An Uber driver says she was surrounded and stopped Tuesday by federal immigration agents in Portland who demanded she unlock her doors so they could detain the two passengers she had picked up from Union Station.
Hannah Armstrong, 28, of Battle Ground, Washington, said she was nearing the end of her shift when she picked up two men, in their mid-30s to mid-40s, at the train station.
It’s not clear who the men were or why federal agents may have wanted them. Uber gives drivers only the first names of people who book rides and drivers can’t recover that information after rides end.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which oversees U.S. Border Patrol, haven’t responded to requests seeking comment since Wednesday. Armstrong said she was followed by federal agents for about half a mile after she left the train station. Both ICE and U.S. Border Patrol have been active in Oregon.
At about 5:10 p.m., she said, her vehicle was surrounded by three unmarked vehicles near Northwest Glisan Street and 11th Avenue.
She shared clips captured by her car cameras with The Oregonian/OregonLive, which show her being surrounded in the Pearl District. In one video, a truck pulls up behind her. In two others, agents approach and attempt to open the car’s back doors.
From the angle of one of several videos shared with The Oregonian/OregonLive, a man in a vest can be seen appearing to handcuff one of the two passengers after he gets out of the back seat.
The immigration agents “came over and just tried to open the doors immediately without identifying themselves,” she said.
While this incident appears to be among the first cases of passengers being taken out of their rideshare vehicles in Oregon, Uber and Lyft drivers in some other states have been targeted by federal immigration officials.
Earlier this month, an Uber driver was questioned by U.S. Border Patrol agents at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, according to multiple news reports. Late last year, an Uber driver was detained by federal agents as he was dropping off a passenger in Chicago, and agents also carried out a raid in the rideshare parking lot at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, making several arrests.
Armstrong said she owns her vehicle, which is registered to her, and federal agents didn’t present any warrant, or documentation to her after they surrounded her car. She did see the word “police” on their vests, she said, and the men were dressed in civilian clothes as federal immigration agents typically dress.
The federal agents opened her car’s doors and told the men they were under arrest before taking them out and handcuffing them, Armstrong said. She said she didn’t see federal agents show the men any documentation either.
“It’s just not right how they do it at all,” she said.
Armstrong said she reported the incident to Uber on Thursday. She said the rideshare company sent her a link to upload her footage, but she wasn’t able to, and when she informed Uber, she didn’t hear back. She questioned how the federal agents knew who was in her car.
Armstrong said she didn’t know whether Uber shared information about her passengers with federal agents, but she hopes that wasn’t the case.
“I would hope that they aren’t just giving people up like that,” she said, “especially putting drivers in the position when you never know what could happen.”
After multiple requests seeking comment on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Gabriela Condarco-Quesada, an Uber spokesperson, on late Friday afternoon said: “We have no information regarding the reason for or circumstances leading to the arrest.”
It’s unclear whether the men had just gotten off a train at Union Station or arrived there another way. It’s also unclear how long federal agents had been tracking them before they entered Armstrong’s vehicle.
Amtrak, which operates trains out of Union Station, didn’t respond to multiple requests seeking comment about whether it had shared passenger information with federal agents.
A spokesperson for the city of Portland, which owns Union Station, said staff in the building don’t have access to passenger information, and that Portland, as a sanctuary jurisdiction, “does not allow city employees to assist federal agencies with immigration enforcement.”
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