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The mayor of Portland, Oregon, is calling on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to leave his city after federal agents deployed tear gas at a crowd of demonstrators, including young children, outside an ICE facility over the weekend.
Mayor Keith Wilson characterized the protests on Saturday as peaceful, as federal agents reportedly used tear gas, pepper balls, flash-bang grenades and rubber bullets against the anti-ICE demonstrators.
Wilson urged ICE agents to resign and for the agency to leave Portland, denouncing their “use of violence” and the “trampling of the Constitution.”
“Today, federal forces deployed heavy waves of chemical munitions, impacting a peaceful daytime protest where the vast majority of those present violated no laws, made no threat, and posed no danger to federal forces,” he said in a statement on Saturday.
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“To those who continue to work for ICE: Resign. To those who control this facility: Leave. Through your use of violence and the trampling of the Constitution, you have lost all legitimacy and replaced it with shame. To those who continue to make these sickening decisions, go home, look in a mirror, and ask yourselves why you have gassed children. Ask yourselves why you continue to work for an agency responsible for murders on American streets. No one is forcing you to lie to yourself, even as your bosses continue to lie to the American people,” the mayor continued.
The mayor added that this nation “will never accept a federal presence where agents wield deadly force against the very people they are sworn to serve.”
“I share the impatience with those who demand we use every legal tool at our disposal to push back against this inexcusable, unconscionable, and unacceptable violence against our community,” Wilson said. “I share the need to act. Actions that can withstand the scrutiny of the justice system take time – and we cannot afford to lose this fight.”
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Portland officials are working to operationalize an ordinance, which went into effect last month, that imposes a fee on detention facilities that use chemical agents, the mayor said.
“As we prepare to put that law into action, we are also documenting today’s events and preserving evidence. The federal government must, and will, be held accountable,” he wrote.
“Portland will continue to stand firmly with our immigrant neighbors, who deserve safety, dignity, and the full protection of the communities they help build,” he continued. “We are also proud of the Portlanders who showed up today in peaceful solidarity, demonstrating the strength and clarity of those shared values in the face of federal overreach.”
This comes amid national unrest and bipartisan scrutiny of immigration enforcement tactics following two killings of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents last month in Minneapolis.
Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis, and Alex Pretti was fatally shot on Jan. 24 by Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez while he was recording immigration enforcement operations in the same city.
Pretti, an ICU nurse, appeared to be attempting to assist a woman agents had knocked down when he was sprayed with an irritant, pushed to the ground and beaten, according to video and witness accounts. An agent was later seen pulling Pretti’s lawfully owned firearm from his waistband before other agents fired several shots, killing him.
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