Protesters gathered outside an apparent ICE detention centre in Portland, Oregon, during nationwide 'No Kings' protests, on June 14. Trump declared yesterday that he had directed troops to be sent to Portland to put down protests directed at US Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. Photo / Jordan Gale, The New York Times
The Trump Administration’s move to send troops to Portland, Oregon, has been met with opposition in the state.
President Donald Trump declared yesterday that he had authorised the the troops to use “full force” to quell protests directed at United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities.
The order was the latest instance of Trump’s use of the US military on the nation’s streets, after federal troops were sent to Washington last month in an effort to crack down on crime.
Federal agents will begin arriving in Memphis, Tennessee, as early as this week, after the president authorised the use of the National Guard there as part of a similar crackdown.
Like Trump’s other dispatches of federal forces, the Portland directive was quickly opposed by state and local officials, who called it unnecessary.
Governor Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said in an afternoon news briefing that she had spoken to the President and Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security Secretary, and told them to stay out.
She did not plan to approve the use of the state’s National Guard, she added.
“Portland is doing just fine. I made that very clear to the President,” she said from the city’s downtown riverfront as bicyclists and pontoon boats passed behind her.
“We got this. We are doing fine.
“There is no insurrection. We do not need or want federal troops in Oregon.”
Kotek, who said that she learned of the President’s declaration after “waking up to the news on social media, like everyone else”, declined to reveal what Trump had told her, other than that he had agreed to continue talking.
Trump wrote in a social media post that, at Noem’s request, he had directed Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth “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”.
He added: “I am also authorising Full Force, if necessary”.
It was not immediately clear what Trump meant by “full force”.
Portland is one of the Democratic-led cities that has been in the President’s sights; he previously threatened to send the National Guard into Chicago to combat crime, though he has not yet done so.
In a statement, the Pentagon said it was “aware of the President’s directive to mobilise military personnel to Portland”.
Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat, said in an interview that Oregon’s state and congressional leaders had not heard from the Administration before the president’s social media post, despite repeated requests for information and for a chance to provide input.
He and other civic leaders said they were puzzled by what they viewed as a fixation with Portland.
“Anytime he sees a TV show that involves even a mention of Portland, he gets all worked up. You can set your clock by it,” he said.
“A lot of his policies come by whim. So we need to push back, push back, push back until he gets another whim.”
Wyden said that he and other Democratic members of Congress were exploring ways they might respond if the Administration did take steps they considered abuses of presidential power.
Demonstrators have been camped outside the ICE building near the Willamette River in southwest Portland for several months, rarely numbering more than two dozen.
Brief, isolated skirmishes have broken out between protesters and federal law enforcement, but they have been confined to a few blocks in a neighbourhood outside the urban core.
A charter school that rented space next to the ICE building moved out this northern autumn, citing the heavy use of tear gas by federal agents and potential health risks for students.
Demonstrators have been pushing city leaders to use municipal land-use laws to close the federal facility.
The ICE building has been used for immigrant processing since 2011, and city code bans the federal agency from detaining people there for more than 12 hours.
This month, Mayor Keith Wilson, a Democrat, announced that the city would investigate whether the federal agency had violated local laws by holding people for longer than allowed.
Federal descriptions of how events have unfolded at the building in Portland run counter to accounts from local law enforcement and demonstrators.
“We’re certainly not on fire,” Bob Day, the chief of the Portland Police Bureau, said in an interview last week. “Some of what you are seeing out there just does not accurately reflect what’s happening in this city.”
Protesters at the ICE building in Portland said their days have taken on a familiar pattern.
They position themselves just outside the garage gate, then chant and hold up signs when federal cars leave every 40 minutes or so.
Their efforts draw little to no response during the day and early evening. But later, usually after a nearby tram stops running at around midnight, federal agents regularly leave the building to confront them and attempt to drive them away.
“They get violent,” said Andy Siebe, a participant in 2020 protests in Portland who was outside the ICE building yesterday. They rested in a camping chair and spoke with the many passersby who honked in support, dropped off supplies or took pictures.
“Tear gas, batons, bear spray, rubber bullets, shields,” Siebe said.
Portland police officers have been ordered to stay out of the way when federal law enforcement officials clash with demonstrators but to intervene when they see people committing acts of violence or vandalism.
There had been only 15 or 20 people participating in the latest protests each night, Siebe noted, adding that the federal activity would “change things”.
“It’s going to get people who stopped paying attention engaged again,” they said.
The shooting at an ICE facility in Dallas this past week that killed one detainee and critically injured two others has left the agency particularly sensitive to any potential security concerns at its facilities. The FBI said it was investigating the attack as “an act of targeted violence.”
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that “President Trump and Secretary Noem are taking action to restore law and order following weeks of violent riots at ICE facilities, assaults on law enforcement, and the terrorist attack at our ICE facility in Dallas.”
She added: “We are not going to allow domestic terrorists to attack our law enforcement”.
Trump signed an executive order this past week targeting antifa, a loosely defined left-wing anti-fascist movement. He threatened “investigatory and prosecutorial action” against those who financially support it.
In his order, Trump said that he was declaring antifa a “domestic terrorist organisation” — a designation that does not actually exist under US law. Anti-fascism, like fascism itself, is a broad political ideology rather than a specific organisation, and the US does not have a domestic terrorism law.
Since July, the Department of Homeland Security has been focused on protesters outside an ICE facility in Portland, saying that month that the site was “under siege”.
“Rioters have attacked law enforcement officials, destroyed federal property, and have posted death threats at the facility,” the agency said in a statement in July.
In a news conference, Portland civic leaders responded to reports of an increased federal presence, urging calm and telling residents that they believed Trump wanted to bait protesters into violent interactions with law enforcement.
“We’re in the midst of a renaissance, not chaos,” said Wilson, the city’s mayor. “If you walk out on the streets of Portland, or any day, you’ll see people with hope and businesses flourishing.
“As leaders, we are focused on bringing everybody together, not dividing us, and certainly not being part of a made-for-TV event.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Luke Broadwater, Anna Griffin and Hamed Aleaziz
Photographs by: Jordan Gale
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