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City of Portland and Multnomah County leaders remained defiant after threats from the Trump administration to punish sanctuary cities by withholding or pulling Department of Justice grants.
City and county officials say they currently receive $5.5 million from that department.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a press conference today announced plans to punish jurisdictions that defy U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requests, but it's not clear he actually has the legal authority to do so.
"The Department of Justice has long required local jurisdictions to comply with 'all applicable laws,' including 8 USC 1373 as a condition of DOJ grant funding," says Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury in a statement, referring to the federal code requiring local jurisdictions to share information with federal immigration enforcement.
"We have no policies that violate the code. Bottom line: in Multnomah County, we follow federal and state laws. So we do not expect to lose any of the $2.5 million in federal money that either comes directly to us or passes through the state or city."
In his statement, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler criticized the attorney general's statements as threatening but also vague.
"Also unclear is his legal ability to withhold funds DOJ funds from states under these conditions," says Wheeler. "It should be noted that DOJ grants to the City of Portland in our 2015-16 budget totaled just more than $3 million" — a small fraction of the city's overall budget.
Wheeler also took aim at the Oregon's Republican Party for adding to the hateful rhetoric.
"All of this is happening in an environment that contains a lot of heated rhetoric but not a lot of facts," Wheeler says in the statement. "For example, just last week an Oregon Republican Party spokesman said that Portland's status as a sanctuary city means we are harboring, 'criminal illegal aliens who are murdering and raping.' This statement is inaccurate and harmful."
State law prevents any jurisdictions from spending public dollars for the enforcement of federal immigration laws, and both the city and the county have symbolically reiterated their support for remaining sanctuary jurisdictions.
Most critically, county law enforcement agencies across the state have barred their officers from following ICE's request to hold immigrants who are in jail for longer than the local enforcement otherwise would. A 2014 federal court ruling found that doing so was unconstitutional.