US Government Wants ICE to Keep Using Tear Gas Against Protesters Despite Court Restrictions

The Trump administration filed an appeal on 16 March against a federal court order that bars ICE agents from using tear gas and chemical munitions near a Portland, Oregon, affordable housing complex, OPB reported.

Department of Justice lawyers submitted a notice of appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit on Monday afternoon. The filing was boilerplate and offered no detail on the government's specific objections. None of the attorneys listed on the notice responded to requests for comment.

The appeal challenges a 6 March preliminary injunction from US District Court Judge Amy Baggio, who ruled that federal agents could not deploy chemical munitions in quantities likely to drift into Gray's Landing, an affordable housing complex directly across the street from the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland's South Waterfront neighbourhood. Her order permits agents to use such weapons only when facing an imminent threat to human life.

Residents Testified to Gas Masks and Shattered Windows

REACH Community Development, the nonprofit that manages Gray's Landing, brought the lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of tenants who say months of tear gas exposure from nearby protests have left them sick and confined to their apartments.

In testimony before Baggio's ruling, residents described persistent coughing, difficulty breathing, burning eyes, hives, and panic attacks, according to KPTV. Some told the court they had started wearing gas masks inside their own homes. REACH also alleges a projectile fired by federal agents broke a third-storey window at the building in February.

The government has rejected those claims. DOJ attorney Samuel Holt told the court during a February hearing that tear gas clouds reaching the apartment complex were the result of demonstrators' own conduct, not federal officers. He called the tenants' legal theory 'novel' and took aim at the central argument that airborne chemical agents seeping into private homes amounted to a constitutional violation of bodily integrity. Accepting that argument, Holt said, would be akin to treating the tear gas like the Flint water crisis.

Attorneys for the tenants had previously described the tear gas deployments as a 'profound abuse of power.' They did not respond to requests for comment on the appeal.

Judge Found 'Unwritten Policy' of Force at Portland ICE Building

Baggio's order is one of two separate injunctions now restricting the use of crowd-control weapons at the facility. On 9 March, US District Court Judge Michael Simon issued a preliminary injunction in a parallel lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Oregon on behalf of protesters and freelance journalists who say federal officers retaliated against them for exercising their First Amendment rights.

Simon's findings were blunt. He concluded DHS officers at the Portland ICE building had been operating under an unwritten policy of excessive force against nonviolent demonstrators and that not a single officer had been disciplined for violating the agency's use-of-force rules. Court videos showed agents spraying OC spray into the faces of people engaged in passive resistance and firing pepper-ball rounds into crowds with no dispersal warning.

His order bars agents from using chemical or projectile munitions unless an individual poses an imminent physical threat and prohibits firing at the head, neck, or torso unless deadly force is legally justified. Plaintiffs in that case ranged from a married couple in their 80s to a demonstrator known locally for wearing a chicken costume.

DHS has maintained throughout both cases that its agents followed their training and used the minimum amount of force necessary to protect themselves, the public, and federal property.'

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson called on ICE to leave the city in February after federal officers deployed heavy waves of chemical munitions at what he described as a peaceful daytime protest. The city has since begun issuing fines for the use of chemical weapons near detention facilities under a temporary administrative rule.

Both injunctions remain in place while the lawsuits continue.