In our Reality Check stories, Wichita Eagle journalists dig deeper into questions over facts, consequences and accountability. Story idea? [email protected].
As reports rolled in last month about ICE agents patrolling southwest Kansas in unmarked vans, pulling over U.S. citizens and non-citizens alike and demanding to see their papers, two Trump administration officials sprang into action: They issued statements that falsely identified five “criminal aliens” who had been arrested during the operation.
None of the five people — whose criminal records included murder, rape and kidnapping — was arrested in what officials called Operation Safe Community - Kansas, a mass deportation roundup focused on Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal, a Wichita Eagle investigation found.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and U.S. Attorney for the District of Kansas Ryan Kriegshauser issued the false statements in defense of the three-day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweep that disrupted businesses, schools and daily life in the “Golden Triangle of Meatpacking,” an area in southwest Kansas with a large immigrant workforce that’s responsible for about a quarter of the U.S. beef supply.
The ICE operation led to a swift outcry from activists, politicians and the Kansas Livestock Association, which said the sweep caused a “chilling effect” on legal, documented agricultural workers across cattle country. The disruption led to supply chain bottlenecks,...
Protests in France, which peaked on Saturday, October 17, 2026, are being met in Iran with distortions of reality and fabrications by Islamic Republic officials and the regime’s propaganda apparat...