Republican State Senator Anderson Tepid on an ICE Detention Facility in Newport

By Brian Bahouth

Last week, the prospect of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility at the Newport Municipal Airport prompted a boisterous outpouring of opposition.

Oregon’s Democratic federal lawmakers have been loud in their opposition, including both U.S. senators Merkley and Wyden and Rep. Val Hoyle.

The Newport City Council held a special meeting at City Hall on Wednesday, November 12, and heard two hours of emotional public comment from the approximately eight hundred people who filled the room to overflowing.

At the special meeting, every Newport city councilmember and State Representative David Gomberg roundly denounced the notion of an ICE facility in Newport. Not one citizen or elected leader spoke in favor of an ICE detention facility. But Republican lawmakers have been silent on the issue of ICE in Oregon.

Oregon’s lone Republican congressman, Cliff Bentz, has made scant comment about ICE. He has indicated support for federal authorities and their ostensible mission to protect federal property, but otherwise, Oregon’s elected Republican leaders have remained mum on the presence and activities of ICE in Oregon.

Republican state senator Dick Anderson represents Senate District 5, which includes all of Lincoln County and parts of Benton, Lane, Douglas, and Coos counties. Senator Anderson has not publicly taken a stance on the possibility of an ICE detention facility in Newport.

On a recent edition of the Crosstabs podcast, Senator Anderson’s chief of staff, Bryan Iverson. mused to co-host Reagan Knopp that the now vacant Rogue Brewery facility in South Beach would make a “nice” ICE detention facility. In an email, Senator Anderson said he listened to the podcast too and that Iverson was joking, poking fun at Newport.

When co-host Reagan Knopp asked Iverson if he thought the vacant brewery would make a good detention facility, Iverson replied, “That whole thing has been pretty interesting, that a rumor like that, and just the hornet’s nest of Boomer hippies that live in Newport that would love to show up and yell at Donald Trump.

“Newport has that group, right there when you come in to Newport, where it tees [the intersection of U.S. 20 and the Pacific Coast Highway], and they have anti-Trump people there every day. That’s like, Yachats and Newport, they’re there every day protesting Donald Trump.

“So this [a possible ICE facility in Newport] literally sends everything into a hornet’s nest. But I think it’s a bummer that Rogue [Brewery] shut down. I like that place right there, go right over the bridge and go to it, but it’ll be a nice ICE facility. It’d be great.”

Iverson went on to say that the federal government has several better options than Newport for an ICE detention facility in Oregon. All of his recommendations were outside Senate District 5.

But a senator’s chief of staff extemporizing on a podcast does not constitute an elected representative’s policy position, so I queried Senator Anderson to see if he has a position on a possible ICE detention facility in his district. He emphasized that there is no existing ICE facility in Newport. Pressed about his stance on a possible detention facility at the Newport Municipal Airport, he parsed his words.

“I don’t see where a detention facility in Newport would be helpful,” Anderson wrote in an email. “Not like anyone in the Trump Administration is asking for our input either.”

Anderson said that he is more concerned about the loss of jobs at the Rogue Brewery than about an ICE detention center.

“I think what is more concerning is the loss of Rogue Brewery shutting down in Newport. Sounds like 60 people are now out of work in Newport because of it,” Anderson wrote in an email. “If any of those employees have an issue with unemployment or other things I hope they reach out to our office for assistance.”

It appears, to Democrat and Republican lawmakers alike, that whether there is to be an ICE facility at the Newport Municipal Airport or elsewhere in Lincoln County is unknown. KYAQ has queried ICE for the agency’s facility plan in Lincoln County, if they have one, but as of this writing has yet to receive a response.