sanctuary cities

PORTLAND — In a speech to federal law enforcement officers, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday urged Oregon politicians to reconsider the state’s “sanctuary” law.

Sessions pointed to a slew of high-profile crimes committed by unauthorized immigrants in Oregon and nationwide as he tried to make the case that the 1987 state law makes Oregonians less safe.

“The problem is that the (sanctuary) policies tie your hands,” he told the law enforcement officials and other federal workers. “Sanctuary policies endanger us all.”

Sessions’ 20-minute address at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in north Portland, in a room normally used for immigrant naturalization ceremonies, contained few surprises.

The Trump administration all year has been pressuring sanctuary cities and states to enforce federal immigration laws or lose federal funding.

Oregon’s leaders have staunchly resisted those efforts, however, though an effort is underway to ask voters to repeal the sanctuary law next November.

Oregon’s law limits communications and information sharing between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials, allegedly making it tougher for federal authorities to apprehend Oregon residents for immigration law violations.

But the state law gives local police some wiggle room. Lane County, for example, provides more information to federal officials about foreign-born jail inmates than Multnomah County provides about its jail population.

The federal government has said it typically wants local police to detain unauthorized immigrants until federal officials can arrive to take them into custody. Oregon law doesn’t allow that level of cooperation.

A crowd of protesters arrived several hours before Sessions. They held signs and led derogatory chants about the attorney general in a corralled area a fair distance away from the immigration office building. Their raucous chants could be heard, faintly, during the attorney general’s address.

Democrats also pushed back on Sessions’ message.

In a public letter, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler accused the Trump Administration of trying to “coerce local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws.”

“In Portland, we do not merely tolerate diversity, we celebrate it,” he wrote.

Sessions suffered a defeat last week when a federal judge in Illinois temporarily blocked his efforts to withhold federal money for police from sanctuary cities.

The judge agreed with the city of Chicago’s argument that the attorney general doesn’t have the authority to add new conditions for local government to receive grants.

Sessions didn’t mention that ruling on Tuesday, but he did try to refute a common argument in favor of sanctuary policies: that they allow unauthorized immigrants to report crimes to local police without fear of local police then alerting federal immigration authorities who would deport those immigrants.

“That does not make sense to me,” Sessions said Tuesday. “Would releasing someone who had been arrested 10 times this year into your community give you more confidence in law enforcement?” Critics of sanctuary laws say the laws allow repeat offenders of local or state laws to remain at liberty in the United States, even though those people could be deported because of their illegal immigration status.

Sessions referred to an Oregon case involving Sergio Martinez, an unauthorized immigrant who had been deported 20 times. Martinez allegedly committed several crimes after the Multnomah County jail released him late last year.

Federal officials, including acting U.S. Attorney for Oregon Billy Williams, are upset that Multnomah County didn’t honor a federal “detainer” request to keep Martinez in jail until federal officials could pick him up.

But sheriffs in Oregon say the state’s 1987 sanctuary law and court rulings prevent them from complying with federal detainer requests or providing any form of assistance or support to federal immigration enforcement officials.

“Political leaders have directed state and local officers to refuse these (detainer) requests,” Sessions said. “Cooperation has been a key element in informed crime fighting for decades.”

Similar conflicts between local and federal law enforcement agencies are playing out across the nation.

However, Oregon sheriffs have some leeway in how they choose to interpret and implement the state’s sanctuary law.

In Lane County, jail booking information for everyone, including foreign-born inmates, is entered into a state database that federal immigration officials can access.

If requested, the county will call federal authorities to give them 30 minutes notice before an inmate they’ve asked to track is released from jail, according to Carrie Carver, a spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office.

That is somewhat similar to a crime victim notification system that exists, under which the general public can sign up to monitor specific inmates.

Lane County also allows federal ICE officers into the jail’s “pre-booking” area to potentially pick inmates up. The general public cannot access those areas.

Conversely, Multnomah County earlier this year clarified that their policy allows deputies to provide no more information and no more access to county facilities than what the county provides to the general public. Read more about Jeff Sessions to Oregon: State’s ‘sanctuary’ policies ‘endanger us all’

At a booth at the recent state fair in Salem, people waited in line at a booth for Oregonians for Immigration Reform to sign the group’s proposed ballot measure to repeal Oregon’s so-called “sanctuary law.”

Cynthia Kendoll, the group’s president, said this new measure is attracting more intense interest than its previous attempts to discourage illegal immigration.

“This is something that people are truly really concerned about,” said Kendoll, “and I have just been amazed here at the state fair that people walk up and say, ‘Just let me sign this. I am so sick of this.’”

Oregon may not seem like it is on the front lines of the battle over immigration policy. But the state appears headed toward a bitter election fight on the issue that could reverberate nationally. 

During his presidential campaign last year, Donald Trump put a harsh spotlight on jurisdictions that didn’t fully cooperate with federal immigration officials. In recent weeks, he’s wavered on some immigration issues — such as moving to cut a deal with Democrats on protecting immigrants who were brought into the country illegally as children. But his administration continues to attack so-called sanctuary laws.

Andrea Williams, one of the chief opponents of the measure, said the looming ballot fight sets up a choice for voters between going with the Trump administration or sticking with law she says reflects “Oregon values” and has long worked well.

“To me, the issue is very simple,” added Williams, executive director of Causa, a Salem-based immigrant rights group.  “Do we want to spend Oregon resources to do the federal government’s job?”

Oregon 30 years ago adopted a law limiting local and state police involvement with federal enforcement. It was the first statewide law of its kind, but it attracted little attention or controversy. Supporters said the law was needed because some local police officers were detaining Latinos simply based on their appearance.

The term sanctuary came into vogue much later as many cities began resisting large-scale deportations. Critics charged that sanctuary cities were shielding criminals and Trump highlighted the issue in his campaign. 

“We will end the sanctuary cities that have resulted in so many needless deaths,” Trump vowed. At the Republican convention last year, the relatives of people who had been killed by immigrants illegally in the country were prominently featured on stage.

Just a few weeks later, Oregonians for Immigration Reform began laying the groundwork for an initiative to abolish the state law.

Trump’s focus “gave us the backup that this is truly something that people are concerned about,” said Kendoll.

Opponents are gearing up to fight the measure and their feelings are also intense.

“Their ultimate goal is to get rid of immigrants because they want white nationalism in this state,” said state Rep. Diego Hernandez, D-Portland.  He argued that Oregon’s sanctuary law helps encourage cooperation with local police.

Causa is helping assemble a broad coalition to oppose the measure. Williams, the group’s executive director, has signed up a sort of who’s who of the major political backers of the Democratic political leadership of the state: the public employee unions, environmental groups as well as gay and abortion rights advocates.

She says her group got a wake-up call three years ago when Oregon voters rejected a new law providing driver’s licenses for people in the country illegally.

The idea was to give people a form of identification that would allow them to drive legally to work and get auto insurance. But Oregonians for Immigration Reform, charging that it only enabled illegal immigration, put the issue on the ballot and won in a landslide.

“We do have to get better at talking to Oregonians about the circumstances — why people here are undocumented and why they have limited solutions to adjust their status,” Williams said. If the sanctuary issue gets on the ballot, she said, her coalition will have to do a lot more to reach out to Oregonians to talk about the lives of immigrants and the economic benefits she said they bring to the state.

Surveys taken in Oregon and in the country as a whole generally show strong support for immigration reform that would provide some sort of path to legal status for people in the country without citizenship. But the sanctuary issue is different.

That became clear in staunchly Democratic California this year. After Trump was elected, the state Senate’s leader, Los Angeles Democrat Kevin de Léon, introduced a statewide sanctuary bill. But instead of winning swift passage and serving as a rebuke to Trump, it languished for months.

It faced strong opposition from many California law enforcement officials and one independent poll in March showed voters strongly divided on the issue. A watered-down version didn’t pass until the final hours of the legislative session on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017.

It’s still a long time until Oregon’s anti-sanctuary initiative could go before voters in November 2018. But there’s been plenty of early maneuvering around the issue.

Kendoll’s group was the first to take advantage of a new petitioning rule from Secretary of State Dennis Richardson that allows them to collect signatures while waiting for the ballot title to be finalized. Several groups are challenging Richardson’s rule. If they’re successful, it could put a major crimp in the petition drive.

Perhaps more crucially, critics of the measure are accusing Oregonians for Immigration Reform of having ties to white nationalism. They say the group has accepted aid from groups and individuals concerned about the changing racial composition of the country.

Kendoll denied that her group is motivated by racial animus.

“We’re going after people who are here illegally,” she said. “Their race, their ethnicity, their religion — anything — has nothing to do with it. It’s, ‘are you in our country legally?’”

That leads Kendoll to some hard-line views. She said the estimated 11 million people who entered the country illegally should leave, and she supports ending the program allowing those brought here as children to gain legal status. In addition, she backs legislation that would cut legal immigration by half over the next decade.

“When you allow such a large number of people to immigrate legally,” she said, “assimilation is more difficult because they tend to clump together and not assimilate.”

The sanctuary issue provides a hot-button path toward that goal.

At the Oregonians for Immigration Reform booth, volunteers displayed the mugshot of Sergio Martinez and called him their “poster boy.”

He’s the man accused of sexually assaulting a 65-year-old woman after being released from the Multnomah County Jail despite being frequently deported. Focusing on this one extreme example infuriates opponents.

“They play off peoples’ fears. That’s how they win,” said Causa’s Williams. She said this line of attack unfairly stereotypes people who enter the country illegally, especially since research shows they are actually less likely to commit crimes. 

If Oregon’s 30-year-old sanctuary law is repealed, the result would likely be a patchwork of local policies. Counties and cities would be able to decide on their own how or if they wanted to limit their involvement with federal immigration enforcement.

The initiative needs 88,184 signatures by next July to qualify for the ballot. Kendoll isn’t saying how many signatures they’ve collected so far. Read more about Fight Over Oregon's 'Sanctuary Law' Brings Immigration Policy Battle To The NW

A federal judge in Chicago has ruled Attorney General Jeff Sessions can't withhold public grant money from so-called sanctuary cities for refusing to follow federal immigration policies.

U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber made the ruling Friday, in which he granted Chicago's request for a temporary "nationwide" injunction.

The ruling means the Justice Department cannot deny grant money requests until Chicago's lawsuit against the agency is concluded. Leinenweber wrote that Chicago has shown a "likelihood of success" in its arguments that Sessions overstepped his authority with the requirement.

SANCTUARY CITIES: WHAT ARE THEY?

At least seven cities and counties, including Seattle and San Francisco, as well as the state of California, have refused to cooperate with new federal rules regarding sanctuary cities.

The ruling is another blow to Sessions, a longtime champion of tougher immigration laws.

Earlier this month, Sessions announced that the administration would end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that protects young immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families who overstayed their visas.

President Trump later announced he was working on an agreement to protect them.

It's unclear whether the ruling means the Leinenweber will ultimately decide in favor of the city. Read more about Jeff Sessions can't withhold grant money from sanctuary cities, judge rules

While California is the most well-known sanctuary state, Oregon was actually the first one in the country. (The Daily Caller, Aug. 8, 2017) It passed its sanctuary law over 30 years ago. (Id.) Now that Governor Kate Brown has signed HB 3464, Oregon gets a new distinction, now being the most extreme sanctuary state. (Id.) Oregon’s new law makes it nearly impossible for state and local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration officials and allows criminal aliens, even those convicted of the most serious crimes, to escape immigration enforcement. (H.B. 3464)

Specifically, the law prohibits state and local agencies in Oregon from sharing information about individuals including their contact information, time and location of their public appointments, the identity of relatives, and their place of employment. (Id.) The law also prohibits these institutions from requesting information about a person's immigration or citizenship status. (Id.) If they already have that information, they “may decline to disclose” the status to federal authorities unless required by law or court order, according to the new law. (Id.)

Outrageously, Governor Brown signed the sanctuary law a mere two weeks after criminal alien Sergio Jose Martinez was accused of raping a 65 year-old woman in her home and sexually assaulting another woman in a parking garage. (The Washington Times, Aug. 16, 2017) Martinez had previously been deported 20 times and had a long history of criminal activity, including burglary and battery, spanning several states. (The Oregonian, Aug. 3, 2017) In December 2016, Martinez was in a Multnomah County jail when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a detainer on him. (Id.) Despite the detainer request, Multnomah County released him from jail without contacting ICE. (Id.) Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese said that he could not detain Martinez because of Oregon’s sanctuary law. (See KGW.com, Aug. 1, 2017) In June, Martinez was arrested again in Multnomah County. (Id.) He was released on July 17, after serving 31 days in jail. (Id.) One week later, Martinez was arrested for those violent sexual attacks on the two women. (Id.)

  Read more about Oregon Expands Dangerous Sanctuary Law

U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore., joined a small group of congressional Republicans who voted last week against blocking some federal funds from states and cities that don't cooperate with immigration enforcement agents.

Oregon is a so-called sanctuary state by law, and governments of several Oregon cities, including Portland's, have symbolically designated themselves as sanctuary cities. In practice, Oregon's immigration enforcement statute bars state and local law enforcement from cooperating with immigration agents if a detainee's only apparent offense is being in the country illegally.

Walden has generally voted in favor of conservative immigration policies. The congressman "leans toward less immigration, less population growth, less foreign labor," according to his voting scorecard at NumbersUSA, a group that lobbies for less immigration.

He voted to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border in 2006. He's co-sponsored legislation several times that would deny automatic citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants.

Following the Trump administration's decision last week to end DACA, which grants deportation reprieves to children of illegal immigrants, Walden expressed sympathy for young adults who may face deportation. He said Congress should find a "permanent solution" to fix the nation's immigration system.

Walden was one of eight Republicans to vote against the funds-blocking amendment Wednesday, which was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Mo. It passed, 225-195.

In a speech from the House floor, Smith described his amendment as "very straightforward" and ensures that funds "only go to cities and states that uphold federal law."

All of Oregon's congressional Democrats -- Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici, Peter DeFazio and Kurt Schrader -- voted against the amendment. Washington Republicans Jaime Herrera Beutler, Kathy McMorris Rodgers and Dan Newhouse voted for the amendment but Dave Reichert joined that state's Democrats in voting against it.

The bill containing the amendment funds the U.S. Department of the Interior, Environmental Protection Agency, the Forest Service, the Indian Health Service and other agencies. The full bill has yet to pass the House. Read more about Walden votes against blocking funds to sanctuary cities

Sergio Martinez returned to Portland after nearly a decade's absence. But he'd been busy in the meantime: Deported 12 times. Convicted three times for illegal re-entry. A rap sheet of crimes from burglary to theft in three states.

Immigration agents noticed his name on a Multnomah County list of jail inmates last December. They asked the Sheriff's Office to alert them before releasing Martinez so they could send him back to Mexico one more time.

But they never heard a word. Martinez spent a night in the downtown jail, then was out.

Police in Portland arrested Martinez five more times over the next six months. Each time, he was booked into jail. Each time, immigration agents had no idea that he'd been arrested, booked and released.

Sergio Martinez's deportations, federal prosecutions

Records show federal authorities deported Martinez 12 times and sent him back to Mexico a 13th time...

On July 24, seven days after his last release, Martinez, 31, crawled through a window in a 65-year-old woman's Northeast Portland apartment, tied her up with scarves and socks and sexually assaulted her, police said.

That night, he grabbed a 37-year-old woman at knifepoint as she walked to her car. He forced her into her car, but she escaped and he followed, tackled her and repeatedly bashed her head into the concrete until others arrived and he ran off, police said.

Martinez's record has become Exhibit A in a polarized political landscape that pits the Trump administration's vigorous push to curtail illegal immigration against states like Oregon with powerful sanctuary movements.

Martinez's latest arrest inflamed a national debate that shows no signs of waning. Top federal law-and-order leaders from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions to Oregon U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams decried the local jail's silence on a criminal who had earned the label of "serial immigration violator." Multnomah County itself had labeled Martinez's chances of committing another crime and failing to appear in court as "100 percent."

"The fact that these things happened to these two women is inexcusable,'' Williams said.

Williams and immigration officials say the sheriff has misconstrued state and federal law...

"We can't do our job and enforce federal immigration law without that shared information,'' Williams said....

Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese defended the jail's actions, saying it was following state law and federal case law....

Reese said he felt "distressed and heartbroken'' that Martinez is accused of preying on women after his release from jail.

How others in Oregon handle ICE requests for inmate information

If Sergio Martinez had been arrested in Washington or Yamhill counties, immigration agents would have learned of it right away.

But he said sheriff's deputies will notify U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement about an inmate or hold that person longer only when they get a federal criminal arrest warrant signed by a judge. The ICE "detainer" for Martinez was an administrative request and doesn't meet the jail standard, he said....

"We're trying to build relationships of trust with immigrant communities. Having our police officers involved in immigration enforcement would damage our ability to keep our community safe,'' the sheriff said.

Michael Kagan, a legal expert on immigration issues, said the law allows the jail to make a simple notification to ICE about an inmate's release...

But Kagan added that there's nothing to stop immigration officials from seeking an arrest warrant to detain someone. He noted that ICE isn't set up to do that and hasn't devoted the resources to change.

ACLU of Oregon attorney Mat dos Santos said he believes immigration agents have the wherewithal to check jail rosters and pick up people they want. They don't need to enlist local help.

"The problem with information sharing," he said, "is it sweeps up many, many people who have low-level offenses into this increased enforcement regime.''

COMMUNICATION WITH ICE EVAPORATED OVER TIME

Multnomah County, with by far Oregon's busiest jail system, now follows the strictest interpretation of the state's sanctuary law, essentially cutting off direct communication with immigration agents on inmate arrests and releases.

From 35,000 to 38,000 people get booked into the system here each year, including an estimated 4 percent who report being born in other countries.

Sergio Martinez's arrests in Oregon, 2016-2017

The Martinez case highlights how the county's relationship with ICE has evaporated over time, but especially after President Donald Trump's election. It also has exposed a gap in sharing jail fingerprint records that immigration agents can use as a back-up way to find people.

Reese changed the rules shortly after Trump took office.

Oregon's statute on "Enforcement of federal immigration laws'' was designed to prohibit the use of public resources to arrest people "whose only apparent violation of law'' is their illegal immigration status – a civil offense, not a crime. The 1987 law was intended to prevent police from using immigration regulations to profile or harass people based on their race, testimony on the bill showed.

Before its adoption, legislators added an amendment at the request of Oregon State Police to make sure local authorities could exchange information with ICE for people arrested on a non-immigration criminal offense.

For years, immigration agents had regular shifts at Multnomah County's downtown jail, allowed to review booking registers to look for people who faced deportation.

But that stopped after a federal magistrate judge in 2014 ruled Clackamas County was liable for damages after it held an inmate beyond her release date at the request of immigration agents who were still investigating her immigration status.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Janice M. Stewart decided that Clackamas County violated Maria Mirandas-Oliveras' Fourth Amendment right by keeping her in jail 19 hours after settling her state case for violating a domestic violence restraining order.

The judge ruled that ICE hadn't provided sufficient probable cause to hold her and the jail shouldn't have honored the request. The ruling started a ripple effect in the state, causing jails and police to no longer agree to such civil detainers.

Instead, Multnomah County and other jails started providing weekly reports to immigration officers on all people born outside the country booked into their jails, their names, ages and charges.

But on Jan. 27, Multnomah County stopped sharing those reports. That change came two days after the sheriff stood at a news conference with county Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury, the ACLU's dos Santos and others, pledging to defy President Trump's call to hold undocumented immigrants for deportation amid threats to withhold federal funding to sanctuary cities...

Instead, he said, immigration agents can access the sheriff's public website on inmates in custody or contact the corrections records unit for public information if they want to track arrests.

"Our public website is our source of sharing information with everyone, including ICE,'' the sheriff said.

Elizabeth Godfrey, a regional supervisor for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations based in Portland, said county officials have "grossly mischaracterized and misinterpreted'' the state law.

"Concluding that the law somehow prohibits information sharing is frankly inaccurate and is unsupported by its legislative history and relevant case law,'' she said.

Local jails clearly could follow the sanctuary law's provision for exchanging information in cases like Martinez's -- when accused offenders face criminal charges, she said.

The county sheriff also has misapplied the federal judge's ruling, Godfrey said.

ICE, though, no longer requests that Oregon sheriffs hold someone on a civil detainer beyond their typical release date, she said, recognizing that the 2014 court case "aroused concern among local law enforcement."

But the sheriff's stance of requiring a criminal arrest warrant is unrealistic because it can take days or weeks and ICE isn't set up to do that, she said. Very few illegal immigrants that the agency encounters are subject to federal criminal prosecution, she said, and in those cases, agents must first know they've been arrested, which requires an exchange of information.

"We weren't given that opportunity'' in the Martinez case, Godfrey said.

FINGERPRINT SNAFU FURTHER HAMPERS ICE

Martinez's mother brought him to the United States when he was not yet 1. His father died when he was a few months old and his stepfather died when he was about 10...

His record in California includes convictions for burglary in 2008 and battery, theft and obstructing an officer in 2015.  California authorities typically alerted ICE when Martinez was released from prison there, as state corrections officials do in Oregon. Federal authorities said he also was charged in Texas in 2012 with misdemeanor criminal mischief under a false name.

Last year alone, Martinez was deported to Mexico from California three times before he was arrested by Beaverton police in December on a 2008 Multnomah County arrest warrant, charged with unauthorized use of a vehicle, possession of a stolen vehicle and nine other charges.

He was taken to Portland and booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center at 9:40 a.m. on Dec. 7.

Immigration agents learned of Martinez's arrest through the sheriff's weekly report to the federal agency on foreign-born detainees before Reese halted the practice. They then faxed a detainer form to the jail, asking for notification before Martinez's release.

Martinez was released from jail the next day at 1:35 p.m. A Multnomah County prosecutor dropped the 2008 charges because eight years had gone by – long past the three-year mark for a speedy trial.

Martinez was booked into the jail five more times from February to June:

-- Feb. 13: On a failure to appear warrant on a January allegation of criminal trespass from a disturbance at Pioneer Place mall. He was released on his own recognizance the same day.

-- March 3: On warrants alleging possession of methamphetamine and failure to appear for the trespass charge. By then, court officers highlighted that he had five earlier felony deportation violations, three failures to appear in Multnomah County court and a history of mental illness, drug and alcohol abuse. He was released the same day and ordered to report to a pretrial supervision officer.

-- March 21: On another failure-to-appear warrant for the trespass allegation. He was released on his own recognizance the same day.

-- April 6: On an accusation of interfering with public transportation and theft of services in an alleged TriMet fare jumping case. He was released the same night on his own recognizance.

-- June 16: On an escape warrant from a Feb. 17 encounter with police when he ran as officers tried to serve him with a warrant in the trespass case. This time, he was held for 31 days. A court officer called Martinez an unsuitable candidate for release, citing his lack of stability, history of drug and alcohol use, criminal record, history of missing court dates, mental health problems, earlier deportations and a score of 8 on a risk assessment tool that correlated to a "100 percent failure rate.''

On July 17, Martinez pleaded guilty to interfering with an officer. His other charges were dismissed. He was sentenced to time served and released from custody that day.

Even without the notification from the jail of the releases, immigration agents thought they had a stopgap way to track Martinez, but that failed, too.

The jail is expected to take fingerprints of everyone booked into jail and is supposed to send them electronically to Oregon State Police, which then shares them through the National Fingerprint File with the FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Typically, immigration officers would have received alerts when Martinez's fingerprints appeared in their system each time he was booked into the downtown jail. But they got none after his five arrests this year....

Maj. Tom Worthy, a supervisor with the state police Public Safety Services Bureau, said police can scan and immediately send biometric prints, so there's no reason why the prints shouldn't go to state police every time someone gets booked.

"We want to have a definitive record of people committing crime in Oregon," he said.

On July 24, Martinez entered a woman's apartmen....and sexually assaulted her, threatening her with a metal rod in his hand, police said. Martinez then left with her keys and phone and drove away in her Prius.

The woman ran to a neighbor's unit for help....

About 6 p.m. that same day, Martinez is accused of pulling a knife on a woman as she was walking to her car....

...he insisted he just wanted to talk, though he added, "If you say another word I will kill you,'' according to police. He ordered her into her car and locked the doors. She unlocked them and ran out. He tackled her and she screamed, "Help, he has a knife. He's trying to kill me!'' He ran back into her car and tried to drive off but couldn't, then fled on foot as police chased after him.

Police followed him as he ran into an apartment on Clackamas Street. An officer, with his Taser drawn, ordered Martinez to the ground.

Martinez is now being held on $3.6 million bail. He's pleaded not guilty to a 27-count indictment, charging him in the two assaults on the women, including multiple charges of sodomy, sexual abuse, kidnapping and robbery.

FEDS WANT 'SHARED RESPONSIBILITY'

Oregon's U.S. attorney and immigration officials said they hope Martinez's case will spur change.

They no longer hold out hope that sheriffs in Oregon will keep someone in their county jail on an immigration hold.

But they're asking sheriffs in Oregon to give ICE agents as much advance notice as possible before releasing inmates sought by immigration officers.

They also want to allow immigration agents to pick up the inmates within a jail entry or other controlled space to safeguard officers and avoid a potential escape.

"Tell me we don't have a shared responsibility not to release people like this individual back into our community to commit more crimes,'' Williams said.

Godfrey, the deputy ICE field office director, said she would sit down with sheriffs to address their concerns.

"Of course we want people who are committing really dangerous and violent crimes to be held accountable, but it seems to me they're using this example to try to get Portland to walk back on what it stands for – protecting documented and undocumented members of our community,'' said dos Santos of the ACLU.

Kagan, the Nevada law professor, suggests a middle ground: Have the jail alert immigration agents about the release of people considered dangerous and streamline a system to notify the immigration agency about people it wants to pick up for deportation proceedings.

So far, Multnomah County isn't budging.

If ICE wants to pursue an inmate for illegal entry into the United States, Reese said, "We suggest they seek a criminal arrest warrant.''

Oregon's U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams says the sheriff has misconstrued state and federal law, arguing that nothing prevents local police and jails from sharing information with federal agents about people in the country illegally who face criminal charges. "This is information going from one law enforcement agency to another and it's about public safety. It's that simple,'' he said.(Stephanie Yao Long | Staff )

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in an Aug. 16 address in Miami, cited the arrest of Sergio Martinez in a sex assault case and blasted Multnomah County's refusal to alert immigration officers of his release from jail in December. "How can these politicians hear this story and do nothing?'' he asked. "By protecting criminals from immigration enforcement, cities and states with so-called 'sanctuary' policies make all of us less safe.'' (Photo by Zach Gibson/Getty Images)

Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese in late January stopped sharing with federal immigration officers the jail's weekly reports on bookings of foreign-born inmates. He said he changed the jail's practice after "robust conversations with county counsel and stakeholders." He said he was advised that providing reports specifically to ICE may violate the state's 1987 sanctuary law. (Beth Nakamura|Staff )

Sergio Martinez was booked into the Multnomah County Detention Center in downtown Portland five times between February and June, but federal immigration officers had no idea. (Oregonian File Photo 2010)

Oregon's U.S. Attorney Billy J. Williams says the sheriff has misconstrued state and federal law, arguing that nothing prevents local police and jails from sharing information with federal agents about people in the country illegally who face criminal charges. "This is information going from one law enforcement agency to another and it's about public safety. It's that simple,'' he said. Read more about Portland sex attack suspect's 12 deportations inflame immigration debate