ICE official says there’s a 'bubble' around Portland facility where police fail to respond

After over 100 nights of attacks at their Portland, Oregon, ICE facility, a federal immigration officials said there's a "bubble" in which local police are slow to respond or refusing to intervene, due to political directives from city leadership. This is causing a crisis that has increasingly endangered both federal employees and journalists on the ground, she said.

In an interview with Fox News’ Bill Melugin, Cammila Wamsley, director of Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office, described the alarming situation facing staff at the agency’s South Waterfront facility. “Later, towards the evening and around dark, there are a lot of folks that come up dressed in all black,” Wamsley said. “They are here to wreak havoc. They’ll block our cars, throw paint, damage property, and even try to follow our folks home.”

Wamsley detailed how nightly protests have escalated beyond chants and slogans to include bottle rockets striking the building, rocks shattering windows, high-powered lasers aimed at officers’ eyes, and barricades blocking vehicles. She said at least six ICE employees have been doxxed, and some have been followed home by agitators.

Despite the increasing violence, Portland police have largely been absent, she said, due to guidance from the city’s mayor and council. She described a "bubble" around the building in which Portland police's response is either absent or delayed. She said, "if there's any immigration enforcement happening in this building at all, which there is a lot of the time, they will not respond. But more than that, there's, like I said, like more of a bubble around the building where they don't respond all the time and if they do respond, it's afterwards."
 

“We’ve seen it before. The folks here can go from a crowd of 50 to a crowd of 1,000 in 30 minutes,” Wamsley explained. “Sometimes we only have 20 officers here. We would not be able to defend the building with that show of force.”

She added that police have often failed to respond to assaults and property damage happening just outside the facility’s perimeter. “That is not the stance they would take six blocks from here, but it is the stance they take with us because of guidance from the mayor and city council,” she said.

The vacuum of local law enforcement has not only endangered federal personnel but also members of the press. Earlier this week, The Post Millennial’s Katie Daviscourt was assaulted while filming outside the ICE facility. A female activist waving a Palestinian flag struck Daviscourt in the face with a flagpole, leaving her with a black eye.

Video posted to X shows the attack unfolding as protesters clashed with federal officers during another night of unrest. Daviscourt pursued the suspect and flagged down a Portland police officer, but the officer declined to take action. The woman escaped into what Daviscourt described as an “Antifa safe house” nearby. Independent journalist Nick Shirley was similarly threatened by a masked agitator earlier that week while documenting the protests.

Despite the violence, Portland officials have consistently downplayed the situation, insisting there is no insurrection or major public safety threat. However, federal buildings are being targeted nightly, employees are being harassed, and journalists are being assaulted in full view of police who often decline to intervene.

Wamsley emphasized that her team remains committed to their work despite the unrest. “The people that work here are here to serve the American public,” she said. “We come to work every day. We do our job the way we have been doing it, and we’ll continue to do that.”

The nightly unrest outside the facility has disrupted the surrounding neighborhood. One woman, Cloud, sued the city over the noise the unrest has caused. Cloud, who lives in a neighboring apartment building, said in July, "For nearly a month, we've endured a level of noise that violates local and state laws. I have called the police and they won't come protect us. They've set up an entire process for how to report noise and firework violations for the 4th of July, but they leave us here trapped in nightly torture from noise way worse than fireworks." In August, however, a judge sided with the city.