Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe mobilized Guard members to assist ICE with "data entry, case management, and logistical support." Military experts say they also worry how these new deployments will affect recruitment and public trust.

The arrests of the workers at El Potro Mexican Café in February were among the first in the Kansas City area to draw widespread media attention. Immigration attorneys sued the Trump administration for making arrests without a warrant.

Leo Cruz-Silva, 34, was arrested for public intoxication and died by apparent suicide after just one day at an ICE detention center in Ste. Genevieve. He is at least the 15th ICE detainee death nationwide, and the second in Missouri this year.

The federal government is currently shut down. NPR's network is following the ways the government shutdown is affecting services across the country, including in Missouri and Kansas.

State Senate Democratic Leader Doug Beck said Gov. Mike Kehoe should not have authorized a deployment just hours before the federal shutdown.

The move comes amid President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement practices garnering increasing criticism. Kehoe said that Missouri National Guard troops will help with "administrative, clerical and logistical duties."

Owen Ramsingh, a legal permanent resident who lives in Columbia, was detained by ICE in Chicago last Tuesday after flying home from a three-week visit to the Netherlands. Authorities are citing past drug convictions from the 1990s.

National Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated from September 15 to October 15. Consul Soileh Padilla Mayer, who leads the Mexican Consulate in Kansas City, is spending this month making sure that Latino residents are being treated fairly around the metro, especially as the Trump administration ramps up deportation efforts.

The federal government joined the private prison company CoreCivic in its legal fight against the city of Leavenworth, which has been fighting in court to stop the reopening of a controversial detention center for immigrants.

Detainees in a Cottonwood Falls jail describe sleeping on the floor in overcapacity cells. Amid a national deportation surge, this jail is one of the region’s primary immigration detention centers.

The ICE 287(g) program is expanding in the Midwest, and immigration advocates say there’s not enough oversight. This month, the Department of Homeland Security announced new financial incentives that could boost local involvement even further.

Employees at the General Services Administration are scrambling to lease offices to accommodate a rapid increase of immigration enforcement officers carrying out widespread raids across the country. Kansas City is one of the places where federally-owned or leased property might be used.