Derek Schmidt

U.S. Rep. Derek Schmidt is urging the Department of Homeland Security to be more transparent about immigration arrests in Kansas.

Schmidt believes that a lack of timely information from ICE leads to rampant rumors and unnecessary concern in local communities.

He suggested that ICE and CBP should routinely issue statements after targeted operations, similar to local law enforcement.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called the suggestion a "great idea" and agreed to discuss it with ICE.

Topeka's representative in Congress is urging the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to be more transparent with the public about immigration enforcement operations in Kansas and elsewhere.

U.S. Rep. Derek Schmidt, R-Kansas, is a member of the House Judiciary Committee that held a DHS oversight hearing with homeland security secretary Kristi Noem on March 4.

"There's a lot of angst," Schmidt, the former Kansas attorney general, said of DHS operations nationally. "There's a lot of concern about some of these operations in some of the communities. Even in Kansas, we've had some targeted enforcement operations, mostly by ICE or CBP, and you get all the folks in the local community ginned up, riled up, worried. Rumors run rampant."

Efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protections appear to have ramped up in northeast Kansas in 2026. That includes higher-profile interactions in Olathe — which spurred a statement from a federal prosecutor about following ICE agents — and in Lawrence, reportedly on the University of Kansas campus, without informing local law enforcement.

In the past year, the national ICE public affairs office and the regional office haven't responded to inquiries from The Capital-Journal about immigration enforcement, including about operations last month in Manhattan and a detention in Topeka in May.

Without specifying where or when it happened, Schmidt gave an example during his questioning of Noem.

"In a community in our state recently, there were some ICE arrests," Schmidt said. "It went all over town in the ICE watchers group, and there was an arrest at a church and they'd gone into a school.

"About five days later, ICE — I think out of Kansas City, the regional guys — put out a statement, said: Here's what happened. We came in. We were targeting three specific individuals. Two had DUI convictions and final orders of deportation. One had a felony conviction for illegal reentry and a final order of removal. We found them. We executed a car stop. It was a car stop at a location.

"We couldn't just stop in the middle of the road, so they pulled into a parking lot that happened to be a church parking lot. Had nothing to do with the fact it was a church. That's where the arrest was executed. And by the way, we were never close, ICE said, to the school that everybody was worried about."

Without using the word "transparent," Schmidt told Noem that his example illustrates why DHS should share timely information with the public.

"I really think it would be helpful if as a routine matter, ICE and CBP when they do these targeted operations, they would do what so many local law enforcement agencies do," Schmidt said. "When it's concluded, put out a statement, tell the local community here is what we did, who we did it against and why we did it. It would make it so much cleaner to avoid a lot of the worry and speculation."

Noem said "that's a great idea" and noted that her department already puts out information on some operations nationally.

"Doing that at the field office level, I will have that conversation with ICE and see if we could do that, because I don't believe they're doing that today," Noem said. "But informing people would be helpful, when they know that they've done an operation against a targeted criminal in that area, that the people might have questions."

After Noem indicated she would consider Schmidt's suggestion, he said "I really think it would go a long ways in calming a lot of the unnecessary concern."

Soon, Noem will no longer be in a position to make such a change. On March 5, a day after the contentious House hearing and two days after a similar hearing in the Senate, President Donald Trump ousted her as secretary effective at the end of the month.

What Derek Schmidt said of ICE operation in Minneapolis

Schmidt also mentioned "the Minneapolis situation," which had been addressed in questioning by other representatives during the lengthy congressional hearing.

The Minnesota city experienced a high-profile immigration enforcement campaign that included deadly shootings by ICE agents of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

"It's possible that multiple things are true at the same time," Schmidt said. "It is true that we're in this mess because the prior administration let 8-10 million people into this country who should not have been here and wouldn't enforce the law against them. It is true that we're in this mess in some communities like Minneapolis because local authorities won't cooperate and agree and help now that we have an administration that will enforce the law.

"It is possible that there have been some individual actions in Minneapolis that we all looked at and said 'that should not have happened that way.' I'm not asking you to comment necessarily, but I presume that the president saw it that way. He made some changes in Minneapolis, which I commend. I think those changes were prudent."

Stacey Saldanha-Olson, of The Capital-Journal, contributed reporting.