Since June 2025, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Oregon, has seen daily protests against the government’s immigration policies. Though relatively small in numbers, activists’ strategy of simply blocking the building’s driveway is an effective way to disrupt operations, and demonstrators are often met with force from federal police, who’ve arrested scores of people and routinely use rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse crowds.
When President Trump threatened to send the National Guard to Portland in September, the scenes outside ICE detention centers and other facilities came under increased scrutiny from media and politicians. Only by then the protesters weren’t just left-wing activists. Some were pro-ICE counter demonstrators emboldened by Trump’s posturing, who’d come to flag-wave and film the proceedings, using their cameras to provoke skirmishes with protesters while spinning a story of liberal lawlessness run amok. Several were even allowed to embed with federal agents, and their footage used to identify and pursue demonstrators. By the end of October, Portland’s ICE protests had become a content farm for the parallel battle online.
So far, Trump’s attempts to deploy the military to Portland have been successfully repelled by the courts. But as the fight against ICE becomes a nationwide imperative, the spirit of resistance in the city George H.W. Bush dubbed “Little Beirut” should not be underestimated. Since the January 2026 killings of activists Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, efforts outside Portland’s ICE facility have again intensified.
On January 31, a coalition of more than 30 labor unions organized a rally and protest march from a nearby park. The event was attended by several thousand sign-waving supporters, including many families with young children and elderly people, who after listening to speeches from union leaders, walked unsuspectingly toward the ICE building.
As they approached, federal agents abruptly inundated the neighborhood with tear gas and flash-bang grenades, causing panic in the crowd and prompting paramedics with the Portland Fire Bureau to treat people at the scene. DHS would later dismiss the incident and City Hall’s condemnation of the attack, stating that Mayor Keith Wilson “should be grateful to our brave law enforcement officers for cleaning up the streets of Portland.”
This photo essay was produced with support from Magnum Foundation and the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.
