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The Eugene mayor on Monday said "there is no emergency" requiring National Guard troops and that the federal government should instead be helping cities with issues like health care and affordable housing.
This story was updated to include additional information.
Eugene Mayor Kaarin Knudson on Monday, Sept. 29, joined 17 Oregon mayors in lambasting President Trump’s plan to deploy National Guard troops to Portland.
Knudson, who was elected in 2024, and other mayors spoke at a press conference in Portland on Monday afternoon to denounce the Trump administration’s ordered deployment of Oregon National Guard members to protect federal buildings and subdue protests in the state’s largest city.
“Oregonians do not want or need federal troops deployed in our cities — in Portland, or anywhere else,” Knudson said in a statement. “There is no emergency, no insurrection, and no disaster taking place in Portland.”
Knudson was among the Oregon mayors whose signature appeared Monday below a joint statement led by Portland’s mayor, Keith Wilson, denouncing any attempt to federally militarize the Portland metro area.
The mayors pledged in the statement to use all legal tools at their disposal to counter the deployment and to deny their jurisdictions resources from participating or supporting militarized federal actions that target the community’s civil rights.
The statement committed to submitting public records requests on regional federal immigration activity, called for human rights observers to monitor the situation and demanded that federal agents deployed in Oregon display self-identification, use their body-worn cameras and follow laws on the use of less-lethal weapons.
Knudson’s name was later removed from the statement due to a misunderstanding in the coordination of the event, the mayor told Lookout Eugene-Springfield.
Knudson said she agrees with the statement’s intent and supports all its points related to “solidarity and clarity with regard to actions,” but that she and the city attorney found that committing city resources to all aspects of the message couldn’t happen within 24 hours notice.
Wilson asked her to review and sign the statement on Sunday and invited her to the mayors’ press conference the following day, Knudson said.
“There are aspects of that statement that when translated into the city of Eugene, overlap between the responsibilities of the mayor and the city council and the city manager,” the mayor said. “That naturally takes process with integrity in order to come to a decision about.”
The other mayors who signed the joint statement represent the cities of Beaverton, Cornelius, Fairview, Forest Grove, Gladstone, Gresham, Hillsboro, Lake Oswego, Milwaukie, Sherwood, Tualatin, West Linn, Wilsonville, Wood Village and Bend.
Gov. Tina Kotek received a Department of Defense memo on Sunday that called for the deployment of 200 Oregon National Guard members for 60 days to “protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other U.S. Government personnel who are performing Federal functions.”
The administration specifically tasked troops with protecting federal property at locations where “protests against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur based on current threat assessments and planned operations,” per the memo.
Oregon filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to block the deployment shortly after receiving the memo on Sunday. Troops are expected to arrive in Portland on Thursday, the Oregonian reported.
At the press conference with mayors Monday afternoon, Knudson said Oregonians do not want or need federal troops in their cities. The administration should instead focus on expanding federal resources to support Americans’ health care, affordable housing and infrastructure, she said.
“[Mayors] are on the ground every day, and the federal resources that could help us to meet the full range of Americans’ needs have been receding and not advancing,” she said. “It is these resources and these needs of the American people that I would wish our attention to be on.”
Portland in Trump’s sights
The president first voiced his intention to federalize troops in Portland on Saturday, following previous mobilizations in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
He has repeatedly name-dropped Portland as a potential target for his administration’s next deployment due to continued anti-ICE protests in the city.
Federal officers have arrested more than two dozen people outside the ICE building in southeast Portland since June, but arrests have dwindled recently and recent gatherings haven’t exceeded “several dozen” demonstrators, the Oregonian reported Saturday.
State and local leaders argue that Trump’s “war ravaged” view of Portland is inaccurate, and appears to be driven by videos from 2020 protests in the city that could have been taken out of context.
A federal building in downtown Eugene houses an ICE office, which has also become a site of frequent demonstrations since Trump initiated his immigration crackdown this year.
Federal police arrested three protesters in Eugene last week “for assaulting law enforcement and vandalism” after an anti-ICE demonstration outside the office.
The protest had been described on social media as “Portland In Solidarity With Eugene,” and Eugene police said “anonymous public information” indicated many demonstrators were from Portland.
Addressing the demonstrations at the ICE office in downtown Eugene, Knudson said in an interview that peaceful protest is a right protected under the Constitution, and that Eugene police won’t be present at anti-ICE protests unless there are threats to property or illegal activity.
She added that she isn’t concerned about the possibility of an expanded presence of armed forces in Eugene at this time.
“Bringing the United States military into cities to engage with American citizens is not something that is laid out within our laws in this circumstance and in any circumstance seen for many, many, many years in this country,” Knudson said.
In her remarks on Monday, Knudson described downtown Eugene as a “pretty charming place” anchored by weekly farmers markets and arts and culture institutions.
“Every statistic related to public safety and quality of life issues” in Eugene is improving by double digits, she said.
“That is what measurable and meaningful looks like on the ground in communities. It is the work that we need to focus on,” she said.
In a statement after the 2024 presidential election, Knudson and then-Mayor Lucy Vinis advocated for unity and reaffirmed their commitment to “a city in which everyone feels valued and safe.”
The statement pointed to the city’s 2017 ordinance that prevents Eugene from using city resources to detect or apprehend people whose only violation of the law is their presence in the United States in violation of federal immigration law.
