José Del Real looked over the crowd from the stage in a park, at hundreds of his neighbors with furious signs tucked under their arms, voicing their anger at immigration agents who had descended on their town and started rounding up their friends and family.
asserted
who → look → friends
His daughters, in the front row, were crying.
asserted
daughters → cry → row
Del Real, an army veteran who served two tours in Iraq, hadn’t voted in a decade.
asserted
who → serve → decade
He thought it would not matter in this ruby red corner of Kansas.
asserted
it → think → Kansas
He draped an American flag over his shoulders, put on his Iraq veteran cap and ended his speech with a message: “None of this matters if you do not vote.
asserted
you → drape → this
Let’s go vote.”
asserted
’s → let → ?
They did.
asserted
They → do → ?
This county and two of its neighbors in south-western Kansas, Republican strongholds where a steady stream of immigrants have settled over the decades to work at feedlots and slaughterhouses, swung wildly to the left.
asserted
stream → settle → left
The shift helped elect a Democratic US Senator from Kansas for the first time in nearly a century, signaling the limits of Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation agenda.
asserted
shift → elect → agenda
Since Democrats won back control of Congress in a decisive rebuke to Republicans, Trump has sent mixed messages about how he plans to handle immigration enforcement going forward.
asserted
he → win → enforcement
He suggested that his approach to deportations was too harsh but also named hardliner Stephen Miller as his new White House chief of staff.
uncertain
approach → suggest → staff
Both parties will be recalibrating their approach ahead of the next presidential campaign.
asserted
parties → recalibrate → campaign
Here in Kansas, late September raids ignited a maelstrom of rage, turning many who had been apathetic, like Del Real, into determined voters.
asserted
who → ignite → voters
Masked officers in tactical gear banged on doors before dawn.
asserted
officers → bang → dawn
They stopped cars in the middle of intersections.
asserted
They → stop → intersections
Businesses shuttered.
asserted
Businesses → shutter → ?
Families feared leaving their houses.
asserted
Families → fear → houses
Children stopped going to school.
asserted
Children → stop → school
Some live-streamed themselves being detained.
asserted
themselves → stream → ?
One man pleaded “God help me” in Spanish, his hands shaking, as he asked anyone watching to let his family know.
asserted
family → plead → anyone
The resistance came not only from Democrats or the Latino population, which has grown to about two-thirds of Dodge City.
asserted
which → come → City
Kansas’s embattled Republican senator, Roger Marshall, who would lose his reelection bid to Adam Hamilton, issued a statement pleading with the administration to consult local officials before launching raids.
asserted
who → lose → raids
Del Real regrets he didn’t vote in 2024, when Trump roared back into office pledging mass deportations.
asserted
Trump → regret → deportations
“We had to see it in front of us,” Del Real said.
asserted
Real → have → us
“I had to see it in the flesh.”
asserted
I → have → flesh
The gates leading into Dodge City boast that it’s the “Queen of the Cowtowns”
asserted
it → lead → Cowtowns
Its main street is named after the classic western set here, Gunsmoke.
asserted
street → name → western
Murals celebrating cowboy history mix with evidence of a changing culture: storefronts showcasing quinceañera dresses, Mexican bakeries, city signs printed in both Spanish and English.
asserted
Murals → celebrate → Spanish
Del Real’s family came from Mexico when he was a kindergartner.
asserted
he → come → Mexico
Like most here, they came to work.
asserted
they → come → most
The area – Dodge City and the region’s other hubs, Garden City and Liberal – is known as the Golden Triangle of Meatpacking, responsible for about a quarter of the US beef supply.
asserted
area → know → supply
Some here thought their importance to the nation’s food might spare them from the administration’s deportation campaigns, said Amy Soberanes, a 25-year-old local organizer.
uncertain
Soberanes → think → campaigns
Soberanes, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, said she and others tried for years to get people – particularly their young, Latino neighbors – engaged.
asserted
people → say → years
But, from rural Kansas, immigration raids in places like Minneapolis and Chicago felt abstract.
asserted
raids → feel → Minneapolis
Then they saw their own streets in social media videos.
asserted
they → see → videos
People were furious, said Soberanes, who worried the daily protests could get out of hand.
uncertain
protests → say → hand
They told people not to slash tires or break windows, to store up their anger and take it out on election day.
asserted
They → tell → day
“We’ll see them at the ballot box,” she recalls repeating.
asserted
she → see → box
Her phone rang and rang.
asserted
phone → ring → ?
People she’d hassled to vote for years asked: how do I register?
asserted
I → hassle → years
…and 37 more, not listed.
The Aporia
