Kim Kardashian is best known for her reality television career and billion-dollar business ventures, but her criticism of US immigration enforcement has become part of a much longer public commitment to criminal justice and immigrant rights.

After speaking out against immigration raids in Los Angeles in June 2025, Kardashian went a step further in January 2026, making a donation to an organisation that advocates for immigrant families.

The development offers a clearer picture of how her position has evolved from a public statement into financial support for those challenging the consequences of immigration enforcement.

What Kim Kardashian said about ICE raids

On 10 June 2025, as federal immigration operations sparked protests across Los Angeles, Kardashian used Instagram to criticise the treatment of immigrant families.

Her message acknowledged the stated public-safety purpose of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), while questioning how immigration laws were being enforced.

"When we're told that ICE exists to keep our country safe and remove violent criminals, great. But when we witness innocent, hardworking people being ripped from their families in inhumane ways, we have to speak up," she wrote.

Kardashian also drew on her experience growing up in Los Angeles, describing immigrants as an integral part of the city's communities, workplaces and families.

Rather than arguing that immigration laws should not exist, her statement focused on the consequences enforcement operations could have for people who had built their lives in the United States.

Her comments were reported by The Independent on 11 June 2025, making clear that the remarks were not a recent response to events in October 2026.

She later backed an immigrant rights organisation

On 30 January 2026, Kardashian publicly expressed solidarity with families affected by immigration enforcement, referring to several deaths and calling for accountability and more compassionate treatment.

She also announced that she had donated to the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), an organisation that works to protect and advance the rights of low-income immigrants and their families.

Unlike a social media statement, the donation represented a tangible contribution to an organisation involved in immigration rights advocacy.

The NILC confirmed the donation in an official statement issued that day.

Its president, Kica Matos, thanked Kardashian for supporting immigrant communities and acknowledged the influence of her previous criminal justice reform work.

The organisation did not disclose the amount donated in its announcement, so the financial scale of Kardashian's contribution remains unclear.

Her advocacy goes back further than the ICE controversy

Kardashian's involvement in legal reform predates her public criticism of immigration enforcement.

In 2018, she successfully advocated for clemency for Alice Marie Johnson, who had spent more than two decades in federal prison following a drug-related conviction.

After Kardashian met Donald Trump at the White House, the president commuted Johnson's sentence in June 2018. Trump subsequently granted Johnson a full pardon in 2020.

Her advocacy has also crossed political administrations. In April 2024, Kardashian participated in a White House discussion with then-Vice President Kamala Harris about clemency, rehabilitation and opportunities for people with criminal convictions, as documented by the Associated Press.

That history provides important context for her immigration statements. Kardashian has previously worked with Trump on individual clemency cases, while also publicly challenging enforcement policies under his administration.

Her June 2025 remarks and January 2026 donation therefore tell a more specific story than a celebrity simply weighing in on a political controversy: they show her extending an established interest in the justice system towards the treatment of immigrants and their families.

Whether that advocacy leads to measurable policy changes is a separate question. What is documented is that Kardashian's position has involved both public criticism of ICE operations and financial support for an organisation working on immigrant rights.