As Oregon awaits more clarity from a federal appeals court on the Trump administration’s attempts to deploy National Guard troops from multiple states to Portland, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem traveled to the city’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Tuesday.

The ICE processing facility in south Portland has been the center of mostly small protests for months. Ahead of Noem’s arrival Tuesday, about two dozen demonstrators waited outside the ICE facility playing music and holding signs. About an hour before Noem’s arrival, federal police took down protest signs that had been affixed to nearby walls and fences for weeks.

Oregon Guard and combat veteran Noah Mrowczynski was among the protesters. Mrowczynski, 45, hadn’t been to the facility before but said he wanted to join the protest when he heard Noem was coming.

“I’m a combat veteran, a veteran who fought real wars against real terrorists,” he said. “Not this so-called insurrection and so-called terrorists Trump would have you believe we are in Portland.”

Federal District Judge Karin Immergut, appointed by President Donald Trump in his first term, blocked Trump from mobilizing 200 Oregon National Guard troops on Saturday. On Sunday, she issued a broader order blocking troops from anywhere in the U.S. from coming to Portland after the administration began sending federalized troops from California and called up 400 Texas National Guard members to federal service.

On Tuesday, Gov. Tina Kotek sent a letter to the head of the U.S. Northern Command, which is overseeing Oregon and California troops, urging him to send home the 200 Oregon soldiers stationed at Camp Rilea in Warrenton and the 200 California soldiers stationed at Camp Withycombe in Happy Valley.

“Our citizen soldiers deserve better than to be uprooted from their families and careers, only to be mobilized for an illegal mission positioning our soldiers in opposition to the U.S. Constitution’s 1st, 4th and 10th amendments, of which they have taken an oath to uphold,” Kotek wrote.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals set oral arguments for Thursday on the federal government’s request to stay Immergut’s ruling.