Threats of federal action in Portland won’t solve the city’s problems

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump said he would consider sending Oregon National Guard soldiers to “wipe them out,” referring to protesters outside Portland’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building near the Willamette River.

Earlier this year, he sent National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to protests.

“Clashes between protesters and federal agents flared again Sept. 1 and were broadcast on Fox News,” according to The Oregonian.

In a recent Fox News interview, the president said he hadn’t been considering Portland for a troop deployment but was “going to look at it now” after learning about the protests on television the previous night.

He said the protesters were “paid terrorists,” based on the signs he saw demonstrators holding, The Oregonian reported.

“When we go there — if we go to Portland, we’re going to wipe them out. They’re going to be gone,” the president said on Fox, according to The Oregonian.

The president went on to accuse the protesters of ruining Portland.

“They’ve ruined that city. I have people that used to live in Portland. They’ve left. Most of them have left, but what they’ve done to that place is just, it’s like, it’s like living in hell,” he said on Fox.

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek is the commander of the Oregon National Guard under normal circumstances, but the force could go to federal control under laws such as the Insurrection Act of 1807, signed into law by President Thomas Jefferson.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson rejected the president’s statements.

“Like other mayors across the country, I have not asked for — and do not need — federal intervention. We are proud that Portland police have successfully protected freedom of expression while addressing occasional violence and property destruction that takes place during protests at the ICE facility in Portland, the mayor said in a statement, as reported by The Oregonian.

Bloomberg reported earlier this month that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem warned demonstrators in Portland against “posting fliers with ICE officials’ photos and addresses, threatening those who don’t comply with prosecution.

In a “keep Portland weird” moment, Portlanders posted on social media pictures of roses, hiking trails and sunsets juxtaposed with “living in hell.”

How hellish is Portland? Here’s what the numbers and some residents say.

According to the Brookings Institution’s Metro Monitor, which track a variety of data points about cities and metropolitan areas, Portland-Hillsboro-Vancouver, Wash., ranked No. 22 in real gross domestic product growth among areas with a population of more than 1 million residents.

By contrast, Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue ranked No. 19 in GDP growth. Charlotte, N.C., where I was executive business editor for The Charlotte Observer, came in at No. 5 and Denver, where I worked for the late, great Rocky Mountain News, was No. 11. Austin, Texas, ranked No. 1, although the city lacks the abundant Amtrak service we enjoy and is far behind Portland or Seattle in rail transit.

Metro Portland clocked in with a 21% increase in jobs as of 2023, the most recent year for which statistics are available, the highest ever.

As for the president’s claims that people have been leaving the city, Portland’s estimated 2024 population was 635,749, down about 2.6% from 2020, according to the Census Bureau. Yet population alone isn’t a metric of success.

To be fair, today’s Portland doesn’t compare to the city that once was.

A Phoenix friend, seeking a vibrant urban environment, moved to Portland when it touted itself in the 1990s as “The City That Works.”

He wrote me in 2023 to say: “I miss Phoenix more than ever if only because it works. Portland no longer does.”

After a trip to Florida, he wrote, “Returning to Portland threw me into a low-grade depression for at least a couple of days.”

Ten years ago, Portland was an urban success story virtually without parallel in America. Today, it looks like the road to the landfill and, in some areas, the landfill itself. We did this to ourselves from equal parts denial and sentimentality. Our preoccupation with grand abstractions such as ‘social justice’ midwifed a crisis that will take years to resolve.”

And he’s a progressive, not a far-right conservative.

Another Phoenix friend, who now teaches at Portland State University, admitted that crime in the city is a problem, “But it’s nothing that a federal invasion will help.”