In the News
By: Shaanth Nanguneri
December 2, 2025
‘People will boycott’: How a coastal city’s fight against ICE is making waves across Oregon
Local governments in Oregon have struggled with the extent to which they should resist or comply with increasingly aggressive federal immigration policy, but one town took a different approach
The city of Newport, in the meantime, has tapped outside legal counsel with the explicit goal of responding to the federal government’s plans for a potential ICE facility. Kate Sinkins, a Lincoln City-based immigration attorney, suspects the municipal airstrip attracted the federal government as a potential vehicle for enacting quick deportations. But as she put it: “They have a fight on their hands.”
By Dirk VanderHart (OPB)
Nov. 24, 2025 9 a.m. Updated: Nov. 24, 2025 1:59 p.m.
With ICE (maybe) waiting in the wings, Newport sits in limbo
A missing helicopter and a possible immigrant detention center have roiled the coastal city.
“The reason they wanted Newport is there’s an airstrip,” said Kate Sinkins, a Lincoln City attorney who believes she is the only person practicing immigration law on the Oregon coast. “They want to be able to put people in a detention facility and not give them due process and then fly ‘em to home country without anyone really paying attention. That is not going to happen. We are paying attention.”
By Dirk VanderHart (OPB)
Nov. 25, 2025 4:22 p.m.
A federal defense contractor is seeking hundreds of coastal Oregon hotel rooms, City of Newport says
A federal defense contractor is inquiring about reserving hundreds of hotel rooms on the Oregon coast for a year, the city of Newport said Tuesday. It’s the latest sign that a suspected effort to build an immigrant detention center on the coast has not gone away.
“The reason they wanted Newport is there’s an airstrip,” Kate Sinkins, a Lincoln City immigration attorney, told OPB last week. “They want to be able to put people in a detention facility and not give them due process and then fly ‘em to home country without anyone really paying attention. That is not going to happen. We are paying attention.”