Washington County District Attorney Kevin Barton says a disagreement with federal officials over Oregon’s Sanctuary Promise law is hindering his ability to get three Washington County criminal defendants — two of whom are accused of child molestation and the other of murder and kidnapping — extradited to the United States to stand trial.
Barton told The Oregonian/OregonLive that each of the defendants has been indicted by a grand jury and each is believed to be avoiding prosecution in another country.
“We’re not talking about theft or drunk driving here,” Barton said. “We’re talking about top-of-the-line cases. And that’s why this is such a big deal.”
In order to extradite the defendants back to Oregon, Barton said his office began a paperwork process that requires sending a request to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs. But Barton said officials from that office have told him they won’t proceed with those extradition requests unless he and the county sheriff sign an “assurance letter” promising they’ll give officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement advance notice if any of those defendants at any point after their extradition is about to be released from Washington County Jail.
That, Barton said, is a violation of Oregon’s updated sanctuary law, which was enacted in the 1980s but undergone revisions more recently. He said the law as written today clearly prohibits local officials from helping federal immigration officials from tracking down and arresting undocumented immigrants by providing information that’s not publicly available.
Barton said federal officials last September were willing to alter the language in an “assurance letter” so Washington County would only have to notify the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office — not immigration officials — with publicly available information. But Barton said the federal government is now no longer willing to do that.
State sanctuary laws are hotly debated at the federal level, as well as by some lawmakers in Oregon.
“What the feds are asking for does make sense,” Barton said. “They’re saying, ‘Look, if we bring a criminal back into the U.S. and your case either ends or falls apart or he gets released, let us know. Because we don’t want a criminal roaming around here. We want to deport him back to where he came from.’”
“So that makes sense,” Barton said. “It just runs against this problem with Oregon law, which is probably an unanticipated, unintended problem.”
Barton said his is not the only county where extradition requests have hit a standstill. He knows of one case each in Multnomah County and in Deschutes. Prosecutor Jeff Howes in Multnomah and Steve Gunnels in Deschutes confirmed they both have similarly situated cases to Washington County’s.
“It’s a statewide issue,” Barton said.
Kevin Sonoff, a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Oregon, which Barton reached out to for help, declined to comment for this story and referred The Oregonian/OregonLive to the Office of International Affairs in Washington, D.C. That office didn’t respond Friday to a request for comment.
Barton said that while the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Oregon has been receptive to his concerns, it’s the federal officials in Washington, D.C., who haven’t.
Barton’s letter says two of the three wanted defendants are believed to be in Mexico, but he clarified that not all of Oregon’s wanted defendants are suspected to be in that country.
“I don’t want to fan the flames of xenophobia or fear of foreigners or this unfounded claim that somehow immigrants commit more crimes,” Barton said.
“This is not an immigrant issue at all,” Barton added. “It’s a bureaucratic and political issue.”
Added Gunnels, the Deschutes County district attorney: “They (the defendants) could be in any nation with an extradition treaty with the United States.”
Barton said he’s reached out to Oregon’s U.S. congressional delegation for help. He said one other possible solution is a tweak to Oregon law by the state Legislature during its next session.
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