I visited Portland a month ago. There are security guards at each pharmacy and supermarket. I got screamed at by a violent/homeless person because I walked on her block. Some streets - and we are talking downtown/center - I was just afraid or disgusted to walk on.
So, yes, Portland is a dump that needs to get cleaned up.
I was in Portland less than a month ago and had no problems. Sure, there was one time I crossed the street to avoid someone who was clearly homeless and mentally ill, but I never found myself feeling unsafe.
Unfortunately homelessness is something that can't be solved by one city or even one state. Feeding, housing, and getting them treatment is expensive and not something even the wealthier cities have the budget to do on their own. And the first major city that tries will have to deal with other places dropping more homeless people on their doorstep - that's one thing that both red and blue cities have been guilty of as you can read about at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2017/dec/...
In my experience, the largest predictor for how often you run into homeless people isn't city size, how much money the local police have, or how the residents vote, but how walkable the area is. Homeless people go where traffic is, foot traffic especially, because panhandling needs an audience.
There is a big difference between feeling uncomfortable and being in a genuinely unsafe situation, and the less you are used to seeing the homeless, the more out of touch with reality your gut feelings are.
Let's seriously ask ourselves here: even if we sit down and let ICE detain, say, 10k people (mind you, that's about 1.5% the population of Oregon, or 1 in 60 people): do you really think they are going to bother with the violent homeless person you complain about?
They aren't hitting gangs or any actually dangerous people, they are looking for weak targets. They aren't trying to clean up the streets, they are geting their rocks off playing GTA IRL.
The problematic part is usually the solution, not the assessment part of these regimes, politicians, ideologies. Are there issues in Portland? Certainly. Will Trump's actions lessen them actually? Highly doubtful.
Doubly doubtful for the following reason: these people need the problems to exist, so that they can write their narrative around them, and offer their "solutions" for them. Same as how cults target vulnerable people.
I visited Fargo a couple years ago where a drunk homeless guy got way too close to my wife and dogs while asking us for money. He made my wife feel unsafe and my dogs nearly bit him, so it's clear we should deploy the national guard to Fargo.
