In a fiery response to a federal judge’s ruling that has temporarily halted President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller called the decision a “legal insurrection.”
President Donald Trump had planned to deploy 200 Oregon National Guard members to Portland to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers and federal properties.
The ruling to halt the order, issued by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut, came amid violent riots in the city over immigration enforcement.
Miller, a key architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, took to the social media platform X on Saturday to blast the ruling.
Miller described the violent riots as an “organized terrorist attack” on federal personnel and accused local law enforcement of failing to intervene amid “relentless terrorist assault and threats to life.”
Legal insurrection. The President is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, not an Oregon judge. Portland and Oregon law enforcement, at the direction of local leaders, have refused to aid ICE officers facing relentless terrorist assault and threats to life. (There are more… https://t.co/vMwF0nlU9U
— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) October 5, 2025
The White House deputy chief of staff wrote:
Legal insurrection. The President is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, not an Oregon judge. Portland and Oregon law enforcement, at the direction of local leaders, have refused to aid ICE officers facing relentless terrorist assault and threats to life. (There are more local law enforcement officers in Oregon than there are guns and badges in the FBI nationwide).
This is an organized terrorist attack on the federal government and its officers, and the deployment of troops is an absolute necessity to defend our personnel, our laws, our government, public order and the Republic itself.
The post had been viewed over three million times by Sunday morning and racked up over 33,000 “likes.”
The protests at the ICE facility in Portland have been going on since June.
Incidents have included vandalism like spray-painting the facility, assaults on officers with projectiles or lasers, and the use of tear gas or pepper balls by authorities to disperse crowds crossing property lines.
At least 27 local arrests and 129 federal ones have occurred during the clashes.