ICE pays to use 2 Oregon jails despite sanctuary state law

Conrad Wilson, OPB Published 5:52 p.m. PT Oct. 27, 2017 | Updated 8:21 p.m. PT Oct. 27, 2017

Since 1987, Oregon has promised immigrants that they are safer here than almost anywhere else in the country.

The state’s so-called sanctuary law essentially prohibits local police from enforcing federal immigration policy or helping federal agents go after people whose only violation is living in the country illegally.

But for years, two Oregon jails have aided U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement by housing detainees who face deportation. The Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facilities in The Dalles and the Josephine County Jail in southwest Oregon both have contracts with ICE.

Over the years, those contracts have helped prop up the criminal justice system financially in communities where residents have been reluctant to pay for public safety and corrections.

Jail officials say they’re not violating the letter of Oregon’s sanctuary state law. Yet dozens of public records and interviews suggest they’re at least skirting the spirit of a state policy designed to make immigrants feel more at ease.

In using ICE contracts to fund struggling jails, these Oregon counties are assisting the federal government’s efforts to deport immigrants in the country illegally.

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/stor...law/809068001/