Portage County deputies hold woman for ICE after traffic stop

After an all-night search that began March 9, Portage County sheriff’s deputies detained a 33-year-old woman they claimed is in the country illegally and will turn her over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post.

According to the post, deputies stopped a vehicle on Interstate 76 in Edinburg Township on March 9 because the vehicle had expired registration tags on its plates. A deputy determined that neither of the vehicle’s occupants, identified as Jorge Gonzalez Alvarado, 31, and Ana Maria Contreras Jimenez, 33, possessed a valid driver’s license, the sheriff’s post stated.

“Further investigation revealed that both individuals were out of Mexico and in the United States illegally,” the post stated. “Fearing deportation, both individuals exited the vehicle and fled on foot into a nearby wooded area.”

The post did not indicate that either person had any criminal history. But the flight of the vehicle’s occupants set off a multi-agency overnight manhunt that involved the Ohio State Highway Patrol and its Aviation Unit, according to the sheriff’s office.

Contreras Jimenez appears to have hid in the woods all night before officers arrested her March 10. 

“Due to minor cuts sustained while running through the woods and spending the night outside, she was evaluated by paramedics before being transported to the Portage County Justice Center,” the sheriff’s office said.

Contreras Jimenez was charged with obstructing official business, a second-degree misdemeanor. She pleaded not guilty in Portage County Common Pleas Court, which filed a request for an interpreter on March 11. During a March 12 bond hearing, Acting Judge James Eskridge set a personal recognizance bond, but Contreras Jimenez remains in custody on an immigration hold. ICE agents have 48 hours to come for her, a booking officer said.

The sheriff’s office post had stated that she would be turned over to ICE, “our federal partners.”

Officers couldn’t find Gonzalez Alvarado. He is wanted on a second-degree misdemeanor charge of obstructing official business, an unclassified misdemeanor charge of no operator’s license and a minor misdemeanor charge of failure to register a vehicle. Warrants were filed with Portage County Common Pleas Court on March 10.

Administrative Specialist Susan Schlarb of the sheriff’s office stated that the pair provided passports from Mexico, but had no identification from any U.S. state. Warrants issued later for Gonzalez Alvarado and court documents for Contreras Jimenez both list a Dorset, Ohio address.

“An inquiry through law enforcement databases, which includes ICE revealed that Jorge was in the U.S. illegally. ICE had no record of Ana being present in the U.S.,” Schlarb wrote in an email to The Portager.

State Highway Patrol Dispatcher Jarrod Vrabel confirmed that the Ravenna post provided “perimeter support,” but could not specify what kind, as the call did not originate with that agency. He referred all detailed questions to the sheriff’s office. 

The sheriff’s office Facebook post also stated that “locations believed to be employing and housing individuals who are in the county illegally have been identified,” and that the information had been forwarded to ICE for further investigation.

It’s not clear what businesses the sheriff’s office identified or how deputies determined the immigration status of employees and residents. In other parts of the country, ICE investigations have resulted in armed federal raids on homes and businesses.

In March 2025, the Portage County Sheriff’s Office signed a Memorandum of Agreement with ICE, which authorized the local agency to:

• Interrogate "any person believed to be an alien as to his right to be or remain in the United States"

• Arrest a person without a warrant if the officer witnesses them entering the U.S. unlawfully or “has reason to believe” the person is in the U.S. illegally “and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained”

• Arrest a person without a warrant for felonies if "the officer has reason to believe the alien to be arrested is in the United States in violation of the law and is likely to escape before a warrant is obtained"

• Maintain custody of people on behalf of ICE

The MOA requires the sheriff’s office to charge people with local or state offenses and then hold them in detention until their sentences have been served. Afterward, the sheriff’s office is to notify ICE for same-day removal to a “relevant ICE detention office or facility.”

If there are no local or state charges, the MOA allows the sheriff’s office to “process” people and have ICE determine, on a case-by-case basis, how to handle them. “Special interests or other circumstances” may apply.

Though the sheriff’s office was within its rights to hunt for and detain Contreras Jimenez, the incident raises multiple concerns, Cleveland immigration attorney Ayla Blumenthal told the Portager.

The Portage County Sheriff’s Office said when it signed the ICE MOA that its officers would undergo training, but Blumenthal said implementing immigration law is quite complicated. Having nominally trained sheriff’s officers enforcing immigration law creates a situation that is ripe for mistakes, she said.

Deportation can upend a person’s life by separating them from their children or other family members, and causing them to suddenly disappear from work with no notice to employers or friends. 

“People are getting desperate. When you have the threat of that looming over someone’s head, yes, sometimes someone’s going to take off running when you’re trying to arrest them,” Blumenthal said.

Like the Portage County jail, many of the Ohio facilities that house ICE detainees are under local and state jurisdiction, she said. In practice, that translates to people who are in the country without legal status — and sometimes even U.S. citizens or people with legal status — who face minor charges being housed with inmates with serious felony convictions.

“When we look at criminal law in the United States, there are constitutional protections in place,” she said. “But when we look at immigration law, many of those protections are stripped, and the excuse is something to the effect of, ‘Well, it was a civil enforcement, not criminal enforcement. It doesn't have the same level of constitutional protection.’”

As a result, someone accused of violating a civil regulation could be subjected to greater loss of freedom and lower protections of their civil liberties than someone who is being charged with a serious crime, she said.