More than 200 people attended a protest on Jan. 10, 2025 in Portland at the Willamette River waterfront against Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. military attacks on Venezuela. (Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
Hundreds of Oregonians turned out across Portland and in Salem to protest against federal agents shooting people in Portland and Minneapolis, as well as U.S. military action in Venezuela.
Several groups quickly organized Saturday’s events after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed an unarmed woman in her vehicle in Minneapolis, federal Customs and Border Protection agents shot and wounded two Venezuelan immigrants in Portland and recent U.S. military attacks in Venezuela that led to the arrest of president Nicolás Maduro. Many joined chants and held signs calling for both the abolishment of ICE and for the U.S. to leave Venezuela.
Local nonprofit immigrant advocacy groups and doctors’ advocacy groups, the national progressive grassroots organization Indivisible and the Portland chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America organized the demonstrations.
Salem
Roughly 800 people gathered on the north end of Salem’s Capitol park, waving signs and chanting while a steady stream of drivers on Center Street honked their horns in support.
Thom Gapen, who handles communications for Salem Region Indivisible, said organizers knew they had to do something as soon as they heard news on Wednesday that a Minneapolis woman, Renee Nicole Good, had been shot and killed by an ICE agent in her car.
Organizers put together several large protests last year, including getting 10,000 people on the streets of Salem for the nationwide No Kings Day protest in mid-October. They were exhausted and needed a break, Gapen said, and they didn’t expect to have to organize a demonstration so quickly in 2026.
“We knew after the holidays that we were going to jump back in and get busy, but we did not think this would happen, and we did not think that this would be the reason,” Gapen said. “I mean, we’re not even one week into the year, and people are getting killed by rogue agents.”
State Sen. Deb Patterson, D-Salem, walked around the crowd talking with Salem residents. Patterson said she’s working with other legislators, including some Republicans, on bills for the upcoming short session that begins in February to respond to the Trump administration’s crackdown on Oregon and other Democratic states.
“We’re a blue state. The federal government’s already targeting blue states, whether we’re on the street or not,” Patterson said.
Lawmakers haven’t released bill language yet, but they’ve discussed ideas to bar federal agents from wearing masks and support lawsuits against federal officers who enter people’s homes without permission. They’re expected to share more details during pre-session meetings next week.
Portland
More than 200 people, including Portland City Councilor Angelita Morrillo, Oregon leaders of the American Civil Liberties Union and the anti-war veterans’ group About Face, gathered along the Willamette River waterfront.
For Portlander Glenn Hoerner, defunding and eliminating ICE is a priority, and he said he was compelled to join the protest out of “pretty simple outrage.”
“It’s pretty simple for me. I’m a Brown man in a situation where Brown people are getting rounded up. American citizens. Seeing people who look like me just being taken just pisses me off,” he said. “We can’t fix anything until we have basically secret police off the streets.”
By mid afternoon on the other side of the Willamette River, nearly 200 people were protesting outside the Legacy Emmanuel Medical Center in northeast Portland at an event organized by a local immigrant rights group PDXCD Portland Contra las Deportaciones. The group is protesting what organizers characterized as Legacy making itself the “go-to hospital” for ICE agents to bring people injured during arrests.
Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, one of two Venezuelan immigrants shot by a U.S. Border Patrol officer on Thursday, is recovering at the hospital.
Jennifer Black, a retired doctor and member of the local advocacy group Doctors for Democracy, said she was protesting because she is concerned with ICE’s impact on patients getting needed health care, and accounts from group members who work for Legacy that federal officers are being allowed unlawful access to patients and patients’ medical information.
“People are now afraid to come in for care. They can now be, I guess, kidnapped from our offices, from our hospitals, and we’re here today because there are a lot of rumors that Legacy is not respecting HIPAA, which is the privacy rules that govern our work with our patients,” she said.
(Photo by Alex Baumhardt/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
The Oregon Nurses Association, a union representing more than 24,000 nurses in the state, has called on Legacy’s President Bahaa Wanly to sign a legally binding memorandum of understanding that ensures a number of patient rights are upheld when the target of an ICE arrest is brought to the hospital.
They include restricting law enforcement access to patients in the hospital without a warrant or the proper legal authority and affirming that under federal law, law enforcement officers are not authorized to make medical decisions for patients or interrupt or terminate care.
At least one more protest was scheduled to take place in downtown Portland from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. A protest organized by the groups UpRisePDX and Operation Inflation and Portland Frog Brigade outside of the ICE processing facility south of downtown Portland is scheduled for 7 p.m.
State Rep. Ricki Ruiz, D-Gresham, and former “MAGA granny” Pamela Hemphill — a convicted Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol rioter who has since become an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump — will be there, according to an online flyer.
On Jan. 6 of this year, Hemphill testified before Congress that she had “fallen for the president’s lies just like many of his supporters,” and apologized for her actions. Trump has recently described the riots, which left more than 170 police officers injured, one dead and four later taking their lives, as “a day of love.”
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