Hillsboro: Council ICE Reports Log 10 Entries Since July, 4 with Federal Agents
- The city manager's "Known ICE Responses" reports to the Hillsboro City Council logged 10 entries in seven packets from July 21 to Oct.
- The other six were marked as having no federal immigration involvement.
- The reports appear in the City Manager's Report section of regular council packets.
The city manager’s “Known ICE Responses” reports to the Hillsboro City Council logged 10 entries in seven packets from July 21 to Oct. 20, a Focus Hillsboro review found. Four involved federal agents, including an Oct. 7 visit to the police lobby, where agents were turned away.
The other six were marked as having no federal immigration involvement. In five, the reports say someone threatened or said they would call ICE, short for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A separate log the city posts online lists six more entries from the same months that are not in the packet reports.
Ten entries in seven packets
The reports appear in the City Manager’s Report section of regular council packets. Focus Hillsboro counted every entry, treating related case numbers as one. The last column shows how many entries the city’s online log lists for the same dates.
| Dates covered | Council packet (page) | Entries | Federal activity confirmed | No federal involvement | Online log |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 1–13 | July 21 (pp. 684–685) | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| July 13–28 | Aug. 4 (p. 7) | 5 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| July 28–Aug. 10 | Aug. 18 (p. 4370) and Sept. 1 (p. 119) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Aug. 11–25 | No report found | – | – | – | 4 |
| Aug. 26–Sept. 7 | Sept. 15 (p. 255) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Sept. 7–21 | Oct. 6 (p. 201) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Sept. 22–Oct. 6 | No report found | – | – | – | 0 |
| Oct. 7–12 | Oct. 20 (p. 315) | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| Total | 10 | 4 | 6 | 16 |
Focus Hillsboro compilation from council packets and the city’s online log, checked Oct. 27.
Focus Hillsboro did not find a report covering Aug. 11–25 or Sept. 22–Oct. 6 in the council packets. The Sept. 1 report repeats the Aug. 18 report’s dates, and the Oct. 20 report begins on Oct. 7.
Agents in the lobby, and a deflated tire
The Oct. 20 packet describes both Oct. 7 entries. The first, filed as criminal mischief in progress, says “reported federal agents deflated the tire of a vehicle that had been following them and left the scene.” Police responded and documented the incident, it says.
The second is the only one of the 10 marked as being on city property. Federal agents entered the police lobby asking for help with cars following them, the report says. “They were turned away and referred to their chain of command,” it adds, noting that police gave no assistance.
The two earlier federal entries are brief. On July 9, a federal agent told police they were conducting surveillance in the area, the July 21 report says. On Sept. 3, officers helped a nonprofit representative confirm that a person had been detained by ICE and pass information to his employer, the Sept. 15 report says.
Six calls with no federal agents
All six entries without federal involvement come from July. On July 4, a caller complaining about fireworks said they were going to call ICE, according to the July 21 report.
The Aug. 4 report lists the other five, from July 17 to July 26. Four were a verbal disturbance, a fight, a harassment call and an information call in which someone threatened to call ICE. The fifth was an incomplete 911 call in which a caller kept saying “ICE.” Each of the five adds, “No indication a call occurred.”
A second log with more entries
Those calls also appear on the city’s ICE and federal law enforcement data page, though it describes the July 26 call differently. The page calls its log “a partial record” limited to activity known to city staff and says it “may be updated retroactively.”
For July 4 to Oct. 7, the online log lists 16 entries, by our count. Six, dated Aug. 10 to Sept. 11, are not in the packet reports. Four fall in the Aug. 11–25 gap. The other two fall in windows the reports called “No reported activity” and “No known responses or reports.”
Five of those six are marked as having no federal immigration involvement. The sixth, an Aug. 16 welfare check, lists it as “Unverified.” The page says its latest monthly update was Sept. 15, yet it lists the Oct. 7 entries. Neither record explains the differences.
What Ordinance 6513 says
The city ties its reporting to Ordinance 6513, which the council adopted 6-0 on March 3, according to minutes in the April 7 packet (p. 15), adding a sanctuary section to the city code. One part authorizes the city manager to maintain “a reporting structure to keep the Council and community informed” about federal immigration enforcement in the city.
Another requires the city to decline federal requests tied to immigration enforcement, other than judicial subpoenas, and document them for the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission. A staff memo in the March 3 packet (p. 13) said the city already reported more than state law requires, mostly through police, and left those extra duties to policy rather than code.
Residents can find the online log through the “View Incident Reports” link on the city’s ICE response page. The packet for the next regular council meeting, listed for Nov. 3, was not yet posted on the city’s CivicWeb portal on Oct. 27.
Top image: Illustrative image, 2021: the public lobby of an airport police headquarters in Los Angeles (not a Hillsboro facility). Photo: Joshua Sudock, Los Angeles World Airports, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).
