For some of the Haskell students at Friday’s “ICE Out” protest in South Park, ICE operations are terrifying but unsurprising, as the violent arrests and deportations fit within a long history of colonization in the country.
“I think it’s important to remind everybody that the borders crossed us and not the other way around,” said Kansas Clifford, Oglala Lakota.
Clifford is a senior at Haskell Indian Nations University who said she’s alarmed by ICE killing people and kidnapping them off the street.
“It’s kind of shattering that idea of the American dream for so many people, but I think as Indigenous people, we’ve been aware of that. We’ve been aware of the false reality that is the American dream,” Clifford said. “And so to us, it’s like, yes, we’re glad that so many people are finally seeing what has been done to so many people of color and minorities.”
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She said now that more white people are experiencing this disillusionment, “there’s a great chance for solidarity and a good chance for us to stand together in this and for us to help them, guide them, on their route to resistance.”
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Haskell student organizers began spreading the word about a Friday protest following a rash of arrests during an ICE operation Tuesday in Lawrence. Sanctuary Alliance, a Lawrence-based collective advocating for immigrant rights, said they confirmed ICE sightings throughout town and five community members were arrested.
The increased local ICE presence coincides with exacerbated immigration enforcement activity around the Kansas City metro area. In the last week, ICE agents were spotted making arrests in Olathe and hovering outside the city’s Boys and Girls Club, drawing neighbors to watch over the center. Simultaneously, many residents of Leavenworth are trying to fight off a for-profit ICE detention center.
Protesters Friday hoisted signs calling ICE fascist and comparing it to the Gestapo and chanting “We the people, for the people.”
Sylvia London is a student at KU studying criminal justice with a minor in Spanish. She has immigrant family members whose lives she is scared for.
“Lawrence is my hometown, and it has always been our little Lawrence liberal bubble,” London said. “And it shows how bad things are, that that bubble is completely broken, and it has been for a long time. And I think that the recent events have opened a lot of people’s eyes, but this has been a long time coming.”
She also saw the commonalities between ICE and of histories to not be repeated.
“It’s this level of violence and this level of inhumanity, frankly, that they don’t care whether you’re documented or not,” London said. “They don’t even care to send people back to the country that they’re from … Frankly, this is starting to remind me of what led to World War II in many ways, and … the only way to break that pattern is to fight it.”
ICE operations have been scaling up in frequency and violence as Trump took to his second term and declared a crackdown on immigration enforcement.
A mid-January report from the American Immigration Council showed that ICE was holding about 40,000 people in detention centers any given day, a 75% increase over the previous year. CBS reported on Feb. 9 that less than 14% of the people arrested by ICE since Trump took office in 2025 had violent criminal records. In legal terms, being undocumented in the United States is a civil violation, not a criminal offense.
Some of the Friday protesters were there in honor of their hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota, which ICE has occupied, conducting large-scale immigration enforcement operations. Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good were both killed by ICE in Minneapolis.
Adrienne Morris, Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, said ICE has been using the same tactics colonizers have used on her ancestors. Morris is from Minneapolis, which she said is home to a multitribal community. She said it hurt seeing people on the front lines, being detained in her home.
“I felt like if I couldn’t be back home with them, (then) I can be here with all of you,” she said.
A Haskell student, who asked not to be named and is Shoshone-Paiute from Duck Valley, attended the protest with two of her peers. She said she was particularly concerned about cases where ICE detains immigrants without criminal records while denying due process.
“If they want to do this, this deportation, it should be at least lawfully, but they don’t care about that, and so that’s where it’s really like, just really inhumane and illegal,” she said. “It shouldn’t be happening at all.”
She said Indigenous people have a long legacy of being at the front lines, fighting for many people’s rights.
“And the same thing with this, they are being treated very inhumane and unlawful, and it’s been very heartbreaking to see, and as Native people, I feel like it’s our responsibility to kind of speak up and do things for them, as well,” she said.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at wulfe@lawrencekstimes.com.
Read their complete bio here. Read their work for the Times here.
Molly Adams (she/her), photo editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2022. She can be reached at molly@lawrencekstimes.com.
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