Fully armed, anonymous security agents wearing camouflage continue to snatch demonstrators protesting racial discrimination. These protesters are then put into unmarked cars, without any sort of justification. These scenes are more associated with authoritarian countries, rather than in America.
This assemblage of paramilitary-style officers without name badges turned out to include several officers from the Department of Homeland Security, which was created after 9/11 to deal with terrorism. These officers were from the department's Customs and Border Protection agency, which is designed to protect America's borders from people and material that pose a threat to the country.
Donald Trump has characterized these nation-wide anti-racism protests as terrorism and deemed protesters as terrorists. Moreover, he promises to surge his paramilitary-style officers from Portland to a slew of other Democrat-run cities in the coming weeks, a threat CNN's Angela Dewan describes as a clear sign that he will not hesitate to adopt the repressive tactics of autocrats to quell those who challenge them.
Oregon Congress members Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bomamici, Ron Wyde, and Jeffrey Merkley wrote a letter to the Justice and Homeland Security departments, criticizing Trump for the crackdown in Portland, comparing officers throwing protesters into unmarked SUVs to tactics used in authoritarian countries. The letter slammed the president for adopting tactics that included deploying federal agents without badges in an attempt to evade accountability and transparency.
The letter pointed out that these unnamed officers snatched people off the street without justification, and used potentially deadly munitions to harm those who were peacefully protesting, adding that these actions are out of control. These actions reflect tactics of a government that is spearheaded by a dictator, rather than the government of America's constitutional democratic republic, Oregon Congress members wrote.
Earlier this month, a 23-year-old pro-democracy protester in Hong Kong became the first person to be prosecuted under China's new national security law, which is primarily seen as Beijing's attempt to seize powers from the semi-autonomous city. Tong Yong-kit was accused and charged of encouraging terrorist activities under the aforesaid law, and was charged with ramming his motorbike into a group of police officers, CNN reported.
While the president shouting "terrorist" can be dismissed as Trump being Trump, but his push to designate Antia a terrorist organization reflects his appetite for coming up with new counterterrorism laws to suppress voices that challenge him, Dewan wrote, Trump accused Antifa of violent activities amid largely peaceful demonstrations.
Moreover, there is no legal instrument in the United States to label fully domestic groups as terrorist organizations, but Trump continues to insist he will have Antifa outlawed.