military troop

PORTLAND, Ore. — There is a rhetorical battle raging here in this heavily Democratic city, known for its delicious coffee, plethora of fancy restaurants, bespoke doughnuts and also for its small faction of black-clad activists.

It started Saturday when President Trump suddenly announced that he was sending the National Guard to “war-ravaged” Portland — where a small group of demonstrators have been staging a monthslong protest at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building south of downtown.

Oregon officials have pushed back forcefully, flooding their own social media with images of colorful cafe tables, sun-drenched farmers markets, rose gardens in full bloom and parks bursting with children, families and frolicking dogs. Officials would prefer the city be known for its Portlandia vibe, and are begging residents to stay peaceful and not give the Trump administration a protest spectacle.

A protester waves to Department of Homeland Security officials as they walk to the gates of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility after inspecting an area outside in Portland, Ore.

(Jenny Kane / Associated Press)

“There is no need or legal justification for military troops,” Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek has said, over and over again, on her Instagram and in texts to President Trump that have been released publicly. Officials have gone to court seeking an order to stop the deployment, with a hearing set for Friday.

But the president seems resolute. In a Tuesday speech before a gathering of generals and admirals, he sketched out a controversial vision of dispatching troops to Democratic cities “as training grounds for our military” to combat an “invasion from within.” He described Portland as “a nightmare” that “looks like a warzone … like World War II.”

“The Radical Left’s reign of terror in Portland ends now,” a White House press release read, “with President Donald J. Trump mobilizing federal resources to stop Antifa-led hellfire in its tracks.”

Trump’s targeting of Portland comes after he deployed troops to Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles, and threatened to do so elsewhere. The president says he is delivering on campaign pledges to restore public safety, but detractors say he’s attempting to intimidate and provoke Democratic strongholds, while distracting the nation from his various controversies.

As they wait to see whether and when the National Guard will arrive, city residents this week reacted with a mixture of rage, bafflement and sorrow.

A man rests under a public art sculpture in downtown Portland, Ore.

(Richard Darbonne / For The Times)

Many acknowledged that Portland has problems: Homelessness and open drug abuse are endemic, and encampments crowd some sidewalks. The city’s downtown has never recovered from pandemic closures and rioting that took place during George Floyd protests in 2020.

More recently, Intel — one of Oregon’s largest private employers — announced it was laying off 2,400 employees in a county just west of Portland. Like Los Angeles and many other cities, Portland has seen a big drop in tourism this year, a trend that city leaders say is not helped by Trump’s military interventions.

“We need federal help to renew our infrastructure, and build affordable housing, to help clean our rivers and plant trees,” said Portland Mayor Keith Wilson on his social media. “Instead of help, they’re sending armored vehicles and masked men.”

All across the city this week, residents echoed similar themes.

“Nothing is happening here. This is a gorgeous, peaceful city,” said Hannah O’Malley, who was snacking on french fries at a table with a view of the Willamette River outside the Portland Sports Bar and Grill.

Patrons are reflected in the window at Honey Pearl Cafe PDX in downtown Portland.

(Richard Darbonne / For The Times)

The restaurant was just a few blocks from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement building where the ongoing demonstration has become the latest focus of the president’s ire against the city.

A small group of people — a number of them women in their 60s and 70s with gray braids and top-of-the-line rain jackets — have been congregating here for months to protest the federal immigration crackdown.

In June, there were several clashes with law enforcement at the site. Police declared a riot one night, and on another night made several arrests outside the facility, including one person accused of choking a police officer. On Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that they had arrested “four criminal illegal aliens” who allegedly conducted laser strikes on a Border Patrol helicopter “in an attempt to temporarily blind the pilot.”

But day in and day out, the protests have been largely peaceful and fairly small and nothing the city’s police force can’t handle, according to city officials and the protesters themselves.

On Monday afternoon, a group of about 40 people including grandmothers, parents and their children, and a man in a chicken costume, held flowers and signs. A few yelled abuse through a metal gate at ICE officers standing in the driveway.

People protest outside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Sept. 28 in Portland, Ore.

(Jenny Kane / Associated Press)

“We’re so scary,” joked Kat Barnard, 67, a retired accountant for nonprofits who said she began protesting a few months ago, fitting it in between caring for her grandson. She added that she has found a sense of community while standing against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. “I’ve met so many people,” she said. “It’s just beautiful. It makes me happy.”

A few miles away, in the cafe at the city’s famed bookstore, Powell’s Books, a trio of retired friends bemoaned their beloved city’s negative image.

“This is the most peaceful, kind community I’ve ever lived in” said Lynne Avril, 74, who moved to Portland from Phoenix a few years ago. Avril, a retired illustrator who penned the artwork for the young Amelia Bedelia books, said she routinely walks home alone late at night through the city’s darkened streets, and feels perfectly safe doing so.

The president “wants another spectacle,” added Avril’s friend, Signa Schuster, 73, a retired estate manager.

“That’s what we’re afraid of,” answered Avril.

“There’s no problem here,” added Annie Olsen, 72, a retired federal worker. “It’s all performative and stupid.”

Still, the women said, they are keenly aware that their beloved city has a negative reputation nationally. Avril said that when she told friends in Phoenix that she had decided to move to Portland, “People were like: ‘Why would you move here [with] all the violence?’”

Olsen sighed and nodded. “So much misinformation,” she said.

In the front lobby of the famed bookstore, the local bestseller lists provided a window into many residents’ concerns. Two books on authoritarianism and censorship — George Orwell’s “1984” and Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” — were on the shelves. Over in nonfiction, it was the same story, with “How Fascism Works” and “On Tyranny” both making appearances.

The Willamette River runs through downtown Portland, Ore.

(Richard Darbonne / For The Times)

But outside, the sky was blue and bright despite the rain in the forecast and many residents were doing what Portlanders do with an unexpected gift from the weather gods: They were jogging and biking along the Willamette River, and sitting in outdoor cafes sipping their city’s famous coffee and nibbling on buttery pastries.

“Trump is unhinged,” said Shannon O’Connor, 57. She said that Portland has problems for sure — “homelessness, fentanyl, a huge drug problem” — but unrest is not among them.

Sprawled on a sidewalk near a freeway on-ramp, a man calling himself “Rabbit” was panhandling for money accompanied by his two beagle-pit bull mixes, Pooh Bear and Piglet.

Rabbit, 48, said he hadn’t heard of the president’s plan to send in the National Guard, but didn’t think it was necessary. He had come to Portland two years ago “to get away from all the craziness,” he said, and found it to be safe. “I haven’t been threatened yet,” he said, then knocked on wood.

Many residents said they think the president may be confusing what is happening in Portland now with a period in 2020 in which the city was briefly convulsed over Black Live Matter protests.

“We had a lot of trouble then,” said a woman who asked to be referred to only as “Sue” for fear of being doxed. “Nothing like that now.” A lifelong Portlander, she is retired and among those who have been demonstrating at the ICE facility south of downtown.

She and other residents said they have noticed that clips of the riots and other violence from 2020 have recently been recirculating on social media and even some cable news shows.

“Either he is mistaken or it is part of his propaganda,” she said of the president’s portrayal of Portland, adding that it makes her “very sad. I’ve never protested until this go-around. But we have to do something.”

As afternoon turned to evening Tuesday, the blue skies over the city gave way to clouds and drizzle. The parks and outdoor cafes emptied out.

As night fell, the retired women and children who had been protesting outside the ICE facility went home, and more and more younger people began to take their places.

By 10 p.m., law enforcement was massed on the roof of the ICE building in tactical gear. Black-clad protesters — watched over by local television reporters and some independent media — played cat and mouse with the officers, stepping toward the building only to be repelled by rounds of pepper balls.

A 39-year-old man, who asked to be called “Mushu” and who had only his eyes visible amid his black garb, stood on the corner across the street, gesturing to the independent media livestreaming the protests. “They are showing that hell that is Portland,” he said, his voice dripping with irony.

About the same time, Katie Daviscourt, a reporter with the Post Millennial, posted on X that she had been “assaulted by an Antifa agitator.” She also tweeted that “the suspect escaped into the Antifa safe house.”

A few minutes later, a group of officers burst out of a van and appeared to detain one of the protesters. Then the officers dispersed, and the standoff resumed.

Around the corner, a couple with gray hair sporting sleek rain jackets walked their little dog along the street. If they were concerned about the made-for-video drama that was playing out a few yards away, they didn’t show it. They just continued to walk their dog.

On Wednesday morning, the president weighed in again, writing on Truth Social, “Conditions continue to deteriorate into lawless mayhem.”

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Trump administration’s deployment of U.S. military troops to Los Angeles during immigration raids earlier this year was illegal.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer found the deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which limited the use of the military for law enforcement purposes. He stayed his ruling to give the administration a chance to appeal.

“President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have stated their intention to call National Guard troops into service in other cities across the country … thus creating a national police force with the President as its chief,” Breyer wrote.

The ruling could have implications beyond Los Angeles.

Trump, who sent roughly 5,000 Marines and National Guard troops to L.A. in June in a move that was opposed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, issued an executive order declaring a public safety emergency in D.C. The order invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act that places the Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control.

In June, Breyer ruled that Trump broke the law when he mobilized thousands of California National Guard members against the state’s wishes.

In a 36-page decision, Breyer wrote that Trump’s actions “were illegal — both exceeding the scope of his statutory authority and violating the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution.”

But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals paused that court order, allowing the troops to remain in Los Angeles while the case plays out in federal court. The appellate court found the president had broad, though not “unreviewable,” authority to deploy the military in American cities.

In his Tuesday ruling Breyer added: “The evidence at trial established that Defendants systematically used armed soldiers (whose identity was often obscured by protective armor) and military vehicles to set up protective perimeters and traffic blockades, engage in crowd control, and otherwise demonstrate a military presence in and around Los Angeles. In short, Defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act.”

The Trump administration argued in federal court Wednesday that any judicial intervention to curtail its deployment of military troops to Los Angeles would endanger federal immigration agents and undermine the president’s authority to keep American cities safe.

Attorneys for President Trump called California’s request Tuesday for a temporary restraining order barring those deployments a “crass political stunt endangering American lives” amid violent protests over immigration raids in the city.

If granted, they wrote, a restraining order would prevent Trump “from exercising his lawful statutory and constitutional power” as commander in chief to ensure federal facilities and personnel are protected and that the nation’s immigration laws are adequately enforced.

“There is no rioters’ veto to enforcement of federal law,” they wrote. “And the President has every right under the Constitution and by statute to call forth the National Guard and Marines to quell lawless violence directed against enforcement of federal law.”

Hindering the administration’s deployment of troops, the attorneys argued, “would be constitutionally anathema. And it would be dangerous.”

The administration was responding to California’s request Tuesday that U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer issue a restraining order blocking Trump’s and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s deployments of thousands of state National Guard troops and hundreds of Marines to L.A.

The troops were deployed without the request or approval of Gov. Gavin Newsom or city leaders, who have called their presence unnecessary, politically motivated and a move to increase tensions on the streets, rather than reduce them.

Trump and other administration officials have defended the deployments as necessary, and in their filing Wednesday, the president’s attorneys argued that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents had been targeted in violent attacks and that federal facilities had been damaged and defaced.

They also said that local police had acknowledged things had spun out of control and that their response had been inadequate to restore order.

Trump’s attorneys included with their opposition a written declaration from Ernesto Santacruz Jr., field office director for ICE’s enforcement and removal operations unit in Los Angeles. He described how federal agents faced violence from protesters during a raid in the Garment District, near a Home Depot store in Paramount, and at a secure ICE processing facility downtown.

Santacruz said federal immigration officials were also having their personal information spread by protesters online, and that efforts by the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol to restore order and address the threats on the street were inadequate.

“Even with the LAPD, LASD, and CHP all engaged in the ensuing law enforcement activities, I believe the safety of local federal facilities and safety of those conducting immigration enforcement operations in this area of responsibility requires additional manpower and resources,” Santacruz wrote.

The administration’s arguments, if adopted by the court, could have implications elsewhere. Similar demonstrations against immigration raids have erupted in San Francisco and Santa Ana and across the country, including in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, New York and Seattle. More protests were scheduled to coincide with a large military parade in Washington on Saturday.

Newsom and California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta first filed a lawsuit over the L.A. deployments Monday, arguing they are unconstitutional under the 10th Amendment — violating state sovereignty and clear federal law limiting the use of military forces for domestic policing, including the Posse Comitatus Act.

They said Tuesday that a restraining order was necessary on an emergency basis to prevent “imminent, irreparable harm” to the state, arguing that the Trump administration intended for the military troops to “accompany federal immigration enforcement officers on raids throughout Los Angeles.”

Bonta said Trump was using military personnel as “a political pawn” to “create a confrontational situation.” Newsom said the federal government was turning the military against American citizens in a way that “threatens the very core of our democracy.” Trump, he said, was “behaving like a tyrant, not a President.”

Constitutional scholars and members of Congress also have raised concerns about the executive branch deploying military assets to quell street protests, suggesting such tactics are most commonly used by authoritarian strongmen and dictators.

A coalition of 18 other state attorneys general issued a statement Wednesday backing Bonta and California’s lawsuit, saying Trump’s decision to deploy troops without the consent of California’s leaders was “unlawful, unconstitutional, and undemocratic.”

“The federal administration should be working with local leaders to keep everyone safe, not mobilizing the military against the American people,” said the statement, which was joined by the attorneys general of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Vermont.

In their response to California’s restraining order request Wednesday, the president’s attorneys said the military forces in L.A. would not be directly engaged in policing, and that state officials had offered zero evidence to suggest otherwise.

“Neither the National Guard nor the Marines are engaged in law enforcement. Rather, they are protecting law enforcement, consistent with longstanding practice and the inherent protective power to provide for the safety of federal property and personnel,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

A hearing on the state’s request for a restraining order is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Thursday. The outcome could potentially affect how federal resources are deployed at future demonstrations in L.A. and beyond, including in coming days.

The administration has said immigration raids will continue in L.A. and nationwide. Trump has warned that any protesters who show up at the military parade in Washington will be “met with heavy force.”

The parade is for the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army, according to the administration, but critics have derided it as an authoritarian show of strongman power by Trump — whose birthday is also Saturday.