Feds play rough at immigration protest

The black-clad protesters headed back down to the immigration jail in the SoWhat District of Portland around midnight last night. There weren't that many – fewer than 50, one attendee estimated – but they got a supersized and violent response from the troopers they came to antagonize.

Out rushed the feds, several times, with tear gas a-blasting and firing "less lethal" ammunition, seemingly at random. It appeared that there were as many troops as there were demonstrators. Several of the protesters were injured; two were reportedly transported away by ambulance. There were at least a couple of arrests.

The Portland police did not get involved, as far as I could tell. This particular protest location is not about them much, anyway. The protesters are mad, as are many decent people, about family separation, forced sterilization, sexual abuse, and a host of other atrocities committed or tolerated by the federal immigration agencies.

The residents of the area north of the jail don't get many quiet nights any more. That facility never should have been sited there. My old blog was all over it – I even got in some minor trouble for telling what I had heard about it – but the real estate people had connections to City Hall in the reign of the Sam Rand Twins, and so in it went.

I suspect that the next few months are going to bring out the worst in the people currently in the White House. Immigration has been one of their most horrible performances, if not the most horrible, and I expect it to remain that way. And so unless the weather turns really bad, the SoWhat troubles are bound to continue into the new year. Beyond a few dozen midnight protesters, you might see a daytime crowd of hundreds, or thousands, depending on what fresh hell is unleashed by the likes of Stephen Miller.

Even if we get a new administration, the border patrol has always been abusive, no matter which party has controlled the government, and I don't see them changing their ways. There may be protests down in SoWhat, at least sporadically, forever, or at least until they shut that misplaced facility down.