Jackson County may ban masks on ICE agents. Residents say they just want them gone
When Arlin Pacheco goes to work as a Kansas City tour guide, she hopes her guests will experience the city as an exciting, diverse and welcoming space.
But whether or not she’s on the clock, Pacheco says her own experience in her hometown is marred by fear.
Pacheco, who is Hispanic, said that as federal immigration enforcement operations appear to ramp up within the Kansas City metro, she has felt alone and endangered in the city she loves.
“This is an old fight,” Pacheco said. “A very old fight… As a Hispanic, I have felt this from the beginning. My family was trafficked here. We didn’t choose to be here… but we worked our asses off to be right, to be legal, to pay our taxes and do the right thing.”
Pacheco is one of about 100 residents who voiced their support Wednesday night for an ordinance before the Jackson County Legislature that would seek to require federal immigration agents and other law enforcement officials to show their faces and badge numbers while working in the county.
The proposal comes after several instances locally when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided businesses or arrested individuals while covering and obscuring their faces with masks, and also after an ICE officer shot and killed a woman in Minneapolis who used to live here in Kansas City.
Wednesday’s town hall was lively, with residents raising concerns about their observations and fears regarding federal immigration enforcement in and around KC.
While some questioned the legal strength of the proposed ordinance, others said that passing the ordinance would be effective regardless as a symbolic stance from the community. And others took the night as an opportunity to connect with neighbors around a common desire to work in opposition to ICE operations in the metro.
“My job is to brag about Kansas City,” Pacheco told The Star. “I would hope that Kansas City stays worthy to brag about.”
A symbolic ordinance
The “Renee Nicole Macklin Good Transparency and Accountability Ordinance” currently under consideration by the legislature would prohibit any law enforcement officer, whether federal or local, from covering their face or badge number on the job.
Legislative Chair Manny Abarca IV, who sponsored the ordinance and moderated Wednesday’s event, said that his original intention in introducing the ordinance was “to make sure that law enforcement officers broadly…have this level of compliance and accountability to the public.” Abarca initially introduced the ordinance in early December, then revised and renamed it to honor Renee Good before bringing it back to the legislature.
The ordinance lays out potential penalties for noncompliant officers, including fines, as well as planned exemptions for SWAT teams and other tactical enforcement situations. Abarca previously said it was written in direct response to ICE action in the metro over recent months.
The Jackson County Legislature only has jurisdiction over policies related to the county sheriff’s office and does not have explicit authority over federal immigration agencies or area cities’ police departments.
But passing the ordinance would signal dissent toward the federal agency’s agenda on a county level, said Samantha Nichols, a pastor at First Lutheran Church in Mission Hills, Kansas.
“When the federal government asserts that ICE agents have absolute immunity and can do what they want, Jackson County must chart a different path,” Nichols said Wednesday. “We must say no, not here, not nearby, not anywhere.”
Legislator Jalen Anderson described ICE’s current operations in and beyond Kansas City as a “huge overreach” by the federal government.
“Local governments are becoming more and more needed,” Anderson said. “Especially when you’re seeing innocent people getting shot in their cars.”
Anti-ICE sentiment
At Wednesday’s meeting, many residents expressed their frustration with a perceived sense of entitlement among ICE agents — and cooperation between the agency and local law enforcement in some places across the country.
“I’ve been watching this horror story all year,” Lorie Kellogg said Wednesday. “All the cities have rolled over. All the police forces are backing ICE.”
Some residents welcomed the increasing visibility of efforts to resist ICE in Kansas City.
“I don’t care what got you here – whether it was seeing another white person shot, someone who looks like you, or whether it’s finally close to home,” Pacheco said Wednesday. “It’s always been close to my home. And I don’t care what got you here. I’m glad that you’re here.”
Kansas City resident Ethan Frazier said Wednesday that he’s encouraged to see county officials preparing for potentially increasing ICE presence.
“It’s been a whole year already of seeing brutality happen in American streets,” Frazier said. “At this point, we know ICE’s playbook. Logic would follow that if you know the plays the offense is going to run, then you can use that to play defense.”
Legal challenges
Others felt as though the ordinance didn’t go far enough, urging Abarca to pursue either stronger language or a clearer legal backing.
“If you all do not protect the citizens whom you represent, you are going to have hell on your hands,” Blue Springs resident Antoine Jennings said Wednesday. “...I appreciate the framework, I really do, but we need to go further. We have to protect our residents from this chaos.”
The Jackson County Counselor’s Office previously declined to sign off on the ordinance. Whitney Miller, a county legal representative, said last month that the county lacked the legal authority to set rules and consequences for federal law enforcement.
“My concern is whether this ordinance has a clear statutory basis under state law,” said Oscar Garcia, a research coordinator at the Matty Rhodes Center. “And whether the county has considered the risk that this is preemptive or could potentially expose the county to liability.”
Abarca said Wednesday that he believes local statutes around standards for law enforcement would maintain legal significance unless a larger body, such as state or federal law, passed an overruling set of guidelines for officers.
“It’s a funnel system,” Abarca said. “We can kind of control things until another authority comes in and eclipses that ability.”
Abarca said he anticipates that the ordinance could potentially be challenged in the context of constitutional law in the future, and that the county is actively sourcing legal experts who could help pass amendments to make the ordinance harder to overturn if it did pass.
“There are ways for us to protect certain elements,” Abarca said. “There will be challenges, undoubtedly, to certain elements.”
Anderson noted that if legal concerns around the ordinance did escalate, it could be subject to opposition from Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe and other Republican lawmakers.
“Here’s the honest truth — we can do as much as we possibly can, we can write almost any piece of legislation, but it’ll be smacked down,” Anderson said. “We have to get across the finish line just to get it done, and make them come to us, make them come after us.”
Additional ICE issues
Some residents expressed concern that increased reports of ICE activity in Kansas City could continue to intensify, reflecting the situation in Minneapolis and other cities and states.
“I personally do not want ICE here,” Northland resident Michaela Wilmore said. “We shouldn’t have to live in fear from federal officials. I see the horrors happening in Minnesota, and it’s happening here…I want us to be the great city that we are. We’re doing good without them.”
Abarca and Kansas City councilmember Jonathan Duncan confirmed reports last week that federal officials are considering building a 7,500-bed ICE detention center in a warehouse in south Kansas City, which was a particular point of outrage Wednesday night.
“Conditions in other states’ facilities make it clear that these facilities are run more like concentration camps than legitimate detention facilities,” Kansas City resident Angelika Shafer said Wednesday. “We as Americans and Kansas City citizens should not be known for facilitating false arrest and detention.”
Others worried about a fleet of marked ICE vehicles spotted near the Worlds of Fun amusement park in Kansas City’s Northland and reported sightings of agents have spread both north and south of the city.
Independence resident Natalia Link said that ICE presence in Jackson County undermines the tourism industry in the metro. Thousands of tourists, including international visitors, are expected to arrive in Kansas City in June and July as the city hosts several rounds of the 2026 World Cup.
“Fear of immigration enforcement is real, for anyone who is brown or speaks with any kind of accent,” Link said. “If I feel this fear, imagine how visitors and residents without protections feel… You cannot invite the world to Jackson County and allow fear to govern our streets. Fear is not a tourism strategy.”
Next steps
Though the future of the proposed ordinance remains unclear, some residents described the proposal as a jumping off point for neighbors to become more directly involved in advocacy efforts around federal immigration policy.
“We realize this isn’t enough,” Anderson said. “But when we push, if we can just get through the door, we can blow the door off its hinges. That’s how change works.”
Kansas City resident Elias Garcia said that even if the ordinance doesn’t hold up, “...What matters is to organize so that we can eventually build power.”
The anti-mask ordinance will appear before a legislative committee next week, with the potential to move to a full county legislature vote the same day. Passage will require five out of nine votes, followed by either the signoff of Interim County Executive Phil LeVota or another vote with a supermajority of at least six legislators.
If the ordinance is shot down, it cannot be proposed again for at least a year unless it is significantly altered, Abarca said.
Pacheco said that even without clarity around the ordinance’s future, she was heartened by the turnout Wednesday night.
“Watching how people are getting creative, and people are coming out of the woodwork to use either their privilege or their compassion, it’s an inspiring movement,” she said.
This story was originally published January 22, 2026 at 6:08 AM.
