Months of demonstrations outside Portland’s immigration detention facility have escalated after conservative influencer Nick Sortor was arrested late Thursday on a disorderly conduct charge by Portland Police. A history of Portland protests led to this momentPortland famously erupted in more than 100 days of sustained, nightly protests in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter movement. Those protests flared in June, during the national protests surrounding Trump’s military parade, but have rarely attracted more than a few dozen people in the past two months. Meanwhile, the National Guard troops — from communities not too far from Portland — were training on the Oregon Coast in anticipation of deployment. Thursday’s arrest of Sortor, however, likely means more federal law enforcement presence in Portland.