Activists push to get Kent County to adopt Sanctuary policies is overshadowed by Sheriff Departments lengthy presentation

On Thursday morning, more than a dozen supporters of Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE attended the Kent County Commission meeting to push for numerous Sanctuary policies.

Unbeknownst to those attending, the Kent County Sheriff’s Department made a presentation about all the “good work” they do in the community. The Sheriff’s Department’s presentation, which came with slides, lasted about half an hour if you included comments and responses, which you can watch at this link. Unfortunately, the video of the Kent County Commission meeting doesn’t start at the beginning, so the length of the presentation is a bit misleading.

Whether or not it was intentional that the Kent County Sheriff’s Department presentation had been scheduled for some time or it was added recently to preempt the push from the community to adopt Sanctuary policies is unknown. However, it seemed clear to me that the Sheriff Departments presentation, along with the bi-partisan support for what they do, ultimately did have an impact on the demands for the County to adopt Sanctuary policies. They got to dictate the narrative about what they do without a time limit. In addition, there were also a dozen members of the Sheriff’s Department present, which also seemed like overkill, so it is good that members of the immigrant community did not come, since the presence of so many cops would have been unnerving and intimidating.

There were a total of 13 people who spoke up and demanded sanctuary policies to be adopted by the Kent County Commission. Some people talked about how other communities in Michigan have already adopted Sanctuary policies, while others addressed the terrorist actions of ICE agents in Kent County. One person talked about Avelo Airlines, which operates in Kent County and has a $150 million contract with ICE to transport immigrants to El Salvador. 

Another person who spoke during public comment spoke about how undocumented people have committed a “civil infraction” which should not result in people being arrested, sent to a detention center and maybe deported. These comments were followed by someone who pushed back on much of the Sheriff Department’s presentation, demanded that the County not cooperate with ICE, provide holds for ICE at the Kent County Jail, the use of surveillance technology, specifically the Flock technology, which takes pictures of license plates. 

A person who identified as a social worker, provided a specific example of a recent arrest of a mother, who was then turned over to ICE, which is a pattern that Cosecha and GR Rapid Response have seen consistently since ICE ended their contract with Kent County in 2019. Another person who worked in education, said that they had seen an increase in participation and attendance of immigrant students.

Despite all of the public comment urging the County Commission to adopt Sanctuary policies, County officials were insistent that they would not do so, which is exactly what the Kent County Administrator said. At 1:29:00 into the video, Commissioner Ponstein, made the claim that over the last four years “we don’t have immigration, we have had wide open borders.” Commissioner Ponstein then went on a rant about sex trafficking and the fentanyl drug problems and how immigrants were responsible for these issues. Of course Ponstein provides no supportive evidence, data or sourcing to back up such claims. People like him always get to spew this shit without any real accountability. 

There was only one Kent County Commissioner, Commissioner Womack who said that he did not want the Kent County Sheriff’s Department to cooperate with ICE, which was only one of the many Sanctuary policies presented by the community. This means that of the 21 Kent County Commissioners –  which was all of the Republican Commissioners and all but one Democratic Commissioner –  did not verbally say they supported any of the Sanctuary policies that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response were demanding. 

One last clarifying point. Commissioner Womack congratulated the Kent County Sheriff’s Department for ending their contract with ICE in 2019, which is a false statement. ICE chose to not renew the contract with Kent County in 2019, and those of us who were involved in the campaign to end that contract know that it was because of all the bad publicity that ICE was getting during our 14 month campaign to end the ICE contact.