Oregonians Will Vote in November on a Measure Aiming to Remove Sanctuary for Immigrants

The elections division of the Oregon Secretary of State has verified enough signatures to assure that a ballot measure that takes aim at the state's status as a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants will appear on the ballot this November.

The state agency announced in a Tweet that it had verified 95.3 percent of the signatures gathered in support of the ballot measure, known as Initiative Petition 22. The measure will be titled "Repeals law limiting use of state/local law enforcement resources to enforce federal immigration laws."

The last time a ballot initiative asked voters an immigration question was in 2014, when voters overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have required the DMV to issue driver's licenses without asking about a person's citizenship. That repeal campaign was backed by a Salem-based anti-immigrant group called Oregonians for Immigration Reform. So is this one.

Oregon has been a sanctuary state for 31 years, after passing a law barring local and state resources from being spent on federal immigration enforcement. Several local jurisdictions in the state have independently asserted so-called sanctuary status in opposition to the controversial immigration policies under the Trump administration.

If it passes, the ballot measure will lift the state-wide restriction on local officials spending state and local money on federal immigration enforcement.