MidWest NoIce: What resistance looks like in small town Iowa

Cedar Rapids community rallies at ICE check-in to support immigrant neighbors. 

By Paul King

The scene outside Cedar Rapids ICE field office on February 2, 2026. Photo by Paul King

The recent actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement have drawn a spotlight on my area of the country. Iowa and Minnesota share a border, and while Iowa does not have the same problems with ICE and secret policing that Minnesota does, they are still here and Monday proved the community  is still the resistance.

On Feb. 2, I was a part of legal observer training with a local group, Escucha Mi Voz, who provides support to immigrants. I took part in the observation of monthly check-ins as Cedar Rapids locals check in with ICE to present paperwork under the threat of detainment and deportation. 

The check-ins are part of Orders of Supervision, which requires individuals who are in immigration proceedings to report in person during scheduled appointments. The orders apply to people who are awaiting immigration court decisions, have final removal orders but haven’t been deported or have been released from detention pending proceedings. 

No local was detained during the February checks.

Escucha Mi Voz meets with each local before they go into the line for ICE and get emergency contact information and make sure everyone that goes into the building comes out. If a detention happens, they provide money to the person’s commissary and notify emergency contacts so they do not disappear into the system. 

The organization sang and provided support for the locals as they were made to stand outside in the freezing cold of the early morning, waiting for their turn to plead their case to remain. No one was there alone and everyone was in the cold to support the locals standing in line for their check in. A crowd of dozens of people who have your back so early on a winter morning must make standing in the line a little more bearable. 

The early morning frost on the ground and the fog in the air was filled with breath from church groups singing and the smell of gas station breakfast pizza, a local delicacy despite how strange it sounds.You could feel it rising with each chant and hymn, ascending like everyone’s frozen breath. 

That morning would not qualify as a protest in the eyes of the larger headlines in Chicago or the Twin Cities but this was about presence and community. It was down right polite as far as most community actions go.

Resistance is only violent as a last resort, more often than not it is this: community. A town or state pushing back and saying, “no you will not take them.” America is a melting pot of all cultures, and everyone should be welcome to come join the prosperity and freedom that we are supposed to enjoy. As ICE is finding out all over the country, a unified population is much more difficult to bully than a group of individuals. 

I talk a lot of shit about my hometown. Iowa is double landlocked, meaning that every state that borders it is also landlocked. It's basically illegal to mention the ocean. Rockwell Collins and General Mills are headquartered here so it's a fun mix of blue collar and literal rocket surgeons. But the fact is, my community is eclectic and wide ranging, once you look past the farmer vibe that comes up every presidential election. 

ICE’s funding and actions are stealing the present from us and our future from our children. 

The brutality they brandish is terrifying in the short term but in the long term it is breaking the promise that America has made to the world. We are stumbling at protecting our people and building a better future than we as a nation inherited from our parents. Masked gunmen have no place in a civilized society and now that they have presented themselves we cannot be bullied. Community and actions like showing up for check ins is how we stand up and show up from each other as a community. 

These check ins are happening all over the country and no one should have to do that alone. Standing together and resisting is how we stand up to this. All bullies are cowards and even a small resistance is enough to put time between thugs and the weakest among us. We just have to stand together.