Federal immigration officials on Friday retracted the number of arrests the agency claimed officers made in Portland during a nationwide operation targeting sanctuary cities.

More than 15 hours after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a news release saying that it netted 33 people in Portland, an agency spokeswoman told The Oregonian/ OregonLive that the actual number was four.

The spokeswoman also said that there had been no increase in immigration enforcement activity throughout Oregon during the four-day operation, dubbed "Safe City," that ICE said resulted in 498 arrests around the country.

"This was actually our normal fugitive arrests operation for the area," ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley said. "It's something that we do every day."

So how did the error happen?

Haley said ICE agents detained 33 people throughout the area covered by its northwest regional field office — which includes Alaska, Oregon and Washington — from Sunday through Wednesday.

Yet somehow the national ICE press office reported that all of those arrests occurred in Portland, a city that Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited last week to slam jurisdictions that decline to honor immigration detainers or share information with federal agents about people in the country illegally who face criminal charges.

In reality, agents arrested only seven people in Oregon over those four days, Haley said. Four of those were in Portland. Agents also arrested one person each in Gresham, Salem and Clackamas County.

Six of the seven people arrested in Oregon had previously been convicted of a crime, including burglary, harassment, domestic violence and drug possession, Haley said.

The remaining 26 regional arrests all occurred in Washington state, including one in Vancouver, Haley said.

ICE has since updated its original news release. It now claims that all 33 of the arrests occurred in Seattle.

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

skavanaugh@oregonian.com

503-294-7632 II @shanedkavanaugh