ICE protest at Rock Springs hotel prompts police response

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Rock Springs police responded to a protest Thursday morning at a hotel where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were staying and assisted them in leaving, the Rock Springs Police Department said in a statement.

A crowd of people had gathered around the ICE agents’ cars and used vehicles to block the officers from leaving the Clarion Hotel, according to the statement. The ICE agents asked the police department to help them leave the city. Rock Springs police assisted the federal officers out of the parking lot.

“We recognize the complex political struggle in our nation right now,” the police department announcement states.

“Lawful assembly will always be protected,” the statement continues. “Our priority remains the preservation of public peace; while we support the right to be heard, we will continue to take the necessary steps to uphold the laws that keep our community secure.”

The statement did not mention any arrests taking place amid the police response.

Sweetwater County Sheriff John Grossnickle criticized protesters’ actions, which allegedly involved attempts to “confront, follow, and harass” the off-duty ICE officers, he wrote in a Facebook post. He also dispelled “claims about unlawful detentions, door-to-door immigration checks, and demands to show papers.”

“I recognize these situations can be unsettling for communities and painful for families,” Grossnickle said. “Immigration enforcement is complex, and while strong emotions are understandable, conclusions should be grounded in verified information rather than assumptions or speculation.”

Grossnickle did not say how or if the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office responded to the crowd at the Clarion Hotel. The sheriff’s office hadn’t responded to WyoFile’s call by publishing time.

The recent ICE shootings of Alex Pretti and Renée Good in Minneapolis have intensified protests nationwide against the Trump administration’s immigration actions, including in Wyoming. Impromptu protests appeared over the weekend in communities across the state following Pretti’s death. In Casper, U.S. Rep. Harriet Hageman abruptly ended a town hall on Tuesday after a heated back-and-forth with the crowd about the shootings.

But while there’s now more attention on ICE, Rosa Reyna-Pugh, a Rock Springs civic engagement and immigration advocate, said there’s nothing new about federal officers’ presence in town. ICE agents come to Rock Springs with some regularity to pick up people being held in local facilities for immigration reasons and transfer them to other locations, she said.

“This is not brand new,” Reyna-Pugh told WyoFile. “We have been seeing this activity.”

Sweetwater County has a long-standing relationship with ICE. In 2020, the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office became the first in the state to join ICE’s 287(g) program, which allows state and local officers to perform some immigration enforcement under ICE’s oversight. Other Wyoming law enforcement agencies, such as the Wyoming Highway Patrol and the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office, have more recently followed suit.

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