Protesters try to get tear gas out of their eyes and escape the area after federal agents deployed the chemical munition on a crowd of more than a thousand demonstrators, many of whom were with local unions and included elderly people and children, in the blocks surrounding the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Jan. 31, 2026.
Eli Imadali / OPB
Over the weekend thousands gathered to peacefully protest in Portland to speak out against increased immigration enforcement across the country. But demonstrations did not stay peaceful as federal agents near the ICE facility deployed tear gas that traveled several blocks, affecting many who gathered, including families, children and elderly people.
Soon after these events, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson released a statement, asking for those who are working for ICE to resign and said that the city will “swiftly” work to enforce an ordinance that passed earlier this month, which would fine the detention center for using chemical munitions. Alex Zielinski is OPB’s Portland city government reporter and joins us with more details.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Thousands of people gathered in South Portland on Saturday to peacefully protest the Trump administration’s militarized approach to immigration enforcement. But demonstrations did not stay peaceful. Shortly after the crowd arrived at the ICE facility, and after a small number of protesters crossed the property line and approached the security gate, federal agents let loose with chemical munitions and rubber bullets. The tear gas drifted blocks away into a crowd full of kids and elders. It prompted Portland Mayor Keith Wilson to ask that people who work for ICE resign. He also said the city will swiftly work to enforce a new ordinance that targets the detention center.
Alex Zielinski covers Portland city government for OPB. She joins us now with more details. Alex, good to have you back.
Alex Zielinski: Great to be here.
Miller: So I do want to dig into the history of the ICE facility in Portland and the city’s efforts to use land use rules as a way to limit federal actions, a very Portland – or Oregon – way to approach this issue. But first, I want to talk about what happened on Saturday and Sunday. Can you give us a recap?
Zielinski: There were two different marches this weekend that both ended up at the ICE facility. On Saturday it was a protest organized by labor unions in town. Sunday was one led by one of the larger anti-ICE protest groups in Portland. Both ended with federal officers shooting chemical munitions, tear gas, rubber bullets, like you said, into the crowds.
I will say that the Saturday march was much larger than the Sunday one and grabbed more headlines because the people in attendance, like you mentioned, there were children, there were elderly folks who were tear gassed, and there were some alarming photos and videos that came from that.
Miller: Both of these protests were cited in legal filings submitted Sunday night by the ACLU of Oregon and other lawyers on behalf of protesters. What are they asking Federal Judge Michael Simon to do?
Zielinski: They’re wanting a temporary restraining order that could limit when federal officers can use force outside the ICE building. Protesters’ lawyers argue that most of the protesters Saturday were nonviolent and just engaging in protected speech when they were tear gassed and assaulted, and that wouldn’t warrant a response of use of force. Protesters have also told the judge that they didn’t hear any warnings before federal officers shot chemical munitions into the crowd. I should note that the judge in this case is expected to make a decision on this at any moment, so we should know a bit more soon.
Miller: So that’s part of the ongoing legal wrangling over federal actions. But meanwhile, for months now the city council has been pursuing a kind of parallel track, focused on the facility itself, the building itself. The history here is interesting and important. When did the owner of the building, Stuart Lindquist, lease it out to Immigration and Customs Enforcement?
Zielinski: That lease began in 2012. It’s a bit of a unique situation, like you said, where the city required Lindquist to apply for what’s called a Conditional Land Use approval, which would allow the building – which was an old bank – to be converted into a detention facility. I should note that this wasn’t meant to operate as a traditional detention facility like we see in Texas or up in Tacoma, Washington. It’s largely an administrative building with offices for people working towards citizenship or asylum protections come in for routine meetings. It does have four holding cells though that are meant to be used for people who might be transferred to a larger detention center for deportation proceedings.
Miller: How controversial and how public was this deal at the time and was the ICE building at the time?
Zielinski: It wasn’t anywhere as controversial an issue as it is now. In fact the biggest debate was concerns that this building would be releasing potentially violent people into the neighborhood from the facility. But that never really came to light. That was just one of the talking points at the moment. And the building essentially operated off the radar until 2018.
Listeners might remember Occupy ICE, where people protesting immigration policies, used during President Trump’s first term in office, were gathered. It led to a big encampment alongside the building. But we didn’t see the scale of confrontations between law enforcement and activists that we’re seeing now.
Miller: You mentioned the Conditional Land Use approval from the city. What kinds of conditions did the city put on the building for this lease?
Zielinski: Under this agreement, Lindquist agreed that ICE would not detain people in the facility overnight or for longer than 12 hours. There were a few other stipulations on that agreement that came with it, but this is the most significant one related to ICE’s operations.
Miller: This is important because in September the city council announced that Lindquist, the owner of the building that he leases to this federal agency, had violated the Conditional Land Use agreement. What evidence did they put forward?
Zielinski: The city pointed to data that they collected through a public records request that appeared to show that ICE had held people in the facility for longer than 12 hours and overnight, at least 25 times, since October 2024.
Miller: I should note that we did reach out to Lindquist for an interview. We’d like to talk to him about this if he’d like to, or a statement. We have not heard back. But how did Lindquist respond to the city council’s finding?
Zielinski: To be clear, it’s the findings of the Permitting department which, I should just say, is an equally nerdy bureaucratic way of navigating this. But yes, his attorneys have spoken and shared information, arguing that the data was misinterpreted, that there’s more that needs to be understood about what it’s saying. They also really say that the violation is largely politically driven based on city officials’ overwhelming disapproval of ICE’s work. They say it’s actually unconstitutional, maybe, for the city to penalize Lindquist just because he leases a building to tenants that they don’t like. But we still have yet to see their detailed argument against the facts that the city has based this violation on.
Miller: Where does this legal fight stand right now? It was back in September that the city announced its findings.
Zielinski: [That was] pretty shortly after Lindquist appealed those findings. Right now, the decision lies within the city’s Permitting department. Permitting officials have met with Lindquist to hear his appeal. It’s on them to determine whether or not he truly violated this land use agreement. Of course, that decision won’t be the end of this debate. It can be appealed in front of a variety of different venues and bodies, all the way to the State Supreme Court, if there’s interest.
Miller: There is another avenue city councilors are trying. Can you explain the policy that they passed last month – or I guess December is a little bit more than a month ago now – about landlords of detention facilities in general and facilities that create “nuisances” like tear gas?
Zielinski: Like you mentioned, this policy is pretty general against any private landlords of detention centers. But in Portland, there’s really only one building that meets this description, and that’s the ICE facility. So this fee sticks property owners like Lindquist with a fine every time their tenant shoots chemical munitions outside of their property line, on the basis that it creates a public safety and environmental threat.
Miller: What would enforcement of that look like? The mayor says that he wants to speed up enforcement.
Zielinski: That’s still being hammered out by the city administrator’s office. This policy directed the administration to figure out the rules of enforcement and the costs associated with it before it went into effect. And it did actually go into effect on January 1. But these details haven’t been hammered out yet and it’s kind of upset some of the city councilors who authored this policy in the first place. They’ve been pushing the mayor and the city administrator’s office to expedite this.
Miller: Where is the mayor on these issues right now? What’s he been saying? What’s he been doing?
Zielinski: After this weekend’s copious amount of tear gas used on kids and protesters, Mayor Wilson came out pretty strongly against ICE. I think you mentioned this at the top of the show. He urged ICE employees to resign and leave town. But he’s still kind of cautious to commit much to this nuisance fee and its enforcement. He oversees the city administrator’s office and said that they’re working swiftly to figure out enforcement, and that they’re documenting the use of tear gas from the building in the meantime. So it could be retroactively enforced. But it’s hard to say exactly when that will start turning.
Miller: Alex, thanks very much.
Zielinski: Thanks for having me.
Miller: Alex Zielinski covers Portland city government for OPB.
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