After ICE raid, Lenexa needs to answer: Is everyone really welcome here? | Opinion
Anyone paying attention these past few months knows Lenexa is at a fork in the road. Despite our leadership’s proclaimed priority of building trust within the community and maintaining public safety “regardless of immigration status,” in the city’s own words, it’s become clear we need more than promises to weather the storm.
City officials, including council members and the police department, must ensure policy and practice embody their stated values and hopes of fostering greater inclusion and trust if those values are to be meaningful. Recent events show there is more work to do for accountability to constituents, but also accessibility for the community.
Take the notorious July Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at El Toro Loco restaurant. The mayor and police chief made it clear that officers had advance notice but did not participate in the raid. The incident led to viral video of Homeland Security Investigations agents, one wearing a hat apparently from a marijuana dispensary, threatening members of the public with arrest and alluding to a labor trafficking investigation — victims of which were presumably also individuals seen in handcuffs and thrown in vans.
At a council meeting after the raid, the police chief called for “restraint and fairness to other agencies” — a strange request, given the level of restraint and fairness in federal agents’ breaking car windows or handcuffing the victims of trafficking they’re supposedly investigating.
At the same meeting, City Council member Melanie Arroyo revealed that a recent investigation into her citizenship and eligibility to serve in public office — based on an anonymous, now-deleted voicemail to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation — was closed two days before the raid.
In its journey from the KBI to Lenexa, the investigation changed hands among multiple law enforcement officials, administrators and the city attorney, all supposedly following protocol — but who ultimately placed the burden of proof on Arroyo to lawyer up, show her papers and do the work to close the case. That probe, triggered by a single person who opposed Arroyo’s policy views, could have disrupted her entire life and placed her at serious risk.
A local resident who met ICE agents at El Toro Loco considered calling Lenexa police, wondering whether local officers would hold federal agents accountable to the law and defend residents’ rights. If our local police are to protect us, then it should indeed be Lenexa police onsite asking masked federal agents to identify themselves or confirm there is a valid judicial warrant and not just an administrative one, as “know your rights” videos frequently tell immigrants and allies to do.
I recently made a phone call to the Lenexa Police Department and was told “a few” officers speak Spanish, and others use a translation service — already more inclusive than other city services. After a quick walk around Lenexa City Hall and the Rec Center, I found no translated signage or materials. Many naturalized citizens who are fully eligible to vote still find no materials at their polling location in their primary language. These physical items determine a community’s reality of inclusion and trust, beyond lip service.
“My concern is that we are not aware of the times that we’re living in,” Arroyo said, “and we’re failing to meet the moment.”
Luckily, the city has some clear solutions. Lenexa should heed Arroyo’s support for language access like the resolutions in Wyandotte and Roeland Park, and it should pass legislation to ensure no one else is subjected to wasteful reports, especially when antagonistic actors are emboldened to weaponize supposedly neutral reporting processes. They should ensure the police meaningfully defend residents’ rights.
The city of Lenexa does a disservice to its stated positions of valuing community trust by assuming its leaders have fulfilled their obligations.
They must meet the moment.
Canyen Ashworth is an information technology consultant and writer. He lives in Lenexa.