The city of Newport is suing the Trump administration in a bid to stop federal officials from building a new immigration detention facility there.
The lawsuit asks a judge in the U.S. District Court of Oregon to block federal officials from their ostensible efforts, which include a number of furtive inquiries in and around the community about leasing land, renting blocks of hotel rooms and handling thousands of gallons of sewage.
Newport’s attorneys argue the city isn’t equipped to handle scores of federal personnel, plus however many detainees they may hope to lodge, and that its tourism-centric economy would take a dive.
The surge in federal activity would take hotel rooms off the market for tourists, hurting sales at restaurants and its major aquarium and cutting into room-and-board taxes, attorneys said. They noted that governments pay reduced room rates.
“They’re operating in secrecy, and it’s going to have significant impacts on the city’s tourism,” Keith Ketterling, of Portland firm Stoll Berne, told OPB. Stoll Berne is representing Newport in court.
The lawsuit named as defendants the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard.
Federal officials did not immediately respond to OPB’s inquiries. The Trump administration has not publicly provided details about any potential plans in Newport.
The lawsuit came the same day that U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken issued a preliminary injunction, blocking any effort by the federal government to relocate a U.S. Coast Guard rescue helicopter, a move described by Newport’s attorneys as “clearing out” the property where a detention facility would stand. Attorneys for the Coast Guard argued recently that relocating the helicopter was temporary.
Separately, the state of Oregon last week asked a federal judge to block the detention facility efforts. The state’s lawsuit against the Trump administration’s activities in Newport was first filed Nov. 24.
Still, details remain scarce about the federal government’s specific plans.
Newport’s lawsuit Monday reiterated previously reported information: that Homeland Security officials have been eying the city’s small airport and port for a land lease, and that a number of local businesses have suddenly been receiving phone calls from federal contractors.
“Federal contractors began inundating local businesses, including hotels, a catering company, and utility entities, with inquiries about providing services for a facility containing over 200 people,” Newport’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges the airport is too small to suddenly stage a detention facility and that the roads are too narrow and flood-prone. It also argues the city has bigger needs for the airport and Coast Guard helicopter: search and rescue missions for the fishing industry.
This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
