Portland stands up to Trump’s latest military invasion
The Trump administration’s latest bid to send the military into a Democratic-run city hit a legal wall over the weekend, as city and state officials in Portland, Oregon, sued to block what they called a “patently unlawful” troop deployment.
Filed on Sunday, the lawsuit targets a memo from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that called 200 Oregon National Guard members into federal service.
The order followed President Donald Trump’s Truth Social blast, telling Hegseth “to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” adding that he was “authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”
Portland has been a longtime punching bag of Trump’s, who has called it “a mess,” “a hellhole,” and—in his 2025 inaugural address—a place “where they kill people and destroy the city.” With its long history of protest, significant LGBTQ+ community, and laws limiting police cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, the city has become Trump’s shorthand for everything he says is wrong with liberal America.
The White House insists that the deployment is lawful.
“President Trump is using his lawful authority to direct the National Guard to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following months of violent riots where officers have been assaulted and doxxed by left-wing rioters,” spokesperson Abigail Jackson told NBC News.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said that the National Guard will be federalized for 60 days to shield Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel and other government officials.
“The President called forth these 200 Guardsmen to deter rampant lawlessness within Portland and to enable Federal law-enforcement officers to safely conduct their duties,” he said.
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But state and city officials beg to differ.
Their complaint calls Trump’s claims “nothing more than baseless, wildly hyperbolic pretext” and argues that the federal government “infringed on Oregon’s sovereign power to manage its own law enforcement activity and National Guard resource.”
The suit also cites the Posse Comitatus Act, which prevents the president from using the military for domestic law enforcement. A federal judge cited the same law earlier this month in ruling that the administration broke the law by deploying troops to Los Angeles. Officials also argue that the deployment violates the Tenth Amendment, which designates policing power to the states.
The city insists that protests near the ICE facility have been “small” and that crime is essentially unchanged from last year—homicides and aggravated assaults are down, though minor assaults have ticked up slightly.
“The president’s characterization of Portland as ‘war-ravaged’ is pure fiction,” lawyers for the state and city wrote.
Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek of Oregon slammed Trump’s deployment on Sunday, saying that the state “does not want military troops” and that public safety should be handled locally.
She added that officials have no idea how many troops will be deployed, whether they’ll be armed, or when they’ll arrive—Trump had effectively seized control of Oregon’s National Guard.
The lawsuit asks U.S. District Judge Michael Simon, an Obama appointee, to block the deployment. Officials also filed for a temporary restraining order on Monday, calling the order an “alarming intrusion” on state sovereignty and warning that it threatens “the basic structure of American federalism.”
But this isn’t an isolated stunt.
Trump has threatened similar actions in other Democratic-run cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and New Orleans, and he deployed troops to Washington in August. Earlier this month, he created a task force to mobilize troops in Memphis, which was supported by Republican Gov. Bill Lee of Tennessee.
To Portland officials, Trump’s theatrics are merely politics dressed as a crisis. The city’s lawyers noted that local law enforcement has been able to manage protests near the ICE facility without military intervention.
“[They] do not in any way constitute a rebellion or danger of a rebellion,” they wrote.
Portland is just the latest Democratic city to get the Trump treatment—cast as lawless and chaotic, supposedly in need of a federal smackdown in the name of “public safety.”