News
Page 4
What's the
problem with
NORCOR?
' '
Lawsuits, political resistance,
immigrant rights and the state’s
sanctuary law are form ing a perfect
storm over the Northern Oregon
Regional Corrections Facilities
Street Roots • September 29-October 5, 2017
....:
M W WE C O » W
W O O » »
S TR EET R O O T S P H O T O
BY THACHER SCHMID
STAFF WRITER
h a rle s, th e m a n a g e r of a Hood River
C
restaurant, wants his sous chef back.
When Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) agents detained an
undocumented Mexican immigrant who had
worked as his sous chef for a decade,
Charles recalled, there was no drama. It was
6 a.m. on a June morning, and the agents
simply showed up, flashed their badges and
asked for the man.
When he came out of the kitchen, Charles
said, he was taken to the Northern Oregon
Regional Corrections Facilities, or NORCOR,
a jail in The Dalles serving Wasco, Hood
River, Sherman and Gilliam counties, then
on to the Northwest Detention Center in
Tacoma.
Just like that, said Charles, who declined
to share his last name, business name or
employee’s name due to concerns about
retaliation, the restaurant was without its
No. 2 kitchen employee - right before the
start of the summer tourism season.
Charles described the 20-year employee
as “a great leader (who was) conscientious,
hardworking, creative and solid, even-
tempered.” But the employee also had an
apparent problem with drunk driving: he
had been arrested in December on his
second DUII, Charles says; the first
happened 20 years ago. Due to the length of
time between offenses, Charles said, he was
eligible for and entered a diversion program,
and was using a Breathalyzer to start his
car.
“He was attending meetings, doing
everything he was supposed to be doing,”
Charles said. “This interrupted that. It’s
been very disruptive.”
The facility where the sous chef was first
taken, and which regularly holds about 20
detainees from ICE, is now at the center of
a gathering storm. A coalition of activists,
legal groups, nonprofits and the state
Democratic party are taking up the fight
over the undocumented immigrants at
NORCOR, which an ICE spokeswoman said
is one of two facilities in Oregon that hold
its detainees.
It’s a story which Street Roots first
covered in May, and since then the facility
has become ground zero for the battle over
Oregon’s status as a “sanctuary” state.
“We hope to be an example for other
communities around the state to basically
stand up and protect their immigrant
communities,” said Tim Schechtel, a
viniculturalist and member of Gorge ICE
Resistance.
On June 25, the Democratic Party of
Oregon approved a resolution that says
NORCOR is “in violation of basic principles
of human rights” and seeks to create a task
force to oversee jails statewide. Less than a
month later, on July 21, the Oregon Law
Center filed a lawsuit against the facility on
behalf of four Wasco County taxpayers for
“misuse of public funds” because of its
contract with the U.S. Marshals Service and
ICE. That suit seeks, among other things, a
“permanent injunction” against NORCOR’s
holding of ICE detainees.
On Sept. 12, the ACLU of Oregon sent a
scathing letter describing “inhumane”
conditions at NORCOR and threatened a
separate lawsuit. Meanwhile, a petition by
the Rural Organizing Project calls for the
immediate termination of the contract
between NORCOR and ICE, and the facility
is the site of daily protests by the Gorge
ICE Resistance.
“I think there will be continued pressure
to see what kind of oversight the state will
have on the treatment of those who are
detained there,” said Jeanne Atkins, Chair of
the Democratic Party of Oregon, “and what
relationship NORCOR would have with
ICE.”
While the battlefield may be courtrooms,
political arenas and protests, a coalition
opposing NORCOR’s holding of
undocumented immigrants for ICE raises
the broader human question of whether ICE
detainees are, in the words of the Rev. John
Boonstra, “forgotten people.” Boonstra is a
member of the Gorge Ecumenical
Ministries, a group of clergy who have been
regularly visiting detainees in NORCOR. The
coalition also includes Gorge ICE
Resistance, ACLU, Rural Organizing Project,
Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste
(PCUN), Oregon Law Center and others.
Coalition members say detainees, who are
dressed in dark green, suffer deplorable
conditions while kept at NORCOR far longer
than alleged criminals, dressed in orange.
They say they’re not afforded basic rights,
can’t be visited by family, and are moved
back and forth between Tacoma and the
Dalles to prevent organizing or speaking to
media.
ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice stated in
an email that NORCOR and the Josephine
County Jail accept “aliens” from the
Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma “on
a very limited basis.”
However, jail administrator Bryan
Brandenburg described NORCOR as a
progressive institution with high standards,
and said the facility has taken immigration
holds since 2000. (According to the Oregon
Law Center’s lawsuit, NORCOR has taken
immigration holds via a contract with the
U.S. Marshals Service dated November 1,
2014, and with ICE since April 2015.)
Brandenburg “categorically” denied the
assertions in the ACLU’s 15-page demand
letter, describing them as “false.” In a
response letter, he noted “we have sufficient
documentation to prove they are invalid.”
He said he would prefer the four-county
jail cover its budget deficit with a bond
measure rather than by continuing to take
ICE holds. He said making “Dreamers” —
young undocumented immigrants in the
Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
program — U.S. citizens is “the right thing
to do.” He portrays NORCOR as having
drawn a line in the sand with ICE, and said
the jail has actually sent detainees back to
Tacoma because they had no criminal
history.
“We have people who have a criminal
history and are here illegally,” Brandenburg
said. “Folks that are just here illegally, I
don’t want anything to do with them, and
I’ve made that clear to folks who are
sending people to me.”
Meanwhile, with tougher enforcement
policies under the Trump administration,
immigration arrests have risen 40 percent
in the past year compared to the previous
year.
“The bottom line is that this is big
business,” said Ramon Ramirez, president of
PCUN. “Private prison corporations are
making profits.”
Other companies are tapped in, too.
Telmate, recently bought by GTL, which
calls itself “the corrections innovation
leader,” charges detainees 25 cents a minute
for phone calls at NORCOR. The same
company charges only 16 cents a minute at
Oregon Department of Corrections facilities,
and the cost has been controversial even at
that rate.
f you listen to Gov. Kate Brown or
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, you’ll hear
foreign-born persons here without proper
authority described as “undocumented
immigrants.” ICE spokeswoman Virginia
Kice, on the other hand, refers to ICE
detainees as “aliens,” while U.S. Attorney
General Jeff Sessions, in his recent Portland
visit, spoke of “criminal aliens.”
ICE Acting Director Thomas Homan, like
Attorney General Sessions, also uses the
term criminal aliens” to describe those in
I
See NORCOR, page 5