PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal officers’ actions at protests in Oregon’s largest city, hailed by President Donald Trump but done without local consent, are raising the prospect of a constitutional crisis.
State and local authorities, who didn't ask for federal help, are awaiting a ruling in a lawsuit filed late last week. State Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum said in court papers that masked federal officers have arrested people with allegedly no probable cause and whisked them away in unmarked cars.Though federal agents are reportedly present to protect federal buildings from vandalism during ongoing riots.
President Trump says he plans to send federal agents to other cities, too.
“We’re going to have more federal law enforcement, that I can tell you,” Trump said Monday. “In Portland, they’ve done a fantastic job. They’ve been there three days, and they really have done a fantastic job in a very short period of time.”
Constitutional law experts said federal officers' actions are potentially problematic in what could become a test case of states’ rights as the Trump administration expands federal policing.
“The idea that there’s a threat to a federal courthouse and the federal authorities are going to swoop in and do whatever they want to do without any cooperation and coordination with state and local authorities is extraordinary, outside the context of a civil war” said Michael Dorf, a professor of constitutional law at Cornell University. Though, others argue the federal agents were responding to perceived civil unrest and a threat to federal property in the absence of action taken by local authorities.
“This is a democracy, not a dictatorship," Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, said on Twitter. “We cannot have secret police abducting people in unmarked vehicles."
The Department of Homeland Security tweeted that federal agents were barricaded in Portland's U.S. courthouse at one point and had lasers pointed at their eyes in an attempt to blind them.
“Portland is rife with violent anarchists assaulting federal officers and federal buildings,” the tweet said. “This isn’t a peaceful crowd. These are federal crimes.”
Trump, who's called the protesters “anarchists and agitators,” said the DHS and Justice Department agents are on hand to restore order at the courthouse and help Portland.
Nightly protests, which began in late May, have devolved into nightly violence.
The Trump administration's actions run counter to the usual philosophies of American conservatives, who typically treat state and local rights with great sanctity and have long been deeply wary of the federal government interceding in most situations.
One prominent Republican, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is from the libertarian-leaning flank of the party, criticized federal policing.
“We cannot give up liberty for security. Local law enforcement can and should be handling these situations in our cities but there is no place for federal troops or unidentified federal agents rounding people up at will,” Paul said in a tweet Monday.
The now often violent protests have roiled Portland for 52 nights. Many rallies have attracted thousands. But groups of up to several hundred people have focused on federal property and local law enforcement buildings, at times setting fires to police precincts, smashing windows and attacking local police.
Court documents filed in cases against protesters show that federal officers have posted lookouts on the upper stories of the courthouse and have plainclothes officers circulating in the crowd. Court papers in a federal case against a man accused of shining a laser in the eyes of Federal Protective Service agents show that Portland police turned him over to U.S. authorities after federal officers identified him.
Mayor Ted Wheeler, who's has been under fire for his handling of the protests, previously claimed on national television that the demonstrations were dwindling before federal officers engaged.
“They are sharply escalating the situation. Their presence here is actually leading to more violence and more vandalism. And it’s not helping the situation at all,” Wheeler said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“They’re not wanted here. We haven’t asked them here,” Wheeler said. “In fact, we want them to leave.”