By Viviana Hernandez
Uplift Local
OREGON — The Rural Organizing Project (ROP), an Oregon nonprofit with affiliated groups in Hood River and Wasco counties, has filed a lawsuit alleging that Oregon State Police is violating Oregon’s sanctuary law by allowing federal immigration authorities to access sensitive personal data belonging to state residents.
Oregon State Police (OSP) runs a statewide law enforcement database called the Law Enforcement Data System, or LEDS. The database includes, among other things, criminal histories and investigative records. It also maintains links to Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) information for law enforcement purposes.
OSP has user agreements that allow other agencies to access this database, including, according to the lawsuit, agreements granting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and its investigative arm, Homeland Security Investigations, broad access to LEDS data via the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS). NLETS is a nonprofit that operates a secure nationwide network so authorized state, local, and federal agencies can quickly share information. OSP manages access to Oregon’s LEDS and shares information in the state database via NLETS through permission-based queries.
The Rural Organizing Project says that OSP is sharing personal information about Oregon residents with federal immigration officials, and says that this is illegal because it breaches Oregon’s sanctuary laws. The state’s 2021 Sanctuary Promise Act updated and strengthened Oregon’s original, 1987, sanctuary law, the oldest in the country. Sanctuary laws draw a clear line between local policing and federal immigration enforcement, prohibiting state and local governments from using their personnel, facilities, and other resources to assist federal immigration authorities.
Martha Verduzco Ortega, director of immigrant centers at ROP and a Hood River resident, told Uplift Local the lawsuit seeks to change OSP’s information-sharing practices.
“We want the state police to immediately deny any requests from federal immigration agents and cancel the agreements that allow access to the personal information of Oregon residents. That is what we want immediately,” she said in an interview.
A news release published by ROP quoted Verduzco Ortega describing federal agents “storming into our communities, targeting people based on how they look, and disappearing our neighbors.”
“When the state gives our private information to ICE, it is breaking the law and breaking Oregonians’ trust,” the statement said.
Verduzco Ortega is a co-founder of Hood River Latino Network and previously led a years-long legal effort arguing that state sanctuary laws prohibited NORCOR, the regional jail in The Dalles, from contracting with ICE. In August 2020, the NORCOR board voted to end its contract with ICE, rendering that lawsuit moot in the Oregon Court of Appeals.
ROP’s current lawsuit alleges that Oregon State Police have the ability to block federal immigration authorities from accessing Oregonians’ data through the NLETS system but have chosen not to. It also states that over a one-year period — from February 2025 to February 2026 — federal immigration agencies accessed Oregon data about 1.4 million times.
Questions about sharing state law enforcement databases with federal immigration officials have been gaining attention for months. The University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights reported that between August and November last year, at least nine immigrants were arrested after federal immigration officials requested driver’s license data of Washington residents via NLETS.
In November, a group of 40 Democratic lawmakers, led by Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, urged 19 governors to block federal immigration authorities from accessing state driver’s license data through NLETS. In their letter, the lawmakers said agencies like ICE can search residents’ personal information in real time without state oversight, and raised concerns about surveillance and misuse.
The lawmakers cited NLETS data showing that New York, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Minnesota had all blocked ICE access to certain DMV information shared through the network, and claimed that Oregon was moving in that direction.
“We urge you to block ICE’s access, as Illinois, New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Washington have already done and Oregon is in the process of doing,” Wyden and other senators wrote, adding that “this commonsense step will improve public safety and guard against Trump officials using your state’s data for unjustified, politicized actions, while still allowing continued collaboration on serious crimes.”
The lawmakers also argued that states have the authority to restrict such access and that doing so would not hinder criminal investigations, since information could still be shared on a case-by-case basis.
ROP’s lawsuit describes internal communications that indicate Oregon officials had sought guidance on granting access to the database. According to the lawsuit, in September 2025, Mitchell Stephens, OSP’s representative to NLETS, communicated with Frank Minice, executive director and CEO of NLETS, about how other states had restricted ICE in law enforcement databases. Minice then connected Stephens with Jamison Gagnon, commissioner of Massachusetts’ Criminal Justice Information Services Department, to discuss how other states “chose who/what/when to block.”
In a Feb. 18 letter responding to ROP’s threatened lawsuit, the state argued that OSP has already taken “reasonable steps” to ensure its LEDS data-sharing agreement complies with sanctuary law by signing updated agreements with federal immigration enforcement agencies. The letter said that ending all access to the LEDS database “could be obstructing ongoing criminal investigations” outside of immigration enforcement.
The Oregon State Police have not yet formally responded to the lawsuit in court, but Kyle Kennedy, an OSP spokesperson, told several local news outlets that the agency had first learned of the lawsuit when journalists asked about it.
“OSP is committed to following Oregon sanctuary laws and has not taken any actions that would violate those laws,” he said.
The case is in its early stages, leaving many Oregonians — particularly immigrant communities — watching closely as judges prepare to weigh whether the state’s data-sharing practices align with its sanctuary law. While plaintiffs seek an outcome that reshapes state policy, the process could potentially broaden Oregonians’ understanding of how their personal information is handled and who ultimately has access to it.
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Viviana Hernandez is Uplift Local’s bilingual community reporter and part of the Gorge Documenters team.
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