A peaceful city protests Trump's order to mobilize federal troops

Several hundred residents rallied for their city and held a peaceful demonstration on Sunday to protest President Donald Trump's order to deploy federal troops to Portland.

Waving American flags and carrying placards reading 'Protect Our Rights' and 'No troops,' Portlanders gathered at the Battleship Oregon Memorial Plaza in Tom McCall Waterfront Park to protest the deployment of federal troops to a peaceful city in a demonstration that showed no sign of invasion, insurrection, or lawlessness.

"The future will judge us on how we show up at this moment," Mayor Keith Wilson told the rally, standing alongside Gov. Tina Kotek, Portland City Councilors, and other local leaders. "Show up with your neighbors. Bring your families. We need you now. Peaceful protest. We are Portlanders and we are Portland strong."

Watch footage of Mayor Wilson's remarks

Wilson and Kotek then led a protest march through downtown, joined by City Councilors, U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter, and many other elected representatives.

As the rally wound through the streets, downtown Portland was thronged with families with strollers and joggers enjoying the sunshine on a Sunday afternoon.

"Go anywhere in Portland today. We are having resurgence we're so proud of. It is working and all of us know it," Mayor Wilson said at a press conference earlier in the day. "We don't need troops on our soil. Portland is not an enemy. We are friends. We want the federal government to help us with Medicaid and Medicare and SNAP, not with boots on the ground."

In the face of escalating rhetoric from the White House in recent weeks, local leaders united to urge Portlanders to act peacefully and deny Trump scenes of violent confrontation that circulate on social media and tend to inflame tension and stoke discord.

"Portland has a proud and longstanding tradition of peaceful demonstration," Wilson said. "This surreal moment is being manufactured as a made-for-TV event."

Earlier in the day, Wilson, Kotek and Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court to stop the troop deployment.

"In my conversations with President Trump and Secretary Noem, I have been abundantly clear," Kotek said. "Portland and the State of Oregon believe in the rule of law and can manage our own local public safety needs. There is no insurrection. There is no threat to national security. And there is no need for military troops."

Rayfield described Trump's order as a "precarious moment" in the nation's history. "This is not acceptable," he added.

Later in the day, another group of protesters held a separate rally outside an ICE facility in South Portland.