“It’s for la Migra,” was the phrase Evan, a member of Asamblea Popular Detroit, used to break the ice. Evan had approached a group of workers who were buying Mexican food for breakfast at a gas station on Livernois Avenue in Southwest Detroit. The dozen laborers did not speak English. Evan, with halting Spanish, tried to offer and explain what he had in his hand: a whistle.
One by one, the workers—though hesitant—began to take the packages of whistles that Evan, along with other volunteers, had assembled by the hundreds earlier that day. Adopted since November, it was a routine distribution of whistles with instructions at local businesses, restaurants, and gas stations in the area.
January 20 marked one year since Trump returned to the White House. Nationwide, the portraits of empty cars with shattered windows, people being thrown to the ground and arrested by multiple ICE agents, citizens and migrants being threatened and shot, summarize the first year of the immigrant crackdown that Trump has launched.
After the death of Renee Good at the hands of an immigration agent came the Trump Administration‘s endorsement of an “absolute immunity” for immigration officers. K–12 students arrested and sent to detention centers or deported. And while videos of immigration agents asking for documents based on skin color or accents in Minnesota go viral, communities and activists are seeking new ways to protect one another.
In Michigan, across the Lower Peninsula, from transportation networks, whistles, fundraisers, to patrols and monitoring ICE presence, communities from Grand Rapids to Detroit have adopted self-defense methods because of their effectiveness against these agents in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York.
“Students are going to school with fear; there is a lot of fear even among U.S. citizens,” adds Pauli Astudillo, a member of Asamblea. “And the first step to breaking fear is coming together and helping one another in whatever way we can.”
Verónica Rodríguez carries more than one of these whistles; she keeps them close in case she has to use them or give them to someone else. It’s almost 6 a.m. on January 13, and messages from neighbors about ICE presence are arriving on her phone. In a WhatsApp group, she coordinates with two other drivers who can confirm that location. This time it will be Vero, as they affectionately call her; she, along with other drivers, patrols the streets of Southwest Detroit, alerting people to determine the presence of ICE agents through broadcasts and Facebook posts.
Since April, Vero has defined schedules and routes. Trucks and SUVs with tinted windows and vehicles left in unusual or no parking areas are potential suspects. Upon arriving at the sighting area, Vero finds an abandoned white truck; the people who were inside have already been arrested. She takes photos and updates that the area is now clear. The other drivers arrive,
try to find information about the vehicle to notify family members, and coordinate for a tow truck to remove it.
In cities like Grand Rapids, Pontiac, and Detroit, ordinary citizens have been patrolling and alerting the community so they can maintain their daily routines. For Rodríguez, it has become a responsibility because she does not want to see her neighbors in detention centers or deported.
“People wait for our messages so they can go out to buy food, medicine, and all that,” Rodríguez says. “They are people at risk who need care, and they always thank us. They have also learned to report, but they also depend on our alerts. That’s how the community becomes empowered.”
Although there have not been immigration raids like those in Los Angeles, Chicago, or Minneapolis in Michigan, for many activists, it is not far-fetched to think that Detroit or Grand Rapids could be next. Here, daily ICE arrests have increased by 230% compared to 2024, according to MLive, and deportations have increased by 123% over 2024. Jeff Smith of GR Rapid Response to ICE says that the presence of immigration agents has intensified since June and that they maintain surveillance and arrest tactics during morning activities.
Together with the Cosecha movement, GR Rapid Response works to “minimize the harm that is directed at immigrants.” Transportation networks to court appointments or daily shopping, protests in favor of sanctuary policies, fundraising for family support, and legal expenses are some of the ways they help. Both groups began in 2017.
“Most of the people who are detained are the main economic support of their families. From one moment to the next, households are left without income, and they still have to pay rent and buy food,” Smith points out.
Last year, during Trump’s inauguration as the 47th president of the United States, temperatures in Michigan were in the single digits. In downtown Grand Rapids, activists from the Cosecha movement marched against the anti-immigrant crusade that was to come.
“Deportations are problems that immigrants have always had to deal with, whether under this government or the previous one. We want to put an end to that. They are just the same coin with a different face,” said Gema Lowe, a member of Movimiento Cosecha, on that occasion.
Since then, complaints about collaboration between local police and ICE and demands over sanctuary policies in Grand Rapids and Kent County have become constant pressure amid refusals by Mayor David LaGrand, who considers them “false hope.” On the afternoon of January 6, five volunteers from Cosecha and GR Rapid Response were arrested inside the Kent County Sheriff’s building. They were protesting alleged collaboration between the county sheriff’s office and ICE, in which immigrants were being held longer until ICE arrived, despite being ready for release.
In Detroit, on Tuesday, January 13, the term “sanctuary” was on the lips of politicians, activists, and community members. During the Detroit City Council meeting, residents demanded strong actions and sanctuary policies to protect immigrants. Two miles away, at the Motor City Casino Hotel, Trump, in his speech, threatened that every sanctuary jurisdiction will lose all federal funding starting February 1.
Fernando Ramírez, 66, went through two processing centers before being sent to the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin. Ramírez, who has a legal work permit, was arrested by ICE subcontractor agents in October 2025 while weighing the trailer he was driving.
For his daughters, Samantha Ramírez, 37, and her sister Nahomi, 30, it was a blessing that he was taken close to them. They live 40 minutes driving from Baldwin and began offering help to other detainees that her father befriended inside. They created Raices Migrantes to provide support to those held inside North Lake, including financial assistance, communication with the outside, and transportation to reunite them with their families.
“What we’re doing is making sure detainees have someone; that they know there are people out here fighting for them,” Samantha says. “We put a little bit of money into each account. Even though it wasn’t much, for them it was everything, because that’s how they talk to their families and buy some food to be more comfortable.”
Since North Lake opened in the summer of 2025, its detainee population grew from 28 in August to 1,352 by the end of November, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC). Representative Rashida Tlaib (MI-12) described the facility as having “dehumanizing conditions” after a visit in early December.
Reports of mistreatment, poor food, suicide attempts, and the most recent death of a Bulgarian immigrant in mid-December—whom ICE said died of natural causes—set off alarms among everyone arrested by federal agents and their families.
When a detainee is released, families are notified with very little notice. From there, a transportation network, in coordination with other drivers, helps released detainees reunite with their families in states such as Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.
On the evening of December 12, Fernando Ramírez was released following an Habeas Corpus. The family reunions that the Ramírez sisters made possible for dozens of released detainees they were finally experiencing themselves. On the way home, tears, kisses, and hugs did not stop during a nearly an hour-long drive. Now, Raíces Migrantes will maintain greater contact with detainees to give them a voice outside.
“What all of us do is a reminder that there are more good people than bad—it’s just that right now the bad ones are a little stronger,” Samantha concluded. “But we must keep fighting for our right to live in peace.”
I take offense to the remark in this article of ice agents stopping people based on skin color, it is by nationality. Also I think it is horrible what these advocates for immigrants are doing. It is all causing chaos and some violence. The author of this article seems racist to me. I don’t even believe some of the things written here. If anything, everyone who came here as an illegal immigrant should have come the legal way, and we wouldn’t have these issues at all. Michigan should be following the laws of the US that we all have to follow. If anything Michigan should be helping these illegal immigrants to get their free money and free plane ticket back to their home countries and then they can try and come back legally, just like a lot of American’s parents and grandparents did through Ellis Island. Obama did the same thing, that Trump is doing, there just weren’t Obama haters like there are Trump haters. And the woman that died in Minnesota wasn’t even from Minnesota. She lived in another state. If she hadn’t been there disrupting traffic and instigating things she would probably be home with her child and wife, alive today. And the people in charge of a lot of these protests are getting paid thousands of dollars to be public instigators. I don’t believe they are there out of the goodness in their hearts, just the opposite. People in Michigan should be helping these immigrants get back to their home countries and then to come back to America legally instead of getting caught by ice and being banned from ever coming back. Laws are laws and they are to be obeyed by all Americans, you can’t pick and choose the laws that you want to obey. These advocates for the illegal immigrants are teaching immigrants the wrong things, how to do illegal things. In my opinion they are no better than if they were teaching them to lie and steal. They should be helping them to learn how to be moral, ethical, law abiding citizens, (because some of these foreign countries their everyday lives consist of acting like this) they shouldn’t be teaching them that it is ok to break the laws. They are having them think that American’s and our government hates them and don’t want them here. Most Americans just want to feel and be safe, they don’t want all this chaos and violence. And if our governors all across the US had any balls they would stand up for Americans and help these people follow our laws and go back home so they can try and come back the legal way.