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U.S. Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Ore.) called on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop abducting her constituents, a week after ICE agents apprehended a Milwaukie man born in California on his way to work and detained him for part of the day.
“These ICE raids are reminiscent of the Fugitive Slave Act, when the U.S. Marshals would hunt down and kidnap Black Americans,” Bynum said in a statement. “That was a dark and shameful time in our nation’s history—we must not allow that to repeat. Masked federal agents aren’t welcome in our state and they can’t keep kidnapping Americans.”
Frank Miranda, 46, filmed ICE agents confronting him before work on Oct. 2, demanding that he answer questions about where he was born. When he refused, agents threatened him with a dog and took him to the ICE facility on South Macadam Avenue.
Bynum demanded a “thorough investigation” into Miranda’s abduction.
WW was first to report the incident on Tuesday and asked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for comment. An ICE spokesperson returned the message today, impugning the paper’s motives and journalistic standards.
“ICE officers do not abduct people. Full Stop,” an unnamed spokesperson said in an email. “To suggest they do is what is leading to the 100% increase in assaults on our officers. A responsible journalist would not advocate for violence and instead would seek truth over clicks so it’s clear the Willamette Week is only interested in fueling the fire rather than seeking to tone down the rhetoric."
Miranda “was handed to ICE Oct. 2 to determine his alienage and removability,” the spokesperson said. “He was eventually released the same day as arrest.”
Portland lawyer Michael Fuller described Miranda’s ordeal in a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday, flagging his client’s intention to seek damages.
Asked about ICE’s response today, Fuller wrote in an email: “As Trump himself said, anonymous sources are bullshit. The fact that ICE won’t attribute its comment to an actual person speaks to the baseless nature of its statement. The abduction video speaks for itself.”
Noem visited Portland on Tuesday, where she joined officials on the roof of the ICE building and watched a small group of protesters, including a man in a chicken suit, stand along the road. She called them “uneducated and ill-informed.”
“Not only do these raids undermine the principles that our country was founded on, but they’re against the law and downright racist,” Bynum wrote. “I’m demanding an end to ICE’s reign of terror, a thorough investigation into the kidnapping of Mr. Miranda, and fundamental change to this administration’s approach to immigration.”
