By QUINTON SMITH/Lincoln Chronicle
The Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office has cut its marine patrols by more than half after the state agency that provides the bulk of its funding lost a federal grant over Homeland Security conflicts with Oregon’s sanctuary laws.
The Oregon State Marine Board lost a $2.2 million grant and was forced to cut its support of marine patrols to 32 agencies by 30 percent, according to boating safety program manager Brian Paulsen.
Lincoln County Sheriff Adam Shanks had expected to get nearly $243,000 from the state to help pay for the two marine deputies and two summer cadets. The marine patrol’s budget – everything from salaries and benefits to equipment and operating expenses — is $412,000 this year.
Just weeks after the county approved its budget in June, the marine board informed Shanks and other agencies across Oregon it had lost the federal grant and was cutting its support by 30 percent – or $70,800 to Lincoln County.
“It was very hard to deal with,” Shanks told the Lincoln Chronicle.
So instead of two boats with marine deputies and cadets on the water every day this summer and fall, there is one boat with two deputies working four days a week.
“We’re cutting the resource in half,” Shanks said.
The reduction is due to the loss of a recreational boating safety grant provided Oregon by the U.S. Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security. Paulsen said a new grant requirement from Homeland Security “imposed new obligations” to which the agency could not agree. The new conditions would require the marine board and grant recipients to communicate and cooperate with federal immigration officials, he said.
As the Trump administration dramatically increases its federal immigration enforcement efforts, it is turning to state and local authorities to pursue its goal of 1 million deportations per year, building out what is likely the widest-ranging immigration enforcement capacity in U.S. history.
But Oregon’s sanctuary law is in conflict with that goal — prohibiting public bodies from collecting information about an individual’s immigration status or from cooperating with federal authorities for the purpose of enforcing immigration laws.
Now four days a week
In Lincoln County, the sheriff’s marine patrol aims to have two boats on the water – primarily Yaquina Bay and the Alsea, Siletz and Salmon rivers – every day during the busy summer and fall seasons mostly doing boat inspections or responding to complaints.
“Their primary focus is boating safety,” Shanks said.
In 2024 sheriff’s Deputies Chris Barth and Dion Blake spent 716 hours on the water, 1,289 hours on shore patrols and conducted 3,340 boat safety inspections, according to the marine patrol’s 2025-26 budget request.
Now, Shanks said, Blake’s time for marine patrols has been reduced to one-quarter while Barth remains full-time. In the winter, Shanks said, Barth will have to work alone, be out of the water and mostly make dock checks.
Shanks said it is also uncertain what will happen to a derelict boat program that Blake had initiated.
“It was a pilot program that was being pushed statewide,” the sheriff said. “Now we just don’t know what that might look like.”
Shanks was able to save the position in the department by working out a last-minute agreement with the Lincoln County School District.
When he is not spending 25 percent of his time on marine patrols, Blake will be the sheriff office’s second school resource officer with $45,000 of his salary coming from the school district under an agreement signed last week by county commissioners. Blake will join Deputy James Holmes working with staff and students at Waldport and Toledo middle and high schools.
“It just happened to be an opportunity,” Shanks said. “We’re just providing more capacity at both schools.”
- Quinton Smith is the editor of Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
Guess Musk & DOGE think water/boat safety along the Oregon coast is just another example of “waste of tax dollars”. Of course, fewer county patrols may mean more work for the Coast Guard, but apparently Musk/DOGE didn’t think of that possibility, perhaps because they have/had zero experience in governing a city or state or nation & possibly boating in the Pacific ocean. Oh well.
Choices have consequences, Oregon leadership clearly favors illegal undocument people over legal US citizens. I love that all walks of life come and live in the US but there is a process that must be followed.
I couldn’t have said it better. Why do the citizens have to suffer for the states ego.
I think it has less to do with “ego” then with a legal stance. As for ego, I’d say Trump leads the pack in that area, plus thousands of immigrants literally pulled off the street, from workplaces, from their homes, by ICE, placed in crowded detention centers, possibly sent to Gitmo, et al, have been here legally for 2 years or more under special programs, including those for Afghanis who assisted US military during the 20 years or so that the US had a presence (unsuccessful for the most part didn’t stop planting of opium poppies in part because the US never came through w/viable alternatives) there. How is you seem to believe it’s ok to send people who helped US soldiers, etc., while they were in Afghanistan should now be deported back there to be punished, killed, who knows what. Do you think that will encourage others to see the US as playing fair w/those who help them at risk to themselves & their families? Because that’s happening too under the Trump/GOP program. And can we also deport Musk who worked illegally while on a studen visa? That means the current US standard as reason to detain & then deport.
Totally agree. It should never happen we lose valuable government funding that will hurt Oregon’s citizens in favor of a stance that seeks to protect the undocumented and alien criminals from federal laws and deportation judgements. I somehow feel that if the Dems had never enacted sanctuary policies things would be better today for everyone. Pitting the state against the federal government does not end well…you push them, they push back much harder and now, stupidly, Oregon is paying the price and we all suffer for something many of us don’t agree with or ever wanted.
This was because of our Governor in Oregon refusing to follow federal guidelines. Trump refused the money to the state because she wants to keep us a sanctuary state..
It’s because this state refuses to follow federal regulations on authority not just immigration. This is what happens when a child thinks they are independent until mommy and daddy decide maybe at 36 when you’re jobless and they’re not gonna be paying your bills anymore. Now these states are gonna find out how important federal funding is. Meanwhile Oregon is experiencing record homeless, crime, drugs and metal health issues of its own citizens. Not much of a social state when you can’t afford your own people yet you are willing to let it all fall apart to save face with mentally unstable liberals while they destroy your cities and scream about every little thing they don’t like. This is why the Democrats are at their lowest approval ever. And as the state scrambles to figure things out now that daddy ain’t picking up the bills people will starve, people will die to drugs and violence then the state will just blame Trump more instead of being realistic.
Maybe if they’d help get illegal aliens and immigration reform going like we voted for that would be happening but I guess we know who’s more important?
It’s unfortunate that:
Jim
Anthony
Jason
Michael
Fred
Ed
Have not realized they have joined a movement where the funding has been redirected to Trump’s friends so they can purchase a larger yacht or another island.
Could not have said it better. If you have a heart for an authoritarian state with Federal troops on the streets of every city in America, then this is for you. If the idea of locking other people up gets your juices flowing, than this regime is for you. I was born and raised here. I am ashamed of my country for another misguided step – that rates right up there with the Japanese internment – that will be a dark paragraph in the history books of another generation. The life-long Republicans who oppose him should tell us something.
This has nothing to do with Musk. Because Oregon continues to refuse to cooperate with the federal government funds are being withheld. All Oregon has to do is abolish the ridiculous sanctuary status.
The State of Oregon refuses to follow Federal law and will not cooperate with federal agencies. The Feds in return reduce much of Oregon’s federal funding. Oregon now has a choice – suffer cuts in services or the state, that is the people, of Oregon take on the financial burden of providing those services. It’s really just a zero-sum situation. This is going to cost Oregonians a lot of money (around $4 billion over the next few years) in the Medicaid area as well. The Feds are severely reducing their funding of Oregon’s Medicaid program due to Oregon giving Medicare eligibility to illegal aliens.
With the new Administration we have now if you want to play games you will have to pay.
Easy fix. No more sanctuary state.
Exactly. Makes me happy.
The federal administration saw the existing slate of state laws and knew that imposing these new proposed conditions would slash federal funding support for local law enforcement and then they pushed ahead and did it anyway. I guess they have joined the “Defund the Police” crowd after all.
Instead of being political, why don’t you try to solve the problem? Are you here to provide and protect the illegal immigrants or provide and protect the citizens of Oregon that are paying the taxes. If you are not going to solve the problem, then you are the problem. It’s time to put on your big boy pants and get rid of sanctuary state and follow the law.
I’d rather have sober, hard-working undocumented workers roof my house than the domestic tweaker-alcoholic variety which, in my experience, seems to be the only alternative at this time. I’d rather eat reasonably priced peaches than not be able to afford them because of the cost of hiring available documented workers~ a rapidly diminishing number.
Here are some interesting stats from 2018:
“If 10% of undocumented immigrants leave Oregon as a result of
[Measure 105 (Repeal Sanctuary State)], the following areas would lose…
NON-METRO AREAS [sic]
• $50.8 million in GDP
• 1,035 employed workers, including those in the top
five industries in Oregon’s non-metro areas, such as
agricultural and animal production, groceries, and
seafood workers. Their departure would reflect $25.2
million in lost wage earnings
• 185 additional jobs dependent on undocumented
immigrant consumers, representing a loss of $6.7
million in additional lost wage earnings
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2018/10/Oregon-Measure-105-Brief.pdf
National and local headlines show that our crime problems (including “white-collar” crimes) are mostly caused by white, often drug-addled and/or mentally challenged American citizens. Blaming immigrants, undocumented or not, will not prevent crime in DC or anywhere in the world.
A reporter asked a farm owner if he hired undocumented workers. There was a long pause. The farm owner replied, “I ask for their documentation. If it looks legitimate to me, I hire them.” In other words, decent sought-after agricultural workers often have to lie and cheat to do the back-breaking work in the hot sun that domestic whites seem unable to do. Have you ever seen a bunch of white guys out harvesting our food in the fields and orchards? Grow up and smell the peaches.
Have several people that lost jobs and a drywall business because of illegal aliens. They pay them under the table and reduce the wage. Can’t compete with companies that hire them in Oregon. Hence the loss of the drywall business. That’s the real story unlike what Clemencia claims.
Most Oregonians have no idea how much of their Oregon state tax dollars are spent on illegals. Kotek and legislative Democrats work hard to hide those funds from voters all while crying they need more taxes to run the inefficient ODOT bureaucracy and other agencies. Until voters remove some of these officials nothing will change
Fact: Oregon’s 1st Sanctuary Law was passed in 1987. The most recent update was passed in 2021 and is called the Sanctuary Promise Act meant to strengthen the existing law while making it more transparent and accountable. Oregon Department of Justice
Oregon Department of Justice Sanctuary Promise Guidance – Oregon Department of Justice https://share.google/ubAg92OZkNonPBg1V
Fact: Trump’s Administration is not just going after undocumented criminals. They are detaining, denying due process and deporting students, American citizens, green card holders, scientists, naturalized citizens, asylum seekers, etc. Many of the immigrants came here through proper processes.
Fact: Trump’s Administration’s focus is to remove people who aren’t white, as in Northern European, from this country and to prevent more of them from entering this country.
Fact: Trump’s withholding of congressionally appropriated funds is illegal as are many of his Administration’s other actions.
Please keep yourself informed as much as possible.