Arrests in Oregon in 2025 almost 10 times as high as previous year
By Mia Maldonado, Oregon Capital Chronicle
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Federal immigration agents arrested at least 1,100 people in Oregon this year, immigration experts estimate — a surge from the 113 arrests recorded in all of 2024.
In August, the Trump administration said it would “come after” states like Oregon with laws preventing local law enforcement from coordinating with federal immigration officials. Since then, Oregon’s been at the forefront of President Donald Trump’s renewed immigration enforcement efforts.
From Trump’s attempt to deploy Oregon National Guard troops to Portland in the spring, to the state’s largest Latino labor union and a Portland immigration law firm suing his administration alleging it is blocking attorneys from accessing detained clients — the Beaver State in 2025 repeatedly drew the administration’s attention. Oregon now ranks among the top five states with the largest year-over-year increases in ICE arrests, Stateline reported.
The Oregon Capital Chronicle analyzed data from Deportation Data Project, a database run by lawyers and academics who collected national ICE arrest data from public records requests between Sept. 1, 2023 and Oct. 15, 2025, as well as data from immigration advocates to understand what federal immigration enforcement looked like in Oregon by the numbers.
Oregon saw surge in arrests in summer and fall
ICE agents arrested 660 people in Oregon in the first ten months of 2025, according to the Deportation Data Project.
The project’s dataset doesn’t include arrests after mid-October, but U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Banks said on the social media platform X that federal agents arrested more than 560 people in Portland in October alone. Immigration experts assume his estimate is accurate, and the Portland Immigration Rights Coalition, which became a statewide hotline this year for Oregonians to report ICE sightings, confirmed with the Oregon Capital Chronicle that it’s had more than 1,000 arrests reported to the hotline this year. Oregon for All, a coalition of organizations advocating for immigrants rights, reported 1,900 arrests, coalition spokesperson Diane Goodwin told the Capital Chronicle.
Detentions peaked in July, October and November, according to Stephen Manning, the director of Innovation Law Lab, a Portland-based law firm focused on immigration.
The rise came after Trump in the spring raised the national daily ICE arrest quota from 1,000 to 3,000 per day. Regional director Cammilla Wamsley, responsible for ICE operations in Oregon, Washington and Alaska, also set an internal goal of 30 arrests per day for the region — double the daily goal the regional agency had in 2024.
ICE did not respond to the Capital Chronicle’s request for comment.
“The data shows arbitrary quotas were imposed by Trump in June 2025 and apprehensions spiked and then in September 2025, they spiked again, and on Oct. 15, 2025 they surged off the chart,” Manning told the Capital Chronicle.
While ICE has claimed its crackdowns are catching criminals, the data shows that only 32% of people arrested in 2025 had criminal convictions. That’s down from 45% of the people ICE arrested in Oregon in 2024, according to the Deportation Data Project.
People arrested by ICE came from at least 45 different countries, with the most people coming from Mexico, followed by Honduras, Venezuela, Guatemala and China.
About 84% of those arrested in the first 10 months of the year were male.
Roughly two-thirds of people detained were between the ages 19 and 40. The youngest person detained was 4-years-old.
Cities, counties respond to ICE action in Oregon
Portland Immigrants Rights Coalition Coordinator Alyssa Walker Keller said there will be “many hard months” ahead. The group anticipates a looming eviction and hunger crisis for families who lost their breadwinners.
“It will be important for local and state governments to invest in stabilizing, for mutual aid groups to supplement that support, and for all of us to be thinking about strategies of how to stabilize these families whose entire worlds have been rocked by their loved one being stolen away,” she told the Capital Chronicle.
Cities and counties including Portland, Salem, Forest Grove, Woodburn and Multnomah and Washington counties have responded to ICE’s increased presence in their communities by declaring local emergencies, ordering training for local staff on how to follow Oregon’s sanctuary law or allocating funds to support immigrant and refugee communities.
Mia Maldonado covers Oregon and state legislature with a focus on social services for Oregon Capital Chronicle. She started her career in journalism with Oregon Capital Chronicle’s sister outlet in Idaho, the Idaho Capital Sun.
Related stories:
Confirmed: ICE arrested 17 workers during Rogue Valley cannabis raids in July (Dec. 20, 2025)
Local Cops Aren’t Allowed to Help ICE. Did the Feds Dupe Them Into Raids That Rounded Up Immigrants? (The Intercept, Nov. 3, 2025)
Hundreds hear tips on how to respond to changing immigration policy (Ashland.news, Feb. 26, 2025)
