The Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on Macadam Road south of downtown has become one of the best-known and most distinctive buildings in the city. When you drive by, it even looks, from all the people hanging around it, like a tourist destination.
Of course, what you see out there, most days, are protesters.
But look closer: They are various kinds of protesters. Alongside ICE “clients” (for lack of a better word), there are often a few people with clipboards are trying to assist them. And occasionally, not often, you might see an ICE agent or two.
The people are only part of what makes the place so easy to spot. The building is a blocky nondescript office set in a middling industrial district (though a Tesla car dealership is located next door), located between the south waterfront and Johns Landing, but it has three distinctions.
First, the lower areas that usually might include glass or plastic surfaces are covered instead by plywood, giving the sense of a shuttered structure. Second, most of it is cordoned off by heavy fencing. And the lower half of the building is covered with graffiti — mostly aimed at ICE and the Trump Administration and distinctly R-rated.
There’s no apparent way — no entry, even with security control — a citizen seeking simply to visit this federal agency can do so. The inside is shut off from the world.
A plywood-covered door facing Macadam appears barely used. Most ingress comes in through a gated driveway on a side street, where an unmarked doorway leads into the building.
The surest way to draw an ICE response from outside is to block that driveway, even for a minute, though that’s also where immigrants enter the building — and, some protesters said, seem never to come back out, at least not by the way they went in.
When incidents happen here, as they did earlier this month and likely will again, video reports and clips will suggest that what happens there is happening all over Portland. President Donald Trump has mentioned the idea of sending National Guard troops to the city to “wipe them (protester, presumably) all out.” He said at a news conference, “Portland, it’s unbelievable what’s going on in Portland. The destruction of the city. I’m going to look at it now.”
If he did, he would find no ruin or destruction. Travel around Portland this season and you’ll find a city that looks as prosperous and peaceful as it ever has. The downtown area, a couple of miles north of the ICE building, looks as normal as it ever gets.
In 2020, when Trump last sent a federal force into Portland, neighborhoods were filled with tear gas and people were grabbed from off the streets, well away from a then-violent core.
Current protests appear limited to the ICE building and the streets immediately around it, where traffic has been unimpeded. At least one apartment dweller nearby has complained about noise, and a sign was posted on an office building across the street saying, “Please do not vandalize. We are a nonprofit. We are not associated with the ICE building.” The building appears to be unmarked and undamaged.
Messages critical of ICE are all over the ICE block. A chalk sidewalk message says “Remember the taken.” A display on a Tri-Met rail post behind the building contains sheets showing people who have entered the ICE system, apparently in Portland, and evidently remain in custody, somewhere.
People who approach the ICE building side street entrance, in some cases as a requirement of monthly check-ins, are met outside by a few volunteers offering information. Most other people visible on the block are protesters.
But the protesters come in distinct types, most easily grouped as “day” and “night.”
On Monday mornings since January, an interdenominational religious group organized in part by local Quakers stands on the sidewalk in front of the building and holds up protesting signs. They are quiet — most of the sound comes from the honking of passersby car horns, generally in support of the protesters — and peaceful; most are seniors. About 30 were there this week; the group’s mailing list was said to include 60 people. Around noon, they packed up their signs and later other groups, at least one of them Buddhist, took their place. Most of the protesters come from a variety of religious groups.
People there say the scene is different at night, when a smaller and more hard-edged group — some of the day-timers called them “rowdies” — show up. They make noise, have left graffiti, and have thrown objects. In response, ICE troops, whose appearance usually is limited in the day, were said to sometimes emerge with tear gas. The usual number of people showing up at night, according to the daytime regulars, is small, usually fewer than two dozen.
One of the day protesters, Joe Snyder of Portland, said he doubted “we need a lot of federal troops for 15 or 20 people.”
Day or night, there’s little personal contact between the people inside the building and those outside. It’s become a routine. And none of the groups in or around the building seem entirely comfortable with the others.
Could that change? Snyder told about one day when ICE officers — appearing on the roof of the building — and both types of protesters were present, and conditions grew tense. Then some of the religious protesters started singing and walking around the area. The tension eased. After a time, the “rowdies” relaxed, and so did the ICE officers.
The chasms are large, but they might be breached. If they are, that’s not likely to happen by an overwhelming show of force.