At a time when immigration enforcement is both more visible and more secretive than ever before, UWCHR is publishing a new dataset released to us as part of settlement negotiations in ongoing FOIA litigation against DHS. This data, drawn from I-213 forms^[1] produced by ICE during 2022 through 2025 in the agency’s Seattle Area of Responsibility, which covers Washington, Oregon, and Alaska^[2], complements other sources of recently released data in various ways^[3]—and it documents a powerful surge in immigration enforcement in the Pacific Northwest from October to December 2025, data not yet available from other sources. While the data raises many questions that remain unanswered, examining what we know about this surge to date may help us understand the shifting dynamics of enforcement in our region, and inform the adoption of improved strategies to ensure that the rights of all are respected.

This data shows that arrests in the Pacific Northwest during October through December 2025 were higher than any other previous period since 2022:

Figure 1: Line chart of total arrests per calendar year quarter, based on total DHS I-213 “Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien” forms generated in ICE’s Seattle Area of Responsibility (covering the states of Alaska, Oregon, and Washington) from January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2025. From a recent low point of fewer than 250 arrests in late 2024, arrests increased steadily during 2025 to a high of nearly 2250 arrests during the final three months of 2025. (Source: DHS I-213 forms obtained via FOIA; Analysis: UW Center for Human Rights)

Comparison with other data sets of ICE arrests dating back to October 2011 shows that this recent surge in ICE arrests in the Pacific Northwest approached the historic height of enforcement during the first Obama administration.

Figure 2: Line chart comparing three sources of data on ICE apprehensions per calendar year quarter in the Seattle Area of Responsibility from October 2011 through December 2025, showing that ICE arrests in late 2025 approached their previous historical high point during the first Obama administration. The chart also reveals that arrests documented by I-213s capture a majority, but not all, total immigration arrests. The solid purple line represents quarterly arrests documented in I-213 forms generated in the Seattle Area of Responsibility from January 2022 through December 2025. The dashed purple line represents all arrests per quarter in historic ICE data obtained via FOIA by UWCHR for October 2011 through September 2022. The dotted purple line represents arrests per quarter in ICE data obtained via FOIA by the Deportation Data Project for September 2023 through mid-October 2025. (Sources: I-213 dataset obtained by UWCHR, ICE arrests datasets obtained by UWCHR, Deportation Data Project. Analysis: UW Center for Human Rights)

Arrests spike in Oregon, increase steadily in Washington

Figure 3: Line chart of total monthly arrests documented by I-213s in Oregon and Washington 2025. The chart shows two trends: the yellow line represents a steady increase of arrests in Washington state throughout 2025, from under 100 in January to over 350 in December; versus the purple line, which displays a sudden increase in Oregon starting in October 2025, from fewer than 100 arrests per month during January through September to more than 400 arrests in October and November. During October and November 2025, arrests in Oregon outnumbered arrests in Washington for the first time. In December 2025, arrests in Oregon fell slightly, while arrests in Washington continued to increase. (Source: DHS I-213 forms obtained via FOIA; Analysis: UW Center for Human Rights)

While both Oregon and Washington saw significant increases in arrests in 2025, the intensity of enforcement was different in each state. In Washington, arrest numbers climbed steadily throughout the year. County-by-county analysis reveals the largest increases were in King, Yakima, and Clark counties (see Figure 4). And when this data is expressed in per capita terms, the impact on smaller populations such as that of Yakima County becomes even more stark (see Figure 5).

In Oregon, by contrast, arrest levels exhibited a dramatic spike from October to December, a period in which I-213 forms document the arrest of 1174 people (compared to 951 in Washington). The greatest absolute increases occurred in Multnomah, Washington, Marion, and Clackamas counties in Oregon; when weighted by population, the intensity of enforcement in both Multnomah and Washington counties becomes even more apparent (see Figure 5).

The spike in Oregon arrests corresponds to the intensified enforcement operations carried out by federal agents deployed to Portland from various locations across the country to participate in “at large enforcement.”^[4] According to testimony in federal court, this effort had multiple names, from “Operation Fortifying the Border,” “Operation Black Rose,” “Operation Portland Safe,” to “Operation Portland Sweep.”^[5]

Figure 4: Bar charts representing increasing arrests across counties in Oregon and Washington during 2025. The figure displays the quarterly total arrests for the nine counties with the highest arrest counts during the fourth quarter of 2025. Multnomah, Washington, and Marion counties in Oregon display a sharp increase during the last three months of the year, while in Washington state, King, Yakima, and Whatcom counties display a steady increase throughout the year. (Source: DHS I-213 forms obtained via FOIA; Analysis: UW Center for Human Rights)

Figure 5: Bar charts representing high quarterly rates of immigration arrests per capita (arrests per 100,000 residents) across counties in Oregon and Washington during 2025. The figure displays the quarterly per capita arrests for the nine counties with the highest rates of arrest during the fourth quarter of 2025. In comparison with figure 4, these charts emphasize the impact of immigration arrests in counties with smaller populations. Multnomah County, OR experienced the highest rate of arrests per capita during the last three months of 2025, at more than 70 arrests per capita; followed by Yakima County, WA; Washington County, OR; Marion County, OR; Mason County, WA; Clatsop County, OR; Hood River County, OR; Yamhill County, OR; and Wasco County, OR. (Source: DHS I-213 forms obtained via FOIA; County population estimates via U.S. Census 2020-2024; Analysis: UW Center for Human Rights.) 

Figure 6: Map of county per capita ICE arrests documented by I-213 forms during 2025 in Washington state. ICE field offices in Ferndale, Richland, Seattle, Spokane, Tacoma, and Yakima are indicated. Scale ranges from 0 to 185 arrests per 100,000 residents. Yakima County had the highest rate, at more than 180 arrests per 100,000 residents during 2025; followed by Franklin (66 arrests per capita), Whatcom (58) and Mason (55), Chelan (40), and King (44) counties. All other counties had fewer than 30 arrests per capita during 2025. (Source: DHS I-213 forms obtained via FOIA. County population estimates via U.S. Census 2020-2024. Analysis: UW Center for Human Rights)

Figure 7: Map of county per capita ICE arrests documented by I-213 forms during 2025 in Oregon. ICE field offices in Eugene, Medford, and Portland are indicated. Scale ranges from 0 to 185 arrests per 100,000 residents. Multnomah County had the highest rate, at 96 arrests per 100,000 residents during 2025; followed by Yamhill (59 arrests per capita), Washington (58), Marion (44), and Hood River (42) counties. All other counties had fewer than 35 arrests per capita during 2025. Rates of arrest intensified significantly in several Oregon counties during the last three months of the year, as seen in figure 4 above. (Source: DHS I-213 forms obtained via FOIA. County population estimates via U.S. Census 2020-2024. Analysis: UW Center for Human Rights)

What’s driving the surge?

For more information on WA DOL – ICE/CBP data sharing, read “Roadside Assist: Washington State’s Continued Sharing of Drivers’ Information with Federal Immigration Enforcement.” Lee el resumen ejecutivo en español aquí.

ICE’s I-213 forms divide arrests by method of apprehension. From this, we can see that in both Washington and Oregon, the surge in late 2025 arrests was due to growing numbers of what the agency terms  “non-custodial arrests”—a category that includes street arrests, like those widely seen throughout the region in recent months. Indeed, agents who testified in federal court about their participation in the Portland-area operations described activities very similar to those documented in Washington^[6] during the same period: both ICE and CBP agents, working in combined teams, described travelling to specific locations and running the license plates of vehicles they encountered to determine the name of their registered owners, and subsequently checking those names against their own databases to determine that person’s “deportability.” This process enabled them to make an arrest within as little as ten minutes, including of many individuals for whom they had not previously obtained a warrant and about whom they made no individualized probable cause assessment of escape risk. The practice has been challenged in federal court as violating the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and on February 4, 2026 a federal judge Mustafa Kasubhai issued a preliminary injunction ordering DHS to cease the practice in Oregon.^[7]

In Washington, apparently similar practices have been reported by community observers and corroborated by UWCHR researchers, though they have yet to be challenged in court. By cross-referencing community observers’ documentation, arrest narratives from I-213 documents, and public records of searches performed on Department of Licensing (DOL) vehicle registration data, UWCHR researchers found repeated occurrences of the same pattern, in which federal agents, often including ICE and CBP officers working in combined arrest teams, observed individuals while driving, obtained their name by querying their license plate number, and then ran that name through their own databases to determine whether that person’s immigration status. The below description from the I-213 documenting a September 2025 arrest, describes that pattern:

Figure 8: I-213 narrative of an arrest in Puyallup, Washington on September 20, 2025 at approximately 10:20AM, describes an arrest carried out by a team of ICE ERO, HSI, and Border Patrol agents employing a license plate query to identify a Washington state resident for subsequent arrest.

At 9:55:30 am on September 20, an ACCESS user affiliated with CBP queried Washington DOL data to determine the registered owner of the vehicle named above; at 9:33:31 – one second later – WA DOL provided his name and address to CBP.

Figure 9: Washington State Patrol ACCESS query records obtained show that a user affiliated with CBP queried the license plate cited in Figure 6 above minutes prior to the arrest, receiving driver registration information from Washington State Department of Licensing in response.

These practices raise many legal and ethical questions, and they have yet to be fully scrutinized by courts or researchers. It is particularly worrisome that, perhaps in an attempt to thwart such scrutiny, DHS has now declared its FOIA office to be “on furlough” due to a partial government shutdown, declining to provide data to the public, including UWCHR, about its operations; UWCHR has challenged this in court.^[8] UWCHR will continue to fight for access to records that shed light on these troubling practices and their impacts on human rights.

Data Appendix

As noted above, I-213 forms document a subset of all ICE arrests, and may systematically under-represent some populations. We recommend caution in interpreting this data without comparison to other sources.

Access the data and code used to produce the charts and maps in this report via GitHub: https://github.com/UWCHR/i-213-sea-22-25

Summarized datasets:

• Annual I-213 arrests per capita, OR & WA counties, 2022 – 2025
• Quarterly I-213 arrests per capita, OR & WA counties, 2022 – 2025

Notes

^[1] DHS creates I-213 “Record of Deportable/Inadmissible Alien” forms when ICE initially apprehends someone they believe to be “deportable” – a category that, in recent months, has been expanded to include a far broader swath of people including many who are present lawfully in the United States, holders of legal work permits, and those eligible for adjustment of status through marriage to a U.S. citizen or other benefits. Because I-213s are produced when an individual is initially apprehended, the data analyzed here may exclude some categories of people (see footnote 3), for this reason, we urge caution in detailed interpretation of this dataset.

^[2] Arrests in Alaska account for approximately 3% of total I-213s produced in the Seattle Area of Responsibility during 2025 (124 out of a total of 4175). Nevertheless, the total number of I-213s documenting arrests in Alaska during 2025 represents an increase of more than 600% over 2024. A small number of arrests are attributed to states outside the Seattle Area of Responsibility; these likely represent local processing of people apprehended elsewhere and initially processed by ICE following transfer to the Pacific Northwest.

^[3] While UWCHR’s data, like that obtained by the Deportation Data Project (DDP), and recently analyzed for the PNW by the Seattle Times, draws on data from ICE itself, the specific data sources are different: the data shared with DDP is drawn from DHS’ ENFORCE database, while the data reported here are from I-213s drawn from ICE’s EAGLE system. While I-213s reflect the majority of ICE arrests, the ENFORCE database is more comprehensive; the records shared here do not appear to reflect arrests of those already on electronic monitoring or at scheduled check-ins, for example. However, this I-213 data set extends to the end of 2025, whereas the most recent data obtained by DDP end in mid-October – and therefore do not capture the peak period of PNW enforcement in 2025. Furthermore, the inclusion of an “apprehension landmark comment” field in the I-213 dataset, which typically reports the city and state of an arrest, allows a more detailed geographic analysis than other data sources which limit location data to a general apprehension landmark or broad operational category. Similarly, data recently published by Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition and Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network documenting 2025 enforcement actions reported to the organizations’ hotlines notes shifting patterns of arrest like those discussed here, noting vehicular arrests as the principal means of apprehension. The accounts compiled by those reporting to rapid response hotlines are particularly important, for they allow a richer picture of what happens in arrests – for example, noting the frequent use of violence and property destruction – in ways omitted in official DHS records.

^[4] See Document 88 of M-J-M-A v. Hermosillo (6:25-cv-02011-MTK), District of Oregon, available at: https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/warrantless-ice-arrests-prelim-injunction-oregon.pdf

^[5] Ibid.

^[6] For more on similar cases in Washington, see UW Center for Human Rights, “Roadside Assist: Washington State’s Continued Sharing of Drivers’ Information with Federal Immigration Enforcement”, January 8, 2026: https://jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/2026/01/08/roadside-assist-washington-states-continued-sharing-of-drivers-information-with-federal-immigration-enforcement/

^[7] These practices are discussed in detail in court proceedings in a December 3, 2025 evidentiary hearing in the case of M-J-M-A v. Wamsley, (Case No. 6:25-cv-02011-MTK) District of Oregon, Eugene Division:  https://innovationlawlab.org/sites/default/files/2026-01/12-02-2025%20M-J-M-A%20v.%20Wamsley,%20et%20al.%20Combined%20_0.pdf

^[8] Tom Lotshaw, “Wash. Judge Orders UW-ICE Records Fight To Go Forward”, Law360, 2 March, 2026: https://www.law360.com/washington/articles/2447799