Portland protest demands city revoke permit for ICE facility
Portland OR – On August 28, protesters rallied outside the Portland Permitting and Development Department to demand the city revoke the conditional use permit for the Portland Macadam ICE Sub Field Office.
The protest was held by Revoke the ICE Permit PDX, a coalition formed by Portland Contra las Deportaciones. After weeks of meeting with city council members and putting pressure on elected officials at city hall, organizers decided to go to the department directly responsible for managing permits in the city.
According to the conditional use permit granted to the facility in 2011, the facility is required to hold detainees no longer than 12 hours, and no detainees can be held overnight. A recent Fox 12 Oregon News Segment found ICE has violated this clause at least 28 times. In 20 of these cases, the individuals were held for over 24 hours, violating the rule that no detainee can be held overnight. According to this data, 24 of the 28 violations occurred after President Donald Trump returned to office.
This is in line with a pattern around the country, where ICE Field Offices that previously served as a location for mainly administrative work and check ins have increasingly detained immigrants for days on end, with no bedding, showers, sinks, limited food and access to medical care.
Shawnee Miller, a resident of Grays landing, a low-income housing complex directly across from ICE facility, gave personal testimony outside of the permitting office, “Let me be clear, we are not collateral damage. We are actual Portland citizens who are all being affected by these terroristic acts. When you deploy chemical weapons against a peaceful community you are creating a state of terror. When you ignore our calls for help, you are telling us that we are alone and that our safety doesn’t matter.”
This comes the week after residents of Grays landing held a press conference outside of their homes demanding that the city take action against the ICE Facility. Teargas and other chemicals weapons have been used on a regular basis outside of the Macadam Facility. At times ICE agents have even gone as far as shooting at residents trying to record these violations from their balcony.
Revoke the ICE Permit organizer Holly Brown weighed in on the inaction on the part of city officials, “Our elected officials continue to drag their feet and hide behind bureaucratic procedures to justify their inaction, while ICE terrorizes our city. But we will continue to put pressure on the city to do the right thing and shut down the Macadam ICE facility, no excuses.”
Protesters expressed concern about the inaction of city officials given the continual violation of the permit and resolved to continue to put pressure on the government. The next action scheduled for the Revoke the ICE Permit coalition will be at city hall on September 17.