NEWPORT — Instead of discouraging involvement in immigration arrests, a new policy for county workers offers a road map to resisting armed federal immigration officers.

The four-page order, adopted Oct. 1 by the board of county commissioners, covers elected officials, department chiefs, all employees regular or part-time and volunteer commissioners. Titled, “Employee Policy on Immigration Enforcement Authorities Encounters,” the four-page edict follows the unconfirmed report of an interjection by a camera-toting county employee during an ICE enforcement action in the Seal Rock area.

Oregon became a “sanctuary state” in 1987, the first to pass a statewide law banning police from helping federal authorities with immigration enforcement.  The law was updated in 2021 with the Sanctuary Promise Act (HB 3265) that orders state and local governments to deny requests of Immigration & Customs Enforcement police without a “judicial” order.

The new policy is a step-by-step guide to blocking access to information, records or county buildings by immigration authorities armed with ICE warrants instead of court-issued documents. It directs employees to ask federal police for their ID, purpose and copies of any warrants or subpoenas to ascertain their validity. If that sounds like a lot of work for a stressed-out entry-level clerk or road worker, there’s more:

Employees are instructed to know the tricky differences between judicial and administrative orders, checking for unauthorized signatures, expired dates and other details that could render the document invalid in the eyes of Lincoln County. Workers are further told to treat ICE police as they would any member of the general public, holding them at arm’s length until a supervisor is summoned.

“I think this answers the question, ‘do you intervene or stand by?’, remarked County Commissioner Casey Miller, who recently attended a workshop on “navigating interactions with authority figures” sponsored by Oregon Coast Community College. “I saw it (the policy) as knowing what to do if a bunch of trucks pull up and you’ve got guys in fatigues standing in your lobby.”

The quarrel between “sanctuary” jurisdictions and federal officials intensified after the recent release of violent felons into local communities by counties that ignored ICE detainers. Just two days after commissioners unanimously approved the anti-ICE rule, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon and the Department of Justice’s Civil Division filed a petition in U.S. District Court to enforce administrative subpoenas that Lincoln County workers have been told to reject.

“It’s alarming that Oregon counties released 10 of the worst criminal aliens — offenders of rape, assault and child exploitation — under sanctuary policies instead of honoring ICE detainers,” declared acting ICE Special Agent in Charge April Miller. “This endangers public safety, wastes resources and forces ICE to track these individuals at large, putting communities at risk.”

County commissioners Miller, Claire Hall and Walter Chuck voted 3-0 for the policy on immigration encounters.