Abide In Love: Community Group Forms To Support ICE Detainees in Phelps County

The Episcopal Diocese of Missouri | By Rev. Lindy Hardwick
Published June 17, 2025

“What? Here? This can't be right.”

That was the reaction of many people in Rolla and St. James when we learned that the Phelps County Jail is one of three Missouri facilities being used to house men and women detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in recent months, part of a nationwide effort underway by the Trump administration. Numbers are hard to track, but public records indicate that at least 140 ICE detainees have been housed at the Phelps County Jail since March.

One such case ended in tragedy when Brayan Garzon-Rayo, a 27-year-old man who was born in Colombia, was found unresponsive in his cell in the Phelps County Jail on April 7, after an attempted suicide. He was treated at Phelps Health Hospital in Rolla and transferred to a St. Louis hospital, where he died the following day. In an article published by St. Louis Public Radio, Brayan's mother, Lucy, said she had never even heard of Phelps County until her son was jailed there. Her last contact with her son was in a routine phone call, about 5 days before his death.

When ICE officials and county officials released reports following Garzon-Rayo's tragic death, a news item appeared in the local newspaper, Phelps County Focus. This was when many Rolla and St. James residents realized that ICE detainees were being incarcerated locally. .…