Oregon filed a lawsuit Sunday as part of a last-ditch attempt to stop President Donald Trump from federalizing the state’s National Guard troops and deploying them to Portland, writing that “the facts cannot justify this overreach.”
The state’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, announced the lawsuit Sunday on a press call, just hours after Gov. Tina Kotek received notice that the Department of Defense had invoked Title 10 authority to call 200 National Guard troops into federal service.
“Defendants’ heavy-handed deployment of troops threatens to escalate tensions and stokes new unrest,” the lawsuit reads. Rayfield also said he hoped to file a restraining order within 24 hours to stop the deployment from happening.
The lawsuit is the latest challenge to Trump’s repeated incursions into local law enforcement, after similar efforts to federalize the California National Guard and take over the local police department in Washington, D.C.
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Local officials said Sunday that the White House had not communicated any details about the deployment and that they were still in the dark about when troops would arrive and what they would be doing.
“I am no longer in charge of the members that he will be calling up,” Kotek said.
The saga began Saturday when Trump suggested that Portland was “war ravaged” and “under siege” by antifascist activists.
“At the request of Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”
Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson immediately pushed back against the apocalyptic rhetoric, suggesting an alternate theory for Trump’s fascination with crime in the city: The president had seen a number of resurfaced, out-of-context video clips posted to social media of Black Lives Matter protests in the city that took place from 2020 to 2021.
“I’ve been so deeply disappointed to see the footage from a half decade ago recycled, and then recycled again,” Wilson, a Democrat, said Saturday during a press conference. “If President Trump came to Portland today, what he would find is people riding their bikes, playing sports, enjoying the sunshine, buying groceries or produce from a farmers market.”
Crime in Portland, as in many major cities across the country, has declined over the past few years from its post-pandemic highs. According to Portland city data, homicides are down 50% from the same period last year, burglaries are down 11% and aggravated assaults are down 4%.
Rayfield also said Sunday that he believed the president may be relying on provocative, years-old video clips to form his opinion of Portland.
“The problem is that the president is using social media to inform his views,” Rayfield said. “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.”
A White House official responded to NOTUS’ request for comment Sunday with a list of recent protests and alleged illegal activity outside of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s field office in Portland.
Oregon’s lawsuit argues that a federalization of National Guard troops violates the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which ensures that domestic policing “resides with the states, not the federal government.”
It’s a similar legal argument to the one advanced by California in its lawsuit against the Trump administration. In that case, a federal judge granted an injunction, writing that the deployment of troops to Los Angeles without the governor’s permission represented “an unlawful encroachment on state and local authority.” An appeals court then placed a stay on that injunction while it considers the case.
Portland is one of more than two-dozen cities that signed onto an amicus brief supporting California’s challenge last week.
Kotek also said Saturday that she spoke with Govs. Gavin Newsom of California and JB Pritzker of Illinois to get an idea of how those states dealt with Trump’s deployments.
That phone call was in addition to a brief conversation Kotek said she had with Trump, during which she tried to convince him that there is no ongoing unrest in Portland.
“What I said to the president is, ‘I don’t understand what information you have when you say to me that the federal courthouse is under attack. That is absolutely not true.’” Kotek said Sunday. “If that is the only issue he’s bringing up, he has been given bad information.”
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