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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (April 25, 2014)
Street roots 13 Sheriffs take important step to disentangle from ICE April 25, 2014 BY BECKY STRAUS C O N T R IB U T IN G W R IT E R ig news last week put Oregon at the forefront of a national movement to disentangle local law enforcement agencies from the harmful practices of , federal immigration enforcement, throwing a wrench in the ongoing, devastating deportation dragnet. Sheriff Daniel Staton in Multnomah County joined Sheriff Craig Roberts in Clackamas County and Sheriff Pat Garrett in Washington County to announce that they would suspend the practice of honoring 4 requests from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) to detain people in their jails without probable cause and after their criminal custody has , ended. Soon after, the dominos began to fall as a growing list of Oregon counties echoed the announcement. ICE “detainer” policy is currently under review by the Obama administration, which has seen increasing pressure from localities to scrap it. An “ICE detainer”—or “immigration hold”—has been a controversial tool U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) routinely uses to apprehend individuals who come in contact with local and state law enforcement agencies. An ICE detainer is a written request that a local jail or other law enforcement agency detain | an individual for an additional 48 hours after his or her release date, for the convenience of ICE agents sp that they can decide whether to take the individual into federal custody and begin formal deportation proceedings. The detainers generally are B 0 enforcement, or any government official, enough to report incidents of crime or come forward as a witness. This entanglement is harmful to everyone in our community. The ACLU has been heavily involved in AMÉRICA! this issue in Oregon and around the country for several years. At our urging and that of Becky Straus is thelegislative director with the . our partners in the ACT Network, a group , A C L U o f Oregon. She directs advocacy and of organizations collaborating to limifrpohce/ lobbying efforts before the Oregon Legislature ICE collaboration, Multnomah County a n d is the ACLU-s prim ary lobbyist on City o f , Sheriff Staton took a positive but small step . Portland m atters. forward when he implemented a policy in 2013 to limit the instances in which his not; accompanied with a warrant based on probable cause. office would honor an ICE detainer. This more recent decision from Staton and other Detainers raise serious constitutional sheriffs is to suspend this harmful practice concerns by depriving individuals of altogether unless ICE provides probable freedom without due process of law and, in most cases, without probable cause of any cause for the prolonged detention in the form of a judicial warrant. criminal act Moreover, state and local Sheriff Staton’s action demonstrates that corrections officials frequently violate the he listened to the concerns of the 48-hour limitation by continuing to hold community and responded by setting individuals beyond, the period requested. priorities that are in everyone’s best Detainers have resulted in the illegal interest. • imprisonment of countless individuals— These new detainer policies dovetail with including U.S. citizens, lawful permanent several recent federal court decisions that residents,-and Latinos in particular—without any charges pending, sometimes for days or • have highlighted the serious constitutional problems with ICE detainers. Here in weeks after they should have otherwise Oregon, a Clackamas County federal judge been released from custody. I immigration detainers undermine public ruled in the case of Miranda-Olivares v. Clackamas County that the county was safety and community trust in police. And legally responsible for imprisoning a woman they often catch victims and witnesses of on an ICE detainer in violation of the Fourth crime in their net. When members, of the Amendment. A new detainer policy in community believe that any encounter with Philadelphia came on the heels of the Third local law enforcement may result in contact 'with federal immigration enforcement, those Circuit Federal Appeals Court’s decision in’ the ACLU’s case, Galarza v. Szalczyk, which individuals are less likely to trust law recognized that ICE detainers are merely requests, not orders — and that if states and localities choose to detain people on that basis, they can be liable in court for violating the Constitution. Similarly; in Morales v. Chadboume, another ACLU case, the federal court in Rhode Island held that both state and federal Officials bore responsibility for detaining a U.S. citizen on an ICE detainer without an adequate legal basis. In September of 2012 the ACLU challenged the practice of honoring ICE holds in Multnomah County, arguing to a state court judge that it was in violation of state law. ORS 181.850 prohibits local law enforcement agencies from expending resources on federal immigration enforcement efforts. That case is ongoing and currently is pending in the Oregon Court of Appeals. The Obama Administration recently hit the dubious milestone of deporting 2 million people in just five years - a record it achieved in no small part by leaning on state and local law enforcement agencies. In particular, ICE has funneled hundreds of thousands of people into the deportation pipeline by issuing immigration “detainers.” The ACLU has long argued that imprisonment on an ICE detainer alone— without a warrant or any criminal charges pending—violates-the Constitution. Let us take a moment and celebrate this momentous progress in counties across our state and thank these sheriffs for doing the right thing. Join us for a Portland Community Commons with Thom Hartmann And Community Friends* The Crash of2016 and the transformational opportunities it will provide Write a page, I said. Let it come out of you. Then it will be true. Friday. May 2nd, 7pm First Unitarian Church SW 12th & Main St Portland by Debra Knauf What do they think when they hear that— this kaleidoscope of young faces before me? They look at me-middle-aged white women- and wonder if I’ll, understand their truths. Their truths are hard-inner-city, gangs, drugs, poverty, shootings, and killings on street corners, escape the champagne wish, the diamond dream of their families. I’ve seen their stories on the news, but I haven’t lived them. I’m no stranger to poverty, but I’m white -w hite bread, white wine -new grapes of wrath vintage. Poor and white is not poor and black, poor and Asian, poor arid Mexican. They’re right: I won’t know their truths. They don’t know mine either. I could tell them that escape is possible- but they won’t want to hear the rest of that truth. You can get out but you can’t leave behind who you are. Poverty is a bomb in the brain you’ll never diffuse Diamond studs wink at me from their ears; their faces remain carefully blank, and our lives tick away. I tell them we can m eet on the page But I don’t know if I believe it myself. Order e-books and print copies at iamnotapoet.org or streetroots.org/iamnotapoet Doors open at 6:30 PM Admission: $5-$20 No one turned away. "Although we are in the midst of what could become the most catastrophic economic crash in American history, a way forward is emerging. The choices we make now will redefine American culture." ’ -Thom Hartmann, The Crash of 2016 Evening will include focal individuals and ¡roups that are creating organizational models e replace and reform many of our unjust and dysfunctional systems« models that embrace https://www.facebook.com/events/6516112 Sponsored by: Economic Justice Action Group of The First Unitarian Church, Portland Marcia Meyers - 503.665.3957 https://www.facebook.com/events/651611278231994/
