Four arrested today during the Kent County Commission meeting for demanding the commission adopt sanctuary policies that would end collaboration with ICE

Shortly after 9am during the public comment period of the Kent County Commission meet, an activists read a statement and was joined by three others stating they would not leave the meeting until the Kent County Commission adopted the 6 sanctuary policies that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been demanding for the past 14 months.

Here is the statement:

For the past year, we’ve been helpless to watch the current administration utilize immigration agencies to invade cities all over the country, turning communities inside out, brutalizing innocent people, and leaving vulnerable families and children with no income to support them.

Over the course of that time, we experienced an increased ICE presence here in Kent County, and watched the federal government try to disappear our own neighbors.

No one in this world can be expected to do nothing when faced with the persecution of your peaceful, loving neighbors. We certainly do not expect this of you. We are all neighbors here.

We expect more.

We know that the Kent County Sheriff’s Office holds our immigrant neighbors for ICE.

The Kent County Board of Commissioners has authority over KCSO as well as a responsibility to their constituents.

As your constituents, and in solidarity with our friends, neighbors, and colleagues, we demand that the Kent County Board of Commissioners adopt the 6 sanctuary policies presented to them in January, 2025 by Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE,

Until the Board proposes to adopt these sanctuary policies, ending its complicity in the racially motivated systematic violence sweeping the nation, we will not be leaving.

An estimated 20 officers with the Kent County Sheriff’s Department were called upon by the Chair of the Kent County Commission – Ben Greene – to remove people from the commission chambers. The four activists who were holding a banner with the words – End ICE Holds NOW – were arrested and taken into one of the conference rooms in the County Building.

Members and supporters of Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE stayed in the building until the 4 that were arrested were released. While people were waiting someone who spoke in favor of ICE during the public comment had called the GRPD claiming that she was assaulted by an activists, something which never happened. In fact, the woman who called the GRPD was the aggressor in this case, which you can view in the video taken by Movimiento Cosecha.

Gema Lowe with Movimiento Cosecha said, “this action was planned as part of our campaign to get Kent County and the City of Grand Rapids to adopt policies that would reject local government from collaborating with ICE and keep immigrant families safe.”

Most of the people who spoke during public comment supported the 6 sanctuary policies that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been demanding for the past 14 months. There were a few dissenting views, but those people made outlandish claims about immigrants and cited no sources.

The four that were arrested were processed in the Kent County building and were not taken to the Kent County Jail. This is similar to the five that were arrested in January at the Kent County Sheriff’s office, since they were also not taken to the jail, rather they were process in the building that houses the Sheriff’s office.

Another activist who spoke during the public comment period distributed letters to all of the commissioners in attendance. The letter was the same that had been given to Commissioner Greene when activists visited his house last Saturday.

Here is what that letter says:

I, ____________________________ as a member of the Kent County Commission, am committing to adopting the six sanctuary policies that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been demanding for over a year. I will also commit to getting my fellow commissioners to endorse these policies as well.

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.

I understand that Immigrants continue to be held at the Kent County Jail for ICE, where they will be then taken to the GEO Group-own detention center located in Baldwin, Michigan. I also understand that the majority of immigrants in Detention have no criminal history.

The lives of thousands of immigrants are at stake, since ICE detention facility conditions are horrendous, on top of the fact that families are now economically suffering, along with the trauma that has been inflicted on immigrant families as a result of ICE holds that are happening at the Kent County Jail.

Sign here ________________________________________________________

Both members of Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE shared that their efforts to get Kent County and the City of Grand Rapids to adopt these sanctuary policies is a campaign and that they have no intention of ending the campaign until these policies are adopted. One spokesperson said, “It took us 14 months to end the contract that the Kent County Sheriff’s Office had with ICE in 2018-19, so we knew this campaign would be a fight. However, we believe we can win because this is a growing movement for immigrant justice that also is about abolishing ICE.”