Researching ICE contracts in the greater Grand Rapids area found millions worth of contracts

Last week I participated in an online webinar on researching ICE contracts in your community. The webinar was put on by the group Littlesis, which does great research and also does power analysis work.

The webinar was not only full of all kinds of information, but great resources on how to find ICE contracts in your community. The workshop began with an overview of the Department of Homeland Security and all of the federal agencies that operate under its umbrella, which are shown in the graphic here below.

Next, the facilitators took us to one of their link entitled, Six Steps for Researching the Corporate Enablers of ICE. This link provides links to various tools for research and covers six area of interest, including:

• Corporate Leadership
• Government Subsidies
• Contracts with DHS and ICE
• Corporate Partnerships & Philanthropic Giving
• Donations to Politicians
• Investors

In this part of the workshop we all looked at good articles and resources, such as an article by Eric Blanc, Claire Sandberg, and Wes McEnany entitled, Want to Stop ICE? Go After Its Corporate Collaborators. In that article, the authors make the following point:

ICE relies heavily on the private sector to help carry out its Gestapo-like crusade against immigrants and their allies. Without the logistical, financial, and political support of business, its capacity to terrorize our communities would crumble.

Another good resource was an article that looked at 5 ways to target ICE contracts, which looked at targeting deportation flight contracts, flock cameras, car rental companies like Enterprise (which has a huge contract with ICE), hotel companies like Hilton where ICE agents stay, and retail companies like Target, which has a contract with ICE.  

Next, we were presented with really good tools for research, all of which were government sites or accountability/transparency sites such as:

USAspending.gov

https://www.gsa.gov/

https://www.gsa.gov/real-estate/leasing

https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/

https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?two_year_transaction_period=2026&min_date=01%2F01%2F2025&max_date=12%2F31%2F2026

https://www.opensecrets.org/

https://www.sec.gov/search-filings

https://whalewisdom.com/

Ultimately, the Littlesis group provided us with a document that lists most of the current ICE contracts involving leasing of space across the country, where you can search by state and city. For Grand Rapids, what I found is listed below, which sometimes provides the entity that has the contract, when the contract began and how long it goes to, along with how much the contract is worth. Go to this link to download the ICE Contract in the US document.

• US Attorney’s Office of Western Michigan, 330 Ionia Ave., NW, Grand Rapids – 9/29/2019 through 9/19/2029, $52,108.42.
• US Attorney’s Office of Western Michigan, 330 Ionia Ave., NW, Grand Rapids – 10/8/2024 through 10/7/2039, $706,292.51
• US Attorney’s Office of Western Michigan, 330 Ionia Ave., NW, Grand Rapids – 4/17/2015 through 4/16/2028, $1,752,378.17
• CWD Building 50 Louis Street NW, Grand Rapids – 6/1/2023 through 5/31/2038, $242,500.08.
• CWD Building 38 W. Fulton St., Grand Rapids – 6/1/2020 through 5/31/2030, $424,336.93.
• United States Government office 800 Monroe NW, Grand Rapids – 1/1/2015 through 12/31/2027, $43,735.45.
• Office unknown 4665 Broadmoor Ave SE, Grand Rapids – 6/1/2010 through 5/31/2026, $149,432.06.
• Akal Security 1 N Division Ave, Grand Rapids – 10/1/2016 through 9/30/2026, $1,557,912.19
• U.S. Internal Revenue Service 3251 EVERGREEN DR NE, Grand Rapids, 1/9/2009 through 1/8/2027, $811,680.37.
• Social Security Administration 3045 Knapp Street NE, Grand Rapids – 8/30/2024 through 8/29/2039, $606,436.65.
• CWD Building 125 OTTAWA AVE NW, Grand Rapids – 11/21/2022 through 11/20/2032, $128,379.02.
• ICE Office 517 Ottawa Ave NW, Grand Rapids – 12/17/2018 through 12/16/2033, $281,602.88.
• No listed address other than Grand Rapids – 3/1/2010 through 11/7/2030, $718,041.13.
• Agency unknown 1925 BRETON RD SE, Grand Rapids – 5/17/2019 through 5/16/2029, $664,731.87.

Combined the ICE contracts with entities in Grand Rapids is roughly 7 million dollars and that is just for office space leasing. We know that BI Incorporated, a subsidiary of the GEO Group, also has a contract with ICE and they are located at 545 Michigan NE in Grand Rapids. We also know that BI Incorporated has a new contract with ICE to use bounty hunters to assist in tracking down immigrants for ICE.

Lastly, there is the issue of the Kent County Sheriff’s Department holding immigrants for ICE at the Kent County Jail. In the past they had a contract with ICE to compensate holding immigrants at the jail for ICE, but we are unable to verify if the Kent County Sheriff’s Office has a contract with ICE or if they are being compensated for holding immigrants at the jail, since the Kent County Sheriff is not being transparent about their relationship with ICE.