Oregon police have seen a 265% increase in federal officials asking for help with immigration enforcement, according to a state report released in July. Calls to the state’s “Sanctuary Promise Violations Hotline” have risen even more.
Since the current version of the Oregon Sanctuary Act passed in 2021, any member of the public can sue if they believe local law enforcement, or a local government, has wrongfully helped immigration authorities. Only one coalition, The Rural Organizing Project, has done so successfully, winning a suit against Cottage Grove last year.
The group most recently has collaborated with Innovation Law Lab to compile sanctuary policies from counties across the state, and has offered guidance to local community groups looking to ensure their sheriff or police department is following sanctuary law.
KLCC’s Rebecca Hansen-White spoke with Rural Organizing Senior Organizer Sidra Pierson about the groups' efforts.
Hansen-White: Can you tell us a little bit about the rural Organizing Project's history with the Organ Sanctuary Promise Act?
Pierson: Oregon was actually the first state to pass any sort of sanctuary law back in 1987. Despite original Oregon sanctuary laws, there was continued engagement between law enforcement cooperating and even assisting in immigration detention. Our member groups, human dignity groups across the state, started reporting those instances, having conversations with local law enforcement to understand exactly how those violations were happening. Because, they knew that when our local police are collaborating with agents, then immigrants in our communities are too afraid to report a crime, or call the police for help or safety when they need it. Then, local law enforcement dollars are being used to support this huge multi-billion-dollar federal agency instead of being used towards local needs. With that in mind, [community groups] had meetings, figured out where the law was being violated, and then ROP worked with other allied organizations to pass new legislation to basically shore up and strengthen existing sanctuary laws.
Hansen-White: To my knowledge, ROP and the groups it partnered with have had the only successful lawsuit to enforce the Organ Sanctuary Promise Act. Can you tell me a little bit about that process and how it came about?
Pierson: Yeah, definitely. The way community members went about this is they sat down, and the first thing that they decided they wanted to do was actually just have a sit-down meeting with the [Cottage Grove] police chief and basically see whether he was aware of sanctuary law and the ways in which their current practices were violating it.
Over the course of a couple of months, it became apparent that there wasn't any interest to change practices and policies to be in line with sanctuary law, even once it was made very clear to them that their practices were in violation. At that point, that's when we teamed up with [Community Alliance of Lane County] and Oregon Law Center to actually sue the city and the police department because we knew that they were in violation of the law, and it was a chance to test the credibility and the teeth of this new law, because there had been no other lawsuit until that point. So we figured both, let's stop these acts that are making community members in Cottage Grove significantly less safe, and let's also hopefully send a message to the rest of the state that this law has teeth.
Hansen-White: Let's say you see a potential violation of the Sanctuary Promise Act, and you call the state hotline to report it, is that enough? What should you be doing next?
Pierson: There's a lot that we can do as individual community members who who care, and want to make sure everyone is safe, or at least mitigate the harm of ICE. So, I would say yes, calling the hotline is just the first step, and then it's getting together, having a group meeting, saying, does local law enforcement know about sanctuary law?
If not, who's best positioned to have that conversation? From there, you'll start to gain a lot of information about the knowledge and disposition of local law enforcement and what the best approach would be.
The Rural Organizing Project is across the state. We're really happy to have those conversations and support folks if they're trying to navigate what that looks like locally.
Every local context is different, so I would just really encourage folks to reach out to us if they're wanting support [in] making their local plan.”
Hansen-White: When you think about best practices around the Organ Sanctuary Promise Act, is there anything that you would say, if you do anything, this is what you should be doing?
Pierson: Yeah, great question. The first would be to follow the leadership of any immigrant-led Latino organizations that are already existing locally. I'd say the second best practice that comes to mind is to always do this as part of a group. ROP has been doing this for a long time, and we found that organizing and making change in your community is not only more sustainable and effective when you're in a group, but it's a whole lot more fun and just so important to be doing it in community and instead of feeling really isolated.
