The federal immigration crackdown in Minneapolis has receded. But Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers continue to arrest and detain people across the country, including in the Kansas City metro.
Local residents and advocacy groups are trying to respond to the current wave of ICE activity, and want to be prepared for the possibility that Kansas City becomes the next federal target. One such group is Boots on the Ground Midwest, founded in January 2025, after President Donald Trump’s second inauguration.
In the past five months, the Johnson County-based volunteer organization has trained 3,000 people in two techniques called community defense and rapid response, said co-founder Martha Lawrence.
Community defense helps citizens understand how to peacefully document and observe ICE actions, she told KCUR.
“[It] is really just helping members of the community understand what their rights are in the Constitution, that when there is ICE present, what are they allowed to do,” she said, “and how important it is for people to show up and witness what is happening,” she said.
Rapid response, on the other hand, helps build networks and strategies within a neighborhood or community.
“[It] is specific to people setting up, basically, neighborhood watch groups,” Lawrence said. “How can we communicate with each other to protect our compromised communities, people who are more at risk? And how can we communicate easily and effectively when there is a crisis situation?”
Lawrence said that interest in the group’s trainings has spiked since the January killing of Renee Nicole Good — an American citizen and former Kansas City resident — by immigration officers in Minneapolis. The morning after Good’s death, the number of attendees for one online training suddenly grew from 100 to 900.
Boots on the Ground’s goal is to support the work of immigrant advocacy organizations who don’t have enough time or resources, Lawrence said. The group has collaborated with 17 neighborhood groups on both sides of the state line, organizing mutual aid for families who are affected by immigration enforcement.
The aid includes buying groceries for families who may be afraid to leave their homes, dropping kids off at school and picking up the vehicles of people who have been detained.
“We educated ourselves on… how we can get our community ready if the type of things that are happening in Minneapolis happen here,” Lawrence said.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Interview highlights
On the value of witnessing ICE actions:
We are calling attention to and documenting what is happening that is outside the bounds of the Constitution, outside the bounds of the rights of the people who are being detained – not only for history, but for legal representation and to show our community and our elected officials what's actually happening on the ground.
On mutual aid:
Mutual aid is sort of a broad term that's used to help support at-risk communities or people who are suffering in the current environment. And that could be anything from helping pick kids up from school if parents are feeling worried about being out in public, to providing groceries and clothing, to providing legal representation if needed.
On the impact of ICE arrests on families and the broader community:
I think that ICE arrests are really underestimated in the Kansas City area. I think a lot of people don't know that they're happening because they're not publicized like they would be in Minneapolis. Children go to school and their parents don't pick them up. This is happening every day here. We have people that are on their way to work and they're getting picked up at 6 o’clock in the morning.
These families are torn apart. Some of them are American citizens and they're being taken and held until they can prove that. Some are in the process of working through the documentation system, which is very long and arduous, and they're on their way to court and being taken. Their families are split up and they don't even know, necessarily, where family members are headed and how to get them out.
On getting involved in activism:
Early on, when we started seeing the ICE activity, we connected with immigrant rights groups in Kansas City who are doing the really tough day-to-day work to help those impacted communities. And we asked, “How can we help? What can we do?” And so, we educated ourselves on how we can get our community ready if the type of things that are happening in Minneapolis happen here.
On why the current political moment feels different:
All of the checks and balances that we thought were in place are now being destroyed. So people that are thinking that, “Oh, this is just business as usual for politics and for government,” are not seeing that those systems have now fallen.
The immigrants are the first test to try to see how far they can push eliminating our civil rights and our constitutional rights. So if they can get by with it for immigrants, they will work their way to the next level. We've seen it with media being arrested. We've seen it with the farming community that's losing workers. So it's really impacting the broader community, even though those specific impacted communities are the direct targets.
