Jail Support for Immigrants Held in Missouri Offers Resistance in a Red State

Local communities resist ICE by reaching inside jails and building networks of support.

Truthout/TheAppeal | By Brian Dolinar
Published December 6, 2025

…Jails exist in part to hide people away from society. Behind jail walls, suffering is often out of sight, out of mind for the rest of the community. But in central Missouri, a growing number of community organizations are sprouting up to make sure immigrants in local jails aren’t forgotten.

The Phelps County jail is located in Rolla, Missouri, a small college town with a population of around 20,000 that is home to the Missouri University of Science and Technology. A group of local residents calling themselves Abide in Love formed to provide support for immigrants in the jail. They began monitoring the jail population through the sheriff’s online database, and recruited and trained pen pals to communicate with immigrants in the jail through a text messaging system. They pay for phone calls so immigrants at the jail can talk to their families. They provide hygiene packages. They also help connect families with attorneys.

Despite being a university town, “Rolla, like most of Missouri, is pretty red,” said Lucy Behrendt, current president of Abide in Love.

“A lot of us followed the rhetoric of this administration during the campaign and knew this was what was going to happen,” Behrendt told Truthout. “So when this group formed, it’s like, okay, something that I can do, besides just post stuff on Facebook, go to protests or whatever, something I can actually do, on the ground.”[…]