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The South Dakota governor, currently serving as the head of the Department of Homeland Security, conducted a tour the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Portland on Tuesday. On site, she observed a modest demonstration outside, which stands in stark contrast to the intense "encirclement" claimed by the former president.

Escorted by Right-Wing Media Figures

The secretary was accompanied by a set of conservative influencers who were transported from the Portland airport to the ICE office in her security detail. DHS has recently produced escalating social media content showing federal officers performing raids and deploying chemical irritants at crowds.

Demonstration Details

Officers secured the area outside the building in the southern Portland area before the Noem's arrival. A handful individuals, including one dressed as a fowl and another as a sea creature, were kept at a distance.

Music played loudly from a demonstration site nearby, with lyrics referencing the former president and Epstein files. A demonstrator shouted to a federal recorder recording from the roof, asking whether the Department of Homeland Security had been renamed the "propaganda department".

Media Access

Members of the press from independent news outlets were also kept at the barrier outside, while the conservative personalities in the secretary's group—three right-wing influencers—broadcast digital content of the secretary leading federal personnel in prayer inside, giving a motivational speech, and instructing a member of the militia to "Get ready".

Legal and Political Context

Noem has previously echoed the former president's allegations that the group of individuals—who have assembled in their small numbers outside the office since recent months, including one in an frog outfit—are "terrorists" who have placed the building "in a state of siege", making the deployment of DHS agents critical.

Yet, on a recent weekend, a U.S. judge in Oregon prevented his effort to bring under federal control the state's guard, stating that the president’s assertions that the mostly calm city was "in flames" were "without evidence".

A day later, the judge, the magistrate—who was nominated to the bench by Trump—extended the decision to block National Guard troops from elsewhere from being deployed in Portland. She acted after the former president responded to her initial ruling by attempting to send members of the California National Guard to Portland.

Escalating Tensions

After Donald Trump highlighted the modest but continuous protest outside the site and made false claims that Oregon is "war ravaged", a growing number of his supporters, including conservative personalities, have turned up to face the individuals.

A number of these encounters have resulted in altercations and fistfights, leading to detentions by the local law enforcement. Nick Sortor was taken into custody after he sought to enter a demonstration site on a walkway near the site and was engaged in a fight over an U.S. flag. The influencer had previously removed the flag from a demonstrator who was burning it.

Legal accusations against him were eventually dismissed after an protest in right-wing outlets led the leader of the civil rights division of the DOJ, a department official, to threaten an investigation of the Portland Police Bureau over claimed anti-conservative bias.

The two women Sortor was arrested for fighting with still have pending accusations.

Authorities' Comments

Over the weekend, Oregon’s governor, Tina Kotek, alleged federal officers in the ICE facility of trying to antagonize the demonstrators by using excessive quantities of crowd control agents in a populated area and bringing in partisan figures to film the crowd from the upper level of the building. "They are clearly trying to antagonize the crowds," Kotek said.

A trio of those MAGA-aligned figures were mentioned in a law enforcement document last month as "opposing demonstrators" who "constantly return and provoke the demonstrators until they are assaulted or pepper sprayed" and refuse "repeated advice from police to stay away from" the protesters.

Online Content

Benny Johnson, a previous media worker who reinvented himself as a Christian nationalist influencer after being fired from his previous employer for ethical violations, posted video of Noem viewing from the top of the office at the handful of individuals below, including a protest organizer who wears a chicken costume to mock Donald Trump. Johnson captioned the footage of her viewing the calm environment below: "Governor Noem faces off against radicals and a chicken-clad individual".

Regardless of the disconnect between the allegations from Trump and Noem that this site is "besieged" from "domestic terrorists" and clear visual evidence of a handful of protesters in peaceful clothing, the personalities with the secretary continued to label the protesters as threatening extremists.

Official Engagement

While in Portland, Governor Noem also engaged with the city's top cop, Bob Day, who has been portrayed as "politically correct" in partisan press for authorizing his personnel to detain the influencer. In a online post on the meeting, Benny Johnson stated that the chief had "sided with violent ANTIFA militants assaulting journalists and officers outside ICE facility".

The secretary's convoy then exited the office past a small group of demonstrators on the street outside, including one wearing a bear wearing a headgear.