LINCOLN CITY, Oregon — A sheriff in Oregon says he has called the FBI because he is getting more worried about a letter going around his rural, coastal town asking people to write down the license plate numbers of people who might be immigrants.
In a news release released Thursday, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office said that the signs seen all over the county are offensive and cause problems. Sheriff Curtis Landers told KPTV that he called the federal government after getting a letter like that.
The FBI said on Friday that it knew about the letters. In a statement, it told people in the neighborhood who feel physically threatened to tell the police about their worries.
Being alert in the church parking lot or while waiting in line to pick up their kids from school is told in the letter. The recipient should write down the license plate numbers of cars that they think belong to immigrants who may not have lasting legal status.
The sheriff’s office said it would follow Oregon’s sanctuary law, which states that local police can’t usually ask someone about their immigration or citizenship status and then give that information to federal officials.
In a news release, the sheriff’s office said, “We are telling people in our community to do the right thing and be kind when they see these kinds of messages.” “We strongly advise against doing things like the ones described in this letter, like gathering or sharing information about people based on their demographics or what they think their immigration status is.”
Ellen Rosenblum, the attorney general of Oregon, also said the letters were bad. In a statement released Friday, she said, “racist letter writing campaigns that try to scare our communities and their leaders have no place in Oregon. We will continue to stand together against those who want to divide us.”
The Associated Press emailed the sheriff’s office on Friday to ask for a response and to find out how many letters were sent and how they were sent. When called, the sheriff’s office said that Landers and a spokesperson were not in the office and could not answer calls or texts that day.
KPTV says that Landers got a copy of the letter in his mailbox. KGW said that copies were also mailed to the mayor and city councilors of the small town of Toledo and the mayor of Lincoln City, which are both in the county.
Because Trump said he would remove a lot of people during his second term, advocacy groups all over the country have held “know your rights” trainings to teach immigrants how to protect themselves and their families. The trainings are happening in states that are friendly to immigrants, like California and Illinois (which both passed laws to protect immigrants in response to Trump’s focus on enforcement during his first term), as well as states that have stricter laws that affect immigrants, like Florida.
Meanwhile, more and more Republican-led states want to give local police the power to arrest people who came into the country illegally. This is similar to new laws that have been put on hold in Texas and other places while courts decide if they go against the Constitution and take away federal power.
In 1987, Oregon was the first state to make itself a haven. Its law says that local and state police can’t help the federal government with immigration enforcement without a court order. It also says that private immigration holding centers can’t work in the state.
Over the years, Oregon’s sanctuary law has been updated and made stronger. For example, in 2021, the Legislature passed a bill that made a hotline for reporting law breaches.
Source: Oregon sheriff concerned about letters asking people to track possible immigrants