Well yeah, you can do a lot of things on your own property that you can’t do on someone elses.
But unless you’re protesting your parents loud Neil Diamond music, no one is chaining themselves to their porch.
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Fair enough - you stick your arm in one if you like.
I’ll keep mine well away unless absolutely necessary 
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I can see it now: teens chained to a porch while Cracklin’ Rosie blares in the background. It’s practically a sitcom.
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Which is rather the point. Although - hey leave Neil out of it.
I can assure you that if you want to go out into the boonies and handcuff yourself (with or without friends) to a random tree without telling anyone, you can end up staying out there long after your death.
Form a human chain blocking access to Congress and how long do you think it’ll take for the police to turn up?
The argument being made is that if Portland’s authorities genuinely wanted not to assist ICE, they could quite happily have told their officers to ignore the protesters.
So ICE can’t get in and out, their problem. Not Portland PD’s - unless they (and their political masters) choose to make it their problem.
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For a vaguely relevant example of teen protest in a sitcom (a rather more effective one since it would have inconvenienced those in power) and how to end one effectively - try:
Yes Minister - The Right to Know.
That’s a poor argument, because chaining yourself anywhere where business is being conducted - ICE, DMV, Pizza Hut, Best Buy (they still have those, right?), etc is going to get removed.
Again, not actively helping enforce immigration is different than not enforcing the other laws that might indirectly help them. Blocking driveways and such and entrances etc I am sure violates several municipal codes.
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It’s the same argument, just a slightly longer chain.
Protest outside places where commerce is conducted that impedes that commerce gets removed because it inconveniences commerce - which makes donors (and voters) unhappy.
Which makes those in power unhappy because those are people who might ensure that they are no longer in power.
And why do you think that is? See above.
Additional question - if you block your neighbour’s driveway out in the sticks while someone else is blocking the main entrance to say a supermarket or perhaps a petrol refinery (Fuel protests in the United Kingdom - Wikipedia), which call is going to get police attendance as a priority?
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The one that effects the most number of people.
Wow.
Just wow.
We went from “not helping federal agents enforce immigration laws” to “allow illegal protests” to bar all physical access to their facility, which is a violation of state and local laws?
Cool.
I get it Loki. You are an anarchist.
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Oh, I’m not saying that that is what Portland should do (or that it isn’t).
Just trying to clarify the arguments.
I would says it is hard to see how removing protesters preventing deportations does not equate to “helping federal agents to enforce immigration laws”.
Whether we think city officials should be able to decide whether they or their local police force should or should not enforce federal laws is another question.
Personally, I don’t understand how there can be ‘sanctuary cities’. In most countries, that sort of rhetoric from a municipality would very quickly see some mayors under arrest and government forces on the streets if need be (at least if it actually amounted to any practical difference- see the wonderful ‘nuclear-free’ cities in the UK for examples of pointless protest statements being fine) but the US obviously doesn’t work that way.
In the countries I am familiar with this wouldn’t be an issue. The police would quite straightforwardly be required to assist regardless of what the local authority thought about it. The idea that say Rotherham Council might be able to tell the police not to arrest picketing miners simply wouldn’t apply.
Speaking pedantically (which is obviously the best way), from the images I’ve seen it’s fairly obvious that there’s quite a large disabled access ramp which does not appear to have been blocked so physical access would appear to have been possible - just not with vehicles.
Given the avatar, what else could I be? 
As it happens, I don’t think I am.
I used to be quite Conservative (in the non-US sense, i.e. a pinko liberal by US standards). As I’ve got older I realise that my certainties about politics and the clear superiority of capitalism and old-fashioned liberalism are waning fast - especially when faced with the clear racism and barking-madness of those in the parties I would have previously supported.
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It depends on the justification being used. There’s a separation between the people who make the law and the people who enforce it. A local police force can’t make violating immigration laws legal, but they can say, “We’re not dedicating any of our resources to investigating or enforcing those laws because we’ve got more important things to do.” And a local body that oversees the police force can say, “You will not used your resources on this” without violating any federal laws. Unless there is a law that specifically sets out requirements for local police in how they will assist and report into ICE.
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Yeah, I assumed it was some sort of state vs. federal vs. local thing.
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That is the first point of contention. The protestors might have eventually stopped federal agents from enforcing immigration laws, but in the immediate and short term they were only preventing them from legally entering their workplace.
The “law” usually looks at the immediate cause of your actions, not the long-term and abstract result of your actions. When you give a homeless person money, for example, you might be enabling a drug purchase, but you would never be arrested for aiding a felon.
In the US, federal and and non-federal are separated.
Immigration is in federal law jurisdiction. States/local agents are not required to enforce it. In fact, the federal government prohibits states/local governments from passing their own immigration laws.
Similarly, the federal government cannot coerce the local authority into aiding them with the execution of federal law.
The division of power in the US can make for interesting cases. Immigration is a VERY interesting one, because of how the powers were divided.
This, however, gets to the main point.
If you protest illegally(generally trespass in your protest), you will be removed by local law enforcement. This is not an endorsement of the group being protested by the local police.
It upsets me when people fail to make the distinction between “following the rules” and “tacit endorsement”.
This is the same silliness that makes people hate the ACLU.
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Funny thing is, it looks like that’s the sort of tech they actually did use!
In short: the hoods and headphones were for “protection” from tools that the PPB did not once use.
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Except, of course, that they didn’t actually use the kind of tools that required said protection…
In short: the hoods and headphones were for “protection” from tools that the PPB did not once use.
Doctorow’s title was a lie, yes.
Thanks, now I see it.
So how far do we take this?
ICE secretary has a heart attack, do we send EMTs?
Place on fire, do we send the fire dept?
Looks like it could be arson, I assume we can’t send the police?
What if there was a theft or assault at ICE, same thing?
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You’re framing this as if a selective response from police were a newly introduced element in the situation. Other folks are trying to point out that it’s the already existing norm.
The question isn’t if the police will ignore lawbreaking, it’s which lawbreaking they will ignore.
Who do they serve, who do they protect?
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This, exactly. Laws may be overarching, but police priorities vary from city to city. Much like “we’re not wasting our time on pot possession and instead going after grow-ops and meth labs” was VPD’s longstanding policy, local cops can tell ICE “we ain’t stopping you, but if you want backup or assistance, we’ll get there when we have time. Which is never.” The problem is that these cops (the department overall, that is) want to be part of the grand adventure of “Enforcing Order in America” and are ignoring the priorities laid out in their budget.
Unless (and the way ICE is going, I wouldn’t discount this as a possibility) they got told by ICE to remove the protesters before they got run over. I still think the first scenario is the most likely, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the second becomes a headline in the near future.
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