Walmart Heiress Christy Walton Takes Out Full-Page Times Ad on ICE Detentions

Walmart heiress Christy Walton appears to have taken out a full-page ad in Sunday's New York Times calling for the release of the reported 70% of people in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody being held without a criminal record.

The ad begins with a reprinting of the text of the Fourth Amendment, the clause in the Bill of Rights protecting Americans against unlawful searches and seizures and requiring probable cause for warrants. From there, it builds its case with data. A digital version of the ad cites a study published last November by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, which found that 73% of people in ICE custody since October 2025 had no previous criminal conviction, while only 8% had previous convictions for either violent or property crimes. The ad's demand uses a rounded figure: it calls on the government to "free the 70% of those in custody of ICE without a criminal conviction" and "hold due process on those who remain."

The Cato numbers carry weight beyond the ad itself. Of the 44,882 people booked into ICE custody from when the fiscal year began on October 1 through November 15, 73% had no criminal convictions, according to the institute's director of immigration studies, David Bier, who had previously reported in June that 65% of people taken by ICE had no convictions. The November figure represented a significant acceleration in detentions of people without any criminal record.

The ad does not appear connected to a wider organization or protest, unlike her full page ad placed last year promoting the "No Kings" protests, and the text states its "views represented here are solely those of Christy Walton." The ad ran in Sunday's issue of the New York Times and appears to have run in several smaller papers over the weekend, although a representative for Walton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

For anyone at Walmart who has followed ownership news over the years, Walton is a familiar name even if a private figure. Her net worth is estimated at $22.9 billion, making her the 108th-wealthiest person in the world. Walton married Walmart heir John Walton and inherited part of his stake in the retail giant after he died in a 2005 plane crash. Although she is known for leading a private life in Wyoming, she has more recently emerged as a prolific donor for anti-Trump political causes.

Last June, Walton asked Americans to "mobilize" in the "No Kings" protests against Trump. The ICE detentions ad marks a sharper, more legally focused argument: rather than a broad civic appeal, it opens with constitutional text and closes with a specific numerical demand tied to government data.

Walmart did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company's silence is notable but not surprising; Walmart has long kept distance from the political activities of individual members of the founding family. The ad itself draws that line explicitly, stating the views belong solely to Christy Walton.

What the ad does, regardless of any response it draws, is pull a statistical argument out of policy circles and put it in front of the widest possible general audience. Of people booked into ICE custody this fiscal year, nearly three in four had no criminal conviction, and nearly half had no criminal conviction nor even any pending criminal charges. That number, amplified by a full-page print buy in the country's most-read newspaper, is now considerably harder to ignore.