Since June, there have been nightly protests outside the now-boarded-up offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Portland, Ore.
Martin Kaste/NPR
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Martin Kaste/NPR
Immigration arrests dropped nationwide in July, slowing the pace of President Donald Trump’s promised “mass deportation” just weeks after a sharp increase in June. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, its total “initial book-ins” went from 31,597 in June to 27,483 in July, a 13% drop.
ICE did not respond to NPR requests for comment, but in the past agency officials have said they need more officers and detention spaces to meet administration goals. With billions of dollars of new money from Congress, ICE has launched a drive to recruit more officers and build more detention facilities.
But in the near-term, protesters and activists believe they may be able to slow the pace of arrests and deportations. Oregon is a case in point.
Creating “noise” and “presence”
In Portland, demonstrators have gathered almost nightly outside ICE’s field office, yelling curses through megaphones and occasionally crossing onto federal property. Federal officers have responded by shooting pepper balls and other crowd-control weapons. The building’s lower windows are boarded up, covered with spray-painted curses aimed at the people working inside.
Chandler Patey, one of the few protesters who’s not masked, said the group’s presence keeps public attention on deportations. “We need to be here and we need to create some amount of noise and a presence here,” he says. “And when ICE is here, they’re not out kidnapping people,…