When rhetoric and voting records don’t match up: Sen. Slotkin on immigration and ICE

In her most recent weekly video, what Michigan Senator calls her Intel Briefing, she made several comments about the US Supreme Court decision regarding racial profiling of immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.

Sen. Slotkin’s comments on this matter begins at 6:06 in the video. There are several points that the Michigan Senator makes which I think is important to deconstruct. First, Slotkin says that the Trump Administration is using “pretty extraordinary” measures to send fear into the immigrant community – which is true, but then she refers to immigrants, “people who are here illegally and shouldn’t be here.” Using the term illegal for immigrants is unacceptable, since if anything there are undocumented. In addition, saying they shouldn’t be here is deeply problematic, as I have already written about. The Associated Press had made it a practice to not use the term illegal for more than a decade regarding how journalists should report on these matters, using the term undocumented instead. 

Second, Senator Slotkin says she has heard lots of reports of immigrants who are US citizens who are carrying their passports with them out of fear of being stopped by ICE. Again, this is a real concern that we also should take seriously. However, the racially profiling of ICE and cops regarding immigrants in not new and in fact it has been practiced since ICE was created in 2003. One example comes to mind in Kent County from 2018, when Jilmar Ramos Gomez, a Latino, who was also a former US Marine, who was arrested by the GRPD, with the GRPD’s liaison to ICE then calling ICE to claim Gomez was undocumented.

Third, Slotkin talks about egregious cases of this racial profiling in Michigan and even mentioned that she was in Grand Rapids but never provides any real context or examples of how ICE is practicing this type of racial profiling by ICE in Michigan. Senator Slotkin could have cited ACLU and MIRC documented cases and she could have checked in with Movimiento Cosecha GR or GR Rapid Response to ICE who have also been documenting how ICE and local cops racially profile immigrants in Kent County.

Fourth, Sen. Slotkin then talks about how people are living in fear, how Mexican restaurants are losing customers and how anyone who cares about democracy should be concerned about this US Supreme Court ruling. Slotkin continues by says this is a tactic of the Trump Administration to divide us and to separate us. Again, I don’t disagree with the senator’s broad assessment, but Slotkin’s rhetoric doesn’t match up with her voting record. For example, since she has been a Senator Slotkin voted for the Laken Riley Act, which is a vile anti-immigrant bill that further criminalizes undocumented immigrants. While Slotkin was a member of the US House of Representatives, she also voted for increased funding of US Customs and Border Patrol along with never criticizing the Biden Administration’s deportation of several million immigrants from 2021 – 2024. You can check how Slotkin has voted on immigration issues since being a member of Congress by going to this link.

Lastly, Senator Slotkin ends her video comments by saying that if people have concerns about immigrants who are being targeted they can reach out to her office. I know of at least two examples in recent months where Movimiento Cosecha has reached out the Senator Slotkin’s office to request assistance. 

In June, when Carlos Menjivar was taken by ICE while attending his appointment at the ISAP office, Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response sent over 2,400 online Action Alerts to Peters, Slotkin and Scholten to demand they assist in that case. Senator Slotkin never responded. Then, on August 20th, Cosecha held a vigil for Cata “Xóchitl” Santiago who has been in an ICE detention facility in Texas. Again, people sent letters to Senator Slotkin, asking her office to intervene in getting Xóchitl out of detention. The judge in Xóchitl’s case recently ruled that ICE had to grounds to detain her, yet she still sits in jail. Throughout all of this Senator Slotkin NEVER responded to Cosecha’s letters to get Xóchitl out of detention. 

We should see Sentor Slotkin’s concerns about the recent US Supreme Court ruling that allows ICE to racially profile immigrants as political grandstanding, especially since she didn’t have a problem when ICE was doing the same thing during the Biden Administration and because she has consistently voted for anti-immigrant policies as a member of the House and Senate, along with voting for billions of dollars in funding for ICE and US Customs and Border Patrol as a member of Congress. It is important to not be fooled by rhetoric, but to verify rhetorical claims with how people like Senator Slotkin votes.