No Detention Centers in Michigan holds protest at the GEO Group ICE Detention facility in Baldwin on the 4th of July

Editor’s note: I was the police liaison for the action at the Geo Group’s ICE Detention facility protest in Baldwin, Michigan. 

Yesterday, over 200 people showed up to a protest outside the front gates of the newly converted prison in Baldwin, Michigan, a prison that was purchased by the GEO Group.

The protest was organized by No Detention Centers in Michigan, a grassroots group that formed years ago that organized a campaign to shut down the former North Lake Prison.

The GEO Group, which is one of the largest private prison companies in the world, purchased the prison in Baldwin and have converted it into the largest ICE Detention facility in the midwest.

The timing of yesterday’s protest was, was on the heels of the recently passed legislation dubbed as the “Big Beautiful Bill”, legislation that will increased the ICE budget by billions and make it the largest law enforcement agency in the US. We often didn’t hear about this aspect of the bill, especially since the Democrats did not make it an issue.

The protest organized by No Detention Centers in Michigan was also co-sponsored by Movimiento Cosecha, GR Rapid Response to ICE and the Lakeshore Rapid Response to ICE groups. Each of the co-sponsoring groups had representatives speak during the protest, along with a representative from a Detroit group who read a statement about the recent ICE raid that took place on the east side of the state. There are several videos of some of the speakers, videos you can find on the Cosecha Michigan Facebook page.

Some of the GEO Group security people were present the entire time of the protest, standing by their front gates in an attempt to prevent people from entering the grounds of the massive ICE Detention facility. Shortly after the protest began, several people were making the GEO Group security people uncomfortable, by standing in front of them at the gates, chanting and using noisemakers. The number of people engaged in this disruptive tactic increased as the protest went on and it further escalated when a GEO Group transport vehicle attempted to enter the facility off of the road where the protest was being held.

The increased disruptive tactic was likely what prompted the GEO Group security people to call the Lake County Sheriff’s Department, which sent several squad cars out in an attempt to remove protesters from the entrance to the detention facility. No arrests were made, but the Sheriff’s Department maintained a presence near the facility until the protest ended.

As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I was the police liaison for the protest, which means that I was the only person designated to interact with the cops. When the Lake County Sheriff’s Department arrived I attempted to engaged them, but they were not interested, and only wanted to deal with those who were engaged in the disruptive aspect of the action. 

As a police liaison, I had no problem with those that were making noise and preventing what was likely GEO Group employees from entering or exiting the detention facility. Disruptive tactics have always been part of movement work, even if it makes some people uncomfortable. As an example, during the Civil Rights Movement, there were actions like the lunch counter sit-ins, where trained activists would defy segregation laws that allowed restaurants to segregate white and Black patrons. In the famous lunch counter protests Black activists would deliberately sit in the “whites only section.” This was a classic disruptive tactic that was rather effective over time and forced businesses to end their segregationist practices.

I mention this, because there were several people who not happy with those that were involved in the disruptive tactic at the GEO Group protest on Friday. One white woman told me directly that she felt that what they were doing was “not what you do at a peaceful protest.” I responded by saying that disruptive tactics have been central to all social movements throughout US history and that just because disruptive tactics are often confrontational, they are completely appropriate. 

It was clear that some of the people at the No Detention Centers in Michigan protest want to do more than the standard protest. These kinds of protests should always welcome a diversity of tactics. The only issue I had with the disruption was that it could have put the immigrant organizers that were present at the protest at risk of arrest and possible detention. Those of us who were doing crowd safety did make sure that there were crowd safety people placed near the immigrant organizers at all times. 

Equally important is the fact that this was the first public action that No Detention Centers in Michigan organized at the GEO Group detention facility in Baldwin. We should see this as just the beginning of a campaign to shut down the ICE Detention facility in Baldwin, so I urge people to get involved with their work and to follow them on social media for ways that people can be part of any efforts to resist ICE and to prevent the GEO Group from profiting off of human suffering.