A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent testified under oath that his team in Oregon received a verbal order to make eight arrests per day, an admission that surfaced in December 2025 testimony in a federal class-action lawsuit and contradicts repeated claims by Department of Homeland Security officials that officers do not operate under quotas.

The case, M.J.M.A. v. Wamsley, was filed by Innovation Law Lab, an immigrants' rights non-profit. It challenged ICE's practice of detaining people without warrants or probable cause in Oregon. In February 2026, US Judge Mustafa Kasubhai sided with the plaintiffs and issued a ruling broadly halting warrantless arrests in the state.

The administration's public benchmark for arrests is 3,000 per day nationally, a figure Trump adviser Stephen Miller has stated publicly. Judge Kasubhai connected that target directly to events in Oregon, writing: "To serve the president's demands for 3,000 immigration arrests each day nationally, evidence shows that ICE officers deployed to Oregon communities and arrested an 'extraordinary' number of Oregonians in October of 2025 with little regard for conducting lawful arrests."

What did the testimony reveal about arrest targets?

The agent, identified in court as JB, said his team of nine to 12 officers was tied to DHS's Operation Black Rose, which launched in Portland in fall 2025 and produced more than 1,200 arrests through mid-December, according to DHS figures. Innovation Law Lab estimated the eight-arrests-per-team benchmark suggested roughly 50 daily arrests across Oregon.

When the plaintiffs' lawyer asked JB whether he complied with the quota, a US attorney objected to the word "quota" — and the judge overruled the objection. JB replied: "I made as many arrests as I could, as long as it was lawful."

What is the Elite app?

The December hearing also marked the first time ICE disclosed in court its use of a custom app called Elite. JB described it as a "newer app" that is "kind of like Google Maps" and shows how many individuals with an "immigration nexus" are believed to be in a given area. Another officer testified that a "nexus" could mean any history of contact with immigration officials — including for a naturalized US citizen.

JB said the app helped officers find areas with a denser population of potential targets. Another agent called the Woodburn apartment complex they surveilled a "target-rich" area. JB said he did not know how Elite's "leads" were generated, saying the app "pulls from all kinds of sources."

JB acknowledged the tool's fallibility: "The app could say 100%, and it's wrong. The person doesn't live there. And so it's not accurate. It's a tool that we use that gives you probability, but it's … no such thing as 100%."

In January, the tech news site 404 Media reported that Palantir, the data analytics firm holding contracts with DHS and the Department of Defense, built Elite. Internal ICE materials reviewed by 404 Media suggested the app:

• Populated a map with potential deportation targets
• Generated dossiers on individuals
• Provided a "confidence score" on a person's address
• Identified "high-value targets" via a "geospatial lead sourcing tab"

404 Media, citing a user guide, said Elite stands for "Enhanced Leads Identification & Targeting for Enforcement." Palantir did not respond to inquiries, and has previously described itself as a "data processor" that does not play an active role in customers' data collection. DHS and Department of Justice spokespeople did not respond to detailed questions about Elite, quotas, or the Oregon lawsuit.

How did the 30 October Woodburn operation unfold?

JB's testimony centered on a 30 October 2025 operation in Woodburn, a city south of Portland home to many agricultural workers. Officers began the day surveilling an apartment complex, then pulled over a van of farm workers heading to work in the early morning, smashed the windows, and detained all seven occupants.

Officers became interested in the van after a database search suggested its registered owner was possibly in the US without authorization. They followed the van without confirming the driver was the owner. JB said the occupants speaking "only Spanish" seemed to "confirm" smuggling — yet ICE's written arrest report made no reference to any trafficking concern. When pressed on the discrepancy, JB said one occupant's statement that they were "all going to work and they're all from Mexico" kind of "cancels out human trafficking."

During the arrests, another agent photographed the lead plaintiff, a farm worker identified as MJMA, and ran her face through Mobile Fortify, DHS's facial recognition app. The app showed a match, but the officer testified: "I wasn't sure if it was her or not." MJMA had entered the US on a valid temporary visa, yet the arrest records inaccurately stated she entered unlawfully and described the stop as "consensual." ICE detained her in Washington state, then released her "without explanation," leaving her to find her own way home to Oregon.

The arrested workers were among at least 35 people detained in the Woodburn area that day.

What did the judge and advocates say?

Judge Kasubhai sharply criticized ICE's tactics, saying Elite could surface inaccurate information and lead to targeting of people lawfully in the US. He called JB's human-smuggling claims "unfounded" and "inappropriate," and said ICE targeted the area simply because many farm workers lived there.

Stephen Manning, Innovation Law Lab's executive director, said the testimony showed how arrest targets push officers to override legal protections: "The law is an impediment to the quotas." He cited the case of Juanita Avila, a legal permanent resident tackled to the ground during a November traffic stop despite carrying her green card. "She was just in her van. Why stop her other than she is a person of color?" Manning said.

Manning described Elite as an "electronic dragnet" aimed at bypassing the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches. Staff attorney Nelly Garcia Orjuela said the testimony revealed "another level of surveillance and how much information [ICE] has at their fingertips" — intelligence used not against people with serious criminal records, as DHS claims is its priority, but to "target communities that are the most vulnerable."

The February 2026 injunction halting warrantless arrests in Oregon remains the operative court order in the case.