In the first time Michigan gubernatorial hopefuls took the stage together as candidates, independent former Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan expressed sympathy to families living in fear of deportation.
“The pain when ICE is in your community is very real,” Duggan said. “And I’ve dealt with it for 12 years as mayor of Detroit.”
Duggan throughout his campaign has drawn comparison between him and his opponents by suggesting he doesn’t have to tell voters what he would do, but what he has already done as mayor. It’s a line he repeated during the forum hosted Friday’s by the Michigan Education Association at an annual conference at Detroit’s Renaissance Center.
“We have had the same policy in the city of Detroit for 12 years. The federal government has gone to local police departments and asked them into enter into so-called 2-87G agreements where the police become an arm of ICE enforcement. The city of Detroit have never signed that agreement because in the city of Detroit, the police department by policy doesn’t enforce federal law.”
The gubernatorial candidate forum featured Duggan, Secretary of State and Democratic candidate for governor Jocelyn Benson, Democratic Sheriff Chris Swanson and former attorney general Mike Cox.
Duggan left the Democratic Party last November, citing his unpopularity among progressives and the party establishment’s abandonment of the working class.
His critics to the left say he’s running a campaign that stands for nothing and is taking orders from conservative billionaires and special interests. His critics to the right say he left the party at the height of its unpopularity to avoid a Democratic primary.
But the positions Duggan has taken on the campaign for governor don’t all fall into one political perspective. He angered public school advocates this week after Bridge Michigan reported he would “study” using public school funding for scholarship for private schools.
He also recently angered Republicans by criticizing the ICE killing of a 37-year-old Minneapolis man.
Duggan reiterated the city’s ICE policy when answering how he’d deal with the agency as governor. Detroit police officers on the street won’t ask immigration status, but local police do honor federal detainer warrants when they arrest criminal undocumented immigrants, he said.
“If the police start to do that, now you can’t get witnesses to come forward and say what happened. People who are here who are not documented won’t be able to report crimes. There is a high degree of trust between the Detroit police department and our immigrant community because of that. On the other hand, we need to be honest about what federal law is, it’s easy to boast about I will ignore federal ignore and stand up, we’ve seen how that happens. In Detroit, we are not a sanctuary city, and what that means is if you are arrested for armed robbery, we will take you to the Detroit lockup and we take your fingerprint and ICE calls and says ‘That’s an undocumented immigrant we’re looking to pick up.’ We honor that detainer and turn that individual over. The alternative is, we release them, ICE goes into the neighborhoods and creates more distress.”
While immigration advocates would agree with Duggan when he says police enforcing immigration law would decrease public safety, those same advocates and the state Democratic Party have said Duggan didn’t do enough to protect residents. Duggan was slammed by critics for saying he did “everything he could do protect residents from ICE.”
“…the reality is under Duggan’s watch, Donald Trump’s ICE was targeting Detroit high schoolers and conducting controversial and chaotic raids while Duggan remained silent,” Democratic Party spokesperson Derrick Honeyman said in a statement.
The party pointed to what was reported as a chaotic deportation arrest which included the arrest of two protestors in Detroit after ICE detained an immigrant from Honduras. Protestors at the scene expressed anger at Detroit police assisting the federal agent’s arrest of a man who was removed from the country twice, according to an ICE spokesperson.
“A federal agency requested the Detroit police presence to keep the peace as they were executing a federal search warrant for a wanted individual,” police chief Todd Bettison told the Detroit Free Press at the time. “Officers were standing by when a subject interfered with the federal investigation by attempting to block authorities with his vehicle… Another subject was arrested for Malicious Destruction of Property of a separate federal vehicle.”
How local police interact with federal immigration agents is an ongoing debate between immigration activists and Democratic leaders. Activists say they fear a chaotic, politicized show of force like in Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Chicago, could happen in Detroit.
Duggan gave a statement condemning the killing of VA nurse Alex Pretti, but didn’t directly point blame toward President Donald Trump, a strategy Democrats have called out since Duggan left the party.
Benson at the forum Friday didn’t go into specifics when asked how she would deal with ICE if elected governor, but said that the next leader of the state must have and demonstrate they will live the moral courage the she said she’s shown as Secretary of State, “no matter what type of tactic the bully in the White House tries to bring to our communities.”
Swanson said he would ensure ICE agents say out of schools and places of worship.
Detroit’s elected officials are still seeking more information about how exactly the police department works with ICE.
Southwest City Council member Gabriela Santiago-Romero sent a memo to Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison last month asking the city’s legislative policy division to answer questions painting a clearer picture showing exactly how ICE is being supported in Detroit by city taxpayers.
Activists at city council say they’ve seen ICE agents put Detroit residents in dangerous situations like dragging them out of their cars across broken glass from damaged windows.
While anti-ICE protestors have called for elected city leaders to pass a “Sanctuary City” ordinance, Santiago-Romero last year said she agreed with Duggan, who said he wouldn’t formally declare Detroit a “Sanctuary City,” to not draw unnecessary attention to the city.
Santiago-Romero on Friday met with Mayor Mary Sheffield and members of the city’s Immigration Task Force. She said the discussion centered around the impact of the federal government’s aggressive immigration policies.
“The city of Detroit can’t single handedly stop the actions of the federal government, but we can prepare and plan accordingly. I look forward to the continued collaboration with the Mayor in our joint pursuit of ensuring the protection of all Detroiters,” Santiago-Romero said in a social media post.
