immigration

The Haitian community around Kansas City is generations deep and growing, filled with nurses, dentists and other health professionals. Newer arrivals fear deportation after courts allowed the Trump administration to strip 330,000 Haitian refugees of "temporary protected status."

There’s a chance your next bowl of cereal or protein shake will include milk that came from Kansas. Dairy production in the state has quadrupled over the last couple decades, and that growth rests on the shoulders of immigrant workers in rural Kansas.

Kansas has a fast-growing dairy industry, but milking cows isn’t easy and it’s hard to find workers. Industry groups say immigrants are critical and those workers say they’re needed to feed Kansas families.

Norma Zavala Levia had protected status in the United States. Immigration enforcement deported her anyway. Now she's fighting to get back to her family in Kansas City.

International students have traditionally been able to stay in the country for as long as they needed to finish their academic programs. The Trump administration is changing that policy, leaving Missouri and Kansas students and college officials worried about the future.

With most foreign students paying full tuition, campuses will lose out as the numbers of international students decrease. Meanwhile, students worry as new restrictions about how long they can stay in the U.S. are set to go into effect.

Some immigrants in Kansas City are changing their work hours and shifting other parts of their daily routine to avoid encounters with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. A new study found last year’s surge of immigration enforcement resulted in nearly 8,000 jobs lost in Kansas City.

Immigrant communities fearful of expanding ICE enforcement are changing how they work and function in society. Their decisions are having broad economic impact.

The Sikeston Department of Public Safety and Scott County Sheriff's Office defended the ICE action and disputed claims that agents indiscriminately targeted Hispanic attendees.

The federal government's purchase of the CoreCivic-operated ICE detention center in Leavenworth is raising questions about whether the city will maintain the same level of oversight it established before the facility reopened.

"We need pathways to citizenship, but a pathway to better citizenship for us all," said Yery Castillo, a friend of the late Glendy González de la Cruz. "Citizenship that provides us access to quality, affordable health care, clean, safe housing and good-quality union jobs."

On July 11, federal immigration officers detained a U.S. citizen after he took a video showing an ICE agent backing into his car. That incident also showed an agent referencing Kansas' new "Halo Act" banning people from going within 25 feet of a first responder.