Oregon has investigated zero excessive force allegations against federal agents
EXCLUSIVE — Oregon warned of a pattern of excessive force by federal officers, but exclusive records obtained by oceanplot show no state investigations or prosecutions.
In late 2025, Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield sent a formal letter to D.C. He told the heads of the US DOJ and the DHS that federal officers in Oregon had crossed a line. “During the past six months, Oregonians have repeatedly reported the use of excessive force by DHS employees,” he wrote. “The frequency and nature of these incidents suggest a pattern of behavior on behalf of your agencies and may be violations of Oregon law.”
That was the public posture. But the internal record tells a different story.
Oregon DOJ released a log of every federal related complaint received by the Attorney General under the Trump administration since January 1, 2025, while withholding information from the log submitted by individuals who requested confidentiality. For each entry released, the log lists the date, the complainant, a description, and two outcomes: whether DOJ opened an investigation or referred it for prosecution.
Every entry for investigation and prosecution is marked “No,” meaning none were ever investigated or prosecuted.
The complaints cover a range of allegations. Residents in Newport wrote to oppose an alleged ICE facility. One person said that after photographing federal agents, an agent photographed her. A legal observer alleged she was cut off in traffic by agents, then followed home. The log contains one description of physical force by immigration agents. In a complaint from December, a witness describes when a woman tried to block an enforcement vehicle. They say agents got out, pepper sprayed her, and forced her into the car.
“While blocking the car was undoubtedly an unwise move, the ICE agents immediately escalated the situation in an unnecessarily violent way,” the witness wrote.
Yet that incident is not self-described. It's a third-party account. In the portion of the log that DOJ chose to release, there are no complaints in which a self-identified victim of federal excessive force appears. At the county level, the pattern is similar.
As previously reported by oceanplot, Multnomah County DA records show no police referrals or open investigations involving ICE, DHS, or FPS.
Why does this all matter?
Internal emails involving the Oregon DOJ show they formed a working group on the question of state prosecution of federal agents. The group circulated a guidance paper that described legal and structural barriers to charging federal officers under state law.
Those barriers were publicly acknowledged by the Multnomah Co. DA when he cautioned in October 2025 that charging federal agents would be unlikely to meet probable cause standards. Taken together, these records set up a simple comparison. In the letter to D.C., Oregon’s DOJ says that Oregonians have repeatedly reported excessive force by federal officers, and that the Attorney General intends to investigate and refer any criminal conduct by officers for prosecution.
But the records do not show state criminal investigations that were opened, tested against probable cause, and then declined.
Instead, they show uninvestigated complaints and a separate track of letters and guidance papers concerning barriers to federal accountability.
Public opposition to immigration enforcement in Oregon has frequently cited allegations of excessive force, and activist frustration with narrative responses to federal actions has been evident in repeated marches and sit-ins at places like Portland City Hall.
The record now proves this divergence — between storytelling, law, and activist expectations.
While Oregon warned D.C. about a pattern of excessive force, its own system seems to have never moved beyond complaint intake. This raises serious questions about whether Oregon’s public warnings functioned as public oversight, or as a form of narrative governance used to manage local civic tension.