Dramatic spike in WA ICE arrests hit Eastern WA agricultural region
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- ICE arrests in Washington surged, approaching a peak in 2025.
- Yakima County saw 185 arrests per 100,000 people, the state's highest rate.
- Franklin and Benton counties had 126 combined arrests, including Tri‑Cities residents.
As the second Trump administration began ramping up immigration enforcement, the Tri-Cities area saw a disproportionate number of arrests.
Franklin County had the second-highest number of per capita Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) arrests across all counties in Washington state in 2025 and Benton County saw a huge spike in arrests in the second half of the year. That’s according to data released this week from the University of Washington Center for Human Rights.
It was a trend seen across the heart of Washington state’s agricultural production areas, heavily centered on the lower Yakima Valley and Columbia Basin.
The Seattle Times reported Wednesday that ICE arrests disproportionately hit Yakima County in 2025, with the highest number of ICE arrests relative to its population — 185 arrests per 100,000 people.
In terms of total arrests, Yakima had the second highest in the state at 477. King County, with nearly 10 times the population of Yakima, had a little more than double Yakima’s number of arrests at 1,030.
Last year, there were 126 arrests in Franklin and Benton counties combined — 66 in Franklin and 60 in Benton.
That’s compared to 83 arrests in Spokane County (Pop. 555,947) and 132 arrests in Clark County, Wash. (Pop. 527,269), bordering Multnomah County where there were 770 total arrests, including those in the Portland area. Operation Black Rose was one of the larger immigration enforcement initiatives by the Trump administration last year.
Compared to 29 arrests in Franklin County in 2022, there were 66 arrests in 2025.
While the number of arrests in Franklin County more than doubled from 2022 to 2025, Benton County’s arrests ramped up from three arrests in 2022, five in 2023 and four in 2024 to 60 arrests in 2025.
In the second half of 2025, there were 47 arrests alone in Benton County.
Other counties in a similar per capita range to Franklin County include Whatcom County with 58 arrests per capita, Mason County with 55 arrests per capita and Chelan County with 49 arrests per capita. ICE arrests in Whatcom County include those made on the Canadian border.
Tri-Cities arrests, deportations
Detail of the arrests of Tri-Cities residents often did not become public. The Tri-City Herald was able to verify some through conversations with family members of the men arrested.
A Pasco mechanic and father of three was arrested by a federal immigration agent on his way to work in March 2025. He may have been targeted because of a DUI charge in 2020 and minor traffic violations that had been resolved.
A federal work permit he had previously applied for was finally approved while he was being held in the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma.
After months in detention, he was deported to central Mexico in June.
In April last year, Sergio Cerdio Gomez of Pasco was arrested by ICE agents at a routine interview in Yakima for a pending immigration application and later deported to Chiapas, Mexico last June.
He is a father of three and co-owner of the Kennewick food truck Hibachi Explosion, which he operates with his wife.
This story was originally published March 12, 2026 at 5:05 PM.
