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The number of arrests by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Oregon has grown to at least 180 this year, a 320% increase from 2024.
That finding comes from the latest batch of data released by the Deportation Data Project at Berkeley Law, which collects and posts immigration enforcement datasets. Using that data, The New York Times last week found arrests have trended sharply upward in most states. Oregon is among more than 15 states that saw immigration arrests triple this year.
Data from the project’s most recent batch spans from when President Donald Trump took office on Jan. 20 until June 10, meaning numbers have likely grown since. WW has reported extensively on one subset of those arrests: the detaining of asylum seekers outside the Portland Immigration Court. In eight such cases, attorneys for the asylum seekers have sued for their clients’ release. In recent weeks, those lawsuits have shown that the circle of arrests has widened beyond courtrooms.
Oregon’s immigration arrests have increased more dramatically than in other West Coast states, though the number of arrests have remained relatively low. For example, California saw 5,860 arrests, Washington reported 620 and Idaho 310. Oregon has averaged 1.2 arrests daily since Jan. 20, toward the bottom nationwide.
Part of that may be due to Oregon’s status as the nation’s first sanctuary state, a title it’s held since 1987. That means federal officials cannot use local and state resources to enforce immigration law. As Oregon Public Broadcasting reported on Thursday, a state report detailing violations of Oregon’s Sanctuary Promise Act found federal authorities asked for help from local law enforcement 95 times in the past 12 months, a 265% increase from the year before.
The White House has challenged sanctuary states like Oregon, threatening to revoke access to federal funds. “To date, Oregon remains a sanctuary state, and its sanctuary laws have remained in place,” the state report notes.
By comparison, Idaho, a nearby state where local law enforcement is far more cooperative with ICE, saw the nation’s steepest increase in immigration arrests this year, the Times reported. the 924% increase means Idaho now averages 2.1 arrests a day, about twice Oregon’s number.
