OPB’s First Look: Immigration arrests take a dive

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Good morning, Northwest.

Immigration arrests in the Pacific Northwest have gone down steadily since December.

However, as OPB’s Troy Brynelson reports, federal agents have continued to target people without criminal records at a steady clip. We start today’s newsletter with the latest data.

Also this morning, engineering students at Oregon State University take on the storied challenge of building a canoe from concrete.

Here’s your First Look at Thursday’s news.

—Bradley W. Parks

Immigration arrests in the Northwest have dropped significantly, but people without criminal records are still vulnerable

After a historic spike in immigration enforcement in the Pacific Northwest last fall, newly released data corroborates that enforcement fell sharply in late winter.

Between Jan. 1, 2026, and the second week of March, roughly 890 people total have been arrested by immigration enforcement in the region. That’s compared to more than 850 people each in October, November and December.

But one thing has remained static: People with no criminal convictions continue to be apprehended at high rates. (Troy Brynelson)

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3 things to know this morning

• The top executive at the Oregon State University-Cascades campus, Sherman Bloomer, is no longer on the job due to “new information gathered through an investigation” from OSU. (Tiffany Camhi)
• PacifiCorp has won a notable victory in a lawsuit tying it to four major wildfires that burned in Oregon over the 2020 Labor Day weekend. Yesterday’s Oregon Court of Appeals decision could pause more than 160 damages trials that are scheduled through 2027. (April Ehrlich)
• Today, the Clackamas County Board of Commissioners is set to approve a new contract with Taser and body camera manufacturer Axon to incorporate artificial intelligence into the process for evidence analysis at the district attorney’s office. (Holly Bartholomew)

Headlines from around the Northwest

• Portland approves plan to spend $56 million of unbudgeted housing funds (Alex Zielinski)
• This Washington company’s tech will guide Artemis II back to Earth (Joshua McNichols)
• In the Klamath Basin, farmers brace for another tight water year (Roman Battaglia)
• Eugene Airport receives $6.24 million in federal money to renovate, expand Concourse A (Zac Ziegler)
• Eugene announces new peer navigation program following loss of CAHOOTS (Nathan Wilk)
• Injury-depleted Spurs hand Trail Blazers second straight loss 112-101 (Raul Dominguez)

Listen in on OPB’s daily conversation

“Think Out Loud” airs at noon and 8 p.m. weekdays on OPB Radio, opb.org and the OPB News app. Today’s planned topics (subject to change):

• Students at two Portland high schools organize climate justice summit
• What the reorganization of the US Forest Service will mean for the Pacific Northwest

OSU’s Concrete Canoe Team takes on the unlikely challenge of building a boat that shouldn’t float

A “concrete canoe” sounds like a contradiction. Canoes, by their nature, float; and concrete, as we all know, sinks like a stone.

It is this seeming incongruity of elements that compels university engineering students across the country each year to take on the challenge of designing, constructing — and then racing — concrete canoes.

“It seems crazy, but it’s true,” said Alec Hankins, one of the engineering undergraduate students on the Concrete Canoe Team of Oregon State University.

The extracurricular collegiate club is a local chapter of the national American Society of Civil Engineers. It’s a tradition that reaches back to the 1960s. (Ian McCluskey)

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