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  "path": "/post/206401/donald-trump-idaho-town-not-exempt-ice-raids",
  "publishedAt": "2026-02-10T16:51:26.000Z",
  "site": "https://newrepublic.com",
  "tags": [
    "Breaking News",
    "Politics",
    "Republican Party",
    "Donald Trump",
    "Immigration",
    "ICE",
    "Deportation",
    "Mass Deportations",
    "ICE Raids",
    "Arrest",
    "Immigration Detention",
    "Idaho",
    "Economy",
    "_The New York Times_"
  ],
  "textContent": "A long-time resident of deep-red Wilder, Idaho, said his small town was “nearly destroyed” by a  massive federal immigration raid last year, _The New York Times_ reported.\n\nOn October 19, dozens of federal agents wielding automatic rifles and flash-bang grenades descended on La Catedral Arena, a horse-racing track outside of Wilder. The track had long been a hub for the town’s Latino community—but had now become a target of the Trump administration’s brutal immigration crackdown.\n\nWhile state and federal officials praised the raid as a crackdown on an alleged gambling ring, only four people have been scheduled for trial on gambling charges. And agents seemed to have another purpose altogether.\n\n“The one thing everyone got asked was, ‘Where were you born?’” Neal Dougherty, an immigration lawyer, told the _Times_ in the story published Monday. “Not, ‘Did you see gambling?’ Not, ‘Did you participate in gambling?’ Just, ‘Where were you born?’”\n\nWhile a black military-style helicopter circled the scene, federal agents zip-tied the hands of most adults and some teenagers. Several hundred people were detained for four hours. In the end, 105 people were held for immigration charges, and 75 people were deported.\n\nJohn Carter, a white Trump voter whose company provided security at La Catedral, told the Times that his 14-year-old daughter had had her hands zip-tied by federal agents.\n\n“They could have gone first thing in the day with a few F.B.I. agents and just arrested the people they had warrants for,” Carter said. “Instead, they went in at the busiest time with maximum force.”\n\nWhile the raid on La Catedral Arena is dwarfed in comparison to the massive operations in major American cities, it demonstrates just how destructive Trump’s immigration enforcement can be to the very communities that support him. A whopping 91 percent of the precinct that includes Wilder supported Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Meanwhile, roughly 60 percent of the population of 1,725 people identifies as Latino.\n\nChris Gross, a second-generation mint farmer in Wilder, told the _Times_ that the town relies on Hispanic labor. “Nobody thought something like this could happen here,” he said.\n\nDavid Lincoln, a longtime resident of Wilder who runs a rural economic development nonprofit, said that the raid “nearly destroyed” the town.\n\n“What happens if everyone who is Hispanic thinks they’re at risk? There’s fear now that didn’t exist here before. I don’t know how you make that go away,” he said.\n\nMeanwhile, Wilder’s Mayor Steve Rhodes has dismissed the effect the raid had on his community. “These were not our people,” he told the _Times_. “What happened out at that track had nothing to do with Wilder.”\n\nRhodes claimed that people in Wilder don’t even think about race anyway. “I don’t know anyone in town that sees a race,” he said. But come spring, when Wilder feels the full economic weight of the people the town has lost and the labor they provided, he may yet change his mind.",
  "title": "Pro-Trump Town Stunned to Learn They’re Not Exempt From ICE Raids"
}