History of US Immigration Policy: Summary of GRIID Class week #4 – Why people leave their countries to come to the US
For anyone who could not join the class tonight or who couldn’t find time to be part of this class, I want to share a summary of what was discussed. I also want to provide links and resources for anyone who wants to do their own investigation on the history of US immigration policy.
As with each of the 8 weeks of this class we will rely on the Popular Education resource I created and update regularly. The Popular Education resource provides an important overview of this history, along with a list of books and online resources that can help us with developing a robust analysis of the history of US immigration policy and how to frame it.
In week #1 we relied heavily on the book, No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the US/Mexican border, which look at the way that Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Jewish and even German immigrants have been treated since the mid-1800s.
In week #2 we the responded to the question about why so many immigrants were coming, especially those who were risking their lives to enter the US/Mexican border at unsanctioned border points.
For week #3 I focused heavily on the anti-immigrant narrative or the xenophobic narrative(s) about immigrants that politicians and US news media companies use when talking about undocumented immigrants.
For week #4 we talked about why people are taking the risk of coming to the US without documentation and what the root causes of displacement are.
We all read an overview article on the history of US interventions in Central America and discussed the motives of the US government for their support of US corporate interests and regional control of Central America. We then did a more detailed account of the US History with Guatemala.
History of US relations with Guatemala
The US government has always had an interest in the rest of the Americas to the south, including Mexico, Central and South America, along with the Caribbean countries. In fact, the Monroe Doctrine adopted in the early part of the 19th century was essentially a policy that said that all of Latin America was the back yard of the US and only the US has a right to what happens in that part of the Americas.
During much of the first half of the 19th century the US was also pressing Latin American countries to maintain a slave system, since the US would also benefit from it, especially after Haiti rose up and defeated the French colonizers and ended slavery. The book, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy, documents this dynamic in detail.
However, a major driving force for US interest in Latin America was economic interests. With Guatemala it was coffee, then bananas. The US-based United Fruit Company quickly bought own a great deal of land in Guatemala, quite often the best land. Various Guatemalan leaders from the late 19th century into the 20th century were happy to support United Fruit’s exploitation of the land and the workers of Guatemala. In fact, by the 1930s people were referring to the United Fruit Company as El Pulpo, the octopus, because the company had its tentacles in everything.
However, Guatemalans became increasingly frustrated with being exploited, so in 1944 then they ended the dictatorship of Jorge Ubico (who was a fan of the Nazis) and elected a progressive government that made significant reforms, especially land reforms. The United Fruit Company was so enraged by these policies that the sough assistance from the US government to overthrow the Guatemalan government. In 1954 the CIA organized a coup and Guatemala and put in place another military dictator, since the interest of the United Fruit Company was more important than the people of Guatemala, You can see from the graphic here on the right how integrated the United Fruit Company was in the US government.
During the Cold War Guatemala acted as a proxy for the US, even allowing for US military to use Guatemala as a base for the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. Beginning in the 1970s, there was a growing insurgency movement throughout Central American and many Guatemalans began to support an armed uprising. Various Guatemalan administrations, beginning in the mid-1970s engaged in massive repression of the civilian population, disappearing tens of thousands, displacing 200,000 and murdering over 100,000, in what Amnesty International referred to as a genocidal campaign during the regime of Rios Montt. Throughout all of this the US was providing millions in weapons sales, training and advisors to the Guatemalan military. (See Aviva Chomsky’s book, Central America’s Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Immigration)
Eventually, there was a ceasefire in 1995, followed by internationally observed elections. However, root causes of the conflict were not resolved nor did the military reduce their numbers or end their repressive tactics. Guatemalans are still uncovering clandestine mass graves, plus those seeking justice are being targeted by the Guatemalan authorities.
As soon as the peace accords were signed there were efforts around exposing those responsible for the deaths, disappearance, torture and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalans. The Guatemalan Catholic Church spent two years interviewing people and in 1998 published a human rights report titled Guatemala: Nunca más (Guatemala: Never Again). This report was built around previous work done by Guatemalan human rights groups, which were targeted by government death squads, groups like Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo (GAM). We know this happened, since the US-based group the National Security Archives gained access to Guatemalan military documents, such as the Death Squad Dossier.
Two days after the Catholic Church’s report Nunca Mas was released, the Bishop who was overseeing this project, Bishop Gerardi, was assassinated. A few years after this assassination it was discovered that a Guatemalan military officer, Colonel Byron Disrael Lima Estrada, orchestrated Gerardi’s assassination. Colonel Byron Disrael Lima Estrada also received extensive training at the US Army School of the Americas, based at Fort Benning, Georgia.
In 2006, Guatemala, along with the rest of Central America, adopted a so-called trade agreement with the US, known as the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). CAFTA provided easier access for multinational corporations to exploit Guatemalan resources and labor. According to a report entitled, CAFTA’s Tragic Legacy in Central America: Failed Trade Policy That Drove Millions From Their Homes, “from 2005 to 2014, the number of undocumented immigrants from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala living in the United States increased 49 percent, 122 percent and 73 percent, respectively.”
The Guatemalan currency has become increasingly devalued over the past several decades and the influence of US and other multinational corporations has been devastating for a large percentage of the Guatemalan population, which has forced thousands of them to flee the country and come to the US to earn a living and be able to support their families.
This is exactly why Mario David Coronado Juarez came to the US. Mario was unable to obtain a visa from his own government, primarily because it is too expensive for most people to afford. Due to limited economic opportunities Mario took the risk to come to the US in order to support his family.
Combined with over a century of US military and economic intervention in Guatemala, using violence and exploitation of land and workers, you can see why people like Mario make the difficult choice to do whatever they can to support their families. Guatemalans like Mario fled state terrorism and exploitation that the US funded only to end up being the target of state violence in the US. This is a reality for most undocumented immigrants and we need to come to terms with this reality if we ever want to have a truly just immigration policy.
US History according to Doug DeVos
“As we’ve empowered more people, we’ve made America the freest, wealthiest, and most successful nation in human history!” Doug DeVos
Doug DeVos wrote a short essay recently, which is part of a 50th anniversary edition of his father’s book Believe!. His essay is entitled, Why We Should Always Believe! in America.
Early on in his essay DeVos does acknowledge that the founding fathers were flawed, stating:
They enslaved black people. They restricted the right to vote to landowners and didn’t even consider extending that right to women. None of us should overlook the founders’ sins or try to excuse them.
Unfortunately, Doug DeVos spends the rest of the article talking about how great America is and how it “has undeniably changed the world for the better, lifting up billions of people along the way.” DeVos never substantiates such a claim, but he does continue to use lofty language to celebrate what America is.
Doug DeVos even chastises people who are critical of the history of the US, stating:
But along the way, and especially in the past fifty years, a lot of people have started thinking that all our progress springs from a poisoned seed. They say that the evils of the founding define our country. So America has been evil ever since.
This is an over simplification of what “a lot of people” have been saying. Beginning in the 1960s there was a shift in what was being taught at the university level, where students and faculty began researching and thinking independently about the history of the US. People were waking up to how US history was taught and started looking at history through the lens of African Americans, Native Americans, Chicanos, through the lived experience of women, of workers and immigrants. Courses were being developed to teach more independent and critical accounts of US history and university departments started include Black studies, feminist studies, etc.
These critical assessments of US history were not limited to, as DeVos states, a poisoned seed, but were rooted in an understanding that systems of power and oppression continued to evolve and morph in ways that perpetually benefitted those with more privilege and power, something that DeVos fails to acknowledge or understand.
What is even more offensive is that DeVos then decides he needs to use someone from history who has been oppressed, but still thinks America is great. Here the aire to the Amway wealth uses the words of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass to make his point.
“Here DeVos writes: Years later, Frederick Douglass posed a question: “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” His answer: The Fourth of July is everything, because America is built on “saving principles.” Douglass implored his fellow Americans of all races and creeds: “Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”
If a former slave like Frederick Douglass could say those words, if he could dedicate his life to making America live by the principles espoused by the founders, surely we can do the same.”
Note that DeVos only quotes Douglass in the words that are in bold, but none of the rest of his speech entitled What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” People should read the entire speech, which you can find here. I am including the following excerpt from Douglass’ speech and would suggest that his analysis of the US would include him in the very company that Doug DeVos dismisses earlier in his essay.
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy – a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me, that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
In addition to his deeply distorted understanding of US history, Doug DeVos fails to address the fact that his existence as a member of DeVos family and being part of the billionaire class means that everything he does contributes to maintaining the privilege and power he and his family has at the expense of the majority of people.
Doug DeVos can say that the US is the greatest country on the planet all he wants, but what he really means is that the economic and political systems in the US are great for him, his family and the class of people he conspires with. Doug DeVos will preach that if you work hard enough and just become an entrepreneur that you too can enjoy the kind of life that he has. Of course this is absurd, since there are always a small percentage of the population that will have the wealth and power that he and his family has, no matter how hard they work.
Equally important is the fact that the DeVos family uses their wealth in ways that perpetuates inequality and tries to diminish the social and political gains made since the 1960s. Here are just a few:
- Doug DeVos primarily uses his wealth to expand the wealth of his family, by expanding business interests and investments.
- Doug DeVos uses his wealth to influence public policy at the federal, state and local level by contributing millions to Republican candidates that want to role back civil rights, deregulate the private sector, privatize parts of the public sector, do away with DEI policies, undermine labor unions, attack those who are trans or queer, and subvert public education in a multifaceted way, which includes dictating a curriculum that teaches history the way that people like the DeVos family view history.
- Doug DeVos hides some of his money in his foundation to prevent it from being taxed, the uses that money to fund right wing agendas and provide smaller amounts to non-profits in order to purchase a public image.
Like all billionaires Doug DeVos is a con man, a hypocrite and a coward because he refuses to acknowledge the harm that he and his family have perpetrated in the US and around the world. Indeed, Doug DeVos would likely agree with Napoleon Bonaparte’s assessment of history – “History is a set of lies agreed upon.”
The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce says to vote no on Prop 2: Always defending the interests of the Capitalist Class
There are several statewide ballot initiatives in Michigan this election cycle, with Proposal 2 being one that has generated a great deal of interest.
According to the Michigan Secretary of State, the language of Prop 2 reads:
A proposed initiated law to prohibit campaign contributions from certain regulated utilities and government contractors and apply campaign finance laws and regulations to additional types of political communications
The proposal would:
Prohibit regulated electric and gas utilities, contractors with over $250,000 annually in government contracts, and people and organizations with substantial connections to these utilities/contractors from making direct or indirect campaign contributions to those who run for or hold offices that impact them.
Expand laws regulating spending on political communications, including those requiring disclosing donor information, to apply to communications clearly identifying candidates or ballot questions, even if they do not expressly advocate voting for/against them.
Expressly apply the law requiring disclosure of who paid for political communications to internet political communications.
The Michigan-based far right think tank the Mackinac Center for Public Policy says that Prop 2 would, “Increase Government Power to Regulate Political Speech.” In other words, they are against Prop 2. The Michigan Chamber of Commerce states:
Political speech shouldn’t depend on who employs you or does business with government. Michigan should promote transparency and accountability while applying the rules fairly and protecting the ability of individuals and organizations to participate in the political process.
The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce uses a similar argument that the statewide Chamber of Commerce uses, stating:
Proposal 2 would turn around and punish those businesses by limiting their ability to support candidates that they align with politically.
Ultimately, if Prop 2 passes, it will limit the ability of utility companies like Consumers Energy and DTE from influencing lawmakers in Lansing, specifically when these companies have contracts with the state.
GRIID has previously reported on utility rate increases that have been opposed by environmental justice groups like the Urban Core Collective which has stated:
With the progress of climate change, an alarming crisis is growing as the percentage of income that families have to spend on energy surpasses the 6% allocation that is considered affordable. As recently as 2019, close to 14,000 Kent County families living at 50% of the federal poverty level, were spending 33% of their income on energy costs. Spending six percent of household income on energy costs is considered affordable, yet families are spending more than the 30% that they should be spending on housing alone. Since 2019, the Michigan Public Service Commission has approved a total of $274 million in six annual rate hike requests from Consumers Energy.
The fact that the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce opposes Prop 2 should come as no surprise, since they represent the interests of the business class and members of the Capitalist Class. The Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce is no friend of working people and never has been. Despite their claims of promoting prosperity for all people, they only look out for business interests and continue to influence public policy that shits on the rest of us.
Indigenous People’s Day: No one is illegal on stolen land, end ICE abductions in Grand Rapids
It is imperative that we come to terms with the past in order to confront what is happening right now. We can’t hide from it and we can’t minimize it, but this country was founded on the genocide of Indigenous people and the enslavement of African people.
These two dynamics are not some ancient notion, they are intertwined with the very fabric of what this country has become and what it continues to do. I don’t want to minimize local indigenous history. In fact, I encourage people to do their own research on the history of the Anishinaabek people. You can read chapter one of my book, A People’s History of Grand Rapids, which provides an overview of how Grand Rapids was founded on Settler Colonialism.
For this year’s Indigenous People’s Day I want to talk about how the majority of people that are being abducted by ICE in Grand Rapids and throughout Kent County are Indigenous people. I am talking about people from Mexico, Guatemala, and other parts of Central American and the Caribbean, many of whom are Indigenous. In fact, the shift from Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s Day didn’t start in this country, it started with the resistance by Indigenous people throughout the Americas.
In October of 1991, people from some 60 different indigenous groups, Blacks, and members of popular organizations met in Xelaju (Quetzaltenango), Guatemala at the Second Continental Encounter. At this gathering they discussed their continuing struggles as well as all the Quincentenary hype and babble. For these folks Columbus did not discover the Americas, nor was it an encounter. For Native people it was, simply put, an invasion followed by genocide and a continual colonization of their people. As Juan Vasquez says, “The Conquest has not yet ended.“
The 500 years of resistance movement has existed in one form or another for the past 500 years. However, since the early 1990s Indigenous people have been meeting and organizing throughout the Americas and reclaiming history in order to reclaim the present.
There are many ways to honor Indigenous People’s Day, but one way we can do it this year is to first acknowledge that most of the people that ICE is abducting in this city are Indigenous people. In Grand Rapids, a majority of Mexican and Central Americans that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is abducting are Indigenous people. For many of them their first language is not Spanish, it is Mam, Quiche, Q’anjobal or one of the dozens of Mayan dialects that are still spoken in Mesoamerica.
You’ve seen these people, hell you have probably shopped in one of their tienda’s (stores). We eat the food they prepare in restaurants and we eat the food that they pick from local farms. Indigenous people from mesoamerica clean our hotel rooms, do construction work, do landscape work and they are being abducted by ICE in Grand Rapids.
Mario David Coronado Juarez was from Guatemala, specifically from the state of San Marcos. Mario was indigenous and spoke a Mayan dialect. Mario died because of ICE terrorism. Most of the people who came to the vigil for Mario just days after his death were Indigenous people.
Shortly after Mario died ICE abducted four of his cousins, all of which were also Indigenous. Mario’s family contact Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE and people tried to prevent Mario’s cousins from being sent to the ICE detention facility in Baldwin, Michigan.
One of the many lessons that I learned while doing solidarity work in Guatemala and Chiapas, Mexico was that Indigenous people have been fight conquest for 500 years. Whether we are talking about the conquest led by Columbus or he conquest led by US Imperialism we have to understand that this is what indigenous people throughout the Americas have been dealing with for now more than five centuries.
500 years of conquest seems rather overwhelming, but what the people of mesoamerica have taught me is that they have been resisting conquest for 500 years. I learned this lesson from a 17 year old in one of the Zapatista communities in 1997.
The indigenous people of La Realidad were preparing for a New Year’s eve celebration and this 17 year old created a visual depiction of his people’s history. His history lesson was rather comprehensive and he talked about the various forms of conquest over the past 500 years. However, the thing he emphasized the most was the fact that his people are still here after 500 years of conquest, precisely because they have resisted.
In the immigrant justice movement we often say, “no one is illegal on stolen land.” We say this because the land of what is now called West Michigan once belonged to Indigenous people, to the Anishinaabek. We should also acknowledge that US policy has displaced people of mesoamerica, often because of state terrorism. Those same people are now being terrorized by ICE, by the state, right here in Grand Rapids. If you want to honor Indigenous People’s Day you can also be part of the resistance work right here by contacting Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE.
History of US Immigration Policy: Summary of GRIID Class week #3 – Combating dominant narratives about immigrants
For anyone who could not join the class tonight or who couldn’t find time to be part of this class, I want to share a summary of what was discussed. I also want to provide links and resources for anyone who wants to do their own investigation on the history of US immigration policy.
As with each of the 8 weeks of this class we will rely on the Popular Education resource I created and update regularly. The Popular Education resource provides an important overview of this history, along with a list of books and online resources that can help us with developing a robust analysis of the history of US immigration policy and how to frame it.
In week #1 we relied heavily on the book, No One is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the US/Mexican border, which look at the way that Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Jewish and even German immigrants have been treated since the mid-1800s.
In week #2 we the responded to the question about why so many immigrants were coming, especially those who were risking their lives to enter the US/Mexican border at unsanctioned border points.
For week #3 I focused heavily on the anti-immigrant narrative or the xenophobic narrative(s) about immigrants that politicians and US news media companies use when talking about undocumented immigrants.
For decades now, there have been certain narratives about immigrants, especially undocumented immigrants, narratives that are false. Despite these false and unsubstantiated narratives, politicians parrot them, and most commercial news agencies perpetuate them. Here are a few of the more dominant false anti-immigrant narratives:
- Immigrants take jobs fro real Americans
- Immigrants drive down wages
- Immigrants don’t pay taxes
- Immigrants are a drain on the US economy
It is important that we create accurate narratives to counter these false narratives, so let’s do that for each of these 4 dominant anti-immigrant narrative. Much of what I am sharing here comes from an excellent book by Aviva Chomsky, “They Take Our Jobs!”and 20 other myths about immigration.”
Immigrants take jobs from real Americans – In one sense, the idea that there are American jobs is somewhat meaningless, especially since the economy is increasingly a global economy. More importantly, immigrants to take jobs away from anyone, they actually do work that so few are willing to do. If we look at migrant worker jobs, where people are doing seasonal work, primarily outdoors, under harsh conditions, and for very little money, to claim that immigrants are taking migrant jobs from real Americans is ridiculous.
A narrative that we should be thinking about and promoting is, corporations take our jobs. As I have noted in previous articles, NAFTA had a huge impact on Mexican workers, but it also impacted jobs in the US. Grand Rapids was impacted by de-industrialization since the 1970s, which escalated with NAFTA being adopted in 1994. According to data compiled by Public Citizen, since NAFTA, Michigan lost over 168,000 jobs (21.3 percent) because companies had relocated. Corporations and their pursuit of profits take our jobs, not immigrants.
Immigrants drive down wages – This false narrative is similar to the first one, in that immigrants have no control over wages. Business owners and corporations set low wages and they don’t care who takes their shitty jobs. The fact that undocumented immigrants take low paying jobs has more to do with their level of desperation to support themselves, but because many of them send money back how to family members still living in their country of origin. In addition, if there was more class solidarity amongst working class people, which included a push to invite undocumented immigrants to be part of labor unions, then they might be able to improve wages for immigrants and everyone else who should earn a livable wage.
Immigrants don’t pay taxes – This might be the most absurd of the false anti-immigrant narratives. First, if people are employed and receive a paycheck, federal, state and local taxes are automatically taken out of your paycheck. The majority of undocumented workers obtain fake social security numbers, in order to find employment. However, when federal, state and local taxes are taken out of their paycheck, they can’t claim them. So what happens to the tax money taken out of undocumented worker checks? Those taxes stay in the coffers of state and federal governments. The reality is, if undocumented immigrants are part of the formal economy, they have taxes taken out, but they can’t claim them. This is why this false narrative is so awful. Can you imagine if average American workers who were paying taxes, were unable to claim those taxes? There would be an uprising amongst the working class.
Immigrants are a drain on the US economy – This false narrative is tied to the previous narrative about immigrants not paying taxes. Undocumented immigrants do pay into the system through taxes, but don’t have equal access to resources and services available to those with government sanctioned immigration status. The area that undocumented immigrants use more government services than everyone else are food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free or reduced-cost school lunches. However, it’s not the immigrants themselves who use this aid – they are not usually eligible – but rather their US-born children, who are citizens.
When we have clear and well substantiated counter-narratives to the false anti-immigrant narratives being tossed about by politicians and perpetuated by commercial news media, we can contribute to reducing the hate and harm being directed at the undocumented immigrant communities.
We also looked at how the Tanton Network of anti-immigrant groups that were mostly created in the 1980s have influenced the dominant narratives around US Immigration policy over the past four decades. Here is a sample of some of those groups:
Federal for American Immigration Reform https://www.fairus.org/
Center for Immigration Studies https://cis.org/
NumbersUSA https://www.numbersusa.org/
Immigration Reform Law Institute https://www.irli.org/
ProEnglish https://proenglish.org/
US English https://www.usenglish.org/
Negative Population Growth https://npg.org/
Crain’s Grand Rapids Business finally calls the 200 most influential leaders in West MI – Those with Power
For years the Grand Rapids Business Journal, which is now called Crain’s Grand Rapids Business, would produce a list of the 200 most influential leaders in West Michigan. They have finally taken the gloves off and are calling this list of 200, The authoritative guide to power in West Michigan.
This shift in how they name this group is important. It is important since it now properly frames those in the list as people with power and moves away from the West Michigan Nice language of influential leaders. As a matter of clarification, this is a list pf people who have power over the rest of us, whether it is economic power, political power or social/cultural power.
The 2026 list is not much different than the 2025 list, where families like the Van Andel, Meijer and DeVos dominate the list, all as part of the billionaire class. However, as I have noted in numerous other posts, the DeVos family stands alone in the power over category, since they also have lots of people on this list that work for them in one capacity or another. Some of those people run their companies and others are a part of certain associations, sit on certain boards or are the recipients of campaign contributions.
Here are some ways we can talk about those with the most power on this list of 200:
- How those on this list are silent about state violence that is perpetrated by the GRPD, the Kent County Sheriff’s Office and disproportionately affects BIPOC communities.
- How those on this list are silent about what ICE is doing in West Michigan, terrorizing immigrant families, along with using the GRPD and the Kent County Jail as tools to support the terror and violence that ICE perpetrates on immigrants families.
- How they influence the ways in which public money is spent in the service of the private sector
- How the Capitalist Class proposes projects in GR, gets the public to pay for most of it, keeps all the profits for themselves, then takes credit for making GR the best place to live.
- How the wealthiest families use their money to influence public policy that perpetuates racial capitalism.
- How most of the 200 influencers destroy neighborhoods through gentrification and displace poor and working class people from the city.
- How the wealthiest families and their minions want to control the economic, social and cultural realities of Grand Rapids and marginalize or silence any critics.
In many ways the authoritative guide to power in West Michigan is really just a reflection of what I have been calling the Grand Rapids Power Structure. One could easily do a power analysis of the 200 people listed, where those with the most money have the most power to influence what happens in this city, with a second tier that either works for the most powerful or is associated with them through organizational connection such as the GR Chamber of Commerce, the Right Place Inc. the Acton Institute, the West Michigan Policy Forum, the DDA or Grand Action 2.0.
Then there are those listed as Civic Leaders and Non-Profits Leaders, who either receive funding from the GR Power Structure, bend to their will, and will never publicly challenge their power out of fear of losing funding or being blacklisted in Grand Rapids. Welcome to West Michigan Nice!
Last week Crain’s Grand Rapids Business posted a story with the headline, GE Aerospace lands $33M Air Force contract to redesign F-16 black boxes.
The business press article talks about the contract, the commitment from GE Aerospace and what it means for the company.
There were numerous omissions from the article, beginning with the fact that this was a Department of Defense contract, which means that the public is subsidizing GE Aerospace to make the F-16 black boxes.
The other more important omission in the Crain’s article has to do with that fact that the US sells F-16s around the world to numerous countries. According to a recent Slash Gear article the countries that have purchased F – 16s “outside of the United States are Turkey, which has roughly 230 F-16s. Egypt, with 218 F-16s, comes in second place, and Israel, with 174 active F-16s, takes third place.”
The fact that Israel has purchased 174 F – 16s from the US is alarming and instructive, especially while the US is continuing to support Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.
This is not the first time that companies in West Michigan are manufacturing weapons that will be sold to Israel, as I noted in a 2024 article listing several local companies making weapons systems being used by Israel.
Such an announcement is equally disturbing now that we are three years into the hell that Israel is unleashing on Gaza. Many scholars are calling what Israel is doing as genocide, along with international organizations, even B’Tselem, an Israeli Human Rights organization. For Crain’s Grand Rapids Business to not report on this crucial aspect of the GE military contract is unacceptable.
It is not unusual that people will make threats against me, since I have received letters in the mail threatening me with death, E-mails doing the same, but with social media it has definitely ramped up in recent years.
The Grand Rapids Businessman Facebook page used some of the images I shared and then wrote the following:
POLICE: A local activist is circulating the names and photos of more than a dozen Grand Rapids police officers, alleging they assist federal immigration enforcement. The post, shared by a self-described activist-journalist and “ICE resister” Jeff Smith, encourages supporters to further distribute the information and identify officers involved in immigration-related activity. Activists continue to pressure the city over ICE, sanctuary policies, and Flock cameras in Grand Rapids.
These comments aren’t threatening, but as I mentioned in an article I wrote last month, the Grand Rapids Businessman page essentially is a platform for the far right, MAGA supporters, white supremacists and other hateful individuals that are generally misinformed or just like to attack people for not believing in the dominant narratives about the US, about cops or other systems of power and oppression.
Many of the comments from the GR Businessman post naming me are awful, shitty and hateful, but what is worse is that people are sending me threatening messages directly. I don’t like it, but I, nor my family, are not being abducted by ICE.
Speaking of ICE, the post I shared with pictures of GRPD cops and listing their names was because these individual GRPD cops have been assisting ICE in various capacities, including harassing, intimidating and arresting anti-ICE activists who are trying to prevent ICE from abducting people or trying to prevent the GEO Group from transporting abducted immigrants to their privately run ICE detention center in Baldwin, Michigan.
In addition, none of the information, nor photos of the GRPD cops are private. These cops are paid with public dollars and their information as cops in part of the public record. Also, the Grand Rapids Businessman FB page says “alleging they assist federal immigration enforcement.” It is not an allegation, but a fact. Hell, I was arrested on Saturday, along with two others, for trying to stop ICE abducted immigrants from being sent to a detention center in Baldwin, MI.
The City of Grand Rapids, Mayor LaGrand and the Chief of Police have been telling us for the past 20 months that the GRPD does not cooperate with ICE. This is an outright lie and we have plenty of video and photo evidence to back it up.
The Grand Rapids Businessman Facebook page owner – who refuses to tell us who they are – always leaves out the most important information about whatever issue they have an opinion about. Again, they thrive off of using content taken from somewhere else on hot button issues, primarily to get a response from their base of followers that embraces far right values, such as white supremacy. Please don’t share their content or give them any oxygen. It is a waste of time trying to argue with these people.
On Saturday, I was arrested with two other activists at the 517 Ottawa ICE office in the early part of the afternoon, which I wrote about yesterday.
I am a volunteer organizers with GR Rapid Response to ICE and we work directly with Movimiento Cosecha. Cosecha does the offensive part of the immigrant justice movement work. What this means is as immigrants, they fight for the rights of immigrants and have very clear goals, such as dignity, respect and permanent protection for all undocumented immigrants.
GR Rapid Response to ICE does the defensive work, which is really about reducing the harm that is directed at immigrants, from government policy, ICE agents, detention, deportation and racial discrimination. Therefore, we do the necessary work to minimize the harm that happens to immigrants in Kent County, which is mostly at the hands of ICE.
However, there are also entities that have contracts with ICE, like BI Incorporated, which runs the ISAP office at 545 Michigan, directly behind the Omlette Shoppe. BI Incorporated is a subsidiary of the GEO Group, which also runs the largest ICE detention center in the midwest at the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan.
The other dynamic is that both the GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff’s Office collaborate with ICE. Kent County does it by working directly with ICE to engage in what are called ICE holds or ICE detainers. The GRPD collaborates with ICE by either assisting in an ICE arrest of an immigrant or at the 517 Ottawa ICE office, where they have repeatedly prevented volunteers with GR Rapid Response to ICE from attempting to stop the transport of undocumented immigrants to the GEO Group vans.
The context for my arrest at the 517 Ottawa ICE office is that this office is where ICE agents bring immigrants they have abducted from the community, to process them in the system and then prepare them for transport. The GEO Group has vans they use to transport abducted immigrants, just like the one that I was standing in front of to try and prevent them from going into the garage of the 517 Ottawa ICE office where ICE agents can transfer them to the van without interruption.
For undocumented immigrants, being in the US without papers is not a crime, rather a civil infraction. We know that most undocumented immigrants have no criminal record, so to abduct them at their home, their workplace or anywhere in the community is cruel and unnecessary. The immigrants that were abducted on Saturday were cousins of Mario David Coronado Juarez, who were on their way to work when ICE grabbed them.
Mayor LaGrand wrote a statement after the death of Mario David Coronado Juarez, which I critiqued. One thing he said in his stated was: “The reality is, we cannot keep Federal agencies out of our city, however they act. But let me be clear: no law enforcement entity that traffics in fear is welcome here.” While we understand that the City of Grand Rapids can’t keep ICE out of this city, but they can make it so the GRPD does not assist ICE or the entities they contract with to allow them to, in the words of Mayor LaGrand, traffic in fear.
In the same statement from Mayor LaGrand he said:
This is a moment when we all have to stand for justice and real work for public safety. When government agencies cause harm instead of reducing harm, they are worse than useless.
I agree with this sentiment, but when the GRPD arrests members of the community that are trying to reduce harm it only emboldens ICE agents and the entities they contract with. How is allowing immigrants that have been abducted by ICE and are slated to be sent to the North Lake promoting public safety? When undocumented people are sent to the ICE detention center in Baldwin, it causes family separation, family trauma and adds unnecessary emotional and financial stress on immigrant families. When the GRPD arrests people who want to stop the GEO Group from making profits off of the suffering of immigrants in North Lake, they are not promoting public safety, rather they are perpetuating harm to the family that is now separated and it increases the level of fear that exists in this community that other immigrant families can be targeted.
I am asking everyone to contact Mayor LaGrand and demand: 1) that he adopt the sanctuary policies that Cosecha has been demanding since the beginning of 2025; and 2) that he prevents the GRPD from assisting ICE or entities that work directly with ICE to commit harm. You can either send an Email to Mayor LaGrand mayor@grcity.us or you can call his office at 616-456-3168. Demand an end to GRPD cooperation with ICE and an end to City complicity in allowing ICE to operate in Grand Rapids and perpetuate harm.
On Saturday morning, Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE found out that four of Mario David Coronado Juarez’s cousins were abducted by ICE and brought to the 517 Ottawa ICE office. Activists mobilize and encouraged the community to show up to witness and disrupt the transfer of abducted immigrants to the GEO Group van, which takes people to the North Lake Facility in Baldwin, Michigan.
Around 11am, activists noted that two ICE agents exited out the north side of the 517 Ottawa building to the parking lots that is exclusively for ICE agents and staff. Both ICE agents went to their cars and attempted to exit the gated parking lot, but activists told them that they would not allow them to leave. After several minutes or verbal volley the ICE agents then each got out of their vehicles pepper sprays canisters in the hopes that it would intimidate those resisting. The threat of being pepper sprayed did not work, so the ICE agents retreat back into the 517 Office.
More than an hour had passed by, when all of a sudden a GEO Group van was spotted near the 517 Ottawa ICE office and tried to turn in to the alley behind the building. Fortunately, there were people nearby who stepped in front of the van to prevent it from entering the garage, where abducted immigrants would be loaded up to be taken to the North Lake Facility in Baldwin, Michigan.
At least 5 GRPD cruisers showed up on the scene, which meant they were staging somewhere near the ICE office, since they arrived within 60 seconds from the time that activists stood in front of the GEO Group van.
The GRPD cops wasted no time threatening people with arrest if they didn’t move away from the van and allow the GEO Group to pick up abducted immigrants to be transferred to their private for-profit detention center. One activist said, “ICE agents killed Mario and this morning they abducted 4 of his cousins who were on their way to work. By threatening to arrest us you are now complicit in these abductions.” One GRPD cop responded by saying that we should talk to the government if we have issues with what happened.
Three activists were arrested for blocking the GEO Group van and were taken to the Kent County Jail. Fortunately, all three were bonded out after a couple of hours and will now await arraignment dates.
After people were arrested, the GRPD then made sure the GEO Group van was able to leave, along with ICE agents who had waited several hours to depart from their gated parking lot. Once again the GRPD collaborates with ICE to perpetuate harm against the immigrant community while claiming they are simply promoting public safety.
I was one of the three that were arrested on Saturday for blocking the GEO Group van. I took part in this action because not only do a carry a shit ton of privilege, but because the Guatemalan immigrant community and the family of Mario David Coronado Juarez did not deserve more trauma nor suffer more state violence.
ICE agents are abducting immigrants every fucking day in Grand Rapids, while the GEO Groups generates more profits by transferring abducted immigrants to North Lake and the GRPD is complicit in the harm by protecting death squad-like ICE agents and profiteers like the GEO Group.
If you want to resist this shit please contact Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE.
