In a screenshot of a video provided to OPB, federal immigration agents apprehend a construction worker near Mall 205 in Portland, Ore., on Oct. 15, 2025. This screenshot was provided to OPB by a witness who asked not to be identified out of fear of repercussions.
Courtesy of anonymous
President Trump’s use of federal immigration officers to arrest people alleged to be in the country without legal status has led to mass arrests, detentions and deportations. Some of those are U.S. citizens, and at least one such man in Milwaukie is suing the federal government over his unlawful detention.
Alyssa Walker Keller is a coordinator for the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition (PIRC). She says in years past, their statewide hotline, 888-622-1510, might receive about 50 calls in a typical month. In the last two weeks, she says, the number is more like 2,000. Walker Keller says the work of the organization is only possible with volunteers who give their time and expertise to support those targeted by ICE and their families.
She joins us to tell us more about the growing demands on PIRC and the role it’s increasingly playing as heightened ICE activity continues.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. Since President Trump took office in January, immigration enforcement has greatly increased. Arrests, detentions and deportations are all way up; so is fear on the part of immigrants, whether or not they have legal authorization to be here.
The Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition [PIRC] supports immigrants through direct assistance, education, legal support and advocacy. The nonprofit runs a statewide hotline where people can get advice and help. Calls to the hotline have skyrocketed this year. Alyssa Walker Keller is a coordinator for the nonprofit. She joins us now to talk about what they are hearing and seeing. It’s great to have you on the show.
Alyssa Walker Keller: Thanks, Dave, for having me.
Miller: When did PIRC start?
Walker Keller: PIRC began in 2006. Our name is the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition, and at that time we were Portland focused, although our current situation is that we are serving folks across the state. But we began in 2006 as a coalition of organizations who were thinking about immigrant rights. And in 2007, when the raid happened at the Del Monte fruit packing plant, the community came together to think through what can we be doing to support one another, to support other folks in the community who might not have a next step? And that was the birth of the hotline model of PIRC.
Miller: How many calls in the past might you get in an average month?
Walker Keller: You know, it really fluctuated over the years. I would say prior to this administration we were looking at maybe around 50 phone calls a month.
Miller: Fifty a month? What about now?
Walker Keller: Well, since the 11th of this month, we’ve had about 3,200 phone calls come through our hotline – that’s both phone calls received and returned by our dispatchers.
Miller: So in 20 days or something – less than that – over 3,000?
Walker Keller: And the month before that was 700, so it’s been a drastic escalation even in the last couple of weeks.
Miller: My understanding is that PIRC has a small staff, three and a half full-time equivalents, including yourself. How do you field 3,200 calls in a couple weeks?
Walker Keller: PIRC is more than just the staff, it’s really this incredible community of Oregonians showing up for their neighbors. We have an incredible base of folks who are both showing up as dispatchers, showing up to document and record folks who are interacting with ICE. We have a legal observer team, we have folks helping us train the community on ICE Watch, and we have folks who are accompanying people in their next steps who are all just interconnected in this big web of neighbors caring about neighbors.
Miller: So the vast majority of the work that’s done through this coalition is done by those volunteers doing all kinds of different jobs?
Walker Keller: Yeah, it’s a really amazing model.
Miller: What do you see as the biggest need these days?
Walker Keller: Oooh, there are a lot right now. I think the community needs to have information about what’s happening. That’s a really big need because we have Oregonians who are afraid to go about their daily lives. So information is a really critical piece of our work, both in confirming ICE activity but also dispelling rumors that we’re hearing or verifying whether or not ICE is indeed present in a location or not.
And I think an ongoing need is access to legal counsel and accompaniment of families after a detention happens. There’s so much trauma involved in that. So being present, too, and helping people think through their next steps and resources is a huge need.
Miller: I want to zero in on the first one you mentioned, which is trying to confirm, or find that it’s not true, the fears, for example, that ICE is in a certain place at a certain time. What kind of a call might you get and how do you find out if that’s actually happening?
Walker Keller: Yeah, our dispatchers receive so many different kinds of phone calls. People call us looking for information about resources. They want to know about their rights. They want to know about legal services or other kinds of support in the community. They call us to report a family member who has been detained, and they also call us when they see something that they suspect is ICE activity so that we can have folks on the ground to verify whether or not that is indeed ICE.
Miller: So that would mean if someone says, “Hey, I think that there’s an immigration sweep at ‘X’ business outside of Salem,” say, you actually would then call people up and have them drive to that location, cell phones in hand?
Walker Keller: Yeah, it’s kind of a complex process, but I think for brevity’s sake, I would just say there’s people who are ready, who know what to look for, and who are showing up to keep an eye on what’s happening and documenting any kind of interaction that if ICE is on the ground, what happens.
It’s really important for people to know to call the hotline and report that kind of uncertain activity, and we really encourage people to be an eyewitness to call. We get a lot of information that comes secondhand, thirdhand, from Facebook, WhatsApp or different social media avenues. And it’s really hard to verify or confirm rumors that are not firsthand. So we really encourage people, when they are not sure if they’re an eyewitness, to call us and we can help you discern that.
Miller: What’s the purpose of that? I mean, what might eventually follow from having observers on the scene? I ask this because, obviously there’s been so much footage that has made its way to social media or traditional news, but am I right in assuming that an observer is not going to prevent somebody from being arrested or detained? So what can that observer then provide?
Walker Keller: A couple of different pieces. One, we really encourage people to record what they see happening. In Oregon, it is legal to record law enforcement or federal agent activity. I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice, but you can record what’s happening. And that information, when shared with our legal partners, has been able to help show abuses of power or illegal activity that ICE is committing in the process of detaining someone.
And it also helps us … We get a lot of phone calls from people who are looking for a loved one that didn’t come home. And they don’t know what happened. They’re really scared for this person. They don’t have any next step. So sometimes we’re able to pair information that we’ve received about a vehicle that was abandoned with the person whose person has disappeared, and that helps us connect the dots and help people think through their next steps – both in terms of providing ongoing legal assistance, but also the next steps that they need to take care of their family members after a detention happens.
Miller: You mentioned a huge increase in calls just from last month to this month, a fivefold or so increase. Can you attribute that to a similar increase in immigration enforcement activities, or is it hard to make such a clear statement like that?
Walker Keller: Yeah, it’s both/and, because we are seeing an increase in enforcement activity. Since the 11th of this month, we’ve noticed new strategies, much more, honestly, violent and legally questionable actions by the agents who are on the ground. And we’ve seen, I believe we had 167 detentions as of 9:30 this morning, since the 11th, and that is a significant increase from the past.
But we spent a lot of time trying to “right size” people’s fear, because people are afraid to go about their daily lives, to take their kids to soccer practice, and these detentions are just happening at a rate that is really terrifying. So we try to give people the most information they can have, information that they can use, about their rights, about how to record and report what’s happening, and how to be prepared for next steps, whether that’s a family preparedness packet, getting in touch ahead of time with legal attorneys. There’s a program called Equity Corps of Oregon where people can get free universal representation. So prevention is really important, and the aftercare part is really important.
Miller: What does it mean in practice to “right size” someone’s fear, if the fear, for example, is that they might be detained and eventually deported when they’re on their way to work or when they’re dropping their kids off at school? If that’s the fear, how do you right size that?
Walker Keller: That’s the question everyone’s asking right now, and I think part of it is building networks of trust and support with people that you know. And like I said, doing that preparedness work ahead of time, making sure that two or three people who are in your family know your biographical information and an attorney to contact, and what you want to see happen with your children, ahead of time.
It’s really important because even if someone is recording a detention, if we don’t have a way to know that person’s name, their next of kin or their date of birth – some of these really basic biographical pieces of information – then we can’t activate a rapid response and send an attorney. So it’s really important that people are building connections and trust with their neighbors.
And then for right sizing, a lot of that involves making sure that people know their rights, making sure that they know that they can say that they do not consent to search and seizure, that they have the right to remain silent, that they have the right to ask for an attorney before they sign anything. And just record, record, record, because some of these interactions that we’re seeing are increasingly aggressive and that information is information that can build a case against the process that got them detained.
Miller: How are the places where these enforcement actions are taking place or the actions themselves been evolving over the last few months?
Walker Keller: I will say that what we’ve seen in the last couple weeks is a level of physical aggression that we’ve not seen, and a lot of boldness. We see agents who are masked in the community, but they’re also showing up with assault weapons and rifles, and they’re pepper spraying people, including witnesses. We’re seeing injuries sustained by people during their detention that results in them being hospitalized. And as a result, schools in the neighborhood are locked down because there’s men with guns who have masks in the neighborhood, which is a major indicator for schools that it’s not safe to send children to school. We’ve also seen them breaking and entering, using explosives and kicking down doors to detain people.
Miller: All this in Oregon?
Walker Keller: In the last couple of weeks.
Miller: You’ve been working with migrant, refugee and newcomer communities, and community members in Oregon over the last 20 years or so. Have you ever seen a time like this?
Walker Keller: No, not like this. This is unprecedented and I feel like that word gets overused, but this is a level of aggression against our neighbors that is new.
Miller: How do you strike a balance right now between getting the word out that help is available and having a lot of volunteers doing that work, while keeping those volunteers or staff safe from either some kind of criminal proceedings or sort of extra-state actions like doxing? How do you maintain that balance right now?
Walker Keller: It’s very tricky. We have a lot of partners who are accompanying us and thinking that through. Some of our volunteers have all kinds of skill sets, so we’re really appreciative of the people who are thinking about keeping us and our volunteers safe, even as we’re trying to keep other people in our community safe as well. But it’s an absolute concern and risk, and this is a different moment than we’ve seen before, and yet, I think the thing that carries us through it is building community and not letting fear win.
Because fear is the tool that is being utilized right now – against immigrant communities, against eyewitnesses, against those of us who are doing this work and our willingness to speak out. And I just believe so strongly that if we let fear win, then we let something that is much bigger and scarier win. So using our rights, and speaking to our neighbors, and building trust with the people who are in our PTA, in our congregation or in our neighborhood is the way that we support one another right now.
Miller: I imagine that federal officials would be interested in knowing the identities of people who are calling your hotline or getting access to your communications. Do you assume that you’re being surveilled?
Walker Keller: I think there’s a lot of tools out there that can be used to surveil all of us, and yet at the same time, it’s again, right sizing that fear. We can’t always live in fear, and we can also take preventative steps to protect ourselves and our neighbors.
Miller: Alyssa Walker Keller, thanks very much.
Walker Keller: Thank you so much for having me. And if there’s anything that I would want people to take away, it’s please save the PIRC phone number on your phone to share with your neighbors and yourself. The number is 888-622-1510. Thank you.
Miller: Alyssa Walker Keller is a coordinator with the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition.
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