Teachers unions are helping organize protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement that sometimes end in violent clashes with federal law enforcement. At some clashes, activists are bringing children into potentially dangerous situations.
Late last month, Oregon’s largest teachers unions began activating their member base to rise up against ICE outside the federal detention facility in Portland, where children brought to the protest zone over the past weekend were tear-gassed alongside agitators.
Footage from the chaotic scene on Saturday showed children caught in the crossfire of ICE’s mob control measures, as Democratic officials quickly condemned the use of chemical weapons on protesters, especially with children present.
Critics, meanwhile, are questioning why young children, including infants, were taken to a volatile protest in the first place and seemingly put in harm’s way, a tactical maneuver seen as the latest street-level strategy for fomenting anti-ICE sentiment.
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The Oregon Education Association, a state affiliate of the National Education Association, rallied chapter members from across the Portland metropolitan area to gather in front of the city’s ICE processing center.
Thousands of union members, in conjunction with a coalition of left-wing labor organizations, joined the “ICE Out” march that descended Saturday upon the immigration building.
During the disruptive demonstration, some protesters surrounding the ICE field office began trespassing on to federal property, rushing the facility’s front gate in apparent attempts to storm the building.
Responding agents accordingly deployed tear gas to fend off the encroaching crowd, which included children positioned among the anti-ICE activists.
“Where there are educators, there are always going to be children and families, and yesterday was no exception,” OEA said in a Facebook post following the protest.
The American Federation of Teachers of Oregon, whose affiliates represent over 18,000 Oregon workers in K-12 and university teaching positions, also co-organized the rally intended “to fight back against ICE terror.”
“There were children in the march,” AFT-Oregon captioned a video of adult protesters being tear-gassed by federal officers.
Investigative journalist Andy Ngo, a riot reporter who researches the tactics of political movements, suspected that children were brought along “so that their cries would be recorded on video for agitpropaganda.”
In the protest’s aftermath, several state and local Democratic leaders pounced on the optics to call for driving ICE out of Oregon.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson wrote in a lengthy statement demanding ICE’s withdrawal: “To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children.”
Portland City Councilor Mitch Green, who was part of the protest crowd when the nonlethal munitions were deployed, said on Bluesky, at the time, “I just got tear gassed along with thousands of union members, many of whom had their families with them.”
“Federal agents at the ICE facility tear-gassed children. We must abolish ICE, DHS, and we must have prosecutions,” Green added. “I expect to see enforcement of our city code prohibiting the use of tear gas.”
Gov. Tina Kotek (D-OR), in a similar social media statement saying “Trump’s ICE has no place in Oregon,” called the use of tear gas on children “a horrific abuse of authority that undermines public safety.”
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“If you were responsible,” Ngo responded, “you would order [child protective services] to investigate the adults who brought children to a direct action that has now over a history of over eight months of violence.”
Many of the protesters showed up in gas masks and riot gear, Ngo noted, ready to engage in riotous activity and evidently anticipating the release of chemical agents to quell the chaos. A day later, antifa militants laid siege again on the ICE facility, leading to the deployment of flash bangs and pepper balls.
This is not the first time that the AFT, the second-largest teachers union in America behind the NEA, has used children as emotional leverage in its public messaging against ICE.
In response to images of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in ICE custody, after his father reportedly abandoned him, the AFT held a unionwide webinar reiterating calls to “protect our children” and “rid our communities of ICE.”
Many politically involved AFT affiliates, such as the St. Paul Federation of Educators, believe that “teaching is an inherently political act.” AFT recently spotlighted SPFE, located near the epicenter of the ICE raids in Minnesota, for making signs at a workshop that read “St. Paul kindergarteners are afraid of ICE.”
The Washington Examiner contacted AFT-Oregon and OEA for comment.
In Oregon, a viral video circulated over the weekend showing teachers at the Ivy Public Montessori School in Portland leading children, some as young as elementary school-aged, in an anti-ICE protest on school grounds. One clip captured the students holding protest signs on the playground.
The Ivy School, a publicly funded school for students from kindergarten through eighth grade, focuses on “equity” and “anti-racism.”
Teachers and activist organizations operating in Democrat-led school districts have been encouraging students to skip class in protest of ICE despite abysmal academic performance levels.
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As part of a nationwide push, students in cities such as Detroit, Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Sacramento, and Austin were recruited in recent weeks to stage walkouts and engage instead in “Days of Action.”
“Parents, teachers, and community members need to put a stop to the teachers unions and their nonprofit allies training minors to be street activists in service to advancing their far-left political agenda,” Rhyen Staley, director of research for Defending Education, previously told the Washington Examiner.
“The school-to-activist pipeline must come to an end,” Staley said.
