Oregon legislation

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Public bodies in Oregon would be prohibited from disclosing a person's immigration status and details like addresses, except when required by law, under a bill filed Wednesday in the Legislature.

Teresa Alonso Leon, a Democrat from Woodburn, and Diego Hernandez, a Democrat from Portland filed the bill in the House as immigration enforcement increases under President Donald Trump...

....The bill said that, "except as required by state or federal law," a public body may not disclose for the purpose of immigration enforcement, a person's address, workplace or work schedule, school and contact information.

A public body would also be prohibited from inquiring about a person's citizenship or immigration status except when determining benefit eligibility or as required by state or federal law.

Oregon state law and federal laws, however, clash when it comes to immigration.

*Oregon created America's first sanctuary state in 1987 with a law that prevents law enforcement from detaining people who are in the United States illegally but have not broken other laws. In February, Brown signed an executive order that said all state agencies must follow the 1987 statute.

A Republican lawmaker who advocates enforcement of America's immigration laws said the state should comply with federal law.

"If you read federal law, it says not only is it illegal to be in the country without authorization and if you're caught you have to go back, but it is also illegal to harbor someone," Rep. Sal Esquivel, from the southwestern Oregon town of Medford, said in a phone interview....

Esquivel said Brown is "protecting people of illegal status in the state, which is against the law. This is a country of laws and if we don't adhere to the laws we won't have a country left."

Brown said Wednesday that  *"Oregon relies on a diverse workforce to support a growing economy, and we must ensure the civil rights of all Oregonians are protected and that the rule of law is respected."...

He said school administrators, county judges, and other public bodies are seeking guidance from the state on how to respond if ICE asks for information....

"This bill is a way to help make sure our communities have clear guidance so they are in compliance with state and federal law," Rosenblum said...

*Emphasis added Read more about Oregon Lawmakers Aim to Increase Protections of Immigrants

The council heard from several residents last week who urged it to declare Tualatin a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants. The statement would be mostly a symbolic gesture.

Tualatin could become a self-declared "sanctuary city" as soon as Monday, May 22, if its City Council votes to adopt a resolution slated for discussion on the meeting agenda.

The City Council heard from two students and two staff members at Tualatin High School last Monday, May 8, who asked the council to adopt a resolution similar to those passed in Beaverton and Hillsboro earlier this year. Although receptive, with at least three councilors saying explicitly at the meeting that they are in favor of Tualatin becoming a sanctuary city, the council opted then to continue discussion at least to their next meeting.

An agenda for the council's work session, which begins at 5:30 p.m., includes an estimated 45-minute discussion of the resolution, along with other actions the city could take in a similar vein, such as "a series of listening sessions to address the need and concern of the broader community to feel safe and welcome."

The draft resolution itself is on the agenda for the council's business meeting, which starts at 7 p.m.

Draft resolution provides definition of 'sanctuary city'

It defines a "sanctuary city" as "as a city that is committed to providing a safe community for individuals, regardless of race, ethnicity, place or origin, or immigration status, and works to ensure that all members of our community are sage and can call for public safety assistance without being questioned about federal immigration laws and without fear or reprisal based solely on legal status, in accordance with current Oregon law."

Sanctuary city status in Oregon is largely symbolic, as the state has had a law on the books since 1987 prohibiting state and local law enforcement from using their resources to pursue or detain people on the sole basis of their immigration status.

However, the group that appeared at the May 8 meeting said such a declaration by the Tualatin City Council would affirm Tualatin's place as a community where immigrants can feel welcome. Activists have made similar arguments in Tigard, where the city has responded to groups asking for a sanctuary city declaration with a statement of unity read by Mayor John L. Cook at one recent meeting.

The draft resolution specifies that Tualatin's sanctuary city declaration would be made "as a statement of unity for our community."

Councilor Paul Morrison suggested at the May 8 meeting that the council could consider changing the word "sanctuary," to something else, such as "unity." He and five other council members argued against voting on a resolution at that meeting, the agenda for which did not list sanctuary cities as a discussion item.

Councilor Jeff DeHaan disagreed, saying that he saw neither a need to change the term "sanctuary city" nor a compelling reason to wait until a future meeting to hold a vote. He made a motion that the council adopt the resolution proposed by the group from Tualatin High, but the motion did not receive a second.

Resolution would not prevent ICE from making arrests

Some 17.3 percent of Tualatin residents were identified as "Hispanic or Latino" by the 2010 Census. One of Tualatin's neighborhood schools, Bridgeport Elementary School in east Tualatin, is roughly even-split between students who speak English at home and students who speak Spanish at home, and it has a dual language immersion program to encourage bilingualism in its student population.

A school counselor at Tualatin High who spoke at the May 8 council meeting said that some students have stopped regularly attending classes, staying home due to fears that members of their family could be arrested for being in the United States without legal documentation.

President Donald Trump was elected last November on a campaign platform that included taking a tougher line on illegal immigration. Trump has said he wants to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Since his inauguration in January, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has stepped up its activity, reportedly arresting dozens in the Portland area alone.

Mayor Lou Ogden cautioned at the May 8 meeting that even if Tualatin declares itself a sanctuary city, it cannot stop ICE from operating in the city. Furthermore, state law does allow law enforcement agencies to exchange information with federal authorities in order to verify arrested suspects' immigration status.

The Tualatin City Council work session and meeting at which the resolution is expected to be discussed will be held at the Juanita Pohl Center, 8513 S.W. Tualatin Road.

The May 8 meeting was held at the Tualatin Police Department, not the usual venue for council meetings, due to a budget advisory committee meeting there that immediately preceded it.

FILE - Tualatin City Councilor Jeff DeHaan moved unsuccessfully for the council to approve a resolution declaring Tualatin a sanctuary city at its May 8 meeting. Read more about 'Sanctuary city' resolution on the agenda for Tualatin City Council's next meeting

The radical leftist group that helped a gunman commit an act of terrorism against a conservative organization was officially reprimanded by the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) for its hateful attacks, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is an extremist nonprofit that lists conservative organizations that disagree with it on social issues on a catalogue of “hate groups.” The previously undisclosed DOJ rebuke is a vindication for groups targeted by the SPLC’s witch hunts and is especially impactful because the Obama administration was tight with the SPLC and even hired the controversial nonprofit to conduct diversity training for the government. Judicial Watch uncovered documents relating to the SPLC’s diversity training at the DOJ back in 2013.

Also in 2013, Judicial Watch reported that a Virginia man who planned a mass shooting based on the SPLC’s “hate map” of conservatives got a 25-year prison sentence. Prosecutors called it an act of terrorism and recommended a 45-year sentence. The terrorist, Floyd Lee Corkins, stormed into the headquarters of the Family Research Council (FRC) and carried out the politically-motivated shooting based on an SPLC target list. The FRC is a Christian organization that promotes the traditional family unit and the Judeo- Christian value system. Corkins pleaded guilty and admitted that he learned about the FRC from the SPLC, which describes itself as a civil rights group but labels conservatives who disagree with it on social issues as hateful.

In 2015, the SPLC issued a hit list of U.S. women against sharia law, the authoritarian doctrine that inspires Islamists and their jihadism. This included a starter kit for Islamists to attack American women who refuse to comply with Sharia law and a detailed list of female bloggers, activist and television personalities who reject Sharia law, which is rooted in the Quran. Among those targeted were colleagues and friends of Judicial Watch who fear for their safety simply for practicing their rights under the U.S. Constitution. That SPLC hate list is titled Women Against Islam/The Dirty Dozen and includes illustrations and detailed information on all the women, who are branded “the core of the anti-Muslim radical right.” The SPLC hate brochure further targets them by claiming that they’re “a dozen of the most hardline anti-Muslim women activists in America.”

Another favorite SPLC target is any group or individual that speaks openly against illegal immigration. The DOJ reprimand, issued last year but kept quiet at the agency’s request, involves the SPLC’s atrocious behavior during immigration court proceedings. Two groups that oppose illegal immigration, the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), were the target of personal, baseless and below-the-belt attacks from SPLC attorneys during official immigration court proceedings. The SPLC filed a motion attacking and defaming the two respected nonprofits by describing them as “white supremacist”, “eugenicist”, “anti-Semitic”, and “anti-Catholic.” In its reprimand the DOJ says it is troubled by the conduct of SPLC lawyer Christopher Strawn and that his conduct “overstepped the bounds of zealous advocacy and was unprofessional.” Furthermore, SPLC made “uncivil comments that disparaged FAIR and its staff,” the rebuke states, adding that the language constitutes frivolous behavior and doesn’t aid in the administration of justice.

The Obama administration kept the reprimand confidential and asked FAIR and IRLI to keep it under wraps. In the meantime, SPLC continues to publicly trash the groups and escalate attacks against them by putting them on the official hate list. The executive director and general counsel of IRLI, Dale Wilcox, says his nonprofit and FAIR will keep fighting for immigration policies that put America first. “The SPLC’s latest tactic in its never-ending witch-hunt and the federal government’s resulting reprimand should send the following message to the mainstream media,” Wilcox said: “Stop using the SPLC as a legitimate hate-watch source in your news coverage. That a cabal of biased list-keepers can play such an important role in distorting the immigration debate in this country is testament to the utter failure of much of the mainstream media which frequently publishes their inflammatory commentary and refuses to question their baseless methods or financial motivations.” Read more about Obama DOJ Reprimanded SPLC for Hateful Attacks on Immigration Control Groups

SALEM — State lawmakers are considering a change to sentencing law that could help prevent the mandatory federal deportation of legal immigrants convicted of gross misdemeanors.

The proposal is in an amendment to Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum’s bill:[HB 2355] to discourage racial profiling.

The change would reduce the maximum sentence for a Class A misdemeanor from 365 days to 364 days. A 365-day sentence is one of several triggers for mandatory federal deportation of green card holders, refugees and other legal noncitizens. Other triggers are violent crimes and felonies, said Stephen Manning, a Portland immigration attorney.

The change would have no effect on illegal immigrants.

“This is an equity issue,” said state House Speaker Tina Kotek, D-Portland. “People should not be torn from their families and their communities because of an arbitrary difference between state and federal sentencing law for low-level, nonviolent misdemeanors.”

If adopted, the law would make Oregon uniform with Washington state and California, which already made the change in the last several years.

It would serve to strengthen the three states’ governors’ efforts to create “a zone of inclusivity” along the West Coast, Manning said.

Gov. Kate Brown has been defiant in the face of President Donald Trump’s executive orders limiting immigration and banning refugees, which also have been halted by the courts.

In February, Brown issued her own executive order barring the use of state resources to enforce federal immigration policy. Rosenblum subsequently sought to join Washington’s lawsuit against the Trump administration’s immigration orders.

“Gov. Brown supports the amendment and looks forward to signing the racial profiling bill into law to better protect all Oregonians,” said Bryan Hockaday, the governor’s press secretary.

Kotek requested the sentencing change to be added to an amendment to a bill that requires police to collect data on race when they pull over drivers or pedestrians. The bill is meant to discourage racial profiling by law enforcement.

Kotek made the request after receiving feedback from community groups, law enforcement, immigration attorneys and others working on the racial profiling bill, said Lindsey O’Brien, a spokeswoman in the Speaker’s Office.

Felonies, certain violent crimes and 365-day or greater sentences for gross misdemeanors can trigger mandatory deportation under federal law. Class A misdemeanors in Oregon can range from falsifying information and writing a bad check to fourth-degree assault.

“Shifting to 364 days means our fellow Oregonians are not subject to that very drastic penalty,” Manning said.

As an immigration attorney, Manning said he sees legal immigrants deported for misdemeanor crimes all of the time.

“I couldn’t even count for you how many times,” he said. “It’s extremely painful and sad … and is a form of stigmatization against noncitizens.”

The House Judiciary Committee adopted the amendment and approved the overarching bill in March. No one addressed the significance of the sentencing change at that time.

Reps. Sal Esquivel of Medford, and Mike Nearman of Independence said they oppose the change because they see it as an attempt to circumvent federal law.

“To me that is a way to dodge the federal law,” said Esquivel, who is the son of a legal Mexican immigrant. “You’re on probation when you come here on a green card.”

The two Republican lawmakers co-sponsored legislation this session to outlaw sanctuary city designations and to make English the state’s official language.

Several Oregon cities, including Portland, have declared themselves sanctuary cities for immigrants, and the Trump administration has threatened to pull federal grants and other funding from those jurisdictions.

The bill is now before the Joint Committee on Ways and Means but won’t have another hearing until May, said Rep. Duane Stark, R-Grants Pass, chairman of the Subcommittee on Public Safety.

The Capital Bureau is a collaboration between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media Group.
  Read more about Legislation could prevent some deportations of legal immigrants

House Bill 2921 would repeal Oregon’s sanctuary state law and mandate that Oregon law enforcement agencies assist in federal immigration enforcement. The bill would also prohibit cities and counties from establishing sanctuary protections.

But Rep. Mike Nearman, a Republican from Independence, who is one of the bill’s chief sponsors, says he doesn’t expect HB 2921 to receive a hearing, instead Nearing is working on a petition to make the repeal a ballot measure to put before the voters in 2018.

Nearman says he doesn’t like that the state’s sanctuary law prohibits Oregon law officers from enforcing federal immigration laws. “I think that we just need to be able to enforce the laws just for their own sake just because we don’t need illegal people running around our country,” he tells Eugene Weekly.

Meanwhile, on March 13, the Eugene City Council voted unanimously to adopt a sanctuary-type ordinance to protect immigrants and Eugene residents. The “Protections for Individuals” ordinance prohibits city staff and operations from utilizing “city resources for purposes of enforcing federal immigration law unless related to a criminal offense,” according to a city news release.

Eugene Human Rights Commission Chair Ken Neubeck says the ordinance was passed in case any changes — such as the ones Nearman proposes — are made to the state’s sanctuary law. “This is an ordinance, not a resolution, resolutions are much less powerful and ordinances are permanent.”

The ordinance, which goes into effect 30 days after the vote, includes a provision that forbids the city from tracking people’s political, social, religious activities. Neubeck says this is a preventative measure in case the federal government attempts to create a registry.

Nearman says states should be “responsible for everything they can possibly be responsible for.” The framers of the Constitution “envisioned a federal government that had limited powers and everything else was left to the people,” he adds.

Contrary to the small-government ideology of the Republican Party, relinquishing the state’s sanctuary law would give more power to the federal government. Section two of the proposed bill states: “A law enforcement agency of the state of Oregon or of any political subdivision of the state may use agency moneys, equipment or personnel for the purpose of detecting or apprehending persons whose only violation of law is that they are persons of foreign citizenship present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.”

Illegal immigration, Nearman says, is a problem. “I think by some estimates it costs the state of Oregon $1.2 billion a year for illegal aliens,” he says. “I’m on the budget committee for my school district, and we spend a lot of money to teach students who don’t speak English.”

 Nearman credits that estimate to “The Fiscal Burden of Illegal Aliens on Oregonians,” a report published by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). The report claims Oregonians pay $1 billion per year for “illegal aliens and their children,” and cites one of its own prior studies. One resource listed in the study cites “constitutional scholars” without listing any names.

FAIR is designated a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. FAIR’s founder John Tanton corresponded with a FAIR donor suggesting that she “read the work of a radical anti-Semitic professor — to ‘give you a new understanding of the Jewish outlook on life’ — and suggested that the entire FAIR board discuss the professor’s theories on the Jews,” according to the SPLC.

SPLC has documented more than twenty years of Tanton’s ties with “Holocaust deniers, a former Klan lawyer and leading white nationalist thinkers, including Jared Taylor (who wrote in 2005, ‘When blacks are left entirely to their own devices, Western civilization — any kind of civilization — disappears’).”

Asked if Nearman knew about FAIR being a designated hate group, he replied, “I don’t put much stock in the Southern Poverty Law Center. The bar to being designated as a hate group is pretty low for them. I stand by my data.”

Nearman adds that Oregon needs guest workers. “I’m a software engineer by trade, so my last job, we had people who were in some status of legal-ness working, but they weren’t citizens or anything like that, and that’s fine,” he says. “We do that as we have needs and as we can vet people.”

Money is also a concern when relocating Syrian immigrants to the U.S., according to Nearman, who suggests the federal government is spending 12 times as much bringing refugees to the United States as it would cost to resettle them “somewhere in the Middle East.”

On Feb. 15, Oregon House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson released a statement saying she was “appalled” at the House Republicans’ proposed legislation: “At a time when we should be extending a hand of compassion to those fleeing violence or hardship, HB 2921 would instead prevent the state or local communities from choosing to protect their residents.”

Nearman and the bill’s only other sponsor, Rep. Sal Esquivel, a Republican from Medford, are also pursuing a ballot initiative on the issue. They gathered 1,346 signatures on Oct. 20, surpassing the minimum requirement of 1,000 to get a ballot title. A total of 88,184 signatures would be needed for the petition to be placed on the ballot to be decided on by voters.

Nearman did not bring up the petition during an interview. An additional request for a comment was not answered.

EW reached out to Rep. Sal Esquivel on Feb. 23. An unsigned email from his account responded, “Thank you but at this time Rep. Esquivel is not available for an interview with Eugene Weekly.” A second email asking Esquivel once more for an interview did not receive a response. Read more about 'Anti-Sanctuary' Legislation Brewing in Oregon