Across the US this weekend, protests sprung up against the use of the federal government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement after Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday. Dozens of people gathered for a vigil in Springdale on Friday night on the corner of Emma Avenue and Thompson Street, remembering Good and more than 30 others who have died in ICE custody over the last year. Ozarks at Large’s Daniel Caruth has more.
Daniel Caruth: Despite frequent honks and cheers from passing drivers, it’s a somber mood among the crowd of demonstrators in Springdale’s Cherry Park on the corner of Emma Avenue and Thompson Street. People hold signs denouncing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and light small red candles and plastic cups to honor the lives of those who died while being detained by ICE.
The event was organized by Alliance for Immigrant Respect and Education, or AIRE. Irvin Camacho is one of the group’s co-founders and a Springdale native.
Irvin Camacho: I feel like the community is grieving a lot, and there’s a lot of sadness and there’s a lot of, like, lack of community. So having a vigil like this today allows people to come, you know, grieve, like let out their frustrations and just kind of be in community. So that’s what we thought it was important for us to organize this event here today.
Caruth: He says northwest Arkansas has become a high-traffic area for ICE arrests. Data from the University of California, Berkeley, Deportation Project shows that more than 450 people were arrested by ICE at the Benton County Jail alone from Jan. 1 to Oct. 15 in 2025. That’s nearly two arrests per day in a county with roughly 300,000 people. And Camacho says the ramp up of enforcement in this community has led to the arrest of people with misdemeanor charges, or sometimes no criminal record at all.
Camacho: People in the community are reporting ICE activity in northwest Arkansas. So it’s more visible than ever. And then what’s also very visible is that people are being deported who have no criminal history. Their only misdemeanor is being in this country, you know, illegally. So I think that’s coming up in a broader view than it ever has been before. And then, you know, senseless murders like what happened with Miss Renee, like that tugs at people’s hearts and makes people upset.
Caruth: Most of those arrests in northwest Arkansas are made under 287(g) agreements, which is named for a section of immigration law that allows deputies to question people who are booked into the jail about their immigration status and then alert ICE officials. Last year, the Arkansas Department of Corrections signed a 287(g) agreement offering federal payments for training, equipment and even salaries for some agents. ICE now has 180 cooperation agreements with state and local law enforcement in Arkansas. There were just 130 of these types of agreements in January of last year, and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has also signed a law that would require all county sheriffs to work with ICE.
On the sidewalk, Karina Velasquez is lighting two candles and passing them out to fellow protesters. The Lowell resident says the increased policing of specifically Hispanic immigrants has many people, even those with legal status, scared.
Karina Velasquez: I’ve heard of a lot of people that we know get picked up by ICE. And I can say that most of them were hard going to work or coming from work, and they don’t come home anymore. They don’t see their kids. And that’s not right. And I think northwest Arkansas is a community that needs to wake up. That needs to get out of their shell and meet thy neighbor and start learning how to love thy neighbor. People that are okay with what’s going on. It’s very inhumane. And if you don’t put yourself in another person’s shoes, you’re never going to understand it. And you can’t just continue to keep attacking brown people or people that don’t look like you because you are threatened, because all these people are working or doing what they have to do. These people come to work. Here’s my husband, just got off work. He’s also an immigrant. He is now a US citizen. And there’s no right way to do it, so.
Caruth: On the other side of the crowd is Fayetteville resident Emily Lawson. She joined the vigil tonight with her husband, Ethan, and daughter Genevieve, and says it’s up to people who are not directly impacted by this to show up and speak up.
Emily Lawson: You know, there’s just so much going on. I feel helpless a lot of times seeing everything happening in the world that I just — this feels like something I can do and I want to be present for it. She’s the next generation, you know? I think it’s important to instill these values, morals, reasons. It’s just, it’s the right thing to do. I want to be a good example for that, for her future.
Caruth: And Camacho says the immigration crackdown has also had an economic impact on the region, with local businesses reporting less traffic as people are afraid to leave their homes for fear of getting picked up by ICE.
Camacho: Supposedly, they were supposed to be here to take the most dangerous people in the country, but they’re taking moms and dads who have no criminal charges, folks that are just working, that are trying to get to their job, that are trying to go pick up their kids from school. People are being racially profiled. We have video of that. It’s on our social media. People being racially profiled and being called illegal aliens when they’re US citizens. So what we want to see is ICE out of our communities, but we also want to see a pathway to residency and citizenship. We’ve been asking for that for years. And there’s been a lot of empty promises. And I feel like people just don’t want us to legalize folks. I mean, these folks are already contributing not only as humans, which is the most important thing, but economically to our state, to our country. They pay taxes, you know, even if you’re undocumented, you still pay taxes.
Caruth: After remarks and calls to action from a few irate organizers, the vigil concluded with a performance from the Springdale-based group Trio Hermanitas Alvarez.
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