Portland fights migrant deportation

Portland, Oregon

By Even Reif

On January 21, the Workers World Party Portland branch joined with International League of Peoples’ Struggle, BAYAN and over a dozen progressive and leftist groups in a protest against the inauguration of President Donald Trump. The event took place at the Battleship Oregon memorial — a particularly fitting site given the ship’s direct participation in U.S. imperialist wars in the Philippines, the brutal suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China and the ongoing occupation of Hawaiʻi.

Portland, Oregon. Counter-inaugural protest defends migrant rights, Jan. 21, 2025. WW Photo: Lyn Neeley

Hundreds of activists came together to rally and protest in opposition to the fascist policies of the new Trump administration, which had already issued hundreds of executive orders brutally curtailing the rights of millions of people and setting the stage for mass deportations and the military occupation of the Southern border. Despite the peaceful nature of the rally, a police tactical team was waiting in the wings less than a block away, and officers arrested five people.

As U.S. government repression escalates, it will only exacerbate the suppression of the nascent people’s struggles. It is vital, therefore, to organize a popular, broad-based, militant movement against the new administration.