Man arrested by ICE near his kids’ school bus stop

PORTLAND — A father who had just put his children on a school bus was arrested last week by Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents near Portland, officials said.

On Feb. 19, the man, identified by ICE as Tomas Galvan-Rodriguez, dropped his children off at a school bus stop, according to officials from the Tigard-Tualatin School District, where the children are enrolled. It was unclear if the children witnessed the arrest, The Oregonian/OregonianLive reported.

In a statement, ICE representative Tanya Roman said ICE officers identified Galvan-Rodriguez and arrested him during a routine traffic stop. He is awaiting immigration proceedings before a federal judge, Roman said.

She attributed Galvan-Rodriguez’s arrest to his criminal background, which she said includes a 2004 conviction for a hit-and-run and a 2008 conviction for larceny, a misdemeanor charge.

Galvan-Rodriguez damaged property in the hit-and-run, but didn’t injure anyone, according to court records.

Roman said ICE treats certain places such as school bus stops as areas where they won’t arrest people and that the location of Galvan-Rodriguez’s traffic stop and arrest wasn’t at one of those locations.

Last week, ICE issued two subpoenas to the Washington County Sheriff’s Office demanding information on two Mexican citizens wanted for deportation who were being held at the Washington County Jail. A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s office said they would comply with the subpoenas.

In a letter to families, the district noted that another relative of a student had been taken into custody by ICE last week, though no further details were given.