Portland is living in America's terrifying future

• Federal agents from Trump-loyal Customs & Border Patrol were tested on the streets of Portland this summer.
• The Trump administration is federally deputizing local police to ignore the will of local voters.
• This network of federal and local law enforcement has used extreme violence to quell dissent in Portland, and there is no stopping this from happening in your city too.
• Robert Evans is an investigative journalist for Bellingcat and has worked as a conflict reporter in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine.
• This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

If you want a picture of what the United States would look like during President Donald Trump's potential second term, look at the city of Portland, Oregon. This summer and autumn I spent more nights than not out on the streets, reporting on Portland's Black Lives Matter protests and law enforcement's response. As unrest in Portland grew into a national story, I watched the Trump Administration activate and deploy a network of militarized federal and local police to quell dissent. 

I'm here to warn you that Portland was just a proving ground. The president's men could be sent to your hometown next. 

Who exactly was sent to "police" Portland?

Most Americans only started thinking about Portland's Black Lives Matter protests when they watched a viral video of an activist being dragged into an unmarked van by uniformed feds. The national spotlight hit after nearly 50 nights of consecutive protests, most of which were met by a violent police response. 

Federal law enforcement entered the picture in July, after a group of protesters (many of whom were children) toppled a statue of George Washington. This infuriated President Trump, and he sent in the US Marshals. Shortly after arriving, one of the Marshals shot activist Donovan Labella in the face with a rubber bullet, shattering his skull and nearly killing him. 

—John #PortlandProtest (@Johnnthelefty) July 13, 2020

National news coverage tended to focus on the more media-ready aspects of the Portland protests. The Wall of Moms, Mayor Ted Wheeler being severely gassed, lines of federal agents dressed like soldiers, tear gas tornadoes; these were the things that made headlines. What got lost in the mix was this unsettling reality: 

The federal units brought in to "police" Portland protests weren't really "police" in any meaningful sense of the word. They were an armed extension of the Trump Administration.

One of the most violent federal units sent to Portland were the men of the Border Patrol's elite Bortac unit. In one write-up, the Guardian cited Todd Miller, author of "Empire of Borders", who called Bortac, "the robocops of US border patrol". They also quote Jenn Budd, a former Border Patrol agent, who described the men of Bortac as violent and racist. 

"They don't exist within the realm of civilian law enforcement. They view people they encounter in the military sense as enemy combatants, meaning they have virtually no rights," Budd told the Guardian.

Bortac units have actually been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. They are soldiers, not cops, and the difference between the two was readily apparent. Bortac agents fired tear gas grenades and rubber rounds directly at the faces and chests of activists. I can remember stumbling away from a tear gas cloud one July night and running right into a line of protesters with bleeding welts in the center of their foreheads. Several had been shot right between their eyes. 

Bortac is Trump's "Goon Squad."

It was no coincidence that Bortac wound up in Portland. John Sandweg, former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), has called the Border Patrol President Trump's "Goon Squad." Customs & Border Patrol (CBP) has a well-documented history of violence and criminal misconduct (between 2005 and 2012, roughly one CBP officer was arrested for misconduct almost every single day). 

During one inter-agency meeting in 2012, CBP officials told the FBI that up to 20% of Border Patrol agents needed to be removed from the force. Instead, in 2017, President Trump signed orders to hire 5,000 new Border Patrol agents. The agency has struggled to recruit that many people, but the president's favor has made it increasingly clear that CBP agents are 'his' guys.    

The Trump administration pulled Bortac and other federal agents out of Portland in late July, after reaching an agreement with Oregon state officials. Many of these forces were quickly redeployed to other hot spots, like Kenosha, Wisconsin. On July 24, Trump himself promised to send 75,000 federal officers into other cities, promising: "We'll go into all of the cities, any of the cities. We're ready."

And the president doesn't need hand-picked federal agents to suppress dissent in your hometown. Local police have proven perfectly willing to do that job, with some federal support. 

Using federally deputized cops to quell protests overruled the wishes of local leaders. 

Earlier in October, Trump bragged about using the US Marshals to kill an antifascist activist suspected of killing a right-wing demonstrator. ("They knew who he was, they didn't want to arrest him.") The men who actually pulled the triggers in this extrajudicial killing weren't even Marshals, they were local cops who had been federally deputized by the Marshals. Dozens of Portland police officers have been deputized in the same way, against the wishes of Portland's mayor. 

Portland recently elected a progressive district attorney, Mike Schmidt, who has been vocal about dropping the vast majority of non-violent charges against protesters. However, federally deputized cops bring with them the possibility of federal charges, allowing the federal government to overrule Schmidt and ignore the wishes of Oregon voters. It's similar to how the President declared certain cities (including Portland) "anarchist jurisdictions" in order to punish them for defunding their police.

The point of all this is that if your state or city votes to handle an issue of law and order in a way the President doesn't like, he can just ignore you. If you protest, you'll be slapped with federal charges, or poisoned with chemical weapons. 

Let's talk about those weapons for a moment. 

The President's men in Portland showed a preference for the Military-Style Maximum Smoke HC Grenade. The smoke produced by these munitions includes hexachloroethane, which causes nausea, vomiting, kidney and liver damage and central nervous system depression. HC grenades give off even greater quantities of zinc chloride, which can cause fever, chest pain, liver damage, as well as anorexia-like weight loss. HC smoke grenades appear to be in the process of being phased out of the military because they "pose a threat to the health of the war fighters". One 1994 report from the US Army even notes that exposure to HC smoke has killed people.  

None of this stopped President Trump's men from tossing hundreds of these weapons into Portland streets. It won't stop them from dropping these where you live, either. Earlier I noted that Bortac agents treated civilians as enemy combatants —this attitude is increasingly common among local law enforcement today. A 2017 study showed that putting military gear in the hands of cops makes them more likely to harm citizens. Militarized police see themselves as warriors, and you as the enemy. 

What happens on election day matters

If November 4 brings mass protests across the country, staying home won't necessarily protect you. A single can of tear gas can spread a full quarter mile. Portlanders are regularly tear-gassed by police in their own homes. One man who fled his home to escape a choking cloud of gas was beaten so badly by a Portland police officer that he received a concussion. One of the most haunting recordings of the entire year is this mother begging to the police, "Our babies sleep here, they don't have masks."

—Zane Sparling (@PDXzane) September 6, 2020

Kicking Trump out of office won't reverse this trend. It won't disband Bortac or fix the violent and often outright criminal culture within the Border Patrol. It won't stop the flow of military-grade weapons to the police. All it will do is ensure these tremendously dangerous weapons wind up in the hands of a more responsible man. Actually fixing this problem will be the work of years. And if we don't fix it — if we leave all these agencies and departments as they are, we're leaving a loaded gun on the table.

Eventually, someone else is going to pick it up. 

Robert Evans is an expert in online radicalization and works as a trainer and investigative journalist for Bellingcat. He also hosts a podcast, Behind the Bastards, on the iHeartRadio Network. Robert worked as a conflict reporter in Iraq, Syria and Ukraine before reporting on Portland's violent summer 2020.