The ICE Facility in Portland, Oregon has been in the news for its constant protests and resistance against DHS & ICE activity. I spent a night embedded in the Portland ICE protesters. Here’s what I saw, what is true, and what isn’t.
Protests here aren’t new. Portland carries them like muscle memory, but this night felt heavier.
Less performative.
People weren’t arriving energized; they were arriving resolved. This wasn’t about making noise. It was about being present where power had made itself visible.
The protest centered around U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a federal presence that looms especially large in a city that calls itself a sanctuary while existing under national authority. For many gathered, ICE wasn’t a policy debate—it was a lived fear. Friends detained without warning. Family members who stopped answering phones. Kids who learned early how to keep contingency plans. The chants reflected that reality: repetitive, tired, almost mournful. Not anger for attention, but grief with nowhere else to go.
Later, the gates opened to allow a vehicle to pass. Agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol, and Department of Homeland Security moved through the entrance and were met with chants from protestors. Nothing was thrown. No threats were made. What I recorded showed people using their voices - angry, frustrated, yes -but nonviolent.
Minutes later, the most disturbing moment of the night unfolded. Seemingly out of nowhere, police deployed pepper spray directly into the faces of two people standing near the line.
This pattern repeated for hours: doors opening, officers engaging the crowd, force deployed, then retreat - over and over again. What you see in the footage is intense and chaotic, but it does not meet the definition of a riot. There was no looting. No fires. No destruction. Aside from two protestors briefly fighting each other, the crowd did nothing beyond chanting.
I didn’t agree with everything that was said that night. That isn’t the point. The point is that people have the right to speak -in whatever fashion they desire without being met with disproportionate force. You don’t have to like a chant to defend the voice behind it. And what I witnessed was a city using its voice, only to have that voice answered with violence. One thing was clear by the end of the night: there was no justification for escalating this moment further—and absolutely no need for the military to be anywhere near it.