Two plainclothes ICE officers restrained a Turkish woman with zip ties at a Jackson bus stop this week and drove her away in an SUV without first alerting the local sheriff, rekindling a long-running feud in Teton County between the federal agency and local law enforcement.
The Department of Homeland Security reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested Feride Bardakci on Tuesday during what the agency calls a “targeted enforcement operation” in Jackson.
DHS said Bardakci entered the United States legally near Atlanta, Georgia, on June 13, 2023, with authorization to remain until April 1, 2024.
She stayed beyond that date, DHS said, and remains in ICE custody pending immigration proceedings.
“In violation of our nation’s laws, she overstayed her welcome and refused to depart,” according to a DHS spokesperson. “Bardakci will receive due process and remain in ICE custody pending the outcome of her immigration proceedings.”
DHS did not answer Cowboy State Daily's questions about why Teton County Sheriff Matt Carr and his office were not informed federal agents would be operating in the community.
That lack of communication has become the central concern for local officials after Carr warned that plainclothes federal officers grabbing someone in public without local police knowing about the operation could create a dangerous misunderstanding.
“That looks like a kidnapping,” Carr told KHOL radio shortly after the arrest.
Carr said his office received no advance notice of the operation and later contacted federal immigration officials in Casper to determine what had happened.
“The agreement has always been that [the feds] would give me a heads up,” Carr told KHOL reporters Sophia Boyd-Fliegel and Evan Robinson-Johnson.
Carr declined further comment when contacted by Cowboy State Daily on Wednesday.
On Thursday, the Teton County Sheriff's Office said questions about the ICE arrest had been forwarded to its public information officer, who is out of the office for the remainder of the week.
Jackson Police Not Notified
The Jackson Police Department also received no advance notice of the operation, Lt. Russ Ruschill told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday.
“No, we were not,” Ruschill said when asked whether the department had been notified before Tuesday's ICE operation.
Ruschill said no Jackson police officers responded to the arrest or had contact with the federal agents involved. He also was not aware of any calls to dispatch from people concerned about what they were seeing.
Typically, Ruschill said, ICE does not notify Jackson police directly. Instead, it notifies the Teton County Sheriff's Office dispatch center, which in turn alerts local agencies.
“Anytime you have a plainclothes operation where you're serving a warrant or you're doing some sort of an arrest, it's always a good idea to notify other agencies,” Ruschill said.
Jackson police and the sheriff's office also use the Rocky Mountain Information Network's “deconfliction” service to alert other agencies to planned operations and make sure officers from different agencies don't unexpectedly cross paths, he said.
“We have established protocols in place for many years, but of course we don't have any control over how the federal government operates,” Ruschill said.
Police Chief Michelle Weber has since contacted ICE, Ruschill said.
Feet Away
Emily Gomez, executive director of the Wyoming Immigrant Advocacy Project, told Cowboy State Daily its hotline received a call from an eyewitness who was standing only a couple of feet from Bardakci as she was taken into custody.
The arrest unfolded in broad daylight Tuesday afternoon at a bus stop near Target in the 500 block of South U.S. 89 in a busy commercial area of Jackson.
The witness reported seeing two officers dressed in plain clothes with badges around their necks identifying them as ICE agents, Gomez said, adding she saw the agents restrain Bardakci with zip ties before putting her into an SUV.
There were multiple other bystanders, Gomez said, although no photos or video of the arrest have surfaced.
Despite the unusual scene, Gomez said the witness who contacted the hotline did not report believing she was watching a kidnapping or express confusion about whether the men were law enforcement officers.
Gomez added that her organization is aware of at least one other incident this year in which local law enforcement was not alerted that ICE would be operating in the area.
‘Pretty Damn Important’
Teton County Commission Vice Chair Wes Gardner told Cowboy State Daily that he had no advance knowledge of the operation and was confident his fellow commissioners did not either.
Gardner said he wasn't familiar enough with the relationship between ICE and the Teton County Sheriff's Office to say whether there is a formal agreement or protocol requiring advance notification, but agreement or not, he said communication between law enforcement agencies matters when armed officers are operating in the same community.
“Law enforcement communicating with law enforcement is pretty damn important,” Gardner said. “There could be real consequences when law enforcement doesn't communicate.”
Gardner said he did not yet know whether the failure to notify Teton County was an isolated occurrence or represented something broader.
“Maybe it was a one-off, maybe it was a harbinger, but it's definitely problematic,” he said.
Gardner's concern comes as Teton County officials consider a proposed resolution recognizing immigrants not only as an essential part of Jackson's workforce and economy, but as friends, neighbors, students, teammates and churchgoers woven into the community.
“My God, they run this town,” he said. “We are highly dependent on their contribution as part of our workforce.”
The chairman added that immigrants' value to the community can't be reduced to the jobs they perform.
“They're human beings,” he said, adding that they mean far more to the community than “just being cogs in a wheel.”
Gardner expressed support for the resolution, saying county leaders should “lean in” and publicly recognize the immigrant community's role in Teton County.
‘Unacceptable,’ Mayor Says
Jackson Mayor Arne Jorgensen also criticized the way Tuesday's operation unfolded and emphasized the town's support for its immigrant community.
“They are integral to our community, they're integral to our economy,” Jorgensen told Cowboy State Daily. “They are community members.
“The notion of a federal agency coming into my community in plain clothes, unannounced, is unacceptable,” Jordensen added. "It’s putting our law enforcement at risk. It's putting our community members at risk.”
The mayor said he welcomes cooperation with federal agencies when people are suspected of violating criminal laws, but said Congress bears responsibility for addressing the nation's broader immigration system.
“The reason we have this friction is because of failed immigration policies at the federal level,” he said. “The responsibility solely resides with Congress to fix it.”
What ICE Says
DHS gave Cowboy State Daily an extensive statement defending its enforcement efforts and explaining how ICE officers identify themselves during operations.
“Our officers verbally identify themselves and wear vests that say ICE/ERO or Homeland Security,” a DHS spokesperson said.
“When our heroic law enforcement officers conduct operations, they clearly identify themselves as law enforcement while wearing masks to protect themselves from being targeted by highly sophisticated gangs like Tren de Aragua and MS-13, criminal rings, murderers, and rapists.”
DHS did not answer a follow-up question about whether the agents involved in this particular arrest wore the ICE/ERO or Homeland Security vests described in its statement.
The department also urged immigrants who are in the country unlawfully to leave voluntarily using the CBP Home app, saying the federal government is offering $3,000 and a flight to those who self-deport.
“Being in detention is a choice,” the DHS spokesperson said. “We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App.”
The statement warned that those who don't voluntarily leave could be arrested and deported.
DHS did not allege in its statement to Cowboy State Daily that Bardakci is a member of a gang or criminal organization or that she was arrested for a violent crime.
The reason DHS gave for targeting her was that she remained in the United States after her authorized stay expired.
A Rocky History
Communication between ICE and Carr's office has been a recurring point of friction.
In November 2024, ICE accused the Teton County Sheriff's Office of failing to honor federal requests to hold people in the county jail long enough for immigration agents to retrieve them.
ICE said at the time that 103 detainers had been lifted after people were released before the agency could take custody of them.
The agency also accused TCSO of failing to give ICE adequate notice before releasing people from custody, “limiting [our] ability to take timely action on these cases.”
Carr disputed that characterization, saying his office notified ICE of upcoming court dates and possible releases but would not hold someone beyond their court-ordered release without a judge-signed warrant because of concerns that doing so could expose the county to a Fourth Amendment lawsuit.
Carr told Cowboy State Daily at the time that ICE had routinely notified his office for years when agents were operating in Teton County.
ICE said it had notified TCSO at the outset of an August 2024 operation, though Carr said he didn't remember receiving that notification and recalled learning about the operation afterward.
The communication issue surfaced again in February 2025.
Carr told Cowboy State Daily then that he learned from an FBI agent the day before an ICE operation that federal agents would be working in Jackson.
He called that advance knowledge a “very good thing” because it allowed his office to warn street deputies that armed federal agents would be operating in the county.
ICE itself, however, gave the Sheriff's Office only four minutes' notice, Carr said — contacting dispatch at 5:56 a.m. for an operation beginning at 6 a.m.
That operation produced another disagreement after Carr confirmed to the Jackson Hole News&Guide that ICE was in the community while the operation was still underway.
A former ICE official criticized the disclosure as potentially compromising officer safety, while Carr said the operation was already visible and he was trying to calm fears by explaining that agents were targeting specific individuals rather than conducting a widespread roundup.
A Thaw — Advance Notice
A month later, the relationship appeared to improve.
Carr announced in March 2025 that Teton County would begin honoring civil ICE detainers for up to 48 hours after an inmate otherwise would have been released.
He said the change followed conversations with ICE officials and other Wyoming sheriffs.
Carr's announcement specifically emphasized “the lives and safety of all law enforcement officers” involved in apprehensions.
By July 2025, Cowboy State Daily got a firsthand look at ICE agents providing the kind of local notification Carr has said is important.
During a July 2025 ICE operation in Jackson, Cowboy State Daily reporter Clair McFarland was invited on a ride-along with federal agents as they put on armored vests outside town and headed to the Virginian Apartments.
Just before entering the apartment complex, McFarland reported, the ICE officers notified local law enforcement that they were there.
Seconds later, they moved into the parking lot and arrested one of their targets.
It remains unclear why ICE did not give TCSO advance notice of Tuesday's arrest, and the agency declined to answer Cowboy State Daily's questions about the lack of notification.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
