ICE Grabs Illegal Immigrants In Western Wyoming As Agency Eyes Massive Expansion

Operating for at least 11 hours Monday in Western Wyoming, federal immigration authorities arrested a Romanian and two Mexican nationals, picked up two more Mexican nationals from the Teton County Detention Center and discussed a Congressional action giving them more money than most of the world’s armies.

With one Turkish and one Romanian target in mind, ICE officers left Pinedale at about 4:40 a.m. Monday just after a briefing in a parking lot.

“Everybody knows the deal going to Jackson. Couple bottleneck areas. Everybody stay close,” a Wyoming-based office leader, whom Cowboy State Daily agreed not to name during an embedded ride with the agency, told his crew. “Be professional. Be safe. If you need assistance, call it out.”

They drove northwest toward Jackson in neutral-colored SUVs, all drivers having been warned about moose and elk on Highway 189.

The official who gave the briefing told his crew to text the addresses where they’d be working in a group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging application.

Just outside Jackson on South Henry’s Road, officers pulled over and donned armored vests before rolling into the town.

Even before 6 a.m., Jackson Hole traffic was congested.

The first stop was the Virginian Apartments, chocolate-brown complexes curving around a cramped parking lot.

Officers notified local law enforcement of their presence a few seconds before they squeezed their vehicles into the lot. They watched a four-apartment enclave where the four entrance doors faced a dark and dusty stairwell.

They didn’t have to wait long.

'How Did You Come Into The Country?'

Alberto Banicescu, 27, left his apartment wearing a ball cap, cream-colored flannel shirt and shorts. Officers arrested him, handcuffing his wrists behind his back, and led him to the back seat of an SUV. 

“How did you come into the country?” Robert Guadian, ICE Enforcement and Removal (ERO) Field Office director for Colorado and Wyoming, asked of Banicescu.

“Do I have to answer?” said Banicescu. Turning to an officer holding his left arm and walking with him, Banicescu asked, “Can I let my woman … ?”

He nodded toward the apartment.

“We’ll give you a phone call,” answered the officer.

The whole arrest took about three minutes.

At a different location, officers parked again to adjust Banicescu’s restraints and let him use his phone. He explained to a woman on the phone that he would not be making it to work at a local café.

“Remember what we talked about yesterday?” said Banicescu on the phone, “It happened today. I’m with the ICE. Understand? Try to find me a cover … I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

Banicescu declined to give an interview to Cowboy State Daily.

Officers took him to the Sweetwater County Detention Center in Rock Springs. The facility holds detainees for ICE pursuant to one of its multiple agreements with the federal agency. 

Eleven hours later at that same apartment, a weeping brunette who appeared to be in her early 20s answered the door for a Cowboy State Daily reporter who returned to the area after the ride-along.

Wiping tears from her eyes, the young woman also declined to give an interview.

The two other neighbors in the four-apartment enclave said they didn’t know Banicescu well, if at all.

Banicescu was convicted this year of a misdemeanor DUI out of Jackson Municipal Court and had entered the country without inspection this year amid other international travel that includes Mexico City, ICE officials said.

In Wyoming state court, which is separate from municipal, Banicescu has no criminal history.

Banicescu will soon face proceedings in a Denver-area immigration court, said Guadian.

The judges of those courts aren’t appointed by elected officials and aren’t in the judicial branch. They’re U.S. Department of Justice employees who apply for those positions.

Immigration enforcement is, generally, a civil rather than criminal process.

The Other Quest

Some ICE units in Jackson launched another quest.

A man wanted internationally on suspicion of multiple murders was known to be working in a Jackson Hole business as recently as February, said Guadian, reviewing a screenshot of an Interpol warrant on his phone.

A ski-season sighting of a worker doesn’t necessarily promise a Yellowstone-tourist-season sighting of the same worker in the vacation town, but the director and another ICE member entered the business hoping to spot the wanted man in plain sight anyway.  

Other officers watched from the outside.

The wanted man wasn’t seen in the shop.

The SUVs then descended into a hilly neighborhood in residential Jackson Hole, toward the supposed address of a man Guadian called a Colombian national charged with third-degree sexual assault.

It was too early in the case to do a knock-and-talk visit, but Guadian pulled other data from the neighborhood, and the ICE vehicles left the area.

With the five people taken into custody Monday and three more jail pickups from Sunday, the operation had netted eight detainees by midday Monday, one of its leaders told Cowboy State Daily. 

Etna

The operation ranged southwest to Etna, a 185-person town nestled between twin columns of mountains, one in Idaho and one in Wyoming.  

At the end of a long dirt road, a woman played with a toddler in front of a prefabricated home’s patched white face.

When the SUVs approached, she retreated into the home.

Five officers decided to do a “knock and talk” inquiry for the wanted man at that address.

They split into groups, some approaching the front door and others monitoring the back.

The same woman answered the door; she was adamant that she had never heard of a man by the name the officers referenced.

The Trumper

Another search, this time for a man who skipped immigration court and disabled his location tracker, led ICE officers to an Etna home plastered with “Trump” and “POW-MIA” signs.

The location tracker put the man in an area near that home twice — once in mid-May and once in mid-June — before the man on bond destroyed or disabled the tracker.

A group of ICE officers approached the home, petted the dog, and greeted a man at the front door.   

The owner of the pro-Trump home was a Marine veteran who said he knew nothing of the fugitive, officers reported to Guadian.

Most immigration court defendants are out on bond rather than detained, Guadian noted as the SUVs left the neighborhood.

Residents cleaning out their campers, levelling their driveways and peering out their doorways watched the vehicles leave with unmasked curiosity. 

Not On The Ride-Along

Other ICE maneuvers that were not part of the ride-along unfolded across Western Wyoming and parts of Idaho that day and in the days following, ICE confirmed, though the agency declined to list which counties were included.

Officers were active in Lincoln County, the Jackson Hole News and Guide reported in a news story alerting the public Tuesday to the ongoing operation.

ICE officers in other vehicles picked up two detainees who’d been booked into the Teton County Detention Center on DUI charges, to take them to the Sweetwater County facility along with Banicescu.

A Wyoming Highway Patrol trooper conducted both of those DUI arrests, court documents say.

One of the men arrested was Miguel Galicia-Leon, 26, who entered the U.S. in 2024 after being removed Jan. 23, 2019, according to ICE’s data.

Charged with DUI under the alias of Misael Galicia-Leon, the man was caught driving a Ford F-150 east on Highway 22 with an approximate breath-alcohol content of 0.11% and a collection of empty beer bottles on the truck’s passenger side, his case affidavit alleges.

Galicia-Leon was “very emotional” during his DUI investigation, saying he’d just learned of his father’s death, the document adds.

The other of ICE’s two Teton County jail pickups was Jose Bidal Aranda-Pina, 62, who’d been removed from the country prior on Aug. 1, 1997, an ICE spokesman said.

He was arrested after driving east on Highway 22 with a breath-alcohol concentration of about 0.23% after swerving toward oncoming traffic in a Toyota Tacoma, his own case affidavit says.

Officers conducting targeted operations in Rock Springs arrested Rosendo Salayandia-Reyes, 50, of Mexico, whom an immigration judge ordered removed on Nov. 1, 2019, and who went on to acquire a Feb. 20, 2024, DUI conviction in Rock Springs Circuit Court, according to the spokesman.

They also arrested Sergio Salayandia-Reyes, 48, of Mexico, who entered the country in El Paso, Texas, in 2012.

Other than a 2023 speeding ticket, Sergio Salayandia-Reyes’ file shows no state-level criminal history in Wyoming.

Officers visit Teton County about twice a week, gathering multiple inmates each time, Guadian said. That means 10-hour round trips each time, in good weather, for personnel based out of the Casper office.

The hunt for the Turkish national fizzled Monday, though officers didn’t give specifics on how.

The No. 17 Military

The Trump-backed One Big Beautiful Act is slated to triple ICE’s annual budget from $8.7 billion to nearly $28 billion due to an infusion of $74.85 billion available over the next four years.

If ICE were a military, the increase would rank it 17th for potential annual spending worldwide — just less than Canada’s $29.3 billion and just more than Turkey’s $25 billion. Even so, it would add up to 2.7% of the U.S. military’s $997 billion annual expenditures, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

Guadian sees the surge in funding as a chance to add more immigration detention beds by striking more deals with sheriffs in Wyoming; and building more ICE offices in Wyoming.

The only ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations office in the state currently sits in Casper, an agency spokesman confirmed.

Guadian said the agency hopes to build another enforcement office in Gillette, and one in Rock Springs — each with a full team including supervisors, around six deportation officers and support staff. And “hopefully, potentially, (build another office and team) even in Jackson. I haven’t taken a look at it yet,” he added.

Paying officers to work fulltime in Jackson is the obstacle there, he said, acknowledging the region’s high cost of living. Entry-level officers typically start at $50,000, he said.

But the agency’s massive new budget could change that dynamic. Guadian described upcoming staff-hunting projects — and the apprehensions of local police chiefs and sheriffs over having their people leave to go federal.

Well Good Luck With That

Mike Yin, a Democratic state representative of Jackson, was skeptical of ICE’s still-nascent concept of a Teton County satellite.

Even with the tripled budget, it’s a long shot in the state’s richest county, Yin told Cowboy State Daily on Friday.

“Yeah, I mean they can try. Good luck to them,” said Yin with some sarcasm. “You know, it would also make (the officers) pariahs of the community as well. … I do think they’d find a really hard time recruiting folks in Teton County.”

Yin said it’s also unlikely the agency could find reasonable building space in Teton County, where tight zoning and housing regulations, impact fees and all-around spatial shortages are in play, due to a shortage of workforce housing exacerbated by the region's soaring real estate market.

“I get that they have a whole bunch of money now,” said Yin. “And it’s the federal government. They’re going to do what they want for this administration. … But it’s hard for any business (to build) in Teton County. I would think it’s actually doubly hard for them.”

Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.