Gresham City Council Agrees to Draft Resolution on Disruptions From Local ICE Activity
After continued pressured from local community members and activists Mayor Stovall says city will draft resolution.
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.