Oregon ICE Activity—Weekly Update (1/14/26)
The Portland Shooting, Operation Black Rose, and Detentions Down
It’s been a busy couple of weeks for ICE-related news in Oregon. We have a boatload of information on DHS’s operations and a new lawsuit against them, both courtesy of the Innovation Law Lab. We’ve got updates on the Border Patrol shooting in Portland last week, including clearing up the facts about gang affiliation. And, of course, we have more detention reporting data.
Detentions
There were 42 detentions reported to the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition hotline between January 1 and January 11. It still sucks, but this is a significant decrease from what we were seeing in October and November when the numbers frequently reached 90 or more.
Border Patrol Shooting in Portland
On January 8, two Venezuelan Oregonians were shot by Border Patrol agents in East Portland. Both are alive, but they are now in federal custody. The man, David Nino-Moncada, has been charged with assaulting a federal officer for ramming his vehicle into an agent’s truck while attempting to escape. The woman, Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras, has been charged with illegal entry into the US and was transferred to the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. DHS claims that Nino-Moncada is a part of the Tren de Aragua gang, but as far as I can tell right now, there’s no hard evidence of this and a federal defense attorney called the connection flimsy.
Operation Black Rose
On to Innovation Law Lab. They’ve revealed that DHS launched “Operation Black Rose” in Oregon in October, leading to a dramatic spike in detentions—a 1,500% increase from the month prior and 7,900% from the previous year. The operation involves shipping in agents from around the country, using advanced surveillance tech, making likely illegal, warrantless arrests, and more. There’s honestly more than I can touch on here, so I recommend reading Innovation Law Lab’s report.
Lawsuit to Halt Warrantless Arrests
Innovation Law Lab has filed a motion seeking an emergency order to halt ICE’s warrantless arrests in Oregon. Warrantless arrests require two things: First, probable cause to believe an individual has violated US immigration law—the Supreme Court effectively legalized racial profiling in Vasquez Perdomo v. Noem, so ICE can sort of bypass this. Second, and this is important, probable cause to believe the person will escape in the time it takes to obtain a warrant. I can almost guarantee that ICE has not met the latter criteria in many arrests across the state, including one that the Law Lab is currently litigating. On top of all that, ICE agents have testified in court that they’ve created and signed arrest warrants after arrests were already made.
What’s clear is we’re seeing the next level of escalation from ICE across the country, particularly in Minneapolis where the horrific videos just keep coming. In Portland, when protesters expressed their frustration, they were brutalized by Portland police, and another officer was caught on video defending the shooting of Renee Good. More and more people are questioning how local and state governments can or should leverage the police and National Guard to ensure ICE is following the law. The Portland Police Bureau’s conduct will certainly not be encouraging for the broader community.