Lawmakers, advocates say ‘hell no’ to Romulus ICE facility, demand to defund and abolish the agency

Elected officials, faith leaders and community advocates called for a halt to the expansion of ICE’s presence in Michigan — including plans for an ICE administrative office in Southfield and a new detention center in Romulus — in a press conference on Thursday.

“I need to be very clear, and for it to be very loud, ICE is not welcome, not only in Romulus and Southfield, ICE is not welcome in Michigan,” said U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit). “We are going to stand strong in saying abolish ICE. There was life before ICE. There can be life after abolishing ICE.”

Tlaib, like many on the call, was specifically critical of the proposed detention center opening in Romulus.

“When we hear about ICE warehouses opening up our backyard, we think about again, what we already have heard, which is the horrific, horrific conditions in these facilities that are run majority of the time by for profit industries,” she said. “The unaccountable and violent agency has terrorized and brutalized our communities every single day across our nation.”

“This warehouse in Romulus was slated for hundreds of permanent automotive jobs. That’s what was supposed to be there,” she continued. “They are now turning it into a prison to cage hundreds of our immigrant neighbors, and that is something that we’re going to say hell no to.”

State Rep. Dylan Wegela (D-Garden City), whose district includes parts of Romulus, agreed, adding, “I hope that Kristi Noem hears me loud and clear, Romulus does not want your detention center. Michigan does not want ICE here.”

Wegela also called ICE a “rogue agency,” and highlighted that the agency, which was founded in 2003, has shattered funding records and has a budget bigger than many national militaries.

Ashley Perry, a cofounder of Indivisible Downriver United 734, called for Romulus residents to have input and power in the decisions surrounding the creation of the detention center. She added that, in advance of the Romulus City Council meeting on Monday, Feb. 23, residents will protest the detention center outside City Hall.

“The people of Romulus deserve transparency, accountability and a voice in decisions that directly affect this community,” she said. “Let’s be clear, placing a federal detention facility in the middle of neighborhoods and just a mile and a half from Romulus Middle School and Wick Elementary has real consequences for this city.”

“This is actually zoned as light industrial so you can’t, all of a sudden, just put 500 people in a light industrial zone,” Perry added. “So I am assuming, truthfully, that conversations are happening all over the place to try and find out what the city of Romulus can do to stop this from happening.”

Christy Gillivray, executive director of Voters Not Politicians, also emphasized the stakes of fighting back against the detention facility in Romulus, saying, “This is not just about one warehouse they want to build in Romulus. This is about democracy itself, and we are all here today to stand together to defend it.”

Tlaib was also critical of ICE’s “illegal operations,” as she described them, and continued to commit to not funding the Department of Homeland Security — which is currently without a budget.

“How many more of our neighbors have to die?” Tlaib asked, emphasizing that she does not believe that changes or reforms to the agency will solve its problems. “How many more have to be executed, for you to understand that this is an agency that is rogue and unhinged? I refuse to send another dollar to the Department of Homeland Security. Mask or no mask, they will still keep shooting us, cameras or no cameras.”

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor) also shared her concerns that the negotiating factors in DHS funding discussions should already be guaranteed in the law.

“It makes me sick that we’re demanding that they use judicial warrants, since our American Constitution guarantees people due process. Due process is what everybody wants, and we have to negotiate for warrant requirements,” Dingell said. “No more deportation of American citizens, another fact that’s protected in the Constitution, no more targeting of our children in schools, in places of worship, in hospitals, no more use of excessive force, no more racial profiling. And while I’m at it, I’ll mention her name again: No more Kristi Noem.”

When asked if the expansion of ICE facilities in Michigan — which is also expected to include a new administrative facility in Grand Rapids and the growth of an existing ICE administrative building in downtown Detroit — is a sign of a greater surge incoming in the state, as as been seen in cities like Minneapolis, Abbas Alawieh, a senior advisor to Arab Americans for Progress and a candidate for state Senate in the 2nd District, said that he anticipates that the intention of the expansion is to ramp up ICE’s presence in Michigan, especially the southeastern part of the state.

“When you are expanding your presence, when you’re trying to get into more and more buildings, commercial buildings here in our community, that is gearing up for more enforcement, and that necessarily means that there will be more ICE agents in our area,” he said. “That’s why, as organizations, the elected leaders on this call, communities here are ramping up our resistance to what’s to come.”

Speakers also emphasized the fear that people in Michigan, especially in immigrant communities, are facing because of the increased ICE presence.

Vilma Escamilla Duran, part of 482Forward, a Detroit-based educational justice organization, said that she has seen many families where, when one partner is detained and deported, the rest of the family will miss school and medical appointments out of fear.

“I work with and live near families that have had a family member kidnapped by ICE, and move between detention centers with deplorable conditions,” she said. “It may seem like only the folks that are being detained and deported are the ones that are affected, but this is far from the truth.”

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This article, “Lawmakers, advocates say ‘hell no’ to Romulus ICE facility, demand to defund and abolish the agency,” has been republished from the Michigan Advance under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.