Members of 30 Oregon labor unions organized a march against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, near an ICE facility in Portland on Jan. 31, 2026. The march ended at the facility, where federal officers shot tear gas, pepper balls and rubber bullets at the crowd, which included children. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Federal agents at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland are temporarily barred from deploying less-lethal munitions and chemicals at protesters unless the agents are in “imminent threat of physical harm,” a federal judge ruled Tuesday.
The order comes after agents used excessive force and heavily gassed crowds of nonviolent protesters during the weekend that included children and seniors.
U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon issued the 14-day, temporary restraining order as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought in November by protesters and freelance journalists against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over its excessive use of force against crowds outside the Portland ICE building. The Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, is representing the protesters and journalists.
It’s one of several lawsuits against the agency from members of the public and residents who live near the facility following months of mostly peaceful protests that have been met frequently with federal agents lobbing tear gas, flash bang grenades and pepper spray indiscriminately at crowds.
Simon had previously asked the ACLU and federal lawyers to negotiate and determine temporary rules for federal officers’ use of less-lethal munitions against protesters ahead of a court hearing scheduled for March. But both sides were unable to reach an agreement.
On Sunday, following the officers’ enormous deployment of chemical agents against protesters over two nights, ACLU lawyers asked Simon to intervene.
In his 22-page order, Simon wrote that “the repeated shooting and teargassing of nonviolent protesters at the Portland ICE Building will likely keep recurring against (protesters and journalists),” and that “statements made by DHS officials and senior federal executives show that the culture of the agency and its employees is to celebrate violent responses over fair and diplomatic ones.”
Simon scheduled a hearing for March 2 on the motion to make the temporary restraining order permanent.
Also on Tuesday, Oregon’s U.S. Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, both Democrats, and U.S. Reps. Suzanne Bonamici, Janelle Bynum, Maxine Dexter and Andrea Salinas, all Democrats who represent portions of Portland or the Willamette Valley, wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to demand she withdraw federal agents from the city following the weekend’s events. Bonamici is married to Simon.
“This administration lacks any legal basis to continue its failed campaign of inciting violence in our communities, whether in Oregon, Minnesota, or anywhere else in America. Your violence has already wounded and killed too many people in U.S. cities,” they wrote. “Therefore as elected representatives who swore the same oath you did to uphold the Constitution, we demand you immediately end using excessive force against our communities and withdraw your federal agents from Oregon.”
In response to the weekend’s events, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told Oregon Public Broadcasting that the protesters “violently stormed” the facility, threw rocks and other objects at officers and at cameras and, “attempted to tie the vehicle gate shut with ropes and moved a dumpster to block the front gate.”
New restrictions
In his order granting the restraining order, Simon said it is the judiciary’s job to ensure First Amendment free speech and protest rights are protected, even from the peoples’ government.
“In a well-functioning constitutional democratic republic, free speech, courageous newsgathering, and nonviolent protest are all permitted, respected, and even celebrated. In an authoritarian regime, that is not the case. Our nation is now at a crossroads,” he wrote.
Federal agents are restricted under the order from using chemical or projectile munitions unless the target of such weapons “poses an imminent threat of physical harm to a law enforcement officer or other person.”
Agents are not allowed to deploy munitions at the head, neck, or torso of any person, “unless the officer is legally justified in using deadly force against that person.” And agents are restricted from deploying munitions if doing so would “endanger any other individual who does not pose an imminent threat of physical harm to a law enforcement officer or other person.”
Under the order, agents can no longer deploy chemicals and munitions for the purpose of simply moving the crowd from the building’s driveway, or refusing to move or refusing to obey a dispersal order, as has often happened during protests.
The list of munitions restricted under the order include kinetic impact projectiles, pepper ball or paintball guns, pepper or oleoresin capsicum spray, tear gas or other chemical irritants, soft nose rounds, 40mm or 37mm launchers, less lethal shotguns, and flashbang, Stinger, or rubber ball grenades.
Gatherers gassed
A couple thousand people attended a Saturday afternoon protest against ICE that members of 30 Oregon labor unions organized at Elizabeth Caruthers Park near the ICE facility south of downtown Portland. Many attendees were unionized teachers, nurses and construction industry workers who also brought their children and pets.
Attendees held signs that expressed solidarity with protesters in Minneapolis, who have marched in the tens of thousands for weeks to call on ICE to leave the city, and signs that called on ICE to stop detaining children.
Within an hour of the large crowd slowly moving toward the ICE facility, federal agents on top of the building and dozens who emerged from behind the building’s gate began throwing flashbangs and tear gas at the crowd without any warning from the building’s loud speakers.
That’s a violation of orders from leaders at the Homeland Security Department and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to the ACLU lawsuit, which require verbal warnings before such munitions are deployed.
Children, pets, the elderly and those in wheelchairs and pushing bikes were forced into a crowded street where no one could quickly escape a growing plume of tear gas that burned eyes, throats and lungs and had people pushing blindly ahead to find clear air. Children screamed in pain and confusion.
In a well-functioning constitutional democratic republic, free speech, courageous newsgathering, and nonviolent protest are all permitted, respected, and even celebrated. In an authoritarian regime, that is not the case. Our nation is now at a crossroads.
– U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon
Laurie Eckman, an 84-year-old who attended the march with her church, said in a sworn statement that she kept her distance from the ICE facility and assumed it would be safe to protest at a daytime event with kids and families.
Nevertheless, “As I walked north on S. Moody, I had to walk through sequential tear gas clouds from canisters that detonated ahead of me as I tried to exit the area,” she said in her testimony. “I held on to a person next to me as I walked and held a tissue over my nose. I could not keep my eyes open, my face stung, and it was hard to breathe. People were retching, vomiting, and crying.”
Federal officers met another protest on Sunday with heavy gas and munitions. The crowd of several hundred started at Portland City Hall Sunday afternoon to demand city officials revoke ICE’s operating permit at the Portland facility before marching to the facility. By about 7 p.m. the gas deployed by chemical agents was thick enough to be seen and felt from nearly a mile away.
Residents who live in the Gray’s Landing apartments, a 209-unit low-income apartment building across from the ICE facility, also experienced an unprecedented amount of gas entering their homes during Saturday and Sunday protests, according to attorneys for the building’s owners, Reach Community Development. One of the gas canisters launched by federal agents shattered an apartment window while the resident was inside.
Reach is also suing the federal government to end the officers’ use of tear gas near the residential building.
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