Cattle Groups Report Losses Amid ICE Operations

DHS Notifies Great Bend of Federal Operations

Wichita Sets Oct. 12 Deadline to Clear Encampment

Wichita Cartel Case Brings 14 Sentences

Kansas Regulator Seeks to Revoke Beneficient Charter

Cattle Groups Report Losses Amid ICE Operations

DODGE CITY, Kan. — National cattle slaughter fell to an estimated 94,000 head Sept. 23, down 8,000 from a week earlier and from 121,914 a year earlier, as immigration enforcement continued around Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal, Drovers reported, citing USDA figures. The Kansas Livestock Association, Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association and Texas Cattle Feeders Association said Sept. 24 that thousands of cattle fattened for slaughter had been held back from packing plants, causing millions of dollars in lost revenue and added expenses while discouraging documented workers at feedyards, dairies, packing plants and grain companies from reporting to work. The groups supported federal law enforcement duties but called for lawful, orderly and transparent operations, due process and clear communication with employers and communities. Southwest Kansas civic group New Frontiers said agents entered National Beef’s Dodge City plant with a warrant Sept. 23 and removed workers from the production line; Liberal Vice Mayor Janeth Vazquez reported dozens detained, but ICE had announced no arrest count, overall scope or end date by Sept. 24. Sen. Jerry Moran said Sept. 23 that Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin assured him agents were coordinating with local law enforcement to target people with criminal warrants, Sen. Roger Marshall said he was contacting federal officials, and ICE answered Kansas News Service questions with examples of people it had deported from the Kansas City area. The region’s reliance on immigrant labor has implications for national beef supplies: It holds about 22% of the nation’s grain-fed beef, according to livestock association and USDA figures, and an analyst told Meatingplace that reduced slaughter could raise beef prices soon, a forecast rather than a measured outcome.

Drovers · Oklahoma Farm Report · Kansas News Service · Kansas Reflector · Meatingplace

DHS Notifies Great Bend of Federal Operations

GREAT BEND, Kan. — Homeland Security agents notified the Barton County Communications Center about 9 a.m. Sept. 24 that they would operate in the Great Bend area, the Great Bend Police Department said. The agents provided no information about the scope or nature of their work and requested no local assistance. Republican Rep. Tracey Mann, whose district includes the affected cities, declined to comment Sept. 24, Kansas Reflector reported. Democrat Adam Hamilton, Sen. Roger Marshall’s challenger in the Nov. 3 election, called for agents to focus on serious criminals in cooperation with local officials.

Great Bend Post · Kansas Reflector

Wichita Sets Oct. 12 Deadline to Clear Encampment

WICHITA, Kan. — The city said Sept. 24 that residents of its largest homeless encampment, a wooded area north of Chapin Park known as Narnia or Tent City, must leave by Oct. 12, with clearing scheduled to begin Oct. 13. Letters were distributed Sept. 23, according to a notice first reported by the KLC Journal. City spokesperson Megan Lovely told KWCH conditions had deteriorated and police and fire officials had raised concerns about access and recurring problems at the site. The city estimated 20 to 25 people currently lived there, while the KLC Journal cited August data showing more than 80 residents. City leaders said 16 residents had received housing vouchers, but landlords are not required to accept them, and residents told KWCH and KAKE that finding housing remained difficult. The deadline gives residents less than three weeks to relocate, with voucher recipients still needing landlords willing to rent to them before the camp closes.

KWCH · KLC Journal · KAKE

Wichita Cartel Case Brings 14 Sentences

WICHITA, Kan. — Fifteen defendants pleaded guilty in a Wichita drug-trafficking case involving Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel, and 14 received sentences, according to a U.S. Attorney’s Office announcement dated Sept. 21 and updated Sept. 22. Ringleader Euriel Talavera, 32, of Wichita, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute fentanyl and received 228 months, or 19 years, in federal prison. Prosecutors said the ring distributed cartel-supplied fentanyl, cocaine and methamphetamine, with members traveling every few weeks from Wichita to Phoenix and other locations to collect drugs for sale in Kansas. The FBI, Homeland Security Investigations, Drug Enforcement Administration and Wichita Police Department began investigating in December 2022, and prosecutors described the case as a multi-agency Homeland Security Task Force operation. After learning of a planned delivery of 160,000 counterfeit Percocet pills containing fentanyl, investigators watched the exchange and seized the drugs during a traffic stop, preventing the shipment from reaching Wichita’s drug market. The announcement said defendant Richard Oral Mathie fled before sentencing, accounting for the difference between the number of guilty pleas and completed sentences.

U.S. Attorney’s Office

Kansas Regulator Seeks to Revoke Beneficient Charter

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas Bank Commissioner David Herndon urged the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Fiduciary Financial Institutions Oversight on Sept. 24 to revoke Beneficient Fiduciary Financial’s state charter and repeal the law exempting it from many ordinary bank regulations. Herndon said the subsidiary of Dallas-based Beneficient refused to sign a negotiated consent order addressing regulatory problems, prompting a cease-and-desist order that an administrative law judge is scheduled to consider in November. Herndon, who plans to retire in October, warned that the parent company’s financial deterioration could bring down the subsidiary, citing Beneficient’s $6.8 million net loss last quarter. Company executives pledged to fight the order and preserve the charter, saying they accepted 85% of regulators’ 32 demands; executive Derek Fletcher argued voluntary compliance should be accepted, while Sen. Stephen Owens, R-Hesston, accused Herndon of trying to destroy the company and a law he had opposed from the outset. The 2021 Technology-Enabled Fiduciary Financial Institutions Act directed the commissioner to charter Beneficient and designated a Harvey County economic growth zone in hopes of attracting similar firms, but none followed, leaving the subsidiary believed to be the nation’s only institution of its kind. No ruling had been issued and the charter remained in force as of Sept. 24, leaving the company’s regulatory dispute pending while lawmakers consider the future of a financial framework only the Legislature can repeal.

Kansas Reflector · KLRD

Sources

1. Drovers / Oklahoma Farm Report / Kansas News Service / Kansas Reflector / Meatingplace
2. Great Bend Post / Kansas Reflector
3. KWCH / KLC Journal / KAKE
4. U.S. Attorney’s Office
5. Kansas Reflector / KLRD / KLRD

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