Dozens of immigration advocates gathered outside the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Kansas City in Olathe on Friday afternoon following reports of federal immigration activity in the area earlier in the day.
Videos shared with the Post, as well as others circulating on social media Friday, appeared to show agents in tactical gear making arrests at an apartment complex in Olathe.
The Post was unable to independently confirm the number of arrests made, if any, or what agency or agencies were involved.
The federal Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to the Post’s request for comment.
A worker at the Boys & Girls Club, 520 S. Harrison St., in Olathe, said immigration agents came to the area around the club Friday morning, soon after drop off and were seen in the parking lot, wearing tactical gear that said “ICE.”
At times, agents peered into the ground-floor windows of the club, which is in a former church, the person said. Nearly 50 children were inside when the agents arrived.
Local volunteers, who are trained to respond to sightings of immigration agents, watched the building throughout the day after the initial reports of ICE in the area began to surface.
At afternoon pick-up hours at the Boys & Girls Club, more than 50 volunteers were present outside the building.
Kansas state Sen. Cindy Holscher, an Overland Park Democrat who is running for governor, said she heard about potential ICE activity and came to the site.
She said immigration agents looking into windows of a school could be “traumatizing” for students.
“These are children trying to go to school,” she said. “And parents who are working, trying to pick up their children and just get home for the weekend.”
Volunteers said they signed up for shifts to continue to monitor the Boys & Girls Club in the coming weeks.
Witnesses told the Post that ICE agents were first spotted in the neighborhood around 7 a.m. Friday and were seen after that patrolling the area for several hours.
At one point, agents were seen arresting people at the Sheridan Crossing Apartments at 600 Harrison St., adjacent to the Boys & Girls Club, as well as the Governors Court Apartments, which is about two miles away.
A Post reporter on the scene for several hours Friday afternoon did not see any federal agents in the area.
Aleks Nokes, one of the volunteers, said she didn’t see any arrests, but did witness several ICE agents walking around the parking lot of an apartment building in the area of Kansas Highway 7 and Dennis Avenue.
Nokes said she was there from 8:45 to 9:45 a.m., then continued to patrol other areas of Olathe.
“The people in those apartment complexes, you could see they’re terrified,” she said.
Keiran Cohen, who was at the Boys & Girls Club on Friday afternoon, trains volunteers like Nokes.
Volunteers are taught to film ICE agents as they make arrests, Cohen said. She said they’re also taught not to interfere and that it is legal to film agents.
“What we are is a silent witness,” she said. “So everybody can see what’s being done.”
Friday’s events came at the end of a week that saw multiple student-led protests against ICE and the Trump administration’s immigration policies in Johnson County.
Over the past month, more than a dozen student walkouts have taken place in Johnson County aimed at showing opposition to ICE, including two separate events at Olathe high schools.
