Anti-ICE protest group holds rally outside Missouri State Capitol - KOMU

Dozens of people gathered to protest nationwide actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Missouri State Capitol Building in Jefferson City on Sunday.

The rally featured speakers from "ICE Out Missouri," a group that advocates against ICE activity, according to the group's Facebook event page. Robert Olson, a good friend of Owen Ramsingh, was also in attendance at Sunday's rally.

ICE deported Ramsingh to the Netherlands, his birth country, in early February after holding him in various ICE detention centers for four months. Ramsingh was a long-time Columbia resident and green card holder who came to the United States with his mother when he was five years old.

After returning from a routine visit seeing family in the Netherlands, Ramsingh was detained at Chicago O'Hare International Airport back in September 2025.

According to past KOMU 8 reporting, officials from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security pointed to two past drug charges on Ramsingh's record as reasoning for his detainment.

During his speech, Olson said he voted for then former-president Donald Trump in the 2024 election, and that he originally liked Trump's promise to fix the U.S.'s immigration system.

However, after seeing what happened to Ramsingh and other similar cases, he thinks the Trump administration has gone too far.

Olson said he plans to go visit Ramsingh in the Netherlands soon.

"I'm excited to see my best friend, I can't wait to see him again," Olson said. "I was the last person to see him before he left the United States."

Hadley McNeill, an organizer with ICE Out Missouri, said the message from Sunday's protests matters to the movement.

"The louder we are, the more people hear us, the more we can share this message," McNeill said. "Because I don't think people realize how awful this is harming our communities."

McNeill also said there will be more similar events in the future, but there are no official dates or locations as of right now.