The final 100 Oregon National Guard members President Donald Trump mobilized in September and sent to a training camp on the North Coast can return home after more than three months of waiting for a deployment that never came.
Gov. Tina Kotek announced Tuesday that the head of U.S. Northern Command, a regional office of the U.S. military based in Colorado Springs, sent an official order to the Oregon Military Department on Monday saying the remaining Guard members stationed at Camp Rilea in Warrenton would be demobilized and sent home.
Oregon Military Department spokesperson Leslie Reed confirmed in an email that 100 Oregon Guard troops were demobilizing but said the official order could not be shared because the troops are still under federal control. A spokesperson for the U.S. Northern Command refused on the phone to share the official order.
The 100 Guard troops are among 200 that Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called up for deployment to Portland on Sept. 27 over mostly small and mostly peaceful protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility.
A federal judge ultimately ruled the deployment unlawful in November, and troops are prevented from being deployed pending a rehearing of the case in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Trump on Dec. 31, following numerous legal challenges, said in a social media post that he would pause his push for troop deployments in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland.
“The citizen-soldiers of the Oregon National Guard are our neighbors, friends, and family. These courageous Oregonians deserve certainty and respect,” Kotek said in a statement. “While I am relieved that all our troops will finally return home, it does not make up for the personal sacrifices of more than 100 days, including holidays, spent in limbo.”
Before going home, the 100 Oregon Guard members must first go to Fort Bliss, Texas for “demobilization activities,” according to Kotek’s statement. This includes out-processing and medical and administrative screenings, according to federal lawyers who in November made an emergency plea to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to keep Guard troops federalized.
U.S. Northern Command ultimately demobilized 100 of the 200 troops on Nov. 17, but kept 100 at the camp. An additional 200 California Guard members deployed by Trump and Hegseth to Oregon in early October were sent back to California on Nov. 17.
Oregon Capital Chronicle
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