On Tuesday, Jan. 28, hundreds of people packed into a Grand Rapids City Commission meeting to urge officials to grant the city “sanctuary city” status. Residents were urged to attend the meeting by two local immigration rights groups, Movimiento Cosecha and GR Rapid Response to ICE. After receiving over 2,000 letters from citizens, the commission filed the issue in acknowledgement of community efforts, but it wasn’t put on the agenda to be voted on.
As fears over federal immigration policies rise, many residents of Grand Rapids hope the city will put new policies in place to protect the undocumented immigrant population. By declaring itself a sanctuary city similar to Chicago or New York, Grand Rapids would take efforts to restrict the city’s cooperation with federal immigration authorities and enact further policies that protect undocumented immigrants. Despite residents’ activism efforts, Grand Rapids city officials have not yet made any formative action towards establishing the city as a sanctuary.
At the commission meeting, Grand Rapids Mayor David LaGrand said in his opening statement that declaring Grand Rapids to be a sanctuary city would be a purely “rhetorical statement” with no basis in federal law.
“That’s sort of a term that the media came up with, it’s not a term that really has any legal status,” LaGrand said. “The question for this commission is what can we do to honor, respect and support members of our community. We are not the federal government, so there are things that we cannot do.”
LaGrand and other commission officials called out the importance of supporting the community in ways that don’t give a false pretense of protection. LaGrand said city leaders will uphold their obligation to support members of the community, but that city government cannot override federal actions. Despite protections for undocumented immigrants, ICE would still be able to detain residents in certain capacities.
“We have an obligation to speak out on this issue in moral terms and do everything in our power to respect, honor and support the members of our community,” LaGrand said. “The danger of holding out some media term like ‘sanctuary city’ is that people may think that somehow, that (sanctuary city) gives them protection they don’t have.”
Grand Rapids Chief of Police Eric Winstrom sympathized with the commissioners over promises of protection. Winstrom previously served as a police officer in Chicago, a city that has been a recent target of immigration raids despite its sanctuary status. He reiterated that claiming sanctuary status could be seen as a challenge to the federal government, saying “there’s the risk that you take of painting a target on yourself.”
“It’s a misnomer, because in reality, we (could) call ourselves a sanctuary city but if ICE shows up tomorrow and wants to start deporting people legally, they can do so,” Winstrom said. “We don’t want to lie to people and say, ‘Come to Grand Rapids, it’s safe here.’”
The commission cited previous policies that serve to protect undocumented immigrants in Grand Rapids. The 2017 Equal Service Policy ensures due process and equal protection for the people of Grand Rapids regardless of immigration status, and prevents non-police public servants from inquiring about a person’s documentation status.
The commission also referenced a 2018 incident in which a Marine veteran was wrongfully turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by the Grand Rapids Police Department (GRPD) following a misdemeanor trespassing charge. The incident resulted in a $190,000 payout from the City and led to a similar policy change within the GRPD, which ensured that officers cannot make deportation threats or inquire about a person’s immigration status. The policy established GRPD would no longer perform immigration holds without a warrant.
“We are a city that is focused on safety and not status,” said City Manager Mark Washington. “We are not committing our resources to do things that are not in the highest priority of the city of Grand Rapids.”
Regardless of the commissioners’ seeming dismissal of the issue, nearly one hundred people still argued a change of heart during the meeting’s public comment section. Community comments lasted over three hours, with only two people advocating against sanctuary status. Many expressed that a declaration of sanctuary status was the least the City could do.
“(Establishing sanctuary status) is low hanging fruit,” said GR Rapid Response to ICE organizer Jeff Smith. “It’s a declaration, but it would certainly mean a lot to the affected community that they know the city where they live supports them.”
Several speakers urged the commissioners to stand up to federal immigration policies, including members of Grand Valley State University. GVSU Sociology Professor Joel Stillerman spoke from his standpoint as both a citizen and an educator that Grand Rapids should follow suit of cities with similar policies.
“The mayor and the city council should demonstrate courage and take the action that other cities have taken, rather than paving the way for federal authorities to rip families apart and remove people who are contributing to the community,” Stillerman said. “It’s not a rhetorical gesture, it’s policy.”
The commissioners closed the meeting by promising to look further into their funding and policies, but fell short of making any decision. Many community members left feeling their concerns hadn’t been taken seriously.
“I feel (dismissed),” said Gema Lowe, an organizer with Movimiento Cosecha. “Even after all this empathy in their words, (the commissioners) don’t put them (their words into) action. They just like not mentioning that they were afraid of losing funding, and so they put money over people.”