A video shared over 5,000 times on Facebook shows self-identified, plainclothes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents entering a Portland home and arresting a man, without getting permission to enter and without a warrant.

ICE later released the man, Carlos Bolanos.

George Cardenas, a coworker and friend of Bolanos, filmed the interaction with ICE officers, which he said began around 10:30 a.m. on Thursday in the downtown Portland area.

When the agents, dressed in street clothes, came to the door, Cardenas said Friday, they did not tell him who they were.

"All they asked was if I worked for my company and I said yes," Cardenas said over Facebook Messenger. "Then they said, 'Is Carlos here?'"

Cardenas said he asked them who they were and why they needed to speak with Bolanos, but the agents refused to answer his questions and then entered the home.

After they walked in without permission, Cardenas said, "They said were the police but they didn't want to give me their names."

That's when Cardenas started filming.

In the video of the interaction, a man in a green and black jacket and baseball cap demands to see Bolanos' identification, saying, "Why? I have reason to believe you are not in the country legally."

Cardenas asks the man if Bolanos is being charged with something and the man says yes, but that he can't tell Cardenas what that is, he can only tell Bolanos.

When Cardenas tells the agent that without a charge, there is no reason for them to be in the house, the agent responds quickly, with something unintelligible that ends in "the United States of America."

"OK," says Cardenas. "Do you guys have a warrant to come in this home?"

"We don't need a warrant to come in this home," the man responds, "no one lives here."

Cardenas explains to the man that they work with the homeowner.

"Listen, I know that no one lives here," says the agent. "This is considered a place of business."

Cardenas tells the agents the homeowner lives downstairs and says they need to speak with her before they come in.

"If you guys don't have a warrant," Cardenas says, "you're kind of breaking the law."

"Well," he adds, "you are breaking the law, basically, at this point."

Two legal experts agree with Cardenas' assessment of the situation.

"I think American homeowners would be shocked to hear that federal law enforcement believed that, just by hiring some contractors to paint or remodel your home, it becomes a 'place of business' and you lose your Fourth Amendment right to privacy," Leland Baxter-Neal, an immigration attorney at Metropolitan Public Defenders, said Friday.

"It's just not true," he added, "and it's dangerous that we have law enforcement officers with the power to arrest and deport who believe that."

"There were so many things that went wrong," said Mat dos Santos, Legal Director for Oregon chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "They did not have consent to enter the house. You need consent if you don't have a warrant to enter the home."

"Even if you believe the officer" that the agents did have consent, dos Santos said, "You can revoke that consent by explicitly saying you no longer give consent."

And, dos Santos said, even if the argument that the house was a place of business stood, that doesn't excuse the behavior.

"You still need permission from the owner of a business to enter a business," he said.

Both dos Santos and Baxter-Neal agree that the ICE agents violated the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution by entering the home without a warrant or permission.

As the video continues, the agents refuse to give their names or leave the house and wait for the homeowner.

Before the homeowner arrives, several agents arrest Bolanos.

Cardenas said the agents took his friend to the ICE office in downtown Portland. He said Bolanos was released about 90 minutes later.

"They just said they picked him up for his history," Cardenas said, "but that it was a mistake."

In a statement sent Friday morning, Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe, a spokesperson for ICE wrote, "The alien at issue has been released from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody pending further investigation regarding the circumstances of his arrest, and the matter has been referred to the ICE Office of Professional Responsibility and the Department of Homeland Security Office of the Inspector General."

"The Agency is reviewing this incident," she added.

Dos Santos hopes that the agent leading the charge in this case will be reprimanded or at the very least trained in "how to do legal arrests within the boundaries of the Constitution."

He also believes this kind of behavior on the part of ICE officers isn't abnormal, but now that it is being caught on tape, people are beginning to notice.

Baxter-Neal agreed.

"You've got officers that are violating the most sacred laws of the country," he said. "There are only so many of these that are caught on tape."

Last month, ICE agents were accused of racial profiling after they were caught on film confronting a longtime Washington County road maintenance worker who was at the Washington County Courthouse with his wife.

In a letter justifying their actions during that incident, specifically the choice to wear street clothes, Elizabeth Godfrey, acting field office director of the ICE Seattle office, wrote, "At times, there is a need for ICE officers to blend in with the public while conducting operational activities, in order to protect their safety."

"In the Portland metro area in particular, ICE officers are facing increasingly hostile and aggressive sentiment and obstructionist tactics," Godfrey added. "These officers are simply carrying out their duty to uphold the laws that Congress has passed."

Dos Santos said the ACLU will be deciding how to proceed on dealing with these cases, both those caught on camera and those not caught on camera.

"It's tricky to sue the federal government," dos Santos said. "But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't still try."

"ICE will be hearing from us," he added.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052

lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker