For Abel Flores, the thought of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement Detention facility sitting less than three miles from his Grandview home isn’t something he likes.
“I don’t agree with what ICE is doing,” Flores said. “I go to California and sometimes I go to the border, there’s a white guy in front of me and they let him go, but I get stopped because I’m Hispanic. I was born in the United States just like they were.”
Others in the neighborhood on Friday said they were unhappy about the facility’s placement because they opposed ICE’s role in the separation of families, did not agree with how the agency has operated in other parts of the country and were concerned that the site would be close to their homes and to where their children walk to nearby Belvidere Elementary School.
That location of the facility, near Missouri 150 and Botts Road in south Kansas City, has not been independently confirmed by The Star, but several Kansas City-area officials said that ICE is considering opening a detention center at that site.
South Kansas City ICE facility?
News that an ICE detention facility could be located in Kansas City came earlier this week when U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver sent a letter to Department of Homeland Security officials denouncing a possible site being located in his Congressional district…