Conservative Journalist Nick Sortor Arrested Outside Portland ICE Facility

Winning is messy. You didn’t expect the woke Left to go down without a fight, did you? It seems that right now, Portland, Ore., is Ground Zero for that fight, at least when it comes to combating one of America’s largest and newly designated domestic terror organizations, Antifa. Our own Catherine Salgado covered the shutdown of the Antifa Defence Fund, illustrating that the violent black-clad leftist army is built on a house of cards: 

“The International Anti-Fascist Defence Fund has suddenly suspended its operations and indicated that, while it presently operates within the United States, it is going to move operations overseas, asserting the president and his administration are ’fascists.’ But the great point that ought to be hammered home is that Antifa must be a specific, organized movement with a detailed funding structure, or the fund would not suddenly be in panic over the president’s designation of the group as a terrorist entity.”

But anyone who’s followed coverage of Portland almost continual rioting, especially when a Republican is in the White House, has noticed an odd but delicate dance that happens between the terrorists who clearly have run of the city and the uniformed police who almost seem like extras on a movie set, just to make it look like Portland isn’t completely run by anarchists. 

Watch as this group of nerds who live on Ramen noodles can intimidate and push back the Portland Police. It’s embarrassing for law enforcement everywhere. This happened less than a week ago. 

BREAKING: The state and local leaders have FAILED as their law enforcement officers are UNDER ATTACK!

The Portland Police are now retreating from Antifa extremists after an officer was beat to a pulp.

It’s well past time to LIBERATE PORTLAND!
pic.twitter.com/PsX3u44Qdk

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) September 29, 2025

On Monday, President Trump ordered the federalized deployment of 200 Oregon National Guard troops to Portland under his Title 10 authority and authorized them to use “full force, if necessary,” to protect federal facilities and ICE sites.

This prompted the usual whining and complaining from Oregon politicians, including leftist Gov. Tina Kotek, who said Portland was doing “just fine.” She and city leaders said the Trump administration was painting a fake view of Portland. 

Our Victoria Taft reported on Wednesday that city leaders and politicians from around Portland were digging in. As Victoria said, “They love Antifa and unrest more than they love peace-loving, law-abiding citizens. So if you're not Antifa, you know whose side they're on… not yours.”

To be sure, Antifa controls Portland’s streets. David Marcus of Fox News travels the country, talking to everyday people and getting a sense of what life is like in America at street level. He went to Portland this week and says, “for more than 100 nights in a row, Antifa thugs have taken over the streets in front of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility (ICE), hooting, hollering, and waving any flag that wasn’t Old Glory… 

As dusk descended on Tuesday, it was clear they — not the hapless handful of police on hand — were in control. I later learned officers were told by their higher-ups not to engage the black-clad, masked radicals.

One thing that appears to be common ground for the Portland Police and Antifa is a shared contempt for conservative media. 

Post Millennial reporter Katie Daviscourt told Fox News that while she was outside the ICE facility in Portland, she was on the receiving end of a flagpole to the face, courtesy of an “Antifa-affiliated protester.” She had a massive bruise to her right eye to show for it. 

Now, this morning, Portland Police have decided that the real threat to the community is conservative journalist Nick Sortor, so they arrested him. Let’s see if any of those supposed free speech and First Amendment advocates come to Sortor’s defense. The police literally handcuffed a journalist for doing his job, one that reporters have done time immemorial.  Will the ACLU come to his defense? 

This isn’t helping Portland. Sortor has 1.2 million followers on the X platform, and most of them are conservative. He’s a street reporter, which means he’s used to going on-scene where news is happening, and he’s never had issues before. He doesn’t interfere with law enforcement and doesn’t insert himself in the story. He just covers the news through a conservative prism. 

Vivian Ivy, known on X as @Conspiracookie, was an eyewitness to the arrest and what led up to it. She said that she and Sortor caught video of a woman making complaints to the police, Sortor engaged in some banter with the police, and what happened next involved Sortor being arrested. 

I walked over towards the Portland police with @nicksortor. Nick and I were recording a lady making complaints to the police and then the lady walked off. Nick stood a few feet from the police and was joking with them saying something along the lines of “I don’t like the police… pic.twitter.com/XabGHesaZQ

— Conspiracookie (@Conspiracookie) October 3, 2025

Here is a video of Sortor being led away for booking. 

Video of @nicksortor being led away in cuffs. Portland PD arrested a journalist, but none of the domestic terrorists. https://t.co/qFhJOji10k pic.twitter.com/rwOGA5IlGU

— Mark Wilson (@yogashortsss) October 3, 2025

This is the kind of thing that usually sets off alarms in newsrooms across the country, where you see coverage and editorials over the attack on the First Amendment, on freedom of the press, on journalism. Just a couple of weeks ago, the outrage over late-night leftist shill Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension drew just this sort of reaction from the left. We were told that if Kimmel couldn’t deliver his lame jokes on network TV to liberal boomers, our very democracy was at stake. 

But don’t expect anyone on the left to so much as mumble a word of concern for a journalist who was cuffed and booked for covering a news event. 

Related: DOJ Turns the Tables on the Left, Files FACE Act Suit Against Violent Mob at New Jersey Synagogue

Still, you can be sure that Sortor’s arrest will set off alarms in conservative quarters this morning, and as we know, we are the majority in this country. It would appear that Portland is about to enter the “find out” phase. The president has been trying to tell them, but they just wouldn’t listen.