Federal Judge Mustafa Kasubhai ruled that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers systematically violated his order restricting warrantless arrests in Oregon. In the judge’s view, one agent deliberately entered false information in an official report to make the arrest appear lawful. The judge accused the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, of trying to circumvent legal requirements and the court order.
In February, Kasubhai barred warrantless arrests except when an officer’s individualized assessment indicated that a person might flee. He has now introduced additional oversight measures: every 30 days, the agency must notify all ICE agents in the state of the order’s terms and confirm to the court that it has done so. ICE must also provide attorneys for Innovation Law Lab with documents and body-camera footage for every civil immigration arrest in Oregon. If no footage exists, the agent must confirm that under oath.
Innovation Law Lab is an Oregon nonprofit that provides legal support to migrants and monitors immigration authorities. Access to documents and video recordings will allow the organization to check how arrests and transfers are carried out and whether officers respect detainees’ rights. ICE is responsible for immigration enforcement and implementing federal immigration laws.
The judge focused in particular on the arrest of a 22-year-old man near Emigrant Lake reservoir, close to Ashland. The man said agents stopped his car, detained him and took his phone and wallet without presenting a warrant or explaining why. An agent identified as J.J. claimed the man’s identity had been established before the arrest and that a document setting out the grounds for detention had been prepared, but acknowledged that the report was inaccurate. The judge concluded that the agent had not simply made a mistake but had deliberately lied: at the time, he did not know who was in the car and had no warrant for the man.
The ruling also describes an incident in Hood River, where federal agents detained a delivery driver without first confirming his name or telling him why he was being detained. The man spent three months at an ICE detention center in Tacoma before authorities admitted they had mistaken him for someone else. The documents also contained incorrect information about his vehicle. Detainees from southern Oregon may be sent to Tacoma and other facilities in the Pacific Northwest because Oregon has few detention beds. Transportation and placement depend on available space and federal contracts, so people often end up far from where they were detained and from their loved ones.
According to the judge, the agency’s official statistics also failed to reflect the true number of warrantless arrests: in the first six months after the ban took effect, the Department of Homeland Security reported only 13 such cases.
The ruling was published on the day of a hearing on another alleged unlawful arrest, in a Walmart parking lot in Albany. An ICE agent acknowledged that officers had checked the license plates of all shoppers and that the man who was detained had not been selected as a target in advance. The man, who had lived in the United States for 35 years and ran his own pallet-repair business, said he was released in Portland that evening without explanation and then had to call his son.
Innovation Law Lab’s legal director welcomed the judge’s decision and said that people who had been unlawfully separated from their families or detained on their way to work should see ICE held accountable.
Based on: ICE systematically defied ban on warrantless arrests in Oregon, judge finds