DHS official says federal Portland deployment could become the norm

 (July 20) Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the US Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) has been facing mounting lawsuits and complaints from Oregon officials after the federal crackdown in Portland Oregon.

However, his response was to issue a memo in which he suggested that this sort of federal action could become the norm.

In Portland, Federal law enforcement was deployed without permission from any state or local officials. The justification for their deployment was nominally to protect public buildings in the area. The federal agents fired tear gas at protesters and also in effect kidnapped suspects off the streets without any legal basis and with no arrests being made.

The Wolf memo

The memo suggested that if federal law enforcement were deployed to other US cities experiencing unrest and become the norm then specialized training and standardized equipment should be given to the agencies responding.

Wolf defended the use of DHS agents in Portland arguing that the protesters were anarchists and that the agents were needed to protect federal buildings. Some DHS officials said that the agents had just enough training to be deployed but did not seem to want to speak to the suggestion that their deployment could become the norm.

Negative reactions to the federal action

In a tweet, Oregon State Governor Kate Brown said: "I told Acting Secretary Wolf that the federal government should remove all federal officers from our streets. His response showed me he is on a mission to provoke confrontation for political purposes. He is putting both Oregonians and local law enforcement officers in harm’s way." The appended video shows Governor Brown's reaction to the federal operations.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler said that he had informed Wolf that Portland did not want or need assistance from federal officers.

Oregon Senators Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden both Democrats as well as Democratic Representatives Earl Blumenauer and Suzanne Bonamici aaked that the Portland events be thoroughly reviewed by DHS. Merkley said that the DHS and Dept. of Justice were engaged in acts that were horrific and outrageous in the US constitutional democratic republic.

Previously published in the Digital Journal