The news last week from the Trump White House that “federal agents” were being sent to Chicago, Albuquerque and Kansas City — all Democratic strongholds — to allegedly help quell violent crime was deeply troubling to say the least. Accounts of federal agents violently abusing peaceful demonstrators exercising their First Amendment rights recently in Portland, another Democratic city, gave many New Mexicans a jolt of how horrifically “real” politics can get sometimes.
None of those Democratic cities had asked for federal boots on the ground, though, like Albuquerque, I’m sure they all had lobbied over recent years for more federal crime-fighting funding. The White House said the agents were being sent to cities where “heinous” crimes were soaring because of efforts to “demonize” and defund police. It sounds like the GOP baloney machine is churning away.
The incursion of federal agents, representing a Republican administration, into Democratic cities to promote “law and order” is a brazen and disgusting political ploy meant to intimidate and fluster Democrats on Trump’s enemy list.
But the Democratic leadership in New Mexico — Governor Lujan-Grisham, Attorney General Balderas, Mayor Keller of Albuquerque, Rep. Haaland and U.S. Senator Heinrich — have all responded with vehement indignation and warnings of all-out litigation if federal agents abuse the civil rights of New Mexicans.
Mayor Keller even went so far, in a statement last week, to say, “there is no place for Trump’s secret police in our city. … We will not sell out our community, or our own police department, for this obvious political agenda; as they try to incite violence by targeting our city and residents.
Operation Legend is not real crime fighting; it’s politics standing in the way of police work and makes us less safe. The President’s own words show he’s ready to incite violence in Democratic cities as a re-election strategy built on gaslighting immigrants and people of color.”
In shocking contrast to Keller’s stand-up response, a newspaper photo of Bernalillo County Sheriff and Democrat Manny Gonzales at the White House while Trump was announcing Operation Legend has perplexed and consternated many New Mexicans who voted for the sheriff.
Are these federal agents really “secret police” or “stormtroopers” or “spies”? What else would you call them? Their deployment, though, is also one of those cockamamie ill-conceived political shenanigans from the GOP. One doesn’t announce the deployment of secret police or spies. And the number of agents being deployed doesn’t amount to a brigade of paramilitary stormtroopers. That doesn’t mean, of course, that local leadership, including ACLU and the Albuquerque Journal, should not be extra vigilant in surveilling the behavior of these agents and their attitude in relation to immigrant communities here.
There’s been no mention of how long the agents will remain in these Democratic cities, or if more such cities will be burdened with federal agents. Nor are we absolutely sure if agents are actual law enforcement officials and not just armed political operatives of the Republican Party. But it is clear that the only reason to announce their deployment is to threaten Democratic opposition to Trump and intimidate its constituency in the wake of a nationwide protest against racially motivated police brutality, which the president does not condemn.
We also know that federal agents from Homeland Security, or possibly even from some private paramilitary firm, have maliciously disturbed the peace in Portland, brutalizing and even temporarily disappearing peaceful demonstrators seeking equal justice under law. The behavior of armed representatives of the Trump administration there has been so egregious that the ACLU has sued the federal government on behalf Portland’s citizens, some of whom are bruised and battered “street medics” caring for those wounded by federal operatives. The ACLU charges the feds with committing gross acts that offend the Constitution and its First Amendment.
Lest we forget, the First Amendment guarantees “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Reading news accounts, and getting information from reliable, informal sources in Portland, the situation there is reminiscent of accounts of totalitarian violence in other countries. As one observer puts it, federal “paramilitary” made unprovoked attacks against non-violent Black Lives Matter advocates assembled and contained within a two-block area of Portland. They have not disrupted the city as a whole. They all wear masks responsibly in a time of pandemic. Is the crowd verbally rowdy? Yes, as should be expected. But are they not physically violent.
To quote one account from a physician observing the demonstrations, “I did not witness any unlawfulness on the part of protesters. Each time, the federal paramilitary personnel launched an apparently unprovoked attack. There have been no ‘riots’. The federal paramilitary force has had no training in crowd control, has no oversight, does not have any form of identification, do not wear name badges. … They are heavily armed with flash-bang grenades, less-lethal bullets, pepper bullets, pepper spray and tear gas. They will pull goggles off of protesters and spray pepper spray in their eyes. They used a baton to beat a US Navy vet, broke his hand and sprayed pepper spray in his eyes because he asked why they weren’t honoring their vow to protect the Constitution.”
Even though the White House has sought to differentiate the federal agents sent to Democratic cities from “federal paramilitary” in Portland, it’s obvious they both have the same political source — re-election strategists of the Trump administration.
Are these GOP urban incursions into Democratic cities the “thin edge of the wedge” of fascism in America? Let’s pray that they aren’t, but let’s also be wary and on guard, as if they might be. And let’s never forget the depths that the Republican Party is willing to go to, way down into the sewer of political scare tactics and the mire of unconstitutional abuses of power, just to get its incumbent President reelected so he can mock, harass, bully and persecute his political and moral opponents for another four years.
*Nullius in verba: take nobody’s word for it
The presence of Trump’s mercenaries in our city is frightening. How far will this administration’s policy of not giving the aid required and forcing on us that which is not required–or wanted–go? Columns such as this bring home the terrible realities we face.