On Sept. 27, President Trump announced in a post on Truth Social that he was ordering federal troops to “protect War ravaged Portland.” He was immediately faced with objections from more than 100 Oregon leaders, but despite this, Trump still authorized 200 members of the state’s National Guard, using federal authority, and deployed them into Portland.
The state of Oregon and city of Portland reacted by suing the Trump administration as an attempt to block the deployment. U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut, who was appointed by President Trump during his first term in office, then granted Oregon and Portland a temporary restraining order, pausing Trump’s deployment at least through Oct. 17.
Following that District Court ruling blocking his deployment of the Oregon National Guard, Trump instead ordered 300 troops from the California National Guard and 400 additional troops from Texas. Immergut swiftly held another hearing and issued another ruling that blocks all troops, including those from other states, from deployment in Portland.
Although the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit overturned the first restraining order, which allowed the federalization of Oregon National Guard troops, it did not overturn the second order. Currently, Oregon’s troops are federalized but unable to be deployed due to the second order.
During all of this, Kristi Noem, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, visited Portland’s visited Portland’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility and met with Oregon’s State Governor, Gov. Tina Kotek. While some media have portrayed the protest as violent, pictures surfaced online showing that the protesters mostly consisted of media, few civilian protesters and a man in a chicken suit. In an interview with the chicken suit man he said:
“This is how I have been protesting in the last couple of months, I originally got it [The chicken costume] at the first no king’s protest back in June. That was when the Taco Trump stuff was happening and I was just like, I am going to dress as a chicken. But I continue to wear it because it is a fun way to draw visibility and keep morale up…”
The weekend after Noem’s visit ended with clashes with law enforcement, dancing in the street and nudity, as hundreds of people were on bicycles for what organizers called an “emergency” World Naked Bike Ride in front of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Even government officials joined in, with council heads of Metro, the regional government of the Portland area, leaving their shoulders bare in social media videos where they asked demonstrators to stay safe.
On Saturday, Oct. 18, there were peaceful No Kings protests across Oregon, and a man in an inflatable frog costume was seen in a video taunting ICE agents with “funky” dances. But the day end with a brief yet impactful show of force from federal officers in Portland in the evening. Videos surfaced online where the frog got pepper sprayed in the ventilation window of the costume by ICE agents as a form of crowd control.
When asked if he got out of the suit a few days after the protest, the frog said:
“I did not get out of the suit until an hour later. I didn’t even realize I was maced until like 15 minutes later”.
When another person asked what happened when the agents pepper sprayed him , his reply was:
“Nothing, I kinda coughed a little, but that was as much as it did to me. It was a little peppermint taste you know. I’ve tasted spicier tamales, I’m Mexican what do you expect”
and he went on his way dancing as he always does.
After the video went viral, the frogs multiplied and started calling themselves the “Portland Frog Brigade”. A post on X, formerly Twitter, said “United we ribbit, divided we croak. ” One member of the “Frog Brigade” said
“…so we’ve decided to come support our friend Toad, who’s been out here. You probably saw him on the news, and you know he’s a friend from another pond”.
