President Donald Trump has dispatched federal agents to Portland, local elected officials said in a hastily scheduled press conference on Friday night. Those agents have amassed at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office on the South Waterfront and other locations across the city, officials

“We now have a sudden influx of federal agents in our city,” Mayor Keith Wilson said. “We did not ask for them to come. They are here without precedent or purpose.”

Over and over, officials described the agents’ arrival as an attempt to goad residents into a confrontation that would give the president a pretext for a military crackdown.

And they repeated a single instruction to residents: Don’t take the bait.

“This is the ‘Don’t take the bait’ press conference,” said U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkl

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