Demonstrators hold signs during a protest against deportation by Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thursday, June 12, 2025, in New York. On the same day, Novo Start Vineyard Service's owner Moises Sotelo, who is from Newberg, Ore., was arrested by ICE officers on his way to work.
Frank Franklin II / AP
A business owner from Newberg, Oregon, was arrested Thursday by federal immigration officials.
Moises Sotelo is the owner of Novo Start Vineyard Service, a company that provides pruning, pest control and harvesting services to vineyards in the Willamette Valley. He was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while he was on his way to work early in the morning.
Federal immigration enforcement officials did not immediately respond to a call asking for details of Sotelo’s arrest. An ICE detainee database does show that he was taken into custody, but it’s not clear where he is, if he is still being detained or if he faces charges.
Related: At least 2 undocumented people detained in Vancouver area in past week, advocates say
Since Sotelo’s disappearance, rumors about immigration officials have spread on social media in Newberg. In addition to running a business in the wine industry, he is also a chaplain at a local church.
An official with Innovation Law Lab told OPB that federal officials were in Yamhill County on Thursday. She confirmed at least one arrest was made, but did not share a name.
Innovation Law Lab is a Portland-based group that’s part of a broader rapid-response network that offers support to families targeted by immigration enforcement, and confirms when raids are happening.
A former employer of Sotelo spoke to OPB on conditions of anonymity out of fear his own vineyard business would be targeted by federal authorities.
Sotelo has been in the U.S. since 1994. His former employer said he was trying to get his citizenship status sorted out.
The former employer said he’s known Sotelo since 2017, and as far as he knows, Sotelo does not have a criminal background that might make him a target.
“He’s one of those guys that I go to lunch with and he always says a prayer. He regularly attends church,” he said. “He was a good employee to me, he was never a no-show. I trust him fully.”
Related: ICE arrests 2 more asylum seekers at immigration court in Portland
The employer said people across Yamhill County are on edge following an earlier raid by federal enforcement authorities in the Central Coast and San Joaquin Valley agricultural regions of California on Tuesday. Federal officials entered fields and packinghouses, marking an uptick in enforcement actions in agricultural communities the Trump administration had largely kept away from.
The employer told OPB vineyard employers are now talking among each other about how to protect their workers.
“What’s going to happen is people are going to close the gates to the vineyards,” he said. “Employers are getting the word out about what [federal authorities] can and cannot do. Everybody is watching out.”
This arrest comes as the Trump administration has escalated its immigration enforcement actions in Oregon. During the last two weeks, federal immigration officers have arrested at least four asylum seekers outside a Portland courtroom after hearings involving their case.
This story may be updated.
