FIRE and ICE in Portland

Portland protesters armed with leaf blowers and cardboard signs face off with masked federal agents sporting fatigues and riot gear—guns, truncheons, and shields. Orange tear-gas clouds plume up from the tarmac as the agents grab protesters and hurl them into unmarked cars. These are images typically associated with far-off, war-torn countries ruled by authoritarian regimes—not democratic governments. But in less than six months, some of the most toxic elements of the US national psyche have risen to the surface, denuded by the global pandemic and bull-horned across the country by the divisive and belligerent rhetoric of the White House. One such characteristic is the systemic racial violence that protesters in Portland continue demonstrating against in the wake of the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Daniel Prude.

Many agents deployed to Portland were from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), a giant state apparatus created in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to address the new specter of terrorism that loomed over America. Specifically, they were from Customs and Border Patrol or Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), two militarized units who ordinarily make headlines for their heavy-handed approach to immigrants. In Portland, however, these agents were not squaring off against America's usual lineup of bogeymen—the bearded Islamic fundamentalists or “criminal” immigrants that inhabit the American imagination—but against US citizens; many were white Americans. Trump wasted no time in describing the protesters as a “beehive of terrorists,” justifying the violence, punishment, and detention that ensued. In one tweet, he declared that the DHS would not leave Portland “until local police complete cleanup of Anarchists and Agitat