Using DHS forces like Border Patrol as a 'Protection Squadron' has always been part of the plan.
The expansion of the ranks of the CBP happened in the first months of the Trump administration, because it had some personnel turnover. It had spaces available in the first front lines of that Muslim Ban executed at points of US entry. It is one of the areas that allows for operations of a federal paramilitary police force, defending the US Homeland. Now the US needs to be defended from Portland?
Trump has used its tactical unit BORTAC in such a role before (in the hope that in one 2018 southern border rule of engagement, US troops (or paramilitary officers) could fire on protesters with rocks).
Now its remit has been expanded in hoping for a kind of confrontation that could help the Trumpian manufacture of 1960s carnage that rationalizes his reelection.
Snip
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/7/17/1961578/-Use-of-the-Border-Patrol-as-a-Protection-Squadron-has-always-been-part-of-the-plan