Op-Ed: Detroit needs a serious plan to protect our immigrant neighbors

Maykol Bogoya-Duarte, a Western International High School student, was detained on May 20, 2025, during a class field trip and deported to Colombia despite thousands of Detroiters coming together to advocate for his release. Maykol, who had no criminal record, was unable to graduate and was deported from the city he called home. Stories like Maykol’s are multiplying in Detroit, with more and more students, parents and families being detained and deported.

For generations, people from every corner of the world have come to Detroit seeking refuge and the opportunity to build a better future. From Black families who traveled north during the Great Migration to our African, Latino, Caribbean, Asian and Arab neighbors who have crossed oceans and borders in search of hope and opportunity, this city’s greatness has always been inseparable from the courage of people who chose to make it home. That determination and willingness to sacrifice everything for the ones we love is not just an immigrant story. It is the Detroit story.

As a border city, the threat of immigration enforcement is not new to Detroit’s immigrant community. But the current deportation agenda is different in scale and in spirit. The Trump administration has made cruelty its governing strategy. In September 2025, the Supreme Court opened the door to racial profiling by immigration agents when it ruled in favor of allowing stops and detentions based on how someone looks or the language they speak. License plate readers across our state can feed data directly to immigration enforcement. 

People who have lived, worked and worshiped in Detroit, many for decades, are now being ripped from their families without due process and without counsel. Detroit is seeing a surge in detentions, wounding the broader community by increasing school absenteeism rates, disrupting small businesses and sowing fear and intimidation across the city. For immigrants in Detroit and across the country, driving to work, school or the grocery store has become precarious, even life-threatening. Every escalation sends the same message to immigrant families: you are not safe here.

Detroit has the opportunity to respond with the compassion, courage and leadership that our city is known for and the moral clarity this moment demands. That’s why community organizations have come together to urge our city’s new mayor and City Council to pass a budget that guarantees Detroit families have the resources they need to defend their rights and remain together. 

Specifically, we’re calling on the City of Detroit to do three things:

• Establish a $1 million legal defense fund to provide legal representation for Detroit residents detained by immigration authorities. Access to legal counsel is often the deciding factor in whether families stay together. Due process cannot be a privilege available only to those who can afford it, but a safeguarded constitutional right. 
• Create a $750,000 general assistance fund to support families whose loved ones have been detained, helping cover rent, food, childcare and transportation. When a parent is taken, the entire family goes into crisis. We can prevent people from having to survive that alone.
• Allocate $250,000 for improving language access services by utilizing Detroit-based language professionals, ensuring residents can access city services in their own language while investing in local talent. Language justice is not a commodity; it is a condition of belonging.

Mayor Sheffield admirably campaigned on ensuring Detroit’s rise reaches every neighborhood. But that can’t happen without a serious plan for protecting the freedom of our immigrant neighbors to build a comfortable life here. Like other marginalized groups, our immigrant communities have been lifted up during electoral campaigns and then watched as their priorities fade from view after the votes are counted. That’s exactly what Michigan Democrats in the legislature did when they promised to pass driver’s licenses for all in 2022, then failed to act while they had the majority. 

Mayor Sheffield has already begun her commitment to invest in immigrant Detroiters with the appointment of Elizabeth Orozco-Vasquez to run Detroit’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and Economic Inclusion, signaling she can lead differently. But we need to go further. Mayor Sheffield has an established record from her time on City Council of standing with immigrant communities. As our immigrant neighbors live in constant fear of being detained and abducted, we urge her to act with courage and conviction the way local officials have in Massachusetts, Minnesota, California, and New York. More importantly, taking such a stand would make a world of difference in the lives of Detroiters who need a champion in public office who is willing to say: You matter here. You are safe here. This city will fight for you.

Yvonne Navarrete is the policy director at We the People Michigan, a grassroots organization building multi-racial working class solidarity across MI and part of the State of Southwest Detroit Coalition.

Dr. Seydi Sarr is the founder and Helmswomxn of the African Bureau for Immigration and Social Affairs (ABISA) in Detroit, an organization dedicated to advancing the rights, dignity, and wellbeing of Black immigrants and sits on the Mayor’s Immigration Task Force.