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Portland Mayor Demands ICE Leave City 02/02 06:17
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) -- The mayor of Portland, Oregon, demanded U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement leave his city after federal agents
launched tear gas at a crowd of demonstrators -- including young children --
outside an ICE facility during a weekend protest that he characterized as
peaceful.
Witnesses said agents deployed tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets as
thousands of marchers arrived at the South Waterfront facility on Saturday.
Erin Hoover Barnett, a former OregonLive reporter who joined the protest, said
she was about 100 yards (90 meters) from the building when "what looked like
two guys with rocket launchers" started dousing the crowd with gas.
"To be among parents frantically trying to tend to little children in
strollers, people using motorized carts trying to navigate as the rest of us
staggered in retreat, unsure of how to get to safety, was terrifying," Barnett
wrote in an email to OregonLive.
Messages were sent Sunday to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which
oversees ICE, seeking to confirm details of the incident, including that
federal agents deployed tear gas against demonstrators.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said the daytime demonstration was peaceful,
"where the vast majority of those present violated no laws, made no threat and
posed no danger" to federal agents.
"To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this
facility: Leave," Wilson wrote in a statement Saturday night. "Through your use
of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy
and replaced it with shame."
The Portland Fire Bureau sent paramedics to treat people at the scene,
police said. Police officers monitored the crowd but made no arrests Saturday.
The ICE facility in Portland is a field office that includes a processing
center where federal officers detain and interview people to determine their
legal status as U.S. residents, according to a city website.
Saturday's Portland protest was one of many similar demonstrations
nationwide against President Donald Trump administration's immigration
crackdown in cities like Minneapolis, where in recent weeks federal agents
killed two residents, Alex Pretti and Renee Good.
Federal agents in Eugene, Oregon, deployed tear gas on Friday when
protesters broke windows and tried to get inside the Federal Building near
downtown. City police declared a riot and ordered the crowd to disperse.
Trump posted Saturday on social media that it was up to local law
enforcement agencies to police protests in their cities. However, Trump said he
has instructed Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to have federal agents
be vigilant in guarding U.S. government facilities.
"Please be aware that I have instructed ICE and/or Border Patrol to be very
forceful in this protection of Federal Government Property. There will be no
spitting in the faces of our Officers, there will be no punching or kicking the
headlights of our cars, and there will be no rock or brick throwing at our
vehicles, or at our Patriot Warriors," Trump wrote. "If there is, those people
will suffer an equal, or more, consequence."
Wilson said Portland would be imposing a fee on detention facilities that
use chemical agents.
The federal government "must, and will, be held accountable," the mayor
said. "To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look
in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children."
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