Reflections on the campaign to get Kent County to become a Sanctuary for the undocumented community after today’s Kent County Commission meeting

This morning I arrived early to the Kent County Commission meeting, which began at 8:30am. These meetings are completely unaccessible for most working people, plus they don’t provide translation and you can’t get your parking pass validated.

When I entered the Kent County Building, there was a table set up in a lobby area, where County staff were asking if people were there for the Commission meeting. I had never seen this before, where they were asking people to filled out cards if they wanted to give public comment. 

In addition, to the table, there were 5 or 6 officers from the Sheriff’s Department that were fully armed as if they were expecting a riot. Some were standing by the elevators to take people up. I asked what they were doing and they said they were “just keeping people safe.” I don’t feel safe around cops and immigrants and BIPOC communities really don’t feel safe around cops. I said that I didn’t need a cop to ride up with me and the cop said it was what his boss told them to do, so I took their stairs instead.

When I go to the 3rd floor, where Commission meetings are held, there were another 6 – 8 cops there, standing on either side of the entrance to the commission chambers. This really felt like a police state.

Since the issue of Kent County being a Sanctuary was not on the agenda, we had to wait to speak on the matter towards the end of the meeting. I want to spend the rest of this article making some comments about what happened, what was said and what wasn’t said. If you want to watch the entire proceedings, go to this link and where the Kent County Commission Chair begins the conversation around Sanctuary, starts at 59 minutes in to the video.

The Chairman of the Kent County Commission and several other commissioners used the excuse that they already had a policy, which in reality was a deference policy. I say deference, since the commissioners did not want to even consider what being a Sanctuary County would mean, so it is just easier to say immigration in a federal issue. Of course immigration policy is a federal issue, but immigrants, many of them undocumented immigrants, live in Kent County and live in daily fear of the threat of arrest, detention and deportation. This is exactly why Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE want county officials to adopt policies that limit the harm done to those who are extremely vulnerable right now and live in the county these politicians represent.

There were more people who spoke during public comment who supported Kent County being a Sanctuary, then there were those who opposed it. Those who spoke in favor of Kent County adopting a Sanctuary policy spoke about the importance of questioning unjust laws, about the direct harm mass deportation would affect, and how undocumented immigrants contribute with the work they do, the products they buy, the taxes they paid, etc. Those who spoke against Kent County being a Sanctuary, acknowledged that they too come from immigrant families, but their families came “legally.” Those who spoke against Kent County being a Sanctuary also often referred to immigrants as “illegal” or as “illegal Aliens.” 

Those who spoke in opposition clearly demonstrated that they don’t know people who are undocumented, nor do they have relationships with them. Most of their comments were part of the highly scripted talking points of politicians, think tanks and news media, that have demonized immigrants by calling them “illegal” or worse, rapists, murderers and drug traffickers. 

Also, some of the people who spoke against Kent County being a Sanctuary were likely invited by some of the more anti-immigrant commissioners, such as Wally Bujak, which I wrote about on Tuesday. These people were all older white folks, who live in parts of Kent County that were outside of Grand Rapids.

There was a former State Representative who spoke, who also said they were the current President of the Kent GOP. Her comments were a little less harsh in that she didn’t use “illegal aliens”, but she did talk about immigrants coming into the US the “right way” and that Kent County Republicans did not endorse the county being a Sanctuary. It was interest to see that the Kent County Democrats were not represented there to provide a counter-argument.

After the public comment period ended, the Commission Chair made more comments about why they would not be addressing the Sanctuary issue. Commissioner Bujak and Commissioner Greene also made claims that there were more people who had communicated via electronic mail or through petitions that were against the county being a Sanctuary, than those who supported it, but there was no way to verify that. Unlike the City of Grand Rapids, the Kent County government does not provide agenda packets before commission meetings. Grand Rapids City agenda packets not only include individual communications, they provide the language of petitions and a list of people’s name that signed on. Kent County does neither of those things, so the public has no way of verifying the claims of Commissioners Greene and Bujak. 

There were two Democratic Commissioners that spoke with more reason. Commissioner Womack talked about the importance of human rights and Commissioner Morales implored her fellow commissioners to look at this issue with more grace, especially considering that 12-13 million undocumented immigrants are facing possible deportation. 

Members of Movimiento Cosecha invited me to do a brief summary of what happened during the Kent County Commission meeting in a video with Gema Lowe and myself speaking in Spanish, which you can view here.

Just before we ended our conversation, one of the Cosecha members was commenting on a claim made by one of the County Commissioners, that “illegal immigrants don’t pay taxes.” Her response to this claim was, “I work hard and have always paid taxes, which means I contribute to the salaries of these politicians who make unfounded claims about people they know nothing about.” A better conclusion to this article, I could not come up with!