According to immigration advocates, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is detaining immigrants and blocking attorneys from contacting their clients at their Eugene office.
Lawyers with Equity Corps of Oregon, a program that provides legal services to immigrant Oregonians, say that people are being called in for routine “check-ins” at the Eugene office. They say that when immigrants arrive at the office, ICE is stopping their lawyers from entering with them.
“This week, there have been people there from Medford, Woodburn, Bend, further rural communities, and they've been suddenly told to come to Eugene,” said Katrina Kilgren, an immigration lawyer. “And for some of those individuals, they've come to Eugene then just to be taken into detention facilities.”
In one instance, a lawyer tried entering the office with their client. After security barred them from entering, they waited in their car until their client was released.
Federal law requires Immigration and Customs Enforcement to provide detainees with confidential access to their attorneys. Attorneys at Equity Corps say that ICE is violating this law by denying their clients due process.
Kilgren notes that these are not one-off instances.
“We are hearing from individuals both kind of during their moments there before they lose access to their cell phones from within the federal building,” said Kilgren. “And we're also hearing from attorneys about experiences with their clients.”
Along with denying legal counsel, advocates say detainees are not being provided the proper interpretation services.
“We are also seeing denial of language access that people aren't being communicated with in their preferred language, and that they're being kind of rushed through a process that they may not then understand fully,” said Kilgren.
In an email to KLCC, a spokesperson for ICE wrote that the agency does not comment on specific daily operations.
Joel Iboa, a community member of Oregon for All Coalition, added that advocates are going to continue to raise awareness and document these violations.
“These immigrants are Oregonians, and they deserve to be treated with fairness, with dignity, with respect and deserve due process,” said Iboa.
On Wednesday evening, hundreds gathered and marched in downtown Eugene to protest recent ICE raids throughout the country and in solidarity with Los Angeles protestors.
