Page 16A
OFF PAGE ONE
East Oregonian
Saturday, November 19, 2016
MIGRANT: Trump pledged to deport 11 million immigrants
Continued from 1A
questions.
The most urgent inquiries
have been from young people
benefiting from a 2012
federal program started by
President Barack Obama’s
administration that allows
immigrants brought to the
country illegally as children
to avoid deportation and get
work permits. About 740,000
people have participated
in the Deferred Action for
Childhood Arrivals system.
Attorneys say the program
is vulnerable because it was
created by executive order,
not by law, leaving new
potential applicants second-
guessing whether to sign up.
Andrea
Aguilera,
a
20-year-old who attends a
suburban Chicago college,
feels in limbo with her
DACA paperwork expiring
next year.
She was brought across
the Mexican border illegally
as a 4-year-old and largely
kept her immigration status
secret until she was able to
get a work permit through
DACA four years ago. She’s
since worked as a grocery
store cashier and as a finance
office intern at a Chicago
organization. Two of her
siblings are in the program.
Another is a U.S. citizen.
“It’s been hard to focus on
school,” Aguilera said. “I just
don’t know what’s going to
come next for us.”
During the campaign,
Trump pledged to deport
the estimated 11 million
immigrants living in the
country illegally and to build
a border wall. The Repub-
lican president-elect has not
detailed how he will proceed
and recently walked back
the number of anticipated
deportees.
The Center for Immigra-
tion Studies, which advo-
cates for lower immigration
levels, explained the spike in
activity as uncertainty about
whether existing laws will be
enforced by Trump’s admin-
istration. Jon Feere, a legal
analyst at the Washington
D.C.-based research orga-
nization, said those enrolled
in DACA were aware of the
risks when they signed up.
Others should have little
concern.
“Those who are in
compliance with the law have
nothing to worry about,” he
said.
Still, even immigrants
with permanent legal status
have had questions since the
election.
Attorneys and immigrant
organizations said green card
holders feel new urgency to
ensure that paperwork such
as a renewal application is
in order over fears that laws
could change under a new
administration. Most immi-
grants can seek citizenship
three to five years after
getting a green card.
Roughly 9 million green
card holders are currently
eligible for citizenship,
according to the most recent
Department of Homeland
Security statistics. Some citi-
zens also sought clarity about
when they could sponsor
family members abroad.
“People need reassur-
ance,” said Irina Mati-
ychenko, who leads the
immigrant protection unit at
the New York Legal Assis-
tance Group. “People need
guidance.”
In Phoenix, local leaders
planned a weekend meeting
about being an immigrant
in Arizona as an effort to
“guide us on the path of trust
and unity.” Staff members
at the Chicago office of
Democratic U.S. Rep. Luis
Gutierrez reported an uptick
in activity with at least 60
new applications for citizen-
ship the past two weeks.
School districts, including
Chicago and Denver, used
the election as a way to
communicate existing policy.
Denver Superintendent
Tom Boasberg said the
90,000-student district sent
letters in four languages
home in response to what
teachers were hearing from
students and parents. The
letter reiterated that school
officials do not ask about
immigration status when
students enroll.
DAMS: Control flood risk, create electricity, help shipping
Continued from 1A
with a draft EIS for further
review. A final document
won’t be completed until
2021.
Fischer said the five-year
process will likely yield a
range of alternative plans
that could include structural
modifications at any one
of the dams. The hot topic,
however, is whether to breach
one or more of the four Snake
River dams to improve fish
passage.
“We fully expect (dam
breaching) to get a lot of
interest,” Fischer said.
The controversy was reig-
nited earlier this year, when
U.S. District Court Judge
Michael Simon rejected the
feds’ latest biological opinion
to protect salmon runs. The
agencies had “done their
utmost” to avoid consid-
ering whether to breach the
dams, Simon ruled, and
that protecting Snake River
salmon “may well require”
dam removal.
Also in his decision,
Simon ordered the agencies
to update the Columbia River
System EIS, which was last
approved in 1997.
“The federal agencies, the
public and our public officials
will then be in a better posi-
tion to evaluate the costs and
benefits of various alterna-
tives and to make important
decisions,” Simon concluded.
Lauren Goldberg, staff
attorney for Columbia River-
keeper, said breaching the
Snake River dams is imper-
ative to saving wild salmon.
She cited a study by Earth-
justice, an environmental
public interest organization,
that determined more than
70 percent of human-caused
mortality to Snake River
salmon was caused by diffi-
culties at the dams.
“That’s at the heart of this
whole process,” Goldberg
said. “This is a moment to
come together as a North-
west community and tell
the government why you
care about strong Northwest
salmon runs, how they affect
your family and how they
affect your business.”
Columbia Riverkeeper is
part of Save our Wild Salmon,
a coalition of conservation
and river groups dedicated
to bolstering sustainable fish
returns.
Multiple uses
But
managing
the
Columbia River System is
about more than just fish and
wildlife.
The federal dams are
authorized for multiple other
uses, including: flood risk
management, hydro power,
irrigation, navigation and
recreation. For example, the
Snake River dams churn out
an average of 1,022 mega-
watts of electricity annually
— enough to power a city
the size of Seattle.
According
to
BPA,
it would cost ratepayers
between $400 million and
$550 million every year to
make up that lost power
capacity. That hit would be
felt locally, as the Umatilla
Electric Cooperative buys
most of its wholesale power
from BPA.
Movement of Northwest
products is another factor
to consider in breaching the
Snake River dams. Heather
Stebbings, government rela-
tions director for the Pacific
Northwest
Waterways
Association, said the amount
of cargo moving on the river
is on the rise — including
10 percent of all U.S. wheat
exports that pass through the
dams.
In 2014, Stebbings said
there were 4.3 million tons
of cargo that shipped on the
Snake River. Without the
dams, those goods would
be forced onto trucks or rail,
with 4.3 million tons equaling
approximately 43,600 rail
cars or 467,000 additional
semi-trailers. That, in turn,
would mean higher fuel
emissions and shipping rates
for producers.
“We are very opposed to
removal of the dams,” Steb-
bings said.
As for local farmers, the
Columbia River System
helps to irrigate 24,300
acres as part of the Umatilla
Project,
a
bucket-for-
bucket exchange from the
Umatilla River. That has
helped irrigation supplies
last longer into the season,
without
pumping
the
Umatilla River completely
dry.
critical upgrades at the Snake
River dams that have pushed
juvenile chinook and steel-
head survival rates up to 96
percent.
“The fish technology
over the past 20 years has
phenomenal on the system,”
said Fischer with the U.S.
Army Corps.
Since the last EIS in
1997, fish ladders have been
installed at all eight lower
Columbia and lower Snake
dams. Two other projects
were unveiled just this year,
with more fish-friendly
turbines installed at Ice
Harbor Dam at a cost of $58
million, and improvements
at the Lower Granite Dam
juvenile fish bypass system.
Meanwhile, the agencies
say that between 2007 and
2015, they helped to restore
400 miles of stream habitat
along river tributaries, a
length that would stretch
from Portland to Boise.
Despite these invest-
ments, some years continue
to wreak havoc on sensitive
salmon populations. The
combination of drought and
heat in 2015 led to rising
water temperatures around
dams that killed more than 90
percent of returning sockeye
to the basin, and resulted in
daytime fishing bans across
the region.
One of the most effective
steps to avoiding a similar
disaster in the future, salmon
advocates say, is to remove
the four Snake River dams,
thereby opening up passage
and keeping streams cold and
healthy for future generations
of fish.
“Our decisions today set
in motion that future,” Gold-
berg said.
Climate change
Perhaps the biggest wild
card that could decide how
dam operations may be
altered in future years is the
effect of climate change.
Steve Barton, chief of
the Columbia Basin Water
Management Division for
the Army Corps, points to
climate models predicting
the Northwest will be getting
warmer and wetter, resulting
in more precipitation falling
in the form of rain and less
snowpack in the mountains,
which could alter the timing
of stream flows through the
year.
The average annual
temperature across the globe
has increased 1.5 degrees
since 1880, according to
data provided at the scoping
meeting. Every year between
2001 and 2015 has also
been warmer than the 1990s
average.
Barton said the Army
Corps, Bureau of Recla-
mation and BPA are now
working with the University
of Washington and Oregon
State University on creating
new datasets for the Pacific
Northwest to forecast stream
flows in the river system. By
next year, he expects there
will be 172 new datasets to
analyze, which will play a
role in how the EIS comes
together.
“All the purposes in the
river system depend on water
flow, in both volume and
timing,” he said. “What that
means will depend on what
comes out of this (climate
change) analysis.”
Public scoping meetings
will continue into next
month in Oregon, with stops
Dec. 6, 7 and 8 in the The
Dalles, Portland and Astoria,
respectively. Comments can
also be filed electronically
before the scoping period
ends.
For more information and
a calendar of meetings, visit
www.crso.info.
———
Contact George Plaven
at gplaven@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0825.
Passage upgrades
The operating agencies
also argue they have made
VOTING: ‘No good choices’
complaint of some non-voters
Continued from 1A
whether a ballot was counted.
The list does not show how
anyone voted.
Armed with the list, the
East Oregonian called some
people whose ballot was not
counted. The sample size
was small — only a couple
dozen people — random to a
degree and not scientific.
Still, patterns emerged.
College students like Wilson,
or those who had changed
homes recently were the
most likely not to vote.
Denise
Sprague
of
Pendleton fit in that second
group. She said she did not
get a ballot and that was not
surprising.
“I have moved so much in
the last two years,” she said.
Sprague said she manages
a restaurant and a lounge in
Pendleton and works “crazy
hours.” She also is a single
mother and recently moved
back in with her parents to
help them. Voting, she said,
was not her top priority.
She suggested the state
could do more to make voting
easier. Opening polling
places on the weekend before
an election would help hard-
working Oregonians, she
said, as would online voting.
And elections offices should
verify addresses with the
state DMV.
If those option were avail-
able, she said she would be
more likely to vote.
That 10,725 not-voted
figure seems likely to
decrease as ballots come in
from across the state. Dustin
Kelly of Hermiston is in that
mix.
Kelly said he voted Nov.
7, but was in Boardman and
put the envelope in a drop
box there. Not much later, he
said, he realized he erred.
Umatilla County elections
How Umatilla
County voted
U.S. President
Donald Trump ........ 16,856
Hillary Clinton ......... 7,520
Gary Johnson ........... 1,412
Write-in ...................... 898
Jill Stein ..................... 477
U.S. Senator
Mark Callahan ....... 12,740
Ron Wyden ............ 11,097
Steven Reynolds ...... 1,058
Shanti Lewallen .......... 861
Jim Lindsay ................ 395
Eric Navicks ............... 327
U.S. Representative
Greg Walden .......... 20,477
James Crary ............ 5,783
Governor
Bud Pierce ............ 16,081
Kate Brown ............. 8,369
Cliff Thomason ........... 833
James Foster .............. 672
Aaron Auer ................. 450
Secretary of State
Dennis Richardson . 16,589
Brad Avakian ........... 6,493
Paul Wells ............... 1,142
Sharon Durbin ............. 697
Alan Zundel ................ 354
Michael Marsh ........... 339
State Treasurer
Jeff Gudman .......... 15,060
Tobias Read ............ 6,711
Chris Telfer .............. 2,412
Chris Henry ................ 878
Attorney General
Daniel Crowe ......... 15,175
Ellen Rosenblum ...... 8,965
Lars Hedbor ................ 814
State Senator
Bill Hansell ............ 20,148
Barbara Dickerson ... 4,695
Measure 97 (corporate tax)
No......................... 17,813
Yes ......................... 8,838
manager Kim Lindell said as
long as voters put the ballot
in an Oregon drop box by
the 8 p.m. deadline on Nov.
8, they will be counted.
“We have a lot of them
coming in — 130 from
Clackamas County alone,”
she said.
But voters who dropped
Oregon ballots in Wash-
ington and vice versa are
going to be out of luck —
ballots crossing state lines
won’t count.
And the top of the ticket
— with Republican Donald
Trump
and
Democrat
Hillary Clinton as the two
most unpopular presidential
candidates in U.S. history
— was a turnoff for some
voters.
Desiree Kodesh, 22,
of Pendleton, said she
supported Bernie Sanders
as the Democratic nominee,
but after he lost in the May
primary, she was done and
did not return her ballot for
the general.
“There were no good
choices to pick, so I didn’t
vote,” she said.
James Jones, 34, of
Hermiston said he never
voted before. But this year he
and his wife, 30, delved into
politics. He said it turned out
to be the wrong year to make
the leap.
Life was not over-
whelming and they were not
too busy. But Jones said the
issue was the choice between
Trump and Clinton.
“They both sucked so
bad,” he said.
And besides, he said,
Oregon was going to support
the Democratic nominee no
matter what, and all eight of
Oregon’s Electoral College
votes would go to that candi-
date.
“Our votes weren’t going
to count,” he said. “It didn’t
matter.”
Still, Jones said, he devel-
oped a keen interest in poli-
tics this election season and
enjoys political discussions.
He said he plans on voting
in the midterms and in 2020,
as long as there is someone
worth voting for.
1ST TIME EVER!
SELECT NEW
2016 HIGHLANDER
MODELS!!
0 % APR OR $ 750
UP TO 60 MONTHS
CUSTOMER CASH
**
**O% FINANCING UP TO 60 MONTHS ON APPROVED CREDIT. EXCLUSIVE FROM $750 CUSTOMER CASH. PLUS TAX, TITLE AND DOC FEE.
DRIVE A NEW 2016
COROLLA S PLUS
AUTOMATIC, ALLOY WHEELS, SPORT MODEL
$
179
MO
WITH ONLY
$
999
DRIVEAWAY CASH
STK #16T350. MSRP $21,125. LEV $12,889. 3YR/12,000 MILE A YEAR LEASE @ $179 MO PLUS TAX, TITLE, AND DOC FEE. ON APPROVED CREDIT.
ALL NEW
2017 CAMRY’S
IN STOCK
$
3 , 000 OFF
**
**$2,000 CUSTOMER CASH PROVIDED BY TOYOTA FINANCIAL SERVICES AND $1,000 ROGERS DISCOUNT. EXCLUSIVE FROM APR OFFERS. PLUS TAX, TITLE AND DOC FEE. ON APPROVED CREDIT.
$3,000 REBATES ON 2016 AVALON MODELS. FOR ALL OFFERS: NO SECURITY DEPOSIT REQUIRED. A DOCUMENTARY SERVICE FEE OF $75 MAY BE ADDED TO VEHICLE PRICE OR CAPITALIZED COST. DOES NOT INCLUDE
TAXES, LICENSE, TITLE, PROCESSING FEES, INSURANCE AND DEALER CHARGES. SUBJECT TO AVAILABILITY. OFFERS VALID THROUGH 11-30-16.