Local government, advocates bracing amid national ICE surge

Lansing stands by order limiting involvement with ICE

As federal enforcement surges amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration, the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center has not heard of Lansing or East Lansing police turning undocumented immigrants over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

That’s likely because, in Lansing and East Lansing, police essentially don’t look at a person’s immigration status unless required to act by judicial warrant. Lansing Police Department calls a person’s immigration status “immaterial” in terms of the department’s mission and values, and officers do not ask victims, witnesses or suspects about immigration status. A similar policy exists in East Lansing.

A spokesperson for Lansing Mayor Andy Schor said Schor is standing by the city’s policy, which stems from a 2017 executive order. The city briefly declared itself a sanctuary city immediately following the order, but City Council reversed course amid controversy, although the underlying executive order and policy did not change.

East Lansing formally declared itself a sanctuary city in 2023, and is the only municipality in Michigan on a Department of Justice-published list of sanctuary jurisdictions that Trump threatened to revoke funding for on Feb. 1. It is unclear whether that has happened.

But as the scope of ICE’s operations grows, sanctuary policies only offer so much solace to those worried about ICE activity. “Operation Metro Surge,” an ICE operation that began in December and resulted in federal agents killing two civilian observers, targeted Minneapolis, a city that has similar policies.

Michigan also has seen an increase in enforcement. ICE arrested 2,349 people between January and October 2025, according to information obtained by the Deportation Data Project via Freedom of Information Act requests, and detained 3,338. That’s around triple the same timeframe in 2024 in both counts.

Around 75% of ICE arrests begin with an interaction with local law enforcement, said MIRC policy and communication manager Christine Sauvé, meaning local protections are comparatively strong amid the crackdown. But operations like the one in Minneapolis, alongside tactics by federal agents including driving unmarked vehicles and wearing masks, have led to an atmosphere of fear and repression among immigrant and Latino communities.

“I have connected with folks who are scared to drive their kids to school,” said Lansing City Council member Trini Pehlivanoglu. “We’re not Minneapolis today, but there’s still that fear there.”

“People are scared to go out,” said Simón Cardona Perazza, the capital area regional organizing coordinator for Latino-focused Michigan nonprofit MI Poder. “You’ve got an economic system where you want everybody to be at work, and you’re taking people who are at work. They can’t drop their kids off at school, they can’t go to the doctor. They can’t take care of legal things. So what we’ve seen is a terror, people going underground in the sense that they’re not participating in their own lives.”

In a statement, the Lansing School District said it was aware that increased attention around immigration enforcement “may cause anxiety for some families,” adding that a signed judicial warrant is necessary for access to school district property and district leadership will be notified if any law enforcement agency seeks access to facilities.

Lansing City Council unanimously passed a resolution last week opposing the wearing of masks by ICE officers except when necessary for public safety. An email from City Pulse sent to all council members yielded responses from Pehlivanoglu and Clara Martinez.

Concerns have also erupted across the country about surveillance cameras sold by Flock Security, which a report by 404 Media showed had been used by local police departments at the behest of ICE. Lansing has around 20 such cameras, according to user-submitted data on deflock.me.

Gulkis said access to the cameras is tightly controlled, even within Lansing’s police department, and activity is audited to ensure its use aligns with departmental policy and that data is only saved longer than 30 days when it is part of a criminal investigation.

While local efforts to support immigrant communities have seen a surge in volunteers and donations, such as a benefit dance party at The Avenue Cafe that raised about $2,000 to help pay travel expenses for people detained in the Baldwin detention center, they have also led to false alarms about ICE sightings.

Pete Vargas, state organizing director with MI Poder, said MI Poder is working to help facilitate networks among trusted messengers to avoid such false alarms.

One network in Lansing is the Lansing Migra Watch, a group on the encrypted messaging app Signal for verified ICE reports.

Cardona Perazza said some resources for those impacted include Raíces Migrantes, a Grand Rapids-based mutual aid group that works with Michigan families impacted by ICE detention; the National Lawyer’s Guild, which is hosting a virtual legal observer training on Saturday; and MIRC, a legal resource center for Michigan immigrants.

Sauve said having an attorney, either through MIRC or elsewhere, is important in advance of a possible detention because people going through immigration court are not given a lawyer as they are in criminal court.

People who want to contribute, Cardona Perazza said, should consider mutual aid. While there has been a lot of talk about protesters physically obstructing ICE’s operations with their cars, such tactics could be dangerous as well as unlikely to be successful in Michigan due to the speed of ICE operations. Safer and more effective ways to contribute include coordinating grocery shopping, accompaniment to immigration hearings, and other methods of keeping people either safe in their home or accompanied while out.

It’s also been difficult even for an established organization like MI Poder to respond, Vargas said, because of the unprecedented surge in immigration enforcement.

“We’re in a build-it-while-you-fly-it kind of scenario, because we’ve never, ever experienced something like this to the degree we are experiencing right now,” he said.

The atmosphere of fear will have far-reaching consequences, Cardona Perazza said.

“Our state is made of immigrants and small businesses. I can’t imagine what we’re going to be recording in terms of the economic toll of this.”

 

• Raíces Migrantes, a mutual aid group which works closely with Michigan families impacted by ICE detention
• The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center provides information for detained immigrants in some Michigan and Ohio detention centers at (734) 794-9963 between Monday and Friday, from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.. Further information for preparing for possible encounters with ICE or detention can be found at michiganimmigrant.org. MIRC also publishes updates on immigration policy and includes a list of resources for immigrants and advocates at https://bit.ly/MIRCupdates
• The ACLU of Michigan has a “Know Your Rights” mobile hub webpage and a guide to locating family members, creating an emergency plan and more at www.aclumich.org.
• U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, and the National Lawyers Guild are hosting a Know Your Rights training for encounters with ICE and other law enforcement on Saturday, Feb. 7 at 3 p.m. There will be a watch party at MI Poder’s office in the Allen Neighborhood Center.