FILE-Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer arrives before a hearing, June 5, 2025, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. On Tuesday, Chavez-DeRemer voiced support for a federal crackdown on Portland during a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP
As President Donald Trump targets Democrat-led cities nationwide, Oregon’s lone Cabinet member is inviting a federal crackdown on the city of Portland.
Seated across from the president during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, U.S. Labor Sec. Lori Chavez-DeRemer said she was “expecting a crackdown” in Oregon as the administration continues its widespread deportation efforts.
“Thank you for what you’re doing with your agents on ICE,” said Chavez-DeRemer, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “And thank you for the prosecution. I hope you will come to Portland, Oregon, and crack down.”
It was not immediately clear what kind of crackdown Chavez-DeRemer envisioned. Federal immigration authorities are already operating in the city of Portland, as they have for years. Chavez-DeRemer did not immediately return OPB’s request for comment or clarify her remarks.
Chavez-DeRemer is the former mayor of Happy Valley who served one term as a Republican U.S. representative from Oregon’s 5th Congressional District. Trump tapped her for the job as America’s labor boss after she lost the November election to Democratic U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum.
Her comments came roughly halfway through a more than three-hour-long meeting where cabinet officials praised Trump. Chavez-DeRemer told the president his policies were bolstering America’s job market while helping workers feel safer in places like Washington D.C., where Trump recently deployed National Guard troops in a contentious effort to address crime.
“Mr. President, I invite you to see your big, beautiful face on a banner in front of the Department of Labor,” said Chavez-DeRemer. She was referencing Trump’s recently passed domestic policy bill called the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” and the installation earlier this week of a banner outside the department that features the faces of former President Teddy Roosevelt as well as Trump.
“You are really the transformational president of the American worker,” she said.
The cabinet meeting occurred as the Trump administration threatens to deploy more National Guard troops to cities, saying it’s about addressing violent crime.
While crime statistics can be difficult to calculate, they are overall trending down across the country for the first half of the year. A recent report by the Council on Criminal Justice found both violent crime and property crime dropped when comparing the first six months of 2024 and 2025.
For the city of Portland, violent crime fell by 17% during that same time period, the city announced earlier this month. Homicides also fell from 35 to 17, a 51% drop.
So far, the administration has deployed more than 2,000 National Guard members to Washington D.C. The president has also suggested a similar deployment to the streets of Chicago in the near future.
In June, the Trump administration federalized some 4,000 members of California’s National Guard and sent them, along with 700 Marines, to Los Angeles to support and enforce the president’s deportation agenda.
“The Oregon National Guard has not received any notification or anything from the federal government in regards to any civil disturbance or law-enforcement support,” the Oregon Military Department’s Lt. Col Stephen Bomar told OPB on Tuesday.
“What I’d have to emphasize is that the Oregon National Guard falls under the command control of the governor of the state of Oregon, Gov. [Tina] Kotek. So her priority is obviously to protect people and if need be, call out the Guard.”
The Oregon National Guard has responded to public safety and civil unrest, most recently when former Gov. Kate Brown activated them in November 2020 to support Oregon State Police Troopers and Portland Police. Bomar said the guard members also helped provide airport security after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, in the mid-1980s when the Rajneeshees descended on Wasco County, and during a 1896 fisherman’s strike in Astoria.
Oregon Army National Guard Soldiers with Company G, 1st Battalion, 189th Aviation Regiment, stand in formation, March 4, 2018 in Salem, Oregon.
Sgt. 1st Class April Davis / Oregon Military Department Public Affairs
The Trump administration has increasingly stepped up pressure on sanctuary jurisdictions that don’t cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi recently sent a letter warning that Oregon’s decades-old sanctuary law — along with a city of Portland policy — thwarts federal immigration enforcement and could result in losing federal funds or even criminal penalties leveled at public officials. Last week, Kotek pushed back on Bondi’s threat, saying Oregon will not abandon its sanctuary policies.
Trump praised Chavez-DeRemer and thanked Sean O’Brien, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters president, who lobbied Trump to appoint Chavez-DeRemer to his Cabinet. Chavez-DeRemer’s father was also a member of the Teamsters union.
“You’ve really turned out to be a gem,” Trump said after Chavez-DeRemer’s remarks during Tuesday’s meeting.
Asked for comment, spokespersons for both Kotek and Portland Mayor Keith Wilson referred OPB to statements they previously sent to the media about the Trump administration.
“It’s bad enough to flatter the boss as a requirement for employment,” U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, wrote on the social media platform X in response to Chavez-DeRemer’s comments. “But it’s even worse to sell out your fellow Oregonians along the way.”
OPB reporter Troy Brynelson contributed to this story.
