Appeals Court Weighs Portland Case as Trump Vows to Expand Troop Deployments
While Illinois officials celebrated their temporary victory, a federal appeals court in San Francisco appeared poised to reverse a separate ruling that blocked Trump’s National Guard deployment in Portland, Oregon. During Thursday’s hearing, judges questioned whether the lower court should have considered broader patterns of unrest earlier in the year, when protests had temporarily shut down federal facilities.
Oregon’s legal team argued that the federal government’s description of Portland as a city consumed by violence was “untethered from reality.” However, one member of the three-judge panel, U.S. Circuit Judge Ryan Nelson, a Trump appointee, cautioned that courts should not conduct “day-by-day” assessments of troop necessity, suggesting the administration might still have legal grounds to proceed.
Under U.S. law, the National Guard typically operates under state authority to respond to emergencies such as natural disasters. Presidents may invoke special powers to deploy the Guard domestically, but legal experts say Trump’s actions are testing the limits of executive authority by sending troops into cities governed by his political opponents.
Despite the legal challenges, President Trump signaled Thursday that his administration would continue expanding deployments. Speaking at a cabinet meeting, he stated, “We’re in Memphis. We’re going to Chicago. We’re going to other cities,” adding that the federal government was confronting what he described as “left-wing domestic terrorism.”
His comments followed earlier deployments of National Guard units to Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, and Memphis, Tennessee — the latter supported by the state’s Republican governor. A trial court in Los Angeles has already ruled that the summer deployment there was unlawful, a decision now under appeal.
In Illinois, Governor Pritzker reaffirmed his opposition, declaring on social media that “Donald Trump is not a king — and his administration is not above the law.” He emphasized that there was “no credible evidence of rebellion in Illinois” and no justification for military intervention in its cities.
As legal battles continue in multiple states, the outcome of these cases could determine how far a U.S. president may go in deploying military forces within the country’s borders — a question at the heart of the ongoing conflict between federal authority and state sovereignty.