Local immigration advocates say the use of Port of Astoria property by federal immigration officers during an operation Sunday morning in which it is believed three people were detained may have violated Oregon’s sanctuary law.
This law prohibits local and state police as well as state agencies from participating “directly or indirectly in immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant.”
Port officials say they did not realize ICE was in the area or that federal officers were staging vehicles at fenced-off port property at Pier 1 across from the port’s administrative offices.
Port of Astoria Commission President Dirk Rohne agreed use of the property by ICE is a legal question, but said it’s complicated and ICE officers may have been trying to find a loophole.
U.S. Customs and Border Protections maintains an office at Pier 1, a checkpoint for international travelers and cargo as they enter the United States via the Columbia River.
And when U.S. Navy ships are at the port, the fenced area at Pier 1 is considered federally controlled. A massive, gray Military Sealift Command vehicle carrier, the USNS Watkins, was docked at the end of the pier on Sunday. It is expected to depart Monday.
Rohne believes ICE officers contacted Customs and Border Protection and then went behind the fence. He said it isn’t clear who gave this permission or suggested the location. Port commissioners and Executive Director Will Isom told KMUN they were not aware of what was going on.
“I think we need to find out whose idea it was to move behind the fence — because that is port property,” Rohne said.
He believes someone on the port’s security staff suggested the move, “maybe without thinking.”
“The best case scenario, I believe, is that (ICE) should have been told to cease and desist and be gone,” Rohne said.
He has instructed Isom to begin interviewing staff on Monday to determine what happened. If it is the case that port employees allowed ICE to stage on port property, “I would be terribly disappointed,” Rohne said.
Isom told KMUN he wasn’t aware of ICE’s presence at the port, but that a number of different law enforcement agencies are in and out of the port regularly.
“Most of the port property is open to the public,” he said.
On Sunday, several community members who were present as observers to document the detainments tried to gain access to the fenced area on Pier 1.
They told KMUN that people they understood to be security personnel with the Port of Astoria would not allow them in and warned them that they would be arrested by federal agents if they went onto port property.
The observers instead watched from a distance.
Details about the people who were detained and their immigration statuses were not immediately available, nor is it clear if ICE had judicial warrants to arrest them. KMUN reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for more information, but has not received a response.
Consejo Hispano, a nonprofit that serves the North Coast’s Latinx community, condemned the day’s events and the port’s alleged involvement, calling the latter “a breach of trust with the people they serve.”
Executive Director Jenny Pool Radway said the nonprofit plans to file a formal complaint with the Oregon Department of Justice.
“We call on the Port of Astoria to immediately disclose how and why this cooperation occurred, and what steps they will take to ensure it never happens again,” Pool Radway said.
“Our message is simple,” she added. “Public institutions must follow the law, and our community members deserve to live without fear.”
ICE agents also appeared to have pepper sprayed a woman who confronted a line of federal vehicles as they left the port property Sunday and drove up Portway Street.
In a video viewed by KMUN, Astoria resident Stefanie Collar, recording the video on her phone, moves quickly towards a line of vehicles stopped at a red light. She shouts expletives at the first car, telling them to get out of the community. As she walks by a second car, the driver side window rolls down and the driver sprays something from a canister at her.
Collar told KMUN it was pepper spray. She said when she approached the first vehicle, a minivan, she saw the driver pull a mask over his face. She said he grabbed a can of pepper spray and started to open the door. She slammed her body against the door. He briefly pushed back then drove away.
She said the next two cars behind the van sprayed her with pepper spray as they drove past.
Collar was not part of the group attempting to observe and document the detainments Sunday. KMUN was told she has since been removed from the group overall because she refused to follow policies and training and was antagonistic with the officers.
In the afternoon, an ICE officer, who only provided his badge number, called the Astoria Police Department Dispatch to confirm that officers had used pepper spray after a crowd of people swarmed their vehicles. According to Astoria Police Chief Stacy Kelly, the ICE officer said that as he tried to exit his vehicle to address the situation, someone shoved the door shut.
Kelly said ICE had not told local law enforcement they would be operating in Astoria — notification law enforcement associations in Oregon had requested and been told they would start to receive following increased and more aggressive ICE activity across the state last year.
At least a dozen people were detained in Clatsop County in November and December of 2025.