Hundreds turn out in Cedar Rapids to support immigrants at ICE check-ins; Ashley Hinson ‘disturbed’ by legal observer trainings

More than 400 people gathered outside the ICE field office in Cedar Rapids on Tuesday to observe and support seven immigrant families attending mandatory check-in appointments. The crowd of supporters shared coffee, hot chocolate, donuts, blankets, hand warmers, books, toys for kids of the families, as well as monetary donations. As each immigrant emerged from the building after their appointment, cheers rang out.

Immigrant check-ins with an ICE office were largely a routine matter before the return of the Trump administration last year, when ICE began occasionally seizing immigrants attending their mandatory meetings. The best known case in Iowa of someone not coming back from an ICE check-in is that of Pascual Pedro Pedro, a 20-year-old West Liberty resident who was suddenly and unexpectedly deported to Guatemala at the beginning of July after attending his annual appointment in Cedar Rapids. 

Pedro had come to the United States with his father. Because they entered the country without the necessary paperwork, Pedro’s father was immediately deported, and the then-13-year-old was granted supervised release so he could live with his grandparents, who have been in the U.S. for nearly 30 years. According to the terms of his release, Pedro needed to check in at the ICE field office in Cedar Rapids once a year. 

Pedro dutifully checked in every year while attending school in West Liberty. When he graduated from high school in 2024, Pedro and his grandparents worked with an attorney to get him a work permit. After receiving it, Pedro went to work at his grandfather’s siding company. He has never been accused of a crime or any anti-social behavior. But when arrived at the ICE office for his July 2025 check-in, Pedro was seized by ICE agents and told he was being deported using an expedited removal process. Neither Pedro nor his grandparents were given a reason for ICE’s actions, and Pedro’s requests to speak to a judge were ignored. In just a few days, Pedro was deported to Guatemala, where he remains. 

Hundreds had already gathered in front of the Cedar Rapids ICE field office (3351 Square D Dr SW) before check-ins began at 8 a.m. on Tuesday. Demonstrations of support on check-in days date back to the Biden administration, but have gained a new urgency and grown in size over the last year. Mutual aid groups from Cedar Rapids and Iowa City, along with Escucha Mi Voz, the Iowa City Catholic Worker House and other interested members of the community organized the gathering on Tuesday. 

Despite the freezing temperatures, ICE would not allow families, or even just children, inside with their loved one during check-in. Escucha Mi Voz, a nonprofit that supports and advocates on behalf of immigrants, handed out coats and blankets to the families waiting in line outside the office. Around 11 a.m., as most of the check-ins were finished, and the crowd of supporters had thinned, ICE did allow immigrant families with children into their waiting room. 

Throughout the morning, the supporters sang — often gospel tunes — and maintained high spirits. There were no reported detentions. 

Among the seven immigrants checking in at the Cedar Rapids field office on Tuesday were two asylum seekers, José Yugar-Cruz and Jorge González Ochoa. 

Yugar-Cruz fled his home country of Bolivia in 2024 after being tortured by corrupt local police officers for refusing to help them with their illegal drug operation, according to court filings in his asylum case. He made his way to the U.S., where he has family. Yugar-Cruz crossed the border into Arizona. He immediately surrendered to immigration officials and was jailed by ICE. While in custody, Yugar-Cruz began the process of applying for asylum, because of the threat to his life in Bolivia. 

In December 2024, an immigration court judge held a hearing on Yugar-Cruz’s asylum request. The judge concluded Yugar-Cruz faced a credible threat of persecution if he was returned to his home country, and granted him “withholding-of-removal relief,” preventing his deportation to Bolivia. 

Before the second Trump administration, it would have been common for someone like Yugar-Cruz to be released from custody with orders to check in at the nearest ICE office on a regular schedule while his asylum application was pending. But ICE did not release him.

Yugar-Cruz was sent from Arizona to the Freeborn County Adult Detention Center in Albert Lea, Minnesota. According to court documents, an ICE agent there told him in February last year that he would be released in “15 days or so.” But ICE did not release him. According to Yugar-Cruz, ICE agents later said they would continue to jail him while they worked on deporting him to some country other than Bolivia.

In December 2025, Yugar-Cruz was transferred to Muscatine County jail, which has a contract with ICE to incarcerate detainees. It was there he was able to secure legal representation through the University of Iowa College of Law’s Immigration Clinic. In December, he sued the Department of Homeland Security and the administrator of the Muscatine County Jail, claiming his continued detention was illegal. Last month, a federal judge agreed and ordered Yugar-Cruz released. He had been detained in various jails for a year and a half. 

This was Yugar-Cruz’s first scheduled check-in. 

Jorge González Ochoa already had experience attending ICE check-ins before his immigration case became famous last September, when videos of plain-clothes ICE agents violently seizing him at his job at the Bread Garden Market in Iowa City went viral. 

González Ochoa came to Iowa City in 2024 to join his partner and her mother. He and his partner Laura are the parents of an infant boy, who was born here and is therefore a U.S. citizen. Jorge González Ochoa entered the country without the necessary paperwork. He was in the process of applying for asylum, and had been attending regular check-ins at the ICE office in Cedar Rapids. As a condition of his release, González Ochoa wore a GPS ankle monitor. That’s how ICE knew where he was on the morning of Sept. 25.

González Ochoa was at his job at Bread Garden Market, cleaning the tables in the outside eating area, just as the lunch rush was beginning, when he was approached by three federal agents. The agents were not displaying badges or other ID, and did not identify themselves as they approached him. One agent grabbed González Ochoa’s arm. He pulled away, and ran inside shouting for help.  

The agents tackled him, and knelt on González Ochoa while twisting his arms behind his back to handcuff him. At one point, an agent pulls out a taser, but does not use it, possibly because a crowd was gathering around them, with people videoing their action and demanding to know who they were. The whole time, González Ochoa continued to cry out for help.

Videos of the violent event quickly appeared online and went viral, and attracted the attention of the national news media. González Ochoa was first held in Linn County Jail on an ICE detainer, then transferred to Muscatine County Jail. ICE agents tried to pressure him into agreeing to being deported, he said on Saturday.

Two weeks after he was seized, González Ochoa was charged with fraud and misuse of documents, use of immigration identification documents not lawfully issued, and using a false Social Security number. Because they were federal charges, he was transferred to the custody of the U.S. Marshal Service, but remained in Muscatine County Jail.

On Dec. 8, following a late October bond hearing, U.S. District Judge Stephen Locher ordered González Ochoa released without bond, subject to home confinement and wearing a GPS ankle monitor. As soon as he was released, González Ochoa was detained by ICE again. His attorney filed a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that ICE did not have legally sufficient grounds to detain him. Judge Locher agreed, and ordered ICE on Jan. 3 to release González Ochoa within seven days, unless they could produce evidence that his detention was lawful. ICE didn’t, and González Ochoa was sent home.

Both José Yugar-Cruz and Jorge González Ochoa spoke at Escucha Mi Voz’s Community Defense and Legal Observer training session in Iowa City on Jan. 17, although González Ochoa had to do so via Zoom, due to his home confinement. 

They discussed their experiences and the fear caused by the arbitrary nature of ICE detention. The focus of the session was on what legal rights citizens have to observe ICE agents in action, and what a person can do that is helpful when ICE is seizing an immigrant. 

The Iowa City event at Dream City attracted hundreds of people galvanized to do something in the wake of ICE’s violent actions against immigrants and observers in Minneapolis, including the killing of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.  

Escucha Mi Voz held another training session on Saturday at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church in Cedar Rapids, once again attracting hundreds. 

“The training emphasized recording entire interactions without interfering with officers,” according to a story on the training session KCRG aired on Saturday. “Organizers stressed this approach even when people believe ICE officers are not following proper procedures.”

That could also describe the Iowa City training session Little Village attended on Jan. 17. But even though both sessions stressed remaining calm and maintaining a distance from ICE agents, according to Rep. Ashley Hinson, what the sessions were actually doing is encouraging people to illegally interfere with ICE. 

On Monday evening, Hinson, the Republican who currently represents Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District and is running for the Senate seat held by Joni Ernst, posted her complaints about the legal observer training sessions on social media, suggesting Escucha Mi Voz isn’t actually a legitimate nonprofit and threatening its tax status. 

“I’m deeply disturbed by recent events in Cedar Rapids, where Escucha Mi Voz is hosting so-called ‘legal observer trainings’ that encourage interference with law enforcement operations,” Hinson, who has declared herself an enthusiastic supporter of ICE. “After four years of Biden’s open borders, our law enforcement is working to remove criminals from our streets, and masquerading as a nonprofit to undermine that effort raises serious questions about retaining 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status. We need to lower the temperature. These ‘trainings’ do exactly the opposite.”

I’m deeply disturbed by recent events in Cedar Rapids, where Escucha Mi Voz is hosting so-called "legal observer trainings" that encourage interference with law enforcement operations. After four years of Biden’s open borders, our law enforcement is working to remove criminals…

— Ashley Hinson (@RepAshleyHinson) February 3, 2026

On Tuesday, Escucha Mi Voz Board Chair Maria Ayala issued a statement responding to Hinson. 

“Here’s how Congresswoman Ashley Hinson can actually lower the temperature: get ICE and Border Patrol out of every neighborhood and town in America; refuse new funding and repeal the $140 billion gift to them last summer; hold DHS leadership accountable, including impeachment or removal of Secretary Noem; support a full, independent investigation into the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti with no obstruction from Trump’s DHS or DOJ; and meet with local faith leaders and Escucha Mi Voz to hear what real Iowans think about Trump’s mass deportation machine.”

Nicole Yeager contributed reporting for this article.