AROUND the same time US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was sending out erroneous media releases about mass arrests in Portland and Seattle last month, it was âcreating terrorâ with unreported stings in Woodburn, Oregon, says the president of a farmworker organization.
Readers across the region were confused in late September when ICE media releases repeatedly exaggerated the arrests of undocumented immigrants in the Pacific Northwest.
First, ICE proclaimed 33 arrests in Portland, until the agency was forced to admit the number was actually four. It did much the same in Seattleâclaiming 33 arrests before offering the actual number: one.
Meanwhile, ICE agents were conducting raids on two farmworker families in Woodburn, affecting 15 people, says RamĂłn RamĂrez, President of Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste (PCUN), the Oregon farmworkers union.
âThose 15 people are terrorizedâwe had to bring in counselors,â RamĂrez says. âFuck all those numbers.â
The erroneous media releases and concurrent lack of info regarding a raid in Woodburn underscore a larger truth about local attempts to figure out whatâs really going on with ICE: Itâs practically impossible.
As concerns about the agencyâs actions have reached a fever pitch, two media professionals assigned to the Pacific Northwest left the agency. ICE currently has no local spokesperson for the region.
âI think that the fact that they donât have any [local] media folks is very dangerous, because whatâs essentially happening is the public is not aware of whatâs going on, what [ICEâs] actions are in the community,â RamĂrez says. âI think itâs deliberate, so the public doesnât know. And that is very dangerous.â
Pacific Northwest journalists who cover the agency say the way it handles information is a joke. Reporters the Mercury spoke with asked to remain anonymous so they could be frank without risking their jobs.
âEvery time you try to get ahold of them, itâs kind of a shit show, honestly,â says one. âYou donât know when youâre going to get somebody, [or] how long itâll take [them] to get back to you.â
âI donât honestly wait for them to publish stories anymore,â he added.
Another used a different expletive to describe the agencyâs repeated peddling of false or misleading information.
Meanwhile, the Oregon Department of Justice announced Tuesday it is joining nine other states in suing the US Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a part, for failing ro release enforcement records.
The September gaffe isnât the only misstep by ICEâs PR team since President Donald Trump took office and began cracking down more harshly on undocumented immigrants. The agencyâs âDeclined Detainer Outcomeâ program targeted sanctuary jurisdictions like Portland and Seattle, which donât hold undocumented immigrants facing criminal charges despite federal requests.
Under the program, ICEâs website showed which jurisdictions decline federal requests most, plus a list of ânotable criminal activityâ by individualsâa move that depicted majority-Latinx undocumented immigrants in agency custody as hardcore criminals.
The program was discontinued on February 17, after just three weekly reports, amid criticism for being an effort to âshameâ sanctuary cities. Salon.com, for example, compared it to Breitbartâs use of a âBlack Crimeâ tag.
ICEâs practice of making it difficult to interview detainees also helps keep the undocumented-immigrant-as-criminal narrative alive.
âWeâll reach out to the individual to see if he or she is willing to provide signed consent to meet with you,â a spokesperson told this reporter last month. âIf the detainee consents, weâll make arrangements for you to meet with him or her.â
But when a source found a willing interviewee in custody, Angel Alonso Lujan-Gonzales, the agency added bureaucratic roadblocks: Before an interview could be granted, the detaineeâs attorney would have to sign a form, and the agency didnât respond to a request for the attorneyâs contact information.
âThey find no benefit in having an information outflow that theyâre not totally in control,â says Leland Baxter-Neal, a Portland immigration attorney. âMore than ever thatâs true under [ICE Acting Director] Tom Homan.â
ICE says itâs planning to replace its two recently departed media relations staffers, but its current lack of any local spokespeople suggests the region is a low priority.
âThereâs nobody in the Pacific Northwest at all? Wow,â says Andrew DeVigal, a journalism professor at the University of Oregon. âThat seems to be a challenge.â
For a month, until last Thursday, ICEâs media webpage listed Rose Richeson as spokesperson for the region, even though an email autoreply it made clear Richeson had departed. ICE updated the webpage after the Mercury asked about it, but did not respond to emailed questions.
Richesonâs replacement, Virginia Kice, also just retired.
âOopsâyouâre too late. I retired at the end of September,â Kiceâs autoreply announced. Even before that, Kice declined to respond to questions about ICE policies, saying, âwe are severely short-staffedâ and âunderwater right now.â
Itâs business as usual, says one of ICEâs national spokespeople.
âTurnover is a very normal part of the public affairs business and we are working to backfill positions that have been recently vacated,â wrote Sarah Rodriguez from ICEâs main media office in Washington, DC. Â Â Â
Using email to avoid verbal communication is also apparently standard operating procedure. âWe just have a process, that all media reporters submit their inquiries to the ICE media [email] address,â said spokesperson Angela Price, also in DC.
Given the agencyâs tendency to respond to questions with terse answers, the process leaves huge gaps in information. That might be the point.
âIf theyâre a government agency thatâs under the umbrella of an elected official and if itâs taxes thatâs paying for these services, you would think thereâs a greater need for transparency for activities theyâre conducting with the public,â DeVigal said.
A reporter and an immigration attorney the Mercury spoke with described ICE as short-staffed in Oregon. Others speculated that representing the agency at the front lines of Trumpâs xenophobic, anti-Latinx, anti-immigrant policiesâespecially with stiff resistance across Cascadiaâis a tough job.
Mat dos Santos, legal director of the ACLU of Oregon, says the agencyâs public relations reflects its main strategy: âto keep things as opaque as possible [and] increase enforcement irrespective of the Constitutional or human costs.â
âWe just donât know what happens,â dos Santos said, noting the recently bungled press releases. âEven their sort of modest attempts to be transparent feel more like marketing to Trumpâs xenophobic baseâand by the way, they got [the numbers] wrong.â