Bad news! North Lake Detention Center in Michigan reopens — what to expect?

This week, one of ICE's largest detention centers reopened in Baldwin, Michigan, 80 miles north of Grand Rapids, near Muskegon.

The center, called North Lake, served as a juvenile detention center in the 1980s and 1990s. More recently, the Department of Corrections opened it as a detention center for immigrants convicted of federal crimes. It is currently an ICE detention center for immigrants awaiting removal or deportation hearings and appeals.

The problem is not simply the opening of the largest detention center near Grand Rapids and one of the three largest in the United States, but also that it is organized and operated by the private company GEO Group, which is well known for mistreating detainees and caring only about money.

The GEO Group's offices are in Florida, where it operates hundreds of prisons and police programs throughout the United States to make even more money, despite its reputation for providing the worst services, with many complaints about lack of medical care, poor food, not enough workers, etc. However, because this company contributed a lot of money to Trump's presidential campaign and is affiliated with the Republican Party, they won the contract and have worked very quickly to open the detention center.

Several community groups, especially the group “No Detention Centers in Michigan,” have worked hard to oppose the reopening of this center, knowing about the mistreatment of detained immigrants during 2019 and 2022, the last year it was open. Many immigrants filed complaints about discrimination, poor food conditions, and very poor medical care during COVID.

In 2022, during the Biden administration, the center was ordered to close using a law that establishes that the Department of Prisons cannot sign contracts with private companies for the incarceration of people. Unfortunately, the current Trump administration is more in favor of private companies than the people and has ignored this law. They are even planning to open more prisons.

Community groups are going to start organizing protests, including one by the Democratic Party this Saturday, June 21. They are also protesting at employment offices where people are being recruited, explaining that the purpose of the prison is to mistreat immigrants.

This company also has a reputation for not treating its workers well compared to other government prisons and jails. They pay them much less and give them fewer benefits because the most important thing for the company is to make a lot of money.

The community and pro-justice groups are also organizing an event for July 4 that is expected to draw thousands of people in Detroit, Chicago, and other places to express their discontent with the abuse of immigrants. It is very sad that people who are detained only for civil, not criminal, problems, who are wanted for deportation either because they entered without a visa or stayed after their visas expired or because they had some criminal problem, even though they have already served their sentences in the corresponding prisons, are subject to this kind of mistreatment and are sometimes held for months and some even for years in detention centers to punish them even though they have never been tried for criminal offenses.

We will continue to fight for the rights of immigrants, and we are also preparing a project to visit and encourage people who are detained. We cannot allow a detention center of this kind to operate near Grand Rapids to the detriment of immigrants.

We will continue to fight for justice for immigrants and to inform the public about this and other harmful and inhumane programs here in the state of Michigan.

Yes, we can!