Oscar Sanchez-Corona was pouring concrete at a construction site near Iowa Street and West 29th Terrace in Lawrence around 6:30 a.m. on Aug. 18 when ICE agents showed up and took him — and no one else at the worksite. Counting the day of his Aug. 18 arrest, he spent 18 calendar days in detention before his deportation to Juarez, Mexico, separated from the two elementary school-aged children he shares custody of in Johnson County.
According to a U.S. Congress hearing record, ICE's December 2006 Operation Wagon Train involved more than 1,000 agents and about 1,300 arrests at six worksite locations.
The speed of it all traces back to a legal mechanism most families never have to learn about. Sanchez-Corona had a prior deportation order stemming from a misdemeanor charge for damaging property worth less than $1,000 when he was 18, plus probation violations, according to the Kansas City Star. In general, because someone has reentered the country after an earlier removal order, federal officers may invoke what's known as reinstatement of removal — a process under 8 U.S.C. § 1231(a)(5) and 8 C.F.R. § 241.8 that lets ICE carry out deportation administratively, with no hearing in front of an immigration judge, according to the American Immigration Council.
Sanchez-Corona had been brought to the United States at age 1, attended Shawnee Mission schools, and worked in concrete construction, according to the same Star report. His family believes he was targeted specifically because of that old nonviolent misdemeanor and the teenage probation violations, the outlet reported. Skylar Roush, described in the Star's account as someone close to the family, called Sanchez-Corona “a regular American guy” who lived a peaceful life as a worker and father, and said he was being separated from his children by mistakes made as a teenager.
A Three-Facility Odyssey in Under Three Weeks
After his arrest, ICE first brought Sanchez-Corona to the Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth, where he was held for four days. That Leavenworth facility is run by CoreCivic, though the company announced on Aug. 5 that it had completed the sale of the 1,033-bed site to the Department of Homeland Security for $238.4 million, continuing to operate it under an ICE management contract through September 2027, per CoreCivic's own announcement.
From Leavenworth, he was moved to Winn Correctional Center in Louisiana four days after his arrest, per the Star's reporting. He spent less than a week there before being transferred to Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas. The Star also reported that two detainees had died at Winn in less than two months. A June 2026 report from the DHS Office of Inspector General found use-of-force and sanitation problems at Winn.
Camp East Montana carried its own record of alarm. The tent facility was cited in February 2026 by internal ICE inspectors for 49 operational deficiencies spanning medical care, staffing shortages, suicide watch protocols, and use-of-force documentation, according to FOX 4 News. At least three people have died at the camp, the Star reported, and the El Paso County Medical Examiner ruled one January 2026 death there a homicide caused by physical restraint and mechanical asphyxia by guards, according to the Texas Tribune.
ICE Health Service Corps provides medical services to detained people.
Deportation, a Mechanical Delay, and a Family Left Waiting
Sanchez-Corona's family only learned where he'd been taken through his boss, the Star reported. His deportation flight to Juarez on Sept. 4 returned to Texas because of a plane malfunction before he ultimately made it across the border; he arrived at his cousin's home in Mexico three days later. It marked his second removal — he had returned to the United States after six months in Mexico following an earlier deportation tied to his probation violations, per the outlet's reporting.
ICE has not returned Sanchez-Corona's phone or Mexican passport, according to the Star. The agency did not immediately respond to the outlet's requests for comment, and the Star reported it was unable to reach Sanchez-Corona directly while he was in ICE detention. Roush told the outlet that Sanchez-Corona received what amounted to a second massive punishment 15 years after the fact, and described the deportation as disproportionate to punishment faced by American citizens for similar offenses. His daughter made a drawing saying ICE should not take her father, the Star reported.
Kansas Law Expanded ICE Cooperation Months Before the Arrest
The arrest unfolded against a legal backdrop the Kansas Legislature reshaped earlier this year. In April, lawmakers overrode Governor Laura Kelly's veto to enact House Bill 2372, which created a 25-foot safety buffer zone around law enforcement and first responders — a distance rule the Star noted bars onlookers from coming near ICE agents during operations — while also authorizing county sheriffs to hold people on ICE detainers and sign ICE contracts without county commission approval, according to the Kansas Reflector.
ICE arrested and detained 2,609 people in Kansas from August 2025 through July 2026, the Star reported, an increase of 90% over the previous 12 months. The outlet also cited Department of Homeland Security data showing more than 150,000 people with nonviolent criminal convictions have been detained by ICE since the start of the second Trump administration, with people carrying nonviolent convictions making up over 30% of all ICE detentions. Nationally, 52 deaths in ICE custody were reported by June 25, 2026, according to the Associated Press.
According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency removed nearly 68,000 individual noncitizens in the third quarter of fiscal year 2024.
Local Groups and Police Draw Jurisdictional Lines
Sanctuary Alliance Lawrence collected witness accounts and photos of the detention and reported that some vehicles at the worksite had been spotted at other ICE raids in Lawrence and Olathe, the Star reported. AIRR (Advocates for Immigrant's Rights and Reconciliation) conducts know-your-rights trainings, according to the ACLU of Kansas.
The Kansas City Star reported that federal immigration agents arrested seven people in Kansas City, Kansas, and four in Lenexa during simultaneous July 2025 raids at two El Toro Loco Mexican Bar and Grill locations, with KCKPD officers present to back up ICE agents.
ICE operations in Kansas have been discussed in connection with the federal Castañon Nava consent decree. Hoodline previously reported on a separate wave of business closures tied to ICE activity elsewhere in the field office's jurisdiction. In Lawrence itself, the police department's policy on assisting ICE in civil enforcement is not established here.
For Sanchez-Corona's two children, split between the Blue Valley School District and the rest of the family's Johnson County life, the outcome is a father now in Juarez rather than at home. Left behind, per the Star's reporting, are his two kids, four siblings, and the Kansas community he called home for most of his life.
