Charles Marino on DHS being deployed to Portland
Former DHS adviser Charles Marino weighs in on protests in Portland, Oregon.
Former Department of Homeland Security adviser Charles Marino urged DHS to coordinate with the Portland police department to avoid escalating tensions in the city with a heightened federal presence.
"The same way we don’t want to see local law enforcement being politicized, we also don’t want to see the Department of Homeland Security being politicized," Marino told "Your World."
PORTLAND POLICE DECLARE 'RIOT' AFTER SEVERAL FIRES SET, FENCES MOVED
But, Marino said, "There’s a good way to go about policing. What we hope is that the Department of Homeland Security and its resources are coordinating with the local law enforcement officials to put together some type of task force solution in terms of helping to safeguard the community."
Marino made the comment after rioters broke into the Portland Police Association building and set it on fire over the weekend, as demonstrations over the death of George Floyd intensified for another night, according to Portland police.
The latest attack comes after federal agents, including the U.S. Marshals Special Operations Group and an elite U.S. Customs and Border Protection team based on the U.S.-Mexico border, entered Portland to protect federal property at Trump's direction, a move strongly opposed by Mayor Ted Wheeler.
Marino argued that because the local community largely opposes any kind of federal intervention, the heightened presence of federal officers could "make the situation worse and actually more dangerous."
"The problem here is the local community does not want the help of DHS," he explained. "What you don’t want to have happen is sometimes you can make the situation worse and actually more dangerous, especially for the law enforcement officers if they are not coordinating together to achieve the same mission."
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Marino said DHS has "every right" to send in federal enforcements to protect federal buildings, but questioned whether "moving CBT off the border immigrations and customs and other agencies away from their primary homeland security mission makes sense."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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