For the past 12 months more and more people are waking up to the fact that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is fundamentally an instrument of state violence.
The ICE murder of Renee Good amplified this reality for a lot of people, although ICE has killed many more people over the years, along with their ongoing arrests, sending people to detention facilities, which often leads to deportation. ICE has been doing this since they were founded in 2003. A major difference this year is that ICE has roughly 7 times more money to operate than in pervious years. For details on the evolution of ICE funding see my previous post.
Rep. Hillary Scholten post a new video which is clearly a response to the ICE killing of Renee Good. You can watch the 4:37 video here.
What Rep. Hillary Scholten has to say about ICE is the standard liberal response for how the federal government needs to respond to federal agencies, transparency and accountability. Sounds nice, but not everyone is so naive as to believe that the US government will practice real transparency or accountability.
At about 1:20 into the video Scholten talks about the number of people who have died in detention in 2025, but fails to mention that people have died in detention in previous years, even under Democratic administrations since ICE was created, specifically 8 years under Obama and 4 years under Biden. The Detention Watch Network has been documenting the people who have died in ICE detention centers since ICE was created. The ACLU has also been documenting and reporting on ICE detention center conditions, which have also been bad for as long as ICE has been around. Rep. Scholten frames ICE abuses to suggest that this is new and that it is only happening under the Trump Administration.
Rep. Scholten then talks about the issue of oversight, which has rarely happened when it comes to federal law enforcement agencies such as ICE. (See Silky Shah’s book, Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition.) Scholten continues to lay the blame at the feature of Republicans regarding ICE behavior in the video, but says she will do everything in her power to hold ICE accountable. This is standard political speak that translates into something like this – I can’t do anything because Democrats are not in power. The reality is that since ICE was created in 2003, the Obama and Biden administration, the years when Democrats also had a majority in Congress, did nothing to provide transparency, accountability or oversight of ICE.
Rep. Scholten concludes her remarks by saying that Congress has a responsibility to hold ICE accountable, which has never happened. More importantly, Rep. Scholten is not paying attention to polling which shows that a growing number of people in the US want to abolish ICE. ICE is only been around for 22 years and didn’t really have a significant problem with undocumented immigrants committing violence crimes prior to ICE being created, simply because immigrants don’t commit crime anywhere near the rate that US citizens do.
Lastly, Rep. Scholten fails to mention that she too has not been held accountable for her votes on immigration matters, such as voting for the Laken Riley Act at the beginning of 2025, legislation that further criminalized immigrants. In late January of 2025, Rep. Scholten voted for H.R. 30, which also criminalizes immigrants as I noted then. Then again in February of 2025, Rep., Scholten voted for HR 35, which also further criminalizes immigrants.
For as much as Rep. Scholten likes to remind us that she was an immigration lawyer, she continues to vote for policies that further criminalizes undocumented immigrants, and policies that the Republicans introduced. How could anyone take her seriously when it comes to accountability of ICE, especially with her voting record on immigration matters.
On Monday morning the group Together West Michigan held a Press Conference at a church in Grand Rapids to address an important topic – the violence that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is perpetrating against immigrant communities.
I was not able to attend this event, but I have read their statement and want to speak to that in particular.
The statement they released, and encouraged others to sign on to, is entitled, A Time for Light to Shine. Again, I am grateful that this group is making immigration, immigrants and ICE a public issue, especially since we have to examine and confront the non-stop terrorizing of immigrants by ICE in West Michigan and across the country.
Having said that I am a bit deflated and discouraged by their statement, which is rather vague and too tepid for what we know about ICE. I write this critique of their statement because I know that immigrants, particularly undocumented immigrants need the faith community right now and right now they need to be bold.
Part of the Together West Michigan statement reads:
- We call on ICE and all of those working with ICE to be people of the light, operating in the daylight and removing masks.
- We call on ICE and all of those working with ICE to allow each person they encounter to shed light upon their status—those who have passed initial asylum interviews and await their day in court, those refugees who have resettled in this area, those who are black or brown and are subject to racial profiling.
- We call on ICE and all of those working with ICE to be caring light to families who may have one or more members who are undocumented.
These statements are not bad statements, but I believe that they are problematic in two ways. First, the call is to ICE and those working with ICE to be people of light. I understand the sentiment, but ICE and those collaborating with ICE are inherently systems of oppression, indeed they are an instrument of state carceral violence. This is why immigrants, immigrant justice groups and a growing number people across the country are calling for ICE to be abolished.
Second, the tone of these sentences centers ICE and their accomplices to be agents of change. It’s as if those who wrote this statement want ICE to simply be more humane and kind. This sentiment ignores the history of ICE, which was created after 9/11 with the specific intent to criminalize and terrorize undocumented immigrants.
Another section of the statement reads:
- We call on commissioners and legislators at the local, state and federal level to use their light to review and hold accountable actions that dehumanize our neighbors and fracture their families.
- We call on commissioners and legislators at the local, state and federal level to cast light on the racist actions that have extinguished the light of hope the United States’ resettlement program has provided to refugees around the world.
- We call on legislators at the state and federal level to remove obstacles to H1B (specialized workers) and F1 (student) visas so that these newcomers can shine their lights in ways that further not only their own skills, but advance our country.
Again, these statements are not bad statements, but they center politicians and not the affected communities. I acknowledge that there are some (few) elected officials at the local, state and federal level that have been appalled by the actions of ICE and other immigration policies, but the overwhelming majority of elected officials have voted for funding of ICE and bad and oppressive immigration policies.
A third section of the statement reads:
- We call on houses of worship to be the light they are called to be, casting light on evil and flooding our community with acceptance and goodwill.
- We call on houses of worship to be the light they are called to be, assisting those who are burdened, because of anti-immigrant propaganda and activity, with material, emotional, and spiritual support.
- We call on houses of worship to provide open doors and acceptance to those desperately in need of hope and sanctuary.
These sentences are more to the point, especially the last two lines, which provide concrete actions that houses of worship can take to practice solidarity with undocumented immigrants. Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have a sanctuary team that is meeting with local faith communities to talk about offering sanctuary and what that looks like.
What we need from faith communities is to adopt the same kind of commitment that the Confessing Church did in Nazi Germany, which took a strong public stance against state violence and offered sanctuary and safe houses to Jewish people and other communities that were being targeted by the Hitler regime.
I was also disappointed that the statement did not include or encourage people of faith to join the campaigns that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have that is calling on the City of Grand Rapids and the Kent County government to adopt 6 sanctuary policies that would help reduce some of the violence that ICE is perpetrating in this community. These 6 sanctuary policies are concrete and come directly from the immigrant-led movement that Cosecha has been leading in this community since 2017.
The six sanctuary policies that Cosecha is demanding are:
- Policies restricting the ability of state and local police to make arrests for federal immigration violations, or to detain individuals on civil immigration warrants.
- Policies restricting the police or other county workers from asking about immigration status.
- Policies prohibiting “287(g)” agreements through which ICE deputizes local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law.
- Policies that prevent local governments from entering into a contract with the federal government to hold immigrants in detention.
- Policies preventing immigration detention centers from being established in Kent County, which would include the use of the Kent County Jail as a detention facility for ICE.
- A policy that will not allow the Kent County Sheriff’s Department to share Flock camera images or any other information gathered by county staff with ICE or any other law enforcement agency seeking to arrest, detain and deport immigrants.
In this existential moment, where ICE agents are terrorizing immigrants by kidnapping them, detaining them and deporting them, faith communities could play a vital role in being part of the resistance to state violence.
Again, I write these words not as criticism, but as an invitation to be part of the resistance work that is so necessary in this community. Let’s be bold in our words and our actions, even if it means we take risks to our own well being. As Archbishop Oscar Romero reminds us, “We must not love our lives so much that we avoid taking risks in life that history calls for.” History is calling for it NOW!
As the Trump Administration enacts brutal policies at home and abroad, it’s time that we learn from the radical Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Just to be clear, it has always been my contention that we should have been embracing the radical Dr. King, the real Dr. King all along, regardless of who sits in the White House. I say this because every administration engages in imperialism abroad, along with perpetuating state violence across the country. But now the curtain is pulled back even more, with the Trump administration being very candid about their use of state violence.
In his final book, Where Do We Go From Here?: Chaos or Community (1967), King offered a sobering take on the white legal backlash to the racial progress achieved by the struggle for Black equality. Many white Americans, King wrote, “have declared that democracy isn’t worth having if it involves [racial] equality…[their] goal is the total reversal of all reforms with the reestablishment of naked oppression and if need be a native form of fascism” whereby the law is wielded to guarantee white supremacy.
Black people were experiencing fascism in the US in 1967 as they had been every year prior to that. Read Bill Mullen’s book, We Charge Genocide!: American Fascism and the Rule of Law, for details of that reality.
We have to begin to see a Dr. King as someone who evolved during his short lifetime of being in the struggle. Dr. King always promoted and practiced direct action as part of the Black Freedom Struggle, from risking arrest in order to expose the structural racism and structural violence that was inherent in the US.
We have to embrace the Dr. King who in 1963 (“Letter From a Birmingham Jail”) wrote that the primary obstacle to overcoming American racial oppression wasn’t the open racism of segregation’s brutal enforcers but the tepid incrementalism of white moderates who counseled excessive patience and discouraged the mass direct action required to overthrow the Jim Crow regime.
We especially need to read what Dr. King was saying and doing after he moved his operations from the south and brought his family to live in Chicago where he experience a more overt forms of white supremacy. Read the book, King of the North: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Life of Struggle Outside the South, by Jeanne Theoharis and watch the documentary King in the Wilderness: The Last Years of MLK Jr.’s Life.
Dr. King organized people to challenge housing policies in Chicago, segregation and mobilized thousands to engage in direct action, such as taking over abandoned housing and turning it into housing for people, or the time that he led a march that shut down a major highway in Chicago, a disruptive tactic to pressure the City to adopt housing policies that would meet people’s needs.
We have to embrace the Dr. King who placed the primary blame for the US race riots of 1965-67 on a “white power structure…seeking to keep the walls of segregation and inequality intact” and a “white society, unprepared and unwilling to accept radical structural change,” that told Black people “they must expect to remain permanently unequal and permanently poor.”
We have to understand the King who denounced what he called “the interrelated triple evils” of racism, economic injustice/poverty (capitalism) and war (militarism and imperialism, and who said that the “real issue to be faced” beyond “superficial” matters was “the radical reconstruction of society itself” – the King who argued that “only by structural change can current evils be eliminated, because the roots are in the system rather in man or faulty operations. For years I labored with the idea of reforming the existing institutions of the South, a little change here, a little change there. Now I feel quite differently. I think you’ve got to have a reconstruction of the entire society, a revolution of values.”
We have to embrace a Dr. King who spoke out against American imperialism, most particularly against the US War on Vietnam, and who said on April 4, 1967, in his famous speech Beyond Vietnam — A Time to Break Silence. King stated “that a society that spent more money on military empire than on programs of social uplift was approaching spiritual death.”
In that same speech, Dr. King said, I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.
During Dr. King’s 1963 I Have a Dream speech, he stated “We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality.” Here is another quote on what the function of policing is in the US.
Dr. King was being monitored by the FBI for years and then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover said that Dr. King was “the most notorious liar in the country.”
Dr. King was received death threats for years and in the last few years of his short life he even recruited some members of the Deacons for Defense to act as body guards. See Charles Cobb’s book, This Nonviolent Stuff’ll Get You Killed: How Guns Made the Civil Rights Movement Possible.
Months before Dr. King was assassinated he began to organize the Poor People’s Campaign, which involved people impacted by poverty across the country. The plan was to occupy DC with thousands of people and not leave until their demands were met.
In the midst of the Poor People’s Campaign Dr. King went to Memphis to support the garbage workers who were striking for better working conditions and better wages. Dr. King had been working with labor unions for years, which is well documented in Michael Honey’s book, All Labor Has Dignity.
On April 4th, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis. However, despite the claim that King was killed by a lone assassin, the local police and the FBI were either complicit in Dr. King’s assassination or conspired to kill him, according to the book, An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King.
All of is to say that if we really want to honor the legacy of Dr. King, we need to know how radical he was and that he was seen by the power structure as a threat. If we want to honor the real Dr. King then we need to practice direct action in service of collective liberation and stop making nice with those in power.
Deconstructing memes: Coming to terms with the fact for BIPOC communities the US has always been a police state
With everything that is happening in the US these days you have to expect that there will be lots of misinformation on social media, particularly content that is created by people with privilege.
The latest example is a meme that says, “They are not really after illegals. They are using illegals as an excuse to create a police state aimed at you.”
This meme is rife with problems, but lets start with the person who created it, Brian Tyler Cohen. I mean, look at his website, which features a big picture of him, along with lots of “merch” for people to buy, merch that promotes him. Brian Tyler Cohen also identifies himself as a Democrat.
Second, using the word “illegals” is insulting and it is just not accurate. Undocumented immigrants are not illegals, they came to the US out of desperation to flee political violence, poverty and climate disasters. In addition, coming to the US without papers is not a criminal offense it is a civil infraction that doesn’t require jail or being sent to a detention facility.
Third, saying that undocumented people are just an excuse to create a police state aimed at you completely dismissed the fact that millions of undocumented immigrants have been arrested, detained and deported since ICE was created in 2003. Every Administration since then has arrested, detained and deported millions. Drawing attention away from the lived experiences of millions of undocumented immigrants is some white supremacist shit, especially when Brian Tyler Cohen says undocumented immigrants are being used to create a police state aimed at you. You, of course, means other white people, primarily white people who haven’t given a shit about the millions of undocumented immigrants that have been arrested, detained and deported since 2003 by both Republicans and Democrats.
Lastly, the fact that Brian Tyler Cohen is saying that the current administration is creating a police state completely erases the history of what Black, Indigenous and other communities of color have lived under since the US was founded, which has been a POLCE STATE.
The US has been committed to using genocidal practices to murder, remove and wipe out Indigenous culture and spirituality ever since Europeans came to the Americas. Whether it has been through bounty hunters, the US Calvary, the FBI or local cops, all of the equates to a POLICE STATE.
Black people who were forcibly removed from their homelands and then bought by white people through the system of chattel slavery was because the state was policing the bodies of Black people. When Black people fled slavery they were rounded by men who were deputized by the state who had the legal support of the state to return Black people to their white owners, that is a POLICE STATE.
During the Jim Crow the state created laws to criminalize being Black in order to uphold structural white supremacy. That is what a POLICE STATE looks like.
During the Civil Rights era, it was mostly cops – state violence workers – who brutalized Black people for demanding equality and were jailed for it, or worse murdered. That was a POLICE STATE.
The US has had the largest prison population on the planet for several decades, with a disproportionately high percentage of Black and Brown people being incarcerated. That is a POLICE STATE.
To say that the Trump Administration is now wanting to create a police state not only ignores history, it lets all other administrations off the hook for their role in perpetuating a POLICE STATE against marginalized communities. Brian Tyler Cohen should get his facts straight or better yet, he should shut the hell up!
GRIID Class on US Foreign Policy since WWII – Week #1: Developing a framework for understanding
I am sharing the content of what all the participants read and what was discussed during each of the eight week sessions in the GRIID class on the history of US foreign policy since WWII.
Participants were asked to look over some of the following online resources before week #1.
Military Industry influence peddling
I also shared several documents for them to look at which provide more context and a framework for how we can look at US involvement around the world no matter what country it involves. Another document is a sample of US Military interventions since WWII under each US President/Administration.
Then we also looked at and discussed to quotes from US government and military insiders that are important in terms of thinking about what the function of US foreign policy is. This first quote is from former Major General Smedley Butler, who is the highest ranking US military person in US history. In his book War is a Racket, Butler 
wrote:
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its “finger men” to point out enemies, its “muscle men” to destroy enemies, its “brain men” to plan war preparations, and a “Big Boss” Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
The second quote comes from George Kennan who was Director of Policy Planning of the U.S. Dept. of State in 1948. Kennan stated:
“We have 50 percent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population. . . In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will allow us to maintain this position of disparity. We should cease to talk about the raising of the living standards, human rights, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”
After looking at these larger US foreign policy frameworks, we then applied it to the example of Iraq, with the following timeline and narrative:
Historical Context – WWI demonstrated to the British that oil was an essential strategic resource to power the war machines and the Middle East was rich in oil.
1916 Sykes-Picot agreement, between Russia, the UK and France divided up most of what is now the Middle East, which the UK controlling Iraq.
1919 there was an Arab independence movement and the British responded by convening the League of Nations to ratify their colonial control.
1920 – Arab nationalists then fought the British, but the British military was far superior and brutally crushed the uprising. T.E. Lawrence and Winston Churchill both argued in favor of using poison gas. Churchill stated at the time, “I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. IU am strongly in favor of using poison gas against uncivilized tribes.”
1921 – Iraq was created by the British government behind closed doors. Iraqis were not fit to govern themselves. King Faisal was chosen by the British government to rule Iraq.
1925 – King Faisal was forced by the British government to sign a 75-year concession granting the foreign owned Iraq Petroleum Company all rights to Iraq’s oil.
After WWII there were 3 major things that happened: The US became the leading world power; oil became central to global power; and the US shifted from domestic oil production to global oil production.
In 1950 Persian Gulf Oil cost about 5 to 15 cents a barrel to produce, but sold for $2.25 a barrel.
1952 – massive demonstrations began against the British and the monarchy. It was violently repressed.
1958 – a military led uprising began, with the King and his son shot dead.Coup was led by Gen. Abdul Qasim. Iraq now wanted part of the control of Iraqi oil. The UK/US alliance would not budge, so in 1960 Iraq invited Saudi Arabia, Iran Kuwait and Venezuela to create what is now called OPEC – Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
By the late 1950s, the US began a covert campaign to destabilize Iraq, primarily led by the CIA. Part of this effort was to develop relationships with leadership in the Ba’ath Party.
There were attempts by members of the Ba’ath Party to assassinate Qasim, including a young Saddam Hussein.
1968 – Ba’ath Party takes control of Iraq through a military coup. At the time Saddam was head of the Revolutionary Command Council (RCC) and by the mid-70s he was the most powerful figure in Iraqi politics.
In the 1970s, the US attempted to undermine the Ba’ath Party, since it was becoming to independent of the US. They attempted to use the Kurds against the Ba’athists.
1980 – 1990 the Iraq/Iran war took place, with the US arming both sides.
1990 – Build up to the Persian Gulf War
January 16, 1991 the US begins bombing campaign against Iraq. Less than 2 months later the war ended, without the removal of Saddam Hussein.
Beginning in 1991 the most brutal economic sanctions were imposed on Iraq, sanctions that lasted until months after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq began. 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of the sanctions in combination with the devastation from the 1991 US bombing. Asked on TV, then US Secretary of State, Madaline Albright was asked if it was worth it for so many Iraqi children had died. She said, “It was worth it.”
2003 – US invasion of Iraq began
2009 – Soft US troop withdrawal began
Iraq in a constant state of instability – factions, ISIS, oil.
(Map above shows US military bases in Iraq.)
Geo-Politics
Arab Nationalism and anti-Colonialism was a major source of US geopolitical concern beginning in the 1950s.
1953 CIA coup in Iran, which ousted Mossadegh and put in power the Shah, who ruled until he was overthrown in 1979, by an Islamist movement, which the US had support decades earlier.
Turkey began a relationship with the US after WWII, military aid, etc because of their strong anti-Communist stance and the repression of an independent Kurdish state. US has had military bases since 1955.
US Saudi Arabia relations began prior to WWII, but increased after the war, allowing US troops to deploy, joint military training and deep relationship between the US and the Saudi monarchy.
Syria – US has had a difficult relationship with. Numerous CIA coups were attempted and it has always been contentious.
Jordan – has been an ally since WWII
Lebanon – has been an ally since WWII
1956 – Nasser comes to power in Egypt. There were tension between the US and Egypt, but when Sadat became president that changed, along with the Arab/Israeli war. Egypt became one of the top recipients of US military aid and a player against Arab nationalism.
Israel – the US has had a special relationship since its founding in 1948, but especially after the 1973 war with Egypt. Israel has been the number one recipient of US military aid since 1975 and acts essentially as the police of the region.
Economic Interest – oil, re-writing Iraqi Constitution and applying US Shock Doctrine to Iraq’s economy.
Human Rights/Human Cost – Iraq lost 200,000 during Iran/Iraq War
10 – 12,000 Iraqis died during the Gulf War.
Sanctions from 1991 – 2003 killed half a million children and 40,000 adults.
1 million Iraqis died during the US invasion/occupation of Iraq from 2003 – 2008.
US Troop loses during Gulf War – Gulf War syndrome, use of depleted uranium. 150 during invasion, undetermined from Gulf War Syndrome
US troop loses during 2003 – 2008 invasion/occupation 4,500, with 32,000 wounded.
US Military Complex – What US taxpayers spent on the war since 2003, includes US military Aid, US military bases, use of private military contractors, Defense Contractor profits.
US Media Coverage
Gulf War – First Cable News War/24 Hour War
2003 invasion/occupation
GRIID Study of 2003 US invasion
US Domestic response – 1991 Gulf War demonstrations, Teach-Ins, civil disobedience. Grand Rapids History.
2003 Invasion/Occupation – demonstrations before it started, Teach-Ins, civil disobedience, counter-recruitment organizing, targeting war profiteers, Iraq war veterans resistance. 10 part series on GR People’s History Project.
Doug DeVos re-introduces his dad’s book Believe, trashes socialism and thinks the country was founded on the principles of free enterprise
I recently listed to a December 2025 interview with Doug DeVos who is now re-branding his father’s book Believe! as a way to perpetuate the awful ideological principle that gave birth to Amway and made the DeVos family the most powerful family in West Michigan.
The interview is conducted by Aaron Renn who has his own show. Renn is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Public Research, which is a far right think tank, very much like the Mackinac Center for Public Policy here in Michigan.
The interview with Doug DeVos is just seconds shy of 35 minutes, which you can watch here on YouTube.
There are for me important parts of this interview that I was to highlight and comment on. This first section I want to talk about is where the interviewer quotes Rich DeVos talking about patriotism (8:40 into the interview). “At a time when flag waving is discouraged I don’t apologize for an old fashioned, hand over heart brand of patriotism. I believe that America is the greatest country in the world with the richest past, the brightest future and the most exciting present of any nation anywhere.”
Nothing of what Rich DeVos says in this quote should be surprising. DeVos, a white, wealthy, Christian man, who made his wealth on the pyramid scheme company Amway, originally wanted to call the company the American Way.
A second theme I wanted to look at begins at 19:30 in the video where the interviewer wants Doug DeVos to talk about why he thinks that socialism is appealing to people, particularly young people. Doug’s responses are interesting, first with the idea that people who don’t have a sense of themselves are more susceptible to the appeal of socialism.
The second generation Amway executive also tries to point out that socialism has been tried before. Of course DeVos provides no examples and doesn’t provide any analysis of socialism, because he has no real knowledge of what it means and how it has been applied around the world in various ways. Instead DeVos invokes this notion that people want to come here, so we must be doing something right. Really? Lets look at the millions of undocumented immigrants that have come to the US in recent years. They are coming because the US is so great, they are coming because they are desperate to flee political violence and poverty, which are realities that the US has helped to create in the countries just south of the border.
DeVos also attempts to claim that the US was founded on the principles of free enterprise, focus on the importance of family and people being able to celebrate their religious beliefs. I’m sorry, the US was founded on Settler Colonialist values of taking indigenous land, engaging in genocidal policies and profiting off the labor of Africans who were enslaved by white owners.
In the section on free enterprise (beginning at 22:20) Doug says that we have been fighting poverty for 60 years, which is likely a reference to the Johnson Administration’s war on poverty program. DeVos believes that hasn’t worked, but provides no analysis of why it didn’t work, so there is no discussion of how capitalism morphed into neoliberal capitalism, with increased state intervention and policies change to imposed austerity measures, push privatization, deregulation and create tax policies that would benefit families like the DeVos family. Doug’s solution is to create wealth, which sounds nice, but it means go into business for yourself, be an entrepreneur. The problem with the idea of wealth creation is that only a small percentage of people within a capitalist system will be able to create wealth, because it is always at the expense of the masses.
There are a few other sections where DeVos talks about the “regulatory state” and America vs China, but just like the rest of this interview Doug just repeats his father’s ideas and offers no substantive critique of what he doesn’t like and what he thinks works. For a decades-long critique of the DeVos family check out my 800 plus page document entitled the DeVos Family Reader.
There has been a tremendous amount of push back from communities all across the country try and in West Michigan regarding proposed Data Centers.
In December GRIID interviewed people in Lowell who have been organizing to oppose a proposed Data Center in their community and they have been doing an amazing job pushing back against the proposal at local government meetings.
I recently came across an event, shown here in the flyer on the right. This event will feature panelists, but when I inquired about who will be speaking I have not received a response.
The promotional language for this event on January 22nd states:
“Exploring & unpacking the rapid rise of data centers and their growing role in Michigan’s AI-driven economy. This community conversation, led by some the industry’s brightest minds, will explore the economic opportunities data centers create, the infrastructure and energy challenges they introduce, and the long-term implications for communities, workforce development, and regional competitiveness.”
This narrative seems to be very pro-Data Center, plus the event is being held at Start Garden, which is a DeVos-created entity that has been part of Rick DeVos’ Wakestream Ventures and now operates as the Start Garden Foundation, according to GuideStar.org.
People who are informed and mobilized around opposing Data Centers might want to attend this forum, since the panelists are unlikely to provide substantive critiques or reveal the full community impacts that Data Centers can have.
ICE was created out of fear and retribution: ICE can be abolished by resistance and solidarity with immigrants
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003. In 2003, the Homeland Security Act separated ICE from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
The Homeland Security Act was overwhelmingly adopted by Congress in 2002, with the House passing it 295-132 and the Senate 90-9. Therefore, the creation of the Department of Homeland Security had bi-partisan support.
Thus the creation of ICE comes out of the US Government’s response to 9/11 and their so-called war on terrorism. ICE was created as a more militarized version of INS, allowing federal agents to use force to apprehend immigrants they deemed to be a threat to the county. The reality has been all along that ICE has primarily targeted undocumented immigrants and engaged in racial profiling in the process.
ICE funding has always been substantial, receiving $3.3 billion 2003 and expanding to $9 billion in 2024. This means that in every administration since it was created – Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden – each administration has endorsed ICE operations and every Congress since 2003 has voted to fund ICE.
In March of 2025, Congress voted to increase the ICE budget to $10 billion. Then there was the Beautiful Big Bill, which provided the largest increase to ICE making ICE the highest funding federal law enforcement agency in US history.
The so-called One Big Beautiful Act allocates more than $170 billion over four years for border and interior enforcement, with a stated goal of deporting 1 million immigrants each year. Of that $170 billion ICE will receive $75 billion over a four year period or an additional $18.7 billion per year.
The other entity that increased its budget from the Big Beautiful Bill was Customs and Border Protection (CBP). CBP operates along the US/Mexican and the US/Canadian borders. Remember, Michigan shares some of its borders with Canada, which is why there is CBP presence in this state.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative local jails play a major role in the apprehension of immigrants for ICE, especially in states, counties and cities that have not adopted policies that would prevent local cooperation with ICE. See graphic above.
From a recent report by the Prison Policy Initiative they write:
Despite overwhelming displays of power and intimidating rhetoric, the federal government nonetheless relies heavily on state and local collaboration to enact its mass deportation agenda. The Trump administration is therefore vulnerable to state and local policy action that goes beyond merely limiting sheriffs and police from deputizing officers to work as immigration agents. This weakness is evident in the data, which show significantly smaller jumps in arrest rates in states where advocates have most aggressively worked to reject collaboration, and much higher rates in states that have embraced it.
This is exactly why it is vitally important for people who live in Kent County to get behind the campaign that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been demanding for the past year to adopt 6 sanctuary policies for the City of Grand Rapids and for Kent County.
The six sanctuary policies are:
- Policies restricting the ability of state and local police to make arrests for federal immigration violations, or to detain individuals on civil immigration warrants.
- Policies restricting the police or other county workers from asking about immigration status.
- Policies prohibiting “287(g)” agreements through which ICE deputizes local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law.
- Policies that prevent local governments from entering into a contract with the federal government to hold immigrants in detention.
- Policies preventing immigration detention centers from being established in Kent County, which would include the use of the Kent County Jail as a detention facility for ICE.
- A policy that will not allow the Kent County Sheriff’s Department to share Flock camera images or any other information gathered by county staff with ICE or any other law enforcement agency seeking to arrest, detain and deport immigrants.
Historically there has been bipartisan support for ICE and there has never been an elected member of Congress who has called for the defunding and abolition of ICE. We cannot vote our way out of this mess, but we can resist ICE at the local level.
This is why it is critical that if people are really pissed off at ICE, then they should get involved in the daily resistance work that Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE do, plus join the campaigns to pressure Kent County and the City of Grand Rapids to adopt the six sanctuary policies listed above. This is exactly how social change has happened throughout the centuries…..from the ground up.
Moving from protesting ICE to resisting ICE
Since last Wednesday, when ICE agents killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, we have seen tens of thousands of people take to the streets demanding justice and in many cases calling for ICE to be abolished.
It is always encouraging to see people push back against state repression, which right now for many people is Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). There are many mainstream groups like 50501 and Indivisible that are also protesting ICE. And while I support people focusing on ICE and making demands against that government agency I believe we need to be more strategic with our actions.
ICE doesn’t really care if hold a sign outside their office, at the airport or at major intersections in any given town. What ICE doesn’t want to see happen is for the public to directly interfere with their desire to apprehend, arrest and detain undocumented immigrants. As a longtime participant with GR Rapid Response to ICE I have seen first hand how ICE agents are frustrated when people make it difficult for them to do what the federal government wants them to do.
Now, imagine if the tens of thousands of people who protested ICE, held signs, hosted rallies/vigils and made statements condemning the ICE murder of Renee Good had redirected their energy in a strategic way, in a way that would directly benefit the very people that ICE is targeting – undocumented immigrants.
- Imagine if people protesting ICE would build relationships with undocumented immigrants, then listen to what they want, so that they could keep themselves and their families safe.
- Imagine if people responded to calls for direct intervention when ICE attempts to kidnap undocumented immigrants in Kent County.
- Imagine if every immigrant who has an appointment at the ISAP office or immigration court was accompanied by allies that would reduce the chance of being taken b y ICE.
- Imagine if there were teams of people doing patrols in neighborhoods where immigrants live/work and where immigrants have told us that they have seen ICE operating.
- Imagine if there were faith communities, community centers, non-profits and other entities that would declare themselves as sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants.
- Imagine if families that were directly impacted by ICE violence were supported by the community with transportation, material aid, financial aid and legal support for those being detained.
- Imagine if there was an organized campaign to get local government bodies to adopt sanctuary policies that would make it harder for ICE to arrest and detain immigrants.
Guess what??? You don’t have to imagine the things listed here above, since this is what Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE are already doing on a daily basis. Both of these groups are strategically resisting ICE and expanding the number of people and organizations that want to move beyond protesting ICE to concretely resisting ICE, primarily by making it harder for ICE to kidnap and detain undocumented immigrants in Kent County.
This type of work is strategic, but it is also not operating in a reactionary manner. Yes, the ICE murder of Renee Good was brutal, but ICE has killed primarily undocumented immigrants since they were created in 2003 and they have been terrorizing millions of immigrants over the past 23 years by arresting them, detaining them and deporting them. These acts of violence have created tremendous financial and social hardship for millions of immigrants, all of which have also been traumatized by these experiences, especially immigrant children.
If you want to be part of this work, part of resisting ICE in Kent County, then support the work of Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE. Take one of the monthly trainings that GR Rapid Response to ICE offers. If you are unsure about how best to be involved in this work, just ask GR Rapid Response to ICE by sending an Email info@grrapidresponsetoice.org or come and talk with them at the Melt ICE concert on February 15th.
Last week I posted an article that was critical of the GR A250 group, which was created to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US and the 175th anniversary of the founding of Grand Rapids.
I have also noted in a previous post that the steering committee for the GR A250 group is dominated by members of the GR Power Structure.
The types of posts that the GR A250 group is making continues to represent GR history through the lens of those in power or what insurgent historian Howard Zinn refers to as the “historical winners.”
I want to share recent GR A250 posts and then provide some counter stories and/or analysis.
Cops and Freedom
The first post from GR A250 I want to look at is from 5 days ago, which features a 29 second video where two GRPD cops are asked what freedom means to them. WTF! This video is not only insulting it completely ignores the long standing history and recent history of how the GRPD has brutalized BIPOC people in Grand Rapids, including the murder of Patrick Lyoya in 2022 and the trial for the cop that killed him him just last May. See the GRIID coverage and analysis of how the commercial news media reported on that trial in the GRIID news study report, specifically pages 6 – 10.
Events and growth in GR
The second post from GR A250 was four days ago, with the following narrative – “Grand Rapids has always known how to gather, grow and build from generation to generation. It’s what makes our city special.” The post includes three examples – 1) a balloon race in the early 1900s that took place in East GR; 2) the Christkindl Markt that started in 2023; and 3) Construction on the Amway Stadium for the new professional soccer team that is owned by both the DeVos and Van Andel families.
Not surprising all of these events have primarily benefited the wealthiest families in Grand Rapids. What the GR A250 excluded when talking about events that speak to how people gather could have been the 6000 plus furniture workers that went on strike for months in Grand Rapids in 1911, which was followed by 10,000 Grand Rapidians showing up to support those workers during the Labor Day march that same year. A more recent example of people coming together could be the largest march in GR history in 2006 where 10,000 march for immigrant justice.
Centering the DeVos patriarch
The third post from GR A250 was also four days ago, which celebrates the “Believe! 50th Anniversary Edition is being released with new reflections from Doug DeVos.” The narrative says in part: “The timeless principles that have been a guide for previous generations – free enterprise, human dignity and family – help keep the American Dream alive when everyday people put them into practice. Believe! Helps restore and reinforce those principles for a new generation.”
Of course the GR A250 group would celebrate this bullshit, not only because Doug DeVos is on the steering committee, but because the DeVos family has had the most influence on GR politics in recent decades than any other family, and to the exclusion of thousands of families that are struggling to survive in Grand Rapids. As an alternative check out the GRIID DeVos Family Reader for a very different narrative.
Celebrating Business leaders, not workers
The fourth post from GR A250 was three days ago and celebrates Anna Bissell who was the first female CEO in Grand Rapids. Bissell has a statue honoring her in front of the DeVos Convention Center, which was part of the Peter Secchia-led monuments campaign. To read an alternative narrative about Anna Bissel check out a post from the GR People’s History Project entitled, Anna Bissell Statue in Grand Rapids: Honoring another Capitalist.
With the direction that the GR A250 Facebook page is going I plan to write articles that counter these narratives where history is made by people with power with narratives from a people’s history of Grand Rapids.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 