PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Portland, Oregon, said Wednesday it will issue a land use violation notice to the city’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building, accusing the facility of detaining people beyond the limits of what its land use approval allows.
The building’s conditional land use approval, in place since 2011, does not allow people to be kept overnight or held for more than 12 hours. The city alleges that this provision was violated 25 times over the 10-month period from last October through most of this July.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made clear detention limitation commitments to our community, and we believe they broke those policies more than two dozen times,” Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a news release. “I am proud of our team for conducting a thorough, thoughtful investigation, and referring the matter to the next steps in the land use violation process.”
The city said it will issue the notice, which also references a second violation regarding boarded-up windows, on Thursday. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Recently, the building has been the site of nightly protests, which peaked in June, with smaller clashes also occurring since then. Immigration and legal advocates often gather there during the day to help those arriving at the building, while protesters, often dressed in black and wearing helmets or masks, show up at night.
While disruptive to nearby residents, the protests are a far cry from the racial justice protests that gripped the city in 2020. They nevertheless have drawn the attention of President Donald Trump, who recently said he was considering sending in federal troops, as he has also threatened to do to combat crime in other cities. He signed an order Monday to send the National Guard into Memphis, Tennessee, and deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles over the summer and as part of his law enforcement takeover in Washington, D.C.
Most violent crime around the country has actually declined in recent years, including in Portland, where a recent report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association found that homicides from January through June decreased by 51% this year compared to the same period in 2024.
Under Portland’s sanctuary policy, city employees, including police officers, do not enforce federal immigration law. Oregon also has a sanctuary law that prohibits state and local law enforcement from participating in immigration enforcement without a warrant.
Portland said its permitting bureau launched an investigation into the ICE building in late July in response to formal complaints. It reviewed data released by ICE to the nonprofit Deportation Data Project under public records requests, which indicated that the most recent of the 25 detention violations between Oct. 1, 2024, and July 27, 2025 occurred on May 20, the city said.
Landowners have 30 days after receiving a notice of violation to correct the issue. A fine can be issued if there is “substantial evidence of violation,” the city said.
The city’s permitting bureau can also initiate a “reconsideration” of a land use approval by scheduling a hearing at least 60 days after a notice is given, the city said. Decisions from the hearings officer can be appealed to the city council.
A_Man_With_A_Plan_B on September 18th, 2025 at 02:16 UTC »
The 27 Grievances Against King George III
1. He has refused to approve laws that are necessary for the public good. 2. He has forbidden governors to pass important laws unless he approved them, and he has delayed approval. 3. He has refused to pass laws for large areas of people unless they gave up representation in the legislature. 4. He has called legislative bodies to meet in inconvenient, distant places to tire them out into submission. 5. He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing his invasions of rights. 6. After dissolving legislatures, he has refused to allow new ones to be elected. 7. He has obstructed immigration and refused to pass naturalization laws. 8. He has prevented the establishment of judicial powers by refusing to approve necessary laws. 9. He has made judges dependent on his will alone for their offices, salaries, and tenure. 10. He has created many new offices and sent swarms of officers to harass people and eat out their resources. 11. He has kept standing armies among the colonists in peacetime without consent. 12. He has made the military independent of and superior to civil power. 13. He has combined with others to subject colonists to foreign jurisdiction (Parliament), unacknowledged by their laws. 14. He has quartered large bodies of armed troops among the colonists. 15. He has protected British troops from punishment for crimes (like murder) committed against colonists. 16. He has cut off trade with the rest of the world. 17. He has imposed taxes without the colonists’ consent. 18. He has deprived colonists of trial by jury. 19. He has transported colonists overseas to be tried for pretended offenses. 20. He has abolished free systems of English law in neighboring Quebec, establishing arbitrary government there, threatening the colonies. 21. He has taken away charters, abolished valuable laws, and altered fundamentally the governments of colonies. 22. He has suspended legislatures and declared himself invested with power to legislate for the colonies in all cases whatsoever. 23. He has abdicated government here by declaring us outside his protection and waging war against us. 24. He has plundered seas, ravaged coasts, burned towns, and destroyed lives. 25. He is transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries (Hessians) to complete works of death and tyranny. 26. He has forced American captives at sea to bear arms against their own country. 27. He has stirred up domestic insurrections and encouraged Native attacks on frontier settlers.Pontiac_787 on September 18th, 2025 at 02:06 UTC »
I'm so worried about these sorts of things in reference to legality. It's become clear that the federal government literally doesn't care if something is legal or not or whether a court orders them to do this or that. And they're literally the government; no amount of democracy can stop a government that disregards law. I really don't know how I should feel about this.
Yuukiko_ on September 18th, 2025 at 01:26 UTC »
Trump gonna send his militia to terrorise Portland now