Kent County’s recent history with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in March of 2003. ICE has had a physical presence in Kent County for 20 years, with numerous offices and partners, as is shown in the graphic below.

People first discovered that Kent County had a contract with ICE in the Spring of 2018. That contact, which is linked here, was created in July of 2012, during the Obama Administration. We later found out that when it was being debated at the Kent County Commission meeting, only one commissioner objected to the contract. 

The Kent County Sheriff’s Department renewed the ICE contract in 2017, with the extension date continuing until September 30th, 2019.

We also discovered that the Kent County Sheriff at that time, Larry Stelma, signed onto a letter from the National Sheriff’s Association (NSA), a letter dated March of 2018,  which said in part:

Congress must act to pass legislation to secure our borders through enforcing immigration laws, tightening border security, support the replacement and upgrades to current barriers and fencing and construction of barriers along the U.S. and Mexico international boundary as requested by those areas where it is needed, suspending and/or monitoring the issuance of visas to any place where adequate vetting cannot occur, end criminal cooperation and shelter in cities, counties, and states, and have zero tolerance and increased repercussions for criminal aliens. 

Sadly, today some state and local officials have been enacting policies and giving lawbreakers shelter from being rightfully prosecuted and removed from our communities. In fact, these same laws forbid law enforcement agencies from cooperating with one another, and go as far as forcing the release of dangerous criminals into our communities exposing our citizens and legal residents to be victimized once again.

In response to our learning about Kent County’s contract with ICE, Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE began an End the Contract campaign, which was kicked off in June of 2018, where over 200 people showed up to a Kent County Commission meeting, which I wrote about.

Essentially, we shut down the meeting and most of the Commissioners left the meeting, thus allowing us to take it over and create a People’s Commission space, allowing those affect to tell their stories and talk about upcoming actions.

After the County Commission meeting was shut down the group went to the ICE office, which was locked. The group making the decisions about what action we could take next, was to have those of use who were willing to be arrested sit down in front of traffic at the corner of Michigan and Ottawa. The GRPD had their own narrative about what happened that day, which I deconstructed in an article here.

After the action in late June of 2018, we went back to every County Commission meeting for months, with a variety of tactics, which included testimonies from the immigrant community. 

In September of 2018, the ACLU and the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center provided some added knowledge of the law and spoke during a Kent County Commission meeting. They provided testimony and a document about how the Kent County Commission was within their rights to not cooperate with ICE.

A former Kent County Commission, who presented himself as a “progressive” wrote a letter that explained why he had a problem with the End the Contract campaign, which you can read here. 

Because there was so much going on and the County was not being very transparent, the End the Contract campaign decided to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to the County regarding ICE and our campaign. You can read the 138 pages here. 

A great deal more could be said about the campaign to End the Contract. I did write a People’s History version of the End the Contract campaign, which you can read here, but let me include a list of things we did during the 14 months:

• We held dozens of strategy meetings, which always resulted in planning future actions.
• We attended every Kent County Commission Meeting to continue to make our demands, to offer testimony on family separation that was happening by ICE in Kent County and to monitor any comments made by commissioners about the contract.
• Some of the people involved in the campaign met with individual commissioners
• We ran a petition campaign to End the Contract, which we delivered at one of the Commission meetings.
• We held a protest outside of Chairman Saalfeld’s home the night before one of the commission meetings.
• We organized several protests at the Kent County Jail.
• We organized several protest outside of the various ICE offices in downtown Grand Rapids.
• We organized a disruption protest during ArtPrize, on their main stage, drawing attention to family separation in Kent County.
• We created educational materials, which we distributed.
• We created artwork and had sign making parties.
• We spoke to community-based groups about the campaign.
• We utilized social media to education and get the word out about the End the Contract Campaign.
• We held a People’s Commission action during one of the Kent County Commission meetings. 
• We worked with the Western Michigan branch of the ACLU and MIRC, who not only obtained their own FOIA documents, but offered their legal expertise on why Kent County was not legally obligated to cooperate with ICE.

In the end, because of all the pressure that the End the Contract campaign was exerting on Kent County officials, along with the local and national press attention it was getting (brought about by the Jilmar Ramos Gomez case), ICE decided to not renew their contract with Kent County at the end of September of 2019. The Kent County Sheriff’s Department nor the Kent County Commission chose to do nothing throughout this process. It was the End of the Contract campaign, popular organizing and Direct Action that forced ICE to end their contract with Kent County.