Shortly after President Donald Trump resettled into the Oval Office last year, Derek Wright took over as the chief of police in the poultry-processing boomtown of Springdale, Arkansas. He had joined the force 19 years before, and as he rose through the ranks, the area increasingly became a magnet for immigrants seeking good jobs.
Springdale is in the red northwest corner of the state where Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump’s former spokeswoman, is governor. Local Republican leaders remain close to Trump. This month, the president commuted the federal prison sentence of the son of the congressman for the area, who had been convicted of distributing methamphetamines.
Still, not everyone’s at ease in Trump country.
Immediately after becoming chief, Wright heard complaints about federal immigration agents operating in Springdale, emboldened by mandates to arrest and detain undocumented immigrants. They were not identifying themselves to people, nor letting them know why they were being stopped, residents told Wright. He said he felt he had to intervene and started requesting to talk with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement supervisor. In an October meeting, finally face-to-face, Wright said he refused to enter a formal agreement to work with ICE and asked that immigration agents show respect and professionalism in the streets of Springdale.
“After the meeting, I’ve gotten substantially fewer complaints, and I know for a fact that they are still operating,” said Wright, 47.
This tension — between federal immigration agents whose efforts surpass anything in recent history and local police who need the trust of their communities to solve crimes — is playing out all over the country. As in many places, in Springdale, a relatively new chief and community leaders are trying to broker a working relationship with ICE, while preserving a firewall between local policing and federal immigration enforcement.
Over the last few decades, this area has become known as “Los Ozarks,” especially Springdale, where dozens of languages are spoken and leaders say they welcome new arrivals. Within a generation, the town — home to Tyson Foods, a $23 billion meat-processing company — has doubled its population to 89,000 people. At least a quarter of the residents are foreign-born. El Salvador and the Marshall Islands have set up consulates not far from plasma centers, auto parts stores and a bus station with routes deep into the heart of Mexico.
A few towns over lies Bentonville, home of Walmart’s global headquarters, which has brought tremendous investment, helping transform the once rural region into a suburban destination.
Springdale straddles Washington and Benton counties, where Trump won in 2024, and where ICE has been busy since he returned to office. Leaders are trying to keep the community united as the Trump administration draws controversy in other cities for deploying swarms of federal immigration agents who are using aggressive tactics.
Mayor Doug Sprouse said there’s too much work to do with all the population growth and redevelopment going on, notably in Springdale’s historic downtown. He wants the town to remain attractive without getting pulled into national debates playing out in the news.
“Most people who know me would understand that I am pretty conservative. But at the same time, as a mayor of a city, you’ve got to get things done. You‘ve got to work with anybody,” said Sprouse, 69, who was elected in 2008 and has run unopposed ever since. “We can’t afford to get wrapped up in national issues, and everybody put their stake in the ground and not be moved. Our community would suffer. We wouldn't accomplish what we need to accomplish for our residents.”
Last month, Sprouse responded to complaints from residents by putting out an announcement clarifying that local police weren’t enforcing federal immigration law.
“We recognize that to police effectively, we must have the trust and cooperation of all our residents,” Sprouse wrote in the statement. “Victims of crime and witnesses to criminal activity must feel safe coming forward to speak with our officers. If victims and witnesses believe that our officers are actively targeting them for deportation rather than protecting them from local crime, that trust is eroded, and everyone in Springdale becomes less safe. We are committed to serving every person who lives, works, and visits Springdale with dignity and respect.”
Federal and state officials in the same area seem to strike a different tone.
Through mid-October of 2025, ICE had arrested more than 2,600 people in Arkansas since Trump’s inauguration, according to the Deportation Data Project, which collects information about U.S. immigration arrests and detention. Last March, the governor supported legislation to expand Arkansas’ ban on “sanctuary cities” that refuse to cooperate with immigration officers to include unincorporated areas and counties. In September, she ordered up to 40 members of the Arkansas National Guard to deploy to Fort Smith, Fayetteville, Little Rock and Camp Robinson to help ICE by doing logistical and clerical tasks. Two months later, she approved the deployment of about 100 guardsmen to support “ongoing civil security operations” in Washington, D.C.
Sanders also mandated that the state police participate in a program “to expedite deportations and enhance cooperation” with ICE.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Wright said of the invitation he received to participate in a similar agreement.
The police chief said his 161 officers will assist ICE, or any other federal agencies, when they receive a lawful request, but he doesn’t want to “buddy up” and go door-to-door with them. He described partnerships with ICE as “tone-deaf to the culture of our community.”
He said his police officers do not ask people about their immigration status when responding to calls.
“That is not our focus, and that is not our job,” he said. “We have to have the trust of the community. Without community trust, we are not effective at all.”
On a recent January morning at an ICE office near Springdale, shackles sat on a front desk below photos of Trump and Vice President JD Vance. Agents in square-toed cowboy boots declined to talk, other than to say their supervisor was out and probably wouldn’t call a reporter back. ICE’s regional headquarters in New Orleans and national media office didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Springdale used to work more closely with ICE. In 2007, when George W. Bush was president and the Department of Homeland Security was only five years old, former Police Chief Kathy O’Kelley signed an agreement to be part of an ICE task force. She said she wanted to go after criminals, and it was a tool the department could use.
“But we did it legally. I don’t know if that’s what’s happening today. Do they have due process? Are they going through immigration court?” said O’Kelley, 72, who still lives in the area.
Javier Yanez moved to Springdale more than 25 years ago from Los Angeles, where, as a tailor and sewing contractor with lots of employees, he said he had run-ins with immigration authorities.
Yanez likes Springdale, and said it’s peaceful. He said he’d just been pulled over in Springdale the day before for expired license plates. He said he’d forgotten to renew them. The officer told him to take care of it.
“Nothing more,” Yanez said. “Nice guy.”
A Guatemalan woman said she was scared that ICE might be involved when police pulled her over on a recent night. Her 13-year-old daughter was with her in the car. She said the officers treated her well, though she did get a ticket for driving without headlights and a license.
Springdale is home to the largest Marshallese population outside of the Marshall Islands. The U.S. government used to do nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands and still has a military presence in the central Pacific nation. Sometimes Marshallese people are mistaken for Latinos. Many work for Tyson. Some have branched out to do other work, like making personal care wipes for Rockline Industries, which also has a large presence in Springdale.
“We have developed a really close relationship with the mayor and leaders,” said Michelle Pedro, 44, policy director at the Arkansas Coalition of the Marshallese. “They understand our unique status where we can travel back and forth from our country and live here without restrictions.”
The diversity of backgrounds is reflected in Springdale’s schools, one of the largest districts in the state, where an estimated 65 languages are spoken.
“We have a great mixture — all those different nationalities,” said Greg Scott, 49, the new coach of Springdale High School’s boy’s basketball team. “It brings us closer as a team. That’s why I always preach that basketball is bigger. The sport is able to bring people together.”
Julieta Ortiz, 44, who runs an after-school leadership and literacy program for parents and children, said there is unity in the broader community.
“It’s so diverse, but people are coming together to support each other,” said Ortiz, a former U.S. Marine originally from Mexico. “There are a lot of people willing to help.”
Margarita Solorzano said Springdale was much less supportive of newcomers in the 1990s when she settled there from Riverside, California, lured by family, new opportunity and a lower cost of living. The demographic, which had been predominantly White, was rapidly changing.
“They didn’t like people of other color,” said Solorzano, 66, originally from Mexico. “They didn’t want to hear other languages.”
She said her two daughters endured racial slurs and faced other obstacles in the local school system before going on to earn advanced degrees.
“Sometimes it was the students,” she said. “Sometimes it was the teachers.”
Solorzano co-founded the Hispanic Women’s Organization of Arkansas to help meet the needs of the Spanish-speaking population and provide educational opportunities to help them be more engaged with the broader community and leadership.
These days, Solorzano regularly meets with the mayor and the police chief to share residents’ concerns. In the current climate, when immigration enforcement is an explosive issue, she said they took a political risk by stating publicly that local police are not enforcing immigration laws, yet they recognized it’s what’s best for everyone.
“It’s a balancing act,” she said. “They know that we are an integral part of the city, and the city will not survive without the contribution and participation of the immigrant populations.”
Sprouse said that feedback from his constituents has been “largely positive.”
“But in fairness, a lot of the people that really disagreed with it probably wouldn’t have contacted me,” he said. “I didn’t get on Facebook and see what everybody was saying.”
For Wright’s part, in December, he took heat from the community when a Guatemalan man came up to one of his officers at a gas station and asked if he had an ICE warrant for his arrest, which he did. It led the Springdale police to alert ICE, which detained the man on the spot. Wright said his officers don’t go out seeking to arrest immigrants but won’t ignore open warrants from any agency.
“We are a no-nonsense department,” said Wright, who grew up in Springdale. “We are also a very humble and serving department. We have a very vulnerable population.”
He added, “These are our friends and neighbors.”
