U.S. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday ordered 200 Oregon National Guard troops to be placed under federal command, as the state of Oregon launched a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy military forces in Portland, a city led by Democrats.
The move comes after President Trump had announced on Saturday that troops would be sent to Portland to safeguard federal immigration facilities from what he called “domestic terrorists,” adding that he was authorising them to use “full force, if necessary.”
Trump’s decision to dispatch federal forces to other Democrat-led cities, including Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., has already prompted legal challenges and sparked demonstrations.
Oregon’s lawsuit, filed on Sunday in federal court in Portland by the state’s Democratic Attorney General Dan Rayfield, names Trump, Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as defendants. The suit claims the president has overstepped his authority.
“Relying only on baseless and wildly hyperbolic pretext – the President asserts Portland is a ‘war-ravaged’ city ‘under siege’ from ‘domestic terrorists.’ In doing so, the defendants have infringed upon Oregon’s sovereign right to oversee its own law enforcement and National Guard resources,” the lawsuit argues.
The filing noted that protests against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency in Portland have been relatively minor and contained since June.
According to six U.S. officials who spoke to Reuters anonymously, Trump’s planned deployment came as a surprise to much of the Pentagon. Hegseth subsequently signed a memo on Sunday ordering 200 Oregon National Guard personnel to operate under federal authority. The document was attached to Oregon’s court submission.
The Pentagon declined to comment immediately.
“Sending in 200 National Guard troops to protect a single building is not normal,” Rayfield said in a statement, apparently referring to an ICE facility.
Preliminary figures from the Major Cities Chiefs Association show that violent crime in Portland fell in the first half of 2025, with homicides dropping by 51% compared with the same period the year before.
Since returning to office in January, Trump has made crime a central theme of his presidency, despite falling rates in many American cities.
In 2020, following the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer in Minneapolis, protests erupted in Portland – a Pacific Northwest city known for its liberal leanings – and dragged on for months. At the time, some local leaders argued that Trump’s deployment of federal troops had fuelled, rather than quelled, unrest.
Uncertainty remains over whether Trump’s warning that U.S. troops could use “full force” in Portland includes authorisation of lethal measures and, if so, under what circumstances. Troops are generally permitted to use force in self-defence when deployed domestically.
Portland’s mayor, Keith Wilson, like other state officials, only learned of Trump’s order via social media on Saturday.
According to officials, many within the Pentagon were blindsided.
“It was a bolt from the blue,” one said, noting that the military had previously been engaged in routine planning for potential deployments to other cities such as Chicago and Memphis.
The move comes amidst rising tensions in several major U.S. cities following Trump’s intensified immigration crackdown, days after a shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas left one detainee dead and two seriously injured.
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