Multnomah County is facing allegations that sheriff deputies continued to hold a man in custody for 22 hours after a federal judge ordered his release. The man was later turned over to U.S. Marshals, who transferred him to federal immigration officials.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Portland, attorneys for Gerson Fernando Molina-Orantes claim the county and 13 sheriff deputies identified as “John Does” intentionally kept Molina-Orantes incarcerated. The lawsuit claims the reason they did so, “after a federal judge had ordered his release was for civil immigration enforcement purposes.”
The case raises questions about the relationship between Multnomah County and the U.S. Marshals Service. For years, the federal government has contracted with the county to house pretrial defendants facing federal crimes. At the same time, the county is subject to Oregon’s decades-old sanctuary law that prevents using local resources for immigration enforcement.
On March 5, Gerson Fernando Molina-Orantes was charged with the federal crime of illegal reentry. The Guatemalan was previously removed from the United States in 2020, according to court documents from Molina-Orantes’ criminal case…