Portland Update

As I noted yesterday, both Portland city and the State of Oregon sued to block the use of National Guard troops to protect the ICE facility and maintain order in the area. The judge said she would rule on their request for a temporary restraining order over the weekend. This she did:

US District Judge Karin Immergut, a Trump nominee, ruled Saturday that deploying active-duty troops to secure the “war ravaged” Oregon city would violate the US Constitution and federal law barring military involvement in domestic law enforcement.

“The relationship between the federal government and the states, between the military and domestic law enforcement, and the balance of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government,” she wrote in her ruling.

. . . In her ruling, Karin pointed out that scores of demonstrations held outside a south Portland immigration facility were not notably violent or disruptive in the days and weeks before Trump’s order.

“Overall, the protests were small and uneventful,” she wrote.

This has been the position of Portland's mayor and other local officials all along. However, the photo at the top of this post is from a protest just yesterday afternoon, and it suggests that the gathering was significant, and arrests were in fact apparently made. According to The Oregonian,

Federal officers have arrested more than two dozen people outside Portland’s ICE building since June, with the majority in the first month that demonstrators started to gather to protest President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The pattern of arrests appears to reflect what Gov. Tina Kotek, Mayor Keith Wilson and Police Chief Bob Day repeatedly said Saturday as Trump authorized sending federal troops to the city:

. . . Relatively low-key demonstrations by a small group of people have continued at the building with law enforcement oversight throughout.

People have been accused in federal court of vandalizing the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office, disrupting the electronic key card reader operating the building’s gated entrance, blocking federal vehicles from leaving the property, throwing rocks or sticks at officers, shining green lasers into officers’ eyes, disrupting the internet service inside by removing fiber-optic cables and barricading the entry gate with traffic cones, lumber, tables and electronic scooters.

. . . Most of the arrests, 18 of about 29, occurred in June, when demonstrations peaked with hundreds of people at the building. Four more people were charged on July Fourth after another large protest. In recent weeks, no more than several dozen people have gathered outside the building on South Portland’s waterfront.

However, it's difficult to compare arrest statistics from the Portland demonstrations with those in Los Angeles this past June: by the accounts of Portland officials, the Portland Police Bureau has generally left law enforcement around the ICE facility to federal forces, while in Los Angeles, LAPD was active during the protests. In addition, the Los Angeles District Attorney has a tough-on-crime stance, unlike Portland's. For instance,

The Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office and the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office charged at least 71 people with crimes allegedly committed during recent protests against federal immigration enforcement.

. . . The cases stem from downtown Los Angeles protests almost all in June, with one case in July, where 75 people are accused of throwing rocks, fireworks, beer cans and water bottles at officers, driving motorcycles into police lines, and spray-painting “[redacted] ICE” on a building. Others face allegations of looting stores during the demonstrations. Charges range from failing to disperse to assault on police officers.

Again, Portland employs “dialogue liaison officers” rather than uniformed police to deal with protesters, and their treatment is generally more lenient than LAPD. Dialogue Liaison Officers, wearing white uniform shirts, act as liaisons to demonstrators, their role is not enforcement, and they do not make arrests.

Nevertheless, according to The Oregonian, over the same period mostly in June, Portland had 29 arrests, while Los Angeles had 71. These totals, although Portland's is arithmetically lower, are in the same order of magnitude, double digits, especially considering the differing roles of "dialogue liaison officers" vis-a-vis LAPD uniformed officers. If Trump was justified in sending troops to Los Angeles to protect federal agents and facilities, he has about the same justification for sending them to Portland. At the first link above,

The temporary restraining order blocking Trump’s move will expire in 14 days.

The White House disputed the ruling, insisting the president would be “vindicated” by a higher court.

“President Trump exercised his lawful authority to protect federal assets and personnel in Portland following violent riots and attacks on law enforcement — we expect to be vindicated by a higher court,” White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told The Post.