The Invented Rebellion - How a Federal Judge Shatters Trump's Portland Fantasies

Portland, Oregon – In a country that has grown accustomed to the constant rhetoric of chaos and unrest, a federal judge has silenced the noise. Karin Immergut, a judge appointed by Donald Trump himself, has prohibited the government from deploying the National Guard in Portland – at least for now. In her decision, she found “no credible evidence” that protests in the city had ever gotten out of control. This means a judge from Trump’s own camp is openly opposing the president’s narrative. For weeks, the White House had described Portland as a “war zone,” as a city in flames that could only be subdued with military force. Immergut’s ruling is the exact opposite: sober, precise, fact-based – and a blow against the political dramaturgy that thrives on fear and exaggeration.

Here are the links to our previous investigations and articles: “The Big Lie of Portland – How Fox News Feeds Trump and Turns a City into an Enemy Image” under the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/die-grosse-luege-von-portland-wie-fox-news-trump-fuettert-und-eine-stadt-zum-feindbild-macht/ and the article: “The Big Lie of Portland II – Trump’s Threat, Fox’s Images, and the Truth on the Street” under the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/die-grosse-luege-von-portland-ii-trumps-drohung-fox-bilder-und-die-wahrheit-auf-der-strasse/

In the three-day trial brought by the city and the state of Oregon, the question was whether the nightly demonstrations outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building justified the use of the military. The government argued that it had to combat “rebellion” and “danger of insurrection” – two terms defined in federal law for domestic military deployment. Immergut disagrees. In a 16-page ruling, she wrote that the evidence showed no pattern of uncontrolled violence, but rather “isolated and sporadic incidents.” There had been no serious injuries, no destruction of federal buildings, no signs of an uprising. The alleged state of emergency that Trump had declared in the fall was “not supported by facts.” The judge explicitly referred to the scope of the evidence: more than 750 exhibits and numerous witness statements. Due to the volume of material, she announced that she would issue a final order on Friday, November 7, 2025.

Until the publication of her final decision on the state of Oregon’s request for a permanent injunction – no later than November 7, 2025, at 5 p.m. Pacific Time – Judge Karin J. Immergut temporarily prohibited Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth from enforcing several orders federalizing and deploying National Guard units to Oregon. Affected were the memorandum of September 28, 2025, federalizing and deploying the Oregon National Guard, the memorandum of October 5, 2025, deploying the Texas National Guard insofar as it would have been used in Oregon, and the memorandum of October 16, 2025, which would have transferred troops from the California and Texas National Guards to Oregon. All other orders based on the same legal grounds were also barred from implementation until further notice. At the same time, the court partially suspended the injunction – specifically, the part concerning the mere federalization of individual state guards – until the publication of the final decision on the merits.

Witnesses testified that the protests had significantly decreased since June. A senior official of the Federal Protective Service, identified in court only by his initials R.C. for security reasons, said he was “surprised” when he learned about the planned troop deployment. He had neither requested nor supported it. Another official admitted that the demonstrators had occasionally acted aggressively, but the city police had the situation under control.

For Oregon and Portland, the ruling marks a turning point. Since Trump’s second term, several Democratic-led cities – including Chicago and Seattle – have gone to court to challenge the militarization of public order. They all argue that the president has exceeded his constitutional powers and violated the sovereignty of the states. Immergut had already issued two similar orders in October 2025. At that time, she found that Trump had not met the legal requirements for mobilizing the National Guard. His descriptions of Portland as “war-ravaged” and “fires all over the place” she described as “simply untethered to the facts.” A judge usually regarded as conservative thus exposed the rhetoric of her own president as a political fabrication.

The court of appeals vacated its own panel ruling by en banc order; the deployment of the troops remains blocked until the main decision. Immergut allowed the mere federalization to stand temporarily but prohibited any deployment until November 7, 2025, 5:00 p.m. PT (Pacific Time). See our article “Court of Appeals Overturns Its Own Ruling on the Portland National Guard Deployment” under the link: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/berufungsgericht-kippt-sein-eigenes-urteil-zum-portland-einsatz-der-national-garde/

The legal dispute is also a democratic test. It shows how thin the line has become between promises of security and the abuse of power. Federal Judge Immergut has made clear that the government is not fighting a “rebellion” but citizens exercising their right to protest. In a time when political language feeds on exaggeration, this ruling reads like a document of reality. It is a reminder that justice is not an echo chamber for propaganda but a safeguard against it. Trump’s administration can keep talking about uprisings – but in the courtroom, evidence, not headlines, prevails.