Trump Authorizes Military to Use 'Full Force' in Portland
- - Trump Authorizes Military to Use 'Full Force' in Portland
Richard HallSeptember 28, 2025 at 12:39 PM
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A woman stands off with a law enforcement officer wearing a Houston Field Office Special Response Team patch outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE) building during a protest Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Portland, Ore. Credit - Jenny Kane—AP
President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that he had directed the Pentagon to send troops to “protect” Portland, Oregon, adding that he was authorizing “full force, if necessary.”
“At the request of Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Saturday morning.
“I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary,” he added.
Read more: The Danger of Trump’s Crackdown on Blue Cities
The announcement comes less than a week after Trump officially designated Antifa as a domestic terror group, and follows a pledge from the Trump Administration to carry out a broad crackdown on leftwing groups in the aftermath of the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Portland's mayor, Keith Wilson, hit out at Trump's order as a "fruitless show of force."
"The number of necessary troops is zero, in Portland and any other American city. Our nation has a long memory for acts of oppression, and the president will not find lawlessness or violence here unless he plans to perpetrate it," he said in a statement.
Trump has made unprecedented use of the U.S. military for domestic purposes in his second term, raising concerns about the use of the threat of force to stifle dissent against his unpopular government.
In June, Trump deployed 2,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles to quell immigration protests—a move that was later deemed illegal by a federal judge. Then in August, he deployed the National Guard and federal agencies to Washington, D.C., and federalized the police force ostensibly to combat crime, even as crime had been falling in recent years.
Read more: What It Means for Trump to Label Antifa a ‘Major Terrorist Organization’
Trump has gone further since then, threatening to deploy the military to several more Democratic-run cities in retaliation for criticism from local leaders, justifying the deployments based on his own perception of crime in those cities.
A throwback to 2020
Trump's preoccupation with Portland dates back to his first term in the White House.
Portland has been a center of leftwing protest for decades, and it became a focal point of the nationwide Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, when Trump was president.
Trump sent federal forces to Portland in response to those protests. Officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), the U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Protective Service, and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were deployed in the city to protect federal buildings from protesters, against the wishes of local leaders.
At the time, Oregon Governor Kate Brown accused the Trump Administration of using Portland as a political “photo opportunity” and said the deployment “inflamed” rather than calmed the situation.
In recent months, regular protests have taken place outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in the city. The Department of Homeland Security has blamed “Antifa-affiliated rioters” for the protests and documented what it has described as "Antifa violence" in a press release a day before Trump's announcement.
One incident highlighted by the DHS describes the arrest of a protester in June for shining a laser pen at an ICE officer. Another protester was arrested the same day for picking up a smoke grenade thrown by police and hurling it back at federal officers, "striking one in the forearm and abdomen." The DHS also says "Antifa" reveals the personal information of ICE agents.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, said on X that her office was reaching out to the White House and Homeland Security for more information about the deployment.
"We have been provided no information on the reason or purpose of any military mission. There is no national security threat in Portland. Our communities are safe and calm," she wrote.
Ron Wyden, Democratic senator for Oregon, accused Trump of trying to incite violence in the city.
"Trump is launching an authoritarian takeover of Portland hoping to provoke conflict in my hometown," he wrote on X. "I urge Oregonians to reject Trump’s attempt to incite violence in what we know is a vibrant and peaceful city. I will do everything in my power to protect the people in our state."
Portland's mayor, Wilson, had made it clear he did not want federal troops in the city after Trump ramped up his threats in recent weeks.
"We are proud that Portland police have successfully protected freedom of expression while addressing occasional violence and property destruction that takes place during protests at the ICE facility in Portland," he said in a statement earlier this month.
Wilson has touted his city's progress on crime this year: in August, he announced homicides were down 51% year-to-date. "We’ve even seen months with zero homicides,” he said.
Antifa is now a 'domestic terror group'
Trump declared Antifa a domestic terror organization in a new White House Executive Order signed Monday evening.
The order describes the group as a “militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.”
Antifa, short for anti-fascist, is a largely decentralized movement that lacks defined leadership. Generally, Antifa describes those in opposition to fascism and far-right neo-Nazi ideologies, tracing their roots to 20th-century resistance movements in Europe.
Trump's Executive Order directs government agencies to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations” performed by “Antifa.”
But the U.S. has no domestic terror law on the books, and the order appears sufficiently broad that it could be used to target a wide range of protest movements. It is unclear how the order will be used in practice due to Antifa’s indistinct definition and lack of structure.
It comes as Trump has ordered a crackdown on left-wing groups in response to the murder of Kirk, despite the motives of the suspect in his killing, Tyler Robinson, not yet being clear.
Critics have said Trump’s executive order lacks a basis in law and could infringe on citizens’ First Amendment rights to protest and dissent.
Patrick G. Eddington, senior fellow at libertarian think tank Cato Institute, wrote that Trump’s executive order is “idiotic on multiple levels.”
“The notion that an idea can be designated an organization is one,” he said. “The fact that there’s no constitutional provision or statute granting any president the power to designate a domestic civil society organization a ‘domestic terrorist organization’ is another.”
— Additional reporting by Rebecca Schneid
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Source: “AOL Politics”
