A federal appeals court ruled on Monday that President Donald Trump can send National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon while a lawsuit against the action works its way through lower courts.
A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit voted 2-1 to stay an Oct. 4 order by US District Judge Karin J. Immergut of Oregon – who blocked Trump’s move to deploy members of the Oregon National Guard to the city.
“Defendants are likely to succeed on the merits of their appeal, and … other stay factors weigh in their favor. We grant Defendants’ motion for a stay pending appeal,” wrote the panel – which consists of Circuit Judges Ryan Nelson, Bridget Bade, and Susan Graber, who heard oral arguments in San Francisco on Oct. 9.
In her dissent, Graber got very dramatic, begging the full 9th Circuit to reverse the decision to “retain faith in our judicial system for just a little longer.”
👀 An SOS flare from the panel’s dissenting judge, Susan Graber, pleading with her colleagues to reverse the decision and for the public to “retain faith in our judicial system for just a little longer. https://t.co/PlQT9e8vGc pic.twitter.com/mgBiFUWgWF
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 20, 2025
Immergut had issued a temporary restraining order directing the Trump administration not to deploy federalized National Guard troops to Portland – a right that any president may exercise on an emergency basis if the right conditions are met.
As the Epoch Times notes further, Immergut noted that Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sept. 27 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 judge held 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.
On Oct. 8, the same Ninth Circuit panel restored Trump’s control over Oregon National Guard troops but said he may not deploy them for the time being. The panel granted what lawyers call an administrative stay of Immergut’s order, which gives the circuit court judges more time to consider the federal government’s emergency appeal.
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