PORTLAND, OR – Oregon leaders say they are prepared to litigate and legislate against President Donald Trump’s potential mobilization of the National Guard in Portland following his comments last week vowing to “clean up” the state’s largest city and “wipe out” protesters.
President Donald Trump during a media briefing with reporters on Friday said he would send National Guard troops to another city, while declining to specify which. Shortly after those comments, however, he mentioned Portland as a possibility, making what appeared to be a reference to a recent Fox News report with a resident complaining of violence and noise associated with protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The segment included footage from 2020, when federal agents who had stormed the city under Trump’s orders during the 2020 racial justice protests pepper-sprayed an individual.
The president has characterized several American cities in mainly Democrat-led states as being havens of violent crime with financed criminals, though crime data often contradicts his claims. A federal judge ruled last week he broke the law by deploying the National Guard after protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles, raising concerns that the federal government was “creating a national police force with the president as its chief.”
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said in a statement he was coordinating with Gov. Tina Kotek and various state attorneys general with the promise of taking Trump to court “when he oversteps his authority.” His office has been preparing for the scenario of National Guard deployment since Trump took office in January, he said.
“What happened in California is proof,” he said. “A federal judge ruled that President Trump’s deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and Marines in Los Angeles was illegal — blocking the use of military force as domestic law enforcement and permanently banning similar deployments in the future.”
That ruling, however, is limited to California, and Trump could experiment with other possibilities that do not involve commanding the state’s National Guard, which operates under dual control of the federal and state government. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said last Tuesday that Trump was planning to use the Texas National Guard to mobilize troops in Chicago, which the president has targeted for crime enforcement as recently as this past weekend. Texas Gov. Gregg Abbot has denied those allegations, but said he was willing to do so if Trump requested.
Jenny Hansson, a spokesperson for the Oregon Department of Justice, said the agency “can’t really get into some of the specifics” when asked about its legal plans. But the issue has already been on the radar of Oregon’s federal lawmakers. Oregon U.S. Representative Suzanne Bonamici, D-Beaverton, and Democratic U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden in July reintroduced legislation from 2020 in Congress seeking to prevent deployment of federal law enforcement unless requested by a governor and mayor.
Local authorities, lawmaker respond
Portland’s local authorities have swiftly pushed back on the President’s claims and calls for enforcement. In a statement, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said that the city does not need federal intervention, nor did he ask for it. He added that the city’s police have protected freedom of expression while “addressing occasional violence and property destruction that takes place during protests at the ICE facility in Portland.”
“We anticipate that the site, and the half-block surrounding it, will continue to be a focus of protests,” he wrote. “Portland will continue to rise to the moment as a proud sanctuary city, taking legal action to stand up for our community and our rights.”
Terri Strauss, a spokesperson for the Portland Police Bureau, said that activity around the city’s ICE building has “dwindled for the most part,” since spring 2025, but that a small number of people continue to protest in the area. The building is located in South Portland, blocks away from the Willamette River.
“While these gatherings have decreased in size, we understand the frustration caused by ongoing noise in the area,” Strauss wrote in a statement. “Our priority remains striking the right balance — protecting public safety, supporting community well-being, and safeguarding constitutional rights — while ensuring the safety of all Portlanders across the city.”
Oregon lawmakers also had the chance to give Kotek more power when it came to using Oregon’s own National Guard members, through House Bill 3954.
The bill would have blocked the Oregon National Guard from providing federal law or immigration enforcement except for “indirect support or surveillance duties that are part of a border security operation.” It also sought to prevent the adjutant general from allowing National Guard members to be called into active service if it would leave the guard incapable of responding to statewide emergencies like wildfires. The legislation died in the Senate after passing the House in the face of procedural maneuvering by Republicans that ran out the clock at the end of the legislative session.
One of the bill’s chief sponsors, Rep. Willy Chotzen, D-Portland, said the bill’s backers knew “this was an issue that was likely to come,” from the Trump administration, but that the measure was in the works before Trump’s deployment of thousands of troops in June to Los Angeles. He said Trump’s comments were “a show of political fear from someone trying to be a dictator,” suggesting that he would revive a similar effort in the next legislative session.
“There’s obviously a lot of urgent issues that need to be solved, and the fallout of the big, ugly bill, of course,” Chotzen told the Capital Chronicle, referring to the tax and spending megalaw Trump signed in July. “But I would say, for me personally, one of the priorities in 2026 (is) I expect we will find a way to bring this issue back in 2026, just given the urgency of the situation.”
This story first appeared on Oregon Capital Chronicle.
