How ICE raids in Kansas meatpacking country sparked fury – and turned voters against Trump

Late September immigration raids in south-western Kansas prompted a strong backlash in communities that rely on migrant workers for meatpacking and cattle feeding. The anger helped shift three traditionally Republican counties towards the Democrats and contributed to Adam Hamilton’s election as Kansas’s first Democratic US senator in nearly a century, exposing political limits to Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.

Masked agents carried out early-morning home visits and stopped cars, while businesses closed and some families kept children home from school. The region’s Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal form the “Golden Triangle of Meatpacking”, which supplies about a quarter of US beef. Local organisers urged residents to channel their anger into voting; veteran José Del Real, who had not voted in a decade, joined them in encouraging turnout.