After 236 days, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials on Tuesday revealed that they detained eight people in Manhattan raids conducted in February. They did not provide identities of those people or other details.
A Mercury reporter on Feb. 5 filed a Freedom of Information Act request with ICE for the total number of arrests and detainments made in Riley County from the beginning of the year through Feb. 5. The request was filed after an ICE operation took place in Manhattan the same day. The Mercury also asked for dates, locations and names included in any cases, which is considered public information by law.
As previously reported by The Mercury, photos and videos shared on social media about the operation showed a group of unmarked cars and ICE agents making early-morning stops at multiple places in Manhattan, including the construction site at CiCo Park, at Diamond Roofing and at Knox Lane and Hayes Drive in the Northview area. The officers seen were in plainclothes, but numerous people reported seeing them conducting what appeared to be detainments.
The Mercury made this FOIA request in an effort to learn how many people were taken from the area by ICE agents on or around Feb. 5, as well as the names of people detained and the date and location of any detainments. The Mercury requested this information because we believe it is in the public interest and would impact public understanding of the operations of the government.
ICE’s FOIA office confirmed receipt of The Mercury’s request on April 21 and denied a request for expedited processing of the inquiry on June 18. One reply from the office said the processing of FOIA requests was delayed because of the partial government shutdown this year and a higher volume of requests than usual.
In the agency’s final response issued Tuesday, The Mercury received a document listing eight arrests. However, all information besides the city was redacted. One arrest was listed as custodial, meaning taken from another law enforcement agency, and the other seven were classified as non-custodial arrests, meaning the subject was apprehended directly in the community.
The document also includes a note made by a fugitive operations supervisory detention and deportation officer from the ICE Wichita sub-office, saying, “Here is what I came up with during those dates. Hopefully, I didn’t miss any of them.” The officer’s name also was redacted from the document.
A letter accompanying the records stated ICE personnel applied several FOIA exemptions resulting in redacted information in the reported arrests. They said the redactions were made to protect the names, e-mail addresses and phone numbers of DHS employees from disclosure, as well as other “third-party information” in the document.
The letter was signed by David Stadnicki on behalf of Megan Davis, an ICE deputy FOIA officer.
Prior to the ICE activity in February, The Mercury made a separate Freedom of Information Act request for records about people arrested or detained in Riley County and Pottawatomie County for 2025. The request was sent on Jan. 27 and The Mercury has yet to receive an answer on the records. The last communication from ICE regarding any 2025 records was sent on June 17, when the agency denied expedited processing of that request.
As previously reported, at least one person was arrested by ICE agents in 2025. Jazmin Alonso-Cantu was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers Dec. 4 after she attended a mandatory Municipal Court hearing. She was held initially in a New Mexico processing center, but a public defender for her case said in March his understanding was that Alonso-Cantu had been deported.