Filled with quiet outrage, a stream of about 125 protesters — some carrying flowers or battery-lit candles — silently marched several blocks Friday evening to the Southeast Portland parking lot where two Venezuelan nationals were shot and wounded during a Border Patrol stop on Thursday. In somber tones, some wiping away tears, they urged each other not to become complacent or accustomed to the violence.
Across the city, more than 300 gathered in front of the South Waterfront U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, their rage shouted from megaphones for all to hear.
Shootings by federal immigration enforcement agents this week have rekindled protests in Portland. On Wednesday, an ICE agent fatally shot Minneapolis woman Renee Good on a snowy street. The next day, at least one Border Patrol agent opened fire on two Venezuelans — Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras and Luis David Nino-Moncada — in Portland. Both were wounded, but according to Portland Police Chief Bob Day were “on the road to recovery” on Friday.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees both ICE and Border Patrol, says agents in both of the instances were acting in self-defense.
But the crowds that gathered Friday decried those explanations.
Half a dozen elected officials condemned the shootings at the Southeast Portland vigil organized by Outer East Portland Indivisible.
“Folks, this cannot be accepted as normal,” said U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter, an Oregon Democrat who represents the Portland area, as she stood 50 feet from the parking lot of an Adventist Health medical building where Zambrano-Contreras and Nino-Moncada were shot.
Portland City Councilors Jamie Dunphy and Candace Avalos, Democratic state lawmakers Sen. Khanh Pham and Rep. Lamar Wise and Multnomah County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards, joined her.
Avalos urged the crowd to keep showing up to demonstrations and to do what they could to help targeted immigrants in ways big and small.
“That means if you have neighbors who are afraid to leave their homes, get them groceries,” Avalos said. “Get them diapers.”
Parents Som Subedi and Pampha Subedi brought their three children to the protest because they think it’s important for them to know what’s happening in their neighborhood. The children, a 10-year-old and two 8-year-old twins, were sharing one fuzzy blanket wrapped around them to fend off the evening’s chill. All three said they understood what had happened the previous day.
Som Subedi said he and his wife are from Bhutan. Their entire family are now U.S. citizens, he said. But they still live in fear that they will be stopped. When he goes to work, they are full of anxiety that he won’t return.
“Every single day,” Som Subedi said. “Because of my accent and the brown face. … There’s always the doubt that I won’t come home.”
Speakers who rallied a protest crowd at Elizabeth Caruthers Park on Friday night argued that they have “no other option” than to fight back against force used by immigration agents.
While Democratic leaders have called for calm in the wake of Portland and Minneapolis shootings, protesters who marched to the ICE facility on Friday trampled all over the signature “don’t take the bait” line.
Some speakers called on fellow demonstrators to meet force with force against federal immigration officials who they say are now taking violent aim at Portlanders. In the wake of the Border Patrol shooting, some said they were fed up with sitting back.
Despite the furious rhetoric, demonstrations outside of the Portland ICE facility remained relatively passive early Friday, with the exception of a brief skirmish within the crowd where at least one person said she was sprayed with a chemical irritant. Portland police officers monitored the crowd that blocked South Bancroft Street, but did not intervene to clear the road until after 10 p.m., hours after the protesters arrived. They arrested one person, 39-year-old Andrew Simmons of Portland, alleging he pushed an officer.
Tina Langborg, of Vancouver, said she came to the protest in front of the ICE facility because she was devastated about the shooting of Good, the Minneapolis woman. Good is about the same age as Langborg’s daughter, she said.
“Then when I heard about the two shootings in Portland, that upset me, too,” Langborg said.
Langborg was in the crowd around 8:15 on Friday night when an argument erupted between protesters and supporters of President Donald Trump and a man sprayed her in the face with the chemical irritant.
Despite the encounter, she said she planned to stay at the protest a bit longer.
“It’s burning, but it’ll be okay,” she said.
This story was updated on Saturday, Jan. 10 to include new information from Portland police.
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