Gov. Gavin Newsom said Sunday that he intends to seek a court order in an attempt to stop President Trump’s deployment of California National Guard troops to Oregon.
Calling the president’s action a “breathtaking abuse” of power, Newsom said in a statement that 300 California National Guard personnel were being deployed to Portland, a city the president has called “war-ravaged.”
“They are on their way there now,” Newsom said of the National Guard. “This is a breathtaking abuse of the law and power.”
Trump’s move came a day after a federal judge in Oregon temporarily blocked the federalization of the state’s National Guard. Constitutional law experts said the deployment of the California National Guard to Oregon without the consent of either state’s governor is an obvious effort by the president to sidestep the judge’s ruling on Saturday.
“This is a blatant attempt to circumvent Judge [Karin] Immergut’s order,” said Elizabeth Goitein, the senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “Her decision makes very clear that there is no lawful basis for deploying federalized National Guard troops in Oregon.”
Such an action is without precedent, said Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School.
“I cannot think of a historic analog where we have the president — against the will of local elected officials — sending the federalized National Guard from state A to state B,” she said.
Trump, who mobilized the California National Guard amid immigration protests in Los Angeles in June, has pursued the use of the military in cities including Chicago and Washington, sparking outrage among Democratic officials in those jurisdictions.
He says the interventions are needed to to fight crime. Local leaders, including those in Portland, have said the actions are unnecessary and without legal justification.
“The Trump Administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words — ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents,” Newsom said.
The federal jurist who issued the ruling in Oregon, Judge Immergut, was appointed by Trump during his first term.
In June, Newsom and California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed a federal lawsuit over Trump’s mobilization of the state’s National Guard during immigration protests in Los Angeles. California officials are expected to file the court order over Sunday’s Oregon deployment using that existing lawsuit, which is ongoing.
If California’s latest legal challenge fails, there could be wide-ranging implications, said Levinson. “I think you could see the Trump administration replicating this particular pattern in other states,” she said.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said that Trump “exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement.”
Referring to Newsom by a crude nickname, she said that he “should stand on the side of law-abiding citizens instead of violent criminals destroying Portland and cities across the country.”
Portland a new focus
There have been regular protests in Portland outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in recent weeks. But those demonstrations in a city of nearly 650,000 have been far smaller and less disruptive than, for example, the protests there during the summer of 2020.
Immergut noted the scale of recent demonstrations, saying that they don’t justify the use of federalized forces and that deploying them could hurt Oregon’s sovereignty.
Goitein said it’s clear that the conditions detailed under Immergut’s order for deploying National Guard troops have not been met by the Trump administration. “So what he’s doing is illegal, under her opinion,” Goitein said.
Oregon Atty. Gen. Dan Rayfield on Sunday said in a statement on X that the state does not need the military force and does not want it. He said Oregon is “assessing our options and preparing to take legal action” after learning Trump is sending California National Guard troops to the state.
“This President is obviously hellbent on deploying the military in American cities, absent facts or authority to do so,” Rayfield said. “It is up to us and the courts to hold him accountable. That’s what we intend to do.”
Goitein added that the Trump administration could be trying to “pull a fast one,” because Immergut’s temporary restraining order mentions only the Oregon National Guard — since those were the forces deployed at the time. That might give the White House cover, if only briefly, to send California personnel to the state’s northern neighbor.
“But [Immergut’s] opinion, if you read all 31 pages, leaves absolutely no doubt that it’s illegal to deploy any federalized National Guard forces in Portland,” said Goitein, who added that the court “absolutely can and should clarify its order and make it clear that if Trump is going to deploy any federalized National Guard in Portland, it will be a violation of the court’s order.”
She added that if any other litigant attempted a “stunt” like this in court they would be “smacked down very quickly” and possibly sanctioned.
Trump appealed the judge’s ruling late Saturday.
Tension in California
As protesters filled L.A. streets in June to demonstrate over federal immigration enforcement raids, Trump deployed nearly 2,000 members of the National Guard to the city without the consent of the governor.
If not for the National Guard, Trump said that “Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.”
But local and state leaders criticized the move as an unwarranted escalation. And The Times reported that many Guard personnel had little to do and seemed bored by the assignment.
Days after the Guard was deployed, Newsom and Bonta filed their lawsuit. Last month a federal judge ruled that the president’s use of the National Guard soldiers and Marines in L.A. was illegal — but he allowed the 300 remaining here to stay as long as they did not enforce civilian laws. The Trump administration appealed the ruling.
Those same 300 soldiers were en route to Portland on Sunday, a spokesperson for the governor said.
“This isn’t about public safety, it’s about power,” Newsom said. “The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens. We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the President of the United States.”
The governor has ratcheted up his rhetoric about Trump in recent days: On Friday, Newsom lashed out at universities that may sign the president’s higher education compact, which demands rightward campus policy shifts in exchange for priority federal funding.
“I need to put pressure on this moment and pressure test where we are in U.S. history, not just California history,” Newsom said. “This is it. We are losing this country.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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