What was the largest immigration raid in Iowa? Here’s what to know about ICE in Iowa

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Screenshot from the video, featuring President Donald Trump signed a flurry of executive orders aimed at immigration on his first day in office. Here's what we know about them.
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By Cooper Worth, Des Moines Register

 Iowa-Tensions are high for immigrants and advocates in Iowa amid rumors of ICE vehicles being spotted at various places across the state Thursday and President Donald Trump‘s declaration of illegal immigration as a national emergency earlier this week.

Here’s what you need to know about ICE and what local law enforcement and politicians are saying about immigration raids.

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What is ICE?

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is a federal law enforcement agency that enforces immigration laws in the country by removing undocumented immigrants and preventing the illegal movement of people or contraband in and out of the country.

Since its founding in 2003, ICE has routinely conducted deportations in cities throughout the United States. Between Oct.1, 2023, and Sept. 30, 2024, ICE agents deported 271,484 people to 192 countries, according to the agency’s annual report. Fiscal year 2024 saw a 90% increase in deportions compared to 2023 and a 276% increase compared to 2022.

Does ICE need a warrant?

The Legal Aid Society of New York City says while ICE is lawfully allowed to detain most non-citizens, including those without criminal records and those seeking asylum, the agency is still required to adhere to constitutional arrest procedures, including informing the detained of their rights and providing search warrants when necessary.

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ICE agents can detain undocumented immigrants in public places, but cannot enter private residences without consent or a warrant signed by a judge.

How many undocumented immigrants are in Iowa?

Screenshot from the video, featuring Hear from lowa Migrant Movement for Justice Community organizer Maria Gonzalez

Iowa is home to an estimated 105,000 undocumented immigrants, according to the Migration Policy Institute.

Have there been ICE arrests in Iowa since Trump took office?

The Polk County Sheriff’s Office said ICE agents arrested one person on Thursday morning at the Polk County Courthouse in Des Moines, according to a news release.

The sheriff’s office did not have information on the reason for the arrest and said reports of multiple arrests made by ICE agents at the courthouse on Thursday were false.

Is ICE in Iowa?

There are two ICE offices in Iowa: one in Des Moines, located in the Neal Smith Federal Building at 210 Walnut St. and the other in Cedar Rapids. 

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Previous Iowa immigration raids in Postville, Mount Pleasant

Iowa has had a series of immigration-related raids over the past two decades.

In 2006, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided a Swift & Co. pork processing facility in Marshalltown, arresting 90 people.

Two years later, ICE held one of its largest immigration raids at the time in Postville, a town of 2,000 people on the northeast edge of Iowa, where agents arrested nearly 390 workers of a beef packing plant. During his first term in office, Trump commuted the sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, an executive sentenced to 27 years on bank fraud and money laundering charges in connection with the raid.

In March 2017, 23 undocumented immigrants in Iowa were arrested as part of a three-day ICE operation spanning five Midwest states. Days before the 10-year-anniversary of the Postvillle raid in May 2018, 32 people were arrested at a pre-stressed concrete plant outside of Mount Pleasant, an eastern Iowa town of 8,500 people.

In March 2020, ICE arrested three Guatemalan men during a raid in Cedar Rapids.

What have Iowa politicians said about deportations in the state?

In a memo sent Jan. 17 to the leaders of the Iowa Department of Public Safety and the Department of Corrections, Gov. Kim Reynolds directed Iowa’s top law enforcement officials to “fully cooperate and assist” with federal agencies carrying out deportations.

In her letter, Reynolds instructed Iowa’s law enforcement officials to ensure their departments will:

  • Fully cooperate and assist, as the law permits, with investigative efforts of the federal Justice and Homeland Security departments.
  • Contact Homeland Security and the DOJ if any ongoing criminal investigations result in the apprehension of people where a “reasonable suspicion exists” that immigration laws have been violated.
  • Honor any detainer requests from Homeland Security to aid the transfer of someone to immigration authorities.
  • Notify Immigration and Customs Enforcement when someone will be released from criminal custody and keep them in custody to facilitate their transfer to the requesting authority.

Earlier this month, Iowa’s all-Republican congressional delegation — Mariannette Miller-Meeks, Ashley Hinson, Zach Nunn and Randy Feenstra — all voted in favor of the Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act and the Laken Riley Act. Both bills look to deport and block entry into the U.S. for undocumented immigrants who are convicted or accused of violent crimes against women, theft or shoplifting.

Sen. Chuck Grassley and Senate Republicans first introduced the Laken Riley Act in March 2024 and reintroduced it with four other senators earlier this month. His vote in favor of the bill was joined by Sen. Joni Ernst, who sponsored an amendment requiring the detention of undocumented immigrants who commit crimes that result in death or serious bodily injury.

The Laken Riley Act is now heading to Trump’s desk, marking one of the first bills he will sign into law. Grassley and Ernst are expected to support the Preventing Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act when it reaches a Senate vote.

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