News Articles, Op-eds, and Letters

A Wasco County Circuit Court judge will hear a case in January that could dramatically define — and clarify — Oregon’s statewide sanctuary law for the first meaningful time in the law’s 31-year history.

While the law has been the subject of past litigation, no court has outlined the scope of what’s allowed under the anti-profiling legislation signed into law in 1987 with overwhelming bipartisan support.

In July 2017, a group of county residents sued the Northern Oregon Correctional Facility (NORCOR) in The Dalles because the jail houses detainees for U.S. Immigration...

Gov. Kate Brown and Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum have filed suit against President Trump in an attempt to void two federal laws requiring states to aid immigration authorities.

The suit, filed Friday in federal court in Eugene, claims those laws violate the 10th Amendment, which separates state and federal powers, by demanding states enforce federal immigration regulations.

"State and local law enforcement agencies are not required to expend their limited resources on enforcing immigration policies that are a federal responsibility, "the suit says.

Because it is a...

Tuesday is election day. Voters all over America are poised to choose their candidates for a host of federal and state positions. They will also vote on various ballot initiatives unique to their states.

One of those initiatives in Oregon has to do with whether voters will overturn the state's sanctuary law, which has acted as an impediment to cooperation between federal immigration agents and police and sheriff's departments.

In the run-up to the vote, it's been pretty much business as usual, which means that sheriffs all over the state have routinely released illegal alien...

Federal officers say they wanted to take an undocumented immigrant into custody before his March release from a Multnomah County jail on domestic violence allegations, but the sheriff's office wouldn't recognize the civil detainer.

The man is now accused of killing his wife and dumping her body...

The case is the latest to shine the spotlight on Oregon's controversial sanctuary law just as voters in next week's election will decide whether to repeal the law.

The matter goes to the heart of the debate over the 31-year-old law...  Attorney General Jeff Sessions has...

Many thanks to Klamath County Sheriff Chris Kaber, who recently declared his support for Measure 105. If a majority of Oregon voters follow his lead, they’ll repeal the state’s dangerous illegal-immigrant sanctuary law.

In a statement written by Clatsop County Sheriff Tom Bergin and endorsed by Kaber and 16 other Oregon sheriffs, Bergin noted that the sanctuary law “tells illegal immigrants that Oregon considers immigration-law violations so inconsequential as to be unworthy of police and sheriffs’ attention.

In doing so, it legitimizes those violations and...

(Editor’s Note:  Salvatore DiGrande is  a member of the Board of the Washington County Sheriffs Foundation, and has volunteered with the Washington County Sheriff's Office for over 12 years as a member of the Enhanced Sheriff's Patrol District (ESPD) Advisory Committee. He has also volunteered his time on fundraising and editorial support for the Washington County Public Safety and ESPD levies. The opinions expressed by this writer are solely his own and do not reflect those of the Washington County Sheriff’s Office.)

Oregon ballot Measure 105 seeks to repeal what is commonly...

As an associate attorney, Apolinar Montero-Sanchez, who penned the Sept. 23 Op-Ed (Why you should vote 'no' on Measure 105), is presumably aware of federal law, and that, as U.S. Attorney for Oregon Bill Williams stated, "Simply put, Oregon's sanctuary status declaration directly contravenes federal immigration law and threatens public safety."

Measure 105 would repeal this illegal and dangerous state policy. That alone should be sufficient reason for any law-abiding Oregonian to vote YES on Measure 105. But the reasons don't end there.

An illegal immigrant who had been...