Escalating Violence Towards Protesters from Feds

In Portland, Oregon, protests are held nightly at the ICE field office, located at 4310 S Macadam St. By day, the community holds barbeques, vigils, marches, sewing circles, sign-making sessions, and demonstrations of support for immigrant neighbors and community members. By night, federal agents emerge from the building and a violent struggle ensues. Feds deploy escalating rounds of toxic gasses, pepper balls, rubber bullets, and carry out targeted arrests. Since early June, these clashes between ICE and their opposition have happened nearly every night, with more than fifty arrests made over time.

Protesters report that federal agents are consistently escalating the intensity and radius of their attacks. On July 4th, there was a call to show up to the federal office location, under the banner "No Celebration under ICE Occupation". One demonstrator, Sam(using a pseudonym to protect their identity), described the scene.

"Around 8:30pm, there was still a large crowd. On that night, people were leaving the street open to traffic. There were even protesters directing traffic."  They described the "usual arc" of a community event at the ICE field office: People were hanging out casually for a few hours, and when it got dark the DHS officers came out. "They started with tear gas in front of the building, and this continued in waves as the night went on. Each attack from the agents targeted a larger area, with gas and arrests escalating with every wave." 
The toxic gasses, varying in color between green, orange, and black, were deployed not only in front of the gate to the property, but onto the road and neighboring streets. Agents chased people down the road for targeted arrests, with one person requiring emergency medical care following the arrest. On the Ice Out of Portland instagram, protesters have been documenting and sharing photos of wounds from police arrests, munitions and physical attacks, many of which also required medical attention. This account also shares updates, events, and calls to action at the ICE office.

Portland protesters are committed to making deportation operations as difficult as possible to carry out. If appointments are cancelled, or delayed even for a month, people would have an opportunity to make a plan for their life and community in the event of deportation.

"It feels important to continue to stand our ground, despite high levels of repression," Sam said. "To continue to hold that space and make it unusable by ICE and the feds. We refuse to treat this as normal or okay. Even if we don't have the power to fully stop what's happening, we will refuse to accept it, and will make it as hard as possible." 

Direct confrontations with ICE, such as are taking place daily at the Portland field office, are also a tactic to tie up as many of their resources as possible, reducing their harm elsewhere. Border Czar Tom Homan said in an interview on FOX Business that cooperation in republican-led states enable more resources to be deployed in sanctuary cities, naming Portland, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. He told reporters at the White House, "We're going to double down, triple down on sanctuary cities."

Criticism of ICE Field Office Closure 

Some are skeptical of the tactic of forced ICE field offices closure, as it can result in more difficulty and logistical complications for those with required appointments, especially for those at risk of deportation. Street Roots published an article detailing ways the closure of ICE building blocks immigrants’ access to critical legal aid, quoting board member of Portland Immigrants Rights Coalition Natalie Lerner:

“PIRC is an organization that believes ICE should not exist,” Lerner said. “It's more a question of, what are the steps that we take toward abolition? In what order does that abolition need to happen? If we could snap our fingers and all of ICE is just gone tomorrow, that would obviously be the best.”

Lerner believes the closure of the Portland ICE field office has created confusion for attorneys and community organizers working to support people through their legal processes. Sandy Chung, executive director for the ACLU of Oregon, was also quoted in the article, voicing opposition to a petition urging Portland City Council to revoke a permit for the building where ICE operates.

“To be honest, the organizations that have been doing this work, they're not dumb,” Chung said. “If strategically taking down that ICE building would be super beneficial, we also have plenty of organizers and policy folks who would have already been working on that.”

Though ICE will not confirm if they are still using the field office on Macadam St. for appointments(only citing in a sign on the building that they are "Closed to the Public") lawyers and advocates report that there have not been immigration-related appointments held there since June.

ICE Budget Increase and National Escalation 

People of varying groups and backgrounds are building strategies to combat the onslaught of attacks on immigrant communities. Detentions, raids, and deportations are only expected to escalate as ICE receives massive budget increases. According to the American Immigration Council, the so-called big beautiful bill allocates $45 billion for building new immigration detention centers, including family detention facilities, a 265 percent annual budget increase to ICE’s current detention budget. It is a 62 percent larger budget than the entire federal prison system and could result in daily detention of at least 116,000 non-citizens. There will also be $46.6 billion put into border wall construction. This is the largest investment in detention and deportation in U.S. history.

As the administration continues to escalate its war on immigrant communities, Portlanders are using a wide variety of strategies to protect themselves and one another, and interfere with the federal government’s attacks on immigrant communities. Interruption of detentions at court proceedings, the prevention of detainee transport, provision of legal aid, advice and accompaniment for people with court appointments, community defense centers for rapid response, or  neighborhood-wide plans for responding to feds - these are some of the ways people all over the country and the world are demonstrating their resolution to resist.