The immigration arrests of four Marion County blueberry workers last week is leading to increased fear from farmworkers and their families in Salem, and causing growers to question what’s next.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested three Indigenous Guatemalan men and one woman near Woodburn on Aug. 7, according to a statement from multiple advocacy groups. The farmworkers were traveling to a job on a blueberry farm near Canby.

The immigration arrest is the latest in a series of ICE activity in Oregon, including operations in Yamhill County and the deportation of vineyard manager Moises Sotelo Casas, a longtime fixture in the region’s wine industry.

The arrest comes during peak blueberry harvest, a key time for farmworking families to earn income and growers to get their crop harvested.

Fruit and berries are a major product for Marion County, which is the state’s most agriculturally productive county. Oregon farmworkers harvested nearly 153 million pounds of blueberries in 2024, according to the Oregon Blueberry Commission.

Reyna Lopez, the executive director of PCUN, Oregon’s farmworker union, said that the arrests have had a “chilling effect in the community.” She said the union had been receiving questions from workers all weekend about whether it was safe to go out.

”People feel like they don’t know if they should go to work,” she said.

Lopez said she didn’t know why ICE targeted those workers.

An ICE spokesman did not respond to an email from Salem Reporter Monday seeking additional information.

Bryan Ostlund, an administrator for the Salem-based Oregon Blueberry Commission, has been in the agricultural industry in Marion and Polk counties for decades. He said that an undocumented workforce isn’t a new thing in the mid-Willamette Valley, and that it was “frustrating” to hear about Thursday’s arrests made by ICE in Woodburn.

“I think that just ag in general is a bit on pins and needles as we watch the national news — on the breadth and scope of what’s happening with ICE detainment issues,” he said. “And it’s not just ag, it’s restaurants and construction, we all know that the industries depend on immigrant labor.”

Ostlund said that the first time he heard the conversation about creating a process for a legal workforce was decades ago, but there hasn’t been substantial action.

“And here we are, we’re still talking about it,” he said. “It’s times like this, and not just this action that took place last week, but the broader nature of agriculture as we see it in California and Florida and other places — it illustrates the need for a pathway to citizenship.”

Ostlund added that the farmwork has to be done one way or another, and that what is needed is a “pathway to successfully bring workers from other countries to help farmworkers complete their work legally.”

“It’s unfortunate when you look at the time and money probably dedicated to arresting four individuals, it’s just such a lopsided process. In ag, we try to do things in an honest, legal manner, but illegal immigration, illegal workforce are not new.”

He described the deportation arrests on Aug 7 as “absolutely unfortunate.” 

Lopez, who lives in Salem, said the arrests come after several reports of ICE activity at local apartment buildings in recent weeks. 

Administration officials have repeatedly claimed they are focusing deportation efforts on serious criminals, but outside analysis of federal data has shown fewer than half of immigrants arrested in the first half of 2025 were convicted criminals.

Lopez said it’s often unclear if immigration agents are targeting someone specific when they conduct an arrest.

“If they are targeting someone, they’re taking other people with them too,” she said. 

She said PCUN has also had more people reaching out asking how they can help support immigrants amid increased arrests and scrutiny.

Lopez said that those who want to support can look for training and volunteer opportunities through the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition and Oregon for All.

Lopez said that she foresees the arrests’ chilling effect impacting the end of blueberry season for both workers’ and growers’ incomes.

“There’s a lot of concern about the safety of the community,” she said. “It is very traumatizing.”

Contact reporter Mirandah Davis-Powell: [email protected] or 541-621-5176.

Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.

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