Copyright The Oregonian
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in Portland do not depend on the current location of the ICE facility. If extraordinary levels of protection are necessary to thwart perceived threats, the current administration could move the facility elsewhere. ICE operations aren’t limited to the boundaries that define the jurisdiction of local law enforcement agencies and aspects of ICE operations are carried out in the field. The precise location of the facility simply isn’t that relevant. And resources aren’t lacking. On Oct. 9, when the Department of Homeland Security secretary threatened to open more federal facilities in Portland and increase the number of federal agents in Portland, the agency affirmed that it has sufficient resources to move the ICE facility if it chose to, perhaps using a small portion of the billions recently allocated to ICE. A new ICE facility could be located somewhere far away from residential neighborhoods, in a city whose politics are more closely aligned with the current administration’s agenda. The people who live and work nearby wouldn’t have to suffer the use of gas, among other things, and ICE could conceivably get the support it wants from local authorities while federal officers wouldn’t be in harm’s way. But the current administration doesn’t care about that. Instead of a safer, inexpensive option that could avoid things like troop deployments, they choose to invest in high risk, costly tactics and the theatrics of aggression, revealing their preference for abusing the law rather than enforcing it. Quinn Andrews, Portland
