Left: Karin Immergut listens during her Senate confirmation hearing on Oct. 24, 2018 (C-Span). Right: President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Monday, Aug. 25, 2025, in Washington (AP Photo/Alex Brandon).
A Donald Trump-appointed judge in Oregon on Sunday evening barred the federal government from deploying “any” National Guard troops into the state for the second time in two days, calling out the Trump administration for attempting to “circumvent” her initial order by trying to muster troops from California and Texas.
U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, who was appointed to the bench during Donald Trump”s first term in office, issued a harsh rebuke of the administration during a last-minute hearing held via telephone at 10 p.m. Sunday evening, asserting that the government was trying to sidestep her order from the previous day, which prohibited the government from mobilizing the Oregon National Guard.
Immergut on Saturday issued a 31-page order blocking deployment of the Oregon National Guard to Portland, reasoning the administration’s determination that it needed to quell “violent” protests at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility was “not conceived in good faith.”
Just hours after Immergut’s Saturday order was issued, Trump, who has claimed that Portland is a “war zone” that is “burning down,” responded by enlisting National Guard troops from California and Texas with the intention of sending them to Portland.
“How could bringing in federalized National Guard from California not be in direct contravention to the temporary restraining order I issued yesterday?” the judge asked one of the DOJ’s attorneys during the late-night hearing, according to a report from The Associated Press. “Aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order?”
During the hearing, Immergut explicitly broadened the scope of her initial temporary restraining order (TRO), this time reportedly barring “the relocation, federalization or deployment of members of the National Guard of any state or the District of Columbia in the state of Oregon.” The latest TRO expires in 14 days, though Immergut could extend that deadline following a hearing currently scheduled for Oct. 17.
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Oral arguments on a proposed preliminary injunction, which could potentially halt troop deployment to Oregon indefinitely, are scheduled for Oct. 29.
Portland, like other Democratic-led cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles, has been targeted by the administration despite staunch pushback from state and local leaders who have argued that the administration’s claims of widespread violence are demonstrably false.
As Immergut noted in Saturday’s ruling, the president’s authority to federalize National Guard service members is dependent upon there being an imminent foreign invasion, a “rebellion against the authority of the government,” or an inability to “execute the laws of the United States.”  The judge said none of those factors were present to justify the deployment of federal troops.
“Here, the protests in Portland were not ‘a rebellion and did not pose a ‘danger of a rebellion,’ especially in the days leading up to the federalization,” she wrote in Saturday’s order. “Defendants presented evidence of sporadic violence against federal officers and property damage to a federal building. Defendants have not, however, proffered any evidence demonstrating that those episodes of violence were part of an organized attempt to overthrow the government as a whole.”
Immergut closed Saturday’s order with a callback to the founding of the United States and the nation’s “longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs.”
“This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of Constitutional law, not martial law. 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,” she wrote.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Trump on Sunday was enraged over Immergut’s ruling blocking the troop deployment, saying she “ought to be ashamed of herself.”
“I wasn’t served well by the people that pick judges,” Trump told reporters with C-SPAN, PBS and other outlets while repeatedly misgendering Immergut. “I appointed the judge and he goes like that, so I wasn’t served well. Obviously, I don’t know the judge. But if he made that kind of a decision — Portland is burning to the ground. You have agitators, instigators, all you have to do is look at the television, turn on your television, read your newspapers. It’s burning to the ground. The governor, the mayor, the politicians, they’re petrified for their lives.”
