Search Articles
(CN) — The City of Newport, Oregon, on Monday sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to stop it from building an immigration detention and deportation facility at the coastal town’s small, municipal airport.
The fishing, tourism and marine research hub of just 10,000 residents said in its complaint filed in federal court in Eugene that the federal government has decided to construct a massive facility for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees without seeking public input and without regard for the limited local infrastructure and natural environment.
“Notwithstanding the significant impacts of their plans for Newport, defendants have kept their decision-making process and actions from public view,” the city says in its complaint. “They have acted rapidly to implement this decision, without regard for the law or statutorily required procedures, and without consideration of the effects a detention facility will have on Newport’s environment, public infrastructure, or community.”
The U.S. Coast Guard makes use of a 3.5-acre property at the city’s airport where it has kept a rescue helicopter in case fishing boats run into problems offshore, in particular during the lucrative but dangerous Dungeness crab fishing season in the winter.
However, according to the city, ICE has selected this so-called AIRFAC Newport property to convert it into a detention facility, “using Newport’s Airport and Port access to make Newport a remote black site for detention, processing, and rapid deportation.”
In October the Coast Guard began removing the rescue helicopter operations from AIRFAC Newport and clearing out its equipment from the property, Newport claims.
At the same time, according to the complaint, federal contractors began inundating local businesses, including hotels, a catering company, and utility entities, with inquiries about providing services for a facility containing over 200 people, and a major federal contractor began posting job openings seeking people with “DHS or ICE detention center experience.”
Moreover, the city says, federal contractors have been inquiring about leasing additional space at the airport as well as about water, trash, sewage and food services for the planned facility.
“Defendants’ decision to convert AIRFAC Newport into an ICE detention facility and house up to 200 detainees at any given time will significantly increase wastewater, trash, transportation, and traffic at the site,” the city argues. “Those impacts will have a reasonably foreseeable effect on coastal uses, including recreational activities, fishing, and floodplain management.”
“First, accusing ICE of setting up a black site is a disgusting, unhinged smear, and is part of the demonizing rhetoric from sanctuary politicians that has directly led to a more than 1150% increase in assault against ICE officers this year," a Homeland Security spokesperson said in response to the lawsuit.
“The Department of Homeland Security reserves the right to use its own property to support its own operations in the mission given to it by the American people to uphold the laws they passed through Congress. No lawsuit is going to stop us from fulfilling that mission.”
Newport claims, among other causes of action, that the government is violating the Administrative Procedures Act, which controls how federal agencies make and issue decisions, by enacting a plan to build the immigration facility that is in violation of the Coastal Zone Management Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
The city is seeking a court order to prevent construction of the detention facility.
Newport is represented by attorneys from Stoll Stoll Berne Lokting & Shlachter in Portland, Oregon.
Follow @edpetterssonSubscribe to our free newsletters
Our weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.