Even after 13 years handling tough cases with the Lawrence Humane Society, employee Tia Ezell said she was choking on tears while speaking to a Lawrencian who had to surrender their two senior dogs before self-deporting.

So far this year, LHS has had three dogs surrendered and at least three or four phone inquiries in which pet owners expressed concerns about immigration enforcement.

Although it’s possible that fears of detainment or deportation may have motivated Lawrence residents to surrender animals in the past, LHS had never documented a case prior to this year.

In the fall, they also found homes for a litter of seven puppies transferred from a shelter in southwest Kansas after their human was detained and deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“I do think it’s important that the community understand that this is a growing issue that we’re starting to see here in Lawrence, that we’re receiving feedback across the country that other shelters are also being affected,” said Shannon Wells, executive director of the shelter.

Shelters in Minneapolis, a violent hotspot of ICE activity, have documented a spike in pet surrenders from immigrants. In Los Angeles, at least 79 pets have been surrendered to animal control since June due to detainment and fear of deportation.

LHS anticipates the numbers in Lawrence will only continue to rise.

Immigration enforcement affects animal shelters  

Elina Alterman, chief development officer with LHS, spoke directly with the people who surrendered their animals.

The people did not want to interview for this article for fear of being identified, but they gave their permission to print the following details.

Alterman said the person who self-deported had come to Lawrence on a student visa when they fell in love and got married. They later decided to divorce, but their visa was running out.

“They are afraid to go to court for any of it — divorce proceedings, filing paperwork — because they are afraid that, by the time it would come to any of it, they would be here undocumented,” Alterman said. “And they are afraid of getting detained and deported … so they have made the decision to go back and kind of self-deport.”

As manager of animal services, Ezell handled the surrender.

She said the person had tried to place their senior dogs with friends and family, or find an adopter online, but had no takers. They had lived with both dogs for the majority of their lives, and Ezell said they were heartbroken.

Alterman said the third dog was surrendered by a person who lives in a mixed-status household, meaning some people are documented and some are not. The person has young children and was relying on a family member for child care before the family member was detained by ICE.

“The person who surrendered the dog is undocumented and is worried about being detained, is worried about being ripped apart from their children, and so they surrendered the dog, and they said they were moving with their kids,” Alterman said. “It was unclear if that’s back to their home country or somewhere else, but it was directly because of ICE activity.”

“We’re desperately trying to get animals into homes and just drowning pretty much every day of the year,” Ezell said. “And then on the human aspect, it’s just horrific. I mean, I just can’t imagine what those people are going through.”

Wells and Alterman both anticipate that some people may say they’re “making pets political” as nonprofit employees discussing these surrenders. But both feel that sharing the numbers isn’t political. It’s realistic because pets are bipartisan.

Ezell said the situation is extremely frustrating from all angles.

“(Immigration enforcement) doesn’t just affect workplaces and schools, but it also impacts the animal shelter, which I think a lot of people just don’t realize,” Alterman said. “The people who are being deported, who are self-deporting, who are being detained, they live whole lives. They interact with every facet of a community that all of us do, and that includes pets.”

Caring for displaced pets will become a community effort

Wells said LHS is a managed intake facility, so they don’t immediately accept all pet surrenders. Humans need to schedule an interview appointment and staff will triage cases based on relative urgency.

“The reason that we’re managed is because our community wants this facility to be overall life-saving, and in order to do that, we have to control the flow of animals that come in,” Wells said.

When a person comes to the shelter urgently needing to surrender a pet because they’re leaving the country or facing possible detention, that case gets bumped toward the top of the pile, adding strain on the surrender process. Then, animals ending up in an overburdened shelter system even though their humans would love to stay united.

Simultaneously, shelters nationwide are overflowing with dogs who linger longer than cats. LHS is no exception.

In 2022, the average LHS stay for an adult dog surrendered by its owner was about 36 days. The number grew to about 40 days in 2023 and 55 in 2024.

There was a dip to 43 days for 2025, but Alterman said that doesn’t mean the issue is letting up. Rather, it can be attributed to staff’s concentrated effort to fundraise and earn grants to offer more adoption specials.

Comparing 2022 to 2025, there was a 20% increase in time, and Alterman said any spike in surrenders pushes staff capacity and can lead to longer stays for animals. 

“We always talk about shelters with a life-saving mission, that the community has to be part of the equation for that to truly be sustainable,” Well said. 

“It’s important to understand because we’re going to increasingly need more people that want to step up to help these pets who have been displaced,” she said.

Caring for pets means caring for people

LHS touts the philosophy that to care about pets, you have to care about people.

“We really care about those folks and, just on a very human level, recognize that this is devastating to have to make those kinds of decisions to part with what we consider to be family members,” Wells said.

Although it has a contract to perform animal control in unincorporated Douglas County, LHS is not connected to law enforcement and does not need to report anyone’s immigration status to authorities.

In the case of a surrender, Wells said staff will try to make the process as comfortable as possible, and will do their utmost to place animals in foster care, although they cannot make guarantees.

Benet Magnuson, the executive director of the Appleseed Foundation, saw a growing need to help people to prepare their pets in case they’re deported. He reached out to Alterman for advice, and soon, Appleseed’s deportation preparation manual will have a pet-specific chapter. 

Magnuson said these are the primary ways to prepare your pet if you’re at risk of deportation:

• Ensure the pet is microchipped so it is identifiable. This can also help prevent citations if the pet runs off. LHS offers microchipping services for $25 and it takes less than five minutes.

• Designate a trusted person to care for the pet in the case you can’t. Provide that person with a letter saying they are the animal’s intended custodian. Alterman recommended adding this person’s contact information to the microchip.

• Create a document describing your pet and their specific needs, such as any health concerns and whether they can live with other animals/children. This will help the designated caretaker or facilitate a smoother adoption process.

• Spay or neuter your pet, which will make it less likely that they will roam and get picked up by animal control. Ensuring they’re vaccinated can also prevent citations.

Magnuson said the full pet chapter for the deportation preparation manual will be published within the coming weeks at deportationpreparation.org.

“It’s always important to us to treat people with dignity through those processes, regardless of what’s happening on a political level,” Wells said.

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.

Check out more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.

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