By Dermont Stevenson and Audrey Lippert/Cronkite News
FLAGSTAFF – Surrounded by boxes of information packets, a Keep Flagstaff Together volunteer kneeled in front of a young boy in a parking lot in the afternoon on April 8. She sounded out words and repeated a phrase with him.
“We have a packet of information in case of ICE,” she said in broken Spanish.
Another volunteer crouched nearby and laid out maps for other volunteers to follow. These community members were spurred into action by news that an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement office would be opening in Flagstaff.
Of the volunteers gathered under the late afternoon shade in front of the Literacy Center in the Sunnyslope neighborhood, only one was fluent in Spanish.
The volunteers split up to cover more ground. Their goal was to knock on as many doors in the neighborhood as possible to draw attention to the announcement. If no one was home, they slid the information into a clear plastic bag and hung it on the front door.
Inside the packet are instructions for families to create an action plan in the event that a member is detained by ICE and detailed information on which documents to carry with them. It also includes the contact information of local immigration attorneys and the Flagstaff Police Department’s policies regarding immigration enforcement.
On April 9, the city of Flagstaff and its Police Department confirmed ICE signed a lease for an office space at 1585 S. Plaza Way. The offices will be used by the agency’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division. Other federal offices are housed nearby, including the Department of Agriculture, Rural Development, and Farm Services Administration.
Flagstaff is not the first city in Arizona to have stationed ICE agents. Phoenix and Tucson have seen ICE operations, including two visits from former Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem. The expansion of DHS facilities in Marana and Surprise has led to protests by some residents, while others cheered the arrival of ICE into their towns.
Some Flagstaff residents rallied against the presence and practices of ICE, along with people in cities across the country, after two protesters in Minnesota were killed by federal agents in January. The reaction to the announcement of an ICE office there has been more subdued.
Maria Castillo Rincon is a member of Keep Flagstaff Together and organized the information packets. She’s campaigned on behalf of immigrants in Flagstaff for years and said she’s unsure why ICE would want an office there. Rincon said she’s grown angry and frustrated with the City Council’s lack of response to immigration enforcement.
“I don’t believe any of you,” Rincon said. “Because you all have used the same excuse of not poking this bear, and look at this bear coming in.”
Keep Flagstaff Together was formed in 2017 in response to President Donald Trump’s child detention policy in his first term. In the last nine years, Rincon said she’s seen immigration enforcement escalate in scale and severity.
Now, she said, members of the immigrant community are too afraid to protest.
“People who have protested back in the East, you know, they have been taken, they have been arrested, they have been hurt, and our immigrant community doesn’t want to do that,” Rincon said. “They’re afraid.”
ICE operations are relatively common in Phoenix and other parts of the state but rare in Flagstaff. Since the start of Trump’s second term, Rincon has received numerous false tips about ICE raids in the city.
She has regular communications with the Flagstaff chief of police, whom she calls to confirm whether or not the tip is real before passing the information around to the immigrant community in the area.
“The uncertainty that, if I go to work today, will I be able to come home? The children, if they are at school, will they? Will those areas be respected, and ICE try to come in and pick up kids there? You know, all of that, all of that it plays into your psyche,” Rincon said.
‘Underfunded and undermanned.’
Other Flagstaff residents said the federal presence will help local police departments lower crime in the area.
Neila Cretti, a 37-year resident of Flagstaff, looks forward to ICE setting up its office in town.
“I have watched our Police Department being eroded, in the sense of we are so underfunded, undermanned here,” Cretti said. “They can’t keep up with the influx of people that have come into Flagstaff.”
Law enforcement and government officials in the area have assured residents that they are not working with ICE. The property being leased is under private ownership. The city said in a statement that “no request has been made for the use of City property for any ICE-related operations.”
While the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office and the Flagstaff Police Department are not currently working with ICE, Cretti said she would welcome the partnership.
“I think it just makes sense. They’re just another branch of law enforcement there to serve and protect the community,” Cretti said. “And if there’s criminals harming the community, I don’t understand why they would not partner up.”
Cretti said she lives on a street with two sheriff’s deputies and a Flagstaff police officer and said she isn’t the only one looking forward to ICE moving in.
“I’ve spoken to my neighbors, and they can’t wait for them to be in our neighborhoods. They can’t wait for this [crime] to stop,” Cretti said.
Flagstaff is a commercial hub for people across northern Arizona to shop and access services that may not be available in more rural parts of the state. The city of roughly 75,000 sits at the crossroads of I-17 and I-40, which link Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Albuquerque.
Laura Carter, chair of the Coconino County Democrats, said that many residents feel that having an ICE office may be “off putting” to people passing through the town.
“We don’t have a problem with illegal immigration creating havoc and crime in our city,” Carter said. “It is not an issue, and to any extent that it is, our local enforcement agencies can take care of that. We have a really good, strong Police Department. We have the county sheriff and his whole department. We are not at risk.”
Carter said the Coconino County Democrats have been preparing for an increase in ICE presence since the 2024 election and are working with local community groups to distribute information.
“This ICE presence in other cities and other municipalities has been to instill fear,” Carter said. “Fear is not healthy. When you have school children breaking out into a run and yelling, ‘ICE is here.’ This is not healthy. This is not how we want to raise our children.”
Carter said she believes that an ICE office isn’t a good use of taxpayer money, and other issues, such as housing, education, water, and wildfire management, are more important to the people of northern Arizona.
“We don’t want a community where children don’t want to go to school because they’re afraid they’ll come home to an empty house,” Carter said. “This threat of a presence has already gotten the community riled up.”
‘People are going to feel unsafe.’
The new ICE office is located less than a mile west of the Northern Arizona University campus. Students voiced their concerns about student safety and enrollment with the office being so close. Adam Pruzhanovsky, a sophomore studying political science, said that not only students but community members are going to feel uneasy.
“People are going to feel unsafe, and it’s going to have a negative impact on our tourism, our small businesses. But the bottom line is our families, our communities,” Pruzhanovsky said. “It’s not going to do anything productive, and I’m sure that a lot of other people feel the same about it.”
Pruzhanovsky said Flagstaff police work fairly well with the community, releasing information as it becomes available.
“They provided two separate press releases, one that talked about them opening an office and one where they talked about ICE presence in the area,” Pruzhanovsky said. “But I do think that the law enforcement presence is doing an ample job right now, maybe not in all areas, definitely, but with the ICE response, it’s not as exacerbated as it could have been.”
Ainslee May, a junior studying politics and government, shared worries about federal agents and how it could affect students on campus.
“With NAU being a big part of Flagstaff’s community and economy, it will harm enrollment, which will harm our community and our economy. And with NAU claiming to be a Hispanic Serving Institution, yeah, this is going to be a detriment to those students.”
NAU has been an HSI since 2021, earning the status after keeping 25% or more total undergraduate Hispanic full-time students annually.
The current Department of Education notified HSIs that they would end funding to “racially discriminatory discretionary grant programs at minority-serving institutions.”
Funds allocated to support minority serving programs – $350 million – were canceled.
“These funds will be reprogrammed into programs that do not include discriminatory racial and ethnic quotas and that advance Administration priorities,” the department stated.
May doesn’t think that Flagstaff residents will be happy with ICE moving in.
“With the Flock out of Flag movement that just happened last December, we can see that people are definitely not receptive to ICE having any of our data,” May said. “I don’t think that they’re going to be very receptive to ICE being in the city.”
Flagstaff residents organized to cancel a contract between the city and Flock Safety, an automated license plate recognition system, in December 2025. Concerns over privacy and who would have access to the data led residents to pressure the city to cancel the contract.
The response to ICE moving into Flagstaff was already underway a few hours later on Wednesday night. Keep Flagstaff Together volunteers split into two groups, one led by Rincon and the other by Jermaine Barkley.
The groups headed in opposite directions, knocking on doors, talking amongst themselves. Barkley knocked on a door. The homeowner opened his kitchen window, asking who they were and what they were up to.
In response, Barkley reached into a bright blue tote bag and pulled out an information packet.
“Hey, don’t worry, we’re not selling anything,” Barkley said. “We’re just walking around the neighborhood handing out information in case you encounter ICE.”
