Portland Mayor Keith Wilson demanded U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement leave the city after federal agents used tear gas on Saturday during a protest outside an ICE facility, where witnesses said children were present. In a statement posted late Saturday night, Wilson called the gathering peaceful and said thousands of people “violated no laws, made no threat and posed no danger” to federal agents.
Witnesses said agents deployed tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets as thousands of marchers arrived at the South Waterfront ICE facility. Police monitored the crowd and made no arrests during the daytime demonstration, and the Portland Fire Bureau sent paramedics to treat people at the scene, according to police.
Erin Hoover Barnett, a former OregonLive reporter who joined the protest, said she was about 100 yards (90 meters) from the building when she saw what she described as “two guys with rocket launchers” dousing the crowd with gas. In an email to OregonLive, Barnett described the moment as terrifying for parents trying to tend to little children in strollers and for people using motorized carts as the crowd staggered back.
Messages were sent Sunday to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, seeking to confirm details of the incident, including the use of tear gas against demonstrators. The ICE facility in Portland is a field office that includes a processing center where federal officers detain and interview people to determine their legal status as U.S. residents, according to a city website.
Wilson wrote in his statement: “To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave.” He also said, “Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame,” adding later that the federal government “must, and will, be held accountable.” Wilson told officers who made the decision to use chemical agents, “go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children.”
Wilson said Portland would be imposing a fee on detention facilities that use chemical agents. His comments came as protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown spread to other cities, with separate demonstrations in Oregon and other states drawing federal involvement and street confrontations.
In Eugene, Oregon, federal agents deployed tear gas on Friday after protesters broke windows and tried to get inside the Federal Building near downtown. City police declared a riot there and ordered the crowd to disperse, according to the AP report.
The incident in Portland also followed statements by President Donald Trump on Saturday about local responsibility for policing protests. Trump posted on social media that it was up to local law enforcement agencies to police protests in their cities, while saying he instructed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to have federal agents be vigilant in guarding U.S. government facilities.
In his post, Trump said: “Please be aware that I have instructed ICE and/or Border Patrol to be very forceful in this protection of Federal Government Property.” He added that “There will be no spitting in the faces of our Officers,” and warned that if there was “no spitting,” “no punching or kicking the headlights,” and “no rock or brick throwing,” “those people will suffer an equal, or more, consequence.”