The Portland Chicken vs. the Orange Chicken
A case in which a federal agency provided false evidence to a court should make national headlines. In this administration, it gets overshadowed by a wide array of other horrific news stories.
In an era in which there are so many major national news stories (the Epstein files, a U.S. President interfering with elections, nuclear brinkmanship in the Middle East, kidnapping of a foreign leader, the systematic building of concentration camps — the list goes on and on), local stories that might otherwise garner national attention tend to get lost behind the gravity of those other stories.
There’s an interesting court case being considered in the U.S. District Court here in Portland, Oregon, that falls squarely into that category. It’s a class action suit entitled Dickinson (a.k.a. "the Portland Chicken") et al. v. Trump et al. It’s a suit in which the plaintiffs are asking the Court to rule that ICE’s use of teargas and other crowd control measures have been excessive and should therefore be forbidden. The plaintiffs have already received a temporary injunction, as well as an extension of that injunction, while the case is being considered.
That’s a quick overview of the legal case, to date. But there’s much more to this story.
There are effects on the neighborhood in which the overzealous ICE response to peaceful protests has taken place.
There are the potential nationwide implications of the outcome of the case.
Most especially, there is an outstanding question about ICE and the Department of Homeland Security providing false or misleading evidence to the Federal District Court.
The “Evidence”
Let’s start with the last of those points.
A social media video of what appeared to be an altercation between ICE agents and protesters was among the evidence that DHS submitted to the court. The narration talks about how “Antifa terrorists” attacked the ICE building in Portland. The video shows in rapid fire some fairly wild skirmishes, with ICE deploying teargas.
ICE has consistently argued that their tactics have been 100% within the law because they’ve only been responding to the violence that has been perpetrated by the protesters.
But the video evidence they provided to the court of the purported violence in Portland was of a skirmish that happened in Broadview, Illinois. Additionally, someone at ICE or DHS blurred or deleted the watermarks on this video to obscure its source.
When it was learned that had used this falsified evidence, the judge in the case — in an abundance of fairness — asked them if they could provide video evidence of violence that had actually taken place outside or around the ICE facility in Portland. In response, they claimed that it would have been too burdensome to review the video footage on their security cameras.
This is not the first time the feds have used fraudulent video tactics, but it may be the first time they’ve attempted to use fraudulent video as evidence in a court proceeding.
I am by no means a legal expert, but that sounds like a pretty shabby excuse, particularly when virtually all reports are that the protests have been peaceful. It has also been reported that the small handful of violent incidents have been handled by the Portland Police Bureau, which has characterized them as having been nothing out of the ordinary for any kind of protest.
If there had been actual widespread violence perpetrated by protestors, security camera video of such violence would likely have been immediately saved by ICE. Additionally, if such violence occurred, the omnipresent local news media would have footage that could be subpoenaed.
The Neighborhood
There’s some relevant backstory on the neighborhood where the ICE building is located. It’s in the middle of a mix residential/business neighborhood, with a narrow one-way road leading from the main road (Route 43) past the ICE facility into the surrounding neighborhood that includes apartment buildings, businesses, and lots of medical offices.
Neighbors have had to seal themselves in their apartments for days on end because of the teargas. Some residents with medical conditions such as breathing difficulties have been forced to move out of their homes and into hotels for their own well-being. Others have reportedly slept in their bathtubs, with wet towels under the door to prevent the teargas from seeping in. Babies and children have become sick from the fumes.
This firing of explosive teargas canisters isn’t a singular incident. The use of teargas and other “crowd control” weapons has gone on for months not one or days of this here and there. It’s now been happening, on and off, for months — since October 2025. At least one ICE projectile was fired through the window of a unit in a nearby apartment building, allowing teargas to enter the apartment unimpeded.
It’s worth reiterating that there are numerous medical offices in the South Waterfront neighborhood. Medical practitioners associated with Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) maintain offices in that neighborhood, and the aerial tram that transports patients and providers to and from the main OHSU campus has its terminal there. So if you have an appointment with your oncologist or your otolaryngologist (ENT physician), for example, you may be forced to pass through a cloud of teargas to get to your appointment.
The Implications
It’s hard to know whether the ruling in this case will be limited to this specific set of circumstances or whether there will be implications for ICE as a whole. No matter what the decision of the court is, it will be newsworthy. It’s hard to imagine that a reasonable judge could deny relief to the plaintiffs. But this is 2026 in the United States, so all bets are off.
We can also be relatively sure that Trump et al. will challenge the result if they are ruled against. Filing endless challenges has been their modus operandi for just about every one of the countless legal cases the administration has been involved in. The fact that they’ve often been caught blatantly lying about ICE activities (including, most especially, regarding the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti) doesn’t seem to have slowed them down in the least. But it certainly seems like providing false evidence in a federal court sinks to a whole new depth.
Will there be any consequences? Will the person or people who provided or ordered to be provided the fake video be taken to task in any way? The consequences for any average citizen who attempted to deceive a court in this way would be “hell to pay.” But because the defendants in this matter are the President and his collaborators, the legal consequences are more likely to be one of those “when hell freezes over” situations.
In a somewhat related matter, Rep. Dan Goldman (D - NY-10) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D - CA-14) recently introduced the ICE OUT (Oversight of Unchecked Tactics) Act, in Congress. This law, if passed, would “strip qualified immunity from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents who use excessive force and ensure that victims of excessive force can seek justice.”
It’s clear that the administration in general, and DHS and ICE in particular, want there to be no oversight and no limits to activities that ICE and CBP engage in. The ruling in this case may at last provide one such limitation.
The American Civil Liberties Union (specifically, the ACLU of Oregon) is representing the plaintiffs. The ACLU can always use your support as a member or a donor, either nationally or locally. The national offices are in New York and Washington, DC, but every state has its own organization, which you can find by doing an internet search for “ACLU” followed by your state name.
But why Orange Chicken? Is that a restaurant?