BY: SHERMAN SMITH
Kansas Reflector
LENEXA — Melanie Arroyo lives in two worlds.
There’s the one where the Lenexa City Council member has to “assimilate and perform” like her white counterparts, she said. Then there’s the authentic world, where she is aware of how vulnerable she is in this country, “simply because I’m brown and because I have an accent.”
“It feels lonely,” she said.
At Tuesday night’s city council meeting, which was packed with residents who were upset about last week’s raid by federal authorities at El Toro Loco restaurants in Lenexa and Kansas City, Kansas, Arroyo revealed that city police had recently investigated her citizenship status and required her to prove her citizenship.
It started with someone complaining to the Kansas Bureau of Investigation about testimony Arroyo submitted in February to a state Senate committee in opposition to a bill that would eliminate in-state tuition for immigrants. The individual — whom the KBI declined to identify — questioned whether Arroyo was a U.S. citizen and eligible to hold public office.
The KBI referred the complaint to Lenexa police, who questioned Arroyo. She hired an attorney and presented documentation from her 2018 naturalization. Police closed the case last week, two days before the El Toro Loco raids.
For Arroyo, the police inquiry was a painful reminder that a single disgruntled resident can disrupt her life by making a false allegation.
Arroyo told Kansas Reflector she decided to talk about her experience after the unrelated federal raid in Lenexa, which raised questions about whether agents had violated the rights of workers who were detained without regard for whether they had committed a crime, had a lawful immigration status, or were U.S. citizens.
Arroyo said the two situations were connected only by the underlying motive, “which is xenophobia.”
“I felt like I had this obligation to come forward with my story, to let people know in Kansas City that everybody needs to wake the f*** up,” Arroyo said. “You guys are still living in 2024, thinking that our judicial processes are intact, and they’re not. I’m living in the summer of 2025, being directly impacted by this, and so we need to adapt to the circumstances that we’re in. And I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know what the solutions are.”
Those who attended Tuesday night’s council meeting gasped when Arroyo revealed the police inquiry. They responded to her remarks with a standing ovation that lasted 20 seconds before Mayor Julie Sayers restored order with her gavel.
Councilwoman Courtney Eiterich expressed solidarity with Arroyo. Eiterich said her husband is an immigrant and that they have had conversations about whether he needs to keep naturalization papers with him.
In Lenexa and across the country, Eiterich said, authorities carrying out President Donald Trump’s campaign promise of mass deportations are violating constitutional rights with the support of federal courts.
“I teach high school government, and this is really difficult for me to wrap my head around and try to explain to my students how this is happening and what is our role in trying to fix it. And I don’t have any answers,” Eiterich said.
No evidence for inquiry
Lenexa city attorney Sean McLaughlin defended the police investigation of Arroyo.
He said Arroyo’s testimony before the Legislature indicated she had overstayed her visa and didn’t acknowledge her naturalization. He pointed to a city ordinance that requires office holders to be citizens.
“We felt we had no choice but to investigate the matter because it is the city’s obligation to ensure compliance with our own ordinances,” McLaughlin told the council.
“We stand behind our actions,” he added.
Arroyo submitted written testimony in opposition to Senate Bill 254, which was supported by Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach. A Senate committee held a contentious hearing on the proposal in February and advanced the bill in March, but the full Senate never gave it consideration.
The testimony describes her experience growing up as “an undocumented immigrant girl” in the Kansas City area who didn’t speak fluent English. She said she was able to enroll in Kansas universities “with the condition that I resolved my immigration status.” She studied studio art and psychology at the University of Saint Mary and Johnson County Community College, then earned master’s degrees in clinical counseling and art therapy at Emporia State University.
Melissa Underwood, a spokeswoman for the KBI, said a Johnson County resident referenced Arroyo’s testimony in a voicemail left at the agency’s Lenexa office. The KBI referred the matter to city police, Underwood said, because the state agency typically doesn’t investigate immigration-related matters. Underwood said the complaint didn’t come from Kobach.
“The information was sent to the Lenexa Police Department for follow-up as they deemed appropriate,” Underwood said.
In a brief interview after the city council meeting, McLaughlin acknowledged there was no evidence to support a complaint about Arroyo’s citizenship status.
But, he said, “just because evidence doesn’t exist doesn’t mean we don’t investigate.”
Public outcry
Two dozen community members voiced concerns to the council about the investigation of Arroyo and the raid on a local restaurant.
They included Kansas Rep. Susan Ruiz, LGBTQ+ activist Jae Moyer, immigration attorney Anne Parelkar, two pastors, and Roeland Park City Council member Jen Hill, who was Arroyo’s 8th grade English teacher in 2005.
Even then, Hill said, Arroyo’s “voice carried strength, clarity and purpose.”
“It’s because I know her so well that I’m both saddened and outraged by the recent false allegations questioning her citizenship,” Hill said. “These claims are not only entirely unfounded, they are a blatant attempt to discredit her based on her ethnicity, rather than recognizing the immense value of her service and her character.”
Sara Rohleder told the council this was the first local government meeting she had ever attended, and “that’s saying a lot.” She referenced the approximately 150 people who attended the meeting and pointed out that many of them were in the 18-25 age range.
“I’m very concerned,” Rohleder said. “I don’t know what future I have. I don’t know what future my cousins have, who are younger than me. I think this sets a very dangerous precedent. I think this is very, very serious, and I really strongly feel — I honestly feel comfort in knowing that it’s not just me who’s feeling this, because it’s a very isolating time. Look at all these people. Everyone’s here because they care about what’s going on.”
Muñeca Nieves described herself as a proud Afro-Caribbean woman who works for the federal government. She said she had lost 40 pounds by walking to work every day, but “I don’t do it anymore, because I’m brown.”
“Every time a black SUV comes by, I get scared,” Nieves said.
She also said she was “extremely disappointed” in the Lenexa city attorney’s insistence that police were just “following the rules” when they investigated Arroyo.
“Those rules equate to racial profiling,” Nieves said, “which is against the law.”
Police chief responds
Lenexa Police Chief Dawn Layman addressed the council at the end of the meeting and acknowledged the hurt expressed by Arroyo.
“I apologize if I made you feel that way,” Layman told her.
Layman said Homeland Security Investigations notified her a week in advance that they would execute a criminal search warrants, authorized by a federal judge, at the El Toro Loco in Lenexa. They mutually agreed that Lenexa police officers would not be on site, she said.
She said the federal raids were related to an ongoing investigation into labor exploitation.
Layman said her department is focused on public safety and serving all who live, work and visit Lenexa, regardless of immigration status.
“Our responsibility is to protect the public, uphold the law, maintain public order and serve our community with honor, integrity and professionalism, and that is in regardless of our personal beliefs or opinion,” Layman said.
In an interview, Arroyo said Layman was unaware of the political and historical weight of asking someone for their papers. But Arroyo also stressed that she doesn’t think Lenexa police are the problem.
“My concern is that we are not aware of the times that we’re living in,” Arroyo said, “and we’re failing to meet the moment.”