For over an hour on Wednesday, heavily armed officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) surrounded a Gresham apartment, repeatedly shouting the name of a man unknown to the family inside.
The Gresham Apartment Raid
Inside the apartment were 24-year-old Maricruz Andres, her 3-month-old baby, her stepfather Arturo Garcia Cabrera, and her brother Napoleon Andres Magaña. None recognized the name that the agents were yelling. When no one came out, officers forced their way in, breaking down the apartment door and then bursting into the bedroom where the family had sought refuge.
Andres recorded the raid on her phone. The video shows agents with rifles drawn and a baby crying in the background. Officers are heard shouting commands in English and Spanish, ordering the family to raise their hands. No warrant was displayed, Andres said.
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“They didn’t ask for IDs,” Andres recalled. “They just grabbed them and took them.”
Her stepfather and brother were arrested and later transferred to the ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington. Both men are originally from Michoacán, Mexico, and are seeking legal status.
ICE Confirms Mistaken Identity
A senior Homeland Security official confirmed Friday that the two men were not the individuals ICE was targeting. Agents had been pursuing a “violent man” from Mexico who had fled after crashing into a postal vehicle and was believed to have entered the same apartment complex. The suspect escaped and remains at large.
Despite this, ICE took Andres’s relatives into custody. “Everything was very ugly and it was an injustice,” Andres said. “It made me angry and sad that they treated us like that because we are not criminals.”
A Pattern of Intensified Enforcement
Immigrant rights advocates say the incident in Gresham is part of a broader and more aggressive enforcement pattern in Oregon. According to lawyers, volunteers, and immigrant resource groups, ICE activity in the state has surged in recent months — with increasing reports of arrests in public places, at job sites, and even near schools.
The Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC) reported a dramatic spike in hotline calls — from about 20–40 per month last year to around 700 calls a month in recent weeks. Reports include arrests, sightings of ICE agents, and requests for legal guidance.
Teenagers Held at Gunpoint Twice in a Day
On October 3, ICE agents in Hillsboro stopped a car carrying Latino teenagers — not once, but twice in one day.
In the first encounter, around 8 a.m., agents in unmarked vehicles forced the black Mazda to stop near Su Casa Super Mercado. They reportedly damaged the car’s rear bumper, pointed guns at the teens, demanded IDs, and took their photos. Two hours later, the same agents confronted the same teens again at a Dutch Bros Coffee drive-thru, repeating the same actions.
The Hillsboro Police Department confirmed that ICE was responsible. One teen said he was terrified, explaining that agents claimed to be looking for a “homicide/immigrant suspect.” Police reports described the group as high school students, none of whom were the target of any criminal investigation.
Worksite Arrests in Gresham
Just days later, ICE carried out what appeared to be Oregon’s first known worksite raid under the Trump administration’s enforcement campaign. Four construction workers were detained in Gresham while on the job, leaving their vehicles abandoned at the site.
State Rep. Ricki Ruiz (D-Gresham) confirmed that immigration officers had a warrant for only one of the four men but detained three others as well. A fifth worker with proof of legal status was released on the spot. One worker reported that ICE agents had followed them from a Home Depot store before surrounding them at the job site.
“Once they got to the worksite, two SUVs pulled up and about six or seven agents began interrogating the workers,” Ruiz said.
Man Pinned Down on a Portland Street
On September 11, another video circulated online showing ICE agents in Northeast Portland pinning down Víctor José Brito Vallejo, a Venezuelan immigrant. In the video, four agents held him face-down on the pavement as he repeatedly pleaded in Spanish, “I can’t breathe.” His wife, who was nearby, screamed for help as she recorded the arrest.
The couple had fled Venezuela in 2023 seeking asylum, and were working food deliveries to support their three children. After Brito Vallejo’s arrest, his wife said she was too afraid to return home. The family has since been living in a friend’s basement, and the children haven’t attended school in weeks.
“We came to Oregon because it’s a sanctuary state,” she said. “But I have a lot of fear.”
Community Response and Resistance
Outrage has been growing among Oregon residents. Videos shared from Hillsboro earlier this week show neighbors physically blocking ICE vehicles in the street. In one clip, an ICE van drives onto a sidewalk to bypass the crowd. Another video shows residents calmly demanding a warrant and refusing to move until the agents left.
Elizabeth Aguilera, spokesperson for Adelante Mujeres, a nonprofit supporting Latina women, confirmed the community standoff. “The power of community was felt,” she said. “Neighbors and legal observers were present, filming and asking for warrants but not interfering. The agents eventually left.”
Volunteers distributed “Know Your Rights” cards to residents in case ICE returned. Aguilera added that “there has been a gradual increase in ICE activity in Washington County, but that day was the busiest we’ve seen this year.”
Growing Legal and Political Pressure
This week, immigration lawyers filed a federal lawsuit accusing ICE of preventing detainees from accessing attorneys in Oregon field offices and of carrying out a surge of “unlawful dragnet” arrests in cities including Hillsboro, Eugene, and Woodburn.
“The stakes for Oregonians caught up in this unlawful dragnet are high,” the lawsuit states, noting that some detainees risk rapid deportation not just to their native countries but occasionally to others where they have never lived.
Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin declined to answer specific questions about the Oregon arrests but said the administration was on track to deport 600,000 people nationwide by the end of the president’s first year in office.
Independent data from the Immigration Enforcement Dashboard recorded at least 306 ICE arrests in Oregon from January through July, though recent numbers remain unavailable.
A State on Edge
From apartments in Gresham to drive-thrus in Hillsboro, Oregon’s immigrant communities say they’re living in constant fear. The combination of unannounced raids, heavily armed agents, and mistaken arrests has left many questioning the boundaries of immigration enforcement.
For Maricruz Andres, whose door was broken down as her baby cried, the experience remains raw. “We didn’t know who they were looking for,” she said quietly. “But they came in like we were dangerous. We were just at home with a baby.”
