{"id":288930,"date":"2025-10-09T09:51:16","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T09:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/288930\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T09:51:16","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T09:51:16","slug":"portland-oregon-has-been-in-trumps-sights-for-years-this-is-how-we-got-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/288930\/","title":{"rendered":"Portland, Oregon, has been in Trump\u2019s sights for years. This is how we got here"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n President Donald Trump has taken aim in his second term at some of the country\u2019s largest Democratic-run cities \u2013 Chicago<\/a>, Los Angeles<\/a>, Washington, DC<\/a> \u2013 sending in federal officers and, in some cases, the US military to aid immigration enforcement and root out what he calls rampant crime.\n <\/p>\n

\n But one of his targets isn\u2019t even among the country\u2019s biggest 30 metro areas. Portland, Oregon \u2013 along the Willamette and Columbia rivers in a valley of Mount Hood \u2013 also fell short last year of the 30 largest US cities with the highest violent crime rates, according to the Real Time Crime Index<\/a> \u2013 and its violent crime numbers have been dropping.\n <\/p>\n

\n Though the president\u2019s attacks on Portland have escalated in recent months \u2013 he\u2019s described it as \u201cwar-ravaged\u201d and tried to send in National Guard troops<\/a> over state and local leaders\u2019 objections \u2013 Trump has had his sights on the Pacific Northwest city stretching back to his first term, when protests erupted at the same Immigration and Customs Enforcement building now at the epicenter of demonstrations.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThis isn\u2019t a peaceful protest that\u2019s under control, like many on the left have claimed, it\u2019s radical violence,\u201d White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson told CNN on Wednesday, citing<\/a> \u201crioters \u2026 charged for crimes including arson and assaulting police officers.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cEarlier this month, Antifa militants brought a guillotine to the ICE facility in Portland,\u201d she added<\/a>. \u201cPresident Trump is taking lawful action to protect federal law enforcement officers and address the out-of-control violence that local residents have complained about and Democrat leaders have failed to stop.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Here\u2019s how we got to this point:\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n Oregon hasn\u2019t voted for a Republican for president since 1984<\/a>, and Democrats have held a trifecta<\/a> \u2013 controlling the governorship, plus the state Senate and House \u2013 for 12 straight years.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cOregon is one of those states where, as soon as the polls close, it gets declared in favor of the Democratic candidate,\u201d said Tung Yin, a professor at Portland\u2019s Lewis & Clark Law School who studies national security law.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe know that the president seems to care a lot about where he won votes and where he lost votes,\u201d Yin told CNN. \u201cAnd he seems to be out for some kind of payback for the places that he didn\u2019t do well in.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Long before Trump became president, Oregon\u2019s largest city had a tradition of protest and the sort of progressive politics<\/a> he abhors, from environmentalism to LGBTQ+ rights. The state in 1987 became the first in the country<\/a> to declare itself a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants, and the Portland City Council declared its own sanctuary policy in 2017<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Portland also is said to be the home<\/a> of one of the oldest cells<\/a> of the decentralized, far-left \u201canti-fascist,\u201d movement known as Antifa<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n When Trump first won the White House in 2016, protests broke out in Democratic-led cities across the country, including Portland.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cVery unfair!\u201d he responded on X<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\"Protesters<\/p>\n

\n By the summer of 2018, protesters\u2019 ire had homed in on the White House policy of criminally prosecuting anyone who crossed the border illegally, which led to the separation of hundreds of children from their parents. Protesters<\/a> in Portland set up outside an ICE building<\/a>, calling their demonstration \u201cOccupy ICE PDX.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump soon was calling Portland out by name.\n <\/p>\n

\n In a letter to state and local leaders<\/a>, the president mentioned \u201crepugnant hostility directed toward selfless ICE employees in Portland, Oregon,\u201d from \u201canarchist protestors.\u201d Similar protests also spun up in New York, Los Angeles, Detroit and other cities.\n <\/p>\n

\n The following summer, Trump delivered a more direct warning: \u201cPortland is being watched very closely,\u201d he posted<\/a>, adding he was weighing naming the amorphous Antifa<\/a> an \u201cORGANIZATION OF TERROR.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n It was these demonstrations that \u201chelp set the stage for 2020,\u201d said Chris Shortell, a political science professor at Portland State University. \u201cAnd I think 2020 is a critical moment.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n That was the year nationwide protests erupted<\/a> over the killing of Black father George Floyd<\/a> by a White police officer on a Minneapolis street. A bystander\u2019s video of the officer\u2019s knee on Floyd\u2019s neck for more than 9 minutes as he repeated, \u201cI can\u2019t breathe,\u201d prompted intense public outrage and refueled<\/a> the Black Lives Matter movement.\n <\/p>\n

\n As unrest flared in the nation\u2019s capital, Trump quickly called up<\/a> the National Guard. Elsewhere, he claimed<\/a> local leaders had lost control, and in June 2020, he signed an executive order<\/a> allowing the deployment of Department of Homeland Security officers to protect federal property.\n <\/p>\n

\n In downtown Portland, thousands rallied for over 100 days<\/a>. Mostly peaceful daytime protests at times devolved at night into rioting and arson. Police regularly deployed tear gas and rubber bullets as demonstrators shut down traffic on bridges and streets around the Multnomah County Justice Center and adjacent Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse.\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n Trump wanted local leaders in Portland to ask him to call in troops, saying he would \u201cbring in National Guard, end the problem immediately.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cASK!\u201d he implored on X<\/a>. Without a request for any assistance, Trump still sent in more than 700 officers from federal agencies \u2013 but did not deploy the National Guard.\n <\/p>\n

\n The arrival of federal law enforcement raised tensions<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Federal agents beat and pepper-sprayed<\/a> a veteran in Naval Academy gear and tear-gassed the mayor<\/a>. A pro-Trump protester was shot and killed<\/a> that August, and Trump gloated<\/a> when federally deputized law enforcement officers shot his suspected killer.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe sent in the US Marshals,\u201d Trump said during a campaign rally in North Carolina, adding it \u201ctook 15 minutes (and) it was over.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Local, state and federal Democratic leaders were quick to denounce the federal presence in Portland. Then-Mayor Ted Wheeler told Trump<\/a> to \u201csupport us\u201d or \u201cstay the hell out of the way.\u201d Then-Gov. Kate Brown called Trump\u2019s actions<\/a> \u201ca blatant abuse of power.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Oregon\u2019s attorney general at the time sued the federal government, and two of its US House members joined a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies, alleging federal agents violated their 10th Amendment rights.\n <\/p>\n

\n As Trump\u2019s second term got underway, it was clear he hadn\u2019t forgotten about Portland. When his Department of Education released its first list of five colleges it would probe over alleged antisemitism<\/a>, Portland State \u2013 a large public school<\/a> with a 91% acceptance rate \u2013 was among elite universities like Columbia and Northwestern.\n <\/p>\n

\n After protests against Trump\u2019s immigration policies revved up again this summer \u2013 including near the Portland ICE site at the center of 2018 actions \u2013 the president called out Portland<\/a> as \u201cwar-ravaged\u201d and followed through on his first-term promise to designate Antifa a terrorist organization<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\"Police<\/p>\n

\n And unlike in 2020, when he pressed local leaders to seek his military support to put down protests, Trump in late September \u2013 against locals\u2019 wishes \u2013 simply announced the federalization<\/a> of 200 members of the Oregon National Guard. A Trump-appointed federal judge has temporarily blocked<\/a> such a troop deployment from anywhere to the city.\n <\/p>\n

\n But even as Trump\u2019s descriptions of Portland still recall \u2013 to \u201ca point of obsession\u201d \u2013 images of violent nighttime protests downtown in 2020, this year\u2019s public shows of resistance at the west side ICE building are \u201cso different,\u201d Shortell said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Since nightly protests began this June, 40 arrests were made<\/a> through early Wednesday in the South Waterfront area, police said. That compares with over 500 people<\/a> arrested during the 2020 protests.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Monday night, journalists, protesters, Trump supporters and onlookers mingled within a single block of the ICE facility, a CNN crew witnessed<\/a>. At that protest\u2019s height, the crowd numbered 80 to 100 people, far fewer than the thousands who gathered nightly in 2020.\n <\/p>\n

\"Protesters<\/p>\n

\n Given Trump\u2019s continued characterization of Portland in line with the 2020 scenes, some local leaders and organizers suspect the federal government may be trying to agitate protesters, Shortell said.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think that there is some caution on the part of state and local leadership about making Oregon a target,\u201d the Portland State professor said. \u201cWe know how easy it is to be a target, and we know that President Trump already views us as a target.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n CNN has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security about claims the president is targeting Portland.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump wants to \u201ccreate the impression of chaos\u201d at demonstrations outside Portland\u2019s ICE facility to \u201cjustify more authoritarian power,\u201d Sen. Jeff Merkley told CNN this week.\n <\/p>\n

\n Now \u2013 five years after he introduced a bill to stop the Trump administration from deploying federal forces in Portland \u2013 Merkley has another message<\/a> for his constituents:\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cDon\u2019t take the bait.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Donald Trump has taken aim in his second term at some of the country\u2019s largest Democratic-run cities…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":288931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[50,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-288930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115343595076052990","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288930","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=288930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}