As Seattle sees surge in ICE arrests, residents, advocates on edge

SEATTLE — Maya Crowder felt horror and disbelief as she watched federal immigration enforcement agents arrest a man at Seattle Center on July 27, just around the corner from where a mass shooting killed three and injured four others the previous day.

Crowder, 23, had seen videos of immigration arrests on social media and on the news, but never in Seattle. Not knowing what else to do, she took two photos and walked away.

More than two weeks later, and amid a reported surge in similar arrests across the city, Crowder struggles to talk about what she saw without crying. She thinks of the shooting victims — but also the faces of children she volunteers to take care of twice a month at Casa Latina and a former classmate’s uncle arrested by federal immigration officers after more than three decades of living in Yakima, her hometown.

She also grieves what it means for Seattle that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers felt emboldened to arrest someone not only in the heart of the city, a day after a mass shooting, but at Seattle Center — a tourist hub meant to connect Seattle to people from around the world, she said.

“I really didn’t think that would happen,” she said Thursday. “It makes me feel more on edge, and that everyone has to live in more of a state of hypervigilance because of this.”

Crowder is not alone.

A growing number of Seattle residents, along with immigrant advocacy groups and researchers, have documented a surge in similar arrests this summer across the city. Many of the videos and photos of nearly a dozen arrests since June show masked agents emerging from unmarked vehicles and arresting a person in broad daylight.

This surge follows President Donald Trump’s pledge to deport the “worst of the worst,” a mission that’s included hiring 12,000 more ICE agents since last July and demanding 2,000 arrests a day across the U.S. earlier this summer.

Local advocates and researchers said this week that arrests in Seattle and across Washington state may only continue increasing, despite some efforts by state officials to quell them. And for the first time, Seattleites who once felt immune to immigration enforcement are preparing for what to do if they see an arrest happen in their neighborhoods.

“We’ve heard of it, but to see it actually unfold — the terror (immigrants) have been fearing,” said Per Johnson, who filmed masked ICE agents arresting a man on Aug. 5 near his Wedgwood neighborhood home. “I was not prepared.”

Citizens and advocates document arrests

Many of the immigration arrests across Seattle so far this summer appeared to follow a similar pattern.

Without warning, several unmarked vehicles block in a car, and federal officers — many with their faces covered — surround the car and arrest the driver. The only public documentation of these arrests typically comes from people who witnessed it and share their footage online.

Such footage exists of federal agents detaining at least 10 people in separate daytime arrests since July 11 in neighborhoods across Seattle, including in Maple Leaf, Sodo, West Seattle, South Lake Union, Queen Anne, Wallingford and Wedgwood and at University Village. The agents were often shown in densely populated and tourist-heavy areas. Groups of officers were seen surrounding a fruit vendor at Alki Beach on July 28 and chasing down and arresting an Amazon delivery driver near the Chinatown International District light rail station on Aug. 8.

Information from federal authorities about such arrests is sparse.

A White House data dashboard shows there were 542 immigration arrests in Seattle between Jan. 26, 2025, and May 28, 2026, but does not provide information about individual cases.

An unnamed ICE spokesperson confirmed agents arrested a 24-year-old man from Mexico on July 27 at Seattle Center for overstaying his visa, and not in connection with the mass shooting. But the agency later said it could not confirm details of 10 similar arrests documented in Seattle since June 11.

Facing this dearth of information, local immigration advocates and researchers have stepped in to fill in the gaps.

Arrests often not targeting criminals

The Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network, which operates a statewide “deportation defense hotline,” said the number of Seattle detentions reported to it more than doubled so far this year. There were 36 such reports between January and July compared with 14 during the same period in 2025. All but eight of those detentions reported in Seattle this year happened between May and July, according to data provided Thursday by the organization.

Those numbers are likely an undercount of the actual total, as the data only includes cases reported to the hotline or documented by WAISN members. The majority of arrests confirmed by the organization involve people with no criminal record, the organization's email read.

These arrests are increasingly happening after traffic stops, a practice “we didn’t see a few years ago,” said Angelina Godoy, director of the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights.

The group of researchers started studying such arrests last August after noticing more documentation of the incidents — including agents smashing car windows or physically dragging out a driver to arrest them, Godoy said Friday.

Through public disclosure requests, the researchers learned federal immigration agencies often made such arrests after querying Washington drivers’ data through Nlets, a nationwide law enforcement data-sharing platform.

This practice skyrocketed across the state this summer, Godoy said.

Researchers confirmed 50 such arrests between August 2025 and July 3, 2026. There were 90 cases between July 3 and Aug. 7, 2026, Godoy said.

The “overwhelming increase” in arrests was evident in hot spots across King County like White Center, Tukwila, Shoreline and Burien — but increasingly also within Seattle’s city limits. Those cases represent a fraction of the total because they only include arrests reported to and confirmed by researchers, Godoy said.

State officials have tried, but largely failed, to stop federal immigration authorities from using state driver data to facilitate arrests, she said. Earlier this year, state officials said they had blocked ICE and Homeland Security Investigations from accessing state driver data through Nlets. But Godoy said the agencies have likely sidestepped the restriction by using another federal agency’s identification code to access the system.

Such arrests, which have only continued going up in Washington and in Seattle this summer, show no signs of slowing down, Godoy said.

“We’re getting more and more confirmed arrests that fit the same pattern,” Godoy said. “For so much of our state to be going on as business as usual and not waking to the terror on our streets is really disturbing.”

Seattle residents witness 'heartbreaking' arrests

Johnson, the Wedgwood resident, was getting his usual cup of coffee at Cafe Javasti before heading to work Aug. 5 when he heard another customer say, What are those people doing here?”

Looking out the window and across 35th Avenue Northeast, Johnson said he first thought he was looking at police officers doing a typical traffic stop.

Then he saw their masks.

“I knew immediately what was happening,” Johnson, 49, said Thursday.

Johnson, a lifelong Seattle resident who has lived in Wedgwood for 15 years, had fretted over arrests he’d seen on social media and on the news, but he never thought he would see one unfold in Seattle, let alone in Wedgwood. Before Aug. 5, he had never seen ICE agents in person, nor had most of his neighbors, he said.

Upon realizing the agents were from ICE, Johnson said he and everyone else in the coffee shop flooded outside. Some people shouted obscenities at the officers while others, like Johnson, filmed them with their cellphones.

“It escalated quickly — people had visceral emotions just at the sight of them,” Johnson said. (I didn't) understand at the time what I needed to do.”

Johnson’s footage shows five agents — several wearing masks — and unmarked vehicles surrounding a car parked on the east side of 35th near Northeast 87th Street. One of the officers is shown opening the car door and pulling the driver out by his hand before turning him around and arresting him.

“I’m a DACA,” the man says in the footage, referring to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a U.S. policy protecting people from deportation who were brought to the U.S. as children. With his hands behind his back, the man told Johnson and other observers his name is Alberto, his Social Security number and where his family could find his car keys. Then officers drove off with the man in the back seat of one of their unmarked vehicles.

Johnson said he and his neighbors felt wrecked by the experience. They organized a vigil that night in the same location, where people shared information and resources about what to do if another arrest happens nearby. They also discussed how to support Alberto, whom they had learned is a father of three who had lived in the U.S. since 1996 and worked as a painter and contractor, Johnson said.

The neighbors also gathered to grieve, he said, for their shattered sense of safety and for their immigrant neighbors left feeling even more afraid than before.

“It seems insane that it would be happening here,” Johnson said. “But it’s happening in our current day and in our community. And it’s heartbreaking.”