ROGERS, Ark. (AP) — She was already separated from her husband, the family breadwinner and father of her two youngest children, and had lost the home they shared in Arkansas.
Then Cristina Osornio was ensnared by the nation’s rapidly expanding immigration enforcement crackdown just months after her husband was deported to Mexico. Following a traffic stop in Benton County, in the state's northwest corner, she was jailed for several days on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold, records show, even though she is a legal permanent U.S. resident and the mother of six children.
Best known as home to Walmart headquarters, the county and the wider region have emerged as a little-known hot spot in the Trump administration's crackdown, according to an Associated Press review of ICE arrest data, jail records, police reports and interviews with residents, immigration lawyers and watchdogs.
The county offers a window into what the future may hold in places where local and state law enforcement authorities cooperate broadly with ICE, as the Department of Homeland Security offers financial incentives in exchange for help making arrests.
The partnership in Arkansas has led to the detention and deportation of some violent criminals but also repeatedly turned misdemeanor arrests into the first steps toward deportations, records show. The arrests have split apart families, sparked protests and spread fear through the immigrant community, including people born in Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and the Marshall Islands.
“Nobody is safe at this point because they are targeting you because of your skin color,” said Osornio, 35, who was born in Mexico but has lived in the U.S. since she was 3 months old.
Her odyssey began in September, when an officer in the city of Rogers cited her for driving without insurance and with a suspended license, body cam video shows. She was arrested on a warrant for missing a court appearance in a misdemeanor case and taken to the Benton County Jail, where an ICE hold was placed on her.
After four days behind bars, she said she was released without explanation. She called it a “very scary” experience that exacerbated her health conditions.
Benton County offers the kind of help ICE wants nationwide
More than 450 people were arrested by ICE at the Benton County Jail from Jan. 1 through Oct. 15, according to ICE arrest data from the University of California Berkeley Deportation Data Project analyzed by AP. That's more than 1.5 arrests per day in the county of roughly 300,000 people.
Most of the arrests were made through the county's so-called 287(g) agreement, named for a section of immigration law, that allows deputies to question people who are booked into the jail about their immigration status. In fact, the county's program accounted for more than 4% of roughly 7,000 arrests nationwide that were attributed to similar programs during the first 9 1/2 months of this year, according to the data.
Under the program, deputies alert ICE to inmates suspected of being in the country illegally, who are usually held without bond and eventually transferred into ICE custody. After a couple of days, they are often moved to the neighboring Washington County Detention Center in Fayetteville, which has long held detainees for ICE, before they are taken to detention centers in Louisiana and potentially deported.
ICE now has more than 1,180 cooperation agreements with state and local law enforcement agencies, up from 135 at the start of the new administration, and it has offered federal payments to cover the costs of training, equipment and salaries in some circumstances. Arrests under the programs have surged in recent months as more agencies get started, ICE data shows.
The growth has been particularly pronounced in Republican-led states such as Florida, where new laws encourage or require such cooperation. Earlier this year, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed a law requiring all county sheriffs to cooperate with ICE through either a 287(g) program at the jail or a program in which they serve ICE warrants to expedite detentions and removals.
ICE arrests have surged in Benton County this year
Benton County’s partnership with ICE has been controversial off and on since its inception nearly 20 years ago.
ICE data shows arrests have shot up this year in the county, a Trump stronghold in a heavily Republican state that has a large foreign-born population compared with other parts of Arkansas.
About half of those arrested by ICE through the program have been convicted of crimes, while the other half have charges pending, according to the data. But the severity of the charges ranges widely.
Jail records show those on recent ICE holds include people charged with forgery, sexual assault, drug trafficking, theft and public intoxication. Offenses related to domestic violence and unsafe driving are among the most common.
Local observers say they have tracked an uptick in people facing ICE detention after traffic stops involving violations such as driving without a license.
“It just feels more aggressive. We’re seeing people detained more frequently on extremely minor charges,” said Nathan Bogart, an immigration attorney. “They’ve kind of just been let off the leash now.”
County officials were unwilling to talk about their partnership with ICE. County Judge Barry Moehring, the county's chief executive who oversees public safety, referred questions to the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Shawn Holloway, who has championed the program since his election in 2015, did not respond to several interview requests. The sheriff’s office spokesperson referred questions to ICE.
A routine traffic stop turns into an ICE hold
Body cam video shows that police officer Myles Tucker pulled Osornio over on Sept. 15 in a quiet neighborhood of Rogers as she drove to a bank to get change for her job at the retail chain Five Below.
Tucker said he stopped Osornio because a check of her license plate number indicated that her auto insurance was unconfirmed, and he thought she made a suspicious turn after seeing police.
In addition to issuing tickets for lacking insurance and driving with a suspended license, the officer learned she had a warrant for failing to appear for a misdemeanor domestic violence case. That case stemmed from a 2023 incident in which she argued and fought with her husband.
Osornio disputed that she missed a court hearing. She told the officer that her husband had been deported and that she needed to arrange child care for her children.
During the drive to the jail, Tucker played upbeat Christian-themed music in his patrol vehicle.
He turned down the music to ask Osornio where she was born, saying the information would be required at the jail. “I ask the question because I have to put it on the form, not because I’m trying to get you in trouble,” he said.
Osornio said she was baffled about why she was placed on an ICE hold. She offered to show her residency and Social Security cards, but jail staff told her she would have to meet with an immigration agent in a few days. She said that never happened and instead she was told the hold was “lifted.”
Neither a jail spokesperson nor ICE responded to questions about the matter.
Cpl. Don Lisi, spokesperson for the Rogers Police Department, said his agency has “nothing to do with” the county’s ICE partnership.
But jail records show dozens of the department’s recent arrests have turned into ICE detentions once suspects are booked. Advocates for immigrants allege the department and others nearby engage in racial profiling in traffic stops.
Afraid of racial profiling, local residents take precautions
In interviews, nonwhite residents said they were afraid to drive in northwest Arkansas regardless of whether they had legal status. Some said they leave home only to go to work, have groceries and food delivered rather than eating out, and avoid other activities.
“This is a kind of jail, one would say,” said Ernesto, 73, a school custodian born in Venezuela, from his apartment filled with Christmas decorations. He spoke on the condition that only his first name be used to avoid retaliation.
One of Ernesto’s adult daughters was recently stripped of her asylum status, and his temporary legal status also recently expired. He recently witnessed authorities “taking away people” from a traffic stop.
“Don’t just pull over people because they’re Latino or a foreigner,” he said. “I hope that all this is over soon, that the state of Arkansas sees who are the immigrants that are doing good here.”
Rogers-based attorney Lilia Pacheco said she started practicing law in the area during the first Trump administration, and “it’s day and night between the first administration as far as enforcement.” She said Benton County authorities have taken their cooperation with ICE to new heights, stepping up traffic stops, assisting with arrests and welcoming undercover agents.
“We’re seeing that shift here, and I think that’s given a rise to the arrests and operations in the area,” she said. “It looks like their relationship is a lot closer than what we anticipated that it would be.”
Pacheco said her husband was recently pulled over in Rogers while taking their daughter to school when he was driving the speed limit and could not understand why. The officer asked for his driver’s license, and he was let go without a ticket, she said.
The family has since installed a dashboard camera in their car so that they can record any future interactions with police after the Supreme Court decision that allowed ICE to racially profile, she said.
Pacheco said many who live in the area are from the state of Guanajuato in Mexico, and fear deportation because of a rise in violence linked to drug cartels. Those from El Salvador fear prolonged detention in their country, which has swept up innocent people in its crackdown on gangs, she said.
After husband’s deportation, family has struggled
Osornio said she has been with her husband, Edwin Sanchez-Mendoza, for eight years. They got together a couple of years after he illegally crossed the border from Mexico when he was in his late teens.
They have two children together, a 5-year-old boy and 3-year-old girl. She said her husband worked in construction, and his salary paid the rent and bills in the home they shared in Bentonville.
Court records show Sanchez-Mendoza was arrested on misdemeanor charges in September 2024 after he was accused of striking one of his teenage stepsons.
Sanchez-Mendoza told police he was restraining the stepson in self-defense and believed the teen called police to scare him since he was not in the country legally. A Bentonville officer wrote in a report that the sheriff’s office should check “the legality of Edwin’s nationality status.”
Sanchez-Mendoza was placed on a hold for ICE at the Benton County Jail. The charges were dropped after ICE transferred him elsewhere in January 2025.
Ultimately, Osornio said her husband ended up at an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, where he found the conditions unbearable. He agreed to be deported and was flown last spring to Mexico, where he has since moved back to his rural hometown and helps on the family farm.
His absence has been devastating financially and emotionally, Osornio said. When they drive past construction sites, their young daughter says, “Look, Mom, Daddy’s working there,” she said.
The family could no longer afford their house. Osornio got the retail job but has struggled to pay for the apartment where they moved and their bills. She’s getting help from a local advocacy organization and asking for help on GoFundMe.
She suffers from high blood pressure and said she suffered a stroke days after her release from jail.
Osornio said Sanchez-Mendoza wants her to move to Mexico, and she and the kids visited him in May. But she’s agonizing over the decision, saying she fears it would put her children in danger of cartel violence and that she knows the U.S. as home.
She’s anxiously waiting for her new permanent residency card to arrive after receiving a temporary extension earlier this year.
“Obviously over there it’s the cartels. But here now the scare is with immigration. Now we don’t know even if we are safe here anymore,” she said. “Ever since that happened to me, I don’t go anywhere. I don’t go out of my house.”
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Foley reported from Iowa City, Iowa. Associated Press data journalist Aaron Kessler in Washington and AP reporter Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas, contributed to this report.
