Newberg, Oregon

Moises Sotelo came to the U.S. in 1994 and settled in the Willamette Valley of northwest Oregon, where he became a grape-farm worker, built a reputation for grape-growing knowhow, and wound up as the owner of a thriving vineyard management company. In 2020, Sotelo received the annual Vineyard Excellence Award, bestowed on him by the Oregon Wine Board.

The Yamhill County News-Register described him, in a recent editorial, as “a 30-year resident who had peacefully and lawfully gone about raising a family, launching a successful, highly respected business, and sinking deep church and community roots.”

The editorial was occasioned by an event that occurred in the early morning of June 10: driving to work, Sotelo was stopped and seized by ICE agents, along with one of his employees. He spent a month in detention camps. Then he was deported to Mexico – 31 years after he first left there.

“We said our final goodbyes on the court date, and then I said, “I will see you on the other side,” his daughter, Alondra Sotelo-Garcia, told KGW8 TV. “He gave me a big ole smile with tears in his eyes and said, ‘I know, I know.’”

Yamhill County is Trump country and a bastion of support for the idea of deporting undocumented immigrants. But Sotelo was apparently not the sort of undocumented immigrant many of the locals had in mind. His arrest, according to a columnist for the Eugene-Springfield Register, sparked “a swift outcry from members of the Oregon wine industry, who said he was a hardworking entrepreneur and churchgoing father of three who had earned deep respect throughout the community for his dedication to his craft.”

“Everyone knows him,” Elise Yarnell Hollamon, president of the Newberg, Oregon, City Council, told New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. His arrest “really shook our community,” Hollamon said.

Victoria Reader, a newcomer to Oregon and the vineyard business, regards Sotelo as a mentor. “He took me under his wing and guided me and made Oregon feel like home,” Reader told Kristof. “If he did that for me then there’s so many other countless people that he’s done that for.”

Sotelo’s arrest followed a White House directive to raise ICE’s daily quota from 1,000 to 3,000 people seized. That move also led to a sharp increase (from 200 to 400 a day) in arrests of immigrants with no criminal record, according to Axios.

Sotelo has acceoted his fate. His wife plans to relocate to Mexico as soon as he finds a permanent place to live. Meanwhile, he keeps in regular touch with his Oregon team. “He can still guide us and help us over the phone and on FaceTime and all of that kind of stuff,” Reader said.

Posted on August 15, 2025.