Anti-ICE protest draws massive crowd at South Portland facility, feds deploy tear gas

Thousands of protesters marched through South Portland and enveloped the blocks around the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building Saturday, sparking now-familiar confrontations with federal agents.

Demonstrators were met with large clouds of tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets soon after their arrival, moments after some in the crowd crossed the building’s property line and approached its security gate. Federal agents also set off flash-bang grenades.

Portland police blocked off the roads near the South Portland facility and said there were a “large amount of police resources in place.”

Protesters participating in the “Labor Against ICE” rally, organized by local unions, marched from Elizabeth Caruthers Park to the ICE building around 3 p.m., converging with a crowd of bicyclists riding to honor Alex Pretti, an intensive-care nurse who was fatally shot by Border Patrol officers in Minneapolis last week.

Union members led the march, and there were children among the marchers.

Portland City Councilor Mitch Green posted on social media that he was in the crowd when the munitions were deployed.

“I just got tear gassed along with thousands of union members, many of whom had their families with them,” Green wrote. “Federal agents at the ICE facility tear gassed children. We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions. I expect to see enforcement of our city code prohibiting the use of tear gas.”

The gas and other crowd-control weapons dispersed much of the crowd, leaving only a couple hundred outside the facility.

But tense confrontations continued. An hour after the first tear gas deployment, people in the crowd pushed a large trash bin toward the facility’s security gate.

Federal agents emerged soon after, firing off more crowd-control munitions, including tear gas.

The march comes one day after a nationwide strike calling for people to skip work, school and shopping to show their opposition to the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Protests across the country have ramped up since the deaths of Pretti, on Jan. 24, and Renee Good, who on Jan. 7 also was shot to death by an ICE officer in Minneapolis.

Protesters hung signs for a vigil for Pretti being held Sunday at 5 p.m. at Laurelhurst Park in Southeast Portland.

Police declared a riot in downtown Eugene on Friday after windows were broken at the Federal Building there. Police said protesters “breached the building and went inside.” Federal officers reportedly used tear gas to try to repel demonstrators from entering the building.

President Donald Trump on Saturday called the Eugene protesters “criminals” in a social media post, adding that he had ordered federal immigration agents to be “very forceful” in their protection of federal property.