Should Trump Send Troops to Protect Federal Agents and Property?

Portland, Oregon, has endured unrest for several years, unrest that morphed into riots and threats toward federal agents and which has increased over the past 100 nights. President Donald Trump decided to send the National Guard – known as federalizing troops – into Portland to protect the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center and headquarters. The facility has been under assault, particular at night. Victor Davis Hanson explained the situation as follows. 

In other words, Antifa-like protesters surround the facility. They make it almost impossible to drive in and out. And they’re trying to disrupt the idea itself that the federal government has a right to apprehend illegal aliens that have warrants out for their deportation.

Hanson asks a question that may be on the minds of other people: why would President Trump bother with Portland, Oregon? Hanson considers it a “lose-lose situation” in some ways for the President. Trump could just let Portland destroy itself, but the President looks at the situation in a different way.

… But Trump’s point, I think, is different. He is saying that the city of Portland, by its nonenforcement, by intent – not just capability, by intent – it is allowing an area of Portland to be free of, exempt from the law. Local law, state law, but more importantly, federal law, too.

In other words, people can commit mayhem against federal personnel with impunity.

And Donald Trump is saying that I have to protect the civil rights of those agents and that agency. And I have jurisdiction, as the president of the United States and the ultimate enforcer of federal law. So, I’m going to go into Portland with sufficient force. And I’m going to guarantee that ICE facility works as it does elsewhere, without harassment. And if this now-designated terrorist organization Antifa tries to disrupt, we’re going to charge them, not with local statutes, not with state, but federal charges. And these carry severe penalties.

So, this puts the ball in the Oregon court and the Antifa court because if you object to what Donald Trump is doing, you’re finding yourself, as to quote former President Barack Obama, “on the wrong side of history” in two senses.

Antifa is a terrorist organization. The only mystery is, it’s centralized, with a head that runs the tentacles of this octopus. I don’t know. But by branding people who identify with Antifa, de facto, as terrorists, it makes anybody who wants to create a safe haven for their terrorist activity part and parcel to terrorism. Do you really want to be defending terrorism is you oppose the federal government’s efforts to protect its own personnel from terrorists?

Hanson says that there is “a larger historical question,” even “a civil rights issue” like those in the 1950s and 1960s. This means that “no city, no state, no county has the right to take away the civil rights of any citizen.” In 1962, it was a segregation issue with George Wallace. President John F. Kennedy said “no.” America fought a civil war over segregation, and states must obey federal law. Kennedy federalized the National Guard who guarded Black students entering previously all-white schools. With that situation as background, Hanson continues:

What am I getting at? The mayor of Portland, the governor of Oregon, that liberal community of Portland, by allowing this direct violation of federal law and the denial of civil rights to ICE agents, is basically nullifying federal law. It is a neo-Confederate idea. They are in league with the George Wallaces of history by saying: We, in our infinite morality and wisdom, can adjudicate what the federal government can do and what it can’t do.

I’m sorry, Oregon, we fought a civil war over that. And your idea lost. There is no legal justification for state nullification of federal law. Legally and morally, you’re on the wrong side of history. You’re siding with terrorists who are trying to maim and hurt federal agents. For what? Trying to enforce an existing federal law, and specifically, targeting people who have criminal records, here illegally, and are dangers to the community that you will not protect.

Even though Trump has authority and precedence to federalize the National Guard, a federal judge blocked his order to send troops to Portland. The order issued by U.S. District Judge Karin Immergut “prevents National Guard troops from any state across the country and Washington, D.C., from being sent to Oregon.” In other words, this federal judge just asserted power over the President of the United States. Virginia Allen described the situation in Portland as follows. 

The court order follows Trump’s effort to deploy National Guard troops to Portland to guard federal property amid protests and riots outside an immigration detention center in the city. Federal and local law enforcement have made multiple arrests of protesters outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement building in Portland in recent days….

Trump is working to take similar action in Chicago. Over the weekend, the president authorized 300 Illinois National Guard to go to Chicago to guard federal buildings. Trump is also ordering hundreds of Texas National Guardsmen to Chicago in a move Illinois Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker is labeling “Trump’s invasion.”

The simple truth is that Democrat mayors and governors are enabling Antifa-like terrorists to hinder and harass ICE agents and other federal agents in doing their jobs. It is the liberal and progressive leaders who have allowed their cities and states to become sanctuary areas in the first place.

The bottom line is that local and state law enforcement officers should be protecting life and property, but mayors and governors allow riots, fires, and destruction. If the politicians who were elected to protect citizens and property will not do the job, then the President of the United States has no option except to step into the chaos to protect federal personnel and property.