The U.S. immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has begun to operate in the state of Arkansas, requiring that many law enforcement agencies assist them in detaining those who they deem suspicious. 

This has been signed into Arkansas law through Arkansas Act 654 or “THE DEFENSE AGAINST CRIMINAL ILLEGALS ACT,” which was signed into law on April 16 and allows for state police and local law enforcement “to serve and execute 23 administrative warrants under the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 24 1357(g),” a law enforcement policy that lists out the guidelines for detaining undocumented immigrants.

Along with this bill, if ICE was to ask for assistance from local law enforcement, the officers would be forced to oblige.

According to an official press statement on Sept. 9, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that she would be committing a total of 40 National Guard personnel, with 13 coming from the Army National Guard and 27 coming from the Air National Guard. 

This is possible due to funding from the federal government.

“When they’re there, we’re there solely to assist,” said Conway public relations officer Daniel Hogan.

The push for ICE in Arkansas has been subject to criticism. 

Franklin County Sheriff Johnny Crocker expressed disdain for the state government’s implementation of the policy.

This is due to the fact that the State government is currently trying to establish a new ICE detention facility in said county.

“There were four counties that wanted this prison going in and Franklin County was not one. It had no support throughout the county whatsoever,” said Crocker in a Facebook Reel post on his account.

“Nobody wants to speak to us. The governor’s office makes fun of us when we FOIA’d the information.”

The Freedom of Information (FOIA) is a request made by an individual to the government in order to receive public information. 

According to the official FOIA website, ICE does fall under FOIA requests, meaning that the office would need to respond to the request.

Franklin County Judge Rickey Bowman expressed similar criticisms.

“I got a text message about this this morning and actually found out what’s going on,” said Bowman in an interview with KNWA Fox 24. “I wasn’t contacted by the state in any manner. Again, that’s not unusual, I guess, through the whole situation with the prison. They haven’t been transparent”

“I guess my question is why is the Federal Government even considering this property when they got their own property down at Fort Chaffey?” Bowman continued, “that has been used in the past several years ago for the Cuban Crisis and the Vietnamese refugees. So they already have the infrastructure and everything there. So why are we looking at Franklin County? Why don’t we look at this property?”

On top of local law enforcement, Arkansas ICE operations have received criticisms from the group known as the Alliance for Immigrant Respect and Education (AIRE), a group who states on both their Instagram and Facebook pages that they are “a community alliance working to build a supportive neighborhood for NWA/River Valley immigrants through education, advocacy, & language justice.”

One of their latest posts on Instagram was information of what one would need to have handy in case they were in an immigration lawsuit.

Another post made the same day was about ICE arresting three individuals at a Family Dollar in Springdale, Arkansas. 

ICE currently has a check in office in Arkansas out of a US Homeland Security office in Little Rock; however, this is not the building that oversees ICE operations in Arkansas.

Instead, the ICE operations in Arkansas answer to the New Orleans Field Office and use their email as a contact.

According to the official ICE website, the New Orleans Field Office also oversees the states of Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and Mississippi.

To call the organization, the Arkansas ICE check in office offers the phone number (501) 370-2700.

This number does not work.

When dialed, the caller will be informed that the number dialed “cannot be completed at this time,” and advises its user to call again at a later time.

At the end of the false dial, the message given is “Message 6 US01LV.”

According to an Apple error code discussion board, this would mean that there would be some form of call protection software enabled that may not allow some callers to contact the agency. 

According to statistics released by ICE, the New Orleans Field Office has reported a total of 38,195 arrests.