What we know about National Guard deployment in Chicago and Portland

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A federal judge blocked President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops to Oregon, where protesters have gathered in the block surrounding a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, setting back his latest attempt at federal intervention in cities.

The ruling came late Sunday, hours after his administration announced plans to send hundreds of National Guard members from California and Texas to the state, following an order issued Saturday that barred it from mobilizing Oregon guard troops to protect federal buildings.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said 101 California National Guard members arrived in her state Saturday night by plane and more were on the way before the ruling was handed down.

“There is no need for military intervention in Oregon," Kotek said Sunday.

The previous day, Trump authorized the deployment of 300 Illinois National Guard troops to protect federal officers and assets in Chicago.

Here’s a snapshot of where things stand with federal law enforcement activity in Portland, Chicago and elsewhere:

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson confirmed that the president authorized using the Illinois National Guard members, citing what she called “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness” that local leaders have not quelled.

Trump has characterized both Portland and Chicago as cities rife with crime and unrest, calling the former a “war zone” and suggesting apocalyptic force was needed to quell problems in the latter. Since the start of his second term, he has sent or talked about sending troops to 10 cities, including Baltimore, Maryland; Memphis, Tennessee; the District of Columbia; New Orleans, Louisiana; and the California cities of Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

But the governors of Illinois and Oregon see the deployments differently.

“This morning, the Trump Administration’s Department of War gave me an ultimatum: call up your troops, or we will,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement. “It is absolutely outrageous and un-American to demand a Governor send military troops within our own borders and against our will.”

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek talked to Trump in late September and said the deployment was unnecessary. She refused to call up any Oregon National Guard troops, so Trump did so himself in an order to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. That prompted the lawsuit from city and state officials.

Attorney General Pam Bondi has issued a memo that also directs component agencies within the Justice Department, including the FBI, to help protect ICE facilities, including in Chicago and Portland.

The sight of armed, camouflaged and masked Border Patrol agents making arrests near famous downtown landmarks has amplified such concerns. Many Chicagoans were already uneasy after an immigration crackdown began earlier this month. Agents have targeted immigrant-heavy and largely Latino areas.

Protesters have frequently rallied near an immigration facility outside the city, and federal officials reported the arrests of 13 protesters Friday near the ICE processing facility in Broadview.

The Department of Homeland Security acknowledged that federal agents shot a woman Saturday morning on the southwest side of Chicago. A statement from the department said it happened after Border Patrol agents patrolling the area “were rammed by vehicles and boxed in by 10 cars.”

“The officers exited their trapped vehicle, when a suspect tried to run them over, forcing the officers to fire defensively,” the statement said.

No law enforcement officers were seriously injured, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said.

The woman who was shot was a U.S. citizen and was armed with a semiautomatic weapon, according to McLaughlin. She said the woman drove herself to a hospital for treatment, but a Chicago Fire Department spokesperson told the Chicago Sun-Times that she was found near the scene and taken to a hospital in fair condition.

Immigrants’ rights advocates and residents separately reported that federal agents used tear gas near grocery or hardware stores targeted for enforcement elsewhere in Chicago on Friday and detained a city council member as she questioned the attempted arrest of a man.

Judge Immergut issued her first ruling temporarily blocking the deployment on Saturday afternoon, saying the relatively small protests the city has seen did not justify the use of federalized forces and allowing that the deployment could harm Oregon’s state sovereignty.

“This country has a longstanding and foundational tradition of resistance to government overreach, especially in the form of military intrusion into civil affairs,” Immergut wrote. She later said: “This historical tradition boils down to a simple proposition: this is a nation of constitutional law, not martial law.”

The Trump administration responded with another attempt to send in National Guard troops from California and Texas, prompting the democratic governors of Oregon and California to go back to court Sunday seeking a broader ruling. Immergut granted the request during a hastily called evening telephone hearing, blocking any National Guard troops from being sent to Oregon for 14 days.

On Saturday, before the judge's ruling was released, about 400 protesters marched from a park to the Portland ICE detention facility. The group included people of all ages and races, families with children and retirees with walkers, the Oregonian reported. Federal agents used chemical crowd control munitions, including tear gas canisters and less-lethal guns that sprayed pepper balls, and arrested at least six people as the group reached the ICE facility.

People gathered outside the ICE facility on Sunday cheered when they heard of the latest ruling.

On Wednesday, Hegseth, Bondi and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller rallied members of a federal law enforcement task force that began operating in Memphis as part of Trump’s crime-fighting plan. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, has supported the effort.

Bondi said via social media that the task force made more than 50 arrests over a two-day period. More than 200 officers were deputized, including personnel from immigration and drug enforcement. They were serving criminal arrest warrants and teaming with state agencies on traffic stops.

Some residents, including Latinos, have expressed concerns that agents will detain people regardless of immigration status.

On Sept. 30, Republican Gov. Jeff Landry asked for a guard deployment to New Orleans and other cities to help fight crime.

In a letter to Hegseth, Landry also praised the president's decision to send troops to Washington and Memphis.

He said there has been “elevated violent crime rates” in Shreveport, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, as well as shortages in local law enforcement.

But crime in some of the state’s biggest cities has actually decreased recently, with New Orleans seeing a particularly steep drop in 2025 that has it on pace for the lowest number of killings in over five decades.