ICE arrests disrupt daily life in Teton Valley

A canceled concert in Victor. Children afraid at school. People detained when they arrived for court-ordered drug testing.

A recent uptick in immigration arrests has disrupted daily life in Teton County, Idaho, reaching businesses, schools and households while suggesting a closer relationship between federal officials, sheriff’s deputies and county probation staff.

A mother whose husband was arrested after an Oct. 9 traffic stop is packing to move her family to Mexico. Another woman said her husband arrived for a probation drug test Oct. 13 and was directed to a back room where immigration agents were waiting. Wildwood event center in Victor canceled an Oct. 10 concert featuring a Latino band amid concerns about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s presence.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed five arrests in Teton Valley on Oct. 9 and 11, including two it said occurred during calls for assistance from the Teton County, Idaho, Sheriff’s Office. Those statements do not account for other arrests by ICE agents at the county’s Law Enforcement Center in Driggs on Oct. 13 and 15.

County officials maintain that deputies do not enforce civil immigration laws and probation staff did not detain anyone on ICE’s behalf. ICE has reached out to work with the probation director, they say.

Teton County Administrator Billie Siddoway said ICE agents in Idaho entered the local law enforcement building simply “to use the restroom,” and agents later arrived independently at a local traffic stop, addressing community questions about immigration activity last week.

“The Sheriff’s Office does not hold a 287(g) agreement, does not enforce federal civil immigration law, and does not conduct joint immigration operations,” Siddoway wrote in a response prepared in consultation with Teton County Sheriff Clint Lemieux.

Lemieux did not directly respond to multiple requests for comment. He instead provided a statement defending deputies’ responses through Siddoway, who works for the Teton County, Idaho, commissioners.

“We do not conduct immigration enforcement or act as federal immigration agents,” Lemieux said. “At the same time, as Sheriff, I will not order my deputies to obstruct or interfere with federal law enforcement officers.”

However, statements from DHS, personal accounts and bystander videos across at least 11 detentions in the last month appear to contradict local officials’ statements.

Elected leaders said they were largely unaware of the recent ICE activity. Teton County Board of Commissioners Chair Brad Wolfe suggested national immigration policy needs to be reviewed. He said he believed Lemieux when the sheriff said he was not working with federal immigration officers.

The probation department is under the jurisdiction of Wolfe’s board.

This is, however, not the first time Idaho law enforcement and the probation office have worked directly with federal agents. Similar concerns surfaced in 2025, when ICE arrested two men summoned for probation check-ins.

In July, residents reported ICE agents joining deputies during traffic stops. While deputies initiated traffic stops, witnesses described unmarked vehicles arriving moments later, with federal agents joining deputies during vehicle searches and, in some cases, taking custody of individuals after the stops.

On way to work

Around 7:41 a.m. Oct. 9, a Victor mother received a text from her husband: A Teton County, Idaho, sheriff’s deputy had pulled him over on his way to work.

He was driving his employer’s truck to a nearby construction job, with a co-worker in the passenger seat, when he was pulled over for passing an intersection’s stop line before coming to a stop, she said. There are no painted stop lines at the intersection.

According to the account her husband later gave her, he handed over his Utah driving credential, registration and insurance card. The deputy returned from his patrol vehicle and said the insurance card had expired. Her husband called his employer, who sent an updated copy.

While he waited for that document, she said, her husband told her the deputy began questioning his passenger about his identity.

Then, about 20 minutes later, she received another message.

“Immigration is here,” she recalled her husband texting.

She was preparing to take her daughter to a sports practice. Instead, she drove toward the stop, where a Teton County, Idaho sheriff’s vehicle and three other unmarked law enforcement vehicles were gathered.

Her husband later told her the deputy said his documents checked out and he would receive no citation, but ICE wanted to speak with him. The deputy stepped back as federal agents approached his window, she said. According to her husband, the sheriff’s deputy was the only one to identify the federal agents.

Agents asked him and his passenger for proof of legal immigration status, according to the account he gave her. He told them he had already provided his documents to the deputy.

From her vehicle, she watched and recorded officers taking her husband from the truck, telling him to turn around and arresting him.

She considered pulling over. But her daughter was with her, and she feared being detained, too.

Editor’s Note: The News&Guide and KHOL granted anonymity to the families and witnesses to arrests because they feared retaliation related to their immigration status and children.

“I left him,” she said. “I was kind of like just in a huge shock.”

He was already handcuffed when the passenger climbed across the cab, exited through the driver’s side and ran toward a nearby gym. Federal agents chased and tackled him, her husband told her.

DHS confirmed in a separate email from an unnamed spokesperson that the driver was arrested “during a call for assistance by the Teton County Sheriff’s Office.”

DHS said the driver had prior convictions for driving under the influence and an invalid driver’s license. According to court records, he had one citation in Idaho for driving without a license in 2015, a similar citation in Jackson in 2013 and a Jackson DUI case in 2013, for which he completed counseling while on probation, according to court records.

Arriving for probation

On Oct. 13, a Driggs woman waited outside the Law Enforcement Center while her husband went inside for a randomized drug test around 6:35 a.m. as part of his requirements for probation.

She said in an interview through an interpreter that he was placed on probation following an incident in which police found him intoxicated in a parked vehicle earlier this year.

By 8 a.m., her husband had not returned. She said she noticed that others who had arrived for probation-related drug tests or check-ins had not exited the building, either. When she went inside, a probation officer handed her a business card with a phone number to call about his detention.

The probation officer told her he did not know why he’d been detained, she said.

But the county said ICE first contacted the probation office with a list of six people who had administrative immigration warrants and were on the court’s probation list.

Her husband later told her a probation officer had directed him and others to a back room of the Law Enforcement Center where three immigration agents were waiting. He had not signed in or completed his drug test, she said.

She did not witness those interactions. Her account of what happened inside before she entered comes from her husband, who told her five people in total were detained that morning.

The county confirmed that immigration agents took people into custody at the Law Enforcement Center on Oct. 13 and 15 as they reported for drug testing or check-ins, but distanced itself from implying cooperation.

“Probation staff did not detain, isolate, or hold individuals on behalf of federal authorities,” Siddoway said. “Federal agents initiated and executed the detentions of those individuals under federal authority.”

Officials said probation sentencing orders are publicly accessible through Idaho’s iCourt portal and that ICE determined its own operational timing. The public court portal, however, does not list days or times for random drug test events at the Law Enforcement Office.

Teton County said it has no written policy governing its probation department’s interactions with ICE.

Uncertain futures

Before his detention, the Driggs woman’s husband worked construction during the day and supervised a cleaning crew serving Jackson public schools in the afternoons, she said. For a decade, she said, he had held two jobs.

The family had moved from Jackson to Teton Valley because of housing costs. Now she faces rent and household bills without his income.

She said the family had a pending family-based immigration petition and hoped he could be released on bond while pursuing that process. If he is returned to Mexico, she said, she plans to move across the border, where she is from.

For the Victor mother, who has lived in the valley for 9 years with three children in public schools, preparations to leave have already begun.

Her husband worked construction, volunteered at their children’s schools and the food pantry, and stepped in to referee youth soccer games, she said.

“We felt like we were … a part of the community,” she said.

Since his arrest, she said, their children have become frightened of police. Her older son asked to stay home rather than cry at school, she said.

She said her husband, who is currently being detained in El Paso, Texas, had signed paperwork agreeing to return to Mexico.

Now she is packing belongings, arranging passports and working with her remote employer to determine whether she can continue working from Mexico.

Friends and relatives have offered support and helped ensure the family has food and essentials. But she still fears being detained herself and leaving her children without either parent.

“I’m just so scared to be here,” she said.

Canceling a concert

At Wildwood in Victor, concerns about immigration enforcement prompted venue operator Ian Boucher to cancel an Oct. 10 concert by a Latino band, “Sonideros de Noche,” after the band and the evening’s food vendor reported hearing about traffic stops involving federal agents. The band declined to comment for this story.

An earlier event weighed on Boucher’s decision. During an Aug. 14 show, he said, people were pulled over outside the venue amid reports of ICE activity. He did not know whether those individuals were detained.

“I really felt very kind of responsible or guilty for actually gathering people when that stuff was happening,” he said.

The cancellation affected the venue, the musicians and an effort to bring the valley together when Latin music is usually an hour’s drive away in Idaho Falls, he said.

“Obviously, it takes a lot to organize an event and get ready for an event, and then having to pull the plug not just affects us, but also … the band who slated this time to come play and perform,” he said.

Boucher had begun seeing people who did not speak Spanish attending, too.

For Boucher, the concerns extended beyond economic disruption.

“Just the humanitarian aspect of that, and how upsetting it is to be targeting people to exclude them from the country,” he said.