About 400 people marched from a park in South Portland to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building to protest the possibility of National Guard troops being deployed in the city.
Federal agents used chemical crowd control measures and arrested at least six people as the protesters reached the facility located in a residential neighborhood just two blocks away from the Willamette River. It wasn’t immediately clear who those arrested were or why they were taken.
The protest started with a peaceful rally at Elizabeth Caruthers Park at noon, then protesters marched several blocks to the federal facility. As protesters rallied and marched, a helicopter repeatedly made circles over their heads and a loud siren wailed.
Protesters included people of all ages and races, including several families with children and retirees with walkers. They held homemade signs that read “Diversity is our strength,” “Stop kidnapping our neighbors” and “ICE are the terrorists.” Some came with bikes or dogs. One wore an axolotl costume, another a Handmaid’s Tale costume and yet another a full pumpkin suit.
People also held flowers and onlookers rang handbells and honked as the protesters marched.
Among the marching crowd was Samantha Ibarra, a Marine Corps veteran who served until 2018 and attended the protest with her partner, Parrish Webber. Ibarra, 32, said she and her partner moved to Portland three weeks ago from the Bay Area. She said she’s upset over the Trump administration’s rhetoric against immigrants, since her parents are immigrants.
“I just feel like I need to be out here. My parents were supposed to come up to help us move but I just told them not to come because I was scared for them,” she told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Judy Goldman, 87, a Portland resident who lives in the retirement community building across the street from Caruthers Park also attended the rally. She said she felt the national news media’s portrayal of Portland is inaccurate and she wanted to protest the plan to deploy federal troops.
“From what I’m seeing in the news and how the president is acting, it seems like the administration is creating the issue,” Goldman said. “I live in the neighborhood and it’s been totally peaceful. It’s been fine with the regular protests for months. The police were handling it and it was peaceful.”
Goldman added: “I’ve lived long enough and was a kid when I saw what was happening in Germany and the Holocaust. The things I’m seeing now remind me of that.”
Sandy Gallardo, 34, of Portland was also among the crowd. She said she came to the protest because she is the daughter of Mexican immigrants who had had challenging encounters with immigration officers when Gallardo was a teenager. Though both parents are now U.S. citizens, the experiences have left them fearful, said Gallardo, who was born in Clackamas County and works as a school-based mental health therapist.
“I see the impact that ICE had on my family and my community and I feel the need to stand up,” she said. “I tell the kids I work with, we are brown but we still have a right to be here and to be respected.”
As protesters arrived at the ICE facility and stood next to its driveway, federal agents marched out and faced off with protesters.
Several federal agents recorded the protest from a rooftop. Next to them was also the online conservative journalist Katie Daviscourt.
At around 2 p.m., as people chanted, a larger group of federal officers clad in gas masks marched into the crowd and started pushing some of the protesters. They pointed less-lethal guns that sprayed pepper balls into the crowd and threw tear gas canisters.
The federal officers threw several protesters down to the ground, the crowd around them screaming in distress.
Protester Katelyn Cain said she saw two of the protest organizers — who just minutes before had been leading the chants as the crowd marched — arrested by federal officers. Cain said she also saw the officers knocking down an older couple. The elderly man was wearing a vest that said he is a veteran, Cain told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Federal officers retreated into the building after the arrests, calm returned and protesters did the YMCA dance. The interlude was brief. The officers reemerged just before 3 p.m. and threw a dust bomb into the crowd. The crowd, which by then had thinned to about 150 people, continued to chant.
Meanwhile, a federal judge is expected to rule today on whether to grant an order temporarily blocking President Trump’s mobilization of 200 Oregon National Guard troops to Portland’s immigration enforcement facility.
At the Friday morning hearing, U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut appeared skeptical of the Trump administration’s basis for placing the Guard members under federal control in Portland, questioning what recent clashes have prevented immigration officers from doing their job.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Oregonian/OregonLive photojournalist Allison Barr and reporter Maxine Bernstein contributed to this report.
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