A judge on Friday ordered federal officers to stop unleashing tear gas that could seep into Gray’s Landing, the low-income apartment complex across the street from Portland’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement building, unless they face an imminent deadly threat.
“The Court recognizes a preliminary injunction is an extraordinary remedy, but this is an extraordinary case,” U.S. District Judge Amy Baggio wrote in a 57-page opinion.
Baggio found federal officers showed “deliberate indifference” based on the quantity of chemical munitions they have used against those protesting President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown as they have gathered outside the ICE field office.
Federal officers have launched the munitions contrary to their own agency’s use-of-force manuals and continued to do so despite complaints of harm from nearby residents, Baggio found.
Twelve residents of the 209-unit Gray’s Landing and the apartment complex’s property manager, REACH Community Development, filed suit against the federal government and sought the court order.
“These eight months of conduct, involving repeated, large-scale deployments of chemical munitions, impacting sizable areas away from the Portland ICE Facility, coordinated with large numbers of officers, seemingly contrary to warnings contained in the Use of Force manuals, and in the face of repeated notice of physical harm to the Portland ICE Facility neighbors, combine to form a robust record for this Court’s conclusion that Defendants had ‘extended opportunities to do better’ but instead displayed a ‘protracted failure even to care,’ thereby constituting deliberate indifference,” Baggio wrote.
The judge’s injunction bars federal officers from using chemical munitions in quantities that are likely to reach Gray’s Landing unless it’s necessary to address an imminent life threat.
The injunction will last through the course of the litigation. The suit names as defendants the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, ICE, Customs and Border Protection, the Federal Protective Service, the Secret Service and the heads of each agency.
Baggio declined the federal government’s request to put a hold on her injunction pending an appeal.
U.S. District Judge Amy Baggio restricts the use of chemical munitions that could reach Gray’s Landing near Portland’s ICE building, unless there’s an imminent threat to life.Screenshot
Margaret Salazar, chief executive officer of REACH Community Development, and Daniel Jacobson, one of the lead attorneys in the lawsuit, praised the decision.
“This ruling affirms what residents have been saying for months,” Salazar said in a statement. “Gray’s Landing is home to families, seniors, veterans and people with disabilities who have experienced repeated exposure and real harm.”
Jacobson said, “We are both thrilled and relieved that the Court has provided protection to our clients that have been suffering from the government’s shocking conduct for months.”
The judge found the residents showed through their testimony and video evidence that federal officers violated their constitutional right to bodily integrity.
Their complaints of physical ailments, including severe and long-lasting allergic reactions, repeated bouts of dizziness, nausea, and vomiting, inflamed eyelids that caused painful styes and full body rashes “are fairly traceable” to the officers’ heavy use of tear gas, pepper balls and flash-bang smoke grenades, Baggio wrote.
The officers’ conduct since last June “shocks the conscience,” she said.
The residents have suffered despite their own steps to try to reduce the harm, she noted. They’ve bought air purifiers, tried to seal windows and stuffed towels under their doors to block gas from filtering into their homes and slept with gas masks. The property managers have replaced HVAC filters and installed sticky mats to try to capture residue from people’s shoes, according to the opinion.
“Chemical munitions inside and outside of Gray’s Landing limit the Resident Plaintiffs’ ability to move about, making it difficult or impossible for them to eat, sleep, or simply breathe normally while in their own homes,” Baggio wrote.
The judge highlighted federal officers’ heavy use of chemical munitions on five days since June outside the ICE office in South Portland: Oct. 4, 2025, Jan. 24, 30, 31 and Feb. 1.
On Oct. 4, for example, the officers pushed protesters a full block away from the ICE building near the intersection of South Bancroft Street and Bond Avenue and deployed chemical munitions, resulting in “visible plumes of gas quickly reaching Gray’s Landing,” the opinion said.
While Gray’s Landing resident Mindy King was recording the activity that day from her balcony, a federal officer fired a chemical canister from the ICE building driveway that landed under King’s balcony, Baggio wrote. It sent clouds of gas into her unit and other Gray’s Landing apartments.
On Jan. 24, video showed “large clouds of gas and explosions” coming from the ICE building when a few hundred protesters were outside. That night, staff at Gray’s Landing documented a burn mark on the exterior west wall of their complex, where a tear gas canister lodged between the sidewalk and the wall, according to the opinion.
And on Jan. 31, a labor-organized march that drew some 3,000 participants who marched to the ICE building were enveloped by tear gas and Gray’s Landing became “visibly saturated in a dense fog of gas,” the judge wrote.
While U.S. Justice Department lawyers argued that Gray’s Landing residents can’t seek future relief because it’s purely “speculative” that they would face future harm, Baggio found otherwise.
“Defendants’ use of chemical munitions — is not only likely to happen again; it did,“ she wrote.
Federal officers deployed tear gas at the ICE office on Jan. 30, the same day the apartment residents filed their motion for a preliminary injunction, the judge noted.
“Defendants have not conveyed any intent to change their practices regarding the use of chemical munitions at the Portland ICE Facility absent court intervention,” Baggio wrote.
The use of the chemical munitions directly contradicts Customs and Border Protection’s use-of-force policy, the judge pointed out.
According to the policy, officers “may utilize chemical area saturation” when “[r]easonable consideration has been given to any factors which may counsel against the use of such force, such as the presence of … small children, the elderly … or individuals who lack the ability to quickly disperse from the area.”
Even Robert Cantu, the regional deputy director of the Federal Protective Service, acknowledged in a sworn deposition, “We have no business on Moody,” the street bordering the Gray’s Landing apartment complex a block from the ICE building — yet spent chemical munitions have been found on the residential property, Baggio’s opinion said.
“This case does not challenge the appropriate use of force in the immediate vicinity of the Portland ICE Facility when officers faced such threats to themselves, their building, or their mission,” Baggio wrote. “This case challenges the large-scale, repeated deployment of chemical munitions that infiltrate the Gray’s Landing apartments and affect the Resident Plaintiffs who live there, particularly in moments where there was ample time to deliberate before deploying chemical munitions.”
Another Oregon federal judge is set to rule by Monday in a case filed by three protesters and two freelance videographers who are seeking a separate injunction that would prevent federal officers from using chemical or projectile munitions indiscriminately against people who are not posing an active threat outside the ICE building.
