🔗 Share this article

The South Dakota governor, who holds the position of the homeland security secretary, visited the ICE office in the city of Portland on a recent weekday. While there, she saw firsthand a small demonstration outside, which stands in stark contrast to the dramatic "encirclement" claimed by former President Donald Trump.

Joined by Conservative Influencers

Governor Noem was accompanied by a trio of conservative influencers who were whisked from the airport to the site in her official convoy. The Department of Homeland Security has published escalating social media content showing federal officers performing immigration raids and deploying crowd control measures at protesters.

Demonstration Details

Portland police secured the area outside the ICE office in the southern Portland area before the secretary’s arrival. Several individuals, including one dressed as a chicken and another as a baby shark, were kept at a distance.

Audio was audible from a protest encampment nearby, with lyrics mentioning Donald Trump and Epstein files. One protester called out to a government videographer recording from the roof, asking whether the DHS had been renamed the "information ministry".

Reporting Details

Reporters from independent news outlets were also restricted to the police line outside, while the conservative personalities in the secretary's group—Benny Johnson, Nick Sortor, and David Media—shared online posts of the secretary participating in federal personnel in prayer inside, giving a motivational speech, and advising a soldier of the militia to "Get ready".

Background Developments

The secretary has repeated the Trump's claims that the small band of demonstrators—who have gathered in their dozens outside the office since the summer, including one in an frog outfit—are "terrorists" who have placed the building "besieged", making the sending of federal troops critical.

But, on last weekend, a federal judge in Portland prevented Trump’s effort to nationalize local militia, determining that the his claims that the mostly calm city was "burning to the ground" were "untethered to the facts".

The next day, the court official, Karin Immergut—who was appointed to the bench by Donald Trump—extended the decision to prohibit National Guard troops from other states from being used in Portland. She acted after Trump answered to her initial ruling by trying to deploy members of the another state's militia to the state.

Rising Conflicts

After Donald Trump highlighted the limited yet ongoing gathering outside the site and made unsubstantiated allegations that Oregon is "battle-scarred", a increasing amount of his adherents, including MAGA influencers, have arrived to face the demonstrators.

A number of these encounters have led to scuffles and physical fights, leading to apprehensions by the officers. Nick Sortor was one of those detained after he sought to enter a demonstration site on a pavement near the site and was involved in a scuffle over an national banner. The influencer had earlier taken the flag from a protester who was burning it.

The charges against him were eventually dismissed after an outcry in conservative media led the leader of the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, the division head, to suggest a review of the law enforcement agency over alleged partisan treatment.

The two women the influencer was arrested for fighting with still have pending accusations.

Official Responses

Over the weekend, Governor Tina Kotek, Tina Kotek, alleged government personnel in the office of trying to irritate the demonstrators by using excessive quantities of crowd control agents in a populated area and inviting conservative social media influencers to record the gathering from the upper level of the facility. "They are clearly trying to antagonize the crowds," the governor stated.

Three of those MAGA-aligned figures were mentioned in a police report last month as "opposing demonstrators" who "repeatedly come back and harass the protesters until they are assaulted or subjected to spray" and resist "repeated advice from officers to keep clear of" the protesters.

Social Media Updates

One influencer, a previous media worker who reinvented himself as a Christian nationalist influencer after being fired from his previous employer for ethical violations, posted a clip of Noem observing from the top of the office at the limited number of demonstrators below, including a protest organizer who sports a bird outfit to mock Donald Trump. The influencer described the clip of the secretary observing the placid scene below: "Secretary Noem confronts Antifa militants and a costumed protester".

In spite of the difference between the assertions from Trump and Noem that this site is "besieged" from "homegrown extremists" and clear visual evidence of a handful of demonstrators in non-threatening attire, the figures with the secretary continued to describe the demonstrators as harmful activists.

Discussion with Law Enforcement

During her visit, Governor Noem also met with the city's top cop, Chief Day, who has been caricatured as "woke" in partisan press for authorizing his officers to arrest Sortor. In a online post on the engagement, Johnson stated that the official had "supported violent ANTIFA militants attacking journalists and officers outside ICE facility".

The secretary's convoy then exited the office past a few of individuals on the nearby road, including one dressed as a animal wearing a hat.