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Last month, incoming Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw touted the merits of a partnership between the Oakland Police Department and a branch of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Outlaw now wants to explain that partnership away.
On July 11, she said the partnership between police and the Homeland Security Investigations unit of ICE resulted in at least two successful gang enforcement operations in Oakland, where she was deputy chief. That testimony could prove politically dicey in Portland, which like Oakland is a "sanctuary city" that takes a dim view of federal immigration law.
Last week, WW reported on Outlaw's remarks in Oakland. Hours after WW's story, Outlaw held her first press conference in Portland—and insisted she wasn't testifying in favor of the partnership but merely "clarifying" how it worked. That's a semantic argument, and a narrow squeeze.
But more substantively, Outlaw told Portland media that the memorandum of understanding, or MOU, that defined the Oakland partnership with ICE hadn't been used for a year. That seemed to contradict her previous statements about ongoing cooperation between the two agencies.
So what's true? Let's take a look.
What Outlaw said in Oakland:
On July 11, she testified that the partnership with ICE provided a meaningful crime-fighting tool. "The current MOU as it stands, we believe, supports sanctuary city policy and that it does provide parameters and accountability.…We work with HSI in doing human traffic investigations, gang investigations, and we work with them as well during our cease-fire operations, which focuses on our most violent criminals here in the city of Oakland."
What Outlaw said in Portland:
On Aug. 10, she told Portland media that the Oakland police agreement with ICE hadn't been put into use for a year. "What the MOU did was allow overtime reimbursements and to allow officers to be deputized so we can charge at the federal level. That was it. And quite frankly, we hadn't even really done any of that at all. We hadn't even enforced the MOU at all in about a year."
So what's true?
Oakland officials say Outlaw is telling the truth about the MOU lying dormant for a year. But she is leaving out ways in which Oakland police worked with ICE—outside the deal's parameters—on gang enforcement investigations during the past year. Oakland police officers were never deputized to make arrests for federal crimes and never received overtime pay from the feds, but the department did work with ICE agents to make some arrests and investigate cross-border crimes. Outlaw cited those investigations when she explained the deal to Oakland officials, but she left them out in Portland. That could raise questions about her approach to working informally with ICE in her new hometown.