Amphibious assault: Progressive Portland’s protesting frogs take air out of Trump’s arguments

“Keep Portland weird” is the unofficial slogan of the metropolis in the United States’ Pacific northwest.

Like a giant Brunswick or Newtown, the city of 600,000 is widely celebrated for its progressive politics and unashamedly absurd sense of style, immortalised in the 2010s-era sketch comedy series Portlandia.

So perhaps it’s not surprising that when some residents were looking for a way to fight back against President Donald Trump’s hardline immigration agenda, they kept it weird.

For the past few weeks, they’ve been dressing up in inflatable frog, unicorn and dinosaur suits while protesting outside Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities, gifting the grateful media and internet gloriously ridiculous images of ordinary citizens goofing off in front of very serious-looking law enforcement officials.

ICE agents have been undertaking raids and mass deportations since Trump returned to office, terrifying migrant communities - including those who believe they’re in the US legally.

For weeks now, Trump has been attempting to deploy the National Guard to the city, where he claims there are lawless, violent protests.

He and his administration argue the troops are needed to protect ICE agents and buildings.

But the scenes on the ground don’t look violent at all. They’re actually… kind of funny?

As well as twerking in their suits, the demonstrators have reportedly been staging ukulele orchestras and dance battles.

Welcome to strategic, peaceful demonstration in America in 2025.

One of the befrogged demonstrators, Seth Todd, laid out the gameplan to French newspaper Le Monde.

“It is a strategy to cut the narratives of the Trump administration, which says we are extremely violent,” the 25-year-old said. “No, we are protesting, but with humour.”

Todd was the “frog” in a viral video earlier this week, which showed an ICE agent squirting pepper spray into the air vent of his suit.

It didn’t dampen his resolve, or his sense of humour: “I’ve definitely had spicier tamales,” he told Portland paper The Oregonian.

The paper reported the number of “frogs” multiplied following this incident, and it has since credited Todd with having started the frog movement.

“I’m here protesting the inhuman way that ICE and [The Department of Homeland Security] are treating our immigrants,” Todd told the paper.

“Whether they are here legally or not, they should be treated as a human being, because that’s what they are.”

Small protests have been going on nightly outside Portland’s immigration processing facility since Trump’s second term began in January.

This masthead reported in June that the protests against the ICE raids have been small compared to the Black Lives Matter rallies in 2020. In late September, the DHS reported “two million illegal aliens have been removed or have self-deported since January 20”.

“We are not supposed to be treating other people unfairly just because we have the power to do so,” said Todd. “If you have that power you should be even more careful.”

Todd hasn’t yet explained what made him choose a frog suit over any other option.

Left-wing Australian activist Van Badham told ABC Statewide Drive Victoria it was a “brilliant tactic” to stand up against Trump’s push to mobilise troops to the area.

“If there is violence or the perception of violence, [then] Trump has the political justification he needs to ... declare martial law and mobilise hostile force against American citizens,” she said.

Floyd Sawyer, a farmer who drove for several hours to see the protests, told The Oregonian: “This is a peaceful protest as far as I’m concerned.”

“Who’d have thought the war in Portland was just a twerk contest?!,” one user wondered aloud on Instagram.

Ironically, Trump once used a frog during his first run for the presidency in 2016. It was then that he retweeted a meme of himself as Pepe the Frog, a meme that was eventually added to the Anti-Defamation League’s list of hate symbols.

The Trump administration has also deployed or attempted to deploy National Guard troops to Memphis, Chicago and Washington, setting off a chain reaction of court battles and a war of words with Chicago’s mayor and governor.

With Reuters, AP and KATU