Governor Noem Inspects Oregon ICE Center Alongside MAGA Influencers

The South Dakota governor, currently serving as the DHS secretary, conducted a tour the federal immigration enforcement facility in Portland on a recent weekday. During her visit, she observed a small demonstration outside, which differs significantly to the intense "encirclement" alleged by Donald Trump.

Accompanied by MAGA Personalities

Governor Noem was accompanied by a group of conservative influencers who were whisked from the airport to the facility in her security detail. DHS has shared more aggressive online posts showing federal officers performing enforcement operations and firing crowd control measures at protesters.

Gathering Outside

Portland police secured the area outside the facility in the Portland's waterfront district before the secretary’s arrival. A handful protesters, among them one wearing a costume of a chicken and another as a sea creature, were held back.

Music played loudly from a gathering spot down the street, with words about Trump and Epstein files. Someone called out to a federal recorder documenting from the roof, asking whether the homeland security had been renamed the "ministry of propaganda".

Media Access

Reporters from nonpartisan media organizations were also kept at the police line outside, while the partisan influencers in the secretary's group—Benny Johnson, Nick Sortor, and David Media—posted online posts of the governor conducting federal agents in prayer inside, offering a encouraging words, and telling a individual of the state guard to "Prepare".

Legal and Political Context

Noem has repeated the president’s claims that the handful of protesters—who have gathered in their dozens outside the ICE facility since the summer, including one in an frog outfit—are "terrorists" who have placed the facility "in a state of siege", making the sending of DHS agents critical.

However, on last weekend, a U.S. judge in Oregon prevented the former president's effort to bring under federal control the state's guard, ruling that the president’s assertions that the largely peaceful city was "being destroyed" were "without evidence".

A day later, the judge, the magistrate—who was nominated to the judiciary by Donald Trump—expanded her order to block guard members from other states from being sent in Oregon. This occurred after the former president reacted to her previous decision by trying to send members of the California National Guard to the state.

Escalating Tensions

Following Trump focused on the small but persistent demonstration outside the ICE facility and made false claims that Portland is "battle-scarred", a growing number of his supporters, including right-wing figures, have appeared to face the demonstrators.

A number of these encounters have caused scuffles and physical fights, prompting apprehensions by the officers. Nick Sortor was among those arrested after he tried to force his way a demonstration site on a walkway near the site and was part of an altercation over an national banner. Sortor had previously seized the banner from a protester who was destroying it.

Criminal counts against him were later dropped after an protest in conservative media induced the chief of the legal unit of the Justice Department, the division head, to suggest a review of the local police over alleged anti-conservative bias.

Female protesters he was involved in an altercation with still have pending accusations.

Official Responses

Over the weekend, Governor Tina Kotek, Tina Kotek, claimed federal officers in the ICE facility of trying to provoke the protesters by using disproportionate amounts of tear gas in a residential neighborhood and including partisan figures to film the gathering from the roof of the site. "Their actions are meant to provoke," Kotek said.

Several of those conservative influencers were referred to in a police report last month as "opposing demonstrators" who "frequently reappear and antagonize the demonstrators until they are confronted or exposed to irritants" and decline "repeated advice from law enforcement to stay away from" the protesters.

Influencer Activities

Benny Johnson, a ex-reporter who reinvented himself as a partisan figure after being dismissed from his previous employer for content theft, published footage of Governor Noem viewing from the roof of the office at the limited number of demonstrators below, including Jack Dickinson who sports a bird outfit to ridicule Donald Trump. The influencer labeled the video of her inspecting the peaceful setting below: "DHS Secretary Kristi Noem stares down army of Antifa and a guy in a chicken suit".

In spite of the disconnect between the assertions from the former president and the secretary that this site is "under siege" from "homegrown extremists" and clear visual evidence of a small number of individuals in peaceful clothing, the personalities with her continued to refer to the group as harmful activists.

Meeting with Police Chief

On site, the secretary also met with the law enforcement head, the chief, who has been caricatured as "liberal" in conservative media for authorizing his officers to arrest the influencer. In a social media update on the discussion, Benny Johnson claimed that the official had "supported violent ANTIFA militants assaulting journalists and officers outside ICE facility".

Noem’s motorcade then left the facility past a small group of demonstrators on the nearby road, including one dressed as a bear wearing a headgear.