Portland Commissioner Chloe Eudaly wants nearly every immigrant who faces deportation in the city to have a lawyer — and will request $750,000 in public funds to help launch a program to provide them.

Eudaly unveiled her plan in a letter to the Welcoming / Inclusive / Sanctuary Task Force, which on Thursday delivered a report to the City Council on how to best combat the Trump administration's crackdown on immigration.

The top recommendation by the task force, which formed last year, was the creation of a legal defense fund for non-citizens with modest means.

Such immigrant defense funds, aided in part with taxpayer dollars, already exist cities like Seattle and Los Angeles.

"The hostile environment created by our federal administration has required us to give more of ourselves in order to stand united against attacks on our immigrant communities," Eudaly wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Willamette Week.

The proposal would require $1.5 million in funding from the city of Portland and Multnomah County in the first year. The money would go to hiring at least five attorneys and provide other legal services.

Last year, the Portland council provided a $50,000 grant to Metropolitan Public Defenders to help with immigration cases.

"Why on earth would any public entity aid and abet people here illegally?" said Jim Ludwick, a spokesman for Oregonians for Immigration Reform, which supports stricter limits on immigration.

The moves come as some cities and local governments throughout the country continue to look for ways to shield non-citizens from ramped-up federal enforcement of immigration laws.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents in the Pacific Northwest arrested nearly 3,400 people in 2017, a 25 percent increase from a year earlier, figures compiled by the Pew Research Center show.

There were 814 Multnomah County residents with pending deportation cases in December 2017 and at least another 940 residents from Washington County, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearninghouse at Syracuse University, which analyzes U.S. immigration court records.

Living in the country illegally is not a criminal violation, and immigration-court cases are civil proceedings. Unlike in criminal cases, people facing immigration charges aren't guaranteed a public defender.

Lawyers and other immigrant rights advocates say an attorney can often make the difference between an individual being forced from the country and being allowed to stay.

Roughly 35 percent of those appearing in immigration courts in Multnomah County lack legal representation, according to an analysis of Department of Justice data by Metropolitan Public Defenders.

In 2016, immigration judges in Portland moved to deport more than 80 percent of defendants who had no lawyer, the analysis found. Meanwhile, 44 percent of those who had legal representation won relief and were allowed to stay in the U.S.

"Clearly, Oregonians who have a lawful right to be here are being deported when they don't have an attorney," said Leland Baxter-Neal, an attorney with Immigrant Defense Oregon at Metropolitan Public Defenders. "And it's ripping families apart."

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

skavanaugh@oregonian.com

503-294-7632 || @shanedkavanaugh