Portland, seen from Pittock Mansion, June 8, 2021.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Speaking before a group of U.S. military commanders on Tuesday, President Donald Trump resurfaced a narrative he’s been repeating for weeks: Portland is a war-ravaged city in crisis, and it needs federal intervention.
“I get a call from the liberal governor, ‘Sir, please don’t come in. We don’t need you.’ I said, ‘well, unless they’re playing false tapes. This looked like World War II. Your place is burning down,’” Trump said.
The statements came just two days after Trump told Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek that 200 members of the Oregon National Guard were being federalized, placing them under his command. Since then, the move has received broad pushback from officials in Portland, who say troops are unnecessary and detrimental to their efforts.
“We do not deny that Portland has hard and important work to do, and we’ve been doing it,” Mayor Keith Wilson told reporters Sunday. “To bring this narrative to Portland, to say that we are anything but a city on the rise, is counter what truth is.”
Wilson isn’t alone in showing up to tout the city’s resilience. Mayors from more than a dozen Oregon cities showed solidarity this week to buck what they called a false narrative emerging from the White House.
“The president cannot watch footage from over a half-decade ago and believe this is the Portland that we’re standing in today,” said Beaverton Mayor Lacey Beaty during a media event Monday.
Here’s what we know so far about the deployment of the National Guard in Portland.
When will Portlanders see National Guard members deployed?
It’s unclear.
Lt. Col. Stephen Bomar, director of public affairs for the Oregon Military Department, told OPB that the earliest the city could see troops on the ground is Thursday – but noted that timeline is unlikely.
“If we had everything all ready to go, the earliest would be shortly after that 96-hour mark, but I do not see that happening in this case,” he said.
The troops going to Portland are drawn from a pool of 300 qualified guard members who’ve been certified by Oregon’s police standards agency or have trained as military police.
As of Monday, Bomar said at least 166 members of the Oregon National Guard had volunteered for the deployment.
What will guard members be doing?
Federal agents keep watch from atop the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore., on Sept. 28, 2025.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
According to the memo sent to Kotek on Sunday, guard members have been tasked with protecting “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other U.S. Government personnel who are performing Federal functions.”
They’re also ordered to protect federal property “at locations where protests against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur.”
How much will the deployment cost?
The costs to federal taxpayers are starting to emerge. In a briefing Tuesday in Salem before a legislative committee, a state Military Department leader pegged the estimated cost at $3.8 million.
Other details emerged, too. The troops expected to be assigned to the Portland deployment will come from companies based in Salem and Woodburn.
The hearing provided another opportunity for lawmakers to chime in. Trump’s comments before top military brass called from around the world to suburban Virginia also prompted outcry from one former service member turned lawmaker.
“I’m not going to lie, this whole issue is driving me a little bit nutty,” said state Rep. Paul Evans, D-Monmouth, a former member of the Oregon Air National Guard. “I never imagined ... that the language being used by a U.S. president would be similar to language used by people in far off countries about using cities for training.”
What has the scene been like outside the ICE facility in Portland?
In a city known for its vibrant commercial districts and neighborhoods – from Alberta Arts to Nob Hill to Hawthorne and Division – the ICE facility is not a landmark most Portlanders could likely easily identify on a map.
Plywood covers the windows and doors at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland, Ore., June 17, 2025.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Tucked away in a hemmed-in area of South Portland, just south of the residential and medical towers of the South Waterfront neighborhood, the ICE facility sits on the corner of Macadam Avenue and Bancroft Street. For months, the building has been the site of demonstrations, where protesters have rallied against the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement crackdown.
In his discussions of the deployment, President Trump has repeatedly referred to his concerns about demonstrations outside the ICE facility in Portland. On Tuesday, the president appeared to expand his reasoning, citing a number of incidents going back a decade.
“The Radical Left’s reign of terror in Portland ends now, with President Donald J. Trump mobilizing federal resources to stop Antifa-led hellfire in its tracks,” the release said.
At a press conference Monday afternoon, Portland Police Chief Bob Day said they have a handle on the protests at the ICE building and don’t need federal intervention.
“This is one city block. The city of Portland is 145 square miles,” he said. “And even the events that are happening down there do not rise to the level of attention that they are receiving.”
Masked-up federal agents confront the protesters outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore., on Sept. 28, 2025.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Unlike in the 2020 racial justice protests, which peaked with tens of thousands of people spanning the Burnside Bridge or gathering en masse in demonstrations that occasionally led to property damage by small groups of people, the ICE protests are not in the downtown core or near an area of town that’s easy to access.
“Even though we had some disturbances at the facility, after some quick, targeted arrests, it quickly dissipated and that was the end of the story,” Day told reporters, noting that the city has only seen a handful of arrests in connection with the demonstrations in the past two months.
In a release, Portland police said they had monitored a gathering outside the ICE building Monday evening and no arrests were made.
Gov. Kotek says Trump broke his promise to her
Kotek’s office took the unusual step this weekend of quickly releasing a public records request that contained private text messages exchanged by the governor. That may be because of the other participant in the text thread.
The Democratic governor and the Republican president texted over the weekend after it became clear Trump was sending the guard to the Rose City.
A screenshot of text messages between President Donald Trump, his top staff and Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek detailing the justification for mobilizing National Guard troops.
Courtesy of Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek's office
“I believe this is unlawful and unwarranted,” Kotek wrote in a thread that was initiated by a Trump assistant.
Trump wrote that the ICE facility “was attacked” and that “it and other Federal Buildings are being attacked on a nightly basis.”
Kotek implied that Trump reneged on his word. “You broke your promise to speak with me before taking further action against Portland,” Kotek wrote. “I will be in touch later.”
Not everyone opposes
Trump’s claims about Portland have received cheery and repeated support from an Oregonian who also happens to be in the Cabinet, as well as some Oregonians living outside the city.
Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the former Republican U.S. Rep. from Happy Valley who is the current Labor Secretary, has also called for a “crackdown” in Portland.
Jacquelyn Martin / AP
Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the former Republican U.S. Rep. from Happy Valley who is the current Labor Secretary, repeatedly lavished praise on Trump during a more than three-hour-long Cabinet meeting Aug. 26, where she also called for a “crackdown” in Portland.
“Thank you for what you’re doing with your agents on ICE,” Chavez-DeRemer said during those remarks, “and thank you for the prosecution. I hope you will come to Portland, Oregon, and crack down.”
She kept that sentiment flowing this weekend.
“I’ve seen firsthand how lawlessness has transformed Portland from a beautiful place to live to a crime-ridden war zone,” Chavez-DeRemer wrote on social media. “Thank you, @POTUS, for taking action to keep our ICE facilities protected and Make America Safe Again!”
House Republican Leader Christine Drazan (R-Canby) at a press conference at the Oregon State Capitol, Aug. 29, 2025 during the first day of a special legislative session. Gov. Tina Kotek called the session to address funding for transportation.
Kristyna Wentz-Graff / OPB
Christine Drazan, one of the top Republicans in the Oregon Legislature who was her party’s nominee for governor in 2022, similarly parroted the president’s claims.
“The ICE facility in Portland has been subject to months of dangerously chaotic protests that have put residents and federal agents in harm’s way,” the Canby lawmaker said in a statement. “The governor’s assertion that there is no national security threat and the mayor’s assertion that everything is fine is tone-deaf.
“It’s shameful that state and local leaders have allowed violent mobs and domestic terrorists to assault federal law enforcement, destroy property, and interfere with those seeking immigration services from obtaining assistance and case management. We need order, we need to restore safety, and Oregon’s local leaders have failed to provide it.”
What is the state doing in response to the deployment?
Just hours after the Trump administration told Oregon leaders that the National Guard would be deployed, the state and city of Portland filed a lawsuit to stop it from happening.
In addition to that lawsuit, the Oregon Department of Justice on Monday filed a temporary restraining order asking a federal judge to block the deployment.
A hearing on that order has been scheduled for Friday.
