Portland's effective pushback againt ICE
The ICE facility in Portland is a surreal place. Tucked in a gentrified neighborhood full of apartment towers, a bike trail along the Willamette River, and on Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant, the graffiti-tagged building feels like an enemy outpost in an otherwise peaceful, vibrant city. The site is generally quiet these days after a huge spike in ICE activity and protests between October and March. Thanks to protests and effective lawsuits, the feds have scaled back their mass deportation campaign in Oregon – though the kidnapping of immigrants, most of them with no criminal record - continues.
I'm touring around Cascadia this week by train and transit – including three days in Portland, a city I love. I was deeply impressed by Portland's against ICE and I believe it demonstrates how Cascadia can resist Trump's fascist regime in future.
OPB recently reported on ICE's campaign, which the feds dubbed "Operation Black Rose." According to data analyzed by the University Center for Human Rights, the mass deportation campaign resulted in more than 1,100 kidnappings of immigrants in Oregon and a surge of at least 100 masked federal goons from ICE, CBP and other agencies.
Just as the surge in arrests happened, Trump attempted to federalize the Oregon National Guard to assist in the campaign. Oregon attorney general Dan Rayfield filed a lawsuit and eventually courts found the federalization illegal and Trump was forced to demobilize those troops.
The arrests generated fear in immigrant communities and sparked a wave of protests at the ICE facility. Those protests gained national attention for their whimsical nature: inflatable frog and dinosaur suits, marching bands and yoga classes, and Jack Dickinson, affectionately known as the Portland Chicken. Dickinson, with the assistance of the ACLU of Oregon, sued the feds to stop their deployment of tear gas and other "non-lethal" munitions.
ICE used these munitions indiscriminately, shooting an 84-year-old woman in the head with a pepper ball, and deploying tear gas on a peaceful rally that included children. Courts for a while limited the fed's ability to deploy tear gas unless protesters posed an imminent threat to safety. That injunction was lifted as courts continue to hear arguments in that case and another brought by residents of an affordable housing apartment building across the street from the ICE facility.
In addition to protests, neighbors set up rapid response networks, including one conducted by public school teachers in Hilsboro, a suburb with a 64% Latino population.
In addition, legal challenges to the mass deportation effort were swift and strategic. Among those leading the charge were Innovation Law Lab, CLEAR Clinic, and Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC) legal assistance organizations that have filed scores of deportation challenges and class action lawsuits. Critical to this effort was rapidly filing habeas corpus petitions, which require the government to reveal why they're detaining someone – and if they can't, are required to release them.
A lawsuit filed by Innovation Law Lab, CLEAR Clinic demanding that ICE stop warrant-less arrests received a favorable ruling in federal court in February, and that helped stop ICE's practice of "arrest first, justify later" campaign.
Portland and Minneapolis are models for how to resist the next mass deportation campaign, which is certainly coming, considering that ICE and CBP now have a combined budget of $140 billion, making them the largest combined law enforcement operation in the US.
Cascadia should follow Portland's example next time. We need to continue to use real, actionable pushback tactics (unlike the popular no-mask bans that passed the Oregon and Washington legislatures but has no mechanism to enforce).
Ultimately, Cascadia will need to assert its autonomy and tell ICE and CBP they need pack up their little fascist fortresses and leave our region. We don't want you here. Their racist mass deportation campaigns only increase fear and violence and destabilize immigrant communities that have been well established and contribute to the economic well-being and stability of our region.
Thanks for reading. Keep loving and keep fighting. --Andy
Do you appreciate Cascadia Journal's exclusive reporting on the ways the Pacific Northwest is pushing back against US fascism? If you have the means, please consider a paid subscription of just $5 per month. Each subscription helps me produce original reporting and opinionated notes on Cascadia's fight to build a more resilient and autonomous bioregion. And to those who already subscribe, thank you! --Andrew
