FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., October 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo
A Trump-appointed federal judge dealt another blow to the president on Friday night by formally barring him from deploying National Guard troops in Portland, Oregon, to put down protests at the local Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
According to Oregon Public Broadcasting, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut "acknowledged 'violent protests did occur in June,' but law enforcement were able to address them. 'Since that brief span of a few days in June, the protests outside the Portland ICE facility have been predominately peaceful, with only isolated and sporadic instances of relatively low-level violence, largely between protesters and counter-protesters,' the judge wrote in her 106-page order, 'this Court concludes that even giving great deference to the President’s determination, the President did not have a lawful basis to federalize the National Guard.'"
Immergut has ruled against President Donald Trump multiple times on this issue.
Initially, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit — also dominated by Trump appointees — stayed Immergut's decision, but the Ninth Circuit agreed to review the case en banc, vacating that stay for the time being.
This comes as Trump has moved to deploy federal forces around the country, both to enact mass immigration raids and to keep order amid protests rising up against them.
In addition to Portland, Chicago has become a massive focal point of the administration's enforcement efforts, leading to ongoing clashes with federal agents, state officials, and courts.