City officials in Portland on Tuesday denounced a recent arrest by immigration officers that resulted in onlookers getting shot at with pepper balls.
FILE - A federal agent wears a badge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement while standing outside an immigration courtroom at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York, Tuesday, June 10, 2025.
Yuki Iwamura / AP
Mayor Keith Wilson and councilors who represent the North Portland district called the federal officers’ tactics during the Dec. 11 arrest “unjustified, disruptive and escalatory.”
The actions “undermine public trust in government,” the city officials said in a statement. “Chemical munitions cannot, and will not, compel our community to accept (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity) we have not asked for and do not want.”
Immigration agents arrested Erik Téllez as he drove his 17- and 15-year-old children to school, according to a GoFundMe started to help Téllez’s family.
Neighbor Jaslyn Cincotta told OPB that she saw multiple SUVs driving quickly outside her home in Portland’s St. Johns neighborhood around 8:20 a.m., before descending on Téllez’s minivan. Cincotta said she and other neighbors went outside to confront the federal officers.
When one of the neighbors started yelling, Cincotta said, federal officers fired pepper balls at their feet. Several minutes later federal officers fired pepper balls again when they left the scene in their SUVs.
Officers “leaned out the window and let off whole rounds of ammunition again. It just created this wall of who-knows-what, blowing down the street,” Cincotta said. “The next thing you know, everyone’s all coughing.”
City officials and immigrants’ rights advocates said the incident was the first time documented when federal officers fired pepper balls during an apprehension. Officers have used pepper spray before, one advocate said, but pepper ball firings have mostly been exclusively used during protests outside ICE’s Portland facility in the South Waterfront.
It’s unclear what, if anything, city officials could propose to thwart future use of chemical munitions on city streets. The North Portland councilors – Sameer Kanal, Dan Ryan and council president Elana Pirtle-Guiney – did not respond to OPB’s follow-up questions.
City officials have gotten creative, policy-wise, recently under the second Trump administration. On Dec. 3, the council approved a new policy that will fine landlords who lease private buildings to be used as detention facilities.
Spokespeople with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
