Oregon stops issuing undercover plates for ICE agents
Gov. Tina Kotek on Monday directed state Driver and Motor Vehicles Services officials to stop issuing undercover license plates to federal immigration enforcement officers, citing a need to maintain public safety.
The governor’s order comes days after the federal government sued the state over its mid-April decision to pause providing such license plates to all federal officers. At that time, the DMV administrator announced the state was evaluating whether the program complied with the state’s sanctuary law.
The undercover plates show the standard tree design with no government designation. Otherwise, federal government vehicles typically use plates that identify them as part of the federal fleet of cars.
The state’s sanctuary law generally prohibits state cooperation with federal authorities for immigration enforcement.
Kotek accused U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers of terrorizing communities in Oregon and around the U.S. as part of President Donald Trump’s aggressive mass deportation policy. She cited the practice of masked ICE agents roaming towns and cities in unmarked cars, targeting people of color and arresting people without warrants.
“ICE agents have repeatedly engaged in illegitimate activities, causing unwarranted chaos, sowing fear and damaging the relationship between law enforcement and our communities,” Kotek said in a statement.
The governor ordered the DMV, though, to resume issuing the undercover plates to other federal law enforcement agencies that don’t participate in immigration enforcement and to continue to offer the plates to state and local law enforcement.
On April 15, Oregon’s Department of Transportation temporarily suspended issuing new undercover license plates to all federal agencies to “ensure the program complies with Oregon law,” DMV administrator Amy Joyce wrote later to U.S. Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate.
“We cannot expend state resources to assist in federal immigration enforcement,” she wrote.
Federal government lawyers in the suit filed last week in Portland said the undercover license plates are important to allow federal agents to do their jobs and “keep their activities and identities unknown to the general public and the criminals they investigate.”
“Their jobs are dangerous as they frequently investigate and apprehend violent criminals including cartel members, gang members, sex offenders, human traffickers, and other violent offenders,” the lawsuit says.
In social media posts, Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche also decried sanctuary policies and “sanctuary politicians,” saying they are “reckless” and “inexcusable” and “obstruct ICE from performing its lawful mission to protect public safety.”