On January 3, 2026, Geraldo Luna Campos—a fifty-five-year-old father of four—was killed by guards at the largest immigration detention facility in the country, Camp East Montana in Texas. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) has since tried to deport the witnesses to the homicide, and the Trump Administration has publicly lied about the cause of death, refusing to take any accountability. The horrors of immigration detention are immense and increasingly lethal. At least three people, including Mr. Campos, lost their life in ICE custody at the massive Camp East Montana tent facility on the Fort Bliss army base in a period of just more than one month. Large-scale facilities on military bases like Camp East Montana are part of the Department of Homeland Security’s (“DHS”) new model for massive, cruel, and lawless immigration detention. And DHS wants to build the same thing here in Oregon.

The Trump Administration now has the funding to further expand detention capacity, with the American Immigration Council estimating that DHS could eventually detain up to 135,000 people at any given moment—a scale greater than three times the detention capacity when the Trump Administration took office and than the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II. There are now more detention centers than ever before, with plans for even more—at military sites, at mega facilities like Dilley, and at state and local jails that contract with ICE. 

While the state of Oregon remains one of the few states that does not have a single overnight immigration detention center, there have been credible reports that the DHS is trying to change that. Oregon has long been a sanctuary state free from overnight immigration detention—in no small part due to the state’s laws and community organizing—and it needs to stay that way. 

How Oregonians have kept ICE detention out of Oregon 

Oregonians have a significant history of sanctuary and successfully mobilizing against immigration detention. 

1987: Oregon passes its first sanctuary law 

• The Oregon legislature first passed a sanctuary law (HB 2314) nearly four decades ago in 1987 prohibiting the use of state and local law enforcement resources where a “person’s only violation of the law” is that they were in violation of federal immigration laws. The law was introduced by Oregon legislator Rocky Barilla following high-profile detentions of Oregonians based on the color of their skin. It passed with nearly unanimous, bipartisan support to stop unfair racial profiling of Oregonians. 

2017: ICE begins detaining people at the Northern Regional Correctional (“NORCOR”) Facility 

• In 2017, when the Northern Oregon Regional Correction Facility in The Dalles started detaining individuals for the purposes of federal immigration detention in apparent violation of Oregon’s 1987 sanctuary law, Innovation Law Lab and the Oregon Law Center filed suit on behalf of four individuals detained there. 

2018: Voters reaffirm sanctuary on the statewide ballot & organize to stop immigration detention at a federal prison

• In 2018, Oregonians overwhelmingly voted to keep Oregon’s Sanctuary law on the books, maintaining the limitations on state and local cooperation with ICE. 

• Also in 2018, when the Trump Administration unlawfully detained more than 120 asylum seekers at a federal prison in rural Oregon, the community fought back to demand justice and an end to ripping families apart. Oregonians came together in the courts, on the streets, and in the headlines, and did not stop until every last asylum seeker was freed from Sheridan prison.  

2020: ICE detention ends at NORCOR after years of legal battles 

• In August of 2020, after years of persistent community organizing and legal battles, NORCOR terminated its contract with ICE.

2021: Oregon strengthens its sanctuary laws through the Sanctuary Promise Act

• And in 2021, the legislature passed the Sanctuary Promise Act (HB 3265) to strengthen Oregon’s sanctuary laws, including an explicit provision prohibiting state and local agreements, whether formal or informal with the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) for immigration detention, now unambiguously prohibiting what happened at NORCOR from recurring. 

  The effect of Oregon’s Sanctuary laws has been to keep ICE overnight detention out of Oregon. When DHS has tried to detain people in Oregon by using federally owned facilities that do not require the cooperation of, or contracts with, the state, as was the case at Sheridan, the community has rallied to stop it. 

2026: No site for overnight immigration detention 

• Today there is no site for federal immigration detention in Oregon. There are three field offices with hold rooms in Oregon—at Macadam, Eugene, and Medford—but none can lawfully hold detained individuals for longer than twelve hours. But this hasn’t stopped the Trump Administration from targeting Oregonians for immigration enforcement. Instead, the Trump Administration has drastically ramped up immigration enforcement in Oregon – and turned to increasingly violent tactics as it has in other blue states across the country, including Illinois and Minnesota. 

  We're fighting back, including by challenging DHS’s widespread and unlawful policy and practice of arresting immigrant Oregonians without a warrant and without reason and denying them access to counsel before they are swiftly transferred to out-of-state detention facilities far away from their attorneys and communities. 

What we know about ICE’s overnight detention plans in Oregon 

As early as February 2025, The New York Times reported that the Trump Administration was considering expanding immigration detention to military sites, including in Oregon—with the massive and abusive Camp East Montana tent camp in Texas serving as a model. 

Beginning in the fall of 2025, state and local news outlets reported that DHS was looking into locations across the Oregon coast, where there are several U.S. Coast Guard facilities. The U.S. Coast Guard—which operates under DHS under times of peace—has several federally owned sites across Oregon: the Air Facility at the Newport Municipal Airport, Air Station Astoria in Warrenton, Air Station North Bend in North Bend, and the U.S. Coast Guard Station Portland in Portland.     

Concerns about possible ICE detention in Oregon came to a head when a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter housed at the Newport Municipal Airport in Newport—“that for decades stood ready to rescue imperiled crabbers and fishermen”—was moved to North Bend. It was no coincidence that the helicopter was moved around the same time as contractors started inquiring with the city of Newport about leasing space in Newport for the possibility of federal detention operations beginning as early as December 1, 2025. 

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Following the filing of legal challenges by the Newport Fishermen’s Wives, Lincoln County, and the State of Oregon, Federal District Court Judge Anne Aiken issued a temporary restraining order ordering the return of the U.S. Coast Guard helicopter back to the Newport Air Facility. The leasing inquiry was also dropped, but concerns remain about the use of federally owned U.S. Coast Guard property for the purposes of federal immigration detention.

At a November 12 emergency city council meeting in Newport, over 800 people attended and every single Newport city councilor spoke out against ICE detention in their city. So too did Newport Mayor Jan Kaplan, as well several members of Oregon’s congressional delegation in letters to DHS and ICE leadership. In a November 12 letter, four members of Oregon’s congressional delegation requested information and stated: “establishing ICE facilities in Newport [Oregon] would be deeply misguided and should not move forward without full transparency and consultation with local officials.” In a December 16 letter, seven members of the Oregon congressional delegation sent a letter to DHS Secretary Noem and Acting Director of ICE Todd Lyons “request[ing] a full and detailed description of any plans to open or expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facilities in Oregon” and “strongly and unequivocally reject[ing] the need for any new detention capacity.” 

ICE detention in this country is already dangerous, and detention along Oregon’s coast in a city like Newport comes with an additional set of hazards. U.S. Representative Val Hoyle has underscored this point: “Hard-sided and soft-sided tents with those conditions off the coast, with incredibly strong winds in a tsunami zone, with the kind of cold and weather that we have is insane. . . . But with this administration, it appears the cruelty is the point.”  

Litigation is ongoing in two now-consolidated lawsuits challenging the possible construction of a detention facility on U.S. Coast Guard property at or near the Newport Municipal Airport on the grounds that ICE has failed to follow the procedures and processes required under federal law, including environmental laws. 

Innovation Law Lab has also submitted public records requests under the Freedom of Information Act to ICE, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to uncover further information about ICE’s plans for immigration detention anywhere in Oregon and whether it is following the law. We will share what we know with the public as soon as we know it. 

The message is clear: Oregonians will continue to mobilize to keep ICE detention out of Oregon.