Suspected members of Antifa demonstrated against President Joe Biden overnight in Portland, Oregon, forcing businesses to board up their windows and doors to protect against vandalism.
Around 150 “anti-ICE” (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement) protesters marched through downtown Portland on Saturday night — a continuation of ongoing protests against the Biden administration’s decision to continue deporting some migrants under the Trump administration’s “public safety” rules, and news, which broke last week, of a detention facility for children opening on the United States-Mexico border.
Fox News reports that Saturday night’s demonstration, though, was the largest “in weeks.”
“Around 150 people marched through Portland’s Pearl District in what’s called a ‘direct action’ event, smashing windows of businesses like Starbucks, Chipotle, Umpqua Bank, and Urban Pantry and tagging them with graffiti, KION-TV in Portland reported,” according to Fox.
Although coverage of ongoing unrest in Portland has largely dropped off, the far-left protests have not abated. On the day President Joe Biden was inaugurated, suspected “anti-fascists” vandalized the city’s Democratic party headquarters, and just last month, Federal agents were called in to defend an ICE facility there. They tangled with rioters and, eventually, were forced to deploy non-lethal means of crowd control, including tear gas.
“In a city that has seen months of demonstrations over racial injustice, economic inequality, federal law enforcement, and corporate power — and some of the harshest law enforcement responses to such protests — protesters have vowed to continue their actions no matter who is president,” The New York Times reported in January. “‘We are ungovernable,’ one sign in the crowd said.”
The outlet described the incident as a “challenge by anti-fascist and racial-justice protesters to the new administration of President Joe Biden, whose promised reforms, they declared, ‘won’t save us.'”
Saturday night’s demonstration was similar and also centered around Biden’s immigration policies, which are markedly different from his predecessors, but still not as radical as the far-left’s.
“Profanity-laden slogans and messages like ‘No kids in cages’ were spray-painted all over ICE’s nearby field office,” Fox News reported. “Portland police began arrests around 10 p.m. ET and warned the protesters if they didn’t disperse they could be subjected to tear gas and impact munitions.”
“Police noted in a news release that while tear gas was restricted it could be used following an ignored warning,” they added.
“We have removed everything that could possibly cause damage tonight,” one business owner told local media. “When these people come through, and we’ve lost an entire day of business which means that’s impacting my team member’s wages. This has been going on for nine months. Where are our resources? When do we get enough resources to finally go after and fix this?”
Protests in Portland began back in May, following the death of George Floyd while in the custody of Minneapolis police. They’ve continued since and did not stop with a change in administration.