Cosecha organized vigil publicly mourns the recent ICE killings of immigrants in front of the federal building in Grand Rapids

About 50 people gathered last night to publicly grieve and mourn the recent murders of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo and Johan Sebastian Durán Guerrero at the hands of agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Hosted by the immigrant-led organization Movimiento Cosecha, the vigil took place in front of the south entrance of the federal building in downtown Grand Rapids. Cosecha organizers created a make shift altar for the public vigil, with images of the two most recent ICE victims, along with a list of names of other people who have been killed by ICE since the beginning of 2025.

A volunteer organizer with No Detention Centers in Michigan spoke first by saying:

ICE is an agency of death, in whose presence no one is safe. Founded just over two decades ago, it is an agency that has no good reason to exist, and it is also part of a broader carceral system of white supremacist violence and exploitation. When ICE terrorizes and kidnaps our neighbors like Byron Martinez here in Grand Rapids with the cooperation of the Grand Rapids Police Department and the Kent County Sheriff’s Office—in the absence of the concrete sanctuary policies for which Cosecha and GR Rapid Response are fighting—people are then taken to the GEO Group’s North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, 70 miles north of here. It is the largest detention center in the Midwest.

We continue to uplift the unmet demands of the spring hunger strike at North Lake, as well as the courageous organizing represented by Women’s Collective Civil Action—a group of women held at North Lake who filed a joint habeas corpus petition in April, declaring, “Our lives ended the day ICE detained us.” We uplift the bravery and dignity of Q, a transgender woman who was sexually assaulted at North Lake earlier this year—a victim of the systemic crisis of sexual violence faced by trans people in detention—and who was then deported to Venezuela in the middle of the so-called investigation into her assault. Whether on the streets of Grand Rapids or in cages for profit in Baldwin, ICE is a force of death and destruction. North Lake is an abomination and must be closed down for good. The struggle for sanctuary policies here in Grand Rapids and the struggle to end the inherently inhumane system of immigration detention in Michigan and beyond are one and the same. Stop the killings, free our neighbors, shut down North Lake and abolish ICE.

The speaker from No Detention Centers in Michigan was followed by a volunteer organizer with GR Rapid Response to ICE. This person talked about how earlier this year there was a great deal of outrage when Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis. The ICE murder of these two white people led to protests all over the country and even resulted in some elected officials calling for the abolition of ICE. In Grand Rapids there was a weekly ICE out of Grand Rapids protest held for nearly two months. With the most recent ICE murders of immigrants, there has been very little public outrage from either white-led organizations or politicians who had previously condemned ICE, especially Democrats.

The speaker from GR Rapid Response to ICE also talked about how immigrants living in Kent County are being taken on a weekly basis, that family separation is happening right here in Grand Rapids and that the GRPD and the Kent County Sheriff’s Office is collaborating with ICE to arrest and detain immigrants.

Cosecha organizers also invited someone to sing a beautiful song for the vigil, and that same person then taught those gather a song in Spanish, a song about the harm done to children who have lost parents because of ICE.

The vigil ended with Cosecha organizer Gema Lowe inviting people to take and sign a new pledge cards they created. Cosecha is calling for the following demands:

• Federal government accountability for enabling and directing agencies that commit human rights abuses and crimes against our humanity.
• The abolition of ICE, an agency that systematically targets, detains, and has been responsible for the deaths of immigrants in its custody and through its enforcement practices.
• The immediate adoption of all six local sanctuary policies that prohibit cooperation with ICE and strengthen protections for immigrant families.

Cosecha did send out a Press Advisory earlier on Friday, but no local commercial news media outlets bothered to show up and report on the event.