How much did the Wilder raid cost Idaho taxpayers? What we know
The roughly 200 law enforcement agents who swept into a racetrack in Wilder on Oct. 19 weren’t volunteers — they were getting paid to help carry out an FBI-led raid that ended with more than 100 immigrants arrested.
The Idaho Statesman filed records requests with four local agencies who were part of the operation to find out the amount of taxpayer dollars used that day.
There were 10 agencies represented as part of what the FBI said was an investigation into illegal gambling, though the horse races themselves were legal. Federal agents had warrants for the arrests of five people — four were taken into custody that Sunday and the fifth was arrested the next day.
At the event, police also arrested four protesters who were later charged with misdemeanor resisting and obstructing officers.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were present and conducted part of the raid in which immigrants were targeted. Attendees, including U.S. citizens and some children, were detained and zip-tied, sparking fear in the community and criticism about family separations.
The Nampa Police Department sent 26 officers to the operation and spent $24,000 in wages that day, according to a Statesman analysis of information obtained via a records request. Of those officers, eight made at least $1,000 for working that day, thanks to overtime pay.
The Caldwell Police Department, the only agency that has admitted its officers zip-tied children, said in a records request that it spent $11,300 on personnel that day to cover 16 officers.
Two of the agencies, the Idaho State Police and the Canyon County Sheriff’s Office, did not provide information on wages that day.
The Idaho State Police said that it had no responsive documents and that it did not have to create a document with the information the Statesman asked for. The only agency resource used was the state police SWAT team, according to the state police response.
ISP spokesperson Aaron Snell previously told the Statesman that the agency assisted only with perimeter and crowd-management duties.
The Sheriff’s Office also said it had no responsive records.
Snell, when asked Wednesday how much state police spent on wages during the raid, said by email that this was the Statesman’s first request for information and to file a records request. In response to follow-up questions asking about the previous records requests, Snell wrote that he didn’t have the requested information and did not have the access to get it.
Canyon County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Joe Decker did not immediately return a request for information.
In a statement, Caldwell Police Chief Rex Ingram said the total amount allocated to police personnel was consistent with any other agency assist.
“As with any request for support from another law enforcement agency, CPD assigned available personnel to respond to assist with this call,” Ingram said in an email. “It may be important to remember that this incident was not a CPD operation, and CPD personnel responded only in a support capacity after a request for mutual assistance as we would to any other such request when we have personnel available to do so.”
Nampa police spokesperson Carmen Boeger said in an email that “safety and consistency drive our resource deployment.”
“We send the entire team and try to meet the needs of the requesting agency, as well as our own, to ensure success and safety of all involved,” she wrote.
Officials have celebrated the raid, with Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue writing in an email obtained through a records request that it was an “honor to participate.”
“On behalf of ICE/ERO, I also wanted to thank everyone for their support during this operation. We ended up with 105 arrests, which wouldn’t have been possible without everybody here,” wrote Ken Porter, an ICE official, in emails obtained through a records request. “Thank you for putting the Boise ICE office on the map!”
ERO stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations, which is part of ICE.
Ingram told KTVB-TV that he felt “very bad” and that “children, they don’t have parents now because they got shipped across the state or out of the country.”
Since the raid, several of the immigrants who were detained have since been released, after a judge rejected the Trump administration’s push for mandatory detention.
As for the five people facing the gambling charges, just one remains in jail after judges ruled that three had ties to the community and were not serious flight risks. The government did not seek to keep one suspect in jail.
The man still incarcerated previously faced an immigration hold, and he has a hearing scheduled on his detention for later this month.
Trial dates for the five named in the gambling investigation are set for May 2026.
