

By Kassidy Arena, Senior Reporter Nebraska Public Media News
Schuyler, NE-President Donald Trump has ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to facilitate more arrests and deportations.
With immigration policy changing rapidly, rumors and misinformation are impacting some communities in Nebraska. The rumors have stoked fear and uncertainty in some immigrant communities, at times impacting public safety, resulting in police departments and other agencies trying to calm the storm.
One of those communities is the city of Schuyler.
Schuyler Police Chief Robert Farber said the misinformation has been harmful to the community.
“We can all tell people what we heard and what rumors are, but it really hurts if it’s not true, and it can do a lot of damage,” he said. “And there are people in this community that are really saddened and feel like, ‘Wow, we didn’t deserve this.’ We’ve come a long way, and we care about our neighbors, and we want everybody to thrive. And this is just unfortunate that this is happening right now.”
Farber said to his knowledge, nothing has changed in terms of ICE operations in Schuyler. He emphasized the local police department does not act as immigration enforcement. That’s federal officers’ responsibility.
In conversation with the school resource officer, Farber said fewer students were showing up for school, although it’s unclear if immigration concerns were the reason.
“You don’t want to miss school for fear because of rumors,” he said. “The dangers of rumors and false information out there to the public, it just perpetuates a negative outcome, and some of those negative outcomes, the consequences are so horrific that if you never come back.”
Last week, the Schuyler Police Department released a press release reiterating it was “not aware of any ‘large scale deportations or raids’ by ICE” and that the primary role of local law enforcement is public safety for all residents.
Kevin Ruser, a law professor at the University of Nebraska, works with the university’s immigration clinic. The clinic focuses primarily on offering legal representation to those who can’t afford it on topics such as family-based immigration, some removal defense and other kids of immigration benefits like asylum claims.
The clinic ran an information session in Schuyler and plans to host more in the future to help combat misinformation that can spread when it comes to immigration policy.
“That was true before Jan. 20. [Immigration] is a complicated area. There are myths that abound in the immigrant community, regardless of whether it’s Latino community or the Ukrainian community or the Yazidi community,” he said.
Ruser added a complicated immigration system makes it easy for rumors to spread.
“They abound because it is such a complicated system,” he sad. “And people talk to each other in their own communities and sometimes they get accurate information that way, and sometimes they don’t. So it is just the nature of the beast.”
He said if an individual seeks information about immigration, he or she should ask an immigration attorney or a verified community organization.