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The Trump administration will face Oregon leaders in court Wednesday over whether the president can consolidate National Guard troops and deploy them to Portland, a city that President Donald Trump has said is “ravaged by war” and needs military reinforcements.
Judge Karen Immergut will preside over the trial, which is expected to last the rest of the week.
The trial comes as the administration has faced a series of setbacks in Oregon, where it wanted to deploy 200 National Guard troops as additional protection for Immigration, Customs Enforcement and other federal officials, but was unable to due to repeated court orders.
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Federal agents clash with anti-ICE protesters at the ICE building on October 12, 2025, in Portland, Oregon. (Mathieu Louis Rolland/Getty Images)
Immergut, a Trump appointee, issued two of those orders barring Trump from deploying troops in and out of the state, and on appeal, the 9th Circuit briefly ruled in Trump’s favor but reversed course this week.
All of the Oregon-related orders in the district court and the Ninth Circuit were issued on an emergency basis, and Immergut’s three-day trial is expected to result in a more permanent decision, although it will likely be appealed by either party immediately.
Trump has faced hurdles to deploying National Guard soldiers to several blue cities, where the administration claims illegal immigration and street crime are rampant.
In court papers filed before the trial, Justice Department lawyers said the deployment of troops in Portland was “fully justified.”
White House rebukes ‘outrageous’ court order blocking troop deployment amid Portland unrest
President Donald Trump, along with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi, speak during a news conference to discuss the crime in Washington, D.C., on August 11, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
“In the weeks and months leading up to the President’s action, instigators assaulted federal officers and damaged federal property in numerous ways, made violent threats, barricaded the vehicle entrance to the Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, barricaded officers in their vehicles, followed them when they attempted to leave the facility, threatened them at the facility, threatened them in their homes, attacked them online, and threatened to kill them on social media,” DOJ lawyers wrote.
They added that law enforcement officers assigned to handle immigration-related tasks had been transferred to the Department of Domestic Disturbances, which they said took them away from officers’ regular job duties.
“The record is full of evidence of that [Portland Police Bureau] “Failing to provide assistance when requested to do so by federal officials,” they wrote.
Law enforcement officials and protesters gather outside an ICE facility in Portland, Oregon, on September 28, 2025. (Getty Images)
Meanwhile, state attorneys have argued that congressional laws governing National Guard deployment allow the president to federalize reserved forces against the will of state governors only as a last resort.
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“Ordinary challenges to the ruling cannot justify the extraordinary procedure used by the defendants here,” the Oregon lawyers wrote.
A related case also looms before the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is considering whether to take over Trump’s National Guard deployment to Chicago, and the case could have far-reaching implications for the president’s similar fights in other states, including Oregon and California.
Fox News’ Lee Ross contributed to this report.