Two hundred descendants of immigrants met Saturday September 7 at the euphemistically named North Lake Correctional Facility in Baldwin, Michigan, to stand in solidarity with the estimated six hundred immigrants who have been illegally kidnapped by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Their crime: being born non-white and outside the United States. Witnesses came from as far away as Chicago.
At least a dozen representatives from Ann Arbor were present.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
The event was sponsored by No Detention Centers in Michigan, a statewide coalition of immigrant-support groups that is working collectively to abolish immigration detention and migrant incarceration in Michigan and beyond.
Baldwin is located within Manistee National Forest, three and a half hours from Ann Arbor. It is one of the most impoverished communities in Michigan, the exact type of community that profit-driven private companies like GEO Group, owner of NLCF, prey upon with their promise of jobs.
GEO, a major Trump donor, is a failed maximum- and minimum-security prison that gained new life with a multi-million-dollar, multi-year federal contract. It reopened in June 2025 and immediately became the largest employer in Baldwin.
Collective Witnessing at North Lake
Lauren, the granddaughter of immigrants, was the spokesperson from NDCM. She informed us that North Lake is the largest Midwest ICE concentration camp. It rests on Anishinaabe land. “No human is illegal on stolen land,” she said.
A representative of Witness at the Border travelled from Chicago wearing the black-and-white striped suit familiar to the Jews in Nazi Germany. We know about the yellow triangles the Jews were forced to wear and the pink triangles worn by homosexuals. He passed out pins with blue triangles like those worn by immigrants. What No Detention Centers in Michigan did Saturday is similar to what Witness has been doing at migrant concentration camps in Tornillo, Texas; Homestead, Florida; and Alligator Alcatraz in the Everglades.
A woman read a statement from Nael Shamma, a Palestinian American grandfather who came to America when he was seven, has been living here for over fifty years, and holds a permanent green card. He checked in faithfully with ICE for decades until he was kidnapped by ICE in front of his home in Burton, Michigan, in August. He has been in captivity since then.
We heard a recording from a political activist from Venezuela who came here seeking asylum. He was picked up at a routine appointment and is being held in the Calhoun County Jail, where he is in need of, and not getting, medical attention to treat his HIV.
Richard Kessler, an immigrant rights attorney for forty-five years, spoke twice. The first time, he noted that he had clients being held in the prison. The inmates have held protests inside, he informed us. A guard told his client we would be rioting outside the prison and used that lie as an excuse to cancel visitation. Then GEO blamed us for the cancellation.
The second time he spoke, he introduced Nicha, an inmate who was able to call Richard because he is her attorney. Richard put her on speaker, so she was able to hear us chant “You are not alone. We are not criminals.” Men and women are isolated from each other, she said. Men outnumber women. Most of the inmates have no criminal records. Our presence gives them strength in the knowledge that people outside the prison have not forgotten them and are actively fighting for their release.
And there were other speakers.
After the formal part of the rally, we relocated around the corner at the entranceway used by vehicles to enter the premises. By the time we left, protesters had blocked the entrance with branches and tree limbs from the forest across the street.
How You Can Help
If you are interested in witnessing in Baldwin, check out NDCM’s website at https://nodetentioncentersmi.org.
You can learn more about Witness at the Border, and about witnessing at other concentration camps around the country, at https://witnessattheborder.org.
If you live in Washtenaw County and are passionate about the injustices that we are witnessing daily from the federal government, please contact me at [email protected] so I can add you to the mailing list of Washtenaw Congregational Sanctuary, where I am a Steering Committee member.
From Palestine to Mexico, all these walls have got to go.
Break the chains and let them fall. / Free the prisoners, free them all.
We’ve said it once. We’ve said it twice: / We must abolish ICE.
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A history of the Trump-era sanctuary movement in Washtenaw County appears for the first time in my Thumbs Up: Memoir of a Joyful Organizer, available for purchase here.
