PORTLAND, Oregon — Federal authorities have arrested 14 people convicted of violent offences — including rape, child sexual abuse, assault, kidnapping, strangulation and manslaughter — who had been released from Oregon prisons and jails despite immigration detainers lodged by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon Scott Bradford announced in Portland on Friday, October 30.
The arrests were not a street sweep. Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents, working with ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), located the 14 after the U.S. District Court approved two petitions by the U.S. Attorney's Office asking four Oregon counties — Clackamas, Marion, Multnomah and Washington — for information to help find more than 40 convicted noncitizen offenders living in the state unlawfully, the Justice Department said. KPTV (FOX 12 Oregon) reported the same announcement Friday, describing court orders that compelled the four county jail systems to share inmate information with federal investigators.
How a court order opened the county files
According to the Justice Department, HSI agents first issued administrative subpoenas to the four counties seeking the offenders' locations. The U.S. Attorney's Office then filed its two petitions, on October 1, 2025 and April 1, 2026. The court granted them on November 24, 2025 and June 5, 2026, affirming that Oregon law “explicitly permits state law enforcement agencies to 'exchange information with a federal immigration authority.'” All four counties complied with the orders, the department said, and agents arrested the 14 either during the litigation or as part of the court-authorized information-sharing effort.
“When offenders who have committed horrific crimes — many of them against children — are released into our communities despite federal detainers, the risk to public safety is indefensible,” Bradford said in the announcement. “Through these petitions and our continued partnership with county and federal agencies, we are ensuring that dangerous individuals are found and removed from situations where they can cause further harm. Protecting Oregonians is my top priority.”
Who the 14 are — and what they were convicted of
The most recent arrest was Victor Soseia Hachipan, a citizen of Micronesia arrested on October 7, 2026, who was convicted of two counts of second-degree sex abuse involving a victim under 14, drug offences, burglary and failure to report as a sex offender. Before him came Hector Carmona Saldana of Mexico, arrested September 22 and convicted in 2017 of first-degree sexual abuse, using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct and second-degree encouraging child sexual abuse; Jose Rodriguez-Gomez of Mexico, arrested September 11 and convicted in 2016 of first-degree unlawful sexual penetration and first-degree sexual abuse; and Rosalio Carbajal Sierra of Mexico, arrested September 9, convicted of third-degree sexual abuse in 1996 and again of first-degree sexual abuse in 2018.
The August arrests were Romeo Carranza Quintanilla of El Salvador, arrested September 2 and convicted in 2020 of attempted first-degree unlawful sexual penetration; Guadalupe Sifuentes Acevedo of Mexico, arrested August 29 and convicted in 2020 of two counts of first-degree sexual abuse; Jose Mis-Catzin of Mexico, arrested August 23, convicted in 2016 of coercion constituting domestic violence and again in 2017 of first-degree sexual abuse; Orlando Francisco Garma-Castro of Mexico, arrested August 20 and convicted in 2015 of first-degree rape constituting domestic violence; Dulce Olivia Rangel-Romero of Mexico, arrested August 17, convicted of second-degree theft in 2017 and first-degree sexual abuse in 2020; Francisco Orozco-Navarro of Mexico, arrested August 6 and convicted in 2016 of first-degree rape, first-degree unlawful sexual penetration, first-degree sexual abuse and fourth-degree assault constituting domestic violence; and Mario Ernesto Martinez of El Salvador, arrested August 4, convicted in 2016 of fourth-degree assault constituting domestic violence and in 2019 of two counts of attempted first-degree sexual abuse.
The three earlier arrests were Cristobal Felipe-Sarmiento of Mexico, arrested April 8, 2026, convicted in 2015 of recklessly endangering another person and in 2016 of first-degree rape and first-degree sodomy; Marco Antonio Joya-Santana, arrested February 11, 2026, convicted in 2013 of three counts of third-degree rape and three counts of third-degree sodomy involving a minor under 16 and later of nine counts of second-degree sexual abuse; and Adair Omar Ruiz-Hernandez of Mexico, arrested October 29, 2025, convicted in 2013 of first-degree robbery and first-degree kidnapping. All 14 are convictions already decided in criminal court — the federal arrests are immigration arrests, not new criminal charges announced Friday.
The Department of Homeland Security said on October 15 that ICE lodged a detainer on Hachipan while he was in Marion County custody after a 2021 conviction, that he was released, was convicted again of second-degree burglary in 2023, and that Marion County refused an HSI subpoena for his whereabouts citing Oregon's sanctuary law — until a federal court order compelled the information that led to his October 7 arrest in the Keizer area.
The Oregon law at the centre of the fight
Oregon has described itself as a sanctuary state since 1987, and its laws limit how state and local agencies share information with federal immigration authorities and restrict compliance with ICE detainers — a position detailed in an interim staff report on Oregon released by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on October 29, one day before Bradford's announcement. Friday's case turned on the opposite reading of the same state law: the federal court held that Oregon law explicitly permits law-enforcement agencies to exchange information with a federal immigration authority, and on that basis ordered the four counties to hand over the records.
Why this is being watched far beyond Oregon
For immigrant communities across the U.S. West Coast — including Punjabi families and truckers who move through Oregon on Interstate 5 — the distinction in this case matters: it targeted a defined list of people already convicted of violent crimes, pursued through court petitions, rather than workplace or street enforcement. At the same time, the legal route it proves out — federal prosecutors obtaining county jail and location records by court order where detainers are not honoured — is one that sanctuary jurisdictions nationally are watching, because it does not depend on a county volunteering cooperation.
What happens next
The U.S. Attorney's Office said it “will continue working closely with federal, state, and local partners to ensure effective information sharing and support public safety efforts across Oregon.” The two petitions covered more than 40 people and 14 have been arrested to date, so further arrests under the same court orders are possible. The 14 now sit in the federal immigration system with ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations — the ICE arm that made the arrests alongside HSI.