Across our state and country, undertrained and overresourced ICE agents are unlawfully detaining people with harmful tactics, zero transparency, and no accountability. We continue to see constitutional protections eroded as undertrained, often masked officers remove people from their small businesses, schools, and homes. These aggressive raids bring an influx of violence and fear into our communities, and for what? 70% of people being held in ICE detention custody have no criminal records. Yet the scope and intensity of their operations continue to grow.
While the Trump administration and Morrisey administration tout going after the “worst of the worst” drug traffickers and criminals, we see ICE showing up on a roof of a residential construction site in Teays Valley, and at local restaurants in Nitro. The feds cut your healthcare benefits to pay for this?????
Tangible Resources
The ACLU has shared these resource guides that detail scenarios, regardless of immigration status that are helpful for everyone.
Know Your Rights: Immigrants Rights
Know Your Rights: As a Bystander During Immigration Enforcement Actions
Local Community Awareness: Kanawha ICE Watch Facebook Group - To report local ICE sightings for community awareness email information to rapidresponsecrw@gmail.com
WV– Relevant Laws & Policies
In August 2025, the Morrisey administration signed a Memorandum of Agreement to participate in the 287(g) Program, enabling designated local officers to perform certain immigration officer functions under ICE’s direction and oversight. More specifics in this WTAP article. West Virginia’s Department of Education that oversees K-12 have a federal mandate to provide education to all students, regardless of their immigration status, and have provided this guidance during this time.
Myself and others are actively reviewing state laws to see what legal avenues we can introduce to counter this activity. We’re also monitoring legislation the majority may introduce to further coordinate with ICE, restrict your constitutional rights as a bystander, or otherwise expand these enforcement powers.
I’m realistic about our current legislative landscape. With the current makeup of the West Virginia Legislature and their priorities, our ability to pass protective legislation is limited, but that doesn’t mean we stay silent. It isn’t ever too late to speak up. Right now, I’m speaking up much later than I should have. When an administration faces zero accountability, speaking out becomes even more critical. Our neighbors should not be targets. We must fight for legal protection for everyone under the law.
I have been pleading at Kanawha County Commission meetings and to the Mayor of Charleston, who have responded with denials of responsibility or with silence, to the call for resistance to ICE unconstitutional tyranny in our communities. The WV Constitution specifically asserts our right to control our militia and police, defying any interference from outside WV. It also charges County Commissions with the duty to supervise there own internal police forces. We are allowing our cops to be put in danger by our ridiculous Governor's Imperial Decree, against the rule of our Constitution and laws. The newspaper in Charleston does not report on ICE. There have been editorials critical of this new Gestapo but no reporting of the invasions, abductions and warehousing of "suspects" in our grossly overcrowded and unsafe jails. Where these folks are taken after South Central is even worse. Where are their families, their children and other loved ones, depending on them? How can West Virginians, who have suffered so much under police state tyranny in the past, tolerate this?
We need to blow the whistle loud and clear in the ears of our terrified "leaders" and expect some courageous resistance to this neo-Nazi regime.
Thanks for speaking up with helpful details. Hopefully other delegates will do likewise.