Indivisible Grand Rapids omits critical analysis of ICE in their most recent “deep dive” post, along with the groups actually resisting ICE in Kent County

In their Email for October 29, Indivisible GGR sent out information with the following headline: What is ICE? Or What Is It Supposed to Be?

The post begins by providing a very weak and limited commentary of how ICE came to be, using as their only source an NPR story. There is so much good information on the history of ICE, such as the book Abolish ICE: A Passionate Plea for a More Humane Immigration System, by Natascha Elena Uhlman. More importantly, why would IGGR not rely on the two groups doing the most around ICE since 2017 in Grand Rapids, Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE? Very troubling.

The IGGR post goes on to write:

ICE’s stated purpose is to “protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.” Unfortunately, the ICE of today is a masked police force acting at the behest of the President and his syncophantic Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem.

This is not only an inaccurate assessment, but it puts the blame solely on one administration, when in fact since ICE was created during the George W. Bush Administration, every administration has used ICE to terrorize undocumented immigrants. The Obama Administration deported roughly 3.5 million and the Biden Administration deported roughly 4 million. IGGR is showing it’s partisan bias here by wanting to only lay the blame at the feet of Donald Trump and Republicans. In addition, Democrats have been voting for anti-immigrant legislation and voting with Republicans to fund ICE and US Customs and Border Patrol. What ICE has been doing since it was created is a result of bipartisan policies.

Next, the IGGR post has a heading that reads ICE During the First Trump Administration. In this section they use as ICE data as a source without providing any independent or immigrant-led data or analysis. The section then includes what ICE looked like in Kent County during the first Trump Administration and only uses the case of Jilmar Ramos Gomez, a former US Marine who was suffering from PTSD and ended up in ICE detention because a GRPD cop called ICE in a clear case of racial profiling. The Kent County Sheriff’s office then announced that they would require a judicial warrant for ICE to detain anyone who was in the Kent County Jail. The IGGR post states, “This prompted Kent County to change its mode of cooperation with ICE to ensure constitutional protections.” What this section of the post omits are two things. First, the Kent County Sheriff’s department continued to cooperate with ICE when people who were booked into the Kent County Jail were discovered to be undocumented immigrants, plus the Kent County Jail was still profiting from holding undocumented immigrants in the Jail County Jail for ICE, which was based on a 2012 contact that ICE had with Kent County, a contract directly related to Obama era ICE policies. The IGGR post also omits the fact that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE engaged in a 14 month campaign to end the ICE contract with Kent County.

The IGGR post then skips what ICE was doing to arrest, detain and deport immigrants during the Biden Administration and just moved on to the next heading which read, ICE During the Second Trump Administration. In this section they write:

As we’ve seen across the country, ICE has also been apprehending immigrants in Kent County as they arrive for hearings on their immigration status. In other words, those who are trying to work through the system legally are having their rights trampled on. For example, on June 4, ICE apprehended a refugee who had intended to return to El Salvador in a matter of days. The return was delayed because ICE took away the passports that the man needed in order to return. The rest of the family sought sanctuary at Fountain Street Church. The man, after being detained in unsanitary conditions, was ultimately reunited with his family in El Salvador. One may wonder the point of putting a man through all of this when he already intended to return home to El Salvador. As they say, the cruelty is the point.

The incident the IGGR post is referring to happened at the ISAP office, which you can read about in detail here from a first hand account of what happened on June 4. I also wrote an update in the case of the family that was offered sanctuary at Fountain Street Church, which talked about the efforts by Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE to get Senators Slotkin and Peters, along with Rep. Scholten to assist in getting the Salvadoran father of this family released, even though none of these members of Congress did anything to fight for this family.

Lastly, the IGGR post mentions something about the GEO Group owned ICE Detention facility in Baldwin, Michigan, but says nothing about the group that has been organizing around that facility since 2018, No Detention Centers Michigan.

In the final section of the post they offer, “some ways to make your voices heard about the mistreatment of Americans at the hands of ICE.” Unfortunately, IGGR omits the most affective ways to resist ICE violence right here in Grand Rapids, by not encouraging their members to support Movimineto Cosecha and take one of the regularly scheduled trainings from GR Rapid Response to ICE. These two groups are doing actual resistance work against ICE in this city and they have been doing it since 2017. Excluding them from a call to action is not only absurd, it does harm to this movement to resist ICE. Let IGGR know that they need to do better by centering the work of those who are actually resisting ICE. Send them a message please https://www.facebook.com/groups/IndivisibleGR.