During a hastily called evening telephone hearing, U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut granted a temporary restraining order sought by California and Oregon.
Immergut, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term, seemed incredulous that the president moved to send National Guard troops to Oregon from neighboring California and then from Texas on Sunday, just hours after she had ruled the first time.
“How could bringing in federalized National Guard from California not be in direct contravention to the temporary restraining order I issued yesterday?” she questioned the federal government's attorney, cutting him off.
“Aren’t defendants simply circumventing my order?” she said later. “Why is this appropriate?”
The White House did not immediately comment on the judge’s decision.
Oregon is fighting to prevent federalized National Guard troops from coming to Oregon's largest city to address ongoing protests at an immigration processing facility there. Some of those protests have turned violent.
Trump also authorized the deployment of 300 Illinois National Guard troops to protect federal officers and assets in Chicago on Saturday.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s office said the situation in Chicago “does not require the use of the military and, as a result, the Governor opposes the deployment of the national guard under any status.”
This weekend, about 200 federalized members of the California National Guard who had been on duty around Los Angeles were reassigned to Portland, a Pentagon spokesperson said.
Approximately 100 California National Guard troops landed in Portland after midnight Sunday and around 100 more arrived by early evening, Alan Gronewold, commander of Oregon’s National Guard, said in a court filing before the emergency hearing late Sunday.
The state of Oregon also included in its filing a memo written by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that ordered up to 400 Texas National Guard personnel activated for deployment to Oregon, Illinois and possibly elsewhere.
At the emergency hearing late Sunday, Immergut grilled the attorney for the federal government and accused them of seeking an end run around her order from the day before that temporarily blocked the deployment of National Guard troops in Oregon.
Scott Kennedy, the attorney representing Oregon, said he learned of the Texas National Guard mobilization just 24 minutes before the emergency hearing on Sunday night.
“It feels a little bit like we’re playing a game of rhetorical whack-a-mole here,” he told Immergut.
Lawyers for the federal government tried to argue that Oregon and Portland did not have standing and that California could show no harm by having some of its National Guard dispatched to another state.
Immergut issued a temporary order that expires in 14 days unless it is extended at a hearing set for Oct. 17. Arguments for a preliminary injunction — a more permanent block on sending federalized National Guard troops to Oregon — are set for Oct. 29.
In a related court filing, an attorney in the California Military Department said the U.S. Army Northern Command advised the department on Sunday that an order will be issued keeping the 300 guard personnel federalized through the end of January.
