PORTLAND, Ore.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0President Trump said Saturday he will send troops to Portland, \u201cauthorizing Full Force, if necessary,\u201d to handle \u201cdomestic terrorists\u201d in Oregon\u2019s biggest city as he expands his deployments to more American metropolises. <\/p>\n
Oregon Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek responded by saying Trump is abusing his authority by ordering troops to the city, which she said is doing \u201cjust fine\u201d on its own.<\/p>\n
Trump made the announcement on social media, writing that he was directing the Department of Defense to \u201cprovide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland.\u201d He said the decision was necessary to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, which he described as \u201cunder siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.\u201d <\/p>\n
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for details on Trump\u2019s announcement. <\/p>\n
In an afternoon news conference, Kotek said she directly told Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier in the day that troops are not needed and she believes he does not have the authority to deploy the military there.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can manage our own local public safety needs. There is no insurrection. There is no threat to national security,\u201d Kotek told reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an American city. We do not need any intervention,\u201d Mayor Keith Wilson said at the news conference. \u201cThis is not a military target.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kotek said the president did not give a timetable for troops arriving. She said she told him the Oregon National Guard is not needed \u2014 but if it were, she would call it up. Trump deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles even though California Gov. Gavin Newsom opposed it.<\/p>\n
Kotek urged the public to stay calm, saying any kind of property damage or violence would not be tolerated.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s not take the bait,\u201d she said. \u201cLet\u2019s not respond to what the president is trying to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier Saturday, there was no sign of any federal presence downtown, where people jogged along the Willamette River, relaxed by a riverside fountain or rode bikes on a sunny fall day.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere\u2019s the emergency?\u201d asked resident Allen Schmertzler, 72, who said he was \u201cdisgusted\u201d by the president\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
Another resident, John McNeur, 74, called Trump\u2019s statement \u201cridiculous.\u201d He noted that he was taking \u201ca leisurely stroll\u201d along the river on a peaceful, sunny day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis place is not a city that\u2019s out of control,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s just a beautiful place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump previously threatened to send the National Guard into Chicago but has yet to follow through. A deployment in Memphis, Tenn., is expected to include about 150 troops, far fewer than were sent to the District of Columbia for Trump\u2019s crackdown or in Los Angeles in response to immigration protests. Trump also sent Marines to Los Angeles. <\/p>\n
In Memphis on Saturday, about 80 to 100 people marched to a plaza in front of City Hall to protest the expected arrival next week of the Guard and more than a dozen federal law enforcement agencies, including immigration and drug enforcement.<\/p>\n
Protesters held signs with messages such as \u201cResources Not Task Forces\u201d and \u201cMemphis don\u2019t need no occupation, Memphis don\u2019t need no government control\u201d \u2014 a play on the Pink Floyd song \u201cAnother Brick in the Wall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speakers at a news conference beforehand said that instead of federal troops and law enforcement agents, the city needs more funding for education, crime prevention, youth services and hospitals.<\/p>\n
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the Department of Defense would provide information and updates when available. \u201cWe stand ready to mobilize U.S. military personnel in support of DHS operations in Portland at the President\u2019s direction,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the Oregon National Guard, Lt. Col. Stephen Bomar, said in an email that \u201cno official requests have been received at this time\u201d for Guard support. \u201cAny requests would need to be coordinated through the Governor\u2019s office,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Oregon\u2019s congressional delegation, with the exception of GOP Rep. Cliff Bentz, demanded that the Trump administration keep federal agents and troops out of Portland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis unilateral action represents an abuse of executive authority, seeks to incite violence, and undermines the constitutional balance of power between the federal government and states,\u201d the Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter to Trump, Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.<\/p>\n
Portland, population 636,000, was the site of long-running and sometimes violent racial justice protests following George Floyd\u2019s murder by Minneapolis police in 2020. The Trump administration sent hundreds of agents, including from the U.S. Border Patrol, for the stated purpose of protecting the federal courthouse and other federal property from vandalism.<\/p>\n
Recent protests have been far more muted and focused on the area around the ICE building, located outside the city\u2019s downtown that was the heart of the 2020 protests. The building\u2019s main entrance and ground-floor windows have been boarded up and tagged with graffiti.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, the city said it would issue a land-use violation notice to the city\u2019s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building because it had been used to detain people overnight or for more than 12 hours \u2014 violations of its conditional land-use approval.<\/p>\n
Portland is one of a number of so-called sanctuary cities. There is no strict definition for sanctuary cities, but the term generally describes places that limit cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.<\/p>\n
Early Saturday, all was quiet outside that building, with no signs of protesters or law enforcement.<\/p>\n
Some federal agents have been injured and several protesters have been charged with assault. Some demonstrators also say they\u2019ve been injured. When protesters erected a prop guillotine this month, the Department of Homeland Security called it \u201cunhinged behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meantime, city groups and officials have sought to highlight the recovery of the downtown area since 2020.<\/p>\n
This summer was reportedly the busiest for pedestrian traffic since before the COVID-19 pandemic, and overall violent crime in Portland from January through June decreased by 17% this year compared with the same period in 2024, a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Assn. found. Downtown has seen a decrease in homeless tent encampments that defined the years immediately after the pandemic emergency.<\/p>\n
Since the Sept. 10 killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the Republican president has escalated his efforts to confront what he calls the \u201cradical left,\u201d which he blames for the country\u2019s problems with political violence.<\/p>\n
Trump, in comments Thursday in the Oval Office about the situation in Portland, suggested that some kind of operation was in the works.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to get out there and we\u2019re going to do a pretty big number on those people in Portland,\u201d he said, describing them as \u201cprofessional agitators and anarchists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rush and Megerian write for the Associated Press and reported from Portland and Washington, respectively. AP writers Konstantin Toropin in Washington, Adrian Sainz in Memphis and Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND, Ore.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0President Trump said Saturday he will send troops to Portland, \u201cauthorizing Full Force, if necessary,\u201d to handle…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":259888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[101639,1582,276,9958,3040,136289,2961,136297,224,2444,5337,3577,7090,136298,5996,23077,43855,136299,1810,277],"class_list":{"0":"post-259887","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-big-city","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-country","12":"tag-department","13":"tag-keith-wilson","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-late-deployment","16":"tag-los-angeles","17":"tag-los-angeles-times","18":"tag-losangeles","19":"tag-memphis","20":"tag-national-guard","21":"tag-other-mayor","22":"tag-part","23":"tag-portland","24":"tag-request","25":"tag-several-protester","26":"tag-troop","27":"tag-trump"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115278824363571566","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}