Like many American cities, Portland has been struggling to combat rising unaffordability and homelessness
When Donald Trump said he was sending the national guard to Portland, Oregon, to protect immigration officers, local residents immediately responded with characteristic sarcasm. Mocking the president’s portrayal of a city in decline, social media was awash with videos of children in parks, busy farmers’ markets and September’s falling leaves overlaid with satirical text: “war ravaged”.
When the US secretary of homeland security, Kristi Noem, visited the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) building where protesters had been gathering for weeks, she found a small crowd of demonstrators wearing inflatable animal costumes, not a city overrun by antifascist militants. The reality on the ground did not deter Trump from painting the city as unlivable.
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