Portland’s mayor has issued a strong message to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, urging them to step down and vacate the city following allegations of using tear gas on peaceful protesters.
Participants in an “ICE Out” demonstration at a local immigration facility reported being subjected to tear gas, pepper balls, and rubber bullets by federal agents.
Mayor Keith Wilson, a Democrat, echoed sentiments expressed by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, calling for ICE to leave Portland.
“To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave,” Wilson declared in a public statement.
He criticized the agents for disrupting what he described as a non-violent protest, where the majority of attendees were law-abiding, posed no threat, and did not endanger federal personnel.
“Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame,” Wilson added.
Wilson told the agents to ‘go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children.’
He said that Portland will be enacting an ordinance that puts a fee on detention facilities that use tear gas.
Keith Wilson (pictured center), the mayor of Portland, Oregon told Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to ‘resign’ and leave the city after he claimed peaceful protesters were tear gassed
Demonstrators at an ‘ICE out’ protest at an immigration facility said they faced the chemical agent, as well as pepper balls and rubber bullets
Wilson also promised to document the actions of ICE agents and ‘preserving evidence’ to hold the federal government accountable.
‘Our nation will never accept a federal presence where agents wield deadly force against the very people they are sworn to serve.’
Oregon’s Democrat Governor Tina Kotek and Attorney General Dan Rayfield also spoke out against the actions of federal law enforcement.
‘Trump’s ICE has no place in Oregon. The use of tear gas against families, children, and peaceful demonstrators yesterday is a horrific abuse of authority that undermines public safety and violates constitutional rights. Federal agents must stand down and be held accountable,’ Kotek said.
The Daily Mail has reached out to a spokesperson for ICE for comment.
The reliably leftist city has been a hub of protest activity in the wake of the shootings of Pretti and Good.
A video posted to Instagram showed a little girl crying and attempted to recover from being tear gassed.
Portland police have clarified that they deployed no munitions at protesters. They made no arrests.
The reliably leftist city has been a hub of protest activity in the wake of the shootings of Pretti and Good
Demonstrations began immediately after the shooting of 37-year-old Good
The district attorney’s office has been referred a case of a man in a wheelchair being knocked over and taken to the hospital, KATU reported.
Erin Hoover Barnett, a former OregonLive reporter who joined the protest, said she was about 100 yards from the building when ‘what looked like two guys with rocket launchers’ started dousing the crowd with gas.
‘To be among parents frantically trying to tend to little children in strollers, people using motorized carts trying to navigate as the rest of us staggered in retreat, unsure of how to get to safety, was terrifying,’ Barnett wrote in an email to OregonLive.
The Portland Fire Bureau sent paramedics to treat people at the scene, police said. Police officers monitored the crowd but made no arrests Saturday.
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 US residents, according to a city website.
Saturday’s Portland protest was one of many similar demonstrations nationwide against President Donald Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in cities like Minneapolis, where in recent weeks federal agents killed two residents, Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Federal agents in Eugene, Oregon, deployed tear gas on Friday when protesters broke windows and tried to get inside the Federal Building near downtown.
City police declared a riot and ordered the crowd to disperse.
Trump posted Saturday on social media that it was up to local law enforcement agencies to police protests in their cities.
However, Trump said he has instructed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to have federal agents be vigilant in guarding US government facilities.
‘Please be aware that I have instructed ICE and/or Border Patrol to be very forceful in this protection of Federal Government Property. There will be no spitting in the faces of our Officers, there will be no punching or kicking the headlights of our cars, and there will be no rock or brick throwing at our vehicles, or at our Patriot Warriors,’ Trump wrote.
‘If there is, those people will suffer an equal, or more, consequence.’
