Pentagon calls 200 National Guard troops after Trump Portland’s announcement

By idrees Ali, Phil Stewart and Nate Raymond

Washington’s Secretary of Defense (Reuters) -s, Pete Hegseth, ordered 200 troops from the Oregon National Guard under the federal authority on Sunday, while the State filed a lawsuit that challenges the movement of President Donald Trump to send military forces to the city of Portland, administered by the Democrat.

The Republican President announced plans to send troops to Portland, saying that they would be used to protect federal immigration facilities against “national terrorists” and that he was authorizing them to use “all force, if necessary.”

Trump military forces deployments in other municipalities led by Democrats, including Los Angeles and Washington, DC, have stimulated legal challenges and protests.

Oregon’s lawsuit was filed against Trump, Hegseth and National Secretary of National Security Kristi Noem in the Federal Court in Portland on Sunday by the Oregon Democratic attorney general, Dan Rayfield. The lawsuit accused Trump of exceeding his powers.

“Citing nothing more than a pretext without foundation and hyperbolic, the president says that Portland is a” city of war “under the siege” of “national terrorists.” Therefore, the defendants have violated Oregon’s sovereign power to administer their own activity of application of the National Guard law and resources, “said the lawsuit.

The lawsuit declared that protests against the Immigration and Customs Control Agency in Portland have been small and relatively contained since June.

Trump’s planned deployment caught many in the Pentagon by surprise, six US officials said to Reuters, speaking under anonymity. On Sunday, Hegseth signed a memorandum that ordered 200 troops from the Oregon National Guard deployed under the federal authority. The memorandum was made public as an attachment to Oregon’s demand.

The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

“Send 200 National Guard troops to protect a single building is not normal,” Rayfield said in a statement, apparently referring to an ice installation.

Violent crime in Portland has decreased in the first six months of 2025, according to preliminary data published by the Association of Chiefs of Main Cities in its violent crime report in the middle of the year. Homicides fell 51% compared to the same period of the previous year, according to these statistics.

Since he returned to the presidency in January, Trump has made crime an important approach to his administration, even when violent crime rates have fallen into many US cities.

In 2020, the protests broke out in downtown Portland, the northwest of the Pacific northwest with a reputation as a liberal citizen, after the minneapolis murder of a black man named George Floyd by a white police officer. The protests lasted for months, and some civic leaders at that time said they were stimulated instead of suffocating due to the deployment of Trump’s federal troops.

It was not clear if Trump’s warning that US troops could use “total force” in the streets of Portland meant that he somehow authorized lethal force and, if so, under what conditions. American troops can use their own defense force in American domestic deployments.

The mayor of Portland, Keith Wilson, like other Oregon officials, learned of Trump’s order on social networks on Saturday.

Many in Trump’s pentagon were taken by surprise.

“It was a ray from blue,” said one of the US officials, adding that the army previously focused on carrying out prudent planning of possible troops deployments by Trump in cities such as Chicago and Memphis.

There have been increasing tensions in the main American cities about the aggressive repression of Trump’s immigration days after a shooting aimed at an immigration and customs’ immigration and compliance installation in Dallas left a detainee dead and two other seriously injured injured.

(Reports of Idees surrounding Humeyra Pamuk and Will Dunham)