Immigration enforcement throughout the country has slowly ramped up since the start of Trump’s second term, but detentions in Oregon jumped dramatically in October, increasing by at least 550% compared to previous months, according to figures from the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition.
PIRC is a nonprofit hotline that tracks ICE sightings and arrests and provides legal aid to those who have been detained. It confirmed 329 arrests in Oregon in October. PIRC Board Member Natalie Lerner told OPB that this figure was likely an undercount of the true number.
That would be a significant uptick for a single month, according to federal data collected by the Deportation Data Project, a collaboration between the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University of California, Berkeley. Between January and July of this year, the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska combined to average 237 arrests per month.
The October arrests, including those of people with citizenship or other legal status, have sent chills through immigrant communities throughout the state. Fearing detention, some residents are now staying home from work, school and doctor appointments.
In Washington County, where immigration officers made at least 135 arrests last month, according to PIRC, county commissioners declared a state of emergency last week.
StopICE.net, a crowdsourced ICE activity tracker, also reported an increase in immigration enforcement operations recently. The website documents federal immigration officers’ movements in local communities, Siterunner Sherman Austin said.
StopICE received 71 reports of ICE activity or arrests within a 40-mile radius of Portland in October, compared to 31 in September and 17 in August. The site is just one of many places people report ICE activity, meaning their figures are not comprehensive. Website users have reported more than 2,400 sightings nationwide since August.
Not every ICE action is listed or confirmed, Austin noted, adding that reports that include a photo are more likely to become “confirmed.” Reports that merely describe situations and locations have a better chance of being confirmed if multiple people report the same thing, he explained.
The website also allows people to sign up for text alerts in case there are confirmed sightings near them. Austin said roughly half a million people subscribe to the alerts.
Where are arrests taking place?
Immigration agents conducted a SWAT-like raid in Gresham in October, barging into a bedroom with rifles aimed at a young mother and her crying baby.
Detentions have also been reported south of the Portland Metro area, predominantly in Woodburn and Salem, Lerner said. The day before Halloween, immigration officials arrested more than 30 farm workers in Woodburn in the largest Oregon raid yet.
More recently, Lerner noted, people have seen growing enforcement in cities like Eugene and Cottage Grove.
Are there other patterns in these arrests?
While most arrests take place early in the morning, Lerner said PIRC is seeing more and more evening arrests.
Lerner also noted an uptick in what she called “collateral arrests,” where agents target one specific person, but end up detaining whoever is with them.
“They’re arresting whoever is in that car who cannot immediately prove they have status,” Lerner said. “It’s detain first, and ask questions later.”
Immigration officers used this tactic early in October when ICE sought a construction worker in Gresham, but also arrested the three men working with him.
“When ICE encounters a targeted illegal alien, ICE will screen all individuals in a group to ensure that anyone violating U.S. immigration laws is held accountable,” an ICE spokesperson told OPB after those arrests.
From pointing guns and tasers at detainees to tackling or pepper-spraying them, increasingly violent tactics have become the norm, Lerner said.
“It’s hard to go a day without hearing about someone’s window being broken,” Lerner said.
Lerner said she suspects some of this aggression is due to new units from U.S. Customs and Border Protection recently assisting ICE’s enforcement. Those units include BORTAC, or Border Patrol Tactical Unit, which is no stranger to Portland. The special unit was criticized for its aggressive tactics when it came to Portland in 2020 to help quell the city’s months-long racial justice protests.
Lerner pointed out that the increase in aggressive tactics and overall increase in enforcement operations last month coincided with Trump’s attempt to send National Guard troops to the city, which the president first announced in late September.
ICE did not respond to OPB’s request for comment about the reasoning behind this recent uptick in activity.