Oregon bipartisan bill would force jail to give up ICE contract

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ICE pushes back against courthouse arrest ban

A legal battle is being fought over whether ICE should be allowed to arrest illegal immigrants at courthouses; Dan Springer reports from Seattle.

After nearly three years of anti-ICE protests outside an Oregon county jail housing migrant detainees, a Republican and a Democrat state lawmaker came together to draft a bipartisan bill stopping the facility from renewing contracts with federal immigration officials — as long as taxpayers in the nation’s first sanctuary state foot the $1.6 million bill.

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State Reps. Daniel Bonham, a Republican, and Anna Williams, a Democrat, co-sponsored House Bill 4121. Under the proposed legislation, Northern Oregon Regional Corrections Facility (NORCOR), located about 80 miles east of Portland, may not contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if the state’s Legislative Assembly allocates $1.6 million to the facility for a two-year period.

NORCOR serves as a jail for adults in Hood River, Wasco, Sherman and Gilliam counties. The facility depends on its ICE contract to offset a recent slump in tax revenue, Portland’s KOPB-FM reported. ICE pays $80 per detainee, per day — that’s amounted to at least $800,000 of the operating budget in recent fiscal years.

Bonham supported the bill because he feared lawsuits would force NORCOR to forfeit its federal contracts with ICE – which now provides about 10 percent of the jail's budget – without another option to get the county out of a financial bind. The agency’s migrant detention center in Tacoma, Wash., is over capacity. Detainees are supposed to only stay in Oregon on a temporary basis. But many migrants stayed in jail for more than a year, sending NORCOR into legal trouble.

Rights groups have denounced conditions in NORCOR. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon said in 2017 -- the year that several ICE detainees held a hunger strike -- that the food is composed mainly of bread with little nutritional value and detainees must buy their own socks. NORCOR denied those claims. The Gorge ICE Resistance, a coalition of groups in the Columbia River Gorge, has staged frequent protests outside the jail.

Meanwhile, Williams said she supported the bill because she believes the jail's acceptance of detainees from ICE violates Oregon's sanctuary state policy. But, last year, a Wasco County judge ruled that the jail’s ICE contract did not go against the state’s sanctuary city status because NORCOR resources aren't being used to detect or arrest people.

In 1987, Oregon became the first sanctuary state in the U.S. when it prohibited state and local law enforcement from using public resources to arrest or detain people whose only crime was being in the country illegally. Bonham said the state’s sanctuary status did not influence his decision sponsoring the bill, but recognized that “especially in Wasco County, our cherry orchards do not function without that migrant workforce.”

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“We've got a federalized weaponized border that says you can't come in or out, but we need that workforce," he added.

Both lawmakers recognize the bill is not apt to pass during the 2020 35-day short session, because of concerns about where additional funds would come from in two years, and because it might set a precedent for other counties to seek state funding for jails. But Williams said their collaboration, even though policy priorities may differ, can be a model for Oregon’s deeply divided Legislature.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.