Portland: 3 straight days of protests against ICE shootings

Portland, OR – In the wake of ICE’s murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis , and the Border Patrol’s shooting of Luis Nino-Moncada and Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras in Portland the day after, immigrant rights organization Portland Contra Las Deportaciones staged several protests from January 7 – 9 calling for an immediate end to ICE murders and for justice for the victims of their terror.

On January 7, as news broke about Renee Nicole Good’s murder, Portland Contra las Deportaciones (PDXCD) called an emergency vigil and solidarity rally at Terry Schrunk Plaza downtown, across from Portland City Hall. Despite only hours of notice, around 300 people attended to grieve and vow to not back down in the face of escalating repression from the Trump administration.

“If they thought they were gonna scare us into submission, they have another thing coming”, said Holly Brown of PDXCD, followed by chants of “Fuck ICE!” from the crowd.

Brown continued, “If anything, they have just made our movement even bigger and even stronger, because we’re not gonna be quiet or stand down.”

The speeches also demanded action from the Portland city council and Mayor Keith Wilson, primarily to revoke ICE’s conditional use permit to operate their facility in Portland’s South Waterfront neighborhood.

Beatriz Ibarra of PDXCD declared, “We demand that the city revoke the ICE permit and remove ICE from Portland entirely.”

The next day, on January 8, a group of organizers with PDXCD’s Revoke the ICE Permit campaign walked into City Hall and up to Mayor Wilson’s office to demand a meeting with him. The campaign had sent over 1000 emails to his office demanding a meeting and a step-by-step plan from him on how he would kick ICE out of Portland as soon as possible. They planned to occupy the space in front of his office until he did so.

Around 2:30 p.m., shortly after the group walked to his office door and demanded a meeting, a contractor for Mayor Wilson’s office told the group that an emergency occurred in Portland and that Mayor Wilson was on the phone with ICE and Portland Police Bureau (PPB). The contractor said the mayor would likely not be able to meet with them that day. The group said that ICE’s presence in Portland was the biggest emergency facing the city and insisted on a meeting immediately.

Holly Brown questioned, “Is that what the mayor wants? He wants us to wait until someone in Portland gets murdered by ICE?” Over the following minutes, the organizers and gathered news crews would learn via rapid response networks that Border Patrol agents had attempted to murder two Portland resident’s half an hour earlier. Action needed to be taken immediately.

PDXCD called their second emergency action in two days, a mobilization to the Portland ICE facility. Around 7:30 p.m., 400 people had gathered to occupy the street in front of the ICE facility. PPB later sent in vans full of riot police to force protesters onto the sidewalk, but the crowd continued to chant and block the facility’s driveway even while confined to the sidewalk. After roughly half an hour, PPB officers meekly climbed back into their vans and drove away, surrendering the street to protesters.

Later, PPB returned to once again force protesters onto the sidewalk. They then charged towards and arrested five protesters, including Seth Todd, the well-known “Portland Frog.” Many of those arrested intend to fight the trumped-up charges that are alleged. After another prolonged standoff between the people and the police, PPB once again retreated to their vans and fled the scene. The protest continued without further incidents.

The third day of protests organized by PDXCD, January 9, was another protest at the Portland ICE facility, continuing to protest the two shootings that had occurred over the previous days. The event began with a rally at nearby Elizabeth Caruthers Park and was attended by Portland for Palestine (P4P), Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), and International League of Peoples Struggle (ILPS). The rally reiterated the demands of revoking ICE’s permit in Portland and seeking justice for victims of ICE.

“No more fees, no more ineffective policies. What we need, what our city needs more than ever, is to rid our communities of these masked thugs!” said Andrew Nourie of P4P, “I call on city council and the mayor to revoke ICE’s land use permit!”

Some speakers at the rally pointed out how Portland city government is not only refusing to take action to protect the city’s inhabitants but actively harming those who are by using PPB to suppress them, as seen the day before.

Cass Cano of PDXCD noted, “For months we have heard from our elected officials that the federal government is just too powerful, that there’s nothing they can do. Yet every day I see ordinary people like me and you, like Renee Nicole Good, stand up to the federal government to protect immigrants. And now, when there’s been a murder at the hands of ICE, our city government, instead of protecting us, chooses to deploy riot police to brutalize us!”

Video evidence from January 8 shows one protester being repeatedly punched by a PPB officer despite already being restrained on the ground.

After the rally, the crowd of 450 marched south towards the ICE facility and once again occupy the area in front of it. On the way there, the crowd chanted “Stand up, on your feet! Killer ICE off our streets”

Unlike the day before though, PPB made no attempts to force protesters out of the street, instead opting to have a dozen officers group up at one end of the protest and stand there for over an hour. It is likely that negative coverage of their suppression of the previous day’s protest, as well as the larger crowd, led to this timid approach. Nobody was arrested for the duration of January 9 protest.

Mayor Keith Wilson and Portland city council’s unwillingness to treat ICE’s presence in Portland as an emergency continues to have consequences that harm and endanger the people of Portland. As the anti-ICE movement within the city continues to grow and gain strength, they will likely be faced with only two options. As said by the protesters, “Revocation or resign, how many more have to die?”

#PortlandOR #OR #ImmigrantRights #ICE #ReneeGood #PDXCD

Source: https://fightbacknews.org/portland-3-straight-days-of-protests-against-ice-shootings?pk_campaign=rss-feed