HILLSBORO, Ore. — After many months of trying to negotiate with the federal government to extradite three suspects to Washington County to be tried for crimes of aggravated murder and child sex abuse, District Attorney Kevin Barton said Oregon's Sanctuary Promise Law has hindered his ability to seek justice for victims and families.
The DA told KGW there are three significant cases that are currently stalled because current state law prevents him from extraditing the international fugitives.
"In the past, we've been able to work with the federal government and extradite people who have fled the country because they're facing very serious charges," he said. "But this issue first came on our radar almost a year ago, where the federal government would no longer allow us to proceed forward and extradite folks unless we signed a letter that was contrary to Oregon law and that created some difficulties."
Oregon has been a sanctuary state since the late 1980s and was the first state to pass a law stopping law enforcement from helping federal authorities with immigration enforcement. In recent years, lawmakers have strengthened those laws.
"I want to be really clear: Nothing I'm saying is intending to suggest that sanctuary laws are not a good idea or that somehow there's a connection between immigration and crime. That's not what we're dealing with here at all," Barton said. "The challenge that we have here is that Oregon sanctuary laws just don't allow sheriffs and DAs to sign a document that the federal government wants to have signed."
But he argues that the U.S. Department of Justice doesn't need to have it signed.
"They can have a different document signed. They had a different document signed last fall in a very in the same exact scenario. They just don't want to," Barton said.
A workaround that federal officials devised last year, Barton told KGW, was a one-time thing. However, he's still pushing for a compromise in order to extradite three suspects back to Washington County. One of the suspects is accused of aggravated murder, and the other two are accused of child sex abuse crimes.
"Anytime we try and extradite someone from another country, we reserve that process for the the most significant abuses," he said. "We know where they are ... we know their location, we just need to be able to move this bureaucratic paperwork forward so we can extradite them back."
The Justice Department declined to comment.