Ore. City Passes Mask, ID Rules for Police Despite Legal Warnings

The Portland City Council approved an ordinance Wednesday to ban masks and require clear identification for federal agents and other law enforcement officers, despite repeated warnings by top officials who said it is likely to be ruled unconstitutional.

Those who sounded the alarm included Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, Portland Councilor Steve Novick, who is an attorney, City Attorney Robert Taylor, and Portland Police Chief Bob Day, who this week became the latest to voice his concerns and disappointment over the plan in a memo he sent to city leaders.

Officials had stressed the proposal is likely to face the same fate as similar legislation in California. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in April found that states lack the authority to impose such rules on federal agents and blocked the California legislation as unconstitutional.

However, the warnings from officials didn’t persuade most Portland city councilors.

The council voted 8-4 to approve the ordinance, with Councilors Loretta Smith, Dan Ryan, Eric Zimmerman and Olivia Clark voting against it.

Novick ultimately voted for the measure while reiterating that it’s “highly unlikely that the decision” in California would be reversed, but that Portland leaders are “hoping for a miracle.”

The primary sponsor of the ordinance was Councilor Sameer Kanal, with Councilors Angelita Morillo and Elana Pirtle-Guiney signing on as co-sponsors.

More than 2,100 immigrant Oregonians have been arrested by often masked and armed federal agents under the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown.

Kanal warned that the ordinance will not stop federal agents from wearing masks because local jurisdictions can’t compel them to remove them. Under the ordinance, Portland police will identify and verify the legitimacy of law enforcement officers and their actions in the city by asking them for identification and requesting that those with masks remove them to verify that their identification “matches a face free of any covering.”

Police officers would also verify that agents have judicial warrants for their activities within the city, and that their vehicles are appropriately marked. They may detain a person if “reasonable suspicion exists” that the person has committed or is about to commit a crime when there’s no proof of law enforcement authority.

Officers will also be asked to generate reports of those interactions.

Kanal said the ordinance was a necessary response from the council to show support for the community.

“We can show them that they are not alone, that their city has their backs and that secret police have no place in a democracy,” he said.

In his memo this week, Day said he was disappointed that the ordinance failed to “acknowledge” that Portland police “excel at identifying, stopping and prosecuting law enforcement impersonations.” He also expressed disappointment with the way “this legislation has been presented to the public,” and the administrative burden it will have on Portland police.

“It certainly is not going to change anything on behalf of the federal law enforcement,” Day said during Wednesday’s meeting, “because it’s been made abundantly clear that we cannot correct that or change that behavior.”

The proposal prompted much debate over the past month, with those in support saying there was a need to make a stand under unprecedented times, while others questioned why city leaders would bring forward a flawed plan that can’t deliver on its promise and that could be found unconstitutional.

Several amendments were made to the proposal that are meant to reduce the legal risks. Definition changes were also made to align them with a new state law on masking and identification of law enforcement, including federal agents.

Under the ordinance that passed, the mayor or City Council through a resolution may authorize the city to file a lawsuit seeking injunctive relief to require officers of an agency to abide by the masking and identification standards. The only enforcement mechanism in the state law is allowing people to sue.

Pirtle-Guiney, like Kanal, also wanted to make a few points clear: The ordinance “will not get ICE out of Portland. It will not stop the terror that they are inflicting on our communities. And barring a miracle in the … courts, it will not allow us to unmask federal agents.”

“I think that we need to be honest with Portlanders about what this does and doesn’t do,” she said.

Despite having reservations herself, she said passing the ordinance was an important step for the city to take.

“These are tools that we’re passing today. They don’t end the terror that the Trump administration has brought forward, but they give us tools in the fight,” she said. “Portland has never been a city that sits back and waits for others to act.”

Those tools, she said, will make sure that the city and its partners can fight against the “encroaching authoritarianism and overreach (of) federal law enforcement that we know we all want to push back against.”

Others strongly disagreed.

The ordinance, Ryan said, is a “gamble with taxpayers’ money at horrific odds.”

“One in a million shot,” he said.

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