Limited detention and transportation capacity have likely helped keep Oregon's immigration detention rate among the nation's lowest. But ICE may be trying to change that. by Abe Asher The beginning of 2026 has seen another surge of violence from immigration enforcement officers—including in Portland, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers shot two people in East Portland on January 8.  In response to that shooting, which came just a day after an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, Mayor Keith Wilson called on ICE to suspend operations in the city until the shootings have been fully investigated.  In the meantime, however, activists and allied state officials are continuing a battle to limit ICE’s ability to operate in the state wherever they can—an effort that has focused, in recent months, on ICE’s physical infrastructure in the state.  Oregon, for now, remains one of the few states in the country where ICE does not currently operate an immigrant detention center, a facility at which ICE detainees can typically be held for a longer duration of time than is currently allowed at ICE field offices like the ones in Portland and Eugene. ICE also lacks contracts that allow the agency to legally hold detainees at local jails, which means Oregon residents detained by ICE officers, once they are processed, are typically sent to the detention center located in Tacoma, Washington. But as ICE detentions have increased over the first year of the Trump administration, the Tacoma detention center has filled to capacity—prompting questions about the conditions at the facility and raising logistical hurdles for ICE operations in the Northwest.  “ICE’s capacity in Oregon is limited—and even though things are horrible here, they would be a lot worse if there was ICE detention in Oregon,” Natalie Lerner, spokesperson for the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC) said. “They just ultimately can’t detain more people than they can logistically manage within the Portland or Eugene ICE offices over the course of one day.” The numbers seem to back up Lerner’s assertion: Oregon’s ICE detention rate between May and October of last year was the 10th-lowest in the country, with just 13.2 detentions per 100,000 residents. Of the states with lower detention rates, just one has a larger population than Oregon.  Oregon also had the fourth-lowest detention rate during that timespan for detentions made at jails and other lock-ups, likely a result in part of the state’s longtime sanctuary law prohibiting local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.    Given ICE’s relatively limited infrastructure in Oregon, a possible federal plan to build the state’s first immigrant detention center on the site of the municipal airport in Newport has emerged as one of the key battlegrounds in the state’s struggle against the agency. The Department of Homeland Security has not officially announced any plan to build a detention center in the coastal city, but clues as to the government’s intent have been piling up.   In late November, a federal contractor representing ICE told Oregon officials they were preparing an analysis of a project that would have significant environmental ramifications for the city of Newport. That news came as Newport officials and residents began spotting job postings for detention officers in the area and as a Coast Guard rescue helicopter that had long been stationed at the Newport Municipal Air facility was, without warning, relocated to a station in North Bend. The relocation of the helicopter quickly prompted a lawsuit from both local fishermen and the state of Oregon, and the helicopter was temporarily ordered back to Newport at the end of November.  The relocation also caught the attention of Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, who, along with Reps. Suzanne Bonamici and Val Hoyle, wrote to Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to demand an explanation of her agency’s maneuvering in Newport.  “Reassigning Coast Guard assets or establishing ICE facilities in Newport would be deeply misguided and should not move forward without full transparency and consultation with local officials,” the lawmakers wrote.  That letter did not receive a response, but in December, as part of its lawsuit, the Oregon Department of Justice asked a federal judge to block the construction of an ICE detention center in the city—arguing that ICE has failed to comply with state law by not publishing an environmental impact statement or seeking an analysis on whether such a facility would be compatible with local land use laws. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment on this story.  In Newport, opposition to the potential ICE facility has been vociferous. Residents packed two public meetings in November to voice their opposition to the potential project, and the city of Newport filed its own lawsuit against the Trump administration to stop any construction just prior to the Christmas holiday.  According to the most current version of the state’s lawsuit, ICE has told potential contractors that it would plan to hold most detainees at the facility for less than 72 hours to avoid having to meet expanded standards of services and care. The lawsuit alleges, however, that ICE has also said “stays may exceed the 72-hour threshold” in violation of its own standards.   The stakes for the city of Newport, one of the coast’s biggest, are substantial: Newport is home to immigrant communities from Guatemala and Mexico, who could be targeted if a detention center is located in such close proximity.  But the construction of such a facility in Newport could have ramifications for the entire state, including the Portland area. Currently, ICE’s land use agreement with the city of Portland only allows ICE to hold people at the agency’s facility on South Macadam Avenue for up to 12 hours—logistically limiting how many people ICE can detain in the state and how long they can be held.  Lerner said her organization is aware of cases in which people have been held at the facility for more than 12 hours, but said that, generally, people are detained and transferred to Tacoma or other out-of-state facilities on the same day. A new detention center in Newport could change that, adding detention capacity and serving more broadly as an operations hub.  “That infrastructure would definitely allow them to ramp up the rate of detention in Oregon,” Lerner said of a potential Newport facility. “The less detention capacity they can have here, the better—but also the less transportation capacity they can have, as well, is really critical.” Activists in Oregon have long been fighting ICE in regards to its operation infrastructure, a fight that has also recently extended to the Department of Homeland Security’s partnerships with county jails. During the first Trump administration, that strategy helped lead to the termination of a contract between ICE and the Northern Oregon Regional Correctional Facility (NORCOR) in The Dalles—the final jail in the state to hold ICE detainees.  Opposition to the Newport facility tracks with a broader strategy of limiting where ICE can hold detainees in the state and limiting how long those detainees can be held.  Those limitations on ICE, however, have not fully stopped an increase in activity in the state or region. ICE has responded to crowding at the Tacoma facility by transferring Oregonians to detention centers as far away as Texas and Louisiana, making it exponentially harder for them to receive legal support and stay connected to their families.  Lerner said that, late last year, she got a call out of the blue from a woman who had been detained and transferred to an ICE facility in Louisiana—a state that is home to nine immigrant detention centers in the country, the majority of which are run by for-profit companies.   “She’s just desperate for a lawyer, and I think that’s the case across the country,” Lerner said. “It’s the case in Tacoma, too, but I think there is just a much better system in the Northwest for representing people and representing Oregonians, and that is much harder in a place [like] Louisiana.”  Nevertheless, the practice of transferring people still comes with costs, both logistical and monetary, that ICE has to bear because of their relatively limited capacity in the state. Activists are intent on keeping it that way. “We just can’t let ICE get a bigger foothold here than they already have,” Lerner said.  ...read more read less