Portland escalated federal civil rights allegations despite zero criminal referrals
EXCLUSIVE — in October 2025, Portland City Hall formally accused federal immigration officers of unconstitutional uses of force. The City Attorney sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division alleging First and Fourth Amendment violations, citing protest-era videos and media reports as evidence that federal agents engaged in excessive force, viewpoint discrimination, and unconstitutional crowd-control tactics outside the city’s ICE facility.
At the time, Multnomah County prosecutors had no criminal cases connected to those claims. Records obtained by oceanplot show the District Attorney’s Office had no assault cases, no police referrals, no charging memoranda, and no active investigations involving ICE, DHS, the Federal Protective Service, or any federal law-enforcement personnel.
The DA’s intake system contained no victim statements and no pending excessive-force files. Despite the absence of any local criminal casework, the city transmitted the allegations directly into the federal civil-rights division led by harmeet dillon.
Soon after, the State of Oregon began coordinating around the same escalation. Internal emails obtained by oceanplot show senior Oregon Department of Justice attorneys organizing a closed statewide working group that included county district attorneys, DOJ legal counsel, and communications staff. Portions of the records were redacted under statutes covering internal policy development, legal strategy, and communications planning.
The group drafted joint correspondence to federal agencies and circulated a guidance paper titled 'State Prosecution of Federal Employees,' which describes legal and structural barriers to charging federal officers under state law.
“We plan to use this document to inform our LE partners locally,” the group wrote.
Those barriers were publicly acknowledged by Multnomah County District Attorney Nathan Vasquez, who cautioned in October that charging federal agents under Oregon law would be unlikely to meet probable-cause standards and that state officials would defer to federal investigative processes.
But at the same time, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield and Oregon’s elected district attorneys issued a joint letter to the U.S. Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security stating:
“Oregonians have repeatedly reported the use of excessive force by federal officers throughout Oregon. The frequency and nature of these incidents suggest a pattern of behavior on behalf of your agencies and may be violations of Oregon law.”
the record does not show criminal investigations that failed to result in charges. It shows that no corresponding criminal investigations existed at the county level when formal civil-rights escalation and statewide coordination developed. This unfolded during a period of sustained public demonstrations and organized campaigns urging Portland officials to revoke the ICE facility’s land-use permit and take action against federal immigration enforcement.
Portland lacks authority to prosecute federal immigration officers, and county prosecutors had no criminal allegations under review. The city’s response therefore proceeded through federal civil-constitutional channels, while the state developed a coordinated legal and communications framework around the same issue.
The records document a clear gap between public civil-rights escalation and local prosecutorial activity — a structural divide that shaped the governmental response.
That gap between public escalation and criminal reality is the story here.