Five arrested at the Sheriff’s office because Kent County is conducting ICE holds on immigrants at the jail

Yesterday there were five individuals who were arrested at the Kent County Sheriff’s office to protest the fact that the Kent County Jail is collaborating with ICE by conducting holds on immigrants.

GRIID reported previously that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE held protests at the Kent County Sheriff’s office to confront the Sheriff about why they were holding immigrants for ICE at the jail. The group of five have been involved in the two previous protests and were working with Movimiento Cosecha to do an escalated action of civil disobedience at the Kent County Sheriff’s office.

One of the five protesting the ICE holds at the Kent County Jail read the following statement:

Today, as accomplices in the struggle for immigrant justice in Kent County, we deliberately refused to leave the Kent County Sheriff’s Office, resulting in our arrest.

Over the past months, members of Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have repeatedly attempted to engage with the Kent County Sheriff’s Office to demand clear answers about whether Kent County is holding immigrants at the Kent County Jail on behalf of ICE. We are aware of multiple cases in recent months in which immigrants who were detained at the jail, had paid their bond, and were eligible for release were instead kept in custody on civil immigration allegations. As a result, these individuals were later transferred to ICE detention centers, separating them from their families and communities.

Since 2019, the Kent County Sheriff’s Office has publicly stated that it would only hold immigrants for ICE when presented with a judicial warrant for each individual. However, based on what we are witnessing in our community, we do not believe this policy is being followed. This is why we have protested at the Sheriff’s Office over the past months, and why we risked arrest today. When we asked for a direct answer, the Kent County Sheriff’s Office first instructed us to submit a FOIA request. Later, Sheriff LaJoye-Young refused to answer our question directly, despite being present and having the opportunity to clarify the policy. Instead, we were told that we would need to make an appointment.

The lack of transparency from the Kent County Sheriff’s Office is deeply disappointing, but the greater injustice is its continued cooperation with ICE in the persecution, racial profiling, and detention of immigrant workers in our community.

Since January 2025, Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE have demanded that the Kent County Commission adopt six concrete sanctuary policies. These policies would build trust with the immigrant community and clearly signal that Kent County will not cooperate with ICE’s rogue and violent detention practices, including detentions carried out without proper judicial civil warrants.

The six sanctuary policies are:

• Policies restricting the ability of state and local police to make arrests for federal immigration violations, or to detain individuals on civil immigration warrants.
• Policies restricting the police or other county workers from asking about immigration status.
• Policies prohibiting “287(g)” agreements through which ICE deputizes local law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration law.
• Policies that prevent local governments from entering into a contract with the federal government to hold immigrants in detention.
• Policies preventing immigration detention centers from being established in Kent County, which would include the use of the Kent County Jail as a detention facility for ICE.
• A policy that will not allow the Kent County Sheriff’s Department to share Flock camera images or any other information gathered by county staff with ICE or any other law enforcement agency seeking to arrest, detain and deport immigrants.

Those of us risking arrest today are using our position of privilege to be in solidarity with undocumented immigrants who are living in constant fear of detention and deportation. We are not subject to being sent to detention or of being deported, so our action today was to amplify the oppressive realities that our immigrant neighbors are facing in Kent County and at the hands of the Kent County Sheriff’s Office.

After reading the statement those present began chanting, which eventually brought out members of the Kent County Sheriff’s Department who demanded that those protesting needed to leave. Some of the protesters told them they would not leave. The Sheriff’s Department then made those who weren’t risking arrest leave the building. The officers hoped this would end the occupation of the building, but the five that remained still refused to leave.

The Sheriff’s Department officers eventually realized that they would have to arrest the five, but they didn’t want to arrest them in the lobbying, especially since everyone else was still standing just outside of the entryway doors and filming. So the Sheriff’s Department officers took the five down a hallway, cuffed them and got their IDs. After cuffing them the cops took people in a separate room one by one to read them their rights and attempted to squeeze information from all five.

Eventually the cops told the five that they would be processing each of the, giving them a citation, charging them with trespass and a court date to appear before a judge. This all took another 20 minutes, with everyone being released through a side door at the Sheriff’s office. Those who came to support the action had already gone to the jail with the intent of bonding out those who were arrested. The five walked over to the Kent County Jail and surprised everyone, since those doing jail support thought that it would have been hours before they were released.

Movimiento Cosecha videotaped the entire action, at least up until the point where the cops made the 5 that were arrested walk down a hallway that was out of site of those who were recording. You can watch that video here.