Portland ICE protests have not led to the city’s ‘burning to the ground’

President Donald Trump, who is seeking to send the National Guard to Portland, Oregon, said the city is in flames.

"Portland is burning to the ground, it’s insurrectionists all over the place," Trump told reporters Oct. 5 before heading to a celebration of the U.S. Navy, echoing his previous statements. "It’s antifa …Portland is burning to the ground."

"All you have to do is look at the television, turn on your television, read your newspapers," Trump said.

Trump’s descriptions of the city as inflamed or war ravaged amid Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests prompted a tide of social media sarcasm about Portlanders wearing chicken costumes, waving their hands in unison to outdoor music or revolting against a fictional flannel shortage. 

U.S. District Judge Karin J. Immergut, a 2019 Trump nominee, on Oct. 4 temporarily blocked the administration from deploying the Oregon National Guard. The Trump administration then sought to deploy the California National Guard, and the judge Oct. 5 blocked the administration from deploying federalized members of the guard. The Trump administration is appealing, saying it wants to deploy the guard to protect federal ICE officers and a facility at the center of protests.

Although dozens of people have been arrested and charged with crimes near the ICE facility since June, it’s not accurate that the city is "burning."

This isn’t the first time Trump has exaggerated Portland’s protests. In August 2020, amid larger protests over George Floyd’s killing, Trump said, "The entire city (of Portland) is ablaze all the time." By our count, there were 54 fires set across 95 nights of demonstrations, which largely took place at one of 10 locations.

This time around, there are fewer fires.

A protester stomps on a burning U.S. flag during a protest near a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Oregon, Oct. 6, 2025. (AP)

Recent video clips and images show Portland is generally peaceful

We examined recent TV, newspaper and social media reports about Portland. 

The evidence shows that much of the city was functioning normally. 

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., shared video clips showing people running or walking in the Portland marathon. Some spectators held colorful hand drawn signs protesting ICE. 

The King Farmers Market, which has been held Sundays since May, showed photos and videos from Oct. 5 of vendors selling cider, mushrooms and cold brew, and adults and children painting their own pumpkins.

The Portland Film Festival ran as scheduled from Oct. 1 to 5.

The story was similar in summer, when ICE facility protests picked up.

In June, Portlanders had different events such as the PDX Beer Week, the Juneteenth Oregon Parade and Festival, and the Portland Rose Festival, with its parades, fireworks and boat races.

On July 26, the Portland Naked Bike Ride said it drew 5,700 cyclists who protested oil dependency, cyclist vulnerability and for body freedom. The Portland World Naked Bike Ride’s Instagram account posted footage of bikers in underwear and naked biking around the city. The naked rides have been common in Portland since 2004 as a statement on cyclists’ rights and a way of protesting pollution. 

People protest outside of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Oregon, Oct. 3, 2025. (AP)

Few fires associated with the months-long protests 

Most of the tension since June has centered outside of an ICE facility in south Portland. The protesters have set small fires, according to news reports, police and court records.

In its appeal of the order blocking National Guard deployments, the Trump administration said there were a handful of incidents in which protesters set fire, including on June 11 when Portland police said a man stacked flammable material against the ICE building and another man placed a lit flare, starting a fire. Federal officers quickly extinguished the fire. During the arrest, one suspect punched and tried to choke a police officer. Oregon’s KPTV reported in June that protesters set a fire near the ICE building, leading to 10 arrests, including four for arson.

The appeal said that protesters on June 14 launched fireworks at officers, resulting in two fires that federal officers extinguished. Portland police declared a riot and arrested three people. 

The appeal mentioned the threat of fires from other incidents that could have led to damage such as flag burning, pouring motor oil or lighting an incendiary device.

PolitiFact found no recent reports about arrests for arson, as of Oct. 6. 

Rick Graves, Portland Fire and Rescue spokesperson, said firefighters were dispatched four times to the ICE facility between June 6 and Sept. 30. (A small fire that is quickly suppressed may not be recorded by fire rescue.)

"These were reports of two flags burning, a smoke grenade tossed by ICE agents that ended up beneath a vehicle that confused the caller into thinking a vehicle fire had occurred, and the fourth call was as a result of someone watching a TikTok video and calling 911 thinking what they were seeing was live," Graves said.

Graves told PolitiFact, "There have not been any significant fires to structures that led to any investigations or arrests as these have not hit my desk or been within my orbit."

From June 6 to Sept. 30, building fires citywide declined by one-third compared with the same timeframe last year, he said.

In a prominent incident that happened miles away from the ICE facility and is unrelated to the protests, rapper Ice Cube’s tour bus caught fire Sept. 23 after the front wheel of the bus caught fire, according to news reports. Portland police called the fire, which started with the front wheel, a random act of vandalism.

Portland has had dozens of arrests stemming from protests

Law enforcement agencies have arrested dozens of protesters outside the ICE facility in recent months. 

In an op-ed for The Oregonian, Portland Police Chief Bob Day wrote that one city block out of Portland’s 145 square miles has "drawn outsized attention in news cycles. Viral clips — sometimes months or years old — paint a picture that is not consistent with the Portland we see every day."

AFP Fact Check found that social media accounts have shared images during the past week of Portland as if they were recent, but they are actually from the 2020 protests following Floyd’s murder.

In since-deleted social media posts about Portland, the Oregon Republican Party shared a combination of two photos of scenes that happened in South America nearly a decade apart, The Guardian reported. 

Fox News aired a Sept. 4 story that mixed footage of the 2025 protests with videos from Portland’s 2020 protests, including people setting fire to the base of a downtown statue and federal officers using chemical spray on a person. Fox later added an editor’s note addressing the old footage. The next day, Trump described "the destruction of the city" and floated the idea of sending law enforcement.

When we contacted the White House for this fact-check, spokesperson Abigail Jackson sent us a statement that "this summer, rioters in Portland have been charged for crimes including arson and assaulting police officers." The White House pointed to news articles since June about arrests and violence in Portland.

Generally fewer than 100 people — and "consistently not more than two-dozen" – have gathered nightly outside the ICE facility, with limited need for police intervention, Craig Dobson, the city’s assistant chief of operations, wrote in a Sept. 29 court document. 

The nightly protests since mid July "have been largely sedate," Dobson wrote, and "bear no resemblance to the sustained, large protests of 2020." 

Since the protests began in June, there have been about 60 arrests; the police department reported 36 and the U.S. Attorney’s Office said it had charged 28 defendants. 

The Oregonian reported Oct. 4 that in 2025, most nights the protesters have numbered in the few dozens "largely been confined to a two-block radius of the building’s front driveway." On Oct. 3, there were around eight to 15 people mostly sitting in lawn chairs and walking around, police said, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.

The newspaper reported that Trump’s announcement about wanting to send the National Guard spurred bigger crowds and more unlawful behavior. 

Our ruling

Trump said, "Portland is burning to the ground."

Since protests outside of the ICE facility began in June, city and federal officials have arrested about 60 defendants, including at least a few for arson. That does not show an entire city "burning to the ground." These criminal actions are confined to a block or two out of the city’s 145 square miles. 

Normal life has continued throughout much of the city in recent months as residents have participated in events such as a marathon, the farmer’s market, a film festival and a naked bike ride.

We rate this statement False. 

PolitiFact Staff Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this fact-check.

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