Can Labor Unions Stop ICE Operations? Portland as a Test Case

Thousands of union members gathered at Elizabeth Caruthers Park in Portland’s South Waterfront neighborhood, preparing to march on the city’s ICE facility. What organizers called “Labor Against ICE” represented one of the most significant union organizing protests against federal immigration enforcement in recent years—at least thirty unions across Oregon had endorsed the action, from nurses to teachers to public employees.

The peaceful afternoon rally transformed into something else entirely when federal officers deployed chemical weapons from the ICE facility’s roof. Tear gas drifted through the air, affecting not just protesters near the building but families, children, and elderly people positioned blocks away. The federal response raised an urgent question: can organized labor stop or limit ICE operations through protest and direct action, or does the federal government’s willingness to deploy force against union-backed demonstrations reveal the limits of street protest as a tactic?

The Portland action didn’t happen in isolation. Just eight days earlier, Minneapolis had witnessed what organizers called America’s first general strike in eighty years. Portland’s union movement was joining a national wave of union-led resistance to what they characterized as federal overreach—but whether that resistance could stop ICE operations remained an open question.

Federal Officers Deploy Chemical Weapons Against Union Protesters

The rally began with speeches from union leaders representing multiple sectors. SEIU Local 503, which represents more than 72,000 workers across Oregon in healthcare, childcare, and public services, anchored the organizing effort. Leaders told the crowd that increased ICE enforcement wasn’t an immigration issue—it was affecting workers across the state.

By positioning immigrant protection as central to what labor cares about rather than supporting other people’s fights, unions were saying this was labor’s fight too.

The march proceeded toward the ICE facility with union members showing they were organized with signs, t-shirts, and coordinated formations. Nurses carried signs reading “ICE Murders Nurses,” connecting recent federal shootings of workers to labor’s concerns. The action remained peaceful through the afternoon, with participants holding signs like “Immigrants are not Criminals Our President Is!!” and “ICE Out of Our Communities.”

Sometime after 4 p.m., when demonstrators crowded the ICE building’s driveway and some blocked a security gate, federal officers on the roof fired tear gas. The chemical mist didn’t hit protesters near the building—it drifted several blocks into the larger crowd, affecting families and elderly people positioned well away from any confrontation.

A former journalist who attended described witnessing “what looked like two guys with rocket launchers” dousing the crowd with gas from approximately 100 yards away. One protester who’d been tear-gassed before reported that the exposure “still kind of hurts” and predicted lasting effects—sneezing would continue for days.

Portland Police closed South Macadam Avenue “to keep drivers from being affected” by the chemical agents. The Portland Fire Bureau sent paramedics to treat people at the scene. But Portland Police made no arrests during or immediately following the confrontation, creating an unusual situation where federal officers acted independently of local authorities.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s statement afterward was unusually forceful. “Today, federal forces deployed heavy waves of chemical munitions, impacting a peaceful daytime protest where the vast majority of those present violated no laws, made no threat, and posed no danger to federal forces,” Wilson stated. He called for ICE officers to resign and for the facility to close: “Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame. To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children.”

Labor’s Historic Shift on Immigration

For most of its history, the American labor movement supported immigration restrictions. From the AFL’s founding in 1886 through the mid-twentieth century, organized labor opposed immigration from Southern and Eastern Europe, Asia, and Mexico. The reasoning was economic: union leaders argued that immigration depressed wages and provided employers with strike-breaker labor. The AFL opposed Chinese immigration, advocated for contract restrictions, and supported the national origins quota system established in the 1920s.

This wasn’t rhetoric. It was official union policy based on anti-immigrant and racist ideas that shaped union strategy for nearly a century.

Only in the late 1990s and early 2000s did labor’s position shift. In 1999 and 2000, the AFL-CIO announced a policy reversal, declaring support for expanded immigration, less aggressive enforcement of immigration laws, and what immigrants were asking for politically. The shift emerged from recognition that immigration restriction hadn’t served workers’ interests, that immigrant workers were increasingly central to labor’s organizing potential, and that solidarity across immigrant and non-immigrant workers would strengthen the movement.

The Portland action’s framing of ICE enforcement as a labor issue represents a strategic shift. Rather than treating immigration as external to concerns, today’s unions treat immigration enforcement as a working condition issue: ICE creates fear that prevents workers from reporting unsafe conditions, makes organizing more difficult through using deportation threats as a weapon, and weakens worker power by creating groups of workers who are easier to exploit.

Melissa Unger, executive director of SEIU Local 503, explained in an interview that many of her members had started carrying their passports on the job due to fear of ICE encounters. “I’ve heard from workers who have said, ‘The only time I ever leave my house is for my job,'” Unger reported. She said that fear of ICE was “across the board, because it doesn’t feel like there’s rhyme or reason to how ICE is choosing to approach people or detain people.”

Did the Protest Stop ICE Operations?

The campaign objectives included ending ICE operations in Portland, protecting immigrant workers from deportation and detention, and holding federal authorities accountable for use of force against peaceful protesters. But the action also served multiple functions beyond these formal demands: showing they could get thousands of people out on immigration issues, building coalition relationships between unions and immigrant rights organizations, and communicating to federal authorities that the movement would contest immigration enforcement operations.

On the most concrete measure—changes to ICE enforcement operations in Portland—the available evidence suggests limited impact. No reporting documents the closure or substantial disruption of facility operations in the days or weeks following the protest. The facility remained operational, and there’s no indication that federal officers reduced enforcement activities in response to pressure.

The street protest didn’t achieve its most explicit stated goal.

But the Portland action generated substantial media coverage both locally and nationally. Federal use of chemical weapons against peaceful union-backed protesters, particularly families and children, became a prominent news narrative. This framing centered federal force as the story, potentially shifting public perception of who bore responsibility for any violence or disruption.

The action also led to outcomes beyond policy change. Mayor Wilson announced that Portland would enforce a rule imposing a fee on detention facilities using chemical agents. By February, residents of Gray’s Landing, an apartment complex adjacent to the ICE facility, had filed and amended a lawsuit seeking to halt use of chemical munitions, with residents describing ongoing harm from repeated exposure to tear gas and other agents.

Beyond Portland, the action influenced how the national movement handles immigration enforcement. AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler, the highest-ranking official in the American movement, called for ICE to leave Minnesota “before anyone else is hurt or killed” following the death of Alex Pretti, linking immigration enforcement to danger for workers.

Whether organized unions can “stop ICE operations” through protest and direct action remains doubtful based on available evidence. The federal government has legal authority to regulate immigration and the ability to withstand both street protests and media criticism without changing core enforcement operations.

Historical Precedents for Labor Confronting Federal Authority

Labor’s historical experience with federal force deployment is extensive and frequently tragic. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 saw federal troops deployed in Martinsburg, West Virginia, establishing a precedent for the federal government getting involved in labor fights. The Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921 represented the largest armed insurrection since the American Civil War, with ten thousand West Virginia coal miners battling coal company hired guns and state police for three days before federal troops intervened.

More recent federal confrontations provide precedent. The 1981 Air Traffic Controllers strike saw President Ronald Reagan fire 11,345 striking controllers, a decisive federal action that contributed to unions losing power in subsequent decades.

The Portland action’s significance within this historical context lies in directly going after federal enforcement operations rather than contractual disputes. Federal officers deployed chemical weapons not because they were protecting federal employees’ ability to work but because they were defending a federal facility against protest action. This represents a different category of federal response: not suppression of work stoppage but suppression of protest speech and assembly.

Deployment of chemical weapons against peaceful protesters, including children and elderly people, shows the federal government is responding more aggressively to opposition.

Alternative Strategies for Labor

Workplace-Based Direct Action Instead of Street Protest

Rather than relying on street protest, unions could take action at workplaces in which members refuse as a group to help ICE enforcement at worksites. Historical precedent exists: in the early 1980s, workers at the Kraco car radio factory in Los Angeles, who’d joined the United Electrical Workers, stopped production lines and forced the owner to deny entry to immigration agents, thereby protecting each other from deportation.

The Molders Union Local 164 in Oakland collaborated with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund to sue the Immigration and Naturalization Service over the practice of locking factory gates and detaining workers without cause. The case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled the practice unconstitutional.

In Portland’s context, unions could negotiate contract language protecting immigrant workers and preventing employer cooperation with ICE. SEIU and other service sector unions could demand that employers refuse ICE entry without valid judicial warrants, stop employers from voluntarily working with ICE programs, and provide independent translators and representation when ICE contact occurs.

The strength of this approach lies in targeting employers who work with ICE—the partnership through which ICE gains workplace access. The challenge is that it requires sustained workplace organizing and negotiation, and it’s unclear if this would work in non-union workplaces or workplaces with weak presence.

Economic Boycott and Business Pressure Campaigns

Unions could organize an economic pressure campaign targeting businesses that provide services that help ICE operate in Portland. This approach draws on historical precedent from the United Farm Workers’ successful grape boycott in the 1960s-1970s, which got millions of people to refuse to buy products until the union won contracts.

Portland unions could identify companies providing transportation, detention services, communications infrastructure, or construction services for ICE operations and organize boycotts. In recent years, immigrant rights organizations and some groups have pressured companies including Target and D.R. Horton to cease collaboration with ICE through sustained public campaigns.

The advantage of this approach is that it hurts companies economically for working with ICE outside of the federal government’s direct control, targeting the private contractors and service providers who make ICE operations possible. The limitation is that many of ICE’s functions are directly federal rather than contracted, and corporate boycotts require sustained public engagement that street protests alone may not generate.

Electoral Pressure and Political Leverage

Unions could turn street protest energy into electoral pressure, using the movement’s influence in Democratic Party politics and Oregon’s political scene. In 2019, when Trump threatened ICE deployments to Los Angeles, thousands participated in marches organized partly through unions, with the message that immigration enforcement would have electoral consequences.

Unions could commit resources to defeating any politician who supports increased ICE funding or expanded immigration enforcement, while supporting candidates who oppose ICE and champion immigrant rights.

In Oregon’s context, where the state has developed sanctuary protections through legislation and where the Democratic Party dominates electoral politics, unions could demand that state legislators and congressional representatives use available budget and legal tools to limit ICE operations. This could include legislation prohibiting state and local cooperation with ICE, revoking state licenses of companies that provide ICE detention services, or spending state money on legal defense of immigrants facing deportation.

The strength of this approach is that it connects voting power—through organized voters and campaign operations—to policy changes through passing laws. The limitation is that it depends on election timing and whether politicians want to act, things unions can’t directly control.

Sustained Mass Organization

Rather than one-off street protests, unions could invest in building sustained mass organizations combining unions with immigrant-led organizations, creating ongoing presence and ability to respond quickly to ICE enforcement escalations.

In Minneapolis, unions worked with immigrant rights organizations and networks that can respond quickly to develop “dense networks” of community members trained to respond to ICE activities, monitor federal agent movements, and provide mutual aid. This model created organization that lasts beyond individual protests.

Portland unions could invest resources in supporting immigrant-led organizations and building systems for working together on an ongoing basis. This might include funding community monitoring networks, providing legal support infrastructure through legal defense funds, establishing community-controlled medics and people trained to calm situations down, creating communication systems for rapid mobilization when ICE enforcement escalates, and building shared understanding of how to build and use power among leaders.

The advantage is that this creates organizational capacity that persists between protest moments and can respond adaptively to changing circumstances. The limitation is that it requires sustained resource commitment that competes with contractual and electoral work, and requires equal partnership between unions and immigrant-led organizations rather than leadership or direction.

Strike Action and Economic Disruption

The most escalatory option would involve organizing strikes or work actions by members whose work keeps ICE facilities running or Portland’s economy. Precedent exists from the January 23 Minnesota general strike, where organizers called for an economic shutdown to protest ICE enforcement. Postal workers and airport workers in Minneapolis threatened to stop cooperating with ICE enforcement.

In Portland’s context, unions could build toward targeted strikes in industries that rely on immigrant workers or providing services to ICE operations. Janitorial workers contracted to clean federal buildings, healthcare workers at facilities receiving ICE detention referrals, or transportation workers could participate in targeted actions.

The advantage is that strike action represents the most powerful tool for creating economic consequences for employers and threatening to disrupt the wider economy. The limitation is that strikes require extraordinary member commitment, involve financial costs to workers, face legal limits from court injunctions and labor law, and require sustained support infrastructure including strike funds and community support. They also risk a harsh federal response.

What Comes Next

The Portland action occurred during rapidly changing political circumstances. Immediately preceding it, federal agents had killed two Minneapolis residents—Renee Nicole Good, who was monitoring the protest for legal violations, on January 7, and intensive care unit nurse Alex Pretti on January 24. The January 7 shooting prompted emergency organizing that led to America’s first general strike in eighty years on January 23.

If federal authorities continue deploying chemical weapons and escalating force, the movement faces strategic choices about whether to continue street protest as a primary tactic or shift toward putting pressure through workplaces, courts, and economic campaigns. Federal response to Portland—deploying munitions against peaceful protesters—suggested that street protest alone may not deter federal officials determined to defend facility operations.

Staying focused on immigration enforcement depends on whether the broad coalition formed around the Portland action persists beyond that single protest moment. The Minnesota general strike indicated ability to mobilize quickly in an emergency, but sustainability remains uncertain. If the coalition dissolves following the Portland action, impact will be limited to media attention and indirect political effects rather than limiting what ICE can do.

The Trump administration’s response to mobilization will shape subsequent tactics and outcomes. President Trump posted on social media stating he’d instructed Homeland Security to be “very forceful in protection of Federal Government Property” and threatening consequences for protesters. This messaging signaled that the administration saw the protests as a political challenge they needed to confront rather than as legitimate protest they should allow.

Legal challenges emerging from the Portland action, particularly lawsuits filed by residents and the ACLU seeking to limit federal use of force at the facility, could limit what federal officers can do even without policy change. Judge Michael Simon indicated openness to ordering federal officers to wear body cameras and identification, requirements that could limit certain tactics.

The Portland action’s timing alongside other 2026 political developments—midterm elections in which control of Congress remains contested—creates possibility for turning protests into electoral pressure. Democratic politicians, particularly in Portland and Oregon where the party dominates, face pressure to respond meaningfully to anti-ICE demands or risk electoral support shifting toward more progressive candidates.

The Portland action reveals what today’s labor movement can do and what it can’t. Organized unions, particularly SEIU and public sector unions, can get thousands of people out, generate media attention, and create political pressure on local government. Yet power remains limited when confronting federal government directly, particularly on issues where federal authorities have staked their political reputation and resources.

The gap between ability to mobilize people and power over federal policy represents a central challenge for any campaign to limit ICE operations. Success in limiting ICE operations would likely require pressure through multiple approaches—workplace direct action, economic boycotts, electoral pressure, sustained mass organization, legal challenge, and potential strike action—sustained over long periods, rather than single protest actions.

Whether the Portland movement and national institutions will undertake such sustained efforts remains an open question. The federal government’s willingness to deploy chemical weapons against peaceful union-backed protesters, including families and children, indicates that today’s federal authorities won’t be deterred by street protest alone. Unions possess significant power when they choose to exercise it through workplace withdrawal, economic pressure, and building coalitions that go beyond street protest. The question is whether the movement will invest sustained resources in immigration enforcement as a priority or whether the Portland action will remain a moment of solidarity as part of a broader strategy focused on wages, benefits, and workplace conditions.

This article analyzes protest and activism tactics for educational purposes. We aim to contribute to effective and ethical efforts across the political spectrum, and we present diverse viewpoints and ideas without endorsement.