Trump is considering an insurrection law after the judge blocked the deployment of the guard
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President Donald Trump said he would plan to invoke the Insurrection ACT to deploy federal troops in American cities after a federal judge prevented his administration from sending the National Guard units to Portland.
“I would do it if necessary. So far, it has not been necessary. But we have an insurrection law for a reason,” Trump told journalists in the oval office on Monday.
The law of 1807 has not been invoked since the riots of Los Angeles in 1992.
“If I had to adopt it, I would do it. If people were killed and if the courts kept us back or if the governors or the mayors kept us, of course, I would do it. I mean, I want to assure myself that no one is killed. We must make sure that our cities are sure,” he added.
President Donald Trump attended a meeting of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations on September 23, 2025 in New York. (SOMODEVILLA/GETTY Images)
The order authorizes the president to deploy the army to repress the rebellions and enforce federal laws. If it was invoked, it would grant Trump the power to federalize custody and deploy active forces to restore order. This would temporarily cancel the Posse Comitatus law, which normally restricts the use of the army to enforce the law at the national level.
“If we don’t need to use it, I wouldn’t use it,” said Trump later on Newsmax, before adding: “If you look at what’s going on in Portland, it has been going on for a long time, and it’s insurrection. I mean, it’s pure insurrection.”
These comments come after a federal judge prevented the Trump administration on Sunday from deploying troops from the National Guard of California and Texas in the streets of Portland in the midst of demonstrations against immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
The same court had previously refused Trump to deploy the own Oregon guard in the city.
“Portland has been on fire for years – and it is not really possible to save it,” Trump told journalists on Monday. “We have to save something else, because I think this is all insurrection. I really think it’s really a criminal insurrection.”
But judge Karin Immergut, appointed by Trump, said that there was no evidence that the recent demonstrations against the ICE made the troops of the federalized guard.
A hundred soldiers from the National Guard had already arrived in Portland to manage increasingly controversial demonstrations in front of the ICE premises, and this deployment was to double by the end of the day, before the judge rendered her order.
A protester reacts while the police deploy smoke grenades to disperse people in front of the siege of immigration and customs in the United States, in southern Portland, Oregon, October 5, 2025. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
California and Oregon had brought legal action for deployment.
The federal judge blocks the deployment of the Trump National Guard in Portland in the midst of a constitutional challenge
The deputy chief of staff of the White House, Stephen Miller, criticized the judge’s decision, calling it “one of the violations of the most blatant and thunderous constitutional order that we have ever seen”.
“There is no legal distinction between the voluntary guards of a state to keep the border and the voluntary guards to keep a federal immigration center”, Miller said. “Either we have a federal government, a supremacy clause and a nation, or we don’t have them.”
A demonstrator dressed in an inflatable Capybara costume stands in front of the siege of immigration and customs underforcement (ICE) in the United States in Portland, Oregon, October 6, 2025. (Carlos Barria/Reuters)
Trump also ordered the custody of other states to deploy in Chicago and Memphis.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker suggested that Trump was trying to sow trouble in order to deploy the ACT insurrection at a press conference on Monday.
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“The Trump administration is following a strategy: provoking chaos, creating fear and confusion, giving the impression that peaceful demonstrators are a crowd by pulling them gas dumplings and tear gas grenades,” said Pritzker. “Why? To create a pretext to invoke the Insurrection Act so that he can send military troops to our city.”
During the first administration of Trump, the White House spoke of the possibility of invoking this law in response to the protests of George Floyd, but ultimately did not.
