A federal judge in Eugene will soon rule whether the U.S. Department of Homeland Security must help people detained by immigration officers meet with attorneys before they are transferred.
Attorneys and advocates testified Thursday about times they have failed to connect with a detained person for a bevy of reasons, like officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement saying a person declined to speak with an attorney or quickly moving them out of the area.
One lawyer told the court about ICE taking a person through the Eugene facility’s back door when she arrived.
Federal officers confront protesters at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, Portland, Ore., Oct. 4, 2025.
Eden McCall / OPB
Those actions, the attorneys contend, can block detainees from accessing legal advice.
“You have attorneys who are literally at the doors of these facilities offering free legal services at no cost to the government,” said Tess Hellgren, of Innovation Law Lab, the law firm leading the lawsuit.
The plaintiffs suing the Trump administration are the CLEAR Clinic, a legal nonprofit based in Portland, and the farmworker advocacy group Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste – or PCUN.
In court filings, the plaintiffs ask U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken to mandate ICE to give “notice, time and space to provide access to counsel.”
Aiken ended the two-hour hearing by saying she will soon issue an order, but declined to specify a deadline.
Attorneys are seeking class-action status for the case.
Attorneys with the U.S. Department of Justice argue they are not violating anyone’s rights by moving detainees to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, where there is a 12-hour window for attorneys to meet with people detained there.
“On their way to the NWIPC, detainees stop at one of ICE’s three field offices in Oregon, located in Portland, Eugene and Medford, respectively,” government attorneys wrote in court filings. “These small and limited facilities are temporary stopovers used for ministerial tasks.”
The lawsuit, which was filed Oct. 16, comes as immigration arrests have ramped up across the state in October and November.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection official recently wrote on social media that there were more than 560 immigration detentions in October.
Since then, attorneys with Innovation Law Lab argued, immigration detentions in Oregon “soared 1,400% over prior months.”
Headlines have shown dozens of arrests in Portland and across the state, including one morning last week, when witnesses say immigration officers shot pepper balls at onlookers.
