The request is aimed specifically at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) personnel who have been captured on various videos arresting protesters and putting them in unmarked SUVs.
Demonstrators in Portland have been protesting racial inequality and police brutality for the last 50 nights, US Attorney Billy J. Williams said in a statement. Federal authorities have protected the Mark O. Hatfield US Courthouse and, at times, interaction between protesters and law enforcement has gotten violent. Last weekend, one protester was seriously injured after the man was shot in the head with impact munition.
Oregon's governor and Portland's mayor demanded the troops be withdrawn and a US senator joined them in condemning the arrests.
"Authoritarian governments, not democratic republics, send unmarked authorities after protesters," tweeted US Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Democrat representing Oregon.
Merkley also tweeted one video of such an arrest showing two masked, camouflaged individuals with generic "police" patches, detain a person dressed in a black outfit and place them in an unmarked van before driving away.
US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) admitted to being one of the agencies involved in arresting protesters.
"Violent anarchists have organized events in Portland over the last several weeks with willful intent to damage and destroy federal property, as well as, injure federal officers and agents," the agency said in a statement to CNN. "These criminal actions will not be tolerated."
The statement said CBP agents suspected the individual seen in the video Merkley re-tweeted of "assaults against federal agents or destruction of federal property," and that they moved the individual to a safer location for questioning after they saw "a large and violent mob move towards" them. CNN could not independently verify what happened before or after the video was recorded.
CBP Commissioner Mark Morgan tweeted the agency will continue to arrest "violent criminals that are destroying federal property." He also said CBP personnel are clearly marked as federal officers and have unique identifiers.
"You will not see names on their uniforms b/c these same violent criminals use this information to target them & their families, putting both at risk. As Acting Commissioner, I will not let that happen!" Morgan tweeted.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler demanded Friday that President Donald Trump send the federal officers home.
"This is not the America we want. This is not the Portland we want," Wheeler said at a news conference. "We're demanding that the President remove these additional troops that he sent to our city. It is not helping to contain or de-escalate the situation it's obviously having exactly the opposite impact.
Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf, who visited the city Thursday, defended the actions of his officers, saying in a tweet, "DHS officers were assaulted with lasers and frozen water bottles from violent criminals attempting to tear down federal
