US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has ordered 200 Oregon National Guard soldiers to be deployed to the state of Oregon under federal authority, in a move swiftly challenged by the Democratic-run state in a federal lawsuit.

A memorandum signed by Hegseth and addressed to the state’s top military officer said that the troops would be “called into Federal service effective immediately for a period of 60 days”, a day after US President Donald Trump said he wanted to send soldiers to ‘war-ravaged Portland,’ the state’s capital.

Oregon’s governor, Democrat Tina Kotek, said on Sunday that she had objected to the deployment in a conversation with the president.

“Oregon is our home — not a military target,” she said in a statement.

Democratic Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed a lawsuit in federal court in Portland on Sunday against Hegseth, Trump and US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, shortly after state officials received the memo.

“What we’re seeing is not about public safety,” Rayfield said. “It’s about the president flexing political muscle under the guise of law and order, chasing a media hit at the expense of our community.”

The National Guard is a state-based reserve military force in the US that can be mobilised for active duty when needed. It typically responds to domestic emergencies, such as natural disasters and civil unrest, and also supports military operations abroad.

While the memorandum does not specifically cite Portland as the target of the proposed deployment, Trump, in a social media post on Saturday, said he had directed the Pentagon, at Noem’s request, “to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists”.

ICE, the department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, sits under the Homeland Security Department.

“I am also authorising Full Force, if necessary,” Trump added.

While the Trump administration has promised to crack down on Antifa, a loosely affiliated left-wing anti-fascist movement, according to the CATO Institute, people with right-wing ideologies have been responsible for 54 percent of politically motivated murders in the country since 2020, more than double the number attributed to the left.

Just days before Trump’s announcement on Saturday, a deadly shooting took place at an ICE facility in Texas. One detainee was killed and two others were severely injured in the attack, which Trump blamed, without providing evidence, on the “radical left”.

Since taking office, Trump has ordered troops deployed to several states and cities where his political rivals, the Democratic Party, are in power.

Most recently, he has also ordered troops deployed to Memphis, Tennessee, and Chicago, Illinois, after earlier deployments to the nation’s capital, Washington, DC, and Los Angeles, California.

Despite the crackdown, protests against the US government’s anti-immigration policies have continued outside ICE facilities, where advocates say people are being held in degrading and crowded conditions, as the Trump administration continues to push for mass deportations.

Protesters gathered outside an ICE building in Portland over the weekend, some wearing brightly coloured costumes.

According to The Oregonian newspaper, fewer than 100 people remained at the protest outside the federal building, in the city which is home to some 635,000 people, on Sunday evening after an earlier crowd had begun to disperse.

The Oregonian also reported on Saturday that federal officers had arrested more than two dozen people outside the federal building since June, but that most of the arrests had occurred in the first month of protests against Trump’s immigration crackdown.

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