“The actions of your officers are not making our communities safer. Parents are afraid to take their children to school. Families are avoiding health care. People are scared to go to work or even go to the store for essentials, let alone support a range of small businesses,” Kotek and the mayors wrote to Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem and Border Czar Tom Homan Thursday. “The actions of your officers, especially the use of lethal force, are damaging local economies and hurting the people we are responsible for protecting and serving.”
The letter comes after a month that saw significant amounts of force used by federal immigration officers. In January, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers shot and killed Renee Good in Minneapolis. The following day, U.S. Border Patrol shot and injured two people in East Portland during an immigration traffic stop. On Jan. 24, federal officers shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, in Minneapolis.
Then, on Jan. 31, federal officers at the ICE building in Portland fired tear gas that hit hundreds of demonstrators during a daytime protest, including children and elderly people.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon issued a temporary restraining order, limiting the circumstances under which federal officers could use less lethal weapons on people outside the Portland ICE building.
Officials with the Department of Homeland Security have defended their officers’ use of force across the country, calling their actions self-defense.
“Whenever law enforcement uses lethal force, there must be a full, fair investigation and accountability at the highest legal standard,” the local leaders wrote in Thursday’s letter. “The administration’s blatant disregard for the facts on the ground in recent incidents in Minneapolis, coupled with increasingly aggressive tactics and rhetoric against people exercising their First Amendment rights, compromises the integrity of the current investigations.”
The letter was signed by the mayors of Portland, Beaverton, Yachats, West Linn, Hood River, Ashland, Newport, Bend, Eugene, Woodburn, Oregon City, Redmond, and 19 other cities.
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
