Federal immigration officers arrested a 38-year-old Iranian man outside his child’s preschool in Beaverton on Tuesday, according to school and law enforcement officials.
The man was arrested by officers with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during morning dropoff at Guidepost Montessori School. The incident has deeply shaken the school community, which went into “soft lockdown to ensure the safety of all students and staff,” according to a message sent to parents.
Guidepost Montessori school in Beaverton, Ore., July 16, 2025. This morning, ICE arrested one of the students’ parents during morning dropoff.
Morgan Barnaby / OPB
OPB is not naming the man because his family was not immediately reachable and his immigration attorney did not return a request for comment.
The incident marks the first confirmed case of an immigration arrest at an Oregon school amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Historically, certain locations — including schools and houses of worship — have been largely off limits to immigration enforcement.
According to an ICE spokesperson, the man lawfully entered the United States in 2017, but overstayed his student visa.
Caroline Medeiros is an immigration attorney who is consulting with the family and the school. Medeiros’ child attends the same Montessori school. She said the man ICE arrested works as a chiropractor, and she disputed the agency’s claim he was not in the U.S. lawfully.
“He married a U.S. citizen and his U.S. citizen wife filed a green card application for him,” Medeiros told OPB. “He attended his green card interview with his wife and they were just simply waiting for the green card to come through.”
A search of court records shows he doesn’t appear to have a criminal record.
Randy Kornfield said he was dropping his grandson off at the south Beaverton Montessori school around 8:30 a.m. when he noticed an armed officer walking outside the building and an unusual number of large SUVs in the parking lot. As he got his grandson out of the car, Kornfield said, he saw a school employee confront one of the officers, asking to see his badge number.
“He just coldly said, ‘This has nothing to do with you, so back off,’” Kornfield recounted during an interview with OPB Wednesday.
When Kornfield returned to the parking lot after taking his grandson inside, the confrontation had apparently escalated even further.
“They were driving off with one of the fathers, I learned, who had just dropped his kid off,” Kornfield said.
The school employee who had confronted the ICE officer, clearly shaken herself, was trying to comfort another woman who was crying and holding a baby, Kornfield said.
The grandfather said it struck him as “heartless” to “nab” a father dropping his kid off at school.
“These poor kids don’t know what’s going on,” he said.
During the arrest in the school parking lot, ICE officers broke one of the windows of the man’s vehicle, because he “resisted arrest and refused to exit,” according to a statement from ICE, which also noted that the man’s child “was unharmed.”
A spokesperson for ICE stated agents attempted to arrest the man during a traffic stop but allowed him to drive to the school after he requested permission to drop off his child. However, Kornfield’s account suggests that agents were already waiting for the father at the preschool before his arrest.
The ICE official stated, “It would make sense to have officers waiting for him at his destination in case he fled. It’s a reasonable concern as he resisted arrest.”
Tuesday’s arrest in Beaverton was first reported by The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Angel Ignacio, a regional manager for Guidepost Montessori, said the school was “deeply disturbed” by Tuesday’s events.
“Our first priority is the safety and emotional well-being of the children in our care,” Ignacio stated in an email. “We are actively supporting the affected child and family, and we are providing our staff and families with resources to help them process this event with care and sensitivity.”
For decades, immigration authorities have been required by policy to avoid making arrests near certain locations, such as churches, hospitals, courthouses and schools, except in urgent situations involving threats such as terrorism or pursuit of a dangerous felon.
That policy was rescinded this year, which immigration advocates challenged in an April lawsuit filed in federal court in Oregon.
At the time, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security defended the change, arguing it “gives our law enforcement the ability to do their jobs” and that agents use their discretion. The new guidance requires “secondary supervisor approval before any action can be taken in locations such as a church or a school.”
A spokesperson for ICE would not say whether the arresting ICE officers followed those steps outside the preschool in Beaverton on Tuesday, but did confirm the information DHS provided in April had not changed.
The chiropractor is being held at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, Washington, “pending removal proceedings,” according to ICE.
