- ICE presence in Jackson, Wyoming, kept Latinos away from an annual Spanish-language concert.
- The Wyoming Highway Patrol signed an agreement with ICE to assist in immigration enforcement.
- An elected official and an attorney say a sense of fear exists in the local Hispanic community.
On July 24, a Salt Lake City-based Spanish language band called Banda Retoños was expecting to perform to a packed house at the Teton County Fair in Jackson, Wyoming. In years past, the Spanish language show drew a large crowd, as one of the events on the town’s calendar specifically scheduled for its significant Latino population.
“It’s the only annual event where you really see the entire town,” Fernando Ramos, vice president of finances at the Silver Dollar Bar, said in Spanish to a reporter from the Jackson Hole News & Guide.
By 7:30 p.m. on the night of the show this year, however, the concert venue was nearly empty.
A video shared on Facebook and Instagram by Elisabeth W. Trefonas, a local immigration and criminal defense attorney, shows only a handful of seated concert-goers in the bleachers and five or so groups of dancers on the dirt arena in front of the stage.
“You want to see what happens to a sold out concert for a beloved band that is here to celebrate (the) more than 30% of our community that has Spanish origins because ICE is in town?,” read the caption. “This should be a rodeo arena full of human beings dancing … I am beyond horrified and heartbroken to see Jackson Hole today.”
The Teton County Fair spans nine days in July, and includes two weekends. It begins with agricultural and livestock events, then continues with a rodeo, multiple concerts — the country star, Charlie Crockett, played to thousands on Wednesday night — and at night there’s a full carnival with food carts, games and twirling rides.
For Thursday’s concert, the county fair board sold 363 tickets for $15 each and distributed a similar number of free tickets to the community. Ultimately, some 748 tickets had been given out.
But on the night of the show, only 112 tickets were scanned through the gates, Kristen Walker, public information specialist for Teton County, told the Deseret News in an email.
Because the concert was so empty, the fair board started allowing people in for free during the show.
While ICE was in Jackson the week of the fair, its presence at the event itself is less clear. ICE has not responded to a Deseret News request for comment.
What was going on in Jackson?
In the months between President Donald Trump’s inauguration and the Teton County Fair, some 55 individuals were moved out of the Teton County jail with the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
That number represents a small percentage of the 65,000 that ICE arrested in the first 100 days of Trump’s presidency, but it was not meaningless in one of the few Democratic strongholds in Wyoming.
Though the number may be small, ICE “visits” Teton County around twice a week, gathering multiple jail inmates each time, according to Robert Guadian, the ICE enforcement and removal field office director for Colorado and Wyoming, told the Cowboy State Daily, a newspaper that did a ride-along with ICE officers the week of the fair.
On the Sunday before the Thursday concert, rumors started to spread that ICE had set up shop in Pinedale, a town about an hour’s drive south of Jackson. Its officers were driving into various towns in the area looking for people. Those rumors were later confirmed and reported in the Cowboy State Daily.
Come Monday, five people were arrested and three more collected from county jails in Jackson. Several more arrests were made on both Tuesday and Wednesday of that week.
By the day of the concert, many in the Latino community were scared, according to Trefonas. Clients of hers called to ask if they should go at all, while others were worried about their teenage children going. She said some of her clients and people she spoke with did not attend the fair out of fear of what was going on.
“It’s like a big event,” Trefonas said. “And suddenly you can’t go? You can’t go to a concert series that’s specifically targeted for your, sorry, specifically put on for your community.”
The Jackson Hole News & Guide reported talking to over a dozen attendees who said they knew people who did not go because they were afraid.
“I think it was an event that we were all looking forward to in the community,” Rubi Castro, a concert attendee, said in Spanish to the News & Guide. “And the truth is that it’s very sad to see that people didn’t attend, because we’re all afraid.”
The sense of fear permeating the community has at least one local elected official upset.
“What’s disappointing is that the fair is a time for the entire community to show up, and that means everybody, whether you’re rich, poor, working class, tourist, etc., you should be welcome at the fair,” said Mike Yin, a Democratic Wyoming state representative for Teton County. “Scaring people off inside of our community from not wanting to participate — and be part of our community — is really distressing.”
Yin said people in Jackson aren’t just scared for themselves but for neighbors, friends and family members.
Whether ICE officers were at the fair isn’t clear, though the Wyoming Immigrant Advocacy Project posted photos of a vehicle that it claimed was ICE parked outside the fairgrounds on Tuesday. It also posted photos of what it said were ICE officers outside the Jackson Southtown Hotel — just a few blocks from the fairgrounds — on Thursday.
Walker said the fair board was not in communication with ICE “in regards to any enforcement actions in Jackson, Wyoming. The Teton County Fair is unaware of any ICE personnel being present at the Teton County Fair during this year’s annual fair, the week of July 21, 2025.”
More immigration enforcement
On July 28th, the Monday following the concert, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon announced that Wyoming Highway Patrol had signed an agreement with ICE under the 287(g) program.
The program, which seven sheriffs in Utah have also sign onto, allows for local law-enforcement officers to be deputized to assist the federal agencies with immigration and customs enforcement.
“Wyoming has been firm in our commitment to helping secure the border, and this is another step in that process,” Gordon said in a statement. “Our nation’s security depends upon effective immigration enforcement, and I am proud that our Wyoming Highway Patrol continues to support this effort and is now formalizing their commitment to this work through our agreement with ICE.”