Last week’s agreement between federal officials and Oregon governor Kate Brown calling for the withdrawal of federal officers from Portland marked a welcome de-escalation of the Trump administration’s bellicose response to the ongoing protests over the police murder of George Floyd. President Donald Trump’s deployment of heavily armed and often unidentifiable officers from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security had created a crisis on the streets of Portland, with the protests swelling in response to the federal presence and federal officers resorting to tactics that seriously injured protesters, journalists and bystanders. Ominously, the deployment appeared to be part of the president’s re-election campaign strategy, and he threatened similar deployments to other localities, including New York City.
The sight of protesters being shot with rubber bullets, tear-gassed and baton-struck by federal officers chasing them through the streets of an American city is deeply alarming. The federal deployment in Portland, which started in early July, echoes Trump’s deployment just before the 2018 mid-term elections of the American military to the southwest border as a caravan of Central American refugees approached the United States. That military deployment was not directly challenged in court, but last month’s Portland deployment prompted lawsuits by state officials, by journalists and legal observers, and by local nonprofits and elected officials.