A budget proposal for the 2026/2027 academic year includes a $4.75 per credit hour tuition increase for students. The proposed student tuition increase, according to a presentation made by budget admin Jennifer DeMent at a March 18, 2026 Mt. Hood Community College Board of Education meeting, would not increase the college’s revenue to the 4.9 million that would be needed for the budget to not rely on deficit spending. Tuition would increase from $128 per credit hour to 132.75 per credit hour if it were to be approved.

When the full budget proposal was later posted online, it revealed that 27 full-time positions would be cut, including some unfilled roles, and would reduce allocated “unused” funds for part-time hourly and student employment by 23 percent. MHCC President Lisa Skari’s wrote in the proposal that the reductions needed “to address the ongoing deficit cannot be achieved without impacting personnel.”

DeMent said on March 18 that on paper the college would need to increase tuition by $32.50 per credit hour to avoid cutting any staff positions. But realistically, she said that, “if we increased our tuition by $32 dollars per credit hour we would have our enrollment tank, probably, and (it) wouldn’t actually generate 4.9 million.”

Board members asked questions that compared a $3 per credit increase and the proposed $4.75 per credit increase. One difference DeMent explained is that a $3 per credit increase would drop the college’s reserves below a 10 percent threshold something DeMent has actively sought to prevent.

Board members Larry Morgan and Andrew Speer expressed concern that future cuts at the state level or federal level could require higher tuition increases. (The college currently gets over half of it’s revenue from state and federal sources.) Such a cut from the state could occur as a result of projected decreases in federal support for programs such as the Oregon Health Plan (Oregon’s Medicaid program) and SNAP resulting from the passage of the Republican passed H.R. 1 budget bill.

At an April 1, 2026 meeting of the MHCC Budget Committee, which is comprised of the members of the MHCC Board of Education, Skari described the proposed budget and tuition increase as continuing the college’s practice of making predictable increases to tuition.

While a few members of the board seem potentially opposed to the proposed level of tuition increase, the majority seem resigned to the increase as necessary.

Board member William Miller expressed opposition to a $4.75 tuition, saying the most he would likely support would be a $4 increase.

Budget Committee Chair, ShaToyia Bentley, said she still has “heartburn” from the previous increase to a $4 tuition increase from the previous pattern of a $2 per credit tuition increase, and they would like there to be some normalcy for students in predicting tuition increases.

The Budget Committee will hold a public hearing on April 15, 2026 on the proposed budget where the Board is also likely to vote on a tuition increase to approve changes to tuition before registration for the summer term begins.

Troutdale

In Troutdale, I found a handful of people standing around in a parking lot getting ready to drive around with flags on their vehicles. I talked to Iris, who said their reasons for participating in the protest was to oppose war, authoritarianism, and the genocide in Gaza. To them "authoritarianism boils down to the will of the people doesn't matter.” Iris saw examples of this in continued US support for Israel and "ICE hunting people" when the majority of Americans oppose both.

Gresham

In Gresham, US Senator Ron Wyden, Oregon Senator Chris Gorsek, and State Representative Zach Hudson were among the political figures who spoke.

I spoke with several attendees of the Gresham rally including Ally and Erent. Ally, 12, told me she was there protesting against Trump with her family. She told me that Trump “thinks he’s trying to make America great when he’s making it worse.” and that he’s “trying to take people’s rights away” and take people from their homes. Erent, 73, a military veteran emphasized the military’s oath to the constitution which he said Trump was attacking. Erent said Trump is “tearing down every guardrail there is; He thinks he’s a dictator.” Erent said that Trump’s attacks on Iran effectively amount to declaring war without approval from Congress: “that’s the prerogative of Congress not the President.”

Damascus

At the Damascus protest Mo, 74, said, “I love living in this country with democracy;” and that she opposed political rhetoric about ICE agents being hypothetically used to patrol voting locations, which she sees as evidence of democracy being under threat.

Rhonda, 69, said that she was there “to resist this take over of our government and our democracy.” Rhonda also agrees that the president “declared war without asking Congress.” Rhonda says that Trump “started a war he doesn’t know how to finish.” I counted 182 people at the protest in Damascus.

Sandy

In Sandy, Margret said they were protesting the fascist Trump regime that doesn’t believe in due process or the rule of law. To them clear examples of this were the actions of ICE agents taking people from their homes without warrants, dragging people out their cars and people being deported to countries to which they had no connection.

Michael said that the Trump "administration is trying to ruin the country and turn it into an authoritarian state," and enriching itself in the process. He said he viewed Trump's claims that peace talks were underway with Iran as being done so he could enable insider trading. He also expressed concern that Trump's threats to bomb Iran's infrastructure would be a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva conventions. Organizers count of attendees at the Sandy protest was 413.

At a March 24, 2026 meeting, the Wood Village City Council unanimously voted to approve “Resolution 3-2026 Affirming Services to the Public” a symbolic resolution affirming support of immigration and constitutional rights. The resolution follows a similar resolution passed by the Gresham City Council responding to a push by activists and community members to address the actions being done by federal Immigration officers. The Wood Village Resolution and the Gresham resolution both emphasized the importance of immigration, the importance of constitutional rights, and that city governments don’t enforce immigration laws.

City Councilor John Miner strongly expressed his support of the resolution: “We shouldn’t shy away from a proclamation that speaks to the constitution as a cornerstone of our country and the equal protection under law that’s in the constitution,” he said.

Miner said that the resolution was not partisan in nature, “This is nonpartisan, this is about fundamental liberties and our fundamental responsibilities as elected officials.” He similarly described a No Kings Protest scheduled in Gresham on Saturday, March 28 as a nonpartisan march in support of the constitution and the equal protection rights of individuals.

The City Council also seemed to unanimously approve a request made by Chris Damgen, representing the West Columbia George Rotary club, for $500 dollars in support of a local pickle ball fundraising event. The request was made during a public comment period and was not on the agenda.

On Tuesday February 17, 2026, the Gresham City Council voted 5 to 1 in favor of repealing the city’s 2021 Diversity Equity and Inclusion resolution and replacing it with a resolution entitled “Fairness, Access, Respect and Accountability” (FARA). Councilor Eddy Morales was the sole member who voted against replacing the city’s DEI statement with FARA. The FARA resolution was previously put onto the agenda for the Dec. 9, 2025 city council meeting, where community members were calling for the city council to pass an emergency resolution addressing local ICE activity, but was postponed.

Eddy Morales was the sole city councilor present to vote against replacing the DEI resolution with the new FARA resolution.

Several of the councilors argued against the view presented by Andre Miller, Vice Chair of the Multnomah County Democrats, who described the city repealing the DEI resolution as following a nationwide “coordinated backlash” against DEI language.

Gresham Mayor Travis Stovall said that the resolution had “nothing to do with changing language to fit some national narrative.” Councilor Kayla Brown said that the city was “not trying to adopt something on a national standard but what works best for Gresham.”

From his perspective, Miller told me, the Gresham City Council’s vote to repeal the DEI resolution was happening because of executive orders created by the Trump administration to get rid of DEI under threat of taking away federal funding from local municipalities.

A number of executive orders created under the Trump Administration have argued that DEI language violates the Civil Rights Act, and have worked to remove language describing the disparate-impact theory of discrimination which argues that even neutral policies can be discriminatory if they have a discriminatory effect.

Miller asked the councilors to approve a disparity study, to audit hiring, promotions, contracts and procurement to ensure compliance within Title VII of The Civil Rights Act.

Except for a comment by Councilor Sue Piazza, who implied that staff might be wanting to use FARA to replace the prior DEI language based on unspecified federal guidelines at a Nov. 4, 2025 work session, there doesn’t seem to be any direct evidence that this resolution was passed or written with the purpose of complying with any specific executive order.

At a Nov. 4, 2025 work session, when City Manager Eric Schmidt presented the proposed FARA resolution to council members, he described the effort as simplifying the city’s previous DEI statement to avoid people potentially being put off by the term “DEI” or misunderstanding what it was about. Schmidt also said that the resolution was not created as a result of any recent election.

The council members who approved the passage of FARA said they viewed it as a continuation of the work the City had been doing under the previous DEI resolution and that even if it was called something else the work would continue. Council President Cathy Keathley said that, “The city is absolutely committed to all the efforts that we’ve had and that we continue to do, the name of the program is not as important as what the program does.” Likewise, Councilor Brown said that their goal was “not to conceal the work of DEI” but, “to anchor it and center it in the work that is being done.”

Councilor Morales and Miller did not view FARA replacing the city’s DEI resolution in the same light. For Miller, the problem with FARA isn’t what’s in the new resolution - it’s what’s not. FARA, Miller told me, “doesn’t have anything as far as language in the actual resolution to show that they are going to be building off of the policies and efforts that were already taking place.”

Notably, the language in FARA does not mention any specific groups that have experienced discrimination and instead uses broad language that seems intended to have a similar effect. Miller told me that without specifically mentioning disability, sex and race, the City of Gresham wouldn’t have the tools in place to address various forms of discrimination from the gender pay gap, to redlining, to Oregon’s history of Black exclusion laws.

Neither Morales or Miller were strictly opposed to FARA itself but were instead opposed to it replacing the previous DEI resolution. At the Dec. 9 meeting, Miller said that FARA “should be intended to clarify goals, improve communication and reduce politicized noise around the DEI acronym, not be used to replace it. Morales said likewise before he voted against FARA, “I’m for FARA and for DEI, and not for replacing one for the other.”

The best explanation I have for where the source of the disagreement between Morales and the rest of the city council stems from is that the language in FARA and in the previous DEI statement are written from two entirely different ideological perspectives.

Here are the two lines that I think most closely shows this difference:

In the original DEI resolution it says,

“Whereas, equity is more concerned with fairness than equality, it recognizes that all individuals do not start at the same place ...”

While in the FARA resolution it reads,

“Whereas, Fairness means ensuring that all individuals are treated justly, without bias or favoritism ...”

The underlying tension between these two lines is that people disagree about what fairness actually means. It’s also the difference between modern liberalism and classical liberalism. For modern liberalism, society starting unequal means that some people need more help than others to participate in the economy. For classical liberals as long as people are free from interpersonal discrimination and wouldn’t be denied opportunities solely based on who they are, then that’s the best that can be done while still being fair to others.

The concerns that Morales and Miller both expressed about approving FARA without the prior DEI resolution in effect highlights how they view the impact of historical discrimination on the present. As Councilor Morales said, “unless we are willing to acknowledge that there is disparities and really put policies and solutions to addressing them we won’t see that happen.”

Note: I was previously a canvasser for a political group co-founded by Councilor Eddy Morales.

On Saturday January 31, 2026 the activist group Multnomah East Indivisible held a “ICE Out for Good” rally in opposition to the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the community. The protests were held in response to the killings of two Minnesotans, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents.

The protest came after the Gresham City Council passed an emergency declaration over the community impacts of immigration enforcement the previous week after sustained community pressure to do so. The speakers at the rally included two members of the Oregon legislature: Oregon State Senator Chris Gorsek and State Representative Zach Hudson, Joshua Dunham a local pastor, and Raquel Barajas an immigrants rights advocate.

Oregon State Senator Chris Gorsek expressed concern over immigration agents wearing masks to conceal their identities describing it as “hiding in plain sight.” Gorsek said that he had “substantial concerns” that the training federal immigration agents were receiving wasn’t thorough.

When Gorsek rhetorically asked what happens when law enforcement aren’t well trained, a protester answered his question “people get shot in the street.” “Right” Gorsek said, “and violations of civil rights and civil liberties.” Gorsek also ridiculed ICE for, “this nonsense of arresting people in hospitals, near schools, near courthouses - no, no, no, no, we have to say no to that.” Since the Trump Administration rescinded guidance around “sensitive locations,” which had previously discouraged ICE from doing immigration enforcement at schools, hospitals and churches, concern about the presence of ICE at such locations has increased.

A recent example brought up by several speakers was the detainment of Diana Crespo, a second grade student at Alder Elementary, along with her family when they took her to get medical care at a local hospital.

Rep. Zach Hudson described ICE as “operating outside the law” and “patrolling the streets and stopping anyone who they think look foreign” or non-white and “insisting that they prove their citizenship or legal residency. It’s as if the fourth amendment somehow doesn’t apply to anyone with the wrong skin tone.”

Hudson said that the “horrific killings” of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents had awakened many to “the violence that can be inflicted by the hands of the state.” But said that, “For many in our communities of color, this is nothing new and some of us are only waking up to that now”

He described the detention and then relocation of Diana and her family, who were applying for asylum, to Texas as them and thousands like them being “disappeared” and said that “nothing about this is keeping us safe.” (Diana Crespo and her family arrived back in Oregon escorted by Oregon Congresswoman Maxine Dexter on Feb. 7, 2026.)

Hudson called on protesters to vote in the upcoming midterm elections to shift control of the US House of Representatives away from Republicans who are “enabling Trump’s takeover” to the Democratic party. Losing their majority, Hudson said, would mean that Republicans wouldn’t be able to control the budget process or “block a third impeachment motion.”

Local pastor Rev. Joshua Dunham, who previously called on the Gresham City Council to pass an emergency declaration spoke at the “ICE out for Good” rally. Dunham expressed regret that “it took the deaths of Renee and Alex, two white folks, for us to wake up because we know we know that they were not the first to lose their lives at the hands of ICE and sadly won’t be the last.”

He characterized ICE as a “secret police” targeting people of color and the state of immigration as a crisis of conscience and a crisis of faith. He posited that Jesus as a brown skinned refugee “likely would have been rounded up by ICE and his family deported.” Dunham said he wanted ICE out of Gresham for good and called for the abolishment of ICE.

Raquel Barajas, an immigrants rights advocate, said that the local organizing that went into lobbying the Gresham City Council into passing a resolution declaring an emergency over immigration policy on Jan. 20, 2026 “made our power impossible to ignore” and “the Gresham City Council listened and they passed a resolution.” Barajas described the resolution as “a promise that must now be turned into action, it is the beginning of a conversation and not the end.” Barajas called for the abolishment of ICE and for action to be taken to pressure Gresham City Council to end “all loopholes of collaboration with ICE like the Flock cameras.” The Gresham City Attorney, Ellen Van Riper, has denied that the city has any contract with Flock group.

Protesters marched along Burnside with a set of signs with the names and photos of people who are known to have either been killed by immigration officers or died while in ICE custody in 2025 through January of 2026. According to reporting from The Guardian 32 people died in ICE custody in 2025 and eight had died in January of 2026. Dunham said, “We are remembering those who lost their lives at the hands of ICE” before the signs were brought out to lead the march.

Note: I canvassed for Rep. Zach Hudson and Sen. Chris Gorsek in the lead up to the 2024 November election.

Gresham City Council from left to right: Kayla Brown, Eddy Morales, Jerry Hinton, Travis Stovall, Cathy Keathley, Sue Piazza, and Janine Gladfelter.

On January 6, 2026 the Gresham City Council reached a consensus to draft a resolution addressing the community impacts felt due to ongoing fear and disruption caused by the aggressive approach to immigration being taken the Trump administration. Gresham Mayor Travis Stovall said that staff would be directed to draft a resolution in response to community pressure for the city council to pass a “state of emergency” declaration to address the concerns brought by community members. “We will have this resolution prepared and ready for discussion at our next meeting,” Stovall said.

One element likely to come up in the draft resolution is the economic disruption caused by broad immigration enforcement. It was suggested by Councilor Kayla Brown, who said that she wants the resolution to specifically include “the economic impact this is gonna have on our community.”

The Gresham City Council’s business meeting was preceded by a rally of community members and activists continuing to push for “a state of emergency” declaration from the council. During that time, an activist with Portland Contra Las Deportaciones lead the group in anti-ICE chants that were pitted against chants from a handful of counter-protesters in support of continuing broad immigration enforcement.

Mayor Stovall argued that comments made at the meeting by community members that the city and city council “has done very little or nothing” were untrue. He said that the city was already working to address issues brought up by community members such as helping people pay their utilities bill, access food assistance and by partnering with community organizations doing work to help meet the needs of the community.

Further, Stovall said that he was asking Multnomah County to devote some of the funds they recently allocated as part of their own emergency declaration in response to ICE activity to east county.

Several of the city councilors perceived that many of the community members asking them to pass an emergency declaration understand that it would not stop ICE. Several also expressed concerns that this understanding would not be shared by other community members. Councilor Cathy Keathley, said they believed that even if the city passed an emergency declaration community members would continue to write letters asking why the city’s police wouldn’t stop “ICE from victimizing our community members.” Her concerns highlight one of the underlying tensions that will remain even should the city council pass a resolution addressing the grievances brought to them.

This tension was previously pointed out by a speaker at a Dec. 9, 2025 city council meeting who identified themselves as a high school civics teacher that “the rule of law” is supposed to provide an equal protection to all people and apply to all people equally. They said they believed that, because of the actions of immigration agents, enforcing state and local laws is coming into tension with not obstructing federal agents.

At the January 6 meeting, Alyssa Walker Keller, a coordinator for the Portland Immigrants Rights Coalition, described reports of “masked agents” dragging people out of cars, breaking into houses without warrants, using duplicate license plates, pepper spraying observers and, “sending people to hospitals on a regular basis.” Walker said that, “this is not law enforcement as usual, these are agents operating without fear of reprisal.”

After the Dec. 9, 2025 meeting, Mayor Stovall wrote in a Dec. 16 press release that the country could both be a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. At the close of the Jan. 6 city council meeting he encouraged community members to take their energy to their congressional representatives to reform federal immigration policy.

*This article was updated to clarify that Cathy Keathley is one of the city councilors and updated the relevant photo caption.

The council chambers were packed as the Gresham city council heard what their options were to address the aggressive approach taken by immigration enforcement officers by the city attorney at a Dec. 9, 2025 council meeting. Local community members and a group of community organizations that referred to themselves as the Sacred Organizing Coalition called on the city council to pass an emergency declaration to address the actions of immigration enforcement agents in the community.

Rev. Joshua Dunham from the Gresham Covenant Presbyterian Church told the councilors that his church had experienced disruptions due to the environment created by broad Immigration and Customs Enforcement removal operations. Dunham said that “ICE abducted a young man in front of my church” and that they were “fully masked, fully armed and not identifying themselves.” He says that the Spanish language congregations that use their building had seen significant drops in attendance and that one has stopped meeting altogether and won’t be attending church for Christmas. Dunham says this is because, “There are many, due to the actions of ICE, who are afraid to celebrate this season.”

City Councilor Kayla Brown said they found the tactics, profiling and lack of training by federal agents concerning but that those problems had also “made it nearly impossible to acknowledge that some truly dangerous individuals have been removed from our streets.” Councilor Brown said that the city is “upholding our sanctuary city duties.”

Gresham Council President Jerry Hinton said that they loved how people can “come from all four corners of the world and come to America and become an American.” He also his expressed his belief that immigrants are an important part of society and help keep the US population growing: “We need our immigrants to be part of our society.” He continued that “We want them but we also believe in the rule of law - we need to document them.” Hinton also expressed a desire for progress to be made towards bi-partisan immigration reform.

The city attorney, Ellen Van Riper, also addressed concerns brought up by community members that the city could be using automated license plate readers made by flock which could be used by federal agencies to enforce immigration laws. They said that, “contrary to a statement made during the last council meeting the Gresham Police Department does not have a contract with flock group for any surveillance or data collection system.” And that further, the Gresham police department does not share or sell any data to federal, state, or local law enforcement for immigration purposes. Riper said that City of Gresham staff and police would work to ensure that their policies and contracts do not allow the sharing of any data without explicit permission.

Riper said that Oregon’s sanctuary promise law prohibits state or local law enforcement from helping federal agencies with enforcing immigration law. Riper said that the city could not prevent DHS or ICE from entering public property “otherwise open to public access” but could exclude ICE and DHS from entering “city property or facilities not open to the general public” without a valid judicial warrant. Riper said that model policies drafted by the office of Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield are currently being reviewed by their office.

An immigrant who spoke to the councilors who asked to be referred to as La Guerita said that immigration officers use of face coverings and being unwilling to identify themselves is spreading fear in their community. “We don’t exactly know if they really are immigration or not they cover they face they just come and give fear to everybody.” And they said that immigrants are being “treated like criminals.” “We’re not criminals,” they said. (To be clear, the social science data does not support claims that increased levels of immigration lead to increased rates of crime.) Since the start of the Trump Administration the number of people arrested by ICE without any criminal history has dramatically increased.

Initially, Councilor Brown said that they weren’t sure if the city was in enough danger to make an emergency declaration. But their views seem to be evolving. They concluded that, “my opinion on the state of emergency is changing and that’s because of you guys tonight.”

The next Gresham City Council meeting is currently scheduled for Tuesday January 6, 2026.

On July 17, 2025 the activist organization Indivisible called for nationwide protests in response to various actions and policies implemented by the Trump administration and the Republican controlled congress. The significance of the date and the name chosen for the mass action: “good trouble lives on!” commemorates civil rights leader and former congressman John Lewis who died July 17, 2020.

At 2:18 that very morning the Senate passed the Recissions Act of 2025. The act rescinded funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides grants to local NPR and PBS member stations around the country.

One such protest took place at the SE Stark St and Cesar E. Chavez Blvd intersection near Laurelhurst Park. The protest was one of a series of protests that have followed since the Hands Off and No Kings day protests called for by Indivisible and 50501. The signs I saw protesters holding showed that continuity: some warned that Trump wanted to be a king, some held sings protesting ICE, some were concerned about the cutting of funding to NPR and to state Medicaid programs. One sign I saw protested the US sending military aid to Israel.

One of the organizers at the event told me the protest was made up of multiple local indivisible chapters. They told me that the chapters were created according to the new Portland City Council district map.

Later that afternoon at a Gresham park, the organizers of the Multnomah East Indivisible group held an event to recruit more members to their leadership team. Two current Oregon Senators spoke at the event: Chris Gorsek whose district includes Gresham, and Senate Majority Whip Lou Fredrick. Sen. Fredrick recounted how he met John Lewis and had mutual connections with him as well. During his speech he condemned the current state of immigration enforcement he said that immigration officials “clearly have a quota of brown-skinned people to rough up” and that the US now has concentration camps that cruelly and inhumanely lock people in cages. He told those present that they should step up to make the change for a better future they wanted to see. He said that “no one else is gonna come up and do it, you have to do it.” Fredrick condemned the banning of books and efforts to impose increased restrictions on voting and noted the high levels of voter turn-out in their election which they attributed to Oregon’s use of mail-in voting.

This post was originally published on Medium, on June 20th.

On June 14, “No Kings” protests happened around the country on the same day as a military parade was scheduled to occur in Washington DC with the stated purpose of celebrating the US Army’s 250 birthday. It was also President Donald Trump’s birthday.

Which led many to believe that the military parade was actually happening because Trump wanted a military parade; And, the coinciding of his birthday with the US Army’s was a good pretense for Trump to use to get the military parade he had previously wanted but had been unable to make materialize. The events were planned by a broad coalition of organizations including 50501 and Indivisible.

The “No Kings” protest in Gresham started with a rally outside Gresham City Hall at 10:00 and after opening speeches, marched up the sidewalks around 10:30 on Eastman Parkway, turned left to walk alongside Burnside Rd, crossed the street at Civic Dr and walked back up to Eastman Parkway to return to the plaza next to Gresham City Hall for closing speeches before the event wrapped up after 12:00 PM. Organizers estimate that at least a thousand people showed up for the Gresham protest.

There were speeches delivered by a variety of politicians and individuals connected to various Democratic organizations including: Oregon State Representative, Zach Hudson; the chairperson of the Multnomah County Democrats, Salome Chimuku; and Heather Coleman Cox, who founded Multnomah East Indivisible (which organized the event) after the previous April 5th “Hands Off” event and was recently elected to the Gresham Barlow School Board.

In her opening statements, Heather Coleman Cox described the protest as being about rejecting “the idea that one man can rule unchecked.” They continued, “we will not stand by while the foundations of our sacred democracy our torn down.” They argued that after recent overreaches of executive power by Donald Trump (including the Federalizing of the California National Guard in response to clashes between federal officials and protesters that followed from immigration related raids of local businesses and the detainment of, David Huerta, President of the California SEIU) a federalized national guard might eventually come to Oregon. Coleman told the crowd that the current protest was following in the footsteps of the civil rights movement and that American principles of democracy, justice and equality were being eroded. To address this, she said that the people would be the moral compass that would address injustice when elected officials fail to uphold them. She told protesters they were there “protesting to reclaim the soul of our democracy.” She concluded her opening statement by emphasizing that the protests were intended to be a “peaceful, nonviolent, rally.”

Catherine Caruso, a former US Forest Service employee and former US Army National Guard veteran, led demonstrators in the pledge of allegiance.

Rep. Zach Hudson performed a decently long limerick styled poem about Donald Trump. And then rolled off a list of characteristics of fascism he argued demonstrated the ways Trump has embraced fascism. He then referenced the “this machine kills fascists” sticker that was on Woody Guthrie’s Guitar before he performed a cover of his song “All You Fascists Bound to Lose” in which he referenced JD Vance and Donald Trump.

The march up Burnside began shortly after.

When they returned to the plaza next to Gresham City Hall after the march, Salome Chimuku, the chairperson of the Multnomah County Democrats, gave an impassioned speech where she said that people should be uncomfortable with recent actions taken by the federal government against immigrant and refugee communities: “No, we should not be comfortable as they are kidnapping our community members and taking them up to Tacoma without due process,” she said. Which seems to be a reference to an asylum seeker who was detained by ICE officials outside an immigration court in Portland and almost 1,500 others detained inside an ICE detainment facility in Tacoma, Wa. She urged the protesters to continue to resist attacks against marginalized communities and progressive leaders because, she said “The moment you are silent is the day that they come for the person who was going to protect you,” she said.

She also criticized the media for not covering the Gresham “No Kings” event which she described as an attempt to create a narrative that people in Gresham where not opposed to the actions of the Trump administration. She said that those in attendance “should be proud to let people know that there are people here [in Gresham] who say no, who continue to say, ‘this is not good enough.’”

KGW listed the Gresham rally as a part of their coverage of the “No Kings” protests happening across Oregon. The local newspaper The Gresham Outlook’s only reporter, Christopher Keizur, was attending Mt. Hood Community College’s graduation ceremony during the protest and has since published a short article on the event.

The next speaker was Juliette Kudrick, who recently finished working for State Rep. Zach Hudson as part of a program with Portland State University. She said that Donald Trump wanted to make the county one for “wealthy elites while the rest of us can go hungry and homeless.” And that, “Donald Trump [is wasting] our money on a birthday parade for himself, all while he slashes funding for Medicaid and food stamps.” (also called SNAP: The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program)

Kudrick says that autocracy is fundamentally opposed to principles of American democracy: “we do not believe in monarchs or tyrants we believe in democracy.”

Kudrick said she felt hopeful during the rally and that, “it is hope that inspires us to demonstrate, to fight against the status quo and to take a stand against wannabe dictators!”

The last speaker, KC Hansen, (a former chair of The Democratic Party of Oregon) celebrated the birthday of the US Army and the American flag, and mocked Trump’s. She said that the President was weaponizing the American flag to divide people from one another. She described the American flag as a symbol embodying “aspiration hope and [a] coming together of many people for a greater cause,” which she says aligns with the goals of the “No Kings” protest. And that to her, “love of country means loving our neighbors.”

Note: I canvassed for Rep. Zach Hudson in the lead up to the 2024 November election.