Fifteen mayors demand Trump keep authorities out and ask Congress to investigate

Fifteen Democratic mayors from some of the country’s largest cities demanded the Trump administration to pull out all federal law enforcement from Portland, Oregon, and not send in more police to other cities, as he has threatened to do.

“It is concerning that federal law enforcement is being deployed for political purposes,” the coalition of mayors wrote in a letter to acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf and Attorney General William Barr that was posted online late Tuesday. “The president and his administration continually attack local leadership and amplify false and divisive rhetoric purely for campaign fodder," the letter stated. "Their words and actions have created an environment of fear and mistrust.”

President Trump has threatened to send federal law enforcement, including elite forces from Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and other federal agents, to Chicago and other cities with rising crime levels as local police contend with defunding efforts. Federal police have only been sent to Portland thus far on the basis that they are needed to assist DHS’s Federal Protective Service officers who are guarding several federal buildings that have been attacked with fireworks this month.