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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 22, 2018)
3A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2018 Oregon prison last in country to house ICE detainees Brenna Visser/The Daily Astorian U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici speaks a town hall at the Cannon Beach Chamber of Commerce. Climate change, partisanship issues at Bonamici town hall Congresswoman stops for a visit in Cannon Beach By BRENNA VISSER The Daily Astorian CANNON BEACH — National issues, such as con- cerns about climate change and partisan gridlock in Congress, were at the forefront at a town hall hosted on Sunday by U.S. Rep. Suzanne Bonamici. The visit was a part of a tour across the 1st Congres- sional District to answer ques- tions from constituents. Most concerns were centered around whether any progress could be made on Bonamici’s priorities, such as expanding health care, college affordability or curbing climate change, with a Repub- lican-held Congress and White House. “When I got elected to Congress, I knew I’d be in the minority, but that doesn’t mean I expect my constituents to expect I do nothing because I’m in the minority party,” the Democrat said. “You find com- mon ground.” Bonamici cited her work with Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, to develop the Save Our Seas Act, a bill that reau- thorizes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administra- tion’s marine debris Program through 2022. She also men- tioned bipartisan work with then-Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., that was necessary to pass the Weather Forecast- ing Improvement Act of 2014, a bill aimed at bettering coordi- nation of NOAA’s research and forecasting operations. While bipartisanship is pos- sible, Bonamici said she is con- cerned about the lack of over- sight she feels lawmakers have over the Trump administration. Bonamici highlighted the U.S. Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency, in particular. “The current Congress has not done a good job to provide oversight to this administra- tion,” Bonamici said. “We’ve seen story after story about them not doing their job or about a culture of corruption … we need to crack down where oversight is needed.” This issue dovetailed into the concerns some in the audi- ence had about whether a recent report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a group of scientists convened by the United Nations — was being taken seriously by Congress. The report described the global effects of climate change by 2040. Bonamici said, as a member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, she was disappointed by the Trump administration’s lack of response to the report. “The administration didn’t even understand who (the Inter- governmental Panel on Climate Change) were,” she said. Bonamici said she still believes progress can be made through educating people and communicating about issues like ocean acidification and renewable energy resources, and that those conversations need to be tethered to job retraining and education in the oil and coal industries. “We can grow our renew- able energy industry,” Bonamici said. “But we have to talk about it in a way where those working in industries like coal don’t feel like we’re taking away their livelihood and their whole history.” Inmates held in Sheridan By CONRAD WILSON Oregon Public Broadcasting U.S. Immigration and Cus- toms Enforcement has all but abandoned its use of federal prisons to house detainees. In early June, the agency announced it was sending up to 1,600 immigrant detainees to five federal prisons in Texas, Oregon, California, Washington state and Arizona. But now, only three ICE detainees remain across the five prisons that once held hundreds of immigrants. There are no ICE detainees at the federal prisons in Vic- torville, California; SeaTac in Washington; La Tuna in Texas; or Phoenix, ICE spokeswoman Tanya Roman said in a state- ment. The three ICE detainees that remain are inside the fed- eral prison in Sheridan. ICE’s large-scale use of fed- eral prisons to house its detain- ees was unprecedented and con- troversial. Many of the detainees sent to the prisons were seeking asylum. Yet, they were treated as criminals, according to multiple immigration attorneys who rep- resented the detainees in several of the prisons, even though few — if any — of the detainees had been charged criminally or were serving a criminal sentence. “ICE was blending the crim- inal, penal corrections system, blending it with the immigra- tion, asylum system and sort of creating this unified view that they all need to be detained and incarcerated,” said Stephen Manning, a Portland-based immigration attorney. He rep- resents the three remaining ICE detainees at the federal prison in Oregon. Manning’s firm, the Port- land-based Innovation Law Lab, originally represented more than 80 individuals held at the prison. The government moved their asylum cases for- ward because all of Manning’s clients were found to have valid asylum claims. “It was an abject failure of government policy to use the federal prisons for the deten- tion of asylum seekers and I hope this constitutionally risky experiment, which failed, reso- nates and that we won’t see it again,” Manning said. Immigrant detainees left the five federal prisons used by ICE either because they were deported, transferred to civil detention facilities or were granted bail. ICE didn’t say if the dra- matic reduction in detainees being held in federal prisons represents a change in policy. “The interagency agree- ments with BOP (Bureau of Prisons) were set up as a tem- porary measure to meet the increased need for detention space during the implementa- tion of the U.S. Department of Justice’s zero-tolerance policy,” said Roman, the ICE spokes- woman. “Detainees that were held there would either have been removed, released from custody or transferred to another facility.” ICE’s agreements to use fed- eral prisons are valid until June 2019, meaning the agency could put detainees back in federal prisons. But Corene Kendrick, a staff attorney at the nonprofit Prison Law Office in Berkeley, doesn’t think that will happen, at least not in Southern California. She worked with the ACLU to file a lawsuit that would keep detain- ees out of the federal prison in Victorville. “The removal of the immi- gration detainees shows that there are limits to the Trump administration’s zero tolerance policy towards asylum seek- ers and immigrants,” said Ken- drick. “By just putting people in a medium security prison, which is designed for convicted prisoners, the Department of Homeland Security and BOP were violating the constitu- tional rights of the immigrants and asylum seekers.” Immigration detainees are held in civil detention, which under the law is supposed to be a higher standard than criminal detention. But that’s not always the case. Jorge Baron, executive director of the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said some asylum seekers being held in the federal prison near Seattle told him the treatment in the federal prison was bet- ter than the civil detentions’ facilities where they had been housed in the past. “This is not to say I saw it as a positive that they were in this prison, but just that how bad our immigration detention system is that folks who end up in a federal prison feel like that’s a more human treatment, which gives me serious pause,” he said. The fact that, for now, ICE has dramatically reduced its used of federal prisons does little to ease Baron, who said ICE is continuing its efforts to detain people. “Now they’re ramping up more facilities down on the southern border,” he said. “So they may not be using the fed- eral prisons, but they’re still detaining an incredibly high number of people throughout the country.” Gates gives $1 million to carbon control measure Associated Press SEATTLE — Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has given $1 million to a Novem- ber ballot measure in Wash- ington state that would charge a fee on carbon emissions from fossil fuels. Gates wrote in a blog post recently that he would con- tribute to the Yes on 1631 campaign. Updated finance records show he donated $1 million. Previously the Pub- lic Disclosure Commission records had shown that Bill Gates had given $500,000 and his wife Melinda Gates had donated $500,000 in sup- port of the initiative. The measure has raised a total of $11 million. I-1631 would charge large polluters an escalating fee on fossil-fuel emissions start- ing at $15 per metric ton. It would be the first direct car- bon fee of its kind in the U.S. Opponents, including top oil companies, have raised nearly $22 million to defeat it. They say it would hike gas and electricity prices. ONL ONE ONLY BANK TOOK THE TIME TO GET TO KNOW ME . Remembering Billy Bader Sunday, October 28th 3:00-6:00 p.m. Mills Beach House 1081 S. Prom (on Avenue K) Seaside, Oregon Questions? 619-992-5858 AFFORDABLE PRICES UNINSURED PATIENT DISCOUNTS MINIMAL WAIT TIMES 2222 Exchange Street, Astoria • 503-741-3183 Edouardo Jordan | Chef/Owner | Salare Inside Astoria Medical Services Office Hours: Monday-Friday 7:30am - 5:00pm Closed for lunch 12:15 - 1:15pm Interpath Laboratory recently celebrated its 50th year anniversary. We provide services to patients of the Pacific Northwest and now we are proud to include the greater Astoria community! 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