A protester holds up a sign opposing collaboration between local police and federal immigration officials at the state Capitol in Phoenix on Feb. 10, 2025. Photo by Gloria Rebecca Gomez | Arizona Mirror
The ACLU of Michigan and the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center have issued new legal guidance to local law enforcement agencies around the state on how to engage with federal immigration authorities — and urging them not to do any of that enforcement themselves.
The guidance, updated from 2017, suggests local agencies adopt policies that protect the relationship between local law enforcement and their communities, which they say is often harmed by increased cooperation with immigration agencies or changing their policies to collect more information about immigration status during routine traffic stops.
“[W]hen noncitizens perceive that local law enforcement agencies are helping to enforce federal immigration law, rather than prioritizing public safety in their communities, they may be less likely to reach out to police or sheriff’s departments when they are witnesses to or victims of a crime, because they fear that they or their loved ones might end up detained and deported,” the letter to law enforcement reads.
Immigration enforcement is a federal responsibility, and having local law enforcement take on that role opens them up to legal liability around racial profiling and Fourth Amendment violations, the letter signed by Loren Khogali, executive director of the ACLU of Michigan, and Susan Reed, the director of the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, also notes.
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One specific program discouraged in the guidance is Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s 287(g) program, which delegates certain immigration enforcement actions to local law enforcement, and whether or not local agencies should join it. Those immigration actions include serving and executing administrative warrants to noncitizens in custody and enforcing “limited immigration authorities with ICE oversight during routine duties,” according to the agency’s website.
Seven Michigan law enforcement agencies currently have 287(g) agreements with ICE — Berrien, Calhoun, Crawford, Genesee, Jackson, and Roscommon counties, as well as the city of Taylor, all have signed memorandums of agreement in 2025 that give them access to these partnerships and trainings from ICE.
But others have pushed back against this program — including Washtenaw County Sheriff Alyshia Dyer.
“Many local police want no part of this,” she is quoted in a joint press release by the two groups as saying. “When people in our community are too afraid to call 911, it puts everyone at risk. Building trust is essential to effective policing at the local level, and 287(g) agreements in particular threaten the trust we’ve spent decades working to build at the local level.”
Michigan is not a “sanctuary state,” meaning that no state-level law prohibits local or state law enforcement from complying with or aiding immigration agents. East Lansing is designated by the U.S. Justice Department as a sanctuary city, and is the only Michigan municipality listed as such.
But local law enforcement in Michigan is also not required to coordinate with immigration agencies. House Bill 4339, introduced in April by Rep. Joseph Pavlov (R-Smiths Creek), would change that, though that bill has not moved forward in the Senate after being passed by the House.
Municipalities are also under no obligation, the letter adds, to divert their local resources or funding to immigration enforcement.
