By anti-ICE activist
The following is part of a longer letter that was received by Fighting Words from an anti-ICE activist in Detroit. The writer’s identity is being withheld at the author’s request.
I was at last week’s “No Kings” rally in Eastern Market. A few of the speakers brought up ICE in their speeches. I almost took the mic myself; I really wanted to tell people that ICE isn’t just in NY, MN, LA, and Chicago. They’re here in Detroit RIGHT NOW; they abducted someone a few blocks from where we were standing in Eastern Market just two weeks ago, at the Wolverine Packing slaughterhouse. I came to the protest straight from checking out a tip about ICE activity in Ecorse [a Detroit suburb], and while I was standing there thinking about this, another tip came in for Junction & Vernor. But since I wasn’t masked up, and because there were people there with phone cameras who I didn’t recognize, I stayed quiet.
But I’m concerned about the way we local Detroit activists commonly talk about ICE as something that’s happening elsewhere, because it evidences a near complete lack of knowledge about what’s going on around us here at home. This is alarming and must be fixed.
Part of the reason for this is the apartheid local media actively blacking-out reporting on anything negative that might dampen tourism and gentrification in Detroit, and the fact that Mayor Sheffield has openly denied that ICE is a threat here.…
I’m here to tell you that ICE is very active in Detroit, and that there is a desperate need for more patrollers, dispatchers, and data people…not just in the city but in all the suburbs.…
Yes, ICE activity is more covert in Michigan than elsewhere, but it is literally a case of boiling frogs in a pot slowly; they get away with more abductions here because they keep it at a low boil, just low enough to prevent the kind of attention that might inspire resistance. ICE has a good thing going here; it seems they are under orders to keep agents more restrained, because if another white activist gets shot here that will upset the gravy train in Detroit, and they must keep it running smoothly.
BTW, this morning, Saturday Oct 24, there were at least 4 people abducted by ICE that I know of…at Glendale & Linwood, and at Milford & 30th.
