Portland, Oregon, now has a county prosecutor throwing the book at the city’s famously raucous protesters after his predecessor neglected cases.
Most protesters arrested near Portland’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in the past six months have faced charges from Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez’s office, according to court and police records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Vasquez’s tough approach appears to be a gift to Portland’s critics — from locals to President Donald Trump — who see a tolerance for lawlessness at the city level since 2020’s fiery Black Lives Matter riots caught national attention.
Vasquez replaced George Soros-backed leftist Mike Schmidt, who rolled out a policy in August 2020 to not prosecute several protest-related crimes. Under Trump’s second term, Portland’s city council has publicly thanked protesters for defying his “fascist agenda” while Democratic Mayor Keith Wilson’s administration imposes guidelines for city workers to protect migrants from ICE. The surge in rioting came after Trump launched mass deportation efforts that have swept through so-called sanctuary jurisdictions such as Portland.
Multnomah County “prosecuting people for everything” is having noticeable effects, with protests dwindling to less than a dozen agitators per night at the ICE building, a Portland police officer told the DCNF in mid-January, speaking anonymously to avoid reprisal. “I had one specific case the other night and they issued immediately,” the officer said. “Vasquez isn’t screwing around.”
The same officer confirmed on Monday that “the amount of shenanigans has slowed to nearly a stop” at the ICE facility.
Vasquez’s team has filed charges for at least 33, or 63%, of the 53 arrests described in Portland Police Bureau (PPB) press releases about anti-ICE protests from September to February, according to court records. The PPB documents its handling of the demonstrations, whether or not they lead to arrests, since they became so frequent under Trump.
Charges in the six-month timespan include assault, interfering with a peace officer, disorderly conduct, criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, criminal trespass and others, leading to 11 convictions and a “no contest” plea so far, the DCNF found. Nineteen cases were dismissed by prosecutors or a court, one defendant received a dismissal by paying restitution and another was acquitted of harassment and disorderly conduct charges. One arrestee was an unnamed juvenile whose case details are not available, excluding the person from the DCNF’s analysis.
By contrast, Schmidt’s office declared in 2020 that it would automatically decline charges for riot, harassment, escape, trespass, disorderly conduct or interfering with a peace officer at demonstrations, leaving only cases of “deliberate property damage, theft or the use or threat of force against another person.”
“I have said since day one that the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office supports people’s right to protest,” Vasquez, a registered Independent whose office is nonpartisan, told the DCNF. “It is a fundamental right and one that is frequently embraced here in Portland, Oregon. What we do not support or tolerate is people committing crimes against each other or property when they gather to protest.”
Vasquez defeated Schmidt in a 2024 primary after a tough-on-crime campaign that portrayed his predecessor as overly lenient. Vasquez won the office outright because there were no other candidates.
Portland’s anti-ICE rioting shows a glimpse of how repeat offenders avoid jail in the city. Several Portland protesters detained in 2025 had prior criminal records in the state and were released from jail again, the DCNF previously reported. Additionally, police arrested three anti-ICE demonstrators twice in the same September-February period.
“There [would] always be ten to 20 of these mentally deranged human beings down there doing their thing but it is [ineffective] to ICE,” the Portland police officer told the DCNF. “The usual people that are getting paid are keenly aware DA Vasquez is going to prosecute them.”
The cases Vasquez dropped included conservative influencer Nick Sortor, whom the PPB arrested in October on a disorderly conduct charge when he tried to take a burning American flag from protesters. Vasquez’s office defended the cops’ choice to arrest him but said that it could not prove the charge in court.
“While we work with the elected District Attorney’s office to forward them prosecutable cases, we understand that in the end, not all of them have the necessary proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” a PPB spokesperson told the DCNF. “But whomever the elected DA is does not change how we make arrests. We continue to assume our role in the criminal justice system, and the DA assumes theirs.”
Vasquez emphasized that he does not see punishing rioters as a partisan issue in comments to the DCNF.
“It does not matter to me if someone is part of the left, right or center,” he said. “If they break the law during a protest they will be prosecuted.”
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