PORTLAND, Ore. — Federal law enforcement officers’ actions at protests in Oregon’s largest city, done without local authorities’ consent, are raising the prospect of a constitutional crisis — one that could escalate as weeks of demonstrations find renewed focus in clashes with camouflaged, unidentified agents outside Portland’s U.S. courthouse.
State and local authorities, who did not ask for federal help, are awaiting a ruling in a federal lawsuit filed
late last week by state Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum.
She said in court papers that masked federal officers have arrested people off the street, far from the courthouse, with no probable cause — and whisked them away in unmarked cars.
Constitutional law experts said Monday the federal officers’ actions are a “red flag” in what could become a test case of states’ rights as the Trump administration expands its federal policing into other cities.
“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.
“It is a standard move of authoritarians to use the pretext of quelling violence to bring in force, thereby prompting a violent response and then bootstrapping the initial use of force in the first place,” Dorf said.
President Donald Trump says he plans to send federal agents to other cities as well.
The Chicago Tribune, citing anonymous sources, reported Monday that Trump planned to deploy 150 federal agents to Chicago. The ACLU of Oregon has sued in federal court over the agents’ presence in Portland, and the organization’s Chicago branch said it would similarly oppose a federal presence.
“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.”
Later Monday, DHS
said in a tweet that federal agents were barricaded in the 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,” a DHS tweet said. “This isn’t a peaceful crowd. These are federal crimes.”
Top leaders in the U.S. House said Sunday they were “alarmed” by the Trump administration’s tactics in Portland and other cities.
They’ve called on federal inspectors general to investigate.
Trump, who called the protesters “anarchists and agitators” in a Sunday tweet, said the agents, with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department, are on hand to help Portland and restore order at the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse.
The 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 — particularly its armed agents — interceding in most situations.
But Trump, a Republican, has shown during his time in office that his actions do not always reflect traditional conservatism — particularly when politics, and in this case an impending election, are in play.
