A federal judge in Oregon ruled Monday that he would continue to strictly limit federal law enforcement’s use of tear gas and other crowd control weapons on protesters outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland.
Department of Homeland Security officers at the ICE building had an unwritten policy to use excessive force on nonviolent protesters, in part to chill their First Amendment rights, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon found.
Simon also concluded that federal officers at the ICE facility violated DHS use of force policies, using crowd control devices like pepper balls and tear gas “on nonviolent protesters, including those who were engaged in passive resistance.”
The preliminary injunction still allows federal officers to use crowd control devices so long as there’s a specific and imminent threat of physical harm to officers or another person.
Thousands attended the “Labor Against ICE” protest, which began at Elizabeth Caruthers Park in Portland’s South Waterfront neighborhood, Jan. 31, 2026, and then marched to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland.
Eli Imadali / OPB
The Portland ICE building has served as a gathering place for those opposing a variety of President Donald Trump’s policy initiatives, namely his aggressive approach to immigration enforcement. The decision Monday comes after a three-day hearing in Portland last week, where protesters testified about instances where they were hit with crowd control munitions while nonviolently protesting or engaged in what they described as passive resistance.
On Friday, another federal judge in Oregon issued a separate injunction in a different case involving tenants in an apartment complex near the ICE building. That order similarly limits officers’ use of chemical munitions, except in cases where officers fear for their lives.
Simon’s ruling also grants preliminary class certification, meaning the decision applies to all nonviolent protesters and journalists outside the Portland ICE building.
“In a well-functioning constitutional democratic republic, free speech, courageous newsgathering, and nonviolent protest are all permitted, respected, and even celebrated,” Simon wrote. “In an authoritarian regime, that is not the case. Indeed, a democracy is only as strong as its tolerance for dissent.”
Both judges’ decisions are likely to be appealed by the Justice Department.
If appealed, Simon encouraged those judges to look at the video evidence in the case showing DHS officers using force on nonviolent protesters.
“The videos are both unambiguous and disturbing,” Simon wrote.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Monday.
The protesters who brought the case were represented by a coalition of attorneys led by the ACLU of Oregon.
“It sends a clear message that the government has to refrain from teargassing and using munitions against its own people merely for engaging in peaceful protest,” said Ashlee Albies, one of the civil rights attorneys who worked alongside the ACLU of Oregon in the case. “If you’re sending people out to police protests you better make sure that they’re trained to do it and that just didn’t happen here.”
Some of the more shocking testimony during the hearing in the case before Judge Simon came from depositions of the federal officers sent to protect the Portland ICE building. In the sworn interviews played in court, DHS officers demonstrated a lack of understanding about the First Amendment, passive resistance, crowd control tactics and their own agency’s use of force policies.
“Further, the evidence revealed that no federal officer has yet been reprimanded or received any corrective treatment or guidance after violating a use-of-force policy at the Portland ICE Building,” Simon wrote.
Attorneys for the Justice Department told Simon during last week’s hearing about four pending, internal investigations. But attorneys working with the ACLU, Simon wrote, “showed that even these investigations are not being conducted in a manner consistent with DHS’s written policies” because they were only opened after public complaints, rather than shortly after the incident reports got filed.
Simon also made clear he wants federal officers deployed to the Portland ICE facility to wear some kind of identification, and ordered the attorneys representing the federal government and protesters to confer to work out those details. The idea, he wrote, is that officers “can be identified at a reasonable distance and without unreasonably interfering with the legitimate law enforcement needs of these personnel.”
The ACLU of Oregon initially filed their case late last year, but it took on a new urgency after several protests in January when federal officers at the Portland ICE building used pepper balls, tear gas and other crowd control weapons during demonstrations.
On Feb. 3, Simon temporarily limited DHS officers from using chemical munitions directly outside the Portland ICE building.
