Failed Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler joined forces with other failed Dem Mayors to beg Congress to pass legislation that stops Trump from sending in federal agents to do their jobs for them.
Wheeler, along with Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller, and Kansas City Mayor Quinton D. Lucas wrote,
“Targeting and occupation of progressive cities is unacceptable, un-American and unconstitutional. Moreover, these federal agents are not trained in modern community policing, crowd control, or de-escalation strategies.”
“We call on Congress to swiftly pass legislation to block the administration from sending unwanted and unidentified federal agents to our cities,” the mayors added.
Trump promptly overruled Wheeler and announced he is sending more agents to help restore order in Portland.
From The Washington Post:
The Trump administration is sending more federal agents to Portland, Ore., as officials consider pushing back harder and farther against the growing crowds and nightly clashes with protesters, vandals, and rioters, The Washington Post has learned.
To strengthen federal forces arrayed around the city’s downtown courthouse, the U.S. Marshals Service decided last week to send 100 deputy U.S. Marshals to Portland, according to an internal Marshals email reviewed by The Post. The personnel began arriving Thursday night.
The Department of Homeland Security is also considering a plan to send an additional 50 U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel to the city, but a final decision on the deployment has not been made, according to senior administration officials involved in the federal response.
Such moves would mark a significant expansion of the federal force currently operating at the courthouse — there were 114 federal agents there in mid-July — though it is unclear how many personnel there now would be relieved and sent home once the reinforcements arrive.
Spokesmen for the Marshals Service and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately address requests for further information.
White House officials are expected to discuss the plans privately Monday afternoon.
Portland has been the scene of long-running protests over police mistreatment of minorities, centered largely around the large federal courthouse downtown. Confrontations between the heavily-armed federal agents and black-clad protesters have intensified in recent weeks, and Trump administration officials have pledged to defeat the “violent anarchists” who they say are trying to burn down the building.
As the nightly street battles in Portland have gotten more attention, they have triggered internal investigations into the conduct of federal agencies like the Marshals and CBP.
Federal law enforcement officials have grown increasingly worried that they may be losing control of Portland’s streets, and losing the public debate over their handling of the unrest, according to people familiar with the internal discussions who were not authorized to discuss those conversations with reporters.
