A federal appellate court has backed President Donald Trump in his efforts to defend federal law enforcement agents against violent left-wing activists and rioters — twice. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Monday reversed a district court’s blockade issued earlier this month, allowing the president to federalize Oregon’s National Guard and deploy the troops in Portland to deal with riots outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility.

“After considering the record at this preliminary stage, we conclude that it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority under 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3), which authorizes the federalization of the National Guard when ‘the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States,’” the judges wrote. “We thus conclude that Defendants are likely to succeed on the merits of their appeal, and that the other stay factors weigh in their favor. We grant Defendants’ motion for a stay pending appeal.”

Earlier this year, in response to ICE raids in Los Angeles, protests quickly turned to riots. The court noted that although “many of these events have been peaceful, others have been violent and even deadly.” In Los Angeles, rioters hurled cinder blocks and concrete slabs at ICE agents and their vehicles and even used fireworks as missiles to target law enforcement officers. The riots quickly spread to other cities, including Portland and Chicago. The court noted that a sniper targeted a Dallas ICE facility in September, accidentally killing three detainees.

“Since June 2025, there have been regular protests at the Lindquist Federal Building, an ICE facility in Portland,” the court recounted. “Some of these protests have been peaceful, but many have turned violent, and protesters have threatened federal law enforcement officers and the building.” Local police mobilized crowd control and riot response units, but the riots persisted. According to court documents, rioters have launched fireworks, mortars, and other incendiary devices at the building, injuring law enforcement personnel, have carried and brandished weapons, and have destroyed several card readers, forcing agents to wait longer to enter or exit the facility. The court pointed out that “protesters take their photographs to dox the officers and their family members.”

“On several occasions since June, protesters have followed officers who have been deployed to Portland back to their hotels, and groups have protested at the hotels,” the court observed. “Several ICE officers at the Portland ERO office have had their names, photographs, and home addresses posted publicly in several municipal locations and residential neighborhoods, along with threatening messages. … Multiple Portland ICE officers have had unknown individuals appear at their residences in vehicles and on foot, peering into their homes and recording officers coming and going.”

The court recounted several months’ worth of violence and threats aimed at ICE agents before the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) requested further assistance and the U.S. Department of War (DOW) asked Oregon Governor Tina Kotek (D) to mobilize the National Guard. “The Governor rejected this request.” Subsequently, the president federalized and deployed 200 Oregon National Guardsmen. Oregon filed a lawsuit and Judge Karin Immergut of the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon, who was appointed by Trump in his first term, issued a temporary restraining order (TRO), which the circuit court subsequently stayed.

Circuit court judges Ryan D. Nelson and Bridget S. Bade, both appointed by Trump, concluded that the president was within his statutory authority to federalize the National Guard, particularly given the threat posed to federal law enforcement personnel. Judge Susan P. Graber, appointed by Bill Clinton, dissented, classifying the violent riots as “non-disruptive and small.” Despite the record reflecting several months of rioters targeting and blocking ICE vehicles, damaging the federal facility, and attacking, harassing, and even injuring agents, Graber averred, “Notwithstanding the turbulent events that had occurred several months earlier, the record contains no evidence whatsoever that, on September 27, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (‘ICE’) was unable either to protect its Portland facility or to execute the immigration laws it is charged with enforcing.” She added, sarcastically, “Given Portland protesters’ well-known penchant for wearing chicken suits, inflatable frog costumes, or nothing at all when expressing their disagreement with the methods employed by ICE, observers may be tempted to view the majority’s ruling, which accepts the government’s characterization of Portland as a war zone, as merely absurd.”

In June, the same circuit court reached a similar conclusion in the case Newsom v. Trump, after the president federalized California’s National Guard to quell anti-ICE riots in Los Angeles. In that instance, two Trump appointees, Judges Eric Miller and Mark Bennett, were joined by Biden appointee Jennifer Sung in halting a district court’s TRO and allowing the president to federalize and deploy California National Guardsmen. However, in a concurring opinion Monday, Nelson wrote to question the court’s holdings in Newsom v. Trump.

“We held in Newsom v. Trump … that presidential determinations under § 12406 are reviewable. Similarly, because Newsom proceeded to likelihood of success on the merits, it implicitly found standing for the state plaintiffs in that case. … It likely got both issues wrong,” the Trump appointee wrote. He noted that the court has held opinions issued “even at the preliminary injunction stage” to be binding upon issues of law, but “we have never held that an order granting a stay pending appeal of a TRO binds future panels, even on pure issues of law. And it would be odd if the Newsom merits panel would be bound by its initial conclusions made during the truncated stay pending appeal stage.”

The president also summoned the Illinois National Guard to help defend ICE agents in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, who have been under similar attack. Judge April M. Perry of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, who was appointed by Joe Biden, blocked the president earlier this month; her decision was subsequently upheld by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit: Trump-appointed Amy Joan St. Eve, Barack Obama-appointed David Hamilton, and George H.W. Bush-appointed Ilana Rovner.

The Trump administration has already appealed the Seventh Circuit Court’s decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. “This case presents what has become a disturbing and recurring pattern: Federal officers are attempting to enforce federal immigration law in an urban area containing significant numbers of illegal aliens,” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote to the nation’s highest court. “The federal agents’ efforts are met with prolonged, coordinated, violent resistance that threatens their lives and safety and systematically interferes with their ability to enforce federal law. That resistance succeeds to an alarming degree in its aim of obstructing federal agents from enforcing federal immigration law,” he continued. “Confronted with intolerable risks of harm to federal agents and coordinated, violent opposition to the enforcement of federal law, the President lawfully determines that he is unable to enforce the laws of the United States with the regular forces and calls up the National Guard to defend federal personnel, property, and functions in the face of ongoing violence.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Article III Project Senior Counsel Will Chamberlain explained, “The Ninth Circuit panel’s opinion is obviously correct. District Judge Immergut did not accord proper deference to President Trump’s determination that federal forces were unable to execute federal law in Portland due to the incessant rioting outside the ICE facility in Southwest Portland.” He continued, “I expect the Supreme Court will follow up by staying a similar order that was issued in Illinois. President Trump has both the statutory authority and the inherent constitutional authority to use federal troops to protect federal personnel and federal facilities when they are under threat.”

Attorney and Family Research Council Senior Fellow for Regulatory Affairs Chris Gacek told TWS, “It appears that radical Left cities like Portland and Chicago have developed a form of government I call ‘Soft Secession.’ These cities obey only the U.S. laws that suit their political interests. So, in areas like the deportation of illegal immigrants, for example, these cities adopt Sanctuary City policies.” He continued, “Particularly insidious in cities like Portland and Chicago is the use of shadowy gangs of criminals, like Antifa, to violently impose the will of the Democratic Party. An ‘anarcho-tyranny’ is instituted that compels leftist order by deploying criminal violence against the populace and federal law enforcement as warranted.”

“After months of rioting and law enforcement obstruction — plus the assassination of Charlie Kirk — the Trump administration determined that it is going to fracture this governance structure. So, it started federalizing and deploying state National Guard units to protect the ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws,” Gacek continued. “Leftist federal trial courts issued terrible rulings in Portland and Chicago. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has blocked the Portland ruling, but a poor ruling by the Seventh Circuit essentially upheld the initial Chicago ruling. The Trump administration has gone to the Supreme Court to get the law read correctly, so it can enforce federal law and protect government workers. Trump should win this case.”

Brandy Perez, a researcher at the Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center, told TWS, “Anarchists have violently rioted against ICE in Portland and President Trump exercised his power to reinstate public safety and order.” She continued, “Leftist judges willfully ignore existing precedence and continue to entertain leftist organizations suing the federal government to intentionally disrupt constitutional ICE operations, but no amount of judicial disobedience and stalling can erase what has already been codified and upheld by the nation’s highest court.”

“The district court judges’ defiance is part of the political lawfare that protects illegal aliens and dark money-backed anarchy while compromising everyday Americans, national security, and the constitution,” Perez concluded.