When Jorge received a text message from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), he panicked. 

Jorge (a pseudonym being used to protect his identity) immigrated to the US from Nicaragua in late 2021 as an asylum seeker. On June 2, ICE sent a message in Spanish to his cell phone, telling him to report to the nearest ICE facility within 12 hours to check in and sign paperwork, or face deportation.

He consulted a lawyer and followed the instructions, only to be detained by ICE agents and sent to a federal detention center in Tacoma, Washington. He’s been there for nearly a month.

Jorge has an active asylum case. He also has a work permit, a job, and a young family.

What happened to him isn’t unique. Attorneys with Equity Corps of Oregon confirmed to the Mercury that other immigrants have also received text messages instructing them to check in with ICE, only to be arrested and sent to a holding facility.

“We can confirm that attorneys and accredited legal representatives in the state's universal representation program, Equity Corps of Oregon, have reported that immigrant Oregonians across the state have received notifications for sudden ICE check-ins, and some Oregonians have been detained,” the organization wrote in a June 14 email. “Anyone who receives a notice from ICE or has an upcoming hearing or check in should contact their attorney.”

In Jorge’s case, he’ll likely be kept in ICE custody until he can get a court date for an appeal on his asylum case. His attorney expects that won’t happen for at least four to six months. 

“His partner is distraught,” says Sarah (also a pseudonym), a friend of Jorge’s. “If he weren’t imprisoned, he could be spending this time living peacefully in Portland, working, and supporting his family, at no expense to the government. He has been in the Portland area since January 2022, and with a family, does not pose a flight risk.”

Jorge is just one of several Oregonians who’ve been arrested by ICE this month, as the Trump administration ramps up immigration enforcement in sanctuary states like Oregon.

On June 2, a woman referred to by her legal team as OJM, was arrested at the Portland Immigration Courthouse right after a court hearing on her asylum case. She was taken to the same facility in Tacoma where Jorge is. Earlier this month, Innovation Law Lab confirmed OJM, a transgender woman, is being held in a solitary cell at her request.

The arrest led to an emergency habeas corpus filing by her attorney.

Shortly afterward, following the arrest of another person at the immigration courthouse, US District Judge Michael H. Simon ordered ICE agents not to move the man out of Oregon. After learning he’d already been taken to the ICE detention facility in Tacoma, Judge Simon demanded he not be moved from the center unless agents bring him back to Oregon first.

Jorge told Sarah he declined to sign paperwork presented to him once he got to Tacoma, on the advice of his attorney. 

Sarah is part of a church network that aids asylum seekers coming to the United States. She met Jorge through mutual friends, all of whom immigrated to the US in the past decade. She’s provided guidance and temporary housing to several people now, most of them young men fleeing violence in their native countries, and looking to start new lives in America. 

Her radical benevolence started years ago, during Donald Trump’s first presidential term, when her church group said a young man needed help finding stable housing while he sought legal status in the US and awaited an asylum hearing. 

Without much hesitation, Sarah opened her home to a stranger—a young man whom she took under her wing and helped acclimate to life and laws of his new country.

Eventually, he was able to find a place to live with friends. She and her former roommate are still close, and hike together regularly. Since her first encounter hosting a recent asylee, she’s done the same for others, serving as a mentor, and admittedly at times, a maternal figure.

Sarah says she guides asylees on “everything from getting a driver’s license to knowing which laws are serious.”

“There’s a pretty good network for refugees through IRCO (the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization), but there really isn't for asylum seekers,” she says. “My friends are a big support network and a number of them do the same thing,” she says of the mentorship and housing provisions for immigrants fleeing violence.

Not long after Jorge’s arrest, Sarah drove to Tacoma to visit him. “He sustained a painful ankle injury in the course of his arrest,” she said, noting it took two weeks for him to be seen by a doctor. “The doctor apologized and told him they’re only staffed for half the capacity they’re currently at.”

She also says Jorge told her detainees don’t get enough to eat, and “the food is gross.” 

It's a complaint shared by numerous other inmates at the Tacoma facility and other ICE centers, as they take in more people than they can properly supervise or care for. The overcrowding has led to deteriorating, sometimes deadly conditions for those in ICE custody.

On top of injury and malnourishment, she says Jorge is also struggling to submit paperwork to deal with legal and family matters.

“ICE creates long delays and makes it very difficult,” Sarah noted. “I had prepared the documents he needed, and brought them when I visited him in the ICE facility on June 11, but was not allowed to give them to him. Staff said that I needed to mail the documents instead.”

She says Jorge, who speaks very limited English, tried to create the documents himself in the prison library, but isn’t sure how to mail them from there. 

Jordan Cunnings, legal director at Innovation Law Lab, says anyone with an upcoming immigration hearing should consult an attorney if they can. 

“Empower yourself by making a personal safety plan particular to your own case. Not everyone is at the same level of risk. Don’t let the government’s unlawful tactics scare you from moving forward with your case,” Cunnings advises. “Having a lawyer can make a huge difference in your vulnerability in this situation. Oregon is lucky to have a robust program of statewide universal representation for immigrants who can’t afford private counsel.”

Cunnings suggests contacting Equity Corps to get advice and support for any upcoming hearings. 

Having legal counsel can be crucial, but it hasn’t prevented violations of due process that have run rampant since Trump started his second term in January. The Department of Homeland Security implemented steep quotas for immigration enforcement that were set at 3,000 arrests per day. Numbers from the Deportation Data Project show more than 106,000 people have been removed from the US since January 1.

Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court ruling regarding deportations. The decision upholds the Trump administration's practice of deporting immigrants to “third countries” meaning they can be sent to places they have no familiarity with, against their will, as an alternative to returning to their native countries.

Recently, the White House has targeted sanctuary cities and states—those that don’t allow local law enforcement or government entities to aid in immigration enforcement—and used dehumanizing, blanket language to describe those arrested as “killers, rapists, and drug dealers.”

Rep. Maxine Dexter, who represents Oregon’s 3rd District in Congress, condemned the aggressive move to hastily remove immigrants from the US.

“Trump’s war on immigrant communities is a lawless, hate-fueled assault—and I’m fighting it at every turn,” Dexter told the Mercury. “I’ve conducted unannounced oversight at the Northwest ICE Detention Center, flown to El Salvador to expose this regime’s cruelty, joined amicus briefs challenging his unlawful immigration policies, and I voted against sending another dime to fund Trump’s kidnapping machine. I won’t stand by while masked, unidentified officers indiscriminately abduct people off our streets, ripping families apart, and our Constitution is treated like a suggestion.”

Dexter pledged to “fight like hell” against Trump’s immigration agenda. Meanwhile, Sarah says Senator Jeff Merkley’s office is trying to get information about Jorge’s case from ICE.

Even people with legal status in the United States know the odds aren’t good for them right now.

“Jorge is afraid that he will spend months or years in detention, only to be deported after his hearing, because of the low success rate of immigration appeals,” Sarah told the Mercury. “As a result, he is considering requesting deportation to Nicaragua, despite the danger that drove him to flee to the US and request asylum in 2021.”

She says when Jorge was detained, it sank the morale of his friends, one of whom immigrated to the US from Honduras, where his older brother was murdered. 

More importantly, it’s destroying his family.

“Imagine if a friend of yours was kidnapped,” she says of the feeling. “Jorge’s wife is scared to leave the house. [His child] is stuck inside. It’s not good for a child to be stuck in the house all the time.”