By Katie Daviscourt – The Postmillennial
America First Legal (AFL) has launched an investigation into the City of Portland to uncover the Portland Police Bureau’s potential involvement with Antifa, a designated terrorist organization, and anti-ICE groups, according to a press release issued on Monday.
The investigation seeks to determine whether officers allowed radical demonstrators to disrupt US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, assault reporters, and shield members of Antifa.
This comes as the Portland Police Bureau (PPB) has been the subject of intense scrutiny in recent weeks for its failure to address the ongoing 24-hour Antifa-affiliated occupation outside the ICE facility, which began on June 7. Officers have been observed refusing to arrest violent Antifa-affiliated assault suspects after they launched unprovoked attacks on reporters and subsequently permitted them to escape into a nearby safehouse.
In addition, the law firm is requesting documents and correspondence regarding the City of Portland’s assistance in securing a vacant office space across the street from the ICE facility for a radical anti-ICE group that is renowned for disrupting immigration enforcement operations.
“AFL is requesting records to uncover how the City of Portland enabled lawlessness by assisting anti-ICE groups in acquiring office space,” the law firm wrote in its press release. “Reporting indicates that the City of Portland assisted in acquiring office space for the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC). The city reportedly worked with the Reach Community Development Center (REACH) to allow PIRC to establish its presence in a building across the street from Portland’s ICE facility.”
Last week, The Post Millennial exclusively reported that the PIRC was moving into a vacant office space on the bottom floor of the Gray’s Landing apartment building, a taxpayer-funded low-income housing complex just feet away from the ICE facility on Macadam Avenue.
The PIRC is a taxpayer-funded non-governmental organization (NGO) known for conducting training on how to disrupt ICE operations, as well as providing guidance to illegal immigrants on the best practices to evade apprehension by federal authorities. Some of its staff members and volunteers have been actively involved in the unlawful 24-hour Antifa occupation outside the ICE facility, and now have an office space just feet away from the occupation. Additionally, PIRC has a hotline to report ICE sightings, which then go out as a call-to-action to disrupt ICE operations.
AFL also requested records “about another space that has been used as an ‘Antifa safehouse’ where Antifa members can hide from law enforcement after engaging in extremist tactics.” The “safehouse” is located in an apartment unit on the bottom floor of the Matisse, which is being leased by Chandler Patey, an individual involved with the Antifa occupation. The unit is just one block away from the ICE facility.
The first known incident of PPB allowing violent Antifa assault suspects to flee to the safehouse occurred on September 30, when officers were captured on video refusing to apprehend an Antifa suspect who assaulted The Post Millennial reporter Katie Daviscourt with a metal flag pole, bashing her in the head and leaving her with a concussion and facial injuries.
Several PPB officers watched the suspect enter the safehouse and then later flee, according to video evidence.
The law firm, founded by Trump’s White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Homeland Security adviser, Stephen Miller, wrote in its release that AFL’s request “seeks to uncover the extent of these groups’ involvement in Portland’s government and police bureau.”
Furthermore, the new records request is a continuation of AFL’s investigation into the City of Portland, which previously uncovered information showing the City of Portland uses unlawful diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies as a central component of the city’s policing practices, the law firm said.