SOUTHFIELD, Mich. – Standing outside Oakland Towne Square with her daughters, Southfield resident Emily Fink said she wanted her children to understand what it means to stand up for others.
“It’s really important to me that my children see what it means to show up for our neighbors,” Fink said.
Fink and her girls were among demonstrators who gathered to oppose a newly leased office that will house Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Southfield.
Last week, the U.S. General Services Administration finalized a lease at Oakland Towne Square.
Landlord REDICO says the agreement specifies the space cannot be used for detention or law enforcement purposes.
To demonstrators and some elected leaders, that distinction doesn’t go far enough.
“We should not normalize expansions that bring anxiety into our neighborhoods,” said state Rep. Jason Hoskins.
State Sen. Jeremy Moss described the site as a critical part of a much larger system.
“This is the infrastructure and systems behind the whole cruel and unjust ICE operation,” Moss said.
Activists with Community Aide for Empowerment, a group that tracks ICE activity in Oakland County, say they have already documented widespread enforcement actions in the region.
“We have mapped hundreds of abductions that we have verified personally in Pontiac alone,” said organizer Emily Duthinh, who sees the Southfield office as an extension of ICE policies and practices she opposes.
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib linked the office to what she described as a broader expansion of the agency’s footprint in Michigan.
“It’s not a coincidence that ICE is opening this office at the same time they’re moving to create a warehouse prison in Romulus, Michigan,” Tlaib said.
Tlaib said it remains unclear how many Michigan residents are currently in ICE custody.
She said that during her last visit to the Baldwin detention facility, about 1,500 people were being held there, and she believes the total number of people detained is even higher.
“Many of our residents are not all being put there,” Tlaib said. “Our immigrant neighbors, some of them, children, are being sent to Texas.”
Despite assurances that the Southfield site will not be used for detention, protesters say they will continue to press federal officials and the landlord to cancel the lease, arguing the office still represents a deepening of ICE’s presence in Metro Detroit.
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