ICE Is Using So Much Tear Gas in Portland, a School Abandoned Its Campus

“Daily, we were finding that [sic] munitions on our play yard, we were getting footage in the evening of green gases, and gases were being used near our gardens," said the school's interim executive director.

By Danielle Han | August 22, 2025 | 6:14pm

ICE Is Using So Much Tear Gas in Portland, a School Abandoned Its Campus

Teargas is deployed against Portland protesters in 2020. Photo: iStock

Portland is a city that knows how to protest—and not by coincidence. With shorter street blocks and pedestrian-friendly crosswalks, Stumptown is designed to make demonstrations easier. “That is something about the shape of the city and how it has developed that makes this possible,” explained urban-planning consultant Jarrett Walker in 2020, when Portland’s racial justice demonstrations were a weekly headline.

Tensions have now ramped back up, and an ICE facility in South Portland has resurfaced as a hotbed where activists have been clashing with federal enforcement officers for months. In June, hundreds of protesters were sprayed with tear gas after gathering outside the complex during a No Kings march. In July, demonstrators once again rallied to protest Trump’s One, Big, not-so-Beautiful Bill, and the $150 billion it sought to allocate to a border wall and deportations. But as the protests have grown, so have the amount of weapons used against them. And the surrounding neighborhoods are suffering as a result.

Most Popular

Situated just a block from the complex, the Cottonwood School decided to abandon its longtime campus in a 4-2 vote, citing concerns around students’ health. “We have been impacted mostly by chemical weapons that are being used against protesters in the vicinity of our school,” Laura Cartwright, Cottonwood’s interim executive director, explained of the decision to local news. “Daily, we were finding that [sic] munitions on our play yard, we were getting footage in the evening of green gases, and gases were being used near our gardens and enveloping our area.”

The ICE facility, which opened over a decade ago, has been a stage to demonstrations before (in 2018, it closed for over a week as protesters blockaded and occupied the facility). And for Cottonwood, munitions and tear gas are nothing new. In fact, the institution has a history of coexisting “harmoniously with the protesters,” Cartwright told Rolling Stone. But after the city warned residents that federal officers were using “chemical munitions” like pepper spray and smoke grenades, the school didn’t have another choice but to leave. “Our issue is the chemical weapons being used against them that were impacting our space.”

Local residents have also expressed concern amid the growing crackdowns. “I’m at home,” one mother tells KGW News in June. “Why are you shooting at me at my home? What if my baby was on the balcony?” Another told Koin 6 about the long-term effects of tear gas. “I’ve got friends who also live in these buildings, and they can’t open their windows.”

Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, also quietly visited the Portland facility on Thursday, fulfilling a promise he made in July during a Fox interview. “I’m going out there. They are not going to bully us…we’re going to do the job…we’re going to double down and triple down in sanctuary cities.”

Still, Trump’s crusade on sanctuary cities seems to have no end in sight. “In Portland, where they kill people and destroy the city, nothing happens to them,” rumbled the president in his inauguration-day speech. On Friday, Donald Jr. called it, along with Seattle, one of two “craphole cities.”

In a statement condemning the Trump team’s immigration tactics, Mayor Keith Wilson says: “Portland stands firm in protecting our sanctuary city status…Our sanctuary city status does not violate law.”

Like what you just read? You’ve got great taste. Subscribe to Jezebel, and for $5 a month or $50 a year, you’ll get access to a bunch of subscriber benefits, including getting to read the next article (and all the ones after that) ad-free. Plus, you’ll be supporting independent journalism—which, can you even imagine not supporting independent journalism in times like these? Yikes.