More than 100 people gathered Friday in Beaverton to demand the return to the U.S. of a local handyman arrested last week by federal agents as he left his job site.

The family of Paulino Martin San Pedro talked to him briefly at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Tacoma within a day of his arrest but then had no contact with him for two days as they hired a lawyer, said his son, Eric Martin.

They soon learned he was in Mexico, Martin said.

Friends and family believe federal officials intimidated him into agreeing to leave the U.S., Martin said.

“They interrogated him to sign paperwork ... to self-deport,” he said.

Martin San Pedro, 53, had lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years as an undocumented immigrant, said his son, who attended Beaverton’s Sou

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