GRIID end of the year in review: Part III – Documenting the work of Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE

In Part I of the GRIID end of the year review I looked at my efforts to monitor the local news in 2025, particularly around critical issues like immigration, policing and the Schurr trial. In Part II I wrote about the work of monitoring the Grand Rapids Power Structure. Today I want to look at the organized social movements in Grand Rapids in 2025.

There was no shortage of protests in 2025. In fact, every week there has been something happening in Grand Rapids during the past year, protests that have centered on opposing the Trump Administration. There are too many protests and actions to name, so I will limit this post to just talking about what I believe has been the most impactful social movement that currently exists in Grand Rapids, the immigrant justice movement led by Movimiento Cosecha, with support from GR Rapid Response to ICE.

Even before the end of 2024, Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE working organizing trainings and assemblies to mobilize people to take action to resist ICE. The first big action of 2025 was on January 20th, but despite cold and snowy weather over one hundred people showed up to the Cosecha action on the same day as the Trump Inauguration.

Behind the scenes, Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE had campaigns to pressure the GRPS, the City of Grand Rapids and Kent County to adopt sanctuary policies that would make it more difficult for ICE to arrest and detain undocumented immigrants.

I also was writing posts entitled, Lessons on the history of US Immigration Policy, which began on January 29th. I decided to write this series because too many people are unfamiliar with this history and often think that the repressive US government anti-immigration actions began with Trump. Here is a link to a slide presentation I do to illuminate this history.

Because the Cosecha/GR Rapid Response to ICE campaigns with the City and the County included an online action alert, I had been tracking them, especially after a City Commissioner made a comment about hearing from those who did not support the sanctuary policy demands in an article headlined, 3204 people are already on record demanding that the City of Grand Rapids become a Sanctuary City compared to 16 people who oppose standing up for immigrants.

At the same time that all of this was happening, Movimiento Cosecha was doing their own Know Your Rights trainings with immigrant communities, trainings that provided concrete tactics to be better prepared to avoid ICE as well as developing plans for what to do if ICE did apprehend a family member. GR Rapid Response to ICE was also continuing to do trainings in Grand Rapids, but was also getting requests to do them in places like Ann Arbor, Kalamazoo, Newaygo, Muskegon, Grand Haven, Lansing and Saugatuck, since there were no other existing Rapid Response to ICE groups established.

In March, Cosecha/GR Rapid Response to ICE went to another City Commission meeting to pressure city officials on the sanctuary demands, this time with a disruptive action.  Cosecha then began planning for the upcoming May Day actions, which saw the GRPD threaten to arrest people before the march even began. On day two of the May Day actions Cosecha hosted a cultural event at SECOM, where SECOM publicly announced they would be a sanctuary space for undocumented immigrants. This was just days after LincUp made the same commitment. Then on day three of the May Day actions, Cosecha engaged in a disruptive action at Walmart, what they referred to as a Salsa Shutdown.

On May 15th Cosecha hosted a people’s assembly, which laid out plans for movement work throughout the rest of the summer. Two weeks later ICE did a raid at the local ISAP office which saw Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE mobilize people to prevent further ICE arrests.

The two groups also made it known that for future appointments they would be offering accompaniment to any who had to go to the ISAP or ICE offices. For the rest of the year GR Rapid Response to ICE accompanied dozens of immigrants during their appointments, where no one was arrested or detained.

In late June Cosecha and GR Rapid Response held an ICE out of Grand Rapids rally, which the local news reported on, but in limited fasion. In July Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE held a protest in front of the home of Mayor LaGrand, since he has consistently dismissed the sanctuary policy demands from these two groups.

Later that month, people attended at Kent County Commission meeting to also pressure the commissioners to adopt the same sanctuary policies. Then on July 30th, for two hours people demanded that the City of Grand Rapids adopt the 6 sanctuary policies, which also included some street theater that disrupted the meeting, leading to threats of arrest by the GRPD.

In August, Cosecha held another assembly with more plans to finished out the year of resisting ICE and demanding immigrant justice. GR Rapid Response to ICE also began doing daily patrols in several different neighborhoods, since immigrants were telling them that ICE was most active in the mornings in those neighborhoods. The patrols have been done with small teams driving around looking for ICE activity. In September, Mayor LaGrand said some awful stuff about Cosecha and the sanctuary policy demands, which was followed up by a forum hosted by Cosecha where all City and Kent County Commissioners were invited to hear directly from immigrants affected by ICE violence.

Because the low commissioner turnout, Cosecha then began a campaign to boycott the businesses owned by Mayor LaGrand beginning in October.  This action was followed up by a second action that was at another Long Road Distillers location in November.

In early October, Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE also received word that there might be possible raids at GRPS schools, with ICE looking for immigrant minors. Then in late October, Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE did a tour of shame, which involved showing up at the homes of state representatives that have co-sponsored legislation that would criminalize anyone showing compassion to undocumented immigrants.

In November, No Detention Centers Michigan, Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE held a Day of the Dead vigil to commemorate immigrants that have died in ICE detention centers all around the US.

There were also two actions at the Kent County Sheriff’s office after Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE learned that the Kent County Jail was putting holds on immigrants for ICE. The first action was on November 2nd with the second action taking place on November 20th.

In December, Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE attended an event hosted by Mayor LaGrand, which resulted in him giving a verbal commitment to talking with city commissioners about adopting sanctuary policies.

I have also posted several narratives from GR Rapid Response to ICE volunteers sharing stories about working directly with people affected by ICE violence. In October one volunteer talked about collaborative work with No Detention Centers in Michigan.  A second personal narrative centered around how ICE has terrorized a Guatemalan family. A third example was from an accompaniment with an immigrant to court, with one final example from December with an accompaniment at the ISAP office.

GR Rapid Response to ICE also responds to requests from community groups to do crowd safety for people who are afraid of ICE coming to community events for immigrant communities. Lastly, when ICE separates families, GR Rapid Response to ICE provides Mutual Aid for families, such as transportation, material support, legal counsel and raising money for families who have little or no income coming in. Since September GR Rapid Response to ICE has been able to raise just over $36,000 with every cent going directly to immigrant families.

There is a whole lot more that can be said about the work of Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE, but these groups have been doing amazing work over the past year with lots of volunteers stepping up to raise money, accompany immigrants, engage in patrols, monitoring ICE activity, showing up when ICE alert calls come in, participating in protests and other direct actions, working with community groups to provide sanctuary spaces and educating countless people about US immigration policy and how we can all resist ICE terrorism. Thanks to everyone who has engaged in this work!