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NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
Saturday, April 22, 2017
30 years after its inception, others use
Oregon’s ‘sanctuary state’ law as a model
Barilla sponsored a bill
aimed at severing the rela-
tionship between local law
enforcement and federal
immigration law.
“No law enforcement
agency of the State of
Oregon or of any political
subdivision of the state
shall use agency moneys,
equipment or personnel for
the purpose of detecting or
apprehending persons whose
only violation of law is that
they are persons of foreign
citizenship present in the
United States in violation of
federal immigration laws,”
the law states.
In discussing the bill with
police and members of both
parties, Barilla found local
governments didn’t want to
spend money enforcing laws
they didn’t have to.
“It was really non-contro-
versial,” he said.
The bill passed the
Oregon Senate 29 to 1 and
the House 58 to 1. Then-Gov.
Neil Goldschmidt signed it
into law on July 7, 1987.
By CONRAD WILSON
Oregon Public Broadcasting
Oregon law prohibits
the use of state and local
resources to enforce federal
immigration law if a person’s
only crime is being in the
country illegally. And it’s got
nothing to do with President
Donald Trump.
What many refer to as
Oregon’s “sanctuary law”
dates back 30 years – and,
at the time of its implemen-
tation, it was not controver-
sial.
The path toward becoming
a sanctuary state began at the
Hi Ho Restaurant in Indepen-
dence, Oregon, early on Jan.
9, 1977, when several police
offi cers approached four
Chicano men.
Without
showing
a
warrant
or
identifying
themselves, Offi cer Janet
Davidson and three Polk
County sheriff’s deputies
began interrogating the men
about their citizenship status.
A deputy grabbed one of
the men, Delmiro Trevino,
by the arm and forced him
to stand in the middle of the
restaurant in front of other
customers. Trevino, a U.S.
citizen of Mexican descent,
later fi led what would
become a class action lawsuit
in which he said being
publicly called out left him
feeling humiliated.
He was only released after
Davidson identifi ed Trevino
as a “long-time resident” of
Independence.
The ensuing lawsuit
accused the offi cers of acting
under the authorization
of the Immigration and
Naturalization Service, the
federal agency that oversaw
immigration enforcement at
the time.
Ten years later, the lawyer
who brought the lawsuit on
behalf of Trevino and others
ended up in the state legis-
lature — where he pushed
a bill that created Oregon’s
sanctuary law.
The
law
effectively
prevented local police and
sheriff’s deputies from
enforcing federal immigra-
tion law.
“The police actually really
liked this law,” said Rocky
Barilla, Trevino’s lawyer who
would later sponsor the bill
as a Democratic lawmaker in
the Oregon House.
Oregon’s law:
A model for others
Apart from law enforce-
ment agencies and immigra-
tion activists, Oregon’s sanc-
tuary law has been a quiet
part of the state’s history.
“It’s not a law that’s really
attracted that much attention,
really, until this year —
maybe these past couple of
months,” said Juliet Stumpf,
a professor of immigration
law at Lewis & Clark Law
School in Portland. “Right
now, there are lot of cities
and towns that are looking at
that law and modeling their
own local resolutions around
it.” Trump came into offi ce
vowing to secure the nation’s
borders and deport millions
of people who are in the
country illegally.
He’s given new authority
to federal immigration offi -
cers and vowed to increase
deportations. The admin-
(Molly J. Smith/Statesman-Journal via AP
Hundreds gather at an immigration rights rally in front of the Capitol on Sunday, Feb. 19, in Salem.
istration has also sought
greater cooperation between
federal immigration offi cers
and local law enforcement.
“For those that continue
to seek improper and illegal
entry into this country,
be forewarned: This is a
new era. This is the Trump
era,” Attorney General Jeff
Sessions said, with a smile,
this month while touring
federal immigration law.
Meanwhile, lawmakers in
Texas are weighing legis-
lation that would punish
cities and counties that don’t
cooperate with federal immi-
gration offi cials.
What’s needed, Morse
argues, is a uniform immi-
gration policy at the federal
level. If immigration reform
happens under the Trump
“To be honest, this was not
mean to be a sanctuary law. It
was meant to protect local city
resources from using them to
supplant federal spending.”
— Rocky Barilla,
lawyer behind lawsuit that spawned law
the United States-Mexico
border. “The lawlessness,
the abdication of the duty
to enforce our laws, and the
catch and release practices of
old are over.”
Rhetoric about immigra-
tion policies and reforms
during the 2016 presidential
campaign has translated into
more than 100 immigration
bills now under consider-
ation in legislatures across
the country, said Ann Morse,
program director of the
Immigrant Policy Project at
the National Conference of
State Legislatures.
She said that’s triple the
number introduced in state
legislatures last year.
While it’s a bit of a
moving target, Morse said
there are roughly 29 states
considering bills to prohibit
sanctuary policies, 15 with
legislation supporting protec-
tions for immigrants in the
country illegally, and 12 with
bills that would do both.
“What states are trying to
do is navigate that tension
between upholding the
national security issues
and also protecting public
safety,” she said.
The California Legis-
lature is debating a bill
similar to Oregon’s, which
would prohibit local police
and sheriffs from enforcing
administration,
liberal
leaning states like Oregon
and California may try and
fi ght it.
“A patchwork of policies
does no one any good,” she
said. “Eventually you have
to have something that’s
uniform for any resident of a
state to be treated equally as
a resident of any other state.”
A lawsuit becomes a law
Rocky Barilla was the
lawyer behind the lawsuit
that grew out of the Hi Ho
Restaurant incident, and later
the legislator behind the bill
that made Oregon a “sanc-
tuary state.”
“To be honest, this was
not meant to be a sanctuary
law,” he said. “It was meant
to protect local city resources
from using them to supplant
federal spending.”
In 1977, a man walked into
Barilla’s Salem law offi ce,
upset about the way he had
been treated by police. It was
Trevino, who said Polk County
Sheriff’s Offi ce harassed him
in Independence.
The class action lawsuit
Barilla ultimately fi led
claimed that over several
years, the Polk County Sher-
iff’s Offi ce and other law
enforcement agencies around
the state had “engaged
in a pattern and practice
Justice Dept threatens
sanctuary cities in
immigration fi ght
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration
intensifi ed its effort to crack down on so-called sanctuary
cities that refuse to comply with federal immigration
authorities, sending letters Friday to nine jurisdictions
threatening to withhold grant money unless they docu-
ment cooperation.
The letters went to offi cials in California and in
major cities including New York, Chicago, Philadelphia
and New Orleans, all places the Justice Department’s
inspector general has identifi ed as limiting the information
local law enforcement can provide to federal immigration
authorities about those in their custody.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has increasingly
warned the administration will punish communities that
refuse to cooperate with efforts to fi nd and deport immi-
grants in the country illegally.
In a statement Friday, the Justice Department said the
recipients of its letters are “crumbling under the weight of
illegal immigration and violent crime.”
The letters warn offi cials they must provide proof
from an attorney that they are following the law or risk
losing thousands of dollars in federal grant money that
police agencies use to fund anything from body cameras
to bulletproof vests.
“Failure to comply with this condition could result in
the withholding of grant funds, suspension or termina-
tion of the grant, ineligibility for future O.J.P. grants or
subgrants, or other action, as appropriate,” wrote Alan R.
Hanson, acting head of the Offi ce of Justice Programs,
which administers the grant program. It’s the leading
source of federal justice funding to state and local juris-
dictions.
Cities have resisted the Trump administration’s threats.
Seattle, not one of the places targeted with a letter, and
other jurisdictions have sued the Trump administration
over the sanctuary issue.
Earlier this week, Sessions accused sanctuary cities
of undermining law enforcement efforts to fi ght transna-
tional street gangs.
of stopping, detaining,
interrogating, searching and
harassing” people because
of the color of their skin
and because they were of
Mexican descent.
“Polk County sheriffs
every once in a while would
say, ‘Well, we haven’t got
anything going, let’s go raid
the Mexican part of town,’”
Barilla said.
The Immigration and
Naturalization
Service
“repeatedly
ordered,
instructed, permitted” Polk
County and other Oregon
law enforcement agencies
to take those actions, the
lawsuit alleged.
The lawsuit was later
dismissed, but not without
a statement by both parties
in which the federal govern-
ment clarifi ed its policy.
In the stipulation dated
July 17, 1978, the INS said
its policy is to not authorize
immigration arrests by local
law enforcement over the
phone. Rather, INS offi cers
must be present, the stipula-
tion stated.
Nearly a decade later, as
a Democrat in the Oregon
House of Representatives,
Efforts to repeal
sanctuary status
Oregon’s law enforce-
ment offi cers haven’t always
followed the law.
For example, the Mult-
nomah County Sheriff’s
Offi ce
is
investigating
whether a deputy violated
the law when he allegedly
facilitated an arrest by
Immigration and Customs
Enforcement agents at the
Justice Center in downtown
Portland.
State Republicans have
recently tried to abolish
Oregon’s sanctuary law.
Reps. Sal Esquivel,
of Medford, and Mike
Nearman, of Independence
— once home of the Hi
Ho Restaurant — backed a
ballot measure aimed at its
repeal. But in October 2016,
the Oregon Department of
Justice stopped the measure
from making it onto the
2018 ballot. The agency said
it was unclear what backers
were asking members of
the public to sign when
collecting signatures — part
of the state’s ballot measure
process.
Earlier this legislative
session, Esquivel introduced
a bill that would repeal the
law, but he said Democrats
“put it on ice and they won’t
allow a hearing on it.” In
February, Gov. Kate Brown
reiterated her support for
Oregon’s decision to become
a sanctuary state.
Esquivel’s father came
from Mexico on a work visa
in 1945.
“He was here a couple
of weeks and decided, ‘Ya
know, America’s a pretty
nice place, I’d like to be an
American,’” Esquivel said.
He said his father came
to the U.S. legally, “worked
very hard,” and became a
citizen in 1959.
“He was the icon of the
American dream,” Esquivel
said. “I’ll hold my hand out
to anybody who comes here
legally, I don’t care where
they’re from. But if they’re
not here legally then I don’t
do that, I don’t believe in that
because you break the law
to come to my country, then
that shows your disregard for
my country.”
Portland students get fi rst-hand look at possible wolf depredation
By KATY NESBITT
For EO Media Group
A trip to the Eastern
Oregon this spring gave two
Portland school kids a rare
glimpse into raising livestock
in the county where half of
the state’s wolf population
lives.
On April 7, their fi rst
full day of the 4-H Urban
Rural Exchange in Wallowa,
County, Sylvia Grosveld and
Abby Darr of Sunnyside
Environmental
School
accompanied their host to a
remote ranch on the upper
Imnaha River, well known
wolf country for almost 10
years. There they watched
as an Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife biologist
determined a calf had been
killed by the recently named
Harl Butte Pack.
Todd and Angie Nash
Katy Nesbitt/For the Capital Press
Sylvia Grosveld, far right, and Abby Darr, second from
right, are Sunnyside Environmental School Students
from Northeast Portland who traveled to Wallowa Coun-
ty on the 4-H Urban Rural Youth Exchange in early April.
live and ranch in Wallowa
County and have hosted
Sunnyside students six of
the last 10 years. In 2012
a student staying with the
Nashes helped mark the
ears of newborn calves and
wrote her name on one of
ear tags. In the fall that tag
helped identify a calf killed
by wolves.
Todd Nash manages the
Marr Flat Cattle Ranch and
has witnessed dozens of
investigations — both of his
own cattle and as the Oregon
Cattlemen’s
Association
wolf committee chair. When
he got word of the suspected
wolf kill on the Imnaha he
asked the girls if they wanted
to go on an investigation of
a dead cow and calf. They
agreed, but weren’t sure how
they would react.
“I thought I was going
to take a look and bolt,”
Grosveld said.
Neither
girl
bolted,
though Darr said she got a
little woozy. They watched
as Pat Matthews, ODFW’s
Enterprise
fi eld
offi ce
biologist, skinned the calf,
revealing bruising in what
little remained of its head,
front legs and rib cage.
Nash said he suspected
the mother cow had been run
to death so Matthews investi-
gated her carcass, as well.
Grosveld said it didn’t
appear wolves had fed on
the cow, but its head was
bloody and one eye socket
had a broken orb. She and
Darr watched as Matthews
skinned the cow and pulled
out her organs.
“When they rolled the
guts out, the girls got inquisi-
tive,” Nash said.
When the lungs and
windpipe were removed they
were half full of blood. Nash
said the organs were sent to
Washington State University
to determine if there was any
evidence to prove the cow
had died from being chased.
Even though the inves-
tigation was on a ranch an
hour outside Joseph, the
nearest town with cell phone
service and a gas station, the
cow and calf were found
dead only 250 yards from a
ranch house.
“I was surprised that a
wolf would attack that close
to houses and people.” Darr
said. “It’s different to see that
in person than to hear about
it.”
Before coming face to
face with a wolf attack,
Grosveld and Darr had only
an academic exposure to
wolves. Darr said the school
had a guest speaker who
told the students about how
wolves benefi t streambanks
by thinning out elk herds
that have over-browsed
shrubs and aspen. The effect
of wolves on livestock was
also discussed, but it seemed
abstract until the trip to the
Imnaha ranch.