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The South Dakota governor, acting as the DHS secretary, visited the ICE office in the city of Portland on Tuesday. During her visit, she saw firsthand a small protest outside, which differs significantly to the dramatic "blockade" described by former President Donald Trump.

Escorted by Right-Wing Media Figures

Noem was joined by a set of conservative influencers who were whisked from the airport to the facility in her security detail. Her department has shared increasingly belligerent online posts depicting federal agents conducting enforcement operations and using chemical irritants at protesters.

Gathering Outside

Portland police secured the area outside the facility in the southern Portland area before the Noem's appearance. A handful demonstrators, among them one dressed as a fowl and another as a sea creature, were kept at a distance.

Audio was audible from a demonstration site down the street, with words about Donald Trump and controversial documents. One protester yelled to a official camera operator recording from the roof, asking whether the homeland security had been renamed the "ministry of propaganda".

Press Coverage

Reporters from mainstream publications were also held behind the barrier outside, while the partisan influencers in the secretary's group—the conservative trio—shared digital content of the Noem leading federal officers in a prayer session inside, offering a motivational speech, and advising a member of the state guard to "Prepare".

Recent Rulings

Governor Noem has repeated the president’s assertions that the small band of individuals—who have gathered in their limited groups outside the site since June, including one in an amphibian suit—are "terrorists" who have placed the building "besieged", making the sending of DHS agents necessary.

But, on last weekend, a court official in Oregon prevented Trump’s effort to bring under federal control Oregon’s National Guard, ruling that the his claims that the largely peaceful city was "in flames" were "without evidence".

A day later, the judge, the magistrate—who was nominated to the judiciary by Trump—expanded her order to prohibit guard members from elsewhere from being used in Oregon. She acted after the former president reacted to her previous decision by trying to deploy members of the California's guard to Oregon.

Escalating Tensions

Following the former president focused on the small but persistent demonstration outside the office and made false claims that Oregon is "war ravaged", a growing number of his adherents, including MAGA influencers, have turned up to challenge the demonstrators.

Some of these confrontations have resulted in fights and brawls, leading to apprehensions by the Portland police. One influencer was one of those detained after he attempted to push through a demonstration site on a walkway near the ICE facility and was engaged in a fight over an U.S. flag. The influencer had previously taken the flag from a demonstrator who was burning it.

Legal accusations against the influencer were eventually dismissed after an outcry in conservative media led the head of the rights office of the Justice Department, a department official, to warn of a probe of the local police over alleged anti-conservative bias.

The two women he was detained over a conflict with still are under legal scrutiny.

Government Statements

Recently, the state's governor, Tina Kotek, accused government personnel in the site of trying to provoke the crowds by using disproportionate amounts of crowd control agents in a local community and including conservative social media influencers to record the crowd from the roof of the building. "They are deliberately inciting," she commented.

Several of those MAGA-aligned figures were described in a official record last month as "counter-protesters" who "frequently reappear and harass the individuals until they are assaulted or exposed to irritants" and resist "frequent warnings from officers to stay away from" the group.

Influencer Activities

A conservative personality, a ex-reporter who transitioned as a Christian nationalist influencer after being fired from a media outlet for ethical violations, shared video of the secretary looking down from the upper level of the site at the handful of individuals below, including a protest organizer who dons a bird outfit to mock Trump. Johnson captioned the clip of Noem observing the peaceful setting below: "Governor Noem faces off against radicals and a chicken-clad individual".

Regardless of the disconnect between the assertions from the former president and the secretary that this facility is "under siege" from "radicals" and clear visual evidence of a small number of demonstrators in harmless costumes, the influencers with Noem continued to label the group as harmful activists.

Official Engagement

While in Portland, the secretary also held a discussion with the law enforcement head, Chief Day, who has been depicted as "politically correct" in partisan press for permitting his personnel to apprehend Nick Sortor. In a social media update on the meeting, Johnson claimed that the police head had "supported violent ANTIFA militants confronting journalists and officers outside ICE facility".

Noem’s motorcade then exited the facility past a handful of individuals on the street outside, including one dressed as a bear wearing a sombrero.