“This is an American city. We do not need any intervention,” Mayor Keith Wilson said at the news conference. “This is not a military target.”
Kotek said the president did not give a timetable for troops arriving. She said she told him the Oregon National Guard was not needed and she did not plan to call it up.
Trump, however, previously deployed guard soldiers and active duty Marines in Los Angeles even though California Governor Gavin Newsom opposed it. The federal government is appealing a judge’s ruling that Trump’s use of the guard was illegal.
Kotek urged the public to stay calm, saying any kind of property damage or violence would not be tolerated.
“Let’s not take the bait,” she said. “Let’s not respond to what the president is trying to do.”
Residents ask, ‘Where’s the emergency?’
Earlier on Saturday, there was no sign of any federal presence downtown, where people jogged along the Willamette River, relaxed by a riverside fountain or rode bikes on a sunny fall day.
“Where’s the emergency?” asked resident Allen Schmertzler, 72, who said he was “disgusted” by the president’s decision.
Another, John McNeur, 74, called Trump’s statement “ridiculous.” He pointed out that he was taking “a leisurely stroll” along the river on a peaceful, sunny day.
“This place is not a city that’s out of control,” he said. “It’s just a beautiful place.”
Trump has also named Chicago and Memphis
Trump previously threatened to send the National Guard into Chicago, but has yet to follow through. A deployment in Memphis, Tennessee, is expected soon and will include only about 150 troops, far less than were sent to the District of Columbia for Trump’s crackdown on crime or to Los Angeles in response to immigration protests that turned violent with the troops’ arrival.
In Memphis, about 80 to 100 people marched to a plaza in front of City Hall to protest the expected arrival next week of the guard and more than a dozen federal law enforcement agencies, ranging from immigration to drug enforcement.
Protesters held signs with messages such as “Resources Not Task Forces” and “Memphis don’t need no occupation, Memphis don’t need no government control” – a play on the Pink Floyd song Another Brick in the Wall.
Speakers said beforehand that instead of federal troops and agents, Memphis needed more funding for education, crime prevention, youth services and hospitals. The Oregon officials made similar comments.
Few details from the Pentagon
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Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said the Department of Defence would provide information and updates when available.
“We stand ready to mobilise US military personnel in support of DHS operations in Portland at the president’s direction,” Parnell said.
A spokesperson for the Oregon National Guard, Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Bomar, said via email that “no official requests had been received at this time” for Guard support. “Any requests would need to be co-ordinated through the governor’s office,” he added.
Oregon’s congressional delegation, with the exception of Republican congressman Cliff Bentz, demanded that the Trump administration keep federal agents and troops out of Portland.
“This unilateral action represents an abuse of executive authority, seeks to incite violence, and undermines the constitutional balance of power between the federal government and states,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote in a letter to Trump, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Noem.
Protests in Portland
Portland, population 636,000, was the site of long-running and sometimes violent racial justice protests following George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police in 2020. The Trump administration sent hundreds of agents, including from the US Border Patrol, for the stated purpose of protecting the federal courthouse and other federal property from vandalism.
Recent demonstrations have been far more muted and focused on the area around the ICE building, located outside downtown, that was the heart of the 2020 protests. Its main entrance and ground-floor windows have been boarded up and tagged with graffiti.
Some federal agents have been injured and several protesters have been charged with assault. Some demonstrators also say they have been injured. When protesters erected a prop guillotine earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security called it “unhinged behaviour”.
Police Chief Bob Day said at the news conference that his agency did not participate in immigration enforcement. He said afterwards that Federal Protective Services was responsible for the ICE building and police would intervene only against vandalism or criminal activity in the surrounding area.
The city said this month that it would issue a land-use violation notice to its ICE building because it was used to detain people overnight or for more than 12 hours – violations of its conditional land use approval.
Portland is one of a number of so-called sanctuary cities. There is no strict definition for sanctuary cities, but the term generally describes places that limit co-operation with ICE.
Portland officials stress the city’s recovery
City groups and officials have sought to highlight the recovery of the downtown area since 2020.
This summer was reportedly the busiest for pedestrian traffic since before the pandemic, and overall violent crime from January through June decreased by 17 per cent compared with the same period in 2024, a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found. The downtown has seen a decrease in homeless encampments.
Since the September 10 assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Trump has escalated efforts to confront what he calls the “radical left”, which he blames for political violence.
“We’re going to get out there and we’re going to do a pretty big number on those people in Portland,” Trump said Thursday in the Oval Office. He called such people “professional agitators and anarchists”.
