city streets to quell protests.
The ICE facility in south-west Portland has been the site of ongoing protests since June, when Portland police declared one a riot. The city of Portland and the state of Oregon sued the Trump administration in September after the president announced he had directed the defense department to federalize and deploy the Oregon national guard.
Immergut previously issued a temporary restraining order barring the deployment of the national guard in Oregon, a decision the Trump administration appealed.
The judge heard three days of witness testimony from law enforcement officers and officials describing conditions around the ICE facility. Oregon attorney general Dan Rayfield called Friday’s ruling “a huge victory”.
“The courts are holding this administration accountable to the truth and the rule of law,” Rayfield said. “From the beginning, this case has been about making sure that facts, not political whims, guide how the law is applied. Today’s decision protects that principle.”
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The Trump administration is expected to appeal the ruling.
