Photos: Chris Weiss
Senator Jeff Merkley says the crowds at town halls in Portland and Tigard were his largest ever.
Merkley statement:
Massive crowds gathered Saturday in Tigard and Portland, Oregon at town hall meetings hosted by Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley to voice their opposition to President Trump's policies, including his proposal to dismantle health care and his Executive Order stopping refugee admissions into the United States and shutting down visas for seven majority-Muslim nations.
Merkley, who holds town hall meetings in each of Oregon’s 36 counties every year, was hosting his 289th and 290th such event today as masses of Oregonians assembled to hear him speak about Trump’s Muslim ban. The crowds filled high school gymnasiums requiring speaker systems to be set up outside school buildings to accommodate the overflow audiences.
“These were by far the biggest audiences I have ever seen at any of my nearly 300 town halls,” said Merkley. “The enormity of the turnout speaks to the dire seriousness of Trump’s Muslim ban. Oregonians are taking a stand against this reprehensible policy and with our Muslim brothers and sisters and refugees throughout the world. This policy is wrong by every standard and it must end immediately.”
Estimates put the crowd sizes at more than 3,600 attendees in Portland and over 600 in Tigard, vastly outnumbering previous town halls in the region.