INS To Put Ore. Detainees in Hotel

By AVIVA BRANDT, Associated Press Writer

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Foreign travelers denied entry into the country because they don't have the right documents will stay overnight in guarded hotel rooms instead of jail, immigration officials announced Thursday.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service was responding to policies that have earned this city the name ``Deportland'' in some Asian countries.

Records show immigration inspectors at Portland International Airport turn away foreigners nine times as often as inspectors in Seattle, though some of the visitors later gain entry through San Francisco or Seattle with the same documents.

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Some Japanese travel agencies have blacklisted the airport.

In Portland, rejected travelers are sent home immediately, though those who miss a return flight are detained overnight.

The hotel policy will apply to people who have not attempted to enter the country through fraud or misrepresentation. It will cost about $300 a day per detainee, about four times as much as keeping the person in jail, said Phillip Crawford, INS deputy director in Portland.

``This is the last resort in that we still intend ... to return these people to their home countries on the same day, either on a return flight or through another port of departure,'' he said.

Many foreign business travelers say they have avoided Portland because of jailings, forced return flights and rudeness by INS inspectors. The INS held a meeting April 27 with the Japanese Consul General, officials from the State Department, the business community and the Port of Portland, which manages the airport, to discuss the problem.

Reaction to the new policy was positive.

``We're just very pleased that Korean nationals will not be housed as common criminals in county jails,'' Robert Donaldson, South Korea's honorary consul general in Portland, told The (Portland) Oregonian.

``They're going to be treated as human beings, and that's what we expect,'' Donaldson said.

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