By U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday said he was directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to send troops to Portland, Oregon and to protect federal immigration facilities against “domestic terrorists”, saying he was authorizing them to use “full force, if necessary.”
Ordering the latest crackdown on a Democrat-led city, Trump said in a social media post that he was directing 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.”
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, responding to Trump’s order, said: “The number of necessary troops is zero, in Portland and any other American city. The president will not find lawlessness or violence here unless he plans to perpetrate it.”
U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday, September 27, 2025, announced that he was directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to deploy troops to protect Portland and federal immigration facilities.
In a press conference on Friday, Wilson and other local leaders urged calm in the face of an apparent influx of federal officers that the mayor said did not come at the request of the city. “This may be a show of force, but that’s all it is. It’s just a big show,” he said.
U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, wrote on X that Trump “may be replaying the 2020 playbook and surging into Portland with the goal of provoking conflict and violence.” In 2020, protests erupted in downtown Portland, the Pacific Northwest enclave with a reputation as a liberal city, following the killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd. The protests dragged on for months and some civic leaders at the time said they were spurred rather than quelled by Trump’s deployment of federal troops.
TRUMP FOCUSES ON CRIME, ‘ANTIFA’
On Thursday, Trump told reporters that “crazy people” were trying to burn buildings in Portland. “They’re professional agitators and anarchists,” he said, without providing evidence.
Last week, Trump signed an executive order declaring the anti-fascist Antifa movement a domestic “terrorist organization,” as part of a crackdown on what he claims is left-wing sponsored political violence.
ICE agents charge towards protesters during a protest against the U.S. President Donald Trump administration’s immigration policies, outside an ICE detention facility in Portland, Oregon, U.S., September 1, 2025.
According to U.S. law enforcement, there has never been a terrorist incident in the United States connected to Antifa. Trump first sought to designate the movement as a domestic terror organization during the nationwide George Floyd protests.
The most notorious incident involving the movement occurred in Portland in August 2020, when Michael Reinoehl, a self-identified Antifa supporter, shot and killed Aaron “Jay” Danielson, a member of the far-right group Patriot Prayer. Reinoehl was later killed by federal and local law enforcement officers during an attempt to arrest him.
Trump has made crime a major focus of his administration, even as violent crime rates have fallen in many U.S. cities. His crackdown on municipalities led by Democrats, including Los Angeles and Washington, has sparked legal challenges and protests.
President Donald Trump speaks with members of law enforcement and National Guard soldiers, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2025, in Washington.
The Trump administration’s push to deport record numbers of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally has been framed around targeting criminals, but many people without criminal records have also been arrested. Residents in New York, Chicago, Washington, and other Democrat-leaning cities have protested these actions in recent months.
