Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, center, at a news conference in Portland, Ore., Sept. 27, 2025, responding to President Donald Trump’s statements about sending troops to the city.
Joni Auden Land / OPB
The Trump administration called 200 members of the Oregon National Guard into federal service on Sunday for a 60-day deployment, according to a memo sent to Gov. Tina Kotek sent Sunday from the Department of Defense.
Hours later that order was met with resistance from Oregon’s top officials and the city of Portland in the form of a federal lawsuit arguing the administration had overreached and acted unlawfully.
In addition to the lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s use of the Title 10 designation to federalize the state’s National Guard, the local leaders said they would follow up with a temporary restraining order this week to ask a federal judge to block the deployment.
Related: ‘Portland is doing just fine’: Oregon governor rejects Trump’s plan to send troops to the city
For weeks, President Trump has called out Portland, specifically cited protests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building on Macadam Avenue.
Trump has hinted that he may send additional federal law enforcement or troops to the city. Many state and local officials have disputed that framing, saying that the president is relying on an outdated view of the city and may be referencing videos from the protests in 2020.
Gov. Tina Kotek, Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson appeared at a news conference Sunday afternoon where the trio announced their lawsuit and pushed back against Trump’s portrayal of the city.
“The problem is that the president is using social media to inform his views,” Rayfield said. “Instead of working with elected leaders across this country, the president is either purposefully ignoring the reality on the ground in Portland to score political points, or at best is recklessly relying upon social media gossip.”
Throughout the weekend, Oregon officials had hoped to persuade Trump and other cabinet officials from moving forward with a plan he announced on social media Saturday morning to send troops to Portland — “authorizing Full Force, if necessary” — though the president did not specify what he meant.
Kotek said she spoke with Trump Saturday by phone. The two also exchanged text messages Sunday.
“What I can say is the text exchange started with the assumption we would continue to have conversations,” the governor said. “Then we received notice that they were invoking Title 10. I expressed my disagreement and disgruntlement with that decision. And that’s where we’ve left it.”
Kotek said she told the president there was no insurrection or public safety threat that requires military intervention in Oregon. She warned Trump’s decision to federalize members of the National Guard was not only an unlawful abuse of power, but would ultimately make Oregonians less safe.
Related: Portland leaders urge calm amid reports of a surge in federal officers at the ICE building
On social media, Trump described the city as “War ravaged” and “under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” According to Kotek, during their text exchange, Trump told the governor he was concerned about the ICE building.
The processing facility, which has operated since 2011, has drawn protests.
In June, when the Trump administration ramped up immigration enforcement operations, a few larger protests got confrontational. Protesters threw water bottles and other projectiles as Department of Homeland Security officers used teargas and other munitions to disperse the crowd.
The government responded by increasing security and covering much of the building in plywood.
Related: Trump says he’ll send troops to Portland to handle ‘domestic terrorists’
Despite some isolated escalations, typically demonstrations outside the building are small with no more than a few dozen protesters — a far cry from what the city experienced in 2020 outside the federal courthouse a few miles away in Portland’s downtown.
“It would be an understatement to say that I’m so disappointed at the irresponsibility of our federal government,” Mayor Wilson said Sunday. “We do not deny that Portland has hard and important work to do, and we’ve been doing it.”
Wilson added: “To bring this narrative to Portland, to say that we are anything but a city on the rise, is counter what truth is.”
The mayor said he expected residents to use their First Amendment rights to protest, but all three leaders cautioned against violence and asked that demonstrations remain peaceful.
While it’s unclear whether Oregon leaders will be successful as they try to halt the deployment in court, Kotek sought to remind everyone that the National Guard “made up of Oregonians who are citizen soldiers, who are our neighbors and our friends.”
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