In sending the National Guard to Portland, Ore., President Trump has launched a battle with a city he’s often demonized as being the seat of the far left a move likely to spur conflict as the White House looks to crack down on alleged radicalism.

Trump over the weekend said he would “provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland,” describing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices as being “under siege.” 

Trump has used protests against ICE as the basis for increasing the federal presence in several cities, including Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; and Chicago.

But Trump’s interest in Portland comes as he has signed two different orders addressing antifa, labeling the ideology that opposes fascism as a domestic terror group. That was followed by another order on countering domestic political violence that encourages government agencies to pursue left-wing groups. 

To Oregon’s Democratic leadership, the effort is a clear provocation, one driven by Trump to back his claims in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk that political violence is driven by the left.

“Trump is launching an authoritarian takeover of Portland hoping to provoke conflict in my hometown,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote on social platform X over the weekend.

“I urge Oregonians to reject Trump’s attempt to incite violence in what we know is a vibrant and peaceful city. I will do everything in my power to protect the people in our state.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (D) offered identical advice to residents: “Let’s not take the bait.”

Portland has long held a certain status on the consciousness of the right, and it has remained an investigative target of the congressional GOP for years following protests of the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of police.

What started as peaceful protests stretched for months, ultimately devolving into riots as clashes sparked between Black Lives Matter protesters and counterprotesters who arrived in the area.

In the wake of that episode, Trump and others have pinned blame on antifa for actions in Portland, including the president’s claim that antifa had attacked ICE facilities in the area.

Experts say antifa is not the sprawling, organized group that Trump has claimed but rather a loosely formed ideological movement protesting fascism that does not have the structure needed to constitute a terror group.

Protests in Portland over ICE activity have spurred numerous arrests, with 26 people facing federal charges near the city’s ICE facility since June, including one alleged to have thrown an incendiary device. 

A White House official said protesters had been “congregating” outside the ICE field office for months, claiming without evidence that many were affiliated with antifa. The official also noted the scale of the “No Kings” march earlier this year in Portland, which protested the actions of the Trump administration.

“President Trump is using his lawful authority to direct the National Guard to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following months of violent riots where officers have been assaulted and doxxed by left-wing rioters,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

“The President’s lawful actions will make Portland safer.”

While some protesters have been charged with assaulting officers, The Oregonian reports that other demonstrators have claimed they were met with outsize force from law enforcement.

State officials say they are having no trouble managing protests with their existing law enforcement resources.

“I was at the ICE facility a couple of days ago. I was in Portland yesterday on the east side for a meeting and last night for an event. Nowhere did I see one single indication that we need military troops here,” Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) said over the weekend.

Nonetheless, the White House dispatched 200 National Guard troops to the city, leapfrogging authority that belongs to the governor.

The city of Portland and the state of Oregon have sued over Trump’s intervention, describing “low energy” protests that have thus far required minimal response from police.

“The ICE-facility protests have generally been small and are frequently sedate. On any given weekend, the nightlife in Portland’s entertainment district warrants greater [Portland Police Bureau] resources than have the small, nightly protests in front of the ICE facility a few blocks away,” they wrote in their suit.

Like others that have sued over Trump’s calling of the National Guard, the state is seeking a court order blocking the administration’s takeover.

Scott Kennedy, Oregon’s senior assistant attorney general, wrote in court papers Monday that the Trump administration infringed on the state’s sovereignty by sending the federalized troops to Portland, accusing the administration of tasking them with civilian law enforcement duties to punish “select, politically disfavored jurisdictions.”

It echoes the legal arguments of other cities that have mounted legal fights against Trump’s National Guard deployments.

Trump called up the National Guard in Los Angeles under Title 10, a federal law that lets the president call the troops into federal service in specific circumstances. 

The administration defended the deployment against California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) subsequent lawsuit by contending that the troops were there to protect federal officers, not engage in law enforcement themselves. 

However, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, an appointee of former President Clinton, ruled earlier this month that the troops violated a centuries-old law the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which generally bars federal troops from participating in civilian law enforcement when Trump sent them there.

A federal appeals court temporarily halted that order soon after, as it weighs whether to extend the pause while the administration appeals. Breyer previously found Trump illegally federalized the National Guard, ordering him to turn over control to Newsom, but the appeals court paused that order as well.  

Oregon argues the troops sent to Portland, who were also federalized under Title 10, have similarly violated the law. A federal judge set a hearing to establish a schedule for the motion for Monday night. 

It’s a slightly different story in D.C., where the president has command over the National Guard. When D.C. sued over the deployment earlier this month, it argued that the administration’s close control of the National Guard troops from other states is illegal, suggesting the troops have essentially been federalized in all but name. 

Legal experts said Trump could run into problems in Portland by contending it’s a “war ravaged” city and pledging to use “full force.”

Elizabeth Goitein, a national security law expert at the Brennan Center for Justice, said Trump would indeed need to be confronting an insurrection in Portland to use troops in such a manner.

“Under no plausible reading could this state of affairs be characterized as war. And if it reached the point where state and local authorities were indeed overwhelmed, the state could ask for federal assistance, as has been the historical practice,” she wrote on X.

“It is a core principle of this nation that the military should not be asked to turn its weapons against fellow Americans, let alone use ‘Full Force,’ as Trump posted. Deployments to quell civil unrest are illegal unless a president *properly* invokes the Insurrection Act.”

Kotek said there is not one.

“There is no insurrection,” the governor said Saturday. 

“There is no threat to national security, and there is no need for military troops in our major city.”