What Is Happening With Trump’s National Guard Takeovers?

Donald Trump has made exerting federal power over the states a hallmark of his second term, attempting a takeover of Washington, D.C., and vowing to deploy the National Guard into the streets of American cities as he sees fit. But the president took another unprecedented move over the weekend as he green-lit the deployment of guardsmen from other states to Illinois and Oregon in stark defiance of their leaders and a court order.

Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker announced on Sunday that Trump had ordered 400 members of the Texas National Guard to Illinois, Oregon, and other locations in what he deemed “Trump’s Invasion.” The Democratic governor noted on social media that no government officials called him directly to discuss the deployment. “I call on Governor Abbott to immediately withdraw any support for this decision and refuse to coordinate. There is no reason a President should send military troops into a sovereign state without their knowledge, consent, or cooperation,” he wrote.

Texas governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, confirmed that he gave his full authorization to the Trump administration to call up his state’s guardsmen to “ensure safety for federal officials.” But his state was not the only one.

The Trump administration moved to send 300 members of the California National Guard to Portland, Oregon, prompting a legal challenge from California governor Gavin Newsom. “We’re suing Donald Trump. His deployment of the California National Guard to Oregon isn’t about crime. It’s about power. He is using our military as political pawns to build up his own ego. It’s appalling. It’s un-American. And it must stop,” he wrote on social media.

The president’s move to utilize troops from California and Texas appeared to be an attempt to circumvent a decision from a federal judge on Saturday that temporarily blocked Trump from deploying the National Guard in Portland, a city that he has described as “war ravaged” and “under siege” from domestic terrorists. Per the Associated Press, Trump intended to federalize 200 Oregon National Guardsmen to protect federal buildings in the city following consistent protests at the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. But U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump appointee, determined that conditions in the city did not justify such a deployment. “The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts,” she wrote in her decision, per the AP.

Trump’s attempt to involve other states over the weekend prompted an emergency hearing from Immergut late on Sunday evening. The New York Times reports that the judge declared that the president’s move to utilize the California and Texas National Guards was “ in direct contravention” of her initial order. Immergut expanded her initial ruling to bar the “relocation, federalization or deployment of members of the National Guard of any state or the District of Columbia in the state of Oregon.”

The Trump administration had already filed an appeal against Immergut’s Saturday ruling to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. But federal officials have denounced the judge’s decision in vitriolic terms, signaling a likely prolonged fight on this issue. “Today’s judicial ruling is one of the most egregious and thunderous violations of constitutional order we have ever seen — and is yet the latest example of unceasing efforts to nullify the 2024 election by fiat,” deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller posted online.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt denounced Immergut’s rulings during a Monday briefing, calling them”untethered in reality and in the law.” When pressed by reporters who said Portland officials have pushed back on Trump’s characterization of the city’s conditions, Leavitt suggested they must have spoken to “partisan Democrat officials.”

As the White House continues to defend its actions, another challenge to the federal government’s tactics emerged on Monday. The Illinois attorney general’s office, in conjunction with the city of Chicago, filed a lawsuit challenging the administration’s deployment of the Texas guardsmen as well as the attempted federalization of the Illinois National Guard in the city. “The American people, regardless of where they reside, should not live under the threat of occupation by the United States military, particularly not simply because their city or state leadership has fallen out of a president’s favor,” the filing read. A hearing in the matter has been scheduled for Monday afternoon.