Ice's 'inhumane' arrest of well-known vineyard manager shakes Oregon wine industry

[marmar]

(Guardian UK) In the early morning hours of 12 June, Moises Sotelo woke up to go to work in the rolling hills of Oregon’s Willamette Valley wine country, a place he has called home for decades.

But this morning was not business as usual. A car tailed Sotelo as soon as he left his driveway, according to an account from his coworker. Trucks surrounded him just outside of St Michael’s Episcopal church, where he was detained by federal immigration agents. By the end of the day, Sotelo was in an Ice detention facility.

“He was in chains at his feet,” Alondra Sotelo-Garcia told a local news outlet about seeing her father arrested. “Shoelaces were taken off, his belt was off, he didn’t have his ring, he didn’t have his watch. Everything was taken from him.”

His detention has sent shockwaves through the tight-knit Oregon wine community. Sotelo is a fixture of local industry – in 2020 he was awarded with the Vineyard Excellence Award from the Oregon Wine Board and in 2024 he established his own small business maintaining vineyards. .................(more)

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/19/oregon-vineyard-manager-arrest-ice