Judge rules NORCOR can’t notify ICE of inmate releases but can house ICE detainees
A Wasco County judge ruled Friday that two immigration enforcement practices at the Northern Oregon Regional Corrections Center violate the state’s sanctuary law but upheld the jail’s contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The jail in The Dalles houses inmates for Wasco, Hood River, Sherman and Gilliam counties. But under an interagency agreement reached in 1999, it also has housed people detained by ICE on illegal immigration allegations.
Wasco County Circuit Judge John Wolf found that the regional jail’s past policy of notifying ICE agents of scheduled releases of inmates in state or local criminal cases violated Oregon law...
The judge also ruled the jail can’t hold inmates for ICE beyond the time that they would face for their criminal charge.
Yet the judge didn’t nullify the regional jail’s contract with the federal immigration enforcement agency.
The jail’s contract “to accept and provide for secure custody’’ of federal detainees didn’t violate state law, Wolf ruled. The judge considered the “ordinary meaning’’ of the word “apprehending’’ from the state sanctuary law to mean arresting or seizing someone, not holding someone in jail.
Wolf’s ruling means ICE will still be able to house at the regional jail people it detains for alleged immigration violations...
DOCUMENT: Judge’s ruling
The plaintiffs -- Wasco County taxpayers who filed the lawsuit in 2017 -- and the regional jail each declared a win...
Attorney Derek Ashton, who represents the regional jail, said he was pleased with the decision upholding the jail’s contract with ICE.
“The contract at issue is critical to NORCOR’s budget and operations and eases a tax burden on the people of Wasco, Hood River, Sherman and Gilliam counties,” he said in a statement. “Today’s decision ensures that critical funding source will remain in place.”
The plaintiffs had alleged misuse of tax revenues for immigration enforcement. They established it costs $97 a day to house an inmate at the jail, and ICE reimburses the jail $80 an inmate.
As the suit was pending, the regional jail changed its policy in April.
... ICE would pay NORCOR to house the inmates once the “paper transfer’’ was done.
But the judge said that the form wasn’t an arrest warrant, didn’t show any show probable cause and wasn’t signed by a judge.
“When a state or local inmate is no longer subject to custody on those charges, NORCOR does not have authority to maintain custody and must release the inmate,” Wolf ruled.
Since April, the jail has informed ICE of an inmate’s date of release, and if federal agents are present at the jail they may arrest the person in the lobby or the person is free to leave. A released inmate arrested by ICE in the lobby may be turned back to NORCOR to be held under the interagency agreement.
The judge’s ruled Friday, however, that any release notification by the jail to the federal agency violated the state’s sanctuary law.
The jail, though, can verify the immigration status of a person arrested for any criminal offense during the booking process. The jail notifies ICE when a foreign-born person is booked into the jail on state or local charges, either through the Law Enforcement Data System or the National Crime Information Center data system, or through an email or fax.
State lawmakers who adopted Oregon’s sanctuary law were clear that they intended to allow law enforcement officials to notify ICE about arrests so ICE to could follow up on their own, the judge found....
The Wasco County judge’s ruling likely won’t be the last on this issue, as both sides may appeal.
