Newsom Vows to Sue as Trump Sends California National Guard to Portland

The Trump administration on Sunday sent hundreds of California National Guard troops to Portland, a decision that came just hours after a federal judge temporarily halted the White House’s attempt to federalize the Oregon National Guard.

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who has emerged as one of President Donald Trump’s main Democratic antagonists, vowed to sue to try to stop the move.

“The public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the President of the United States,” Newsom wrote on X.

U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, issued a temporary restraining order Saturday to prevent the administration from federalizing 200 troops for a 60-day stint in Portland. She wrote that Trump exceeded his constitutional authority when he approved the deployment, which a White House spokesperson said was “to protect federal officers and assets.”

Immergut wrote that protests against the administration’s immigration crackdown did not pose a “danger of a rebellion.” She acknowledged several incidents of violence toward federal agents in Portland, calling them “inexcusable” — though she added that “they are nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces.”

The Portland deployment is the latest effort by the administration to use National Guard troops to protect federal property and combat crime in primarily Democratic-run cities. On Saturday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said that Trump moved to send 300 of his state’s National Guard members to Chicago to assist with a federal immigration crackdown dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.”

The president has spent weeks threatening to deploy troops to Chicago, calling the city a “war zone.”

“[Trump] was claiming that it‘s mayhem on the streets of Portland. He‘s saying that Chicago is a war zone. None of that is true,” Pritzker said Sunday on CNN. “They’re just making this up. and then what do they do? They fire tear gas and smoke grenades, and they make it look like it‘s a war zone.”

Earlier this year, Trump sent more than 4,000 troops from both the California National Guard and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles to combat a spate of protests against immigration authorities — a move that another federal judge declared was an illegal use of military troops for domestic law enforcement. That ruling was put on hold by an appeals court while it considers the case, leaving at least 300 National Guard troops on active duty in southern California, Newsom said Sunday.

Trump is sending those troops to Oregon, the governor added.

“They are on their way there now,” he wrote in a statement decrying the move.

“This isn’t about public safety, it’s about power,” he added. “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.”