Republican Lawmakers Decry Oregon Sanctuary Policies After Cartel Boss Arrest

The arrest of a Sinaloa Cartel leader illegally residing in the state capital and dealing fentanyl has Oregon lawmakers reconsidering sanctuary policies.

Posters showing seized drugs before Attorney General Pam Bondi held a news conference at the Treasury Department in Washington on May 6, 2025. Oliver Contreras/AFP via Getty Images

The apprehension of a twice-deported Sinaloa Cartel leader in the Oregon state capital on May 6 as part of the biggest fentanyl bust in U.S. history has animated the debate over Oregon’s sanctuary state policies.

Republican lawmakers swiftly introduced a bill to roll back the protections afforded by the state’s first-in-the-nation sanctuary law, which garnered rare bipartisan support but failed to make it to the floor of the House of Representatives.

The Department of Justice said that 16 people were arrested across five states in the bust, including 36-year-old Heriberto Salazar Amaya, allegedly the leader of a drug trafficking ring, who was living in Salem, Oregon.

Six of the arrested were in the United States illegally, U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents say the group trafficked millions of fentanyl pills and pounds of fentanyl powder to Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah. The federal investigation also yielded a record-breaking cache of methamphetamine, heroin, and cocaine.

At Amaya’s residence alone, 41 firearms—as well as more than $2.8 million in cash, $50,000 in jewelry, and $150,000 in vehicles—were seized.

In addition to drug charges, Amaya also faces charges of illegal reentry after deportation, hiring an unauthorized alien, and conspiracy to harbor unauthorized aliens, according to a federal indictment filed in New Mexico.

Just two weeks earlier, 46 Honduran nationals, also tied to the Sinaloa Cartel, were arrested on drug trafficking charges in a separate law enforcement operation in Portland, Oregon.

David F. Reames, special agent with the Drug Enforcement Agency Seattle Division, said in an April 22 news conference that the amount of fentanyl seized by his team and the other participating agencies could have yielded more than 1.5 million lethal doses, or “enough to kill everyone in Portland twice.”

Nearly all of those arrested selling drugs were in the United States illegally, Reames said.

“These same traffickers had been exploiting children by using them to sell dangerous drugs,” he noted.

Oregon has been a magnet for such illegal activities for more than a decade, according to state Rep. Jeff Helfrich, a Republican who represents Hood River. He said that the massive bust is a victory for law enforcement but a “damning indictment” of Oregon’s “failed leadership.”

“The fact that the Sinaloa cartel set up shop in Oregon, and from there trafficked enough deadly fentanyl to kill everyone in Portland isn’t an accident,” he said in a May 6 statement shared with The Epoch Times.

“It’s the direct result of the soft on crime, pro-illegal immigration policies that the majority party has forced on Oregon for decades.”

A Matter of Policies

While praising law enforcement actions, other Oregon lawmakers were quick to outline those policies.

In 1987, Oregon became the first state in the nation to pass a sanctuary law. Law enforcement officers cannot ask people about their immigration status or get involved with federal immigration enforcement without a proper warrant.

“The fact that this cartel leader was hiding in our state capital is no accident, it’s the direct result of Oregon Democrats’ sanctuary state policies,” state Rep. Dwayne Yunker, a Republican, wrote in a May 6 statement. He said that Oregon has become a “haven for drug traffickers, foreign terrorist organizations, and organized crime.”

The state has decriminalized hard drugs, embraced sanctuary protections for illegal immigrants, and gutted public safety enforcement, making Oregon ground zero for the fentanyl epidemic and a magnet for international criminal operations, he said.

It was the first state to decriminalize possession of small amounts of cannabis for medical purposes in 1998. The state legalized nonmedical cultivation and sales of marijuana in 2014.

The legalization of marijuana drew drug cartels from around the world, who grew both indoors and outdoors and exported their crop around the nation and the globe, Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel told The Epoch Times.

According to him, drug traffickers flocked to Oregon “from every state in the nation and nearly a dozen countries,” including China, Russia, Bulgaria, and Argentina.

In 2020, Oregon became the first state in the nation to decriminalize possession and use of small amounts of hard drugs, including methamphetamine and heroin.

“Overdoses rose 61 percent compared to 13 percent nationally,” Oregon House Republicans said in a September 2023 statement.

The law was repealed in 2024 and hard drugs once again became illegal in the state.

But by then, the market for these drugs and the cartels that manage them were well-established.

“Oregon’s soft-on-crime sanctuary policies have created fertile ground for dangerous organizations like the Sinaloa cartel to thrive,” Oregon House Republican Leader Christine Drazan wrote in a statement shared with The Epoch Times. “If we don’t modernize our sanctuary state laws, Oregon will continue to be a haven for dangerous criminals.”

Battle Over Sanctuary Policies

On May 8, Oregon House Republicans tried to introduce a bill that would change Oregon’s sanctuary law.

House Bill 3551 would once again allow law enforcement agencies in Oregon to work with federal authorities to identify and remove undocumented immigrants convicted of violent felonies, Class A misdemeanors, and felony sexual offenses.

“Our communities should not be sanctuaries for murderers, rapists, and other violent criminals,” wrote state Rep. Alek Skarlatos, the Republican who introduced the bill. He said the legislation would hold “the most violent criminals accountable.”

A vote to move the bill out of committee and to the House floor failed despite rare bipartisan support.

Nine Democrats voted with Republicans to bring the bill to the floor.

Meanwhile, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, a Democrat, has repeatedly pledged to “uphold Oregon’s sanctuary promise laws” even as the Trump administration intensifies its crackdown on illegal immigration.

“I will not back down from a fight,” Kotek said. “Our immigrant communities are Oregon communities.”

On April 28, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at increasing immigration enforcement.

The order empowers the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to pursue legal action against states and jurisdictions that are not complying with federal immigration law. This could include sanctuary cities such as Portland and states such as Oregon.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, who has joined in more than a dozen lawsuits against the Trump administration, has beefed up the state’s “Sanctuary Toolkit and Guidance,” which helps to shield illegal immigrants from federal law enforcement.