Most Hispanics, regardless of their immigration status, are relieved that local agencies do not participate in the program.

"It just doesn't feel right," said Jose Larios, a Mexican immigrant.  "There's an explanation for it, but I don't have it."

"It's like invasion of their privacy for them to do that," said Sarai Uribe, a Hispanic American.  "I think it's totally wrong."

Marion County's current sheriff, Raul Ramirez, is retiring and anti-immigration groups want the incoming sheriff to run every person who is jailed through federal immigration databases.

Supporters of the idea are after county commissioners to pledge to them that the next sheriff will follow through. 

"Then you have a memorandum of understanding with I.C.E. that they actually come and get them and take them out of our hands," Rick Hickey with Oregonians for Immigration Reform told county commissioners.

According to Ramirez, immigration reform advocates are barking up the wrong branch of government.

"They need to be going down to the state capitol and talking to legislators," he said.

Ramirez said under Oregon statute, as interpreted by the state attorney general, Oregon law enforcement is not allowed to run every name through immigration since that would take funding and personnel.

"I'm not going to violate the law, the state law," Ramirez said. "If that law wasn't there, then it would put things in a different perspective."

But immigration reform advocates say the law is being misinterpreted, that while it is against the law to fish for illegal immigrants on the streets, they say it is not illegal to find out who they are once they are jailed.

"I think a lot of people who really don't want to enforce this law use this as an excuse," said Wayne Brady, Marion County Republican Party.

Ramirez said the feds have up-to-the-minute access to the names of every person they jail and if they really wanted to, they could search that database and find illegal immigrants on their own.