New video shows how economic and political power functions in Grand Rapids to benefit the those who have deep pockets
A new Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce video was released last week and focuses on the progress of the CWD Real Estate Investment’s property at 111 Lyon in downtown Grand Rapids.
The video features the GR Chamber’s government affairs liaison Josh Lunger talking with one of the partners of CWD Real Estate Investment Sam Cummings.
The irony of having Lunger and Cummings featured in this video is that Cummings has been a part of the Grand Rapids Power Structure for decades and Lunger was instrumental in lobbying state legislators to change a law that will allow developers to use public dollars when converting former office space into housing.
In a July article I wrote about how the Chamber and Cummings collaborated to change state law to benefit developers:
At a Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce event this past Spring, Sam Cummings talked about a state law that was adopted in 2023, which amended the Brownfield Redevelopment Financing Act. This amendment made housing development projects, like the One Eleven Lyon project eligible for brownfield capture. Cummings made these remarks at the Spring conference held by the GR Chamber of Commerce, which contributed to LaGrand’s campaign for Mayor and subsequence campaigns for State Representative, which is nothing more than influence peddling by people like Cummings, who has a long history of using public funds to expand his wealth.
Sam Cummings sent a message to the Grand Rapids City Commission in late 2020, where he berated City officials for not taking $500,000 from Kent County to purchase more technology for the GRPD, known as ShotSpotter. The community, particularly Black and Brown communities organized a campaign to defeat ShotSpotter, but that didn’t prevent Cummings from going off on City officials who, in this case, actually listened to people who don’t have deep pockets like Cummings.
As was mentioned, Josh Lunger helped to lobby state legislators to change a law that will allow developers to use public dollars when converting former office space into housing. As Cummings is giving a tour of the 111 Lyon building to Lunger, where they are talking about billiard tables and pickleball courts, Cummings says the new 140 apartment units will be the coolest place to live in Grand Rapids. What Cummings didn’t say was what these apartments will cost. We all know that these apartments will only be affordable for people who are part of the professional class, people who make well over six-figure salaries, which is the kind of people that the GR Chamber of Commerce and the City of Grand Rapids have been trying to attract in recent decades.
On top of all of that, it is important to note that Josh Lunger was also the main GR Chamber of Commerce person who initiated the discussion around the “problem” of unhoused people in downtown Grand Rapids. In the summer of 2022, Lunger sent a letter to the Grand Rapids City Commission on behalf of the GR Chamber of Commerce about how business owners and some residents of downtown GR were upset about the “homeless, which you can read here.
Josh Lunger then took the next step on behalf of the GR Chamber of Commerce in December of 2022, where he sent another letter that proposed the City of Grand Rapids adopt ordinances that would criminalize the unhoused in downtown Grand Rapids. Lunger and the GR Chamber got over 100 of their friends to endorse the proposal to criminalize the unhoused, which can read here.
In the summer of 2023, the City of Grand Rapids then adopted two ordinances that essentially fulfilled the GR Chamber’s proposal intent, despite their being significant public opposition to the ordinances.
This new video from the GR Chamber of Commerce is another clear example of how political and economic power function in this city and why we have to resist this kind of influence peddling. If we don’t resist, we allow members of the Capitalist Class to dictate the future of Grand Rapids.
Commemorating immigrants that have died while in US Detention Centers during a Day of the Dead vigil in Grand Rapids
On Saturday over 100 people gathered outside the ICE office at 517 Ottawa NW in downtown Grand Rapids to participate in an vigil cosponsored by Movimiento Cosecha, GR Rapid Response to ICE, No Detention Centers in Michigan and the ACLU.
The vigil was part of a national Communities not Cages campaign that was coordinated by the Detention Watch Network. In the Detention Watch Network toolkit for the event it states:
The Day of the Dead National Days of Action is designed to honor lives lost to immigration detention as a part of the Communities Not Cages campaign. Immigration detention is deadly and inherently inhumane — what we’re seeing now is heightened cruelty under the Trump administration. Shockingly, there have been at least 25 deaths in ICE custody since Trump’s inauguration, a record number of deaths within a calendar year since 2006. Take action as we collectively honor, remember, and grieve lives lost in ICE custody.
ICE detention centers have always been cruel spaces of oppression directed at undocumented immigrants since Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was created in 2003. In “Deadly Failures,” a 2024 report by the ACLU, American Oversight, and Physicians for Human Rights, independent medical experts found that 95 percent of deaths in detention were deemed as being preventable or possibly preventable if ICE had provided clinically appropriate medical care. Additional investigations into deaths in immigration detention include Code Red: The Fatal Consequences of Dangerously Substandard Medical Care in Immigration Detention, Fatal Neglect: How ICE Ignores Deaths in Detention and Systemic Indifference: Dangerous and Substandard Medical Care in US Immigration Detention. These reports have found that ICE medical care has contributed to numerous deaths and that the agency lacks urgency and transparency when reporting deaths in its custody. 
The Day of the Dead vigil outside of the ICE office at 517 Ottawa was facilitated by Rev. Greta Jo Seidohl, who did a great job of creating an atmosphere of grief and mourning, for those that attended the vigil.
Gema Lowe with Movimiento Cosecha then provided clarity around the importance of Dia de Los Muertos in Mexican culture, which included handmade crosses that Cosecha members made to honor the 25 people who have died in ICE Detention Centers since the beginning of the 2025. Gema also talked about the work that Movimiento Cosecha is involved in, including the boycott campaign that is targeting the businesses that Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand owns.
Pastor Ricardo Angarita then addressed the crowd with additional comments about the significance of the Day of the Dead and how it relates to the national campaign to reflect on and remember the 25 immigrants that have died while in ICE Detention Centers throughout the US. Pastor Ricardo then offered up a Christian prayer.
Rev. Nathan Dannison from Fountain Street Church was the next person to address the crowd, specifically to read the names of the 25 immigrants who have died while in ICE Detention Centers in the US since the beginning of the year. Rev. Dannison asked people to say the word Presente! after each name was invoked and the location of the ICE Detention Center they died in. He also asked people to lift up the 25 crosses that Cosecha members had made while everyone said Presente!
Here is the list of those who have died in ICE Detention Centers since the beginning of the year:
After acknowledging those who have died in ICE Detention Centers a representative from No Detention Centers in Michigan played audio from someone who had recently been released from the North Lake ICE Detention Center in Baldwin, Michigan, followed by a second audio recording of someone who is still locked up there. Lauren Ann Coman then read in English what both men had said in Spanish.
Lastly, a representative from GR Rapid Response to ICE spoke to offer up ways that people can become actively involved in resisting ICE in the Grand Rapids area. One thing that they emphasized was that they did not want to come back here next year and listen to a new list of immigrants who had died while in an ICE Detention Center, saying, “we need to move from protesting ICE to actively resisting ICE terrorism.”
People who held up the handmade crosses when the names of the immigrants who have died in ICE Detention Centers since the beginning of this year were then asked to place them in front of the ICE Office at 517 Ottawa.
Someone from Movimiento Cosecha videotaped the entire vigil, which you can watch here, with the formal part of the vigil begins at 25 minutes into the video.
Photographs taken by Viviana Rubio
It has been 25 months since the Israeli government began their most recent assault on Gaza and the West Bank. The retaliation for the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel, has escalated to what the international community has called genocide, therefore, GRIID will be providing weekly links to information and analysis that we think can better inform us of what is happening, along with the role that the US government is playing. All of this information is to provide people with the capacity of what Noam Chomsky refers to as, intellectual self-defense.
Information
Thousands of Unexploded Bombs Dropped by Israel Have Turned Gaza into a Minefield
The Aftermath of a Massive Wave of Israeli Airstrikes that Killed Over 100 Palestinians
The World Confronts the Genocide Washington is Trying to Bury
The Powerful Who Stand with Israel
A Torturous Sanitation Disaster Is Unfolding in Gaza’s Displacement Camps
UN Human Rights Office Warns Israeli Settler Violence in West Bank Is “Surging”
Israel and US Scorn ICJ Ruling Against Starving Civilians as Method of Warfare
WE ASKED PEOPLE IN GAZA WHAT THEY THINK OF THE CEASEFIRE: “JUST A DECLARATION, NOT REALITY”
Analysis & History
HI-TECH HOLOCAUST: HOW MICROSOFT AIDS THE GAZA GENOCIDE
Image used in this post is from https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/10/30/the-powerful-who-stand-with-israel/
I was invited to submit some entires for the Zinn Education Project’s social media popular education platform known as This Day in History
Last week someone with the Zinn Education Project sent me a message asking if I would like to submit some pieces for their online popular education tool known as This Day in History.
I was delighted and honored to be invited to submit some options and the three that I cam up with are: the 1911 Grand Rapids Furniture Workers Strike, November 4, 1985 Calvin students take action on getting the school to divest from South African Apartheid, and June 28, 2018 – Beginning of the End the Contract with ICE Campaign.
I wanted to submit several clear examples over the past century, all of which demonstrate people power. Minutes after I submitted them, all three were approved by the Zinn Education Project and will be included on their social media platforms.
1911 Grand Rapids Furniture Workers Strike
The 1911 strike was founded on longstanding worker grievances. As early as 1909, the workers discovered that the price of the furniture they produced had increased by 10%, and they demanded that their wages be increased. Some of the workers who called for the increase were fired shortly thereafter for being agitators.
The furniture workers strike began in the Spring of 1911, with estimates of between 4,000 – 6,000 workers going on strike, and with thousands more in support of the strikers. Just prior to the beginning of the strike, the Grand Rapids Employers Association sent Francis Campau to deliver a message to the press, in order to influence public opinion, that workers were being treated fairly. Francis Campau was the grandson of the brother of Louie Campau, the so-called founder of Grand Rapids.
Furniture workers, on the other hand, had a very different view of life working in those factories. One important source that reflected the worker’s perspective was a booklet called, History of the Grand Rapids Furniture Strike: With Facts Hitherto Unpublished. This documented was created by Viva Flaherty, a secretary at Fountain Street Church and a known Socialist. Flaherty documented the 1911 strike because she believed that the “people of Grand Rapids are awakened and enlightened and they can be trusted with the whole truth.”
Flaherty makes it clear in her version of the story that the strike was able to endure because of the seven unions that were involved, with membership of over 4,000 workers in thirty-five shops in Grand Rapids. She also documented that the Christian Reformed Church would not grant their members the right to be part of the union, since labor rights and organizing were not “founded on divine right.”
Flaherty documents the kind of wages earned by those in the furniture industry, stating that of the eight thousand furniture workers employed in Grand Rapids, most made less than $2 a day.
The Catholic leader, Bishop Schrembs, came out in support of the strike, stating, “I consider the present labor situation in our city as a most deplorable one from every point of view.” Bishop Schrembs was later banished to the Diocese of Toledo for his solidarity with furniture workers.
The strike ended in August of 1911 and the workers did not win the demands they had hoped. However, they did win lots of public support. During the 1911 Labor Day parade, there were an estimated 10,000 people walking in the parade. The Grand Rapids Furniture Barons, were not happy with worker demands and how much support there was from the city government. In 1916, the Furniture Barons put forward a ballot initiative that changed the City Charter from a 12 ward system to a 3 ward system, in order to consolidate their power. The current ward system we have in Grand Rapids today, is a direct result of those in power punishing workers and their families.
For additional information, see the book, “A People’s History of Grand Rapids”, by Jeff Smith
November 4, 1985 Calvin students take action on getting the school to divest from South African Apartheid
The South African Anti-Apartheid movement was a global movement that took decades to dismantle the legal system of apartheid in South Africa.
In Grand Rapids, there were several anti-Apartheid campaigns that were successful, including the Grand Rapids Public Schools and the City of Grand Rapids. Both of those entities adopted resolutions and put in place practices to divest from companies profiting off of the racist system of Apartheid in South Africa.
A third campaign was led by students from what was then called Calvin College. The students would then recruit Calvin faculty to be part of the campaign, which was eventually successful. What follows is a letter from one of the student organizers to Calvin administrators, a letter that was dated November 4, 1985.
Dear Priorities Committee Member,
The following is a copy of a motion passed unanimously by Student Senate at its October 28 meeting. Part of the request was that the faculty join the Student Senate in making this resolution. This resolution now comes before the Priorities Committee for our discussion regarding its presentation to the entire faculty.
In the summer of 1984, the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church condemned the Biblical defense of apartheid as heresy. The the autumn of 1985 apartheid remains the official policy of the South African government. Under this system of racial segregation, the injustice of minority oppression continues. Therefore, in keeping with the spirit of the Synod’s decision, we the Student Senate of Calvin College, resolve to commit ourselves to take the following action as a manifestation of our strong disapproval of the policy of apartheid and as an expression of our sincerest desire to see the system of apartheid dismantled and replaced by a system that recognizes the equality and oneness of all people before God their Creator: The Student Senate strongly urges Calvin College to divest itself of all holdings in corporations currently doing business in South Africa or transacting business with the government of South Africa.
Student Senate also mandates the Student Senate Executive Committee to draft letters to the companies from which we are recommending the divestment of Calvin College’s holdings expressing Student Senate’s concern regarding involvement in South Africa and explaining the reasons for our action.
Student Senate urges the Faculty to join us in making this resolution.
Very Truly yours,
Craig Knot
Student Body President
For more information on the Grand Rapids anti-Apartheid Movement, especially source material, go to this link and read Chapter 6 of A People’s History of Grand Rapids by Jeff Smith.
June 28, 2018 – Beginning of the End the Contract with ICE Campaign
On Thursday, June 28th, 2018, roughly 250 people showed up to the Kent County Commission meeting, a turnout that is rarely seen at such meetings. People with Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE had been planning for months to attend the commission meeting and demand that they end the contract between ICE and the Kent County Sheriff’s Department.
Organizers waited until the Public Comment period of the commission meeting and after a few people spoke, a few dozen people occupied the space in the commission chambers, where the Kent County Commissioners sat during the meetings. Some people unfurled a large banner that said, Kent County Separates Families, End the Contract!
Most of the Kent County Commissioners got up and left the meeting, with a just a few of them remaining. The End the Contract campaign organizers asked people to come to the podium and have a People’s Hearing, where dozens of people, primarily those impacted by ICE violence, spoke about the fear they experienced, fear of arrest, fear of detention and fear of deportation. For more than an house the People’s Hearing was conducted, essentially taking over the Kent County Commission meeting.
This was the first action taken in the End the Contract Campaign, which lasted until the following year, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement decided to end their contract with the Kent County Sheriff’s Department, primarily because of all the negative and national press generated from the protests and the abusive actions of ICE and Cops in Grand Rapids.
It should be noted that the Kent County Commission, nor the Sheriff’s Department, called for an end to the ICE contract. In fact, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), is the entity that ended the contract with Kent County, primarily because of how much media attention the End of Contract campaign was getting. The amount of attention was two fold. First, the 14 month efforts of Movimiento Cosecha GR and GR Rapid Response to ICE engaged in numerous Direct Actions that not only confronted Kent County officials, it engaged the public and generated a tremendous amount of media attention. Second, when an off-duty GRPD Captain contacted ICE about a former US Marine, whom the cop thought was an undocumented immigrant, the national media began to pay attention to the absurdity and immorality of the racist profiling of immigrants. Thus, ICE ended their contract with Kent County in September of 2019.
For additional information, see Chapter 9 from A People’s History of Grand Rapids.
There is deep concern about the threat against people not receiving SNAP benefits in the coming days, and rightfully so. According to a recent KConnect message, “SNAP benefits are a lifeline for nearly 76,000 individuals in Kent County alone, including almost 32,000 children.”
Rep. Hillary Scholten posted on her Facebook page recently these comments related to SNAP:
We’re mere days away from folks losing the benefits they need to put food on their table. I led Michigan Dems in Congress to call on c. Rollins and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to use their contingency fund, which is set aside for scenarios exactly like the one we’re in now. We can’t leave American families to starve.
This is a nice sentiment from Rep. Scholten but sentiments don’t put food on the table for the thousands of families in Kent County that will suffer once SNAP benefits get cut.
It is never a question of lack of money, but a matter of priorities
If Rep. Scholten was really serious about making sure that people who live in her district would not go hungry, there are several things that she could do to demonstrate her commitment to food justice and economic justice simultaneously.
- Rep. Scholten could stop voting for the massive annual US military budgets, which are just shy of $1 Trillion annually. The US military budget is larger than the next 9 largest country military budgets combined. Having a vastly smaller US military budget would guarantee that there would be funds to make sure the millions of food insecure people living in the US would have enough food, health care, etc. From the 3rd Congressional District alone, taxpayers are paying $1.82 billion to the US military budget on an annual basis, according to the National Priorities Project. Imagine what kind of community care work could be done for people on an annual basis with $1.82 billion?
- Rep. Scholten could choose to redirect the millions she raises every 2 years for her re-election efforts and spent that money on food for the people in her district that would lose SNAP benefits. Lets face it, most of the campaign contributions go towards awful and deceptive campaign ads. Rep. raised over $5 million for her 2024 election campaign, according to Open Secrets. In addition, using campaign funds to meet the daily needs of people living in the 3rd Congressional District would likely get her more votes than campaign ads that few people actually pay attention to.
- Rep. Scholten and her fellow Democratic Party colleagues in Congress could engage in a creative act of Civil Disobedience and get arrested in Washington, DC to demonstrate their commitment to the people living in their district demanding that cutting SNAP benefits is unjust. Making statements on social media is performative, but taking direct action stands a greater chance of forcing the Trump Administration to not punish people who are food insecure.
What happens when we take care of each other
I have no illusion that Rep. Scholten or other politicians and governments at any level will actually do the kinds of things I suggested above, which is why I believe that we ultimately shouldn’t rely on government programs like SNAP.
I believe that communities can take care of themselves. Now I am not talking about charity or just doing local food drives. Those types of things might be necessary in the short run, but I am saying is that we need to re-orient our communities to be more interdependent and not rely on the crumbs that governments provide to the people. Governments and politicians have not and do not serve the interests of the majority of the public, so we better come to terms with that fact.
There are groups in Kent County right now that are not waiting for people to go hungry, but are actively engaged in ways to provide some Mutual Aid to those who will lose SNAP benefits. The Grand Rapids Area Mutual Aid Network has been doing this kind of work since March of 2020 just days after the US government finally acknowledged the pandemic. There is also work being done to provide more food equity from the group Unite & Resist, which is included in the graphic here above. And of course people can contribute to local food pantries or get involved in other food emergency efforts, but these are all short term solutions, also hereontheright.
During the height of the COVID pandemic I wrote a series of articles entitled, Why we can’t go back to the way things were in Grand Rapids. Part II in that series was Re-imagining a new food system.
So what might a radically re-imagined food system look like in the Grand Rapids area? Here, we offer 10 ideas about how to move in that direction.
- We do need more people to question the existing food system and learn food growing and food preserving skills. More people growing and preserving food is an important step, but it is only a first step and not the end goal.
- We need large, fully functional farmers markets in a sectors of the Grand Rapids area, which will make it easier for more people to access fresh food that is in their neighborhood.
- We need to guarantee that people have access to land to grow food, particularly to grow food collectively. I support people turning their lawns into spaces of food production, but this is often a privileged response, since many people do not have lawns. Vacant lots, church property, green space that exists at commercial facilities, all need to be made available for people to collectively grow food.
- Right now, a great deal of food that is grown in West Michigan, does not stay in West Michigan. Many of the area farms grow mono-crops, like corn and apples, which are either used for animal feed (in the case of corn) or the food is sent abroad to be used in the creation of highly processed foods. Current, the food system is not bio-regional and this also means that the average food item grown will travel 1,000 miles before it is consumed. This is not sustainable, nor should it be desirable. More farmers would use a CSA model (Community Supported Agriculture), but this requires that thousands more need to join a CSA.
- Food waste is built in to the current food system. Food that goes bad before it gets to consumers is expected and used as a write-off in the current food system. Then there is the amount of food that grocery stores throw away because it has expired and all the food that is thrown away by restaurants and other institutions that prepare thousands of pounds of food every day. So much food ends up in a landfill, food that could be used to meet the nutritional needs of so many people.
- We need to rethink how we access food and move beyond supporting the large grocery chains, moving to other food distribution models. We need more food coops, food buying clubs, more CSAs and more neighborhood-based farmers markets. 75% of the food sold in Grocery store chains is highly processed foods that we don’t need, and if fact, the highly processed foods is what has led to a major health crisis, especially for those experiencing poverty.
- The Slaughterhouse industry has also now being exposed to its brutal and dysfunctional nature. For years we have know that a meat-centric diet in the current food system is a major contributor to climate change. Moving forward we need to come to terms with the fact we need to significantly reduce animal consumption to truly have a just and sustainable food system.
- Right now it is apparent that agricultural workers/migrant workers are “essential workers.” However, agricultural workers/migrant workers have always been essential to the current food system, despite the fact that they are exploited on a massive scale. Food worker demands should be met, which includes a livable wage, safe working conditions, just housing conditions and the elimination of the threat of ICE arrest, detention and deportation, since many workers in the food system are undocumented. Farmworker unions should be a priority.
- Farmworker labor improvements are a good first step, but it would still not do much to challenge the existing food system. We need massive land reform, which includes a longstanding tradition, particularly in the Global South, where those who work the land should own the land.
- We also need to challenge the massive subsidization of the current food system, also known as the Farm Bill. Billions of dollars of taxpayer money is used to support a dysfunctional, exploitative and unjust food system.
- Instead of ending the Farm Bill, maybe we need to radically re-imagine a new Farm Bill that would redistribute the billions going to support the agribusiness sector and redistribute that money to fund all of the other ideas listed above.
These ideas are just the beginning of what a radically re-imagined food system might look like, but it is just that, a beginning. We have to radically re-image our economy, our housing system, transportation, health care, community safety and so much more if we want to begin to practice real solidarity and work towards collective liberation. Politicians won’t save us nor the existing systems that have been designed to maintain power and privilege. Another World is Possible!
What are the Sanctuary policies that Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE are demanding from Grand Rapids and Kent County? Part II
This is the second in a series that will further examine the various sanctuary policies that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE are demanding that the City of Grand Rapids and the Kent County Commission adopt. In Part I last week I looked at the policy that allows officers to provide assistance to federal immigration authorities when there is an emergency that poses an immediate danger to public safety or federal agents.
Today I will look at policies that would prevent local governments from entering into a contract with the federal government to hold immigrants in detention. Kent County used to have a contract with ICE that began in 2012, a contract you can read here.
In 2012, then Sheriff Stelma agreed to a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a contract that saw an increase in arrests, detentions and deportation during the Obama administration and the subsequent Trump administration. In 2017, Kent County signed an extension of the ICE contract, a contract which provided financial incentives for the Kent County Sheriff’s Department.
Sheriff Stelma signed onto a letter from the National Sheriff’s Association in March of 2018, which is more of an ideological statement about immigration. Part of that letter reads:
Congress must act to pass legislation to secure our borders through enforcing immigration laws, tightening border security, support the replacement and upgrades to current barriers and fencing and construction of barriers along the U.S. and Mexico international boundary as requested by those areas where it is needed, suspending and/or monitoring the issuance of visas to any place where adequate vetting cannot occur, end criminal cooperation and shelter in cities, counties, and states, and have zero tolerance and increased repercussions for criminal aliens. I stand firm with my fellow Sheriffs throughout our nation to have our borders secured first, in full cooperation and support of our promise and mission to uphold and enforce our nation’s laws, and we expect nothing less from Congress.
During the entire time that Kent County had their contract with ICE, they were getting money from ICE to hold immigrants at the Kent County Jail until ICE took them to a detention facility. ICE paid the Kent County Sheriff’s Department per person and per day, so there was a financial incentive for them to cooperate with ICE.
After the Jilmar Ramos Gomez scandal, where a former US Marine was picked up by ICE in Grand Rapids after the GRPD called ICE on him, the Kent County Sheriff’s Department was forced to require ICE to get a judicial warrant in order to hold someone for them. The Trump Administration responded to this by referring to Kent County as a sanctuary county.
Kent County Sheriff LaJoye-Young took issue with ICE calling the County’s policy a “Sanctuary Policy.” IN the MLive article, the Kent County Sheriff is quoted as saying:
“We are not a ‘sanctuary’ department. I have no intention in being a shield for someone to avoid being held responsible for criminal violations to include criminal immigration violations.”
In June of 2018, Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE had began a campaign to end that contract and were successful in ending that contract in 2019, which is documented here.
While the ICE contracted ended in the fall of 2019, the Kent County Sheriff’s Department continued to cooperate with ICE, by notifying ICE that an undocumented immigrant was in the jail and often times holding immigrants at the jail until ICE could take them to a detention facility. This practice of cooperation continues at the present moment between the Kent County Sheriff’s Department and ICE.
Many immigrant families and several immigration lawyers have shared stories with Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE about how an immigrant family member was in the Kent County jail for some minor infraction and were then scheduled to be released. Families would go to pick up their loved ones at the Kent County Jail only to find out that ICE was contacted by the Kent County Sheriff’s Department and ICE took them just after the jail had released.
This is why Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE have a campaign to get the City of Grand Rapids and Kent County to adopt sanctuary policies, because having policies like not cooperating with ICE to hold immigrants in the jail until ICE takes them clearly causes family separation and trauma.
In Part III, I will look at policies that could prevent immigration detention centers from being established in Grand Rapids.
In their Email for October 29, Indivisible GGR sent out information with the following headline: What is ICE? Or What Is It Supposed to Be?
The post begins by providing a very weak and limited commentary of how ICE came to be, using as their only source an NPR story. There is so much good information on the history of ICE, such as the book Abolish ICE: A Passionate Plea for a More Humane Immigration System, by Natascha Elena Uhlman. More importantly, why would IGGR not rely on the two groups doing the most around ICE since 2017 in Grand Rapids, Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE? Very troubling.
The IGGR post goes on to write:
ICE’s stated purpose is to “protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.” Unfortunately, the ICE of today is a masked police force acting at the behest of the President and his syncophantic Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem.
This is not only an inaccurate assessment, but it puts the blame solely on one administration, when in fact since ICE was created during the George W. Bush Administration, every administration has used ICE to terrorize undocumented immigrants. The Obama Administration deported roughly 3.5 million and the Biden Administration deported roughly 4 million. IGGR is showing it’s partisan bias here by wanting to only lay the blame at the feet of Donald Trump and Republicans. In addition, Democrats have been voting for anti-immigrant legislation and voting with Republicans to fund ICE and US Customs and Border Patrol. What ICE has been doing since it was created is a result of bipartisan policies.
Next, the IGGR post has a heading that reads ICE During the First Trump Administration. In this section they use as ICE data as a source without providing any independent or immigrant-led data or analysis. The section then includes what ICE looked like in Kent County during the first Trump Administration and only uses the case of Jilmar Ramos Gomez, a former US Marine who was suffering from PTSD and ended up in ICE detention because a GRPD cop called ICE in a clear case of racial profiling. The Kent County Sheriff’s office then announced that they would require a judicial warrant for ICE to detain anyone who was in the Kent County Jail. The IGGR post states, “This prompted Kent County to change its mode of cooperation with ICE to ensure constitutional protections.” What this section of the post omits are two things. First, the Kent County Sheriff’s department continued to cooperate with ICE when people who were booked into the Kent County Jail were discovered to be undocumented immigrants, plus the Kent County Jail was still profiting from holding undocumented immigrants in the Jail County Jail for ICE, which was based on a 2012 contact that ICE had with Kent County, a contract directly related to Obama era ICE policies. The IGGR post also omits the fact that Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE engaged in a 14 month campaign to end the ICE contract with Kent County.
The IGGR post then skips what ICE was doing to arrest, detain and deport immigrants during the Biden Administration and just moved on to the next heading which read, ICE During the Second Trump Administration. In this section they write:
As we’ve seen across the country, ICE has also been apprehending immigrants in Kent County as they arrive for hearings on their immigration status. In other words, those who are trying to work through the system legally are having their rights trampled on. For example, on June 4, ICE apprehended a refugee who had intended to return to El Salvador in a matter of days. The return was delayed because ICE took away the passports that the man needed in order to return. The rest of the family sought sanctuary at Fountain Street Church. The man, after being detained in unsanitary conditions, was ultimately reunited with his family in El Salvador. One may wonder the point of putting a man through all of this when he already intended to return home to El Salvador. As they say, the cruelty is the point.
The incident the IGGR post is referring to happened at the ISAP office, which you can read about in detail here from a first hand account of what happened on June 4. I also wrote an update in the case of the family that was offered sanctuary at Fountain Street Church, which talked about the efforts by Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE to get Senators Slotkin and Peters, along with Rep. Scholten to assist in getting the Salvadoran father of this family released, even though none of these members of Congress did anything to fight for this family.
Lastly, the IGGR post mentions something about the GEO Group owned ICE Detention facility in Baldwin, Michigan, but says nothing about the group that has been organizing around that facility since 2018, No Detention Centers Michigan.
In the final section of the post they offer, “some ways to make your voices heard about the mistreatment of Americans at the hands of ICE.” Unfortunately, IGGR omits the most affective ways to resist ICE violence right here in Grand Rapids, by not encouraging their members to support Movimineto Cosecha and take one of the regularly scheduled trainings from GR Rapid Response to ICE. These two groups are doing actual resistance work against ICE in this city and they have been doing it since 2017. Excluding them from a call to action is not only absurd, it does harm to this movement to resist ICE. Let IGGR know that they need to do better by centering the work of those who are actually resisting ICE. Send them a message please https://www.facebook.com/groups/IndivisibleGR.
Kentwood Mayoral race is a perfect example of how problematic electoral politics are for making substantive change in people’s lives
Next week people who live in Kentwood will have an opportunity to vote for a new Mayor. The two candidates who are running are incumbent Stephen Kepley and Monica Sparks, who is currently a Kent County Commissioner.
If you look at the campaign finance data for Stephen Kepley you see that he has raised $46,926.12 and spent $32,022.23. Kepley had 101 separate donors, with the following being some of the largest:
- Maintain Our Majority PAC – $10,000
- Friends of West Michigan Business – $5,000
- Realtors Political Action Committee of Michigan – $2,000
- Dan DeVos/DP Fox – $1,225
- Mike Jandernoa/42 North Partners – $1,225
- Dan Hibma/Land & Company – $1,225
- JC Huizenga/Huizenga Group – $1,225
- John Kennedy/Autocam Medical – $1,225
This short list represents some of the wealthiest families in Kent County, many of who are part of the Grand Rapids Power Structure. There are also PACs representing Realtors – those who have an interest in profiting from the housing market; the Friends of West MI Business, which is the PAC of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce; and Maintain Our Majority, which is a Republican run PAC that has it’s campaign donation address the office of 220 LYONS ST NW SUITE 510, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503. When you look up that address, it is listed as SIBSCO, the real estate firm that was started by the Secchia family, which is now run by Charlie Secchia.
The campaign finance data for Monica Sparks shows that she has raised a total of $30,015.00 and has spent $18,570.14. There were 153 separate contribution entries on the most recent campaign finance document from Monica Sparks. Here are some of the larger contributors:
- Monica Sparks – $2,540
- Michigan Laborers Political League PAC – $2,500
- Teamsters 406 Political Action Committee – $2,500
- Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters Political Action Committee – $2,000
- Kent County Democratic Party – $1,600
- Kentwood Professional Firefighters Union – $1,225
- Joshua Ferguson/270 Strategies – $1,225
- Brandon Dillion/The Winmatt Group – $1,225
- PHILPAC – $1,000
Monica Sparks is not only the largest contributor to her own campaign, she also contributed an additional $24,068.29 under the In-Kind Contributions section of her campaign finance data.
You can see that the larger contributors to Sparks’ campaign are the Kent County Democratic Party, PHILPAC (which is Phil Skaggs’ PAC), Winmatt Group (a Democratic Party consulting group), plus several labor unions, all of which have a history of funding Democratic Party candidates.
Now, some people might say that it seems clear who Kentwood voters should support. You have the incumbent Kepley, who clearly gets a large amount from wealthier families in Kent County, along with organizations like the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce. Kepley is a business as usual politician that does not want to disrupt development efforts or question funding for cops or the Kent County Jail. Kentwood is also a deeply diverse community, both culturally and ethnically, yet Mayor Kepley rarely does anything that challenges the white supremacy framework of Kentwood politics.
Then there is Monica Sparks, a current Kent County Commissioner. Besides relying heavily on Democratic Party and Democratic Party support groups, of the 153 separate contributions listed only 21 of those entires are from people who actually live in Kentwood. This means that the majority of campaign contributors to Monica Sparks comes from people who do not live in Kentwood.
In addition, as a Kent County Commssioner Monica Sparks has also not disrupted business as usual when it comes to issues like voting for all the massive Grand Action 2.0 projects in downtown Grand Rapids like the Amphitheater and the Soccer Stadium. Sparks has always voted to maintain hundreds of millions in funding for the Kent County Sheriff’s Department and the Kent County Jail, which has a disproportionate number of Black and Brown inmates.
Lastly, Monica Sparks was elected to the Kent County Commission in 2018, which means that she did not support Movimiento Cosecha’s push to end Kent County’s contract with ICE and she currently doesn’t support the Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE campaign to get Kent County to adopt several sanctuary policies that would concretely reduce ICE violence in this county.
Neither Mayoral candidate for Kentwood has a platform for disrupting business as usual politics, which means that systems of power and oppression will continue to thrive in Kentwood. What we have in Kentwood is clearly a partisan battle for power, but neither party wants to center the most affected people in Kentwood, working class residents and the vast immigrant and refugees communities that make Kentwood so unique. Here is a clear example of why electoral politics doesn’t serve the majority of the people, which means we need to take matters into our own hands if we want substantive and long lasting change.
On Sunday, I posted an article about a Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE action where activists confronted state lawmakers for their co-sponsorship of bills that would criminalize and acts of compassion or solidarity with immigrants and attempt to limit local municipalities to adopt ordinances that would impede ICE from terrorizing undocumented immigrants.
One of the State Representatives that the group visited was Rep. Angela Rigas, who lives in Alton, MI. She would not come out to talk with people and the only time people went on her property was to knock on the door to give her a document demanding she retract her support these anti-immigrant bills. Movimiento Cosecha has as one of its core principles to practice non-violence in their organizing and resistance work.
Despite there being no real threats against Rep. Rigas, other than to challenge her co-sponsorship of bills that will punish even allies who act in solidarity with the undocumented community, here is how she responded on social media:
Today, far left extremist protestors unlawfully trespassed on my property in an attempt to intimidate and harass me for co-sponsoring a package of bills aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration. When extremists don’t get their way, this is the kind of abhorrent behavior they resort to, and I will NOT cave to their insane demands. I will ALWAYS prioritize the safety of American citizens over dangerous illegal criminals! A police report has been filed and all Ring recordings have been turned in to the Kent County Sheriff’s Department.
This is how those who are part of systems of power and oppression respond, which is to say in petty ways on social media. However, the more problematic issue is that Rep. Rigas sent pictures to the Kent County Sheriff’s office, which has a long track record of working with ICE. Equally problematic is that Rep. Rigas shared her information with a far right news outlet know as the Midwesterner, which posted a story on Sunday entitled, VIDEO: Masked leftist agitators vandalize Rep. Angela Rigas’ home over anti-illegal immigration bills.
Before talking about how awful this story is I think it is important to note that the founder of The Midwesterner is Kyle Olson. Before he founded this awful far right echo-chamber, Oslon used to do a radio show and before that he a reporter for Brietbart News. In addition, Kyle Olson was a campaign advisor for Tudor Dixon’s failed gubernatorial campaign in 2022, plus Olson is a regular on Tudor Dixon’s podcast.
The article on The Midwesterner is problematic in the following ways. First, the article is essentially a form of stenography, where Kyle Olson essentially just reports on what Rep. Rigas shared with him. Second, there was no vandalism, nothing was broken and nothing was destroyed.
Third, most of the people who had a mask on were wearing COVID masks, since long COVID is a reality that those who believe in science acknowledge. Therefore, calling people masked leftists agitators is just a way to over-simplify and distort who came to the home of Rep. Rigas. Labeling people who oppose oppression is part of the far right playbook, since it appeals to supporters of the far right and allows them to easily demonize anyone who opposes what politicians like Rep. Rigas are advocating for.
Fourth, in The Midwesterner article it states, “Video obtained exclusively by The Midwesterner shows a large group of pro-illegal alien agitators, including several masked, chanting outside the home of state Rep. Angela Rigas on Saturday.” The video that Kyle Olson is referring to was from a person who showed up and sat on the from porch of the home of Rep. Rigas. This was a guy who was called by Rep. Rigas, who not only tried to hit people standing along the road with his truck, but had this decal on the rear window of his truck.
Fifth, in the subheading from The Midwesterner, it reads, Rigas unintimidated: ‘I will ALWAYS prioritize the safety of American citizens over dangerous illegal criminals!’” Again, this is standard far right playbook tactics, which does two things. The subheading merely wants to demonize immigrants by calling them “dangerous illegal immigrants.” However, actual facts can dismantle the mantra of “undocumented immigrants are criminals.” The National Institute of Justice wrote in September of 2024, “An NIJ-funded study examining data from the Texas Department of Public Safety estimated the rate at which undocumented immigrants are arrested for committing crimes. The study found that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of native-born U.S. citizens for violent and drug crimes and a quarter the rate of native-born citizens for property crimes.”
The other issues with using this quote from Rep. Rigas is that there is no effort to verify that Rep. Rigas actually does anything to keep American citizens safe. In fact, Rep. Rigas has always supported the funding of cops, which doesn’t keep people safe, and is well documented in this report by Interrupting Criminalization. Rep. Rigas also has voted to take away Trans rights and workers rights, which also do not keep residents of Michigan safe.
Sixth, as I wrote in my article from Sunday, Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE attached a document to the front door of the home of Rep. Rigas, demanding that she retract her support for these anti-immigrant bills, which also included signatures from several of the people who participated. Kyle Olson wrote in his article, “Remarkably, several of the agitators signed their names to the sign.” People signed the document because they are committed to being in solidarity with undocumented immigrants, even if these anti-immigrants bills are adopted. For Kyle Olsen to say this was :remarkable” demonstrates his ignorance of history where people signed similar documents as a public show of solidarity. One example from history would be from the Confessing Church in Germany, where they made it publicly know through the Barmen Declaration that they would resist the Nazi Party and harbor Jews and other communities being targeted by Hitler’s regime.
Lastly, what is important for people to understand apart from what State Rep. Rigas did by using state carceral violence as a response, is the fact that people on her Facebook page and those that are likely consumers of The Midwesterner are not shy about saying that those who showed up to confront Rep. Rigas should be met with violence and repression. What Rep. Rigas did, along with The Midwesterner, was to dox those who were non-violently resisting those who have an anti-immigration agenda. Doxxing by the far right is always dangerous, but especially now since the White House overtly supports the doxxing of activists who are resisting state violence and groups on the far right that are engaged in their own forms of violence in the streets.
For those who want to learn more about doxxing and how to better protect yourself from being doxxed, check out this zine from Sprout Distro.
Further evidence of how much the DeVos family has their tentacles in all things Grand Rapids
Last Thursday MLive posted an article with the headline, Grand Rapids board to gain an estimated $224,600 from DeVos-owned parking lot.
The article stated that a “DeVos family affiliated company” currently owns the parking lot on Ionia right across from the Van Andel Arena. 45 Ionia Associates, which is a subsidiary of RDV Corporation (Doug DeVos), bought the property in 2009, which was approved by the Downtown Development Authority (DDA).
The DDA has now approved a new 10-year agreement between the DDA and the DeVos-owned 45 Ionia Associates. According to the minutes from the DAA meeting from October 8th:
While the Owner is still interested in developing the property, the timeline to do so is undefined and the conditions today are different than they were in 2009. In acknowledgement of that, and with a desire for Area 3 to remain available for public parking as interim use, the Owner has proposed terminating the 2009 Development Agreement and entering a lease with the DDA for the continued operation of the parking lot. As proposed the DDA will pay $4,200 per month to the Owner until such time that it is ready for development. The monthly lease fee would be covered using revenue generated from the lot which will continue to be managed by MobileGR as outlined in the City and DDA Parking Agreement. Any remaining funds after maintenance and operation fees would become non-tax revenue available to the DDA for budgeted projects and programs. The initial lease term is 10 years following which it will automatically be extended for consecutive one-year terms.
The MLive article omitted this information regarding the details of the agreement between the DDA and the DeVos-owned 45 Ionia Associates. More importantly, the MLive reported did not talk about the Downtown Development Authority and it’s relationship to the DeVos family.
The DDA was founded in 1980 to allow the non-elected entity to use tax dollars from the area that makes up downtown Grand Rapids and funnel it to what they like to call public/private projects. However, these projects are ultimately designed to benefit the private sector. The public part of the relationship is to use public tax dollars, plus the public gets to act as consumers.
The other major factor that the MLive reporter failed to discuss or explore is the fact that there are several DeVos-connected people who make up the Grand Rapids DDA. There are 9 members who sit on the DDA Board:
- Richard Winn – AHC Hospitality, which is owned by the DeVos family
- David LaGrand – Mayor of Grand Rapids
- Rosalynn Bliss – Michigan State University
- Luis Avila – Varnum
- Kayem Dunn – Organizational Development Consultant
- Greg McNeilly – The Windquest Group, which is owned by the DeVos family
- Al Vandenberg – Kent County Administrator
- Jen Schottke – West Michigan Construction Institute
- Ryan Foley – Acrisure
At this point you might be saying that the DeVos family only has two people sitting on the DDA board that work for them. While this is true, you have to understand how the DeVos family has their fingers in nearly every facet of Grand Rapids and Kent County.
Since the DeVos family has so much money in Grand Rapids and Kent County, it means their interests always come first. Thus Mayor LaGrand and County Administrator Al Vandenberg would be de-facto DeVos underlings. Varnum is essentially the law firm for the rich and powerful in Grand Rapids, so Luis Avila would always be looking out for the interests of the DeVos family. Former GR Mayor Rosalynn Bliss demonstrated her allegiance to the DeVos family with numerous policy decisions that they would benefit from.
Anyone working for Acrisure has the same interests as the DeVos family and the person with the West Michigan Construction Institute is committed to development projects that will serve the long-term interests of the DeVos family as well. Lastly, Kayem Dunn, who does consulting work and also sit on the board of Experience Grand Rapids, has a history of supporting and serving the interests of those who run this city.
Besides not providing more details on the DeVos-owned parking garage and their relationship with the DDA, the real storythat MLive missed is how the DDA is fundamentally another non-elected tool of the DeVos family and other members of the Grand Rapids Power Structure.
Grand Rapids Institute for Information Democracy 