On September 30, 2026, a judge in the District of Oregon denied our motion for a preliminary injunction and motion for class certification in CLEAR Clinic et. al. v. Noem. Both motions had been pending for over ten months. While the court did not grant the requested relief, the case showed the many ways that ICE is blocking people’s access to due process. Documenting ICE’s disregard for the fundamental right to an attorney is a win that we can build on.
We filed the CLEAR Clinic case with organizational plaintiffs CLEAR Clinic and Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN), and an individual plaintiff who proceeded in the case as Leon X, at the height of ICE’s 2025 invasion of Oregon. During this surge, known as Operation Black Rose, federal agents detained over a thousand Oregonians as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to effectuate the largest deportation program in history. To achieve this goal, agents made a practice of denying people subject to immigration arrest access to counsel, and attempted to move people out of the state of Oregon (and away from their lawyers) very quickly. In practical terms, this meant that officers routinely refused to allow attorneys, including attorneys from CLEAR Clinic, to meet with people held at the Eugene and Portland ICE offices after immigration raids and warrantless arrests. When officers did allow attorney meetings, they often cut them short after only a few minutes; in some cases, attorneys were not even let past the lobby of the Eugene field office despite having representational agreements with clients held there.
Why does access to an attorney soon after arrest matter? As part of the Trump Administration’s xenophobic and racist campaign to deport as many immigrants as possible, regardless of the law and the Constitution, ICE agents are routinely pressuring the people they arrest to waive their rights and agree to deportation. Even US citizens have given into the pressure and signed for removal. ICE often engages in retaliatory transfers of immigrants from local detention centers to remote holding facilities in less favorable jurisdictions where attorney access is even more limited. Moreover, agents interview arrested persons to elicit information relevant to the decision to detain or release them, and that may be relevant to their immigration proceedings. Due process and federal law require access to counsel under such circumstances. But for ICE, due process and attorneys are merely barriers to achieving their arrest and deportation quotas. When people have access to legal representation, they can assert their constitutional rights and fight their unlawful arrest. As another case in this District has recognized, for every person who has been “fortunate enough to find counsel at the eleventh hour” in spite of the barriers ICE’s places to accessing counsel, “countless more people . . . have been rounded up, . . . remain in detention, or have [been] “voluntarily” deported” because of ICE’s unlawful detention campaign.
While this case did not result in the relief sought, we are extremely proud of the extensive evidence surfaced, both in writing and during two evidentiary hearings, regarding ICE’s interference with Oregonians’ access to counsel. Now that ICE has begun yet another attack on Oregon and other sanctuary states around the country, early access to an attorney is more crucial than ever.
All of the plaintiffs continue to work for justice. CLEAR Clinic continues to provide zealous representation for detained immigrants, including through the filing of habeas corpus petitions and in representation before the detained immigration court in Tacoma, Washington. PCUN ensures that its members both know their rights and are prepared to use them in any ICE interaction, especially when access to an attorney may be delayed by several days or longer. Leon X continues to be a brave Oregonian, who shows up everyday for his community, even when it's hard and even when he is scared. And we will continue to advocate for more just outcomes through federal litigation, individual representation, and advocacy for the state’s universal representation program, Equity Corps of Oregon, and state-level policies to defend all Oregonians.
