A panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit has still not ruled on whether to allow President Trump to deploy federalized members of the National Guard to Portland.

During a hearing last Thursday, two of the three judges appeared skeptical with the state of Oregon’s claim that the largely peaceful protests outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland did not meet the conditions for President Trump to deploy the National Guard.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson says the city is ready.

“The efforts and the actions from our federal government have been unconstitutional, and we’ve told them we will fight in a court of law and we will win. And we constantly win,” he said. “So let’s just keep going down that lane until we’re forced to take a right or left. We’ll pivot and we’ll change with whatever is necessary at the time.”

Mayor Wilson joined “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller for a conversation. The following are highlights from the conversation, edited for length and clarity.

On Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s visit to Portland

“They made a series of demands that were unrealistic and not something we can comply with. I think she walked away hopeful, but we gave her no indication that we were going to meet or exceed what her outlandish requests were.

“She wanted us to set up a permanent perimeter. We told her we would review it on a case-by-case, hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis, but that it wasn’t something that we were willing to do. She asked us to set up a free speech zone. To which we responded [that] the entire city of Portland is a free speech zone as a First Amendment right. They wanted us to protect the ingress and egress of their officers, which we certainly explained their safety is as important as all of our community members.

“In turn, we wanted them to provide that same sort of safety focus for our community members. And so we went back and forth trying to prove our arguments, but we didn’t really give what they were wanting because it wasn’t realistic.”

On taking down the cordon around the ICE building after Secretary Noem’s visit

“We were really looking at crowd science … And I’m happy to say that was the right decision because the crowd size really diminished at that time. We didn’t want to pit police against people who were bringing their First Amendment right to protest. And it has been calm.

“Certainly Sunday was very alarming with 1,000 people there and the [Federal Protective Service] officers are in some cases antagonizing. That was a very scary moment on Sunday just for sheer size, but everything went well. Nobody got hurt … But anytime you have a federal police force setting off pepper balls and munitions, that is not something we want or tolerate in our community.”

The status of the conditional land use approval for the ICE facility

“The federal government agreed to not detain anybody in that facility more than 12 hours. And so through a Freedom of Information Act [request] that we were privy to, and some of the complaints that were forwarded to the city of Portland, we found that they had violated that on more than two dozen occasions and so we have forwarded them a complaint to come into compliance.

“So we’ve received a notice from the owner that they wanted to clarify why the complaint was made, and they’re asking for us to provide additional information. So that’s where we’re at right now. We just received that response just a couple days ago.

“Let’s make sure everybody in the city, no matter what business you are or what code we have, let’s bring everybody in between those guardrails. The federal government in this facility is really no different … We just need to really operate within the scope of the law, and that includes our federal partners.”

Responding to Trump administration’s false narrative that Portland is ‘war-ravaged’

“What do we do? Do we get angry and just start spewing rhetoric to the nation and crying on every mountaintop that this is disingenuous? We’re just basically saying to the community, to the nation: come and see.

“And so we’ve had so many people come and visit and just go, ‘Holy cow, this is absolutely a false narrative made-for-TV event.’ … It’s really untethered from reality … It’s unhinged, it’s absurd.”

If National Guard troops do come, what can you do?

“We are scenario planning. We’re meeting with other cities across the nation on what they’re doing. We’re collaborating with our city staff, making sure that they’re safe, that they’re not living with fear. We’re working with culturally specific communities to make sure they’re prepared.

“We’re coalition building with all the regional mayors. I’m in constant contact with them, letting them know about the [temporary restraining order]. It may fall … And we’re constantly hour to hour, day to day working and preparing to make sure we keep our city safe.”

On his effort to end unsheltered homelessness by the end of the year

“I keep telling everybody that we can’t get knocked off our game regardless of what the Trump administration is throwing at us. I was elected to address unsheltered homelessness in Portland, and we’re on track to keep that promise.

We just announced yesterday 180 family shelter beds. In the next two weeks, we’re going to be announcing 400 more shelter beds taking us to over 1200 units with about 45 days left before December 1st. It’s going to get cold out. People run the risk of dying on the street if we leave them outside this winter and we’re not going to. We’re going to have a safe bed for every person every night.

“Now we’re experiencing obstacles and funding is one of them, so we’ve had to pivot and make certain changes. For instance, we had budgeted four day centers, one in each one of our districts. We had to pivot and now we ended up doing what’s called an oasis, and it’s an outdoor stay center and you can see it in Northwest Portland. It has tents and showers and outreach workers, but it is about 80% less cost. But the beauty is just last week we had a barbecue and we served 600 people. I actually think we’re able to service more people with this pivot.”

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson spoke to “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller. Click play to listen to the full conversation:

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/14/think-out-loud-portland-mayor-wilson-response-ice-protests-trump/