This post is part of Challenging Precedent, a blog of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice examining race, law, and regulation in the Trump era.

In recent news, a federal judge temporarily blocks the deployment of National Guardsmen to Portland following ICE protests, the Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to end deportation protections for Venezuelans while a ruling vacating the termination is appealed, and a federal judge prohibits ICE from detaining unaccompanied minors in adult detention facilities upon reaching the age of 18.

On October 5th, U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut of Oregon temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying National Guardsmen from anywhere in the U.S. to Portland. Yesterday Judge Immergut extended the temporary orders for another 14 days. The court’s initial ruling came just one day after temporarily enjoining the deployment of the Oregon National Guard to the city. After receiving a request for assistance from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in putting “an end to the migrant invasion and these lawless riots,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the deployment of Oregon Guardsmen to the city against the wishes of Governor Tina Kotek. Though increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity in June had led to protests in Portland, the court’s opinion noted “it had been months since there was any sustained level of violent or disruptive protest activity” in the city. Judge Immergut further held that Trump’s deployment “exceeds the constitutional authority that Congress granted him,” and “undermine[s] the sovereign interest of Oregon as protected by the Tenth Amendment.” Despite the injunction, the Trump administration mobilized hundreds of California and Texas National Guardsmen to Portland without an official announcement, prompting the second, more expansive restraining order. The White House plans to appeal the decision.

On October 3rd, The Supreme Court issued an order allowing the Trump administration to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans while the government appeals a ruling from U.S. District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco that blocked DHS Secretary Kristi Noem from ending that status. Created by Congress in the Immigration Act of 1990, TPS protects eligible migrants from being detained and deported to countries that have been designated as having conditions that make it unsafe or inadequate for people to return. The Biden administration first granted TPS for Venezuelans in March 2021 and extended protections for an additional 18 months just two weeks before Trump took office. In February, the Trump administration subsequently vacated the extension and terminated TPS early for over 300,000 Venezuelans.

In May, the Supreme Court issued an unsigned order pausing Judge Chen’s temporary injunction while the case was being litigated. The case reached a final judgement on September 5, when Judge Chen ruled DHS did not have the lawful authority to terminate the designation and extension. After the Ninth Circuit declined to block Chen’s ruling and the administration sought emergency relief, the Supreme Court issued another unsigned order allowing DHS to terminate TPS for Venezuelans while the Government appeals. The court noted “the parties’ legal arguments and relative harms generally have not” changed so “[t]he same result that [the Court] reached in May is appropriate here.” Justice Jackson dissented, criticizing the Court for leaving “300,000 human beings…vulnerable to job loss, family separation, and deportation” and for using its “equitable power (but not [its] opinion-writing capacity) to allow this administration to disrupt as many lives as possible, as quickly as possible.”

On October 4th, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in the District of Columbia issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting ICE from detaining migrant children past their 18th birthdays. The ruling rests on an earlier case decided by Judge Contreras in 2021, which found ICE’s migrant children detention policy was a “pervasive violation” of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) and issued a five-year permanent injunction. The ICE policy at issue in that case permitted unaccompanied minors, held in shelters by the Department of Health and Human Services, to be transferred to ICE adult detention facilities upon reaching their 18th birthdays. There, the court held that federal law required unaccompanied minors who reach the age of 18 to be released to the least restrictive setting available. In most cases, that setting is in the home of a relative. On October 1, 2025, ICE purportedly changed its policies to no longer allow unaccompanied minors who turn 18, even those with approved release plans, to be released and instead required them to be transferred to adult detention facilities. Responding to an emergency motion, Judge Contreras found this automatic detention contravened the earlier permanent injunction and enjoined ICE from “implementing any new directive regarding age-outs.”

Brionna Bolaños is a Bremond Fellow and a student at Stanford Law School.