The Ninth Circuit just handed President Trump’s administration a meaningful win in Portland. In two separate 2-1 decisions, a panel vacated preliminary injunctions that had restricted federal agents’ use of tear gas, pepper balls, and other nonlethal crowd-control measures outside the Portland ICE facility. The panel also removed a requirement that agents wear more visible identifying markings. The legal leash imposed by the lower courts is now considerably shorter.
The cases grew out of repeated protests from June 2025 through February 2026. According to the source account, there were at least 150 demonstrations, some drawing crowds of several thousand. Federal agents used tear gas and pepper balls while protecting the facility and confronting crowds described as unruly and sometimes violent. Two district court rulings had limited when officers could act, effectively requiring a more dangerous situation before they could restore order. Apparently, officers are not required to wait for disorder to become a full-scale emergency.
The account also references this video report:
One challenge was filed by Jack Dickinson, known as the “Portland Chicken,” along with journalists and protesters. U.S. District Judge Michael H. Simon had barred agents from using tear gas unless there was a life-threatening situation. On appeal, the Ninth Circuit said officers do not have to wait for an imminent threat of physical harm before using nonlethal force to disperse disorderly crowds or restore order. The panel also found no broad pattern showing that agents targeted protesters or reporters because of their viewpoints. Judge Kenneth Lee wrote, “Rather, the plaintiffs appear to be unfortunate collateral casualties of federal agents’ efforts to quell an unruly and sometimes violent crowd,”
The second case involved Reach Community Development, which owns Gray’s Landing, an apartment complex near the facility. Residents said tear gas seeped into their homes, causing health problems, stress, and interruptions to work. REACH senior leader Jackie Keogh said single parents taught children to close windows and use gas masks, and that the building’s 33 military veterans were triggered by the chemical munitions. She also said REACH spent more than $600,000 on security and glass replacement over more than nine months. Those residents deserved consideration. But sympathy for them does not automatically create a constitutional right to dictate federal crowd-control tactics.
Judge Amy Baggio had prohibited chemical munitions likely to reach the complex. The Ninth Circuit vacated that injunction, too. Judge Eric Tung wrote, “Simply put, plaintiffs lack a substantive due process right to be free from the government’s use of nonlethal crowd-control devices in response to disruptive demonstrations,” The panel said neither constitutional text nor longstanding tradition supported such a right, even when neighbors are incidentally affected. That is an unwelcome conclusion for the apartment complex’s owners, but it draws a line between genuine hardship and a constitutional claim.
That judge’s earlier record is also part of the political backdrop. The source notes that Baggio, a Biden-appointed judge, previously ordered the release of Odalis Jhonatan Martinez-Velasquez from federal detention after ICE placed him in a male detention center under President Trump’s executive order. DHS criticized that order in a July 2025 post. That separate dispute is not the basis of the Ninth Circuit’s Portland ruling, but it helps explain why the decision is landing in an already heated debate over immigration and federal power.
Odalis Jhonatan Martinez-Velasquez, a MALE illegal alien from Mexico, was placed into ICE’s male detention center in accordance with the President’s Executive Order and for the safety of women in ICE custody.
Biden-appointed U.S. District Judge Amy Baggio recently ordered the… pic.twitter.com/5xFAyOYIuC
— Homeland Security (@DHSgov) July 18, 2025
The appellate court’s core message was straightforward: agents may use nonlethal tools to stop violence from escalating and protect federal property. Tung wrote, “The purported right to be free from exposure to gases released from non-lethal crowd-control devices in response to disruptive crowds is not deeply rooted in our nation’s history or tradition,” He added, “The deployment of non-lethal crowd-control devices to prevent violence from escalating and to protect federal property does not appear to us to shock the conscience.”
The ruling also lifted the identification-marking requirement noted in the account:
NEW: In a 2-1 vote, the Ninth Circuit lifted court-ordered limits on federal agents' use of tear gas and other crowd-control weapons at protests outside a Portland ICE facility, along with a requirement that agents wear more visible identifying markings on their uniforms. pic.twitter.com/AtzbHZEqvl
— SCOTUS Wire (@scotus_wire) November 10, 2026
That puts the causation question in the proper order. The residents were caught in the fallout, but ICE did not create the demonstrations. Federal agents were responding to disorder while trying to secure a federal facility, and the panel rejected the idea that doing so automatically violated protesters’ rights or neighbors’ substantive due process. Blaming the officers for every consequence of the confrontation flips cause and effect. The lower-court restrictions may have sounded compassionate, but rules that make agents hesitate while crowds grow more dangerous are not exactly a recipe for public safety.
None of this completes President Trump’s immigration agenda. It gives ICE more room to do its job, nothing more and nothing less. The source warns that possible deal-making in Congress could slow the administration’s immigration efforts, turning this appellate win into a temporary reprieve. For now, the 2-1 rulings are a meaningful correction to lower-court restrictions. Gray’s Landing residents still face a difficult situation, but federal agents no longer have to operate under rules the Ninth Circuit found unsupported by the Constitution.
This article is based on reporting from WLTReport.
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