After the arrest and deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a wrongfully deported man from El Salvador living in Maryland, U.S. Rep. Maxine Dexter in April traveled to that country to advocate for his release. Abrego Garcia was taken to CECOT, a maximum-security prison known for placing gang members under harsh conditions.
“It was the number one thing, overwhelmingly, that we were hearing about,” Dexter told the Capital Chronicle in a phone interview. “People wanted me to go to El Salvador. They wanted me to take a stand. They wanted me to take action.”
While some Oregon Republicans called her trip performative and said she should focus on reducing crime in her district, Dexter said the trip and following visits to federal immigration detention facilities hold the Trump administration accountable and expose the “cruelty” behind federal immigration enforcement.
“This wasn’t about one person,” she said about her El Salvador visit. “It was about the rights that were being completely ignored by this administration. If it could happen to them, it could happen to anyone.”
Since visiting El Salvador, the Portland physician and Democrat representing Oregon’s 3rd Congressional District spanning from east Portland to Hood River has made three other trips to immigration facilities to advocate for immigrants detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
“Trump’s immigration machine thrives in the shadows,” she told the Capital Chronicle. “He will continue to deny people access to due process and counsel if we turn a blind eye… (These visits) are to follow through on my promise to my constituents, that I will stop at nothing to protect our communities and perform my oversight duties.”
What oversight duties do Congress members have?
While advocacy groups or lawyers must represent a person in custody to access an immigration detention center, members of Congress do not need to meet that requirement.
Congress members under a 2019 law are entitled to unannounced visits to ICE detention facilities. Dexter said this duty is a way to oversee the executive branch and make sure they are following the law.
“It’s our job to perform oversight and to make sure that these detention facilities are humanitarian and that they’re meeting the requirements that the federal government has stipulated,” Dexter said. “And frankly, I’m concerned because these are for-profit institutions that benefit from detaining people.”
Dexter said these visits have been “anything but straightforward,” mentioning that in some parts of the country, immigration agents have denied Congress members access to the facilities. On July 30, a dozen Democratic Congress members, not including Dexter, sued the Trump administration, alleging it is blocking them from conducting these congressional oversight visits.
“What’s more alarming are the glaring discrepancies between what ICE tells us and what we hear directly from those detained,” Dexter said, adding that there isn’t a lot of transparency about the care or quality of life for those in custody.
“At best, this is negligence,” she said. “At worst, it’s an obstruction of constitutional oversight.”
Immigration attorney says ICE isn’t complying with regulations, due process rights
At least one Oregon immigration attorney said she’s noticed ICE operating in the Pacific Northwest isn’t complying with federal regulations.
Caroline Keating Medeiros, an associate attorney at Marandas Garcia Law Group based in Lake Oswego, told the Capital Chronicle that recently one of her clients was transferred from a detention center in Tacoma to one in Bakersfield, California.
“I was never given notice that she was being transferred, and neither was her U.S. citizen husband,” Keating Medeiros said.
That undermines federal regulations, she said, which states that while any immigration proceeding is pending, the Department of Homeland Security must immediately tell the immigration court in writing about a change in a person’s custody location with the updated address.
Because ICE failed to notify the court about the transfer, Keating Medeiros still appeared online for the scheduled hearing to represent her client. However, the virtual court session abruptly disconnected, and it wasn’t until later that the judge realized that her client was no longer within their jurisdiction.
“This speaks more to due process concerns,” she said, noting that most of her clients have no criminal background.
That client was released from detention three weeks ago, and ICE has still not notified the court about her release — which is delaying her client from getting her case transferred back to Portland, Keating Medeiros said.
Immigration, democracy remains top concern among Oregon’s 3rd Congressional district
Dexter said she is representing the interests of her district and that democracy remains the number one concern in her district.
Jill Eckenrode, Dexter’s constituent living in Welches, told the Capital Chronicle that she fully supports her representative’s visits to detention facilities.
“We were told by the Trump admin that they’d be deporting hardened criminals,” she said in a message to the Capital Chronicle. “Maybe they are, but they are also deporting U.S. citizens, already naturalized citizens and immigrants trying to go to their scheduled hearings… It’s unethical, and frankly just plain gross Gestapo behavior.”
Last month, Dexter visited a customs and border patrol station in Ferndale, Washington, after a friend alerted her about another friend from Honduras who had disappeared after a planned family reunion along the Washington-Canada border.
During the visit, Dexter, without the ability to speak to them, located Kenia Jackeline Merlos and her 9-year-old triplets and 7-year-old son, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. They were in a windowless cell for two weeks without the ability to contact friends, family or a lawyer, Dexter told her constituents at a town hall at Franklin High School in Portland last month.
“It is someone who is in the U.S. undergoing deferred action, has four citizen children and is a community pillar active in the church and in their school,” Dexter told the Capital Chronicle about Merlos’ case.
Like Dexter, U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas, a fellow Oregon Democrat, said she’s also heard outrage from her constituents about the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Salinas, who has Mexican immigrant roots, said she’s doing everything she can to help immigrant communities push back.
“I’m sharing ‘know your rights’ information in my community and connecting advocates with national resources,” she said. “I’m also conducting oversight, sending letters demanding answers about some of the administration’s most despicable immigration practices and supporting policies that support our immigrant neighbors and their rights to due process. I’ll keep fighting this administration’s actions while pushing for humane immigration policies.”
Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon Capital Chronicle is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Oregon Capital Chronicle maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Julia Shumway for questions: info@oregoncapitalchronicle.com.
