‘Rioters have been charged with arson and assaulting police officers … this isn’t a peaceful protest that’s under control,’ a White House spokeswoman said.
PORTLAND, Ore.—Hundreds of protesters lined the entrance of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) offices Friday evening, chanting anti-ICE slogans and shouting threats as federal agents watched from behind a metal gate.
“That overhang would be great to hang you all,” a woman clad in black said through a loudspeaker, while pointing her finger at the building. “We could fit twelve of you on each side … now that would be efficient.
President Donald Trump’s attempts to send the National Guard to the area have been blocked by a federal judge after the states of Oregon and California and the city of Portland brought a lawsuit against the Trump administration seeking to block the deployment. As the legal wrangling continues, the deployment of national guardsmen is on hold as protests persist.
On Saturday night, ICE offices in Portland were met with an even bigger demonstration. Protesters included an Antifa presence as well as a small crowd of ICE supporters, one of whom held a sign that read “God Bless ICE.”
Other protesters used megaphones to lead chants of “ICE out of Portland!”
Shortly before 9 p.m., vehicles leaving the ICE facility got support from dozens of federal agents, who pushed back crowds to create clear exits to local freeways.
Some agents armed with pepper-ball guns, a less lethal option that shoots a powdered-chemical agent with similar effects to pepper spray, fired dozens of rounds to move protesters back almost one block from the facility.
As protests continued on Sunday, a federal judge again blocked the deployment of National Guard members—this time from California—by expanding the scope of her order.
Trump announced on Sept. 27 that he would federalize the Oregon National Guard to intervene in the consistent unrest and vandalism striking Portland’s federal facilities, which include an ICE office in the city’s South Waterfront area.
“President Trump is taking lawful action to protect federal law enforcement officers and address the out-of-control violence that local residents have complained about, and Democrat leaders have failed to stop,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Epoch Times.
“Rioters in Portland have been charged for crimes including arson and assaulting police officers … this isn’t a peaceful protest that’s under control,” Jackson said.
The deployment was halted on Oct. 4, when the order to disperse the troops to federal facilities was temporarily restrained by U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut.
The president then federalized California National Guard members. In a statement on Oct. 5, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said that troops from the California National Guard were “on the way” to Oregon against his wishes.
“At the direction of the President, approximately 200 federalized members of the California National Guard are being reassigned from duty in the greater Los Angeles area to Portland, Oregon, to support U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell told The Epoch Times on Sunday.
On Sunday evening, the troop deployment of the California National Guard was blocked by Immergut, who released a broadened restraining order that now temporarily restricts any National Guard troops from relocating to the state of Oregon. The restraining order on the troop deployments both in and out of the state of Oregon will remain in effect until at least Oct. 19.
The troops arrived in Oregon on Monday. They are stationed at Camp Withycombe, 11 miles from the city of Portland, according to Oregon officials.
The administration has filed an emergency appeal with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, seeking a stay of the restraining order Immergut issued Saturday.
Led by Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, more than a dozen Oregon mayors signed a letter Sept. 29 “ to reject the unprecedented militarization of law and immigration enforcement.”
