I will never understand the way Democrats think, and what happened this week in Portland, Oregon, is enough to make you want to pack your bags and leave the country, at least if you are conservative living in that state.
The city of Portland just codified its sanctuary city laws, ordering police to separate from assisting ICE in any way, shape, or form.
This edict comes amid rioting, which, by the way, the city's Democrat mayor seems to think is nothing but a made-up narrative.
I am going back to reports that covered the weekend beginning Oct. 3, which is when this narrative really started to pick up steam and get the attention of the White House and President Donald Trump.
During that weekend, Trump and Portland were engaged in dueling narratives regarding the rioting, ICE, and the use of the National Guard to protect federal officers.
That Saturday, a protest took place. It started out calmly, but as we have seen time and again, it eventually turned, with federal law enforcement firing tear gas and smoke into the crowd to get demonstrators to disperse. There were also reports that pepper balls were being used on those gathered.
What made the entire situation worse was Trump's claim that the city was burning to the ground, which was a gross exaggeration of what was taking place. The protests had indeed turned ugly, but it was nothing like what we saw during the George Floyd rioting of 2020.
With the assaults that have been taking place against federal officers in recent months, I completely understand why officers were being aggressive in breaking up these protests, but local officials were more or less saying that it was all a big misunderstanding.
For instance, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, after DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issued a statement on the matter, responded, "The actions of certain federal officers continue to be deeply disturbing to our community, and the lack of accountability and transparency for what appears to be unconstitutional behavior against individuals expressing their rights will only serve to deepen the divide between this facility and our community.”
Wilson insisted that he was adding officers to patrols and they could handle anything that came up, meaning that federal assistance was not needed to quell the protests.
Again, from my perspective, I don’t like the idea of forcing the use of troops and would prefer a larger federal law enforcement process, as the use of troops just feeds the Democrats' narrative of Trump authoritarianism. If you ask me, both sides were not being truthful about what happened here, which is a huge problem.
This week, the city council of Portland voted unanimously to approve the "Protect Portland Initiative" and a new sanctuary city ordinance. The measure was actively supported by residents.
Mayor Wilson stated, "We are a proud sanctuary city in a sanctuary state, and we will continue to live our values -- even when federal directives make it difficult.”
So, once again, we have a city law that is overriding federal law on immigration, something I have questioned all along in terms of its legality. If immigration is clearly under federal purview, how is sanctuary city status even possible?
Upon taking office, Attorney General Pam Bondi filed suit against New York regarding its sanctuary status, but that controversy is still kicking around in the lower courts. To this point, the U.S. Supreme Court has kicked the can down the road, usually due to a lack of standing in cases brought before the justices that touch on the question. This issue must be settled by the high court during this term. One way or another, we need to know whether these laws are constitutional or not in order to settle this issue once and for all.
