I was denied access to report on the Great Lakes Homeland Security Training Conference and Expo in Grand Rapids today

The Great Lakes Homeland Security Training Conference and Expo began today in Grand Rapids at the downtown convention center. The convention lasts for three days and brings federal, state and local law enforcement agencies together.

As an Indymedia writer I was denied access for “security reasons.” This was told to me by a convention center rent a cop who looked at me with suspicion. I pressed him on the matter by asking why a conference that was supposedly dealing with the topic of public safety would not allow me, both as a writer and taxpayer, to attend this event.

Once again he said for “security reasons,” to which I responded who’s security? If the public can’t attend a conference that is suppose to be dealing with public safety, then that seems to be rather contradictory, I retorted.

I then asked if I could just visit the information tables that were part of the expo. Again, he denied me entrance, even to visit the tables and look at information brochures on what government agencies were saying about public safety.

Of course, I am not surprised that I was denied entrance to the Homeland Security conference, This has been a pattern for several years now, where if you are not part of the commercial media establishment, you are not granted access to events which impact the public. About 10 years ago I was denied access to the State Police Network conference that took place in Grand Rapids and for the past 6 years I have not been allowed to attend the West Michigan Policy Conference, even though I used to be able to attend as media.

My reason for wanting to attend or to at least have a look at the groups tabling in the expo area has to do with wanting to see what kind of presence that the Department of Homeland Security has in Grand Rapids that I am not aware of. About a month ago I posted an article on the current ICE contracts in Grand Rapids, where I uncovered more than I expected. What I still did not learn was some of the entities with contracts, since some of the information was limited to the landlord/property management companies that were renting to entities with ICE contracts.

A second reason for wanting to attend this conference was to investigate if the Grand Rapids Police Department, the Kent County Sheriff’s Office or any other local cops were actively collaborating with ICE. We know that the GRPD has been collaborating with ICE by assisting them during arrests of immigrants, as was the case with Byron Martinez.

With the growing public demands to Abolish ICE the public should have the right to attend conferences like the one happening in Grand Rapids right now. More importantly, the public should have a say in denying local cops from assisting ICE in any capacity, which is essentially what Movimiento Cosecha has been demanding with their campaign to get the City of Grand Rapids and Kent County to adopt 6 sanctuary policies.