National guard troops under control of the Trump administration can’t yet move into Portland, despite a ruling earlier this week that said the deployment was legal.

That could change by Monday.

In a hearing Friday morning, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut declined to immediately dissolve or alter an Oct. 5 order she issued barring any National Guard members from moving into the city under federal authority.

But Immergut also made plain that she was considering a ruling that would — at minimum — open the door for Oregon National Guard members to make their way into Portland. That follows a Monday decision by a three-judge appeals panel that found President Donald Trump legally took control of 200 Oregon National Guard members late last month.

“I’m working as fast as I can to make a decision that honors the [9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals] panel decision, but also takes into account the new arguments and information that’s been provided,” Immergut said toward the end of a 90-minute hearing. “I’m going to have a decision Monday, if not before.”

The hearing, for now, leaves a fragile status quo in place.

For weeks, hundreds of National Guard troops from Oregon and California have sat waiting for orders. Trump called them into service to defend federal functions at a U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland that has been the focus of protesters for months.

The fight has produced a complex legal drama that is playing out concurrently in both Immergut’s court and on the appeals court level.

The legal fights behind Trump’s blocked National Guard deployment to Portland

At the heart of that drama, at present, are two temporary restraining orders Immergut issued in early October, after Trump signaled he would send National Guard troops into Portland.

The first order blocked the administration from federalizing Oregon National Guard members and sending them into the city. The second expanded the order to include any federalized National Guard troops. It was a response to Trump attempting to send members of the California and Texas national guards into Oregon.

The U.S. Department of Justice appealed Immergut’s first restraining order, and a three-judge appeals panel agreed, rejecting her order on Monday. But the second order remains in place. It has so far prevented any soldiers from deploying into Portland.

Attorneys with the Trump administration argued Friday that Immergut should dissolve or stay her second order, because it hinged on similar reasoning that the appeals court rejected when considering the first.

“We think it’s pretty straightforward,” Yaakov Roth, an attorney with the U.S. DOJ, told Immergut. “The second [temporary restraining order] was expressly based on the same rationale as the first.”

At minimum, the Trump administration urged Immergut to rescind any piece of her order that limited Oregon National Guard troops from deploying to Portland.

On that point, the judge at times seemed curious. She repeatedly probed an attorney with the state of Oregon on why she wasn’t required to take such a step.

“If I refuse to [allow] the Oregon National Guard deployment, wouldn’t I be in direct contravention of what the 9th Circuit has held?” she asked.

But lawyers for the state suggested Immergut was not bound to rescind any of her second order. Senior Assistant Attorney General Scott Kennedy told the judge that order involved more complex legal questions than the first, since it contemplated soldiers from other states coming into Oregon.

The state also argued that allowing troops into Portland could produce a “see-saw” effect, because questions of whether Trump legally deployed National Guard members are still alive. Immergut has scheduled a trial on the matter next week.

“We may have federalized troops in Oregon on one day,” Kennedy said. “They may get pulled back another day.”

Roth, the U.S. DOJ attorney, said that didn’t relieve Immergut of the duty to follow the 9th Circuit’s order.

9th Circuit rules that National Guard can deploy to Portland, but legal questions loom

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said Friday the case would resume no matter what Immergut decides.

“Regardless of how the court rules, this fight is not over,” Rayfield said in a statement. “Next week we will move to trial on the merits, where we will put on evidence proving that this deployment is unnecessary and unlawful.”

The debate before Immergut is just one front in the battle over whether troops can be deployed in Portland.

While Immergut ruled that protests had been largely low-key in the weeks leading up to Trump’s order, the 9th circuit panel — which included two Trump appointees — offered far greater deference to the president.

It concluded that National Guard troops were warranted because protests had been briefly violent and destructive in June, and because federal agencies have said they do not have enough manpower to defend the Portland ICE facility without being unduly strained.

“The record reflects that 115 [Federal Protective Service] officers — nearly 25% of FPS officers nationwide — were diverted to Portland,” the majority opinion read. “The President may reasonably rely on this evidence in determining whether he is unable to execute the law.”

A dissenting judge, Susan Graber, questioned that logic.

“We know that a total of 115 officers from elsewhere were deployed in Portland during the preceding four months,” she wrote. “The record contains no information about how many officers were in Portland at any given time”

Now the majority’s reasoning on the matter has come into question.

New court filings show that the Federal Protective Service has not sent a mass of 115 officers into Portland, as appeals judges seemed to believe. Instead, the agency has sent bunches of officers in roughly monthlong “waves” that never included more than 30 officers at a time.

That revelation prompted attorneys for the state of Oregon and city of Portland to call on appeals judges to immediately scrap their order. No decision has been made on that request.

A judge within the 9th Circuit has also petitioned for an “en banc” hearing on the legality of Trump’s attempted Oregon deployment before a larger group of judges. The court has yet to signal whether it will agree to a rehearing.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/24/immergut-national-guard-deployment-monday/