Earlier today in Portland, OR, there were confirmed sightings of an ICE vehicle near Menlo Park Elementary School.
When I arrived to the school, there was a handful of concerned community members keeping watch outside of and nearby the school. The vehicle that had been spotted before I arrived made an appearance about 3 times while I was there. Driving by slowly, sometimes parking closely, and at one point filming us.
A little before noon this ICE vehicle was parked with two other vehicles on a neighborhood street about a block away from the school.
A few minutes later, this car rolled up on me and the others there as we were standing outside in front of the school. This is a different vehicle than the one that had been spotted earlier.
Unfortunately, I was talking to someone on the phone when they rolled up, so my video did not capture the audio. But this is what they said:
The federal officer in the passenger seat got out of the car and proceeded to tell me, unprompted, that they were the “sex trafficking unit”
He went on to say that there was an offender in the area, and told me and the few concerned community members nearby that if we supported sex offenders we were doing a good job at blowing their cover. As I got closer, I questioned him about this supposed “sex trafficking unit,” to which he responded “yeah, we’re with the department of homeland security”
I couldn’t tell how many were in the vehicle, but there were definitely more feds in the back in tactical gear too. The fed in the passenger seat was the only one who did not have his face covered. You can see as they drive away they have what appears to be garbage bags covering their windows.
A community member otg who had been doing migra watch informed me that this exact vehicle was last spotted at the Portland ICE facility on November 10th, the day before yesterday.