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East Oregonian
Saturday, February 18, 2017
Department of Homeland Security weighed Oregon lawmakers
National Guard for immigration roundups propose state control
of public land
By GARANCE BURKE
Associated Press
The
White
House
distanced itself Friday from
a Department of Homeland
Security draft proposal to use
the National Guard to round
up unauthorized immigrants,
but lawmakers said the
document offers insight into
the Trump administration’s
internal efforts to enact its
promised crackdown on
illegal immigration.
Administration officials
said the proposal, which
called for mobilizing up to
100,000 troops in 11 states,
was rejected, and would not
be part of plans to carry out
President Donald Trump’s
aggressive
immigration
policy.
If implemented, the
National
Guard
idea,
contained in an 11-page
memo obtained by The
Associated Press, could have
led to enforcement action
against millions of immi-
grants living nowhere near
the Mexican border. Four
states that border on Mexico
were included in the proposal
— California, Arizona, New
Mexico and Texas — but
it also encompassed seven
states contiguous to those
four — Oregon, Nevada,
Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma,
Arkansas and Louisiana.
Despite the AP’s public
release of the document,
White House spokesman
Sean Spicer said there was
“no effort at all to utilize the
National Guard to round up
unauthorized immigrants.”
A DHS official described
the document as a very early
draft that was not seriously
considered and never brought
to Homeland Security Secre-
tary John Kelly for approval.
However, DHS staffers
said Thursday that they had
been told by colleagues in
two DHS departments that
the proposal was still being
considered as recently as
Feb. 10. DHS spokeswoman
Gillian Christensen declined
to say who wrote the memo,
how long it had been under
consideration or when it had
been rejected.
AP Photo/Eric Gay, File
In this, 2015, file photo, members of the National Guard patrol along the Rio Grande
at the Texas-Mexico border in Rio Grande City, Texas.
The pushback from
administration officials did
little to quell outrage over the
draft plan. Three Republican
governors spoke out against
the proposal and numerous
Democratic
lawmakers
denounced it as an overly
aggressive approach to immi-
gration enforcement.
“Regardless of the White
House’s
response,
this
document is an absolutely
accurate description of the
disturbing mindset that
pervades the Trump adminis-
tration when it comes to our
nation’s immigrants,” said
U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez
Masto (D-Nev.)
Arkansas
Gov.
Asa
Hutchinson said he would
have “concerns about the
utilization of National Guard
resources for immigration
enforcement,”
believing
such a program “would be
too much of a strain on our
National Guard personnel.”
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert
would have serious concerns
about the constitutional
implications and financial
impact of activating the
National Guard to round up
unauthorized immigrants, the
governor’s office said in a
statement.
Nevada
Gov.
Brian
Sandoval questioned the
legality of the plan described
in the draft memo and said
Baker City transfers $150K to snowplowing
BAKER CITY (AP)
— The Baker City Herald
reports Adam Nilsson and
Daniel McQuisten were
appointed this week to fill the
seats vacated by two Baker
City councilors who resigned
because they were moving.
The new councilors joined
the holdovers for a meeting
that saw the council make an
emergency $150,000 transfer
to help pay this winter’s big
bill for snow and ice removal.
Finance Director Jeanie
Dexter said it’s only the
second time she’s seen Baker
City take such a step. The last
time was when the city had to
buy a UV filter after crypto-
sporidium contaminated the
city’s water supply in 2013.
it would be an inappropriate
use of guard resources.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal
(D-Conn.),
said,
“This
administration’s
complete
disregard for the impact its
internal chaos and inability
to manage its own message
and policy is having on real
people’s lives is offensive.”
The AP had sought
comment from the White
House beginning Thursday
and DHS earlier Friday and
had not received a response
from either. After the AP
released the story, Spicer
said the memo was “not a
White House document”
and said there was “no effort
to do what is potentially
suggested.”
Governors in the 11 states
would have had a choice
whether to have their guard
troops participate, according
to the memo, which bears the
name of Kelly, a retired four-
star Marine general.
At a maximum, approx-
imately 100,000 Army
National Guard and Air
National Guard personnel
would be available for state-
side missions in the 11 states,
according to statistics and
information provided by the
National Guard Bureau.
While National Guard
personnel have been used
to assist with immigra-
tion-related missions on the
U.S.-Mexico border before,
they have never been used as
broadly or as far north.
The memo was addressed
to the then-acting heads
of U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement and
U.S. Customs and Border
Protection. It would have
served as guidance to imple-
ment the wide-ranging execu-
tive order on immigration and
border security that President
Donald Trump signed Jan.
25. Such memos are routinely
issued to supplement execu-
tive orders.
Also dated Jan. 25, the
draft memo says participating
troops would be authorized
“to perform the functions
of an immigration officer in
relation to the investigation,
apprehension and detention
of aliens in the United States.”
It describes how the troops
would be activated under a
revived state-federal partner-
ship program, and states that
personnel would be autho-
rized to conduct searches
and identify and arrest any
unauthorized immigrants.
If implemented, the impact
could have been significant.
Nearly one-half of the 11.1
million people residing in the
U.S. without authorization
live in the 11 states, according
to Pew Research Center esti-
mates based on 2014 Census
data.
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SALEM (AP) — More
than half the land in
Oregon is owned by the
federal government, but
Republican
lawmakers
there have raised the possi-
bility of transferring it to
state control.
A bill sponsored by
Grants Pass Republican
Rep. Carl Wilson and
three other lawmakers
would create a task force
to analyze the costs and
benefits of such a move,
reported The Statesman
Journal.
Wilson emphasized that
he does not support selling
Oregon’s public land into
private ownership and that
his bill only calls for a
study.
“I’m not sure if this is a
good or a bad idea, or how it
would actually work,” said
Wilson during a Thursday
hearing on his bill. “But I
have to believe Oregonians
would do a better job of
caring for our lands than a
federal bureaucracy.”
The
bill
exempts
national parks, monu-
ments, wilderness areas
and tribal lands from being
considered for transfer to
the state.
During the hearing,
every public speaker
offering testimony opposed
the idea of state control.
Conservation and sports-
man’s groups said Oregon
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couldn’t afford to manage
the land, while others
disputed the need to fund
such a task force when
Oregon is facing a $1.8
billion shortfall.
Some speakers pointed
to the state’s plan to sell the
83,000-acre Elliott State
Forest as evidence that
federal lands may end up
being privatized if moved
to state control.
“The ultimate outcome
of this bill would not be
state land management
of our public lands,” said
Dan Morse, conservation
director for the Oregon
Natural Desert Association.
“The more likely outcome
would be the future sale
of our public lands when
the state can’t reasonably
afford to manage them.”
Wilson and other rural
Republicans say studying
the possibility is necessary
because it may be one way
to improve rural econo-
mies. Cutbacks in logging
due to overregulation have
limited their countries’
ability to fund services or
protect against wildfires,
the Republicans said.
“We used to have a
vibrant economy, with
good wages and good
places to work,” said
bill co-sponsor Rep. Sal
Esquivel of Medford. “So
much of that has been shut
off.”
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