Hundreds of mostly naked demonstrators pedaled through Portland, Oregon, on Sunday to protest President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
The “emergency” edition of the city’s World Naked Bike Ride — typically held in summer — was organized to oppose what participants called “the militarization of our city, the genocide in Palestine, and the injustices of our broken and systemically cruel immigration system,” the organization wrote in a statement. (RELATED: Oregon Now Spends More On Program Offering Free Health Care For Illegal Immigrants Than State Police)
The riders covered roughly six miles to the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility, where they staged a silent “die-in,” lying in the street to dramatize their cause.
One 51-year-old rider, clad only in wool socks, a wig and a hat in roughly 50-degree weather, told the Associated Press the ride was a “quintessentially Portland way to protest.”
Portlanders have staged recurring demonstrations at local ICE facilities in recent months, and the protests escalated again this week. The Department of Homeland Security warned that aiming lasers at government aircraft — a tactic an anarchist group had planned to employ over the weekend — could prompt criminal charges and urged protesters not to interfere with aviation operations.
Trump moved to deploy the National Guard in response but was temporarily blocked by a federal judge.
Organizers also framed the event as a protest against what they called the “genocide in Palestine,” though a cease-fire between Israeli and Palestinian forces was reached days earlier after a Trump-brokered deal.