It was shortly after 7 a.m. on a late November morning when Jacqueline Chavez, owner of a painting business and a U.S. citizen, saw police lights flashing from unmarked cars behind her as she drove through Salem.
The 34-year-old, in her company’s plain white van with a large ladder on top, was pulled over. One of the cars pulled in front of her van, nearly touching her bumper, and the other pulled up close behind her.
Chavez lowered her window halfway as people wearing masks and dressed in civilian clothes, consistent with the look of immigration authorities, asked if the van was hers and if she was the only person in the vehicle, she said.
Then one of the agents asked for her driver’s license, which she provided. The agents, she said, didn’t identify themselves, but she had already seen the vehicles in social groups warning of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the area.
“I told him, ‘I’m an American citizen, who are you looking for?’” Chavez said in Spanish during an interview. “He gave me back my license, they got back in the car and they left.”
Chavez’s case and other similar ones in Aloha, Portland and Gresham have activists in the Portland area convinced that federal immigration agents are profiling Latino workers in certain industries, targeting specific types of work vehicles and pulling them over.
Workers, including U.S. citizens like Chavez, have been stopped and questioned about their legal status, seemingly on the basis of their apparent ethnicity and their work vehicles, according to two workers who spoke to The Oregonian/OregonLive and advocates who represent others.
A U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, who responded to emailed questions but did not give their name, denied that agents are profiling workers in certain fields, targeting specific types of vehicles or engaging in racial profiling.
In early September, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for racial profiling during immigration sweeps, overruling a lower court that found the practice was illegal. The Supreme Court’s ruling essentially gave the green light to immigration authorities to question people based on ethnicity or race.
The same ruling allows immigration officials to detain people based on their line of work or their presence at certain kinds of work sites.
As immigration enforcement began to intensify in Oregon this fall, photos of vans and trucks — many with ladders on top — left abandoned on streets after immigration arrests have peppered social media groups dedicated to alerting people of immigration-enforcement activity in their communities.
In early December, ICE agents revealed in court that they ran the license plate number of a van with workers in Woodburn. When agents learned the registered owner wasn’t a U.S. citizen, they followed the van, eventually pulling it over in an attempt to meet arrest quotas in an area they described as “target rich.”
Karla Castañeda, executive director for Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project, said she believes day laborers and people who have landscaping and construction businesses are being targeted, and the vehicles they typically use have drawn immigration agents’ attention.
“I’m seeing increased attention for day laborers, increased attention with landscapers or construction workers,” she said. “We definitely see that being a target, and specifically, targeting our Latino community at the moment on how they look and the type of work that they do.”
The number of construction jobs in Oregon hit a record at the end of 2023, when more than 123,000 workers were employed by the industry. In 2024, 15% of the state’s construction workforce identified as Hispanic or Latino.
Work cars seen as target
Chavez’ run-in with immigration agents was initially frightening, she said, but her fear quickly turned into outrage.
“I feel like they say, ‘That’s a work car, let’s stop them because most likely it’s someone who doesn’t have documents,’” she said of immigration agents.
Chavez, who has owned her company since 2021, described the practice of immigration agents randomly stopping certain vehicles as an injustice.
The Department of Homeland Security spokesperson didn’t respond to questions about why agents stopped and questioned Chavez.
Castañeda, with Voz Workers’ Rights Education Project, said the pattern of immigration officials targeting work vehicles is concerning.
It was just before lunchtime on Nov. 4 when Marcos Briceño, an undocumented worker from Venezuela, and his coworker, a U.S. citizen, were in the middle of their landscaping work shift at the McDonald’s on Northeast 122nd Avenue and Glisan Street when immigration agents approached them, Castañeda said. The landscaping truck full of equipment was parked nearby.
Castañeda believes immigration authorities targeted the workers because they spotted the landscaping truck and based on the way they looked.
Briceño was detained and has now been deported to Venezuela, she said. The other worker was questioned but released because he’s a U.S. citizen.
“They didn’t have a warrant for (Briceño). They had no name for him,” Castañeda said. “They just saw Latino men, and … the landscaping truck.”
The general manager at the McDonald’s said the restaurant’s surveillance cameras showed multiple unmarked immigration vehicles swarming the fast-food chain’s parking lot that day.
Immigration authorities didn’t immediately respond to questions about this case.
Later that same month, on Nov. 18, U.S. citizen Pablo Guzman, 20, and his father, Pablo Guzman Santoyo, were driving their white Dodge work truck with a trailer to pick up a check and to install Christmas lights at their construction company’s office.
They were driving near Aloha when they were surrounded by unmarked cars with flashing police lights.
An agent got out of one of the cars, pointed a handgun at the father and son and asked them to turn off their truck, Guzman said.
Over the highway traffic noise, agents yelled questions at Guzman and his father at the same time, Guzman said, and his father was taken out of the vehicle by the agents. He said one of the agents showed him his “vest badge.”
The agents took Guzman Santoyo into custody.
“They asked me if I was a U.S. citizen, which I replied to, ‘Yes,’” he said, adding that he wasn’t asked to show proof. “I was in shock,” Guzman said. “I wasn’t really comprehending what was going on.”
The Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed agents conducted an operation in the Beaverton area that day.
“Officers observed a white Dodge truck with a registered owner who is an illegal alien with a prior conviction for driving under the influence,” the spokesperson said. “When officers stopped the driver he admitted he was a citizen of Mexico not in possession of valid immigration documents that would allow him to be in the U.S. legally.”
Guzman Santoyo, who lacked legal status, was convicted of driving under the influence, then driving with his license suspended, more than 20 years ago, Oregon court records show.
Guzman Santoyo’s children say their father, who is originally from Mexico but has been in the country for 27 years, is a good man who provided for his family through his company and volunteered at his church. They believe the pair was racially profiled.
He has no criminal record in Oregon apart from the two decades-old driving-related misdemeanors.
“They didn’t have a reason to stop us,” Pablo Guzman said of his father’s arrest. “They know that (in) the construction industry … there’s a lot of Latinos. It’s one of the most prominent jobs that immigrants do. ... It seems to me that they know that we’re out here working and they know that there’s probably a few people there they can pick up.”
The Department of Homeland Security disputed that allegation. Homeland Security officers use “reasonable suspicion” to make arrests if they believe someone is in the country illegally, the spokesperson said.
“DHS apprehensions in the Portland and Beaverton areas are determined by various factors, including observed behavior, situational context, and prior information obtained through intelligence products,” the spokesperson said. “Allegations that DHS law enforcement engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically false.”
Guzman Santoyo remains in custody at the Tacoma immigration detention center.
‘Afraid to go to work’
Anjanet Banuelos Bolanos is a business representative with LiUNA Local 737. The union covers several industries, but construction is its primary craft, and it serves some 2,800 members across Oregon.
Banuelos Bolanos is one of nearly a dozen union representatives in the state, and her coverage area stretches from The Dalles to North Portland.
“We have members calling often about, ‘I’m afraid to go to work,’” Banuelos Bolanos said.
The union has been hosting Know Your Rights workshops and handed out informational pamphlets to workers and contractors.
“We’re trying everything that we can to make sure our members feel safe,” she said, “and give them the knowledge that they need to be able to protect themselves.”
When immigration enforcement began to increase in the area, the number of workers seeking work at the Voz Worker Center in Portland dipped.
“Starting in October, our numbers decreased … from like 40 people (a day) down to 10 due to fear,” Castañeda said.
In response, the organization launched an Adopt a Day Labor Corner campaign, in partnership with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, she said. It stations legal observers to document what happens if immigration agents show up. One of those corners is the Voz Worker Center, which has operated a day laborer center in Portland since 2008.
“Our numbers are now back up, between 30 to 35,” she said. “People definitely feel safer knowing that someone is watching, knowing that someone cares, knowing that someone has their back. We can’t guarantee anyone’s safety, but we can take measures in making someone feel a lot safer.”
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