The community will once again present concrete evidence that the GRPD is coordinating and collaborating with ICE during the City Commission meeting

This Tuesday at 7pm, Grand Rapids City Commissioner and Mayor LaGrand will get an earful of information, personal testimony, and photographic evidence that the GRPD was actively coordinating with ICE on September 12th to make sure that immigrants that had been abducted by ICE would be transported from the ICE office at 517 Ottawa by the GEO Group van in order to be taken to the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin, Michigan.

Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE are encouraging people to attend the Grand Rapids City Commission meeting on Tuesday, September 22nd at 7pm to speak during public comment and to witness how the City Commission and the Mayor respond to first hand accounts of GRPD cooperation with ICE.

Over 100 people took part in an anti-ICE action on September 12th, plus thousands more have seen the evidence that has been shared on social media.

The action took place in the alley behind the 517 Ottawa NW ICE building, which is their deployment office, meaning the office where ICE agents work out of to abduct immigrants, process them and then put them on a GEO Group van for transport to Baldwin, Michigan.

People noticed that the GEO Group van was in the ICE parking lot just north of the ICE building, which was around 11am, when most of the people who were resisting ICE had arrived. The GRPD arrived just minutes after those protesting ICE were on the scene, although the GRPD had a presence in the area at least an hour prior to the protest. Several first hand accounts said that GRPD cruisers were staging nearby, with many reports stating that as many as a dozen GRPD cruisers were seen.

Several GRPD cruisers pulled in the alley from the north entrance and blocked the alley right about where the ICE parking lot and the building that includes the ICE office begins. The GRPD cruisers parked diagonally in two different directions, making it nearly impossible for people to go north in the alley. At the same time the GRPD had cruisers near the south entrance of the alley.

Activists have been documenting for months that the GEO Group van then moves from the ICE parking lot and pulls into the garage of the ICE building at 517 Ottawa NW. Immigrants that are being abducted on a daily basis by ICE are put in a holding cell in the 517 Ottawa NW. ICE then loads abducted immigrants into the GEO Group van, which then departs from the garage to head to Baldwin, Michigan.

However, since there was activist presence by the gated ICE parking lot and near the garage entrance, ICE decided to bring the abducted immigrants out of a door that leads to their parking lot north of the building. Before doing that and to make sure that the GEO Van could get out of the ICE parking lot the GRPD cruisers blocked the alley way and got out of their cars to issue warnings to the crowd about leaving the area. All of the GRPD cops were brandishing weapons, with some of the them holding PepperBall Air Rifles, as shown in this picture that was taken during the action.

The GRPD not only pushed activists down to the southern end of the alley behind the 517 Ottawa NW ICE office building, they did so by threatening people with excessive force in order to create space for the GEO Group van to exit the ICE parking lot and make their get away.

Once the GEO Group van exited the ICE parking lot several GRPD cruiser provided an escort north bound in the alley, along with fact that GRPD cops were position at the north end of the alley to make sure that activists could not block the GEO Group van as it was crossing Trowbridge St. The GRPD continued to escort the GEO Group van down to Corewell Drive making sure that ICE abducted immigrants would be transported to the detention facility in Baldwin, Michigan.

In late July, GRPD Chief Trigg denied that his department cooperates with ICE when questioned during a public forum. In fact Chrief Trigg stated, “that in his 25 years with the Grand Rapids Police Department he has never seen an ICE agent.”

The six Grand Rapids City Commissioners usually remain silent on the issue of GRPD cooperation with ICE and have definitely never acknowledged this cooperation.

Mayor LaGrand has repeatedly denied any GRPD collaboration with ICE. Last month when Mayor LaGrand was presented with evidence of GRPD cooperation with ICE he stated: “Every City that I have looked at for policies has allowed the GRPD to keep ICE agents safe. They are also humans.”

Let’s see what new justifications Mayor LaGrand can come up when the community tries to stop ICE agents and the GEO Group from abducting immigrants while the GRPD assists them in maintaining state carceral violence at the City Commission meeting.