President Donald Trump has ordered the deployment of US troops to Portland, Oregon, authorising use of “full force” if needed, to suppress protests targeting immigration detention centres.
Trump said he was “directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland”.
He claimed that the move would help protect “any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” adding on Truth Social: “I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”
The announcement drew pushback from Democratic lawmakers, who said there was no need for federal troops to be deployed to the city.
“There is no national security threat in Portland. Our communities are safe and calm,” said Oregon Governor Tina Kotek.
At a news conference on Saturday, Kotek said that “any deployment would be an abuse of power”, and that she was coordinating with Oregon’s attorney general, Dan Rayfield, “to see if any response is necessary”.
“We will be prepared to respond if we have to,” Kotek added.
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Saturday’s announcement marks the further expansion of deployment of troops in American cities, amid a wider crackdown by the Trump administration on illegal immigration.
Trump’s post does not specify whether he intends to activate national guard or regular US military. The post also did not specify what is meant by the use of “full force”.
“We stand ready to mobilize U.S. military personnel in support of DHS operations in Portland at the President’s direction,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell told the BBC. “The Department will provide information and updates as they become available.”
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland has been targeted by protesters since early June, sometimes leading to violent clashes.
As of 8 September, the US Attorney’s Office had brought federal charges against 26 people for crimes including arson, assaulting a police officer and resisting arrest.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that demonstrators had “repeatedly attacked and laid siege to an ICE processing centre” in Portland.
In a post on the social media platform X, the department stated that several individuals had been arrested and charged with federal offences.
“Rose City Antifa, a recently designated domestic terrorist organization, illegally doxed ICE officers. They published their home address online and on public flyers. Individuals associated with Antifa also sent death threats to DHS personnel,” DHS wrote on X.
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Earlier this week, Trump signed an order formally designating antifa as a domestic terrorist organisation.
Antifa, short for “anti-fascist”, is a loosely organised movement of primarily far-left activists.
Legal experts have pointed out that there is no legal mechanism in the US that would formally establish any group as a domestic terror organisation. Such efforts, they said, could face constitutional challenges under the First Amendment, which protects free speech and assembly.
Democratic lawmakers have criticised both the president’s rhetoric and the reported actions of ICE agents in the state.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon said on Friday that there were “credible” reports that federal agents “may be replaying the 2020 playbook “, in a reference to federal forces being deployed in response to protests against the murder of George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody.
“I urge Oregonians not to fall into Trump’s attempt to incite violence,” Wyden said.
Local lawmakers have also accused ICE of going after people who are not an actual danger to society.
“ICE has said they’re targeting people for arrest and detainment who have committed crimes. That’s what they told us. But that’s not what we are seeing,” said Democratic house representative Suzanne Bonamici on Friday.
Lawmakers cited recent incidents, including the detention of a father outside his child’s preschool and a wildland firefighter who was arrested while battling fires in the Olympic National Forest.
They also pointed to a statistic published by the Cato Institute, a US think tank based in Washington DC, which reported that 65% of people detained by ICE had no criminal convictions.
Despite the backlash from Democrats, the move has drawn support from some Republican officials.
US labour secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said she had seen how “lawlessness” had turned Portland into a “crime-ridden war zone”.
In a post on X, Chavez-DeRemer, who previously served as a Republican house representative for an Oregon district, thanked Trump “for taking action to keep our ICE facilities protected and Make America Great Again”.
Earlier this year, Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington DC, and federal agents are expected to arrive in Memphis next week.
In Los Angeles, the president ordered 2,000 federal personnel to deal with unrest over raids on undocumented migrants. Clashes erupted over several days, and tear gas was used to disperse protesting crowds.
A federal judge in California ruled earlier this month that the National Guard deployment to Los Angeles was illegal, and that it violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits the power of the federal government to use military force for domestic matters.
It is unclear whether the president has legal ground to deploy federal forces to Oregon.
@ BBC
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