Service Employees International Union Local 503 regional director Nancy Flores Lopez, Innovation Law Lab's Isa Peña, U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas and U.S. Rep. Jeff Merkley speak to reporters in Woodburn on Feb. 13, 2026. The mural above them reads "respect and fair wages for agricultural workers" in Spanish. (Photo by Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
WOODBURN— Stopping overly aggressive immigration enforcement will take a “groundswell” of backlash from elected leaders and ordinary Americans, U.S. Rep. Andrea Salinas said Friday.
Salinas, a Democrat who along with former GOP U.S. Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer made history as Oregon’s first Latina members of Congress in 2023, joined Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, and immigrants rights advocates at the Woodburn office of Oregon’s farmworkers union, Pineros Y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste.
They were promoting the ICE and CBP Accountability Act, a bill they introduced earlier this month to ensure people whose rights are violated by federal immigration officers can sue the federal government and that money for those lawsuits can be drawn out of last year’s congressional tax and spending megalaw that provided more than $150 million for immigration enforcement.
“Our community should not have to live in fear of the very people sworn to protect them, the very people who pledge an oath to the same constitution that we have,” Salinas said. “Families deserve safety, workers deserve dignity, and every single person deserves their constitutional rights.”
They introduced the bill, which they acknowledged has little hope of passing in a Republican-controlled Congress, shortly before the Department of Homeland Security announced it would end its large-scale deployment of immigration officers in Minneapolis. That months-long surge resulted in thousands of arrests, the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal officers and massive protests.
Other Democratic cities and states are bracing for the possibility of similar escalations.
“We keep hearing rumors that Oregon is high on the president’s list,” Merkley said. “So we don’t know if those agents being drawn out of Minnesota are coming here, but we better prepare as if they are.”
Salinas said Oregonians troubled by the way the Trump administration is handling immigration enforcement need to continue speaking out through protests and writing to their members of Congress.
“This has to be from leaders, elected leaders at every level: local level, county level, state level, obviously the federal level, speaking up and saying, ‘Not here. Not in my backyard.’ And if all 50 states do that, we will basically shut down what ICE is doing right now,” Salinas said.
Isa Peña, director of strategy at the Innovation Law Lab, said the Portland-based nonprofit focused on immigrant and refugee justice is seeing “deeply troubling” reports of warrantless arrests, denial of access to counsel, racial profiling and use of high-tech surveillance to target entire neighborhoods. Innovation Law Lab recently won a court victory when a federal judge in Eugene blocked warrantless immigration arrests in Oregon.
“Immigrant Oregonians are mothers, are fathers,” Peña said. “They’re construction workers, they’re farm workers, doctors, students, and they are a critical fabric of Oregon. They have been terrorized by these violent actions.”
Salinas, Merkley and local advocates also sought to highlight the stories of Oregonians who have been victimized by federal agents and couldn’t publicly speak for themselves because they fear retaliation.
Nancy Flores Lopez, a regional director of Service Employees International Union Local 503, read a written statement from Maria, a union member and U.S. citizen who federal agents reportedly pulled from her car in Salem in late January while she was running errands. Maria, a home care worker, has declined to talk to the media and union representatives have used only a first name.
Maria was driving down a quiet street in Salem on Jan. 29 on her way to cash a check and pick up a cake for her grandson’s birthday when she noticed an unmarked black SUV tailing her, according to her statement. The SUV turned on flashing police lights to pull her over, then another vehicle pulled up to box her in.
She reported being frozen in fear and too frightened to respond when agents started banging on her window, demanding papers. They bashed in her car window and pulled her out, injuring her shoulder and ribs and causing a concussion in the process, before rifling through her car and purse and finding her passport, the statement said.
“My family and I are afraid to go out to places we used to shop, even just driving down the street,” the statement said. “I’m always looking over my shoulder to see if I’m being followed again. I will feel that fear for a long time to come.”
Ximena Van Dyke, a McMinnville resident who works with the Yamhill County nonprofit Unidos Bridging Community, said she had to be careful about details she shared of immigration enforcement actions in Yamhill County, including the November 2025 detention of a teenage U.S. citizen during his lunch break. That teen, and other people arrested or targeted by immigration agents, are following legal advice not to speak publicly because they’re concerned about retaliation against themselves or their families, she said.
“That is a clear red flag warning that our constitutional rights are in danger,” Van Dyke said. “We cannot allow constitutional protections to become optional. Accountability does not weaken law enforcement. It strengthens democracy.”
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