Rep. Andrea Salinas Delivers Remarks on the Arrests of U.S. Citizens During Immigration Raids
Click here to watch Rep. Salinas’ full remarks.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Congresswoman Andrea Salinas (OR-06) joined the House Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee to deliver remarks and question witnesses about how U.S. citizens, including Oregonians, are being arrested during the Trump Administration’s immigration raids. Rep. Salinas underscored how ICE’s repeated abuses against American citizens are terrorizing communities and inflicting trauma on innocent Oregonians.
A transcript of Salinas’ remarks is available below:
Thank you, Chair Thompson, and thank you to the Homeland Security Democrats for allowing those of us who do not serve on the committee to be with you all today. And thank you so much to our witnesses. You have been incredible.
And I’m so grateful to ProPublica for publishing their investigation detailing the 170 citizens who have been detained.
I would argue that it’s at least 172, and I have two stories directly from Oregon.
Earlier this month, Sandra, a U.S. citizen, and her husband were driving just east of Portland when they were stopped by ICE. Despite claiming they were only targeting Sandra’s husband, ICE dragged Sandra from her car, pointed a gun in her face, handcuffed her wrists to her ankles, and detained her for hours in the Portland field office—it’s not a detention facility.
It was only then, hours later that ICE realized their mistake: Sandra is an American citizen. No one deserves to be treated that way. Nobody. Not even noncitizens, and certainly American citizens.
Upon her release, the ICE officer who had detained her even apologized for how he treated her, saying he was just “really pissed off.”
Just south of Portland, in Milwaukie, Frank, another U.S. citizen, was abducted from his job by masked, plainclothes ICE agents—so he could not identify who they were.
These unidentified agents forced him onto the floor of a van and took him straight to the Portland Field Office for detainment.
For hours, Frank pleaded with the agents, telling them they had the wrong guy. Eventually, ICE realized their mistake and took Frank back to work—all without any information or any type of justification for his arrest.
And these are just two of several stories that we have been hearing in Oregon, and all across Oregon, but obviously the Portland area has had a lot of attention.
And we have been hearing these stories about people being traumatized and mishandled by ICE agents, and it’s important, I think, that we continue to share these stories, again, from people who are citizens and noncitizens. I represent the Willamette Valley, so we have a lot of farmworkers, a lot of folks in hospitality, but we also have people who are business owners, who have lived in our communities for thirty, forty years and are TPS holders. People who are the fabric of our community and just want to continue living their lives.
With that, I have a few questions for our witnesses.
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