Above photo: Da-kuk via Getty Images.
Local communities resist ICE by reaching inside jails.
And building networks of support.
For more than 200 days, Fernando Herrera-Cruz has been sitting in a county jail in central Missouri on immigration charges. The conditions in the jail are “very bad,” Herrera-Cruz told Truthout, with the help of a translator. “There are some guards who are very racist towards immigrants.”
Herrera-Cruz, who is 25 years old, left Mexico to come to the United States to work with his brother for a roofing business in St. Louis. He was travelling in rural Missouri for a job when the trailer on his truck got a flat tire. Herrera-Cruz says a passerby stopped, began harassing him, and called the police. When local sheriff’s deputies arrived, instead of helping with the flat tire, they arrested Herrera-Cruz.
According to a Department of Justice press release, Herrera-Cruz was picked up on March 18, 2025, and charged with illegal reentry. He had previously been deported in March 2022 and made his way back to the country. He was arrested in Camden County, Missouri, best known for the Lake of the Ozarks, a scenic stretch of waterways surrounded by mountains. The press release says that Herrera-Cruz was arrested for not having a driver’s license following a “single vehicle accident.” (In Missouri and 30 other states, undocumented residents can’t get a driver’s license.)
Central Missouri is a politically conservative territory in a deep red state. Missouri, which has a troubled history as a slave state before the Civil War, is the third state in the nation for executions, behind Texas and Oklahoma. In the 2024 election, Donald Trump won Missouri with 58 percent of the vote. The state governor and local officials have eagerly collaborated with federal immigration agents to carry out the new administration’s mass deportation plans.
Despite its deep-red reputation, Missouri is also home to a growing movement of local community members organizing to fight back against mass deportation.
The Show-Me-Your-Papers State
On his first day in office in January of this year, Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe signed an executive order entering into a 287(g) agreement for collaboration between the Missouri State Highway Patrol and ICE. The 287(g) program authorizes state and local police to carry out immigration enforcement duties, with Trump going so far as to offer financial incentives for training officers. In Missouri, 287(g) agreements have been rapidly expanding among law enforcement agencies across the state.
In September 2025, the governor activated 15 members of the Missouri National Guard to provide “logistical support” to federal immigration agents.
Phelps County jail, where Herrera-Cruz is reportedly being held, is 100 miles southwest of St. Louis. In January 2025, the county completed a jail expansion project that doubled its capacity to 400 beds. As Trump has shifted the U.S. deportation machine into high gear, the Phelps County jail has served as a holding facility, keeping between 50 to 70 immigrants on any given day.
An expanding detention network is being built out across the Midwest. Since Illinois banned immigrant detention, ICE sends people to county jails in nearby states. In a red state like Missouri, many of the sheriffs are Republican and support Trump’s anti-immigrant policies.
Three counties in central Missouri have opened their jail doors to ICE for immigrants arrested in Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, and elsewhere across the Midwest. Along with Phelps County, jails in Greene County and Ste. Genevieve County are holding people for ICE. Together, these county jails are detaining hundreds of immigrants awaiting a short appearance before a judge and a likely deportation order.
Doing Something on the Ground
Jails exist in part to hide people away from society. Behind jail walls, suffering is often out of sight, out of mind for the rest of the community. But in central Missouri, a growing number of community organizations are sprouting up to make sure immigrants in local jails aren’t forgotten.
The Phelps County jail is located in Rolla, Missouri, a small college town with a population of around 20,000 that is home to the Missouri University of Science and Technology. A group of local residents calling themselves Abide in Love formed to provide support for immigrants in the jail. They began monitoring the jail population through the sheriff’s online database, and recruited and trained pen pals to communicate with immigrants in the jail through a text messaging system. They pay for phone calls so immigrants at the jail can talk to their families. They provide hygiene packages. They also help connect families with attorneys.
Despite being a university town, “Rolla, like most of Missouri, is pretty red,” said Lucy Behrendt, current president of Abide in Love.
“A lot of us followed the rhetoric of this administration during the campaign and knew this was what was going to happen,” Behrendt told Truthout. “So when this group formed, it’s like, okay, something that I can do, besides just post stuff on Facebook, go to protests or whatever, something I can actually do, on the ground.”
While members of Abide in Love may oppose immigrant detention, they must rely on the cooperation of Phelps County Sheriff Mike Kirn to get access to immigrants in the jail. The group’s name is inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr. and they use his philosophy to navigate the conservative political landscape.
“We use the six principles [of nonviolence] at every meeting. We read them and use the strategies to help bring about a beloved community,” Abide in Love’s founder Amy Beechner-McCarthy told St. Louis Public Radio. “That helps us focus on working within the system.”
Abide in Love is a “great help for everyone,” said Herrera-Cruz. “I’ve seen that they help many people with many things. Everyone in the organization is very kind, and they support us, whether with money or an encouraging text message. They even help people learn about their cases, because some people don’t know anything.”
A Form of Protest
Abide in Love chapters are spreading across Missouri to other county jails holding immigrants for ICE. An Abide in Love group was started an hour south of St. Louis in Ste. Genevieve County, along the Mississippi River bordering Illinois. After finding out about immigrants in their county jail and talking to the group in Rolla, community members launched Abide in Love Ste. Genevieve. Board member Susie Johnson told Truthout they filed for nonprofit status, trained volunteers, reached out to immigrants in the jail, and provided support.
“What Abide in Love Ste. Genevieve is doing by helping those detained and offering support,” Johnson said, “that’s a form of protest. And we know we are making a positive difference based on the thank you messages we receive almost daily.”
The city of Ste. Genevieve has a population of 5,000 people, but over the years the sheriff has expanded the jail to hold 500 people, an unusually large jail for a community this size. According to a contract with U.S. Marshals obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request, 400 of the beds can be used for federal detainees at a per diem rate of $103 per person. As is often the case, a long-standing contract with the U.S. Marshals Service is used to hold ICE detainees. The Abide in Love chapter in Ste. Genevieve said there’s around 150 immigrants currently being held there.
Despite its remote location, the Ste. Genevieve jail has been in the headlines. In October, Abide in Love held a vigil for Leo Cruz-Silva, who died at the Ste. Genevieve jail. In November, the arrest by ICE of Ismael Ayuzo Sandoval, beloved owner of a Mexican restaurant in Staunton, Illinois, sparked community outrage. Sandoval is currently being held in the Ste. Genevieve jail. Abide in Love has been working to mobilize around these high-profile cases.
Truck Driver From Afghanistan Set Free
In Springfield, Missouri, the third largest city in the state, community organizers are developing solidarity networks and a chapter of Abide in Love is up and running. The Immigrant Justice Collaborative is advocating for legislative change, including the repeal of a ban on sanctuary cities in Missouri. Others have founded the Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance (SMIA) which is more vocal in pressuring Sheriff Jim Arnott to stop holding immigrants at the county jail in Greene County, located in Springfield.
By monitoring the sheriff’s online data, the Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance has been reporting statistics about detention on social media. According to SMIA, there have been more than 1,400 people held for ICE detention since May 14, 2025. In mid-November, daily population had grown to 295 people currently being held. Of those, 219 are listed as “Hispanic.” The contract with U.S. Marshals is for 375 federal detainees, at a per diem rate of $100 for each individual.
Asked to respond to whether he will keep the contract, Sheriff Arnott told Truthout, “Yes, we will,” but did not provide any reasoning.
In November, the Southern Missouri Immigration Alliance put a spotlight on the case of Mohammad Ali Dadfar, who was detained at the Greene County jail. They called on Sheriff Arnott and Greene County Commissioners to release Dadfar, an asylum seeker who served in the army in Afghanistan and was forced to flee the county with his family after the Taliban took over.
Dadfar is a long-haul truck driver who lives in Colorado, but was arrested driving through Indiana when he stopped at the Chesterton Weigh Station on Interstate 94. He was one more than 140 truck drivers rounded up in “Operation Midway Blitz” as part of a crackdown on immigrant drivers issued commercial driver’s licenses by sanctuary states in New York and elsewhere. (Dadfar obtained his commercial license in Colorado.)
After he was waved aside at the weigh station in Indiana, Dadfar was held for five hours before ICE showed up to arrest him. He was taken to a holding facility in Chicago for two days, then transferred to the Greene County jail in Missouri. There, SMIA members got in contact with Dadfar who asked that they reach out to Marissa Seuc-Hester, a friend through a local church in Boulder County, Colorado.
“We met Ali’s family when they arrived in Colorado,” Seuc-Hester told Truthout. “We were matched up with them to provide community connection and allyship as they built their new life here.” Her church ministry helps to resettle new immigrants by assisting with paperwork, building resumes, and registering children for school.
For a couple of days Dadfar’s family did not know of his whereabouts. With help from SMIA members, Seuc-Hester figured out the jail’s messaging app to communicate with Dadfar.
Public pressure recently helped to free Dadfar who was ordered released by a court order on December 1, 2025. U.S. District Judge M. Douglas Harpool, in the Western District of Missouri, ruled that his right to due process was violated. He had spent nearly two months in the Greene County jail.
“We are so relieved that Ali was released,” said Seuc-Hester, “and are grateful to everyone who followed and shared his story, and advocated for his release. We know so many others are still detained, and we hope the awareness we raised will lead to many more people being rightfully freed.”
