Unconfirmed reports of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers at Oregon State University roiled the Corvallis campus Monday.
While online message boards and ICE hotlines lit up with reports of federal agents on campus, university administrators equivocated about the nature of the incident.
Oregon State spokesperson Rob Odom said that the school was “providing support to the impacted individual” but declined to answer follow-up questions on Tuesday.
“The university is continuing to gather information,” Odom said in an email. “The stories circulating online have not been confirmed.”
Officials with ICE also didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last spring, more than a dozen international students at OSU had their study visas suddenly revoked, as did others at many American universities, forcing them to leave the country or face deportation. Federal officials gave no reason for most of the revocations.
ICE has stepped up detentions in Oregon and across the U.S. as President Donald Trump has poured billions in new funding into the federal agency.
There were 560 immigration arrests in October across the Portland metro area, according to an official tally. An updated count through November is not yet available publicly.
Corvallis saw its first widely publicized ICE arrest Sept. 3 when agents detained Oscar Castelan-Garcia, 31, in a residential neighborhood, according to the Gazette Times. Corvallis police officials denied any involvement in that case, noting that Oregon’s sanctuary law prohibits coordination by local police on federal immigration matters.
A spokesperson for the Corvallis Police Department didn’t immediately return a request for comment regarding the rumors of ICE activity at OSU.
©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
