Oregon sees largest immigration raid Thursday in Woodburn with 30 detained, group says

By MIA MALDANADO/Oregon Capital Chronicle

Federal immigration agents detained at least 30 people headed to work Thursday morning in Woodburn — marking the largest immigration raid in Oregon since President Donald Trump took office in January, advocates say.

At a press conference in Portland on Friday, farmworker advocacy group Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste, known as PCUN, confirmed details of the raid.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed the enforcement actions in an email, noting that those arrested included one person with a history of hit-and-run while driving under the influence and at least four others who either had final orders of removal or had reentered the U.S. illegally.

Federal immigration agents detained most people between 5 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. Thursday, which is when most farmworkers head to work, PCUN Executive Director Reyna Lopez said.

“A lot of the folks that got picked up yesterday, they were the main breadwinners of their family, so there’s moms and kids right now that don’t know what they’re going to do when it comes to their financial reality,” Lopez said.

ICE has ramped up its immigration enforcement operations since Trump took office. Regional director Camilla Wamsley, responsible for ICE operations in Oregon, Washington and Alaska, said in court on Friday that she’s set an internal goal of 30 arrests per day for the region — double the daily goal the regional agency had in 2024.

ICE agents have detained more than 200 people living in Oregon since President Trump took office, Lopez said. The raids are disproportionately impacting Latino families, many of whom have lived and raised children in Oregon for years, Lopez said. In Woodburn, Hispanics make up 63% of the town’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“These are families who came here seeking safety and a better life,” Lopez said. “These are families who had the courage and the tenacity to move everything to this country for a hope and a dream, and yet, every single day, there are people that are being snatched by Trump’s mass secret police, and they are being kidnapped from our communities.”

Although an ongoing lawsuit has prevented Trump from deploying the National Guard to Oregon, it did not stop his administration from sending more ICE agents, Lopez said at the conference. A restraining order pausing guard deployment expires Sunday, but a federal judge could issue a more permanent ruling as soon as Friday or over the weekend.

Rep. Lesly Muñoz, D-Woodburn, said Thursday’s arrests are part of a coordinated effort to target Oregon’s construction workers, farmworkers, educators and families.

“Due process rights apply to everyone under our Constitution, regardless of immigration status,” she said in a statement. “I call on federal agencies to uphold these constitutional standards.”

Some Oregon leaders also criticized the Trump administration for ramping up immigration enforcement operations in the middle of a government shutdown that began Oct. 1. 

Graham Trainor, president of Oregon AFL-CIO, the statewide federation of labor unions that represents over 300,000 Oregonians, said the Trump administration’s actions are immoral and cruel.

“The Trump administration found billions of our taxpayer dollars to spend on this lawless secret service force, yet in just a couple days, millions of Americans will go hungry because he refuses to fund SNAP, including 757,000 Oregonians,” Trainor said at Friday’s press conference. “The Trump administration found hundreds of millions to build his personal ballroom, yet our government is shut down because he wants to deny Americans affordable health care.”