Welcome to Portland, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem's message to Portland's Antifa-friendly politicians on Tuesday was: If you don't help keep our officers safe, we'll quadruple the number of federal officers at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and do it ourselves. 

The former governor-turned-Department of Homeland Security Secretary was not on the ground for more than a few minutes on Tuesday afternoon when the Oregon governor showed up to greet her. But Gov. Tina Kotek couldn't answer her questions or guarantee her ICE officers' safety. Kotek, in a towering show of leadership, passed the buck to the Portland police chief, Bob Day, who proceeded to tell Noem that he couldn't help keep ICE officers safe, either. A meeting with Mayor Keith Wilson netted the same result. 

Portland's stubbornly held notion that Antifa isn't a threat to ICE officers is belied nearly every night when the terror group swarms the driveway of the large federal facility and attacks the officers' cars, sometimes with munitions, as they go out on operations or come into the facility with people they've just arrested. 

Noem wants Antifa away from the facility. A filthy encampment where Antifa and its professional protesters routinely re-supply with the latest communications, drinks, and professionally packed box lunches from their monied benefactors is mere feet away. The illegal encampment is occasionally cleared by the city, but I'm told that within hours, it's back up, re-supplied from Antifa's own storage unit in a building right behind the camp. A safe house down the street provides the Antifa lawbreakers with changes of clothes, food, and sleep.

Related: My Shocking Undercover Experience at Portland's Antifa-Besieged ICE Building

"We want a bigger buffer zone to keep our officers safe," Noem explained to Fox News host Jesse Watters. "We wanted to have their streets opened up again and not let the anarchists run this city anymore," she said.  

It's not really any more complicated than that. Chief Day pretends that Antifa's area of operation is only one block, but that's not true. If it were, then why would it be so difficult to root out the baddies? Day's hands-off approach has emboldened the anarchists and terrified the neighbors. Everyone is less safe because of the city's hands-off policies.

Noem had a request of all the city and state leaders: "To continue to back us up like what we've been asking for instead of what they've been doing the last several months, which is just leaving our officers hang out to dry." 

Day has issued a stand-down order for his officers. They refuse to help in the near-nightly attacks and then pretend they're not happening. They've allowed the unrest to continue for months — since June 7 — and steadfastly refuse to impose time, place, and manner restrictions on the protesters and violent rioters. The city refuses to do anything about the nightly incitements to violence and the threatening manner in which they conduct themselves, neither of which is protected by the First Amendment. While Oregon has a more expansive free speech framework, this kind of protest activity is still subject to the restrictions of the law — which the city refuses to enforce. 

🚨 BREAKING: Secretary Noem is currently on the rooftop of ICE Portland amid leftist protesters chanting anti-immigration slogans in Spanish and “WELCOME TO THE WARZONE!”

Noem personally assured me she will take all necessary measures to prevent a repeat of my experience in… pic.twitter.com/d3Up0YRCtj

— Buraq (@Buraq515) October 7, 2025

Noem's looking for security guarantees for her ICE and other federal officers working out of the building in SW Portland in what is known as the South Waterfront area. 

Related: A School Moved Out Because of Violence at ICE HQ Portland and You'll Never Guess Who Moved In

The building is in a vulnerable place, bordered on one side by a busy street, on the another side by a railroad track, and exposed on the front side of the building to a mixed-use neighborhood where Antifa protesters set up in their filthy tent city. 

Besides the filth of the "mutual aid" station, which is illegally blocking the sidewalk (resupplied from their nearby storage unit) and then laughably being told I couldn't film there, here's my biggest shock at the #Portland #ICE facility. When confronted by some umbrella… pic.twitter.com/JDT08NaydW

— Victoria Taft, The Adult in the Room, FITF Squad (@VictoriaTaft) October 7, 2025

Noem told the mayor that if he doesn't help, "We are going to cover him up with more federal resources. We are going to send four times the amount of federal officers here so that the people of Portland could have some safety. They could have some security."

Noem told Watters, "[T]hey're more scared of the anarchists than – that are down on the street right now, yelling horrible, horrific threats at our officers — than they are … of the people that live in this city." But it's more than that. They can't afford to upset their political base: Antifa and its benefactors. 

Noem simply cannot understand why Portland is also leaving the ICE facility's neighbors unprotected. 

Right next to this building is an apartment building filled with people who deserve to come in and out of their building safely. I asked the mayor, I said, Do you get to go home at night and walk from your car into your building and do so safely? Do you get to drive to work and be safe while you do that? I said those people don't get the opportunity to do that.

"[Tuesday] we went and got a sex offender off the streets here in Portland that had been violating minors, and we're going to bring him to justice," Noem told Watters. She said that Mayor Wilson "tried to brag about him making his streets safe, safer? No. It's it is our CPB and ICE officers that are cleaning up his city, and every single day, they're going to stay dedicated to doing that."

Related: Federal Judge Commands President Trump Not to Use ANY National Guard to Back Up ICE in Portland

The secretary told Mayor Wilson, "Right next to this building is an apartment building filled with people who deserve to come in and out of their building safely." Then she asked him, "Do you get to go home at night and walk from your car into your building, and do so safely? Do you get to drive to work and be safe while you do that? … Those people don't get the opportunity to do that."

Noem covered the neighborhood and officers' safety in prayer.  

I just witnessed the most remarkable thing…

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem arrived at the ICE detention facility in Portland and the FIRST thing she did was PRAY for the safety of the officers there and thank Jesus Christ for their bravery.

We are witnessing incredible things. pic.twitter.com/6BU2vTQJgW

— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 7, 2025

They'll need those prayers, since the City of Portland refuses to lift one finger to help.