Tontitown, Arkansas police pulled over a work van on Oct. 10, 2025, for speeding. No one in the van was charged with a crime. Yet by the end of the stop, officers had opened the van's sliding door, fingerprinted passengers, and held them roadside for nearly an hour waiting for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrive. Five of the six people in that van were detained. One of them, 18-year-old Vicky Ramirez, was later deported to Guatemala.

That stop was not an isolated case. Arkansas GRITA, a local watchdog outlet, found that Tontitown police called ICE to at least 13 traffic stops that ended in the detention of 20 people, months before the department signed a formal 287(g) agreement with ICE in June 2026. Just months earlier, in December 2025, department officials told immigrant advocates they had no plans to sign such an agreement at all.

Attorney Connor Thompson of the National Lawyers Guild says the tactics raise serious constitutional concerns. "To collect fingerprints outside of a custodial arrest, officers would need probable cause that a crime has been committed, a warrant, or valid consent," Thompson wrote in an email to Arkansas GRITA, adding that those conditions do not appear to have been met here.

No one should be handed over to federal immigration agents after a routine traffic warning, without ever facing a state or local charge. Local police answer to the communities they serve, not to federal deportation quotas, and residents deserve officers who won't turn a broken taillight into a one-way trip out of the country.

Sign the petition to demand Tontitown police end the practice of detaining drivers and passengers for ICE before anyone is ever charged with a crime.