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A Portland immigration law firm filed a lawsuit Wednesday in an attempt to force three federal agencies to cough up any plans to build overnight detention centers in Oregon.
Innovation Law Lab filed expedited Freedom of Information Act requests with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seeking all of their records on such plans. ICE and FWS denied the expedited requests; the Coast Guard has not responded.
The firm now says the agencies have violated FOIA, and are asking a federal court to mandate that the agencies comply with the expedited requests and release their records.
“The public has a right to know what ICE has been planning,” says Rachel Landry, a staff lawyer at the Law Lab.
The lawsuit comes after murmurs last year that federal officials were secretly planning to build overnight detention centers in Oregon. It is one of just a handful of states where ICE does not operate a long-term detention facility.
Those arrested and detained by ICE locally are sometimes held at ICE’s field office on the South Waterfront—which has been the scene of frequent clashes between protesters and local and federal law enforcement—before being moved to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Wash. But in November, news outlets throughout the state reported that ICE was trying to construct overnight detention centers near the Newport and Portland airports, as well as a tent-style camp in Lakeside, Coos County.
Innovation Law Lab alleges in its lawsuit that ICE has repeatedly been less than transparent in its attempts to ramp up detention centers, especially by soliciting contracts directly from pre-vetted vendors rather than posting on the government’s contracting website.
Landry tells WW that the Law Lab suspects the FOIA requests may uncover such private contract solicitations between ICE and pre-vetted contractors. “We certainly would not be surprised to learn of more [plans] through the lawsuit,” she says.
The firm is also seeking records from FWS and the Coast Guard to get the “broadest picture possible,” Landry says. For example, communications between ICE and FWS about actions that might affect endangered species’ habitats could offer more details about a specific project.
The city of Newport filed a lawsuit to stop the plans—a gambit which appears to have been successful for now—and the Portland International Airport facility appears to be off the table. The state of the Coos County plans are unknown.
Publicly, ICE has denied it is bringing long-term detention facilities to Oregon. “ICE is not currently planning to expand current detention facilities or open any new long- or short-term detention facilities in Oregon,” read a March letter from then-ICE acting director Todd Lyons to U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas (D-Ore.) An ICE spokesperson in May told WW the agency had no new detention centers to announce at the time. In response to a Thursday inquiry from WW, ICE did not respond to questions about new detention centers.
Yet in March and May, the lawsuit alleges, ICE solicited contracts for employees in Oregon via sam.gov. “In Oregon, ICE solicited for office space for two employees in Portland…and one employee in Roseburg…for the performance period of June 1, 2027, to May 31, 2028,” the lawsuit states.
Representatives for ICE and the Coast Guard declined to comment on ongoing litigation. and FWS did not immediately respond to WW’s requests for comment.
Innovation Law Lab has successfully sued ICE in the past. In February, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction restricting immigration officers from conducting warrantless arrests in a suit brought by the firm.
