The Pacific Northwest last year saw a near historic increase in immigration arrests, with a significant spike in Oregon toward the end of 2025, according to new data made public this week.

Arrests in Oregon, Washington and Alaska during the last three months of 2025 are the most since the height of enforcement at the end of the first Obama administration, said Phil Neff, research coordinator at the University of Washington Center for Human Rights.

“It’s really near historically unprecedented levels,” Neff said.

The arrests in and around Portland stunned the researchers, he said.

“We were frankly blown away by the scale of the arrests in the Portland area from October to December of last year,” he said. “I think that’s the most important finding that we want to share.”

Researchers at the UW center released an analysis of immigration arrest trends Wednesday after obtaining federal data as part of negotiations in their ongoing litigation against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security over access to records.

They drew the numbers from initial apprehension forms produced by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for people the agency considers deportable. The forms covered 2022 through 2025 for people processed by the agency’s Seattle Field Office, which oversees Oregon, Washington and Alaska.

In Oregon, the data shows 1,655 immigration arrests overall last year – more than the three previous years combined.

The number is slightly below the figure that federal officials have cited of more than 2,100 people arrested in the state since President Donald Trump took office. That compares to about 2,250 immigration arrests in the Pacific Northwest in 2011 during the Obama administration’s focus on deporting immigrants.

The new figures indicate that the majority of the people arrested last year in Oregon – 1,265 – had no pending criminal charges or convictions.

Immigration arrests grew from less than 100 a month from January through September to more than 400 in October and November, according to the analysis.

Multnomah County with 576 arrests, Washington County with 317 arrests and Marion County with 122 arrests saw the sharpest increases during the last three months, according to the researchers.

Multnomah County also had the highest arrest rate last year — 96 arrests per 100,000 residents for a total of 770.

Washington, Yamhill, Marion and Hood River counties had rates of 42 to 58 arrests per capita, with all other counties in Oregon seeing fewer than 35 arrests per capita last year, according to the data.

In Washington, arrests rose steadily last year, with fewer than 100 in January to more than 350 in December. Yakima County had the highest per capita arrest rate, with more than 180 arrests per 100,000 residents for a total of 477 arrests.

Neff noted the numbers are an undercount because the data documents only initial apprehensions, representing about 60% to 80% of all the ICE arrests. People who might have already been in deportation proceedings and arrested – for instance at ICE check-ins or at courthouses – are less likely to be included in the data, he said.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reported on the intensified enforcement last fall as it occurred from Portland to Woodburn to Hillsboro and previously quantified the arrests through advocacy organizations that estimated detentions at about the same rate.

But these are the first figures directly from the government and over a longer period to show the trend.

The arrest pace in Oregon hasn’t continued so far into this year. Enforcement began to decrease in January, with two confirmed immigration arrests reported to the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition from March 1 through March 10. The group, which verifies and tracks immigration arrests in Oregon, was waiting to confirm another five detainments during the same period, according to the latest update posted on Thursday.

Last year, immigration arrests in Oregon remained relatively out of the public eye until June, when federal officers detained a handful of asylum seekers outside or near Portland Immigration Court and picked up vineyard and constructions workers on their way to work.

Enforcement continued through the summer before surging in fall, with agents arresting people on their way to work, near schools, inside and outside businesses and on the street.

Masked agents smashed people’s car windows to drag them out of their vehicles while surrounding others at gunpoint. They have arrested the wrong people and swept up some U.S. citizens.

Neff said the UW researchers don’t have access to nationwide data, so they weren’t able to compare arrests in the region to other parts of the country.

But he believes the trend could continue in the Pacific Northwest and nationwide.

“I think certainly any of our regions could see additional surges of enforcement,” Neff said. “The degree to which ICE’s budget has been multiplied under the current administration, I think it’s likely that we continue to see increasing enforcement across the region. … We were nearly in historic levels at the end of last year. I think if it continues to grow, we’ll be in uncharted territory.”

Mark Friesen contributed to this report.

This article was originally published by The Oregonian/OregonLive and is reprinted with permission.

Yesenia Amaro is a reporter for The Oregonian/OregonLive. Reach her at 503-221-4395.