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ICE Arrest of Woman From Hong Kong Rocks Small Missouri Town That Went for Trump
"I just want to [be with] my family with my children, stay here in the U.S. for freedom and have [a] better life," she told The New Republic.
Jun 02, 2025
The arrest of an immigrant woman originally from Hong Kong by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has sent shockwaves through a small Missouri town that overwhelmingly backed U.S. President Donald Trump in the last presidential election.
Trump has made a crackdown on immigration a centerpiece of his administration.
The woman, whose legal name is Ming Li Hui, spoke on a Monday episode of The New Republic's "The Daily Blast" podcast from jail in Springfield, Missouri, and told listeners that she wants to stay in the United States with her children.
"Please protect me. I'm so sorry. I have a poor English. I don't know. I just want to [be with] my family with my children, stay here in the U.S. for freedom and have [a] better life," she said, according to a transcript of the episode.
Hui has lived in Kennett, Missouri for 20 years, where she works at a local pancake and waffle house and has raised a family. She has three children, including one 14-year-old autistic son.
Hui, who goes by Carol, was arrested by ICE officers in April when she traveled from her home in Kennett, Missouri to St. Louis, Missouri for an appointment at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services that she expected would just be to renew her employment authorization document, according to St. Louis Public Radio. The news of her detention was first reported by the Delta Dunklin Democrat in early May.
According to a subsequent New York Times story, she was summoned abruptly to the appointment, and her partner voiced suspicion about the appointment. But "I didn't want to run," Hui told the paper from jail following her arrest. "I just wanted to do the right thing."
Eighty percent of voters in Dunklin County, Missouri—where Kennett is located—cast a ballot for Trump in the last presidential election.
"I voted for Donald Trump, and so did practically everyone here," said Vanessa Cowart, a church friend of Hui's, according to The Times. "But no one voted to deport moms. We were all under the impression we were just getting rid of the gangs, the people who came here in droves."
Others, though not all, in Kennett expressed outrage that Hui was detained by ICE and is now in jail, per the Times. Her church organized a prayer vigil for her and has sent meals to her family, and her bosses held a fundraiser for her which they called "Carol Day."
"In Kennett, some residents said they had implored state and national Republican lawmakers representing the area to intervene to stop Ms. Hui's deportation, but had gotten mostly cursory responses," the Times reported.
Hui's lawyer, Raymond Bolourtchi, who also spoke on TNR's podcast, has filed an emergency request that her deportation to Hong Kong be stayed and a request to re-open her closed immigration case.
Bolourtchi told TNR that Hui came to the U.S. in 2004 and then "ultimately ended up in removal proceedings, or in deportation proceedings, because she overstayed her visa and the government made certain allegations that were really negative based on her original marriage."
Hui paid an American citizen $2,000 to enter a fake marriage that she hoped would grant her permanent resident status, per the Times, a decision she has said she regrets, according to her lawyer. That marriage ended in divorce in 2009.
After ending up in removal proceedings, Hui presented an application for asylum to an immigration court, which was denied, according to Bolourtchi. Her appeal went all the way up to the U.S. Court of Appeals, where it was dismissed. With those appeals exhausted, she was placed in an "order of supervision," per her lawyer. It was under an order of supervision that she was granted an employment authorization.
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Missouri Puts Profits Over People's Lives With New Israeli Chemical Limited Facility
A new ICL facility would further establish St. Louis as a hub of militarization and an exporter of global death and destruction while threatening the health and well-being of residents.
May 08, 2025
Early this year, as snow froze into sheets of solid ice, covering the ground for weeks, almost 20% of St. Louis Public School students were unhoused. Meanwhile, in warm town halls, former city Mayor Tishaura Jones praised a proposed new hazardous chemical facility, displaying the city's economic priorities.
St. Louis's northside has long been subjected to the environmental effects of militarization, from the radiation secretly sprayed on residents of Pruitt Igoe and Northside communities in the 1950s, to the dumped cancer-causing Manhattan Project radioactive waste that poisoned Coldwater Creek. A proposed new Israeli Chemical Limited (ICL) facility in north St. Louis would not only be another colonial imposition, but it also poses disastrous environmental risks for the entire state.
A new ICL facility would further establish St. Louis as a hub of militarization and an exporter of global death and destruction. In St. Charles, Boeing has built more than 500,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition guidance kits, known as JDAMS. An Amnesty International report tied these to attacks on Palestinian civilian homes, families, and children, making our region complicit in war crimes. In addition to hosting the explosives weapons manufacturer Boeing, Missouri is home to Monsanto (now Bayer), which produced Agent Orange.
Why does a foreign chemical company with almost $7 billion in earnings need so much funding from our local and federal government at the expense of our residents?
What's lesser known is that Monsanto is responsible for white phosphorus production in a supply chain trifecta with ICL and Pine Bluffs Arsenal. White phosphorus is a horrific incendiary weapon that heats up to 1,400°F, and international law bans its use against civilians. From 2020 to 2023, the U.S. Department of Defense ordered and paid ICL for over 180,000 lbs of white phosphorus, shipped from their South City Carondelet location to Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas. White phosphorus artillery shells with Pine Bluff Arsenal codes were identified in Lebanon and Gaza after the Israel Defense Forces unlawfully used them over residential homes and refugee camps, according to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Another ICL facility, combined with the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency that analyzes drone footage to direct U.S.military attacks, would put North St. Louis squarely on the map for military retaliation from any country seeking to strike back against U.S. global interventionism.
Within a mile of the Carondelet ICL site, the Environmental Protection Agency has identified unsafe levels of cancer-risking air toxins, hazardous waste, and wastewater discharge. The new facility would be built within five miles of intake towers and open-air sedimentation ponds that provide drinking water to St. Louis. An explosion or leak could destroy the city's water supply and harm eastern Missouri towns along the Mississippi. ICL has committed multiple Environmental and Workplace Safety violations, including violating the Clean Air Act at its South City facility. In 2023, it was declared the worst environmental offender by Israel's own Environmental Protection Ministry after the 2017 Ashalim Creek disaster, and were fined $33 million.
ICL claims the new North City site is a safe and green facility for manufacturing lithium iron phosphate for electric vehicles; however, lithium manufacturing is hardly a green or safe process. Lithium and phosphorus mining require enormous amounts of freshwater—a protected resource—resulting in poisoned ecosystems and a limited water supply for residents and wildlife in the local communities where they are sourced.
In October 2024, a lithium battery plant in Fredericktown, Missouri, burst into flames, forcing residents to evacuate and killing thousands of fish in nearby rivers. The company had claimed to have one of the most sophisticated automated fire suppression systems in the world, yet it still caused a fire whose aftermath continues to affect residents today, with comparisons being drawn to East Palestine, Ohio. Meanwhile, in January, over 1,000 people in California had to evacuate due to a massive fire at a lithium facility, the fourth fire there since 2019. Despite ICL claiming that the new site will use a "safer" form of lithium processing, it's clear that lithium facilities are not as safe as profit-driven corporations claim them to be.
Missouri leaders repeatedly prioritize corporate profits over people via tax abatements. ICL is receiving $197 million from the federal government. The city is forgiving a $500,000 loan to troubled investors Green Street to sell the land to ICL and is proposing a 90% tax abatement in personal property taxes for ICL, plus 15 years of real estate tax abatements. This is a troubling regional trend, considering that in 2023, St. Louis County approved $155 million in tax breaks to expand Boeing, also giving them a 50% cut in real estate and personal property taxes over 10 years.
Corporate tax breaks in the city have cost minority students in St. Louis Public Schools $260 million in a region where 30% of children are food insecure. Over 2,000 people in St. Louis city are homeless. Enough babies die each year in St Louis to fill 15 kindergarten classrooms. Black babies are three times more likely to die than white babies before their first birthday, and Black women are 2.4 times more likely to die during pregnancy. Spending public funds on corporate tax breaks instead of directing them toward food, housing, and life-saving medical care for Black women and babies is inexcusable. Why does a foreign chemical company with almost $7 billion in earnings need so much funding from our local and federal government at the expense of our residents?
Officials cite "job creation" as a major reason to expand ICL. Still, the new facility is only expected to create 150 jobs, and there is no evidence that these jobs will be given to people in the community where it is being built. Investing in Black and minority businesses would lead to actual self-sustaining economic development.
Despite receiving hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government, local tax breaks, the backing of former Gov. Mike Parson, and approval from city committees, the facility's opening is not a done deal. The St. Louis City Board of Alders could still intervene. Stopping a facility with this much federal and international backing would require massive pushback from Missourians. Residents deserve more information and input in this process, especially considering the city's resistance to hearing public comments. Notably, when locals submitted a Sunshine request for the ICL permit in March, it was so heavily redacted that it was unreadable.
This facility would turn local Black neighborhoods into environmental and military sacrifice zones, and our response to city, state, and federal leaders should be a definitive and resounding No!
CODEPINK Missouri has a petition to stop the building of the ICL facility in St. Louis.
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'A Triumph for All Missourians': Judge Blocks State Abortion Restrictions
"The people voted, the court responded, and we will do our part: serving Missourians in their home state," said the president and CEO of Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.
Feb 15, 2025
Reproductive rights groups celebrated on Friday after a Missouri judge temporarily blocked significant abortion restrictions that were kept in place despite voters' approval of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to the procedure.
Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood of Great Plains announced that "abortion care will be restored immediately" following the decision from Judge Jerri Zhang, who sided with Planned Parenthood in blocking licensing rules that advocates said were a major obstacle to abortion access.
As The Associated Press reported, "Planned Parenthood argued that the licensing law required providers to give 'medically unnecessary and invasive' pelvic exams to anyone receiving an abortion, including medication abortions."
"It also included 'medically irrelevant' size requirements for hallways, rooms, and doors," AP added.
Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement that the Friday ruling "is the direct result of Missouri abortion providers' tenacity and determination to fight for their patients."
"As our fight for patients' access to abortion continues across the country, we will look towards the brave providers and advocates in Missouri, who weathered years of attacks while continuing to serve their communities," said McGill Johnson. "Not only are they making abortion access a reality in Missouri, but they are showing us the way forward. Planned Parenthood Federation of America is proud to continue this fight alongside Missouri's advocates and healthcare providers, until every person can exercise their right to reproductive freedom."
Kelly Hall, executive director of the Fairness Project, applauded the ruling as "a decisive win for the people, for reproductive freedom, and for direct democracy."
The judge's decision came as Missouri Republicans continued working to reverse the abortion rights amendment approved by state voters in November.
The Missouri Independent reported last month that "Republican lawmakers have already filed dozens of bills aimed at weakening or overturning Amendment 3," proposals that include "returning to voters to ask to re-impose Missouri's abortion ban, as well as smaller measures attempting to set parameters around" the amendment.
Emily Wales, president and CEO of Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said Friday that "today's decision is a triumph for all Missourians: for the voters who demanded their rights, for the medical providers we trust to provide care, and most importantly, for patients who will now be able to receive high-quality care without fear."
"The people voted, the court responded, and we will do our part: serving Missourians in their home state," Wales added.
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