Those arrested at Kent County Sheriff’s Office demanding an end to ICE holds were found guilty during yesterday’s trial

The trial for the four defendants who non-violently stayed in the lobby of the Kent County Sheriff’s Office to demand an end the ICE holds at the Kent County Jail on January 5th took place yesterday.

The 4 defendants participated in this action in conjunction with Movimiento Cosecha and their campaign to get Kent County to adopt six sanctuary policies, a campaign which began in early 2025. In addition, the defendants were responding to what they and Cosecha has been hearing for the past two years, which is that immigrants were being held at the Kent County Jail for ICE, then being transported to the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan.

What immigrant families had been sharing with Cosecha about ICE holds at the Kent County Jail was recently confirmed with a 2 page document obtained by FOIA that revealed the Kent County Sheriff had signed an agreement that they would engage in detainers for ICE upon request. This documented was signed by the Kent County Sheriff on March 5th of 2025.

The trial itself went longer than was expected by many, starting at 8:30am on Friday and ending at 6:30pm after the jury rendered a guilty verdict for the four defendants.

The Prosecutor only had three witnesses, all of which were members of the Kent County Sheriff’s Office and were involved in the arrest of the four defendants. It is worth noting that there were a total of nine Sheriff’s officers that arrested 5 non-violent activists who were merely standing in the lobby.

Under Sheriff Brian Muir, who is second in charge and is the likely successor to the current Sheriff who recently announced her retirement, revealed some interesting facts during his testimony. First, when asked by defense attorneys if what he said to the defendants at the time of the arrest was caught on his body camera Muir said no because his body camera “wasn’t working or wasn’t charged.”

A second interesting comment from Muir was while he was being cross examined by defense attorneys about whether or not the Sheriff’s Office shares Flock camera information with ICE. Muir said they share Flock camera images with all federal agencies that request them for a criminal investigation. Muir would not name ICE as being a federal agency, even when pressed on the matter, but by saying all federal agencies he admitted that includes ICE.

The Under Sheriff also revealed that their department has what he called the Real Time Intelligence Center, which essentially monitors everything happening at the buildings the Sheriff’s Office is in charge of (which includes the Kent County Jail), along with any interaction Sheriff’s officers have with the public and drone footage when drones are used. Muir shared this bit of information because he said that his officers were also monitoring Movimiento Cosecha’s livestream from inside the lobby of the Sheriff’s Office on the day of the action/arrest on January 5th and the post arrest video they did in the lobby of the jail with the defendants. Under Sheriff Muir essentially admitted that the Sheriff’s Office engages in surveillance of Cosecha, which means they likely do this to any organized efforts to challenge systems of power in Kent County.

Only two of the four defendants took the stand to offer testimony during the trial, especially since there seemed to be no need to be redundant with more defendants testifying with similar messages.

Movimiento Cosecha did send out a Press Release earlier in the week, but only WXMI 17 attended the trial. Their coverage relied heavily on the Kent County Sheriff’s perspective, which also released a statement after the verdict was rendered. Cosecha organizer Gema Lowe did have a quote that is worth sharing, stating, “I think the defense did a good job, but I think the only guilt that the defendants have is to be standing in solidarity with my community.” That news story can be found here.

As a contrast, here is a statement written by one of the defendants after the trial:

While we are disappointed in a guilty verdict we are in no way surprised. What the guilty verdict means is that it is legal for the Kent County Sheriff’s Office to collaborate with ICE and hold immigrants at the jail for ICE because of their signed agreement from March of 2025.

Our desire to end ICE holds at the Kent County Jail is rooted in solidarity with immigrants and because it would reduce the harm and terror they are faced with every day if the Kent County Sheriff’s Office wasn’t holding immigrants for ICE.

The consequence of the Sheriff’s Office holding immigrants for ICE means that they will be transported to the GEO Group-owned North Lake detention center in Baldwin, MI. At North Lake immigrants will face poor food quality, minimal medical care, verbal, psychological, physical and sexual abuse from the guards and ongoing family separation.

Lastly, what the guilty verdict means is that it is a crime to be in solidarity with immigrants, while the Kent County Sheriff’s Office collaboration with ICE is not only legal, it is normalized state terror.