The landlord of the South Portland building that houses the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility has asked for an administrative review of a land use violation notice issued by the city last month.
Attorneys for developer Stuart Lindquist, who owns the South Macadam Avenue property that’s been a flashpoint between protesters and federal law enforcement over President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, made the request Oct. 3, according to a memo obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
The move effectively pauses any potential enforcement action that the city could issue against the building, including fines, Deputy City Administrator Donnie Oliveira wrote last week to members of the Portland City Council.
The property owner has until Friday to submit information that it wants the city to assess, Oliveira said. Portland’s permitting office will then issue an administrative review decision.
There is no code-required timeline for that decision, according to the memo. Nor does the process require public notification. Administrative review meetings are not open to the public, Oliveira said.
Neither Lindquist nor an ICE spokesperson responded to a request for comment Tuesday night.
Last month, city officials said that U.S. immigration officials had held detainees longer than 12 hours or overnight in their South Portland facility, a violation of its conditional land use approval that could put the facility on track to be closed.
The city analyzed data that was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the Deportation Data Project, an organization that obtains and publishes datasets about immigration enforcement.
That analysis revealed that detainees were held at the facility in excess of 12 hours or overnight 25 times between Oct. 1, 2024, and July 27, 2025, the city said last month. The most recent instance was May 20, the city said. That detention lasted 12 hours and six minutes, according to the data.
According to the data the city analyzed, 17 detentions began around noon on Jan. 26 and lasted until the following afternoon, or 24 to 27 hours, a newsroom analysis found. The longest stay during the 10-month time period lasted 47 days and the second-longest lasted about four.
The 25 detentions the city said violated ICE’s agreement amounted to about 6% of the total 418 detentions during the time period analyzed. The detentions that didn’t violate the agreement lasted an average of four hours.
The data shows that detentions have increased dramatically since Trump’s inauguration, jumping from 16 in December to 42 in January and peaking at 82 in May. Detentions fell to 50 in July, according to the data.
Revoking the ICE building’s approval has been a rallying cry for protesters for months, both outside the facility and in City Council chambers. An online petition to do just that has garnered more than 18,450 signatures.
In a memo to elected Portland officials written in July, city administrators wrote that Portland “typically” reconsiders a land use approval only when the property owner fails to address a violation.
While the review process plays out, Portland city leaders are taking additional steps to oppose or limit federal law enforcement actions in the city.
On Wednesday, the Portland City Council will weigh a sweeping resolution that its sponsors are calling the “Protect Portland Initiative.”
Among its many provisions, the proposal would task the city administration with gathering information on how the federal government is enforcing its policies and if they’re surveilling Portlanders. It would also encourage the Portland Police Bureau to maintain and strengthen its separation from federal immigration enforcement and establish a process for investigating potential crimes by impersonators of ICE agents.
Meanwhile, a separate resolution scheduled for Wednesday’s council meeting would codify the city’s sanctuary status in light of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
