PORTLAND, OR – Speaking through plexiglass holes, strict 30-minute time limits and threats of trespassing — these are some of the conditions immigration lawyers in Oregon say they’ve faced while trying to provide legal representation to clients detained by federal immigration enforcement officials.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, immigration lawyers in Oregon say they’ve experienced inconsistent restrictions on their ability to talk to their clients in detention, according to virtual testimony given in U.S. District Court in Eugene on Thursday.
It’s becoming more common for immigration lawyers to discover their clients have been transferred or deported before they are actually able to give them any advice on their rights, Josephine Moberg told the court, a staff attorney at the CLEAR Clinic, a Portland-based legal nonprofit that provides free immigration counsel.
All people, regardless of immigration status, have a right to legal counsel under the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. States aren’t required to fund legal representation in immigration cases as they are in criminal proceedings.
In July, Moberg waited more than an hour in the lobby of the Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office to speak to a client, only to be told that her client was transported while she was waiting. Just last week, she attended a video call to advocate for a client who had been transferred to a Louisiana detention center. There, she learned her client had already signed paperwork agreeing on his deportation to Mexico.
Oregon immigrant advocates ask court for class action status in suit against feds
Like Moberg, Eugene-based immigration attorney Katrina Kilgren said that in June, she and other immigration attorneys were no longer allowed access inside the ICE’s field office in Eugene. They were told to wait outside or risk trespassing.
“They’ve curtailed my abilities largely to represent people before ICE,” Kilgren said. “There have been very limited circumstances in the last year that I’ve been allowed into at least the waiting room and have been able to advocate on somebody’s behalf.”
Most of her clients have zero criminal history — not even traffic tickets, she said.
The CLEAR Clinic filed the lawsuit with Oregon’s largest Latino labor union, the Woodburn-based Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste. The suit also lists 32-year-old Leon X, an anonymous Oregon resident who received temporary protection from deportation under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and is now representing people who have been detained by ICE or are at risk of detention.
The suit, filed in October, names the Department of Homeland Security, ICE and the ICE field office in Seattle, as well as the leaders of each agency.
ICE field offices have limited space and amenities, defendants argue
Oregon has three ICE field offices located in Portland, Eugene and Medford. The offices have limited space and no amenities such as a kitchen, beds and showers, except for the Portland office which has one shower, according to court documents. Because of this, the defendants argue they can only hold people in Oregon’s field offices for 12 hours before transferring them to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma — the nearest immigration detention facility.
Federal immigration agencies argued they’re not systematically denying access to counsel, and that they only deny attorneys access to their clients if they present incomplete documents, if there’s security risks, if there’s ongoing processing such as fingerprinting or interviews or if a person refuses to meet with an attorney.
The attorney defending the federal government, Michael Velchick, told the court that ICE agents are providing a public service to society by detaining people, calling it a difficult task in the state of Oregon.
“(Oregon) decided to be a sanctuary state, even written into land use restrictions limits on how the federal government can operate their buildings,” he said. “Personnel are subject to constant attacks, physical violence, boxing and car ramming.”
At the same time, public officials in Oregon have expressed concern about ICE using excessive force on civilians. ICE agents have been recorded breaking open a man’s car window after dropping his child off at school, pepper-spraying the vent attached to a peaceful Portland protester’s inflatable frog costume and pushing into a Gresham apartment pointing rifles at a family in a bedroom, including a 24-year-old mother and her 3-month-old child.
The increase in detentions in Oregon is a result of federal immigration officers tasked with detention quotas, said Tess Hellgren, the director of legal advocacy at Innovation Law Lab — the law firm representing the plaintiffs.
More than 1,100 individuals in Oregon have been detained by ICE this year, according to the Innovation Law Lab. Many of those detained in Oregon are pressured into waiving their rights, she said.
The plaintiffs are asking Senior U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken to require that immigration officials give people detained access to their counsel. Aiken said she would file an opinion as soon as possible. She did not offer a date.
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