Federal Appeals Court Reinstates Trump’s Authority Over Oregon National Guard

The deployment remains blocked as the Ninth Circuit reconsiders the case.

Protesters gather in front of Immigration and Customs Enforcement offices in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 4, 2025. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

A federal appeals court on Oct. 30 temporarily reinstated a previous order that recognizes President Donald Trump’s authority to federalize state National Guard troops to deal with violence directed against federal immigration facilities in Portland, Oregon.

A president may take over, or federalize, National Guard troops on an emergency basis in certain circumstances.

A lower court order temporarily blocking the deployment remains in effect.

The new order by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit comes as that court prepares to consider whether Trump may federalize Oregon National Guard troops and use them in Portland to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, which he says are besieged by radicals.

Trump had said in a Sept. 27 post on Truth Social that he was sending troops “to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.”

The action by the Ninth Circuit also comes as U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, who issued two separate orders blocking deployment, is currently presiding over a trial on the lawfulness of that deployment that is expected to last several days.

After the state of Oregon and the city of Portland filed suit, Immergut previously held that Trump was not legally entitled to federalize the Oregon National Guard and that the situation in Portland was not as dire as the federal government claimed.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Oct. 20 voted 2–1 to stay Immergut’s temporary restraining order blocking deployment of the Oregon National Guard, but did not rule on her second temporary restraining order barring deployment of the California National Guard in Oregon.

The panel found that “it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority under 10 U.S.C. [Section] 12406(3), which authorizes the federalization of the National Guard when ‘the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.’”

On Oct. 28, a majority of judges of the full Ninth Circuit voted to vacate the panel’s order. The order, which also indicated the full circuit court would proceed with an en banc hearing on the case, did not indicate how many judges voted or how they voted.

Federal agents, including members of the Department of Homeland Security, Border Patrol, and the police, attempt to keep protesters back outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 5, 2025. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

In federal courts of appeals, an en banc hearing is one in which all the judges of the circuit rehear a case. The Ninth Circuit has so many members—29 active judges—that it is impractical for all of them to sit together for a rehearing. Instead, the Ninth Circuit will select 11 judges to conduct what it calls a limited en banc hearing.

The chief judge of the Ninth Circuit, Mary Murguia, said in the Oct. 30 order that an administrative stay that the panel granted on Oct. 8 “remains in effect pending further order of the en banc court.”

Murguia, who attached a copy of the stay to the new order, did not explain why the new order was issued.

An administrative stay is a temporary court order that gives judges more time to consider a case.

The panel’s Oct. 8 stay had put on hold Immergut’s Oct. 4 temporary restraining order.

That order paused Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s Sept. 28 memorandum to the leadership of the Oregon National Guard requesting that 200 service members be temporarily moved to federal service, as allowed under Section 12406.

The panel had said in its order that “the effect of granting an administrative stay preserves the status quo in which National Guard members have been federalized but not deployed.”

It is unclear when the Ninth Circuit will move forward with its en banc hearing.