Rep. Lucetta Elmer, R-McMinnville, discusses her party's legislative priorities in the 2026 short session. (Photo by Mia Maldonado/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
After hearing her Democratic counterpart cite the immigration detention of a 7-year-old and her parents seeking medical care in Portland, Rep. Lucetta Elmer couldn’t help but interject.
“Tell the whole story,” the House Republican Leader from McMinnville said at a legislative press conference in late January, interrupting House Majority Leader Ben Bowman, D-Tigard.
He asked her to elaborate.
“I want to keep it in Oregon, and there have been so many stories — talk about the 17-year old that was taken from the high school right there in my district, but it had nothing to do with his immigration,” she said, apparently referring to the ICE arrest of a 17-year-old U.S. citizen off-campus during lunch hours who was accused of obstructing federal agents.
“I am not familiar with all of the details,” Elmer added. “I just know that every single story that has been brought forward that creates this fear, every single one that I have looked into, there is another side of the story that debunks the fear that came out of it.”
Elmer’s response offered some of the clearest insight to date into Oregon Republicans’ views on the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive immigration policy, an issue on which Republican lawmakers have largely remained silent since a Portland U.S. Border Patrol shooting in early January. Elmer did not respond to an interview request, and a House Republican caucus spokesperson declined to elaborate on her perspective or provide sources to back up her claims.
The Capital Chronicle reached out to more than a dozen House and Senate Republican lawmakers about immigration, most of whom were more reluctant to address the conduct of federal agents than leading gubernatorial candidates for the GOP’s nomination. Despite their link to the party controlling the White House and Congress, several Republicans either refused to comment or claimed immigration enforcement was outside of their scope as state legislators.
A few expressed discomfort at questions when approached in-person in Salem or referred comments to a House Republican caucus spokesperson.
“Does the Oregon Capital Chronicle support allowing unlawful violent criminal migrants to roam the streets of our communities?” Emily Girsch, a spokesperson for the House Republicans, wrote in an email, citing a 2025 poll by PBS, NPR and the survey research center Marist. “Most Americans — 80% — support or strongly support the U.S. government deporting immigrants without permanent legal status who have been convicted of a violent crime.”
Since President Donald Trump took office, federal immigration agents in Oregon have dragged people out of their cars, smashed their windows, held teenagers at gunpoint and conducted warrantless arrests that have raised complaints of racial profiling while ensnaring U.S. citizens.
A federal judge on Feb. 3 temporarily barred agents at the Portland waterfront Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility from using less-lethal munitions against protesters without an imminent threat of harm, following the use of tear gas against nonviolent protesters including children and seniors. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security maintains that its officers are subject to a dramatic increase in assaults and threats, but it hasn’t publicly disclosed data to support those claims.
Sen. Kim Thatcher, R-Keizer, said a January incident in which a U.S. citizen in Salem was reportedly pulled out of her car by federal agents “doesn’t sound helpful.”
“I don’t know the whole story, but I do know that they (federal agents) also have fear for their own lives. They’re people too, and they’re being demonized as other than people,” she said. “But I could see why there would be a concern, like, OK, this officer, I have nothing to identify him with, I think they violated my rights or whatever, they can’t point to somebody.”
Christopher Shortell, a professor of political science at Portland State University, said many Americans have lost trust in the federal government’s immigration policy and closely associate enforcement with Trump.
A Feb. 5 poll from PBS/NPR/Marist found that 65% of Americans, up from nearly 55% in June 2025, believe the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement have gone too far to enforce immigration laws. The most recently available data also shows that while ICE arrested at least 10 times as many people in Oregon in 2025 compared to 2024, less than one-third of 2025 arrestees had criminal convictions, compared to nearly half the 2024 arrestees.
“If you’re a Republican elected official, you don’t want to have more of an association with something that the public views negatively than you have to,” Shortell said.
Few policy plans from Republicans
Oregon already has one of the strongest set of sanctuary law policies in the nation, blocking local and state law enforcement from collaborating with federal immigration authorities without a court order. Voters upheld the practice in the 2018 election, backing the original 1987 law which drew near-unanimous bipartisan support at the time of its passage.
Oregon Democrats, meanwhile, have opened the 35-day short legislative session in Salem with a package of immigrant rights legislation to strengthen those laws. Republicans have yet to offer bills to change the state’s sanctuary system, though they could attempt to use procedural moves to try and run out the clock and stall Democrats’ efforts.
Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, told the Capital Chronicle that “the specific instances that we’ve heard cited show that there is a basis for the fear.” He’s mulling an amendment for lawmakers to allow Oregon and the federal government to share information regarding individuals who are convicted of serious misdemeanors and felonies.
“Our law enforcement authorities can cooperate as to that,” he said. “The message there is: You don’t need to have your federal agents out there in the community doing their thing, because that is very concerning.”
Sen. Dick Anderson, R-Lincoln City, has remained relatively quiet on the potential of an ICE detention facility in his district, a possibility that has been a flash point for months across the Oregon Coast. An ICE official confirmed in a January court filing that the agency was interested in using the city’s U.S. Coast Guard facility for a temporary processing center but will not be making any moves regarding construction until May.
Anderson attributed developments like those to the conversations he has had with the federal government. The state’s only congressional Republican, U.S. Rep. Cliff Bentz, meanwhile, recently said he has lobbied for a “different approach” to deportations by the federal government.
“I’m one of the few Republicans,” Anderson said when asked about constituents who want him to be more vocal. “In essence, they really want me to stand there and somehow rail with them. If I were on the other end of the table and I saw that, why would I answer my call?”
A post-shooting press conference
Although Trump won a second term in part due to his promises to crack down on illegal immigration and border security, Oregon Republicans have largely rallied around economic issues such as business friendliness, transportation and taxes. But they tackled the issue head-on during a weekend press conference they scheduled after a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot two Venezuelan nationals in their car in a Portland hospital parking lot.
The Jan. 8 shooting came a day after an ICE agent fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, prompting widespread condemnation from Democratic state and local politicians. Elmer and Senate Minority Leader Bruce Starr, R-Dundee, alongside multiple Republican lawmakers, denounced their Democratic colleagues for politicizing the case before it played out in court.
“These individuals were in fact known gang members and had been connected to a prior shooting in Portland last July,” said Elmer, who pointed to the comments of Portland Police Chief Bob Day.
In fact, Day had told reporters the pair “had some nexus” to Tren de Aragua, a multinational crime syndicate founded in 2014 in a Venezuelan prison. Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Edmonds, however, in late January told a federal magistrate handling the driver’s case that: “We’re not suggesting, and we didn’t make an argument to the court that he’s a gang member or that he fired shots.”
Federal authorities charged the driver, Luis David Nino-Moncada, with aggravated assault of a federal officer and damaging federal property, and his case is ongoing. The passenger, Yorlenys Zambrano-Contreras, pleaded guilty to unlawful entry and was sentenced to one year of probation.
Girsch declined to clarify the lawmakers’ comments from the press conference, which she said focused on asking officials to “tone down the rhetoric” while court cases play out.
“Regardless of whether Nino-Moncada was a ‘gang member’ or an ‘affiliate’ of Tren de Aragua, he has been charged with a violent crime, on top of being in the country illegally,” Girsch said.
Gubernatorial candidates weigh in
Oregon has not elected a Republican as governor since 1982, and only two Republicans have won statewide elections since 2000. While the 2026 election year already poses an uphill battle for any Republican who clinches the nomination, 61% of Oregon voters reported wanting a gubernatorial candidate who would stand up to Trump’s policies, according to a November 2025 poll commissioned by the Democratic Governor’s Association.
Rep. Ed Diehl, R-Scio, a high-profile social conservative running for the Republican nomination, said he had concerns with a December ICE enforcement against farmworkers from Woodburn who were taken from a van on their way to work in Marion County.
Diehl has requested more information from homeland security officials on that incident and is waiting to hear back, he said. He said he would support undoing “big chunks” of Oregon’s 2021 sanctuary law, which prevents local jails from detaining people for immigration enforcement and blocks administrative subpoenas from ICE used to gather information from local authorities.
“I want to make sure that we’re going after the bad guys. The people who are doing crimes here. Not the people who’ve been living here, doing the right thing,” he said. “I worship with some of these folks. They’ve built families here, so some of the things that have gone on do concern me.”
Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell, another Republican candidate, told the Capital Chronicle that she had concerns with the treatment of the U.S. citizen in Salem. Masked federal agents using an unmarked car reportedly pulled her out of her car in January after she failed to immediately respond to their requests.
One of the state’s largest unions reported that she had a concussion, bruised ribs and a torn rotator cuff. Federal agents eventually left her vehicle after going through her belongings and finding her passport, the union said.
While Bethell pointed to the state’s sanctuary laws, she said the woman in Salem’s civil liberties “were totally violated. Why she was on any type of a list is mind-blowing to me.” She is not against masks but said it “bothers” her when federal immigration agents’ uniforms lack the identification that local law enforcement employ.
“I just followed a team (of federal agents) out of South Salem last night on my way up here, and I was analyzing their presence in the community that they were in, which is the community that I represent,” she said. “It bothered me that everybody, even the white people that were hanging around, felt a little bit of tension, because they’re watching the news and they’re seeing what’s happening.”
State Sen. Christine Drazan, R-Canby, who is running again after losing by less than four points to Gov. Tina Kotek in a three-way race in 2022, has avoided taking clear stances on immigration and the Trump administration. In a statement after the Portland shooting, she accused the state’s politicians of rushing to judgement, saying she wanted law enforcement to “arrest transnational Tren de Aragua gang members.”
Asked about her views on immigration, Drazan told the Capital Chronicle: “I’m not doing an interview right now, but I’m happy to schedule an interview.” Sam Herscovitz, a campaign spokesperson, declined an interview request hours prior and Drazan’s legislative office did not respond to a request for comment.
Chris Dudley, the ex-Portland Trail Blazer and 2010 gubernatorial candidate who came closer than any Republican in recent decades to winning, said he supports a pathway for the federal government to “remove” violent criminals or drug trafficking, identity theft and other felonies. Federal authorities have turned to “generalized searches in our communities” because of Oregon’s laws blocking cooperation between local and federal authorities, he said.
“We need to bring down the temperature so we can have an intellectually honest conversation about how to create channels to remove dangerous convicted criminals while keeping Oregonians safe in the process,” he wrote in a statement.
But several Republicans said they weren’t interested in elaborating on their views or weren’t following the issue at all.
Rep. Bobby Levy, R-Echo, said federal agents haven’t gone too far on her side of the state, and bristled when asked about federal officers deploying tear gas on children outside the Portland ICE facility.
“I’ve not ever seen that they’ve done that,” she said. “So don’t misquote me.”
Capital Chronicle reporters Alex Baumhardt and Mia Maldonado contributed to this report.
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