Misinformation and the 6 sanctuary policies that Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE are demanding from the City and the County

I have seen over the past few weeks comments from people who are not involved in the struggle for immigrant justice, particularly white people who feel compelled to share their own thoughts about the 6 sanctuary polices that Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE are demanding from the City of Grand Rapids and Kent County.

Some of it is the same old argument that being a sanctuary city or county will bring the wrath of the Trump Administration. First, this effort is not, and I repeat, NOT calling for the City or County to declare themselves a sanctuary. These two groups are calling on the City and the County to adopt 6 specific policies that would prevent those two governing bodies and the cops that work for them to not collaborate with ICE in any way. Think of these 6 sanctuary policies as public safety policies or harm reduction policies. Second, ICE has three offices in Grand Rapids and is adding a fourth office with more ICE agents. ICE has been terrorizing undocumented immigrants since 2003 in this community and Cosecha & GR Rapid Response to ICE has seen a significant increase in ICE activity since last June. Therefore, the wrath of the current administration is already being felt by members of the affected community.

Just days after 5 people were arrested at the Kent County Sheriff’s office to draw attention to the fact that the Kent County Jail is holding immigrants for ICE and to demand that they end this practice, these same people and another 20 people attended the January 8th Kent County Commission meeting to push the 6 sanctuary policies. I wrote about that meeting, where the primary response was that the county doesn’t enforcement immigration policies. Again, people are not asking them to enforce immigration policies, they are demanding that Kent County adopt policies which will signify that all county employee will not share information or cooperate in any way with ICE. As I stated before these are public safety and harm reduction demands.

During Tuesday night’s Grand Rapids City Commission meeting, Mayor LaGrand made some comments which were rather instructive and infuriating (Listen to the Mayor’s comments at 13:00 into the video).

First, Mayor LaGrand made comments critical of the Trump Administration, suggesting that the harm done to undocumented immigrants are because of the current administration. While it is true that the Trump Administration has escalated anti-immigrant rhetoric and funding for ICE, ICE has been brutalizing immigrant communities since they were founded in 2003.

Second, LaGrand responding to the 6 sanctuary policy demands suggested some of those demands are already being done, specifically by the GRPD. LaGrand read some of the GRPD practices related to immigration status (all of which you can read here)

“No member of the GRPD shall coerce, threaten with deportation, or engage in verbal abuse of any person based on that person(s)… actual or perceived immigration status or citizenship”

“No member of the GRPD shall inquire into a person’s immigration status when the person is seeking police services…”

“No member of the GRPD will stop, question, investigate, arrest, search, or detain an individual based solely on actual or suspected immigration status… including an immigration detainer, administrative immigration warrant, prior deportation order, or other civil immigration document”

However, none of what LaGrand said is the same as the 6 demands from Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE. Again, see the imagine above. Mayor LaGrand went on to talk about human rights and liberty and how he will shout some of the GRPD immigration-related policies from the rooftops. Look politicians can use whatever rhetoric they want, but this means little while immigrants in this city and this county are living in constant fear, while immigrant families are being separated in this community, while immigrant children are being traumatized by seeing a parent taken away, and while immigrant families find themselves in a position of economic hardship, because the primary income earners have been taken by ICE.

Equally important is the fact that members of Cosecha and GR Rapid Response have witnessed the GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff’s Department cooperate and collaborate with ICE, along with documented evidence. You can engage in as much rhetoric as you want and have police policies that the city decided on, but they reality is that the City and the County are collaborating with ICE on a regular basis.

Towards the end of the City Commission meeting (1:40:00 into the video), Mayor LaGrand said that none of us can outsource democracy, meaning we all have an obligation to practice democracy. This is insulting to lots of people in the city who are dedicated and committed practitioners of democratic principals. As someone who has been involved in GR Rapid Response to ICE since 2017, I have seen hundreds of people do the work to try to prevent ICE from taking immigrants, people accompanying immigrants to appointments when they don’t feel safe in public, doing patrols in neighborhoods where ICE has been sighted, providing transportation, food, diapers and funds so that immigrant families can survive after a loved one has been arrested, set to a detention center and often deported. People do this work are not relying on the government or any other institution to do it, because they are doing it and not just talking about it.

Lastly, the evolution of how Mayor LaGrand has responded to these demands to adopted 6 sanctuary policies is instructive. In January of 2025, when the community generated over 3,000 letters to the City, LaGrand said that he wasn’t hearing from the immigrant community. This is absurd, since Cosecha’s members are part of the immigrant community.

In March of 2025, during another GR City Commission meeting, the Mayor said he didn’t want to give immigrants a false sense of hope.

In May, during the annual May Day march that Cosecha organizes, the GRPD threatened people with arrest before they marched and the arrested two people who were doing crowd safety.

In June, the GRPD showed up to harass and threaten members of GR Rapid Response to ICE that showed up when ICE arrested 8 people going to their appointments at the ISAP office at 545 Michigan.

In late July, people spoke for 2 hours during the City Commission meeting and then engaged in street theater and other forms of disruption, where Mayor LaGrand threatened to have people arrested if they didn’t leave. 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 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. Now Mayor LaGrand is saying that the city is fulfilling some of the demands from Cosecha. So, what’s next? Will the Mayor start claiming that he and the GRPD are actually keeping immigrants safe from ICE? Stay tuned.

Of course, if you want to become involved in the campaigns to get the City of Grand Rapids and Kent County to adopt the 6 sanctuary policies, contact Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE.