A new state report released Friday evaluates how well Michigan is maintaining its voter rolls.
The Michigan Office of the Auditor General looked at different factors like how many dead voters or non-U.S. citizens were registered.
In both cases, the number was exceptionally low compared to the 8 million total registered voters in Michiganders.
Deputy Secretary of State Aghogho Edevbie said that’s a sign the system is working.
“When we look at those individual categories, that is a demonstration that we are finding people who are not eligible and keeping track of them through our systems and protocols,” he said.
However, a small fraction of a percent of those registered voters still appeared to be dead or noncitizens at first glance.
Edevbie said even those numbers can be misleading, especially because of a lag in data catching up when people become citizens.
“Those people, over the course of those four years, will come into the Secretary of States office, update their driver’s license, update their state ID and give us new documentation demonstrating that they are now a citizen. But there’s a lag time because they don’t automatically send it in,” he said.
According to the report, the state canceled over 300 noncitizen registrations during the observation period. That’s part of a broader set of nearly 1 million defunct registrations that got pulled during that same span.
Regarding dead voters, the report found a little over 2,500 Michigan voters cast a ballot within the past four years despite dying by Election Day.
That was around 0.01% of total votes over that period. The vast majority appear to be absentee voters who died before the election and didn’t have their ballots pulled.
Edevbie said some of the issues stem from when the records were transferred to a new file in the late 1990s.
“Every administration since then has done a lot of work to get our voter rolls into a great place, and this administration continues to do that. We’ve updated 95% of the voter records,” he said.
Election integrity activists have often criticized the state for not doing more on the front end to check citizenship when registering voters. They’ve also argued the state hasn’t done enough to remove dead voters from the files.
English is often divided into four broad periods: Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English and Modern English. But the boundaries between those periods are not quite as tidy as they might sound.
Old English is generally said to begin around 449, when Germanic tribes came over from the European continent to the British Isles. It's the language of Beowulf, and to modern ears, it can sound almost completely unfamiliar. Old English is generally considered to end around 1066, with the Norman Conquest.
Then comes Middle English, the language of Chaucer. This period is usually dated from around 1066 or 1100 through sometime in the 15th century. Some cite the introduction of the printing press in England in 1476 as a convenient endpoint. As English continues, Middle English occurs earlier and earlier in the language's history. In other words, the "middle" keeps moving.
Early Modern English is the language of Shakespeare, and after that comes Modern English. But where exactly does Modern English end? That's harder to say. Linguists can use historical events to mark the boundaries, or they can look for changes in grammar and sound. Either way, people don't suddenly start speaking a different version of English on a particular date.
One prediction about the end of Modern English points to computers and the internet. The technology has allowed language to spread and come into contact in ways that were previously impossible. A word or phrase can now go viral around the world in seconds, rather than traveling by boat and slowly finding its way into new communities.
To hear more about the history of English and the debates between linguists over how to mark its different periods, listen to the audio above.
Today on Stateside, what’s in a name of a Great Lake? We talked to historian Eric Hemenway to get a Native perspective on President Trump's proposed rename of Lake Ontario. Also, how a travel ban is upending life for one asylum seeker in Michigan.
Then, a conversation about how the state is trying to boost post-secondary education by breaking down barriers for students.
And, the former owner of a beloved Ypsilanti ice cream shop talks about bringing people together over a sweet treat.
GUEST ON TODAY'S SHOW:
Eric Hemenway, humanities program manager at the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability.
Beenish Ahmed, reporter at Michigan Public
Ryan Fewins-Bliss, executive director of Michigan College Access Network (MCAN)
Angel Griffith, MSU student and a Ticket to Tuition scholarship winner
Rob Hess, digital producer at Michigan Public and former owner of Go! Ice Cream in Ypsilanti
Michigan quarterback Bryce Underwood throws during an NCAA college football spring game in Ann Arbor, Mich., April 19, 2025.(Paul Sancya / AP)
College football season is nearly here. Both Michigan and Michigan State have new coaches this season, and there's a change coming to the Big House.
For more on all of that and other sports news, Michigan Public sports commentator John U. Bacon joined host Doug Tribou on Morning Edition.
Doug Tribou: A week from Friday night, the Michigan State Spartans will open their 2026 football season when they host the Toledo Rockets in East Lansing. It will be the Spartans' first game under new head coach Pat Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald coached Northwestern for many years, but he's been out of the game since 2023 when Northwestern fired him. What are you expecting from his team this season?
John U. Bacon: Well, I got to know Pat pretty well [for my] previous book, Fourth and Long, where I spent the season around the Big Ten. He's a first-rate coach and his specialty is getting more out of less, which actually was the specialty of [former MSU coach] Mark Dantonio, who of course beat Michigan eight out of ten tries during one stretch.
So, here's what I expect, Doug. Blocking and tackling will return to East Lansing.
DT: [Laughs] Michigan also has a new coach this season. Kyle Whittingham will make his debut on Sept. 5, when the Wolverines host the Western Michigan Broncos at the Big House. What will you be watching for in the early weeks of Whittingham's first season in Ann Arbor?
JUB: Well, some of the same stuff. Blocking and tackling, as I said before about Michigan State, will be back in fashion in Ann Arbor as well. But the centerpiece is going to be Bryce Underwood, the $12-million quarterback that Larry Ellison of Oracle has paid for. And last year, they did not pay for a $200,000 quarterback coach to coach that guy, which is kind of crazy.
Whittingham, that's one of the first things that he did. So expect improvement from Bryce Underwood during Whittingham's first season.
DT: Well, paying for a major college football program cost more than ever, as you alluded to there. Kyle Whittingham recently told the Detroit Free Press that Michigan's budget for NIL — that's the name, image, likeness money paid to student athletes — was in the range of $35 to 40 million.
With that in mind, Michigan is doing something new at the Big House. A few companies are paying for the right to have their logos on the wall around the field, on the massive video scoreboards, and in some other locations. U of M had long been a holdout on allowing advertising in the stadium. What's your view of adding ads there, John?
JUB: Well, on the one hand, probably inevitable. But also, I guess a bit regrettable. They are one of two schools — Notre Dame being the other — that did not have advertising in their stadiums. And now Michigan is like everyone else as far as that goes.
Michigan has lost something here. It used to be basically an urban national park where for four blissful hours you were not bombarded with the thousands of ads we get all day long online, on TV and driving around and so on. So it was refreshing in that regard.
But as I said, probably inevitable. Look at that payroll. Pretty crazy. Doug, don't forget greed is undefeated. So kudos, greed. It's been quite a century and I don't see any formidable opponents, do you?
Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Tarik Skubal makes his way to the bullpen prior to a baseball game against the Chicago Cubs, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, in Chicago. (Melissa Tamez/AP Photo / FR172025 AP)
DT: [Laughs] Turning to baseball, the Tigers will open a three-game series with the Los Angeles Dodgers Friday night at Comerica Park. And for the first time, the Tigers will face a pitcher named Tarik Skubal. Hope they've done their homework.
JUB: [Laughs] Yeah, well, look into the vault for the video and see what you got on this guy. An unknown left-hander, of course.
I think they'll know him quite well. And that's the problem. They know how good he is. And there's no mistaking that. Detroit was on a great tear for a while. They had a wild-card birth within their reach. And now they are many games behind, having gone 1-9 over a 10-game stretch, and I don't think Tarik Skubal is going to help, facing him on the mound.
DT: If you had to face any of your pitchers as an opponent — your former pitcher in this case — I don't think the Tigers would be choosing Tarik Skubal as the first one...
JUB: Well, great point. And Doug, by the way, there are many to choose from these days. Casey Mize — also a great pitcher — is now with San Diego. So a lot of former great Tiger pitchers — Max Scherzer, etc., etc. The list is very long, but I think Tarik Skubal is the one you'd least like to face.
Editor's note: Some quotes in this article have been lightly edited for length and clarity. You can play the full audio of the interview near the top of this page.
The University of Michigan holds Michigan Public's broadcast license.
Floating solar arrays are still pretty rare.(alinamd - stock.adobe.com / Adobe Stock)
A proposed solar facility in mid-Michigan is the first project to move forward after asking the Michigan Public Service Commission to review its plans that ran into local objections.
The 90-megawatt solar facility will span three townships in southern Ingham County.
The project’s developer was the first to ask the MPSC to review a proposal that faced local opposition. A 2023 state law gave developers the option to bypass local zoning rules for renewable energy projects.
But the communities chose to work with the project developer rather than waiting for a hearing before the Michigan Public Service Commission.
Under the agreement Thursday, Leslie, Onondaga and Vevay Townships will split payments of $180,000 proportionally, according to how many of the panels are within their boundaries.
It also set regulations for noise levels and lighting, among other requirements.
Ingham County chose to reach its own agreement with the project developer, waiving its right to intervene in the case in exchange for a direct payment of $180,000.
The 2023 state law giving permitting and siting power for some renewable energy facilities to the Michigan Public Service Commission is still being contested in court.
Bryant Community Center in south Ann Arbor runs on solar power. If Ann Arbor residents vote to create a sustainable energy utility in November, the center could become part of that utility and provide renewable energy to nearby residents as well. (Elinor Epperson)
A Washtenaw County judge on Tuesday dismissed a case arguing the Ann Arbor City Clerk wrongly approved a ballot initiative that would set the city on a course to create a municipal electrical utility.
The Ann Arbor Responsible Energy Coalition filed a suit against City Clerk Jacqueline Beaudry and the city of Ann Arbor over Beaudry’s decision to certify petitions for the Ann Arbor for Public Power ballot proposal.
If the proposal is approved, the city charter would be amended to create a municipal electric utility and set elections for its governing board for 2028. According to the ballot committee, DTE Energy, which currently supplies power to the city, would continue to provide electrical service until Ann Arbor residents vote to approve acquisition of local energy infrastructure in another referendum.
DTE stands opposed to the proposal, citing an analysis it commissioned from the consulting firm Charles River Associates which places the up-front costs of a shift to municipal power at $1 billion. Ann Arbor for Public Power argues those costs are wildly inflated, and that the shift would carry benefits like more clean energy, lower rates and improved reliability.
According to reporting from Michigan Public, the Ann Arbor Responsible Energy Coalition — which is financially supported by DTE— argues that Ann Arbor for Public Power did not submit enough valid signatures to make the ballot, and that Beaudry had improperly allowed the group to submit additional sheets after her initial canvass.
The group also argued that the ballot question includes more than one topic, in violation of the Home Rule City Act, which requires proposed charter amendments to focus on one subject.
However, Judge Patrick J. Conlin accepted the city’s request for summary disposition, determining Beaudry’s decision to accept signatures in batches was not a violation of the law and that she had acted in accordance with the Michigan Home Rule City Act.
In a statement shared with Michigan Advance, the Ann Arbor Responsible Energy Coalition expressed disappointment with Conlin’s decision.
“Michigan law sets strict, clear rules for how ballot petitions must be gathered and filed, and we continue to believe those rules were not followed here,” said Rudy Harper, the group’s spokesperson. “The stakes — a proposed city takeover of the electric grid carrying an estimated $1 billion in new debt — demand a petition process that meets the letter of the law.”
The group has since appealed.
In a statement to Michigan Advance, Ann Arbor City Attorney Atleen Kaur said, “We are pleased that the Court correctly recognized the Clerk’s canvass was compliant with the Home Rule City Act.” She noted that the city will evaluate the Ann Arbor Responsible Energy Coalition’s appeal and respond accordingly.
Ann Arbor for Public Power cheered Conlin’s decision.
“Ann Arbor residents want their electric bill payments to fund grid maintenance and renewable power, not corporate profits and baseless lawsuits,” said Brian Geiringer, the group’s executive director. “We look forward to making the case for public power this fall.”
A trade war with ...Canada? How? Why? And what the actual eff?
The answer, of course is quite simple: Donald Trump. He thinks the US/Canada trade relationship (like all relationships) is exactly like a 1970s New York City real estate deal and must be treated as such -- lie, bluster, threaten, flatter, cajole, schmooze, lie, backstab, crime, belittle, complain, lie, stiff anybody who does actual work, and lie. And then ultimately create a "deal" that you have every intention of breaking at first convenience.
Now to understand why Trump sees the whole world this way, that answer is also quite simple: Roy Cohn. Cohn was Trump's mentor/lawyer/fixer in his formative years of pulling himself up by the bootstraps of daddy's fortune. Cohn is the thread that connects McCarthyism to Trumpism. May I suggest:
So before anybody comes at me about Canada possibly being the bad guy, tell me whether you know who Roy Cohn is and if you're fine with the way he did business. If yes and yes, don't expect a reply.
Editor's note: John Auchter is a freelance political cartoonist. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect those of Michigan Public, its management, or its license holder, the University of Michigan.
The campaign behind a proposed state constitutional amendment has filed suit over a Michigan elections board decision that keeps it off the ballot.
The measure, backed by Americans for Citizen Voting Michigan, would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo ID to ensure a vote is counted.
Earlier this week, the Michigan Board of State Canvassers disagreed about whether to accept late proof that the campaign collected enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. A deadlock prevented the measure from advancing.
Now, Americans for Citizen Voting has asked the state Supreme Court to help it out.
“More than 700,000 Michiganders signed this petition. We have the signatures required to qualify, and we are asking the Michigan Supreme Court to ensure those voters are not silenced because the Board of State Canvassers failed to do its job,” campaign chair Paul Jacob said in a press release announcing the lawsuit.
This past spring, the campaign turned in far more signatures than necessary to qualify. But after reviewing a thousand-signature sample — and challenges to the validity of some of the signatures in that sample, nonpartisan elections staff found the campaign fell slightly short.
To convince the canvassing board otherwise, the campaign offered notarized affidavits from a handful of rejected signers to prove that the signatures should be counted, even if signatures didn’t exactly match state records.
At Monday’s meeting, board members deadlocked as to whether signatures on some of the new affidavits matched voter records either. Members agreed just enough of them matched to theoretically push campaign over the needed signature threshold.
However, the affidavits that would have made the difference weren’t turned in until after the meeting had started. The board generally has a rule that all public materials must be submitted at least 48 hours beforehand.
The board’s two Democratic members argued the rule should be strictly followed. The board’s two Republican members wanted to accept the affidavits in this case.
How the Michigan Supreme Court views the 48-hour rule could be key to deciding the case. The lawsuit argues the board’s duty to certify petitions trumps its authority to set procedural rules for itself.
The complaint is also arguing the rejected affidavits should be accepted as well.
The lawsuit is asking for a decision by September 1. A deadline for finalizing the November ballot is coming up soon.
Meanwhile, the issue is also drawing scrutiny from state lawmakers. On Wednesday, the Michigan House of Representatives created a new select committee to look into the matter.
The Michigan chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR-MI) has launched a safety toolkit for mosques and Islamic schools amid what the organization said is a rise in nationwide anti-Muslim threats.
CAIR-MI’s Safe Spaces department met with local police departments to help guide the development of the toolkit.
The organization said it's publishing the resource as Muslim communities across the country face safety concerns including physical attacks, violent threats, and vandalism at mosques. The organization also pointed to a deadly attack at an Islamic center in San Diego in May as part of the broader concerns facing Muslim institutions.
The toolkit starts out with a self-assessment checklist that has participating institutions examine their physical security, people and responsibilities, community relationships, and existing plans and procedures.
Following that checklist, CAIR said there's a simple response guide for situations such as suspicious or escalating behavior, threatening communications, and an active assailant situation.
Soobia Kidwai, who directs the council's Safe Spaces Department, said the goal is to give Muslim institutions a practical place to begin when assessing their security.
“This toolkit gives them a starting point to look at their facility, their procedures, and their people and ask, are we prepared? Do our staff and volunteers know what to do?”
These steps provide tools to help institutions improve emergency preparedness and build proactive relationships with local law enforcement, Kidwai said.
The group encouraged mosques and Islamic schools to take that process a step further by contacting their local police departments and requesting facility safety assessments.
During those assessments, law enforcement can visit a facility, review its existing safety measures and identify potential gaps.
For Kidwai, that relationship is one of the most important parts of the toolkit.
“The goal is to be proactive, to have the conversations, relationships and procedures in place before they're needed,” she said.
Kidwai said the success of the initiative will ultimately depend on whether institutions act on the information.
"For me, success isn’t just about how many people received the toolkit—it’s whether it helped our institutions become better prepared."
On July 4 last year, Detroit paramedic and Emergency Medical Services assistant supervisor Al Saade was in the office when he received an urgent call to attend a multi-vehicle crash.
He arrived at a chaotic scene. Three of the people involved in the crash had injuries. Saade's EMS supervisor, Captain Robert Calandro, also just arrived, assigned him to do patient triage.
There was also a Fire Department Battalion Chief at the scene. Saade said the chief began issuing contradictory orders about how to do the triage. That shouldn't happen. State law mandates that the highest licensed medical authority responding to a call for emergency medical care has responsibility for directing the care — in this case, his EMS supervisor, Captain Calondro, a paramedic.
Saade ignored orders from the battalion chief and continued triage, even as the chief tried, without success, to pull Saade from his emergency medical response work to argue with him about chain of command.
Saade faced disciplinary action for insubordination for refusing to follow the battalion chief’s orders. Although the disciplinary action was eventually dismissed, the paramedic says the incident shows how wrong things can go when Fire Department officials try to take charge of emergency medical care.
"The chief called for EMS supervision because he needed our expertise," Saade said. "But once we arrived, that expertise was disregarded. What happens on the next complicated medical scene when EMS supervision is not there to intervene?"
Union says Fire Department has been mishandling medical emergencies for years
In 2021, Detroit's EMS division was consolidated with the Fire division.
Saade said last year’s July 4 incident was just one of many similar ones during the years since the consolidation, and that Fire Department supervisors had been interfering in non-fire medical emergency calls on a nearly daily basis.
Tensions came to a head at the start of last year when the Fire Department adopted a new standard operating procedure (SOP) that put battalion chiefs in charge of overseeing the overall incident command and scene management. It also required EMS supervisors to report to and coordinate all actions through the incident commander.
Representatives of the city’s EMS staff brought the issue to arbitration. In March, an arbitrator agreed with the EMS division's position on the SOP, saying the union had “articulated the disorder that has arisen in the field and the detrimental effects on patient care.”
The order has made no difference, according to EMS representatives. They claim that the Fire Department is frequently declining to send available paramedics to "Code 1" calls, involving the most serious medical situations.
"There's literally no accountability,” Saade said. “It just gets worse and worse. It's really chaotic. And at the end of the day, it's the citizens of the city that end up paying heavily for it."
EMS workers have filed dozens of grievances, including some that followed the arbitrator’s order, to allow medically trained staff to take charge in medical emergencies.
Grievances filed by the Detroit EMS union include these incidents:
In July 2023, a Fire Department supervisor failed to transmit an EMS paramedic supervisor's command that firefighters begin CPR on a drowning victim they'd pulled from the Detroit River. The victim later died.
In January 2026, firefighters were given the wrong location for a medical emergency. They immediately broke down the door of the uninvolved citizen's house rather than waiting for an EMS supervisor to arrive, confirm the address, and direct them in how to respond.
Firefighters delayed responding to two separate Code 1 (cardiac arrest) emergencies in July 2026 and August 2026.
Police Officers Association of Michigan becomes involved in the dispute
James Tignanelli is president of the Police Officers Association of Michigan. Normally, his association represents sheriff, police, and fire department unions. But he said the Detroit EMS union was left essentially with no representation due to the conflict with the Detroit Fire Department, so in January, 2025, his group agreed to take them on as members.
"I have been in this business for more than 30 years," Tignanelli said, and noted that even though they’re technically part of the same team, tensions between the Detroit Fire Department and its EMS Division have run especially high. "I've had more labor disputes involving this union than any group than I've ever had in my career. We get so many grievances — dozens — over the proper response issue in Detroit that we have to pick and choose which ones to arbitrate."
Tignanelli said the dispute should not be seen as a turf battle, but as a question of whether Detroiters are getting the emergency response they should in a medical crisis.
Tignanelli said the EMS union has documented more than 5,000 incidents since January 2025, in which Code 1 patients were treated by firefighters or EMTs in a Basic Life Support unit when the Fire Department should have sent an Advanced Life Support unit. The ALS unit has a paramedic on board along with the "drug box," containing medications only paramedics can administer in emergency situations.
There's no way to prove that people have died because of the Fire Department's actions, or inactions, he said, but he thinks it's likely.
"The odds are somebody didn't get the treatment they deserve,” he said. “Everybody loves firemen, I guess, but I wouldn't want a fireman working on me while I'm laying on my back needing a (para)medic.”
Detroit Fire Department response to allegations
In a statement, Executive Fire Commissioner Charles Simms said the Detroit Fire Department has slashed its Code 1 response time from nearly 20 minutes in 2014, to 7 1/2 minutes today.
"That means Detroit residents experiencing life threatening emergencies are receiving medical response faster than ever before, helping save lives,” Simms said.
"The Detroit Fire Department disputes any claims that it is withholding advanced life support from patients. The DFD is still rebuilding its EMS system. We need more paramedics to provide the level of care Detroit residents deserve. That challenge is not unique to Detroit; there is a national shortage of paramedics," said Simms.
Simms also said that the Fire Department is training more firefighters to be paramedics in efforts to create a fully “in-house” paramedic staff and reviewing deployment policies to ensure the proper response to Code 1 calls.
Simms did not address the issue of whether Fire Department supervisors are intervening in medical response decisions.
Does the Detroit Fire Department need an overhaul? And if so, what kind of overhaul?
The DFD says structure fires have declined by 50% in Detroit since 2017. Firefighting operations were required for 1,471 fires in the city in 2025.
Meanwhile, there are more than 160,000 calls for medical emergency assistance annually in Detroit — so many that the city hires supplemental ambulance services so firefighting and EMS staff can keep up.
In June, Detroit's city council renewed a supplemental ambulance service contracts to augment the city's own emergency response services.
The approvals were delayed as council members discussed whether the city should be investing in its own EMS services instead. Fire Department officials have said that would require significant investments to accomplish, as reported by Bridge Detroit.
EMS union head Al Saade said he agrees the long-term goal should be for the Detroit Fire Department to handle the city's emergency medical calls in-house, without relying on private ambulance companies.
"I am not minimizing fires," Saade said. "When they happen, they are dangerous, labor-intensive events and Detroit needs enough firefighters and equipment to handle them safely. But it is impossible to look at the numbers and ignore where the overwhelming day-to-day demand for service exists."
The DFD needs an overhaul that includes a change in approach and a revamp of resource placement, Saade said, and EMS officials have not been asked to be involved in conversations about those goals.
"We need to stop treating EMS as the secondary mission when the data tells us otherwise. When you look at what this department actually does every day, sometimes you have to be willing to say the uncomfortable part out loud: This is really an EMS department that puts out the occasional fire."
CLARIFICATION: This story has been updated to remove the impression that Detroit fire department and EMS response times are too long, that is not the case.
We call someone a "card” when they're especially funny or clever. However, that particular meaning of "card" comes from a much longer history of using the word to describe people with particular qualities.
Beginning in the 1500s, figurative uses of "card" grew out of card games. A “leading card,” for example, was the card used to start a round, and eventually came to refer to a strong point or advantage.
Fast forward to the 1830s, and "card" could describe someone who embodied a particular quality. You could be a “knowing card” or, more positively, a “sure card," i.e., someone you could depend on.
By the 1850s, "card" was also being used for someone who was clever or ingenious, and eventually for someone who was funny, eccentric or a bit of a character. That's the sense behind saying someone “is a card.”
There are plenty of other expressions built around the language of card games. “Trump card” dates to the 1820s, with "trump" being a shortened form of "triumph." And “playing the ___ card” emerged in the late 1800s as a way of introducing a topic in hopes of gaining sympathy or a political advantage.
Over time, that expanded into disparaging expressions such as “playing the gender card” and “playing the race card.”
To hear more about the "cards" our language holds and why someone who's a "card" might also be a "character," listen to the audio above.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday he is renaming Lake Ontario to be known as “Lake America” in the United States as he exacerbates his trade war with Canada.
The Republican president signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to update the lake's name in the U.S. geographic naming service. Trump cannot force Canada to follow his preferred naming convention, however.
Trump has been floating the idea of the name change in recent days as the U.S. announced it was imposing 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down. Trump has been needling America’s northern neighbor since he returned to the White House last year, suggesting the ally with whom the U.S. once had warm relations should instead be absorbed as the 51st state.
Canada responded to Trump’s import taxes this week by imposing retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.
Trump, who signed the order as he was sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, had a large sign behind him propped on a stand with a map of the Great Lakes. Over Lake Ontario, in big red letters, the map read “Lake America.”
On the other wide of the president was another map with the words, “MAKING THE GREAT LAKES EVEN GREATER.”
The lake is one of multiple Great Lakes that the U.S. and Canada share borders along.
The office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
There is no single international body that determines names of international bodies of water and Trump has wide latitude over how the U.S. government recognizes geographic places and landmarks.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who has traded insults with Trump, this week brushed aside the prospect of Trump changing the lake's name as “a lot of rhetoric."
The name Lake Ontario comes from the Huron Indigenous people’s word “oniatarí:io,” that means “lake of shining waters.” The province of Ontario, founded in 1867, took its name from the lake.
Trump said that while his action was not meant to send any particular geopolitical message, “Canada’s been ripping us off for a long time” on trade and military issues.
“They wanted to be treated like a state and they’re not a state,” the president said. “We just can’t do that anymore.”
“We love the people of Canada,” Trump added. “I don’t think their representatives do, an appropriate job. Maybe they’ll change. I really don’t know. It doesn’t make much difference.”
The move is reminiscent of his move last year to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America."
Trump scribbled his name with a Sharpie pen on the executive order then held it up for the cameras, offering, “And we filed all the necessary papers, documents, everything else.”
“We’ve notified all of the various people that we have to notify. So, we’ve done everything that you have to do,” he said. “And this is official, effective immediately.”
He also suggested his push to rename bodies of water may not be finished.
“So, if you think about it, we have a gulf and we have a lake. Now, all we need is an ocean,” Trump said. “So maybe we’ll have to change the name of the Atlantic and or the Pacific. Maybe we’ll change them.”
___
Associated Press writer Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
It’s the last week of August! Spend the last weekend before Labor Day exploring something new, getting outside, or just having fun. If you need some ideas to get you started this weekend, Michigan Public has got you covered! We've gathered some of our favorite events from across Michigan this weekend. Check out some of these fun, interesting, and timely events, handpicked by our staff!
Planning to go to any of these events this weekend? Let us know how much you enjoyed it by emailing digital@michiganpublic.org.
Across Michigan
Full Moon over Mackinac 8/28 | 8 p.m. Fort Mackinac - 7127 Huron Road, Mackinac Island, MI Free
Blake’s Sunflower Festival 8/28-8/30 | All Day Blake’s Orchard & Cider Mill - 17985 Armada Center Road, Armada, MI $14
Cedar Polka Fest 8/27-8/30 | All Day 3075 E Sullivan Street, Cedar, MI $15
Emmet-Charlevoix County Fair 8/24-8/30 | All Day Petoskey Fairgrounds - 1129 Charlevoix Avenue, Petoskey, MI Prices Vary by Event
The impact of the USEPA proposal on Native American reservations in Michigan is uncertain. Twelve Michigan tribes could be affected by the proposal.(Lester Graham / Michigan Radio)
State taxpayers will spend up to $50 million on the polarizing Copperwood copper mine in the far western Upper Peninsula following a vote Tuesday by the Michigan Strategic Fund.
Toronto-based Highland Copper Inc. pitched the project in 2023 as a $425 million mine that will create 380 jobs during its 11-year lifecycle — and one that needed state dollars to be viable.
After several attempts to obtain a state subsidy, the company succeeded on Tuesday when the Strategic Fund awarded the company $45 million toward an estimated $129 million in site readiness costs. It awarded another $5 million to the Gogebic County Road Commission to make road updates in Wakefield Township.
The mine project — which would be the first in the Upper Peninsula since 1955 — has been pushed by lawmakers and economic developers, who said recent polling showed that 70% of state residents supported it.
The mine is “the most important economic opportunity” for the entire Upper Peninsula, said Marty Fittante, CEO of InvestUP, an economic development group.
“This grant delivers infrastructure the Western UP desperately needs but cannot afford: infrastructure to attract good-paying jobs like those that Copperwood brings.”
The state’s grant will cover nearly 10% of the $425 million project cost estimate as originally proposed in 2023.
However, Highland Copper said it will be revising project costs by March — along with considering a smaller facility that would use less power and supplies. Unclear is whether hiring will remain at 380 expected new jobs.
Public opposition
During at least two hours of public comments before the vote, many people raised questions about whether the economic value of the mine offset the costs to the region’s ecology and to taxpayers.
Most of the speakers opposed the project, warning of risks to nearby Lake Superior and the Porcupine Mountains from mining and its byproducts.
“We must protect Lake Superior at all costs from this mine,” Brian Mitchell, a Novi-based nature photographer, said. “If we do not protect our fresh water, no other business, economy or investment really matters in this state.”
Many noted that the mine deal first came up for a vote in early 2024, and proponents tried several times to get lawmakers to either approve it as a SOAR appropriation or annual budget earmark. Tuesday’s vote on the company grant was 7-2.
The company is trying to attract additional funding for the Copperwood project. The $45 million state grant is worth more than half of Highland Copper’s (OTC: HDRSF) market value, which stood at $80 million Tuesday based on the company’s stock price of 12 cents a share.
Without the state funding, financing the full project would be “incredibly more challenging,” said company CEO Barry O’Shea told the board.
That alone is a concern, Cindy Warner, a former member of the Strategic Fund board, wrote in a letter sent this week to oppose the property.
“This is a proposal to backstop, with public money, a project that private capital markets have not fully backed on their own merits,” she wrote. “This is not a proper use of Michigan taxpayer dollars.”
The Export-Import Bank of the United States last fall indicated interest in loaning Highland $250 million through its Make More in America Initiative, but no financing has been finalized.
Several tries over years: A timeline
Tuesday’s vote comes three years after the Michigan Economic Development Corp. initially offered Highland Copper Inc. a $50 million subsidy plus additional funding for recruitment and other hiring needs, documents obtained by Bridge through the Freedom of Information Act show.
Several failed attempts to seed the project with public money followed:
1. The Strategic Fund board, after asking rare questions during a public meeting in January 2024, postponed a vote to give Highland Copper $50 million. Upon prodding from the board, the company CEO acknowledged it had no investors and a fraction of the capital it needed to build the mine after the subsidy.
2. The proposal returned in March 2024, and the board passed it without discussion. In committee before the meeting, they’d set up conditions: Highland Copper could only get the money if it had $150 million in capital.
3. After the proposal stalled in gaining legislative support for the money to be appropriated, Rep. Greg Markkanen, R-Hancock, switched gears: He sought $50 million in summer 2024 for Wakefield Township to fund mine-related infrastructure like roads and internet. His earmark request did not make it into the budget.
The proposal “appears in every way identical to what has already been denied three times,” said Tom Grotewohl, founder of Protect the Porkies, a nonprofit organization opposing proposed mines in the UP.
“To propose it a fourth time is a grotesque attempt to steamroll over the clear will of the people,” he told Bridge.
Yet several lawmakers touted the project during Tuesday’s hearing, noting the region’s mine history and saying that state oversight would protect the environment.
Rep. Dave Prestin, R-Cedar River, also spoke of economic revitalization.
“For too long, the state of Michigan and its policies ignored this once prosperous region. The people have been abandoned, employers have left, hospitals have closed, the tax base has been devastated,” he said.
The grant, he said, is a responsible use of state funding.
“The roads, power systems, and telecommunications improvements supported by this grant will remain in place and continue serving the region for decades after the project operations conclude,” he said.
Looking ahead
The mine will add U.S.-based copper production at a time when electronics and data centers rely on the mineral, and the Trump administration seeks to boost domestic production. U.S. copper is about 4% of the world’s supply.
O’Shea, the CEO, said Highland Copper is preparing to start construction in 2028, a year after it releases its updated feasibility study that will refine its Copperwood plans.
So far, the company has spent about $15 million on the project.
Meanwhile, the state said it would reduce the grant award if the overall investment and job creation target declines.
The deal also set a few conditions on the grant award: Highland Copper needs to show $150 million of additional financing by spring 2028, along with a spreadsheet of anticipated spending. Developers also will have to prove they created 380 jobs and finish the infrastructure spending by March 31, 2033.
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This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
Three children prepared for the journey back to Colombia after a Taylor police officer reported their father to federal immigration agents.(Cydni Elledge / Outlier Media)
El agente de la Policía de Taylor Ryan Jowske se inclinó hacia la ventanilla de la camioneta gris el 12 de mayo. “Los detuve por el tinte de las ventanas del vehículo”, dijo, mientras pedía una identificación al conductor y al pasajero.
“Está vencida”, dijo el conductor. El pasajero no tenía una. “¿De dónde son?”, preguntó Jowske. De Colombia, respondieron.
Jowske no encontró sus nombres en una base de datos, según su informe policial. Luego llamó a un agente de U.S. Border Patrol, quien pidió hacerse cargo de ambas personas. Jowske esposó a los dos y los mantuvo en su patrulla hasta que el agente llegó unos 10 minutos después.
Para ambos migrantes, el resultado fue catastrófico: dos meses de detención, deportaciones y familias separadas.
Para los policías por todo Michigan, fue un día típico de trabajo.
Agentes de decenas de policías municipales han entregado migrantes a la administración de Donald Trump en cientos de casos, según un análisis de registros públicos realizado por Michigan Public y Outlier Media. En estas comunidades, las deportaciones suelen comenzar por asuntos que parecen triviales: un parabrisas agrietado, cruzar la calle fuera del paso peatonal, un vehículo averiado o simplemente las sospechas de un oficial.
Según expertos, la policía no tiene la obligación de reportar a los migrantes a las autoridades federales en tales casos. Algunos jefes de policía de Michigan también desaconsejan esta práctica, en parte porque perjudica las relaciones entre la comunidad y la policía y desvía recursos locales destinados a la seguridad pública.
“Probablemente sigue siendo la manera más común en que alguien termina bajo custodia de las autoridades migratorias”, dijo Ramis Wadood, abogado de planta de la American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. “Sucede todos los días. Y, por desgracia, para muchas agencias, simplemente es una práctica habitual”.
Michigan Public y Outlier recopilaron cientos de documentos para elaborar la lista más completa disponible de informes policiales relacionados con inmigración en el estado desde 2021.
Es muy probable que los datos subestimen la participación policial. Pero ofrecen una perspectiva poco habitual de la colaboración local con las autoridades migratorias, que podría ser valiosa para quienes necesitan desplazarse por el área metropolitana de Detroit o están interesados en la rendición de cuentas policial.
El portavoz de U.S. Border Patrol, Youssef Fawaz, dijo que la agencia “se enorgullece de colaborar con las agencias locales del orden público, que deberían ser reconocidas por su dedicación a mantener seguras nuestras comunidades”.
Taylor forma parte del pequeño grupo de departamentos de Michigan que tienen acuerdos formales de cooperación con U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). El jefe de policía John Blair no respondió a las solicitudes de comentarios sobre la detención de tránsito de mayo ni sobre la cooperación de su departamento con las autoridades migratorias.
La esposa de uno de los hombres deportados después de ser detenido por la policía de Taylor aún intentaba entender cómo una ventana tintada había trastocado la vida de su familia. No usamos los nombres completos de la pareja porque temen represalias contra sus familiares que aún se encuentran en Estados Unidos.
“La mayoría de las personas que vienen (a Estados Unidos) lo hacen para buscar un futuro mejor, no para hacer cosas malas”, dijo. “Simplemente no tiene sentido. Hemos construido una vida aquí. Queremos quedarnos”.
A minor traffic stop upended the life J’s family built over four years in the U.S. His wife worries their children will go hungry in Colombia.(Cydni Elledge / Outlier Media)
‘Seguir la ley, no la política’
Los departamentos de policía del área de Detroit tienen una larga historia de cooperación con Border Patrol. Pero esa colaboración parece haberse intensificado desde que Donald Trump regresó a la Casa Blanca.
En las 388 detenciones y arrestos relacionados con inmigración que revisamos en todo el estado, las llamadas de las policías municipales a las autoridades migratorias aumentaron drásticamente después de que Trump iniciara su segundo mandato. Algunos departamentos hicieron decenas de llamadas en 2025 y 2026, en comparación con pocas o ninguna durante los cuatro años anteriores.
El cambio refleja un cambio en las prioridades federales — y en la disposición de los agentes federales a responder a las llamadas de las policías municipales.
En 2022, durante la administración del presidente Joe Biden, un agente de Van Buren Township llamó a ICE para preguntar si los agentes querían hacerse cargo de un migrante al que habían detenido por una placa “irregular”. El agente declinó, explicando que la “administración política” se estaba enfocando en “delincuentes violentos”.
En 2025, después de que Trump regresara al poder, un agente de Van Buren llamó a Border Patrol por unos migrantes que presuntamente se pasaron una señal de alto. Esta vez, los agentes federales sí mostraron interés. Tres agentes de Van Buren condujeron durante una hora para entregar a los migrantes a Border Patrol.
“Nuestro enfoque y prioridad es la seguridad de quienes trabajan, viven y transitan por Van Buren Township, no su estatus migratorio”, dijo el jefe de policía de Van Buren, Jason Wright, en una declaración enviada por correo electrónico.
Dijo que sus agentes utilizan Border Patrol como un “recurso” para verificar identificaciones y evitar que personas sin licencia se vayan después de una detención de tránsito “y potencialmente causen daños en un accidente”.
Pero la evidencia sugiere que la política — no la seguridad pública — está impulsando un cambio en el comportamiento policial.
La administración Trump cuenta con un amplio respaldo en las comunidades del área metropolitana de Detroit que colaboran más activamente con la aplicación de las leyes de inmigración.
Shelby Township y Sterling Heights, dos de los municipios cuyas policías reportaron algunas de las cifras más altas de arrestos relacionados con inmigración en nuestro conjunto de datos, apoyaron ampliamente a Trump en 2024. El jefe de policía de Shelby Township recibió al vicepresidente JD Vance para que hablara en el departamento durante la campaña. Uno de los principales sindicatos policiales del estado también respaldó a Trump ese año.
Durante una detención de tránsito en Fraser el invierno pasado, agentes de policía mencionaron a Trump y dijeron que querían “sacar (a un migrante) de aquí”, mientras utilizaban repetidamente el término deshumanizante “ilegal”.
Representantes del sector policial rechazaron la idea de que el comportamiento de los departamentos esté motivado políticamente.
“Creo que el público debería esperar que los agentes sigan la ley, no la política”, dijo Ron Wiles, director ejecutivo de la Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police.
‘Una decisión local’
Los agentes que deciden participar en la campaña de deportaciones de Trump tienen amplia libertad para hacerlo.
“No existe un estándar para (la aplicación de las leyes de inmigración); es una decisión local”, dijo Wiles. “Cada comunidad es diferente: tiene necesidades distintas y distintas preferencias sobre cómo quiere que actúe su policía”.
Los acuerdos formales de cooperación con ICE, como el de Taylor, son poco comunes.
En la práctica, la diferencia entre una multa por una infracción menor y semanas de detención o una deportación puede depender de si un agente o supervisor decide llamar a Border Patrol.
Alrededor de la medianoche del 9 de junio, el agente de Southgate A. Zielinski detuvo a tres personas por cruzar una calle de dos carriles fuera del paso peatonal, entre una tienda de conveniencia y un hotel La Quinta Inn. Las imágenes de la cámara corporal muestran que Zielinski pidió identificación a los tres, y dos de ellos la presentaron de inmediato.
Zielinski señaló repetidamente que “no hablan inglés”. Buscó sus identificaciones en una base de datos estatal, pero no encontró ningún registro. A la tercera persona, que hablaba inglés y no llevaba identificación, la dejaron ir con una citación.
Cuatro agentes rodearon a las dos personas restantes en el estacionamiento del hotel. Después de unos 40 minutos, fueron esposadas y se las llevaron tres agentes de Border Patrol.
A Southgate police officer called immigration agents to a hotel parking lot after stopping three people for jaywalking.(Cydni Elledge/Outlier Media and Kate Abbey-Lambertz / Outlier Media)
De marzo a junio de este año, Southgate registró tres arrestos relacionados con inmigración, después de no reportar ninguno entre 2021 y 2025. La policía de Southgate no respondió a una solicitud de comentarios.
Los detalles varían, pero muchos incidentes siguen un patrón similar. Los agentes se encuentran con personas en situaciones cotidianas: intentando arrancar un auto con cables, durmiendo bajo un árbol, conduciendo con un faro roto o pagando una multa en un tribunal. El agente descubre que la persona habla poco inglés, tiene una identificación extranjera o no tiene identificación. Luego viene la llamada a las autoridades federales de inmigración.
Algunas de las detenciones también plantean preguntas sobre por qué la policía decide detener a ciertas personas en primer lugar. Expertos que revisaron los registros de los casos incluidos en este artículo dijeron que algunos presentan características de las llamadas “detenciones con pretexto”, en las que los agentes usan una infracción menor como motivo para investigar una sospecha sobre otra cosa, incluido, potencialmente, el estatus migratorio de una persona.
Pero los registros no permiten establecer las motivaciones de los agentes en casos individuales. Wiles se negó a revisar los documentos, pero dijo que supone que los agentes no tenían “algún motivo oculto” para realizar estas detenciones más allá de haber presenciado una infracción.
En Southfield, un agente que se encuentra con una persona conduciendo con un pasaporte pero sin licencia de conducir — una situación común en los datos — podría emitirle una multa o arrestarla. Pero el encuentro no daría lugar a una llamada a agentes de inmigración, según informó el departamento de policía de la ciudad.
“No haremos ninguna pregunta sobre el estatus migratorio”, dijo Elvin Barren, jefe de policía de Southfield.
Su razonamiento es práctico: si la policía de Southfield preguntara regularmente a las personas por su estatus migratorio, “limitaría o impediría que las víctimas de delitos acudieran a nosotros en busca de ayuda”, dijo.
El resultado de estos enfoques tan distintos es que el mismo tipo de encuentro con la policía puede tener consecuencias radicalmente diferentes según dónde ocurra.
Desarraigando una familia
En esa mañana soleada de mayo, J dijo que acababa de salir de Home Depot cuando vio en el espejo retrovisor las luces de la patrulla del agente Jowske, de Taylor.
J no habla ni entiende inglés. Recordó que temblaba de miedo mientras intentaba entender y seguir las preguntas e instrucciones del agente.
Pasó los dos meses siguientes separado de su esposa e hijos, trasladado por cinco cárceles federales y centros de detención distintos. Describió registros constantes y burlas por parte del personal de ICE. Entre el estrés y la comida “asquerosa”, dijo que perdió 34 libras.
Cuando ICE deportó a J a finales de junio, puso fin a la vida que él y su esposa habían construido juntos en Estados Unidos durante aproximadamente cuatro años.
J’s wife and children opted to leave the country and reunite with him following his deportation in late June.(Cydni Elledge / Outlier Media)
La familia entró a Estados Unidos en 2022, después de concertar una cita con Customs and Border Protection en la frontera sur para iniciar un caso de asilo. Se mudaron al oeste de Detroit e inscribieron a sus hijos en la escuela.
En Colombia, la familia había pasado hambre en ocasiones. J, que trabajaba allí como taxista, no ganaba lo suficiente para cubrir los gastos de la familia.
En Detroit, sus vidas se estabilizaron. J encontró trabajo reparando casas de alquiler. Sus hijos mayores obtuvieron becas para jugar fútbol competitivo con el programa juvenil de Detroit City FC.
Después de que J fuera deportado, la familia decidió que su esposa e hijos también saldrían de Estados Unidos mediante el programa de “autodeportación” de la administración Trump, que ofrece boletos de avión a los migrantes que salen voluntariamente del país.
En una mañana soleada de julio, se reunieron en el patio trasero de la casa de un familiar en Detroit, preparándose para tomar un vuelo a Bogotá. Sus maletas estaban amontonadas en una miniván estacionada al frente.
El hijo menor de la pareja, de 7 años, llevaba una gorra de béisbol de Godzilla. Cuando le preguntaron qué pensaba del viaje, parecía no saber qué decir. Tenía 3 años cuando entró a Estados Unidos, y su madre dijo que recuerda poco de Colombia.
Su hermana mayor, de 9 años, intervino para hacer de intérprete.
“Ha hecho muchos amigos”, explicó. “Está triste por dejarlos”.
Michigan police reported migrants to federal immigration agencies at least 388 times since 2021. Most referrals resulted from traffic stops for minor issues, like jaywalking.(Cydni Elledge/Outlier Media and Kate Abbey-Lambertz/Outlier Media)
Public records obtained by Michigan Public and Outlier Media offer a rare look at the role of local law enforcement in the Trump administration’s effort to detain and deport as many people as possible.
Key conclusions of our reporting:
Michigan law enforcement agencies reported migrants at least 388 times between 2021 and 2026.
These arrests typically occurred as a result of minor issues, like a cracked windshield, jaywalking, a broken-down car, or simply an officer’s suspicion.
Some agencies made dozens of calls in 2025 and 2026, compared with few or none in 2021-24.
Forty-three agencies, including six Michigan State Police units, recorded at least one such incident between 2021-26.
Key limitations of our reporting:
The data is incomplete and likely undercounts police involvement. We cannot confirm our data captures every immigration arrest or every agency involved. Communities not represented may still have had such arrests.
We do not definitively know whether most people in the incidents we compiled were ultimately detained, deported, or remain free in the U.S.
Where the data comes from
Most of our data — 304 of 388 reports — comes from incident reports obtained via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to local law enforcement agencies. These documents include written narratives from officers explaining the circumstances of the arrests.
We requested records from 86 agencies. We identified those agencies through a statewide crime database and federal court rulings on habeas corpus petitions for detained migrants. We also requested records from almost every municipality bordering Detroit.
Another 76 incidents in our dataset come from Border Patrol Facebook posts about arrests. These posts were screenshotted and cataloged manually.
We only counted Facebook posts that clearly described collaboration with local law enforcement. We excluded posts that appeared to describe the same incident as one of our records obtained through FOIA, as well as posts that lacked enough detail to be effectively cross-referenced.
A small portion of the dataset, seven incidents, comes directly from the Michigan Incident Crime Reporting (MICR) database managed by Michigan State Police. We obtained the database through a FOIA request for incidents categorized as immigration arrests.
When a MICR record matched a Border Patrol Facebook post by date, locality and number of arrestees, we replaced the Facebook post with the MICR record in our final dataset.
Our records requests evolved as we learned how agencies recorded immigration arrests.
We initially requested incidents coded as immigration arrests, categorized as “03000.” After reviewing the MICR data, we began requesting records of specific incidents, as well as any records referencing calls to, collaboration with, or detainer requests from federal immigration enforcement.
Some agencies initially said they had no immigration incidents. But subsequent requests citing specific MICR incident numbers returned records the agencies previously said did not exist.
The Michigan Incident Crime Reporting database helped identify immigration incidents but was not reliable enough to use without additional confirmation.
We excluded hundreds of MICR incidents after discovering that some departments miscoded immigration arrests. A common error was using the “illegal entry” immigration arrest code instead of the “unlawful entry” code for burglary cases.
At the same time, records obtained directly from law enforcement agencies revealed that many immigration reports did not appear in the Michigan Incident Crime Reporting database because they weren’t coded as immigration-related.
Many agencies fulfilled our requests for free or at low cost. Some set high costs we could not reasonably pay, saying their systems could not easily search for immigration-related incidents.
Some denied requests, citing various exceptions in state law, or failed to respond before statutory deadlines.
Because our requests evolved over time, agencies searched different date ranges. As a result, some agencies’ records include more recent incidents than others.
How we processed the data
We relied on a manual review of the crime codes and citations, along with the narratives provided in the police reports, to describe the severity of the alleged offenses.
We defined law enforcement encounters as “minor” if there was no alleged crime, or if the alleged crime was a misdemeanor traffic violation (such as driving with an invalid license) or civil infraction (like jaywalking or driving with excessively tinted windows). We classified driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol to be a “serious” crime, even though it is technically a misdemeanor.
All Border Patrol social media posts and MICR incidents in our dataset were counted as “unknown,” because those sources did not provide enough detail about the circumstances of the police encounter.
We used Google Pinpoint’s “structured data” tool to extract key data points from all our incident reports. This tool uses our annotations on a set of example documents to extract similar pieces of information across a larger set of documents. It is separate from Pinpoint’s generative AI tools.
We extracted data from police reports, agency by agency, into spreadsheets.
Separate spreadsheets tracked Border Patrol Facebook posts and MICR incidents.
We also manually reviewed each document to ensure it belonged in our dataset and was categorized correctly.
Then, we used a Google Apps Script to merge all the extracted data into one master spreadsheet; standardize case numbers, dates and place names; remove duplicates; and flag potential duplicates for manual review.
The script flagged 120 potential duplicates. We removed 33 records, as most of them duplicate Border Patrol Facebook posts. Some agencies wrote more than one report and case number for a single incident. Those duplicates were flagged and removed as well.
We used chatbots Claude and Gemini to help write the script.
Michigan police reported migrants to federal immigration agencies at least 388 times since 2021. Most referrals resulted from traffic stops for minor issues, like jaywalking.(Cydni Elledge/Outlier Media and Kate Abbey-Lambertz/Outlier Media)
Registros públicos obtenidos por Michigan Public y Outlier Media ofrecen una mirada poco común sobre el papel de policías municipales en la maquinaria de deportación de la administración Trump.
Principales conclusiones de nuestro reporteo:
Las agencias policiales de Michigan reportaron a migrantes al menos 388 veces entre 2021 y 2026.
Estos arrestos solían surgir de situaciones menores, como un parabrisas agrietado, cruzar la calle fuera del paso peatonal, un vehículo averiado o simplemente la sospecha de un agente.
Algunas agencias realizaron decenas de llamadas en 2025 y 2026, en comparación con pocas o ninguna entre 2021 y 2024.
Cuarenta y tres agencias, incluidas seis unidades de Michigan State Police, documentaron al menos un incidente de este tipo entre 2021 y 2026.
Principales limitaciones de nuestro reporteo:
Los datos son incompletos y probablemente reflejan menos participación policial de la que realmente hubo. No podemos confirmar que nuestros datos incluyan todos los arrestos relacionados con inmigración ni todas las agencias involucradas. Es posible que también se hayan producido arrestos de este tipo en comunidades que no aparecen en los datos.
No sabemos con certeza qué ocurrió finalmente con la mayoría de las personas involucradas en los incidentes que recopilamos: si terminaron detenidas, fueron deportadas o siguen en libertad en Estados Unidos.
De dónde vienen los datos
La mayor parte de nuestros datos — 304 de 388 registros — proviene de informes de incidentes obtenidos mediante solicitudes de la Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) dirigidas a agencias policiales locales. Estos documentos incluyen relatos escritos por los agentes en los que explican las circunstancias de los arrestos.
Solicitamos registros a 86 agencias. Identificamos esas agencias mediante una base de datos estatal sobre delitos y resoluciones de tribunales federales en casos de habeas corpus presentados por migrantes detenidos. También solicitamos registros a casi todas las ciudades que limitan con Detroit.
Otros 76 incidentes de nuestro conjunto de datos provienen de publicaciones de Border Patrol en Facebook sobre arrestos. Tomamos capturas de pantalla de esas publicaciones y las catalogamos manualmente.
Solo contamos publicaciones de Facebook que describían claramente una colaboración con agencias policiales locales. Excluimos las publicaciones que parecían describir el mismo incidente que alguno de los registros obtenidos mediante FOIA, así como aquellas que no contenían suficiente información para cotejarlas de forma fiable con otros registros.
Una pequeña parte del conjunto de datos, siete incidentes, proviene directamente de la base de datos Michigan Incident Crime Reporting (MICR), administrada por Michigan State Police. Obtuvimos la base de datos mediante una solicitud FOIA de registros de incidentes clasificados como arrestos relacionados con inmigración.
Cuando un registro de MICR coincidía con una publicación de Border Patrol en Facebook por fecha, localidad y número de personas arrestadas, reemplazamos la publicación de Facebook por el registro de MICR en nuestro conjunto de datos final.
Nuestras solicitudes de registros evolucionaron a medida que aprendíamos cómo las agencias documentaban los arrestos relacionados con inmigración.
Al principio, solicitamos incidentes codificados como arrestos relacionados con inmigración, clasificados con el código “03000”. Después de revisar los datos de MICR, comenzamos a solicitar registros de incidentes específicos, así como cualquier registro que hiciera referencia a llamadas a autoridades federales de inmigración, colaboración con ellas o solicitudes de retención por parte de estas.
Algunas agencias dijeron inicialmente que no tenían incidentes relacionados con inmigración. Pero solicitudes posteriores que citaban números específicos de incidentes de MICR permitieron obtener registros que esas mismas agencias habían dicho anteriormente que no existían.
La base de datos Michigan Incident Crime Reporting ayudó a identificar incidentes relacionados con inmigración, pero no era lo suficientemente confiable como para utilizarla sin confirmación adicional.
Excluimos cientos de incidentes de MICR después de descubrir que algunos departamentos habían codificado erróneamente algunos incidentes como arrestos relacionados con inmigración. Un error común era utilizar el código migratorio de arresto por “entrada ilegal” en lugar del código de “entrada ilícita” correspondiente a casos de robo con allanamiento.
Al mismo tiempo, los registros obtenidos directamente de las agencias policiales revelaron que muchos informes relacionados con inmigración no aparecían en la base de datos Michigan Incident Crime Reporting porque no estaban codificados como relacionados con inmigración.
Muchas agencias respondieron a nuestras solicitudes de forma gratuita o a bajo costo. Algunas fijaron costos elevados que no podíamos asumir razonablemente, argumentando que sus sistemas no permitían buscar fácilmente incidentes relacionados con inmigración.
Algunas rechazaron nuestras solicitudes, citando diversas excepciones previstas en la ley estatal, o no respondieron dentro de los plazos establecidos por la ley.
Como nuestras solicitudes fueron evolucionando con el tiempo, las agencias buscaron registros correspondientes a distintos períodos. Por eso, los registros de algunas agencias incluyen incidentes más recientes que los de otras.
Cómo procesamos los datos
Nos basamos en una revisión manual de los códigos de infracciones y las citaciones, junto con las narraciones incluidas en los informes policiales, para evaluar la gravedad de las presuntas infracciones.
Clasificamos los encuentros policiales como “menores” cuando no había ningún presunto delito, o cuando el presunto delito era una infracción de tránsito tipificada como delito menor, como conducir con una licencia no válida, o una infracción civil, como cruzar la calle fuera del paso peatonal o conducir con ventanas excesivamente tinteadas. Clasificamos la conducción bajo los efectos de drogas o alcohol como un delito “grave”, aunque técnicamente se considera un delito menor.
Todas las publicaciones de Border Patrol en redes sociales y los incidentes de MICR incluidos en nuestro conjunto de datos se clasificaron en la categoría “desconocido”, porque esas fuentes no aportaban suficiente información sobre las circunstancias del encuentro con la policía.
Utilizamos la herramienta de “datos estructurados” de Google Pinpoint para extraer datos clave de todos nuestros informes de incidentes. Esta herramienta utiliza nuestras anotaciones en un conjunto de documentos de ejemplo para extraer los mismos tipos de información de un conjunto más amplio de documentos. Es independiente de las herramientas de inteligencia artificial generativa de Pinpoint.
Extrajimos los datos de los informes policiales en hojas de cálculo separadas para cada agencia.
Otras hojas de cálculo separadas registraban las publicaciones de Border Patrol en Facebook y los incidentes de MICR.
También revisamos manualmente cada documento para asegurarnos de que correspondiera a nuestro conjunto de datos y estuviera clasificado correctamente.
Luego utilizamos un Google Apps Script para combinar todos los datos extraídos en una sola hoja de cálculo maestra; estandarizar los números de caso, las fechas y los nombres de lugares; eliminar duplicados; y marcar posibles duplicados para su revisión manual.
El script marcó 120 posibles duplicados. Eliminamos 33 registros, ya que la mayoría correspondía a publicaciones duplicadas de Border Patrol en Facebook. Algunas agencias redactaron más de un informe y asignaron más de un número de caso a un solo incidente. Esos duplicados también fueron identificados y eliminados.
Utilizamos los chatbots Claude y Gemini como apoyo para escribir el script.
Three children prepared for the journey back to Colombia after a Taylor police officer reported their father to federal immigration agents.(Cydni Elledge / Outlier Media)
Taylor Police Officer Ryan Jowske leaned into the window of the silver pickup on May 12. “Stopped you because of the tint on the car” windows, he said, asking driver and passenger for ID.
“It’s expired,” the driver said. The passenger didn’t have one. “Where are you from?” Jowske asked. Colombia, they said.
Jowske didn’t find their names in a database, according to his police report. He then called a U.S. Border Patrol agent, who requested to take custody of both people. Jowske handcuffed the pair, holding them in his car until the agent arrived about 10 minutes later.
For both migrants, the result was catastrophic: two months of detention, deportations and separated families.
For police across Michigan, it was a typical day on the job.
Local police officers in dozens of departments have handed migrants to the Donald Trump administration in hundreds of cases, according to an analysis of public records by Michigan Public and Outlier Media. In these communities, deportations often begin with seemingly trivial issues: a cracked windshield, jaywalking, a broken-down car, or simply an officer’s suspicion.
“It’s still probably the most common way for someone to end up in immigration custody,” said Ramis Wadood, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. “It happens every day. And unfortunately, for a lot of agencies, it is just standard practice.”
Michigan Public and Outlier compiled hundreds of documents to build the most comprehensive available list of immigration reports by police departments in the state since 2021.
The data likely underestimates police involvement. But it provides a rare view into local collaboration with immigration authorities that could be valuable to people who need to travel across metro Detroit or are interested in police accountability.
Border Patrol spokesperson Youssef Fawaz said the agency “proudly partners with local law enforcement agencies, who should be celebrated for their dedication to keeping our communities safe.”
Taylor is among a handful of Michigan departments with formal cooperation agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Police Chief John Blair did not respond to requests for comment about the May traffic stop or his department’s cooperation with federal immigration efforts.
The wife of one of the men deported after encountering Taylor police still struggled to understand how a tinted window upended her family’s life. We are not using the couple’s full names because they fear reprisals for their family still in the U.S.
“Most people who come (to the U.S.) do it for a better future, not to do bad things,” she said. “It just doesn’t make sense. We’ve built a life here. We want to stay.”
A minor traffic stop upended the life J’s family built over four years in the U.S. His wife worries their children will go hungry in Colombia.(Cydni Elledge / Outlier Media)
‘Follow the law, not politics’
Detroit-area police departments have a long history of aiding Border Patrol. But the collaboration appears to have intensified after Donald Trump returned to the White House.
The 388 immigration stops and arrests we reviewed statewide show that calls from local police to immigration officials surged after Trump began his second term. Some departments made dozens of calls in 2025 and 2026, compared with few or none during the previous four years.
The shift reflects a change in federal priorities — and in federal agents’ willingness to respond to calls from local police.
In 2022, during President Joe Biden’s administration, a Van Buren Township officer called ICE to ask whether agents wanted to take custody of a migrant they stopped with an “improper” license plate. The agent declined, explaining that the “political administration" was focused on “violent offenders.”
In 2025, after Trump returned to office, a Van Buren officer called Border Patrol about migrants who allegedly ran a stop sign. This time, federal agents were interested. Three Van Buren officers drove to the eastside of Detroit — nearly an hour away — to deliver the migrants to Border Patrol.
“Our focus and priority is the safety and security of those who work, live and traverse through Van Buren Township, not immigration status,” Van Buren Police Chief Jason Wright said in an emailed statement. He said his officers use Border Patrol as a “resource” to check IDs.
But the evidence suggests that politics may be influencing police behavior.
The Trump administration has broad support in the metro Detroit communities that are most aggressively cooperating with immigration enforcement.
During a traffic stop in Fraser last winter, police officers invoked Trump, saying they wanted to “get (a migrant) out of here,” repeatedly using the dehumanizing term “illegal.”
Police advocates pushed back on the idea that officers’ behavior is politically motivated.
“The public, I think, should expect officers to follow the law, not politics,” said Ron Wiles, executive director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police.
‘A local decision’
Officers who choose to participate in Trump’s deportation campaign have broad latitude to do so.
“There is no standard for (immigration enforcement), it’s a local decision,” said Wiles. “Each community is different — they have different needs and different wants on how they want their policing done.”
Formal cooperation deals with ICE, like Taylor’s, are rare.
In practice, the difference between a ticket and weeks of detention or deportation can come down to whether an individual officer or supervisor decides to call Border Patrol.
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Around midnight on June 9, Southgate Officer A. Zielinski stopped three people for jaywalking across a two-lane road between a convenience store and a La Quinta Inn. Body camera footage shows Zielinski asked all three for identification, which two of them quickly provided.
Zielinski repeatedly noted the two “don’t speak English.” He looked up their IDs in a state database, but was unable to find them. The third person, who spoke English and carried no identification, was let go with a citation.
Four officers surrounded the two remaining people in the hotel parking lot. After about 40 minutes, they were handcuffed and taken away by three Border Patrol agents.
A Southgate police officer called immigration agents to a hotel parking lot after stopping three people for jaywalking.(Cydni Elledge/Outlier Media and Kate Abbey-Lambertz / Outlier Media)
From March through June of this year, Southgate logged three immigration arrests after reporting zero between 2021 and 2025. Southgate police did not respond to a request for comment.
The details vary, but many incidents follow a similar pattern. Officers encounter people in mundane moments: jumping a car battery, sleeping under a tree, driving with a broken headlight, paying a fine in court. The officer learns the person speaks little English, has a foreign ID or no ID. Then comes the call to federal immigration agencies.
Some of the stops also raise questions about why police choose to stop people in the first place. Experts who reviewed records from the stops in this story said some carry the hallmarks of “pretext” stops, where officers use a minor violation as a reason to investigate a suspicion about something else — including, potentially, someone’s legal status.
But the records don’t establish officers’ motivations in individual cases. Wiles declined to review the records, but said he assumes officers didn’t have “some ulterior motive” for these stops beyond a violation committed in their presence.
In Southfield, an officer who encounters someone driving with a passport and no driver’s license — a common scenario in the data — might issue a ticket or make an arrest. But the encounter would not trigger a call to immigration agents, the city’s police department said.
“We will ask no questions about the immigration status at all,” said Elvin Barren, Southfield police chief.
His reasoning is practical: If Southfield police regularly asked people about their immigration status, “it would limit or prevent victims of crime from coming to us for help,” he said.
The result of these disparate approaches is that the same kind of police encounter can have radically different consequences depending on where it happens.
Uprooting a family
On that sunny morning in May, J said he had just left Home Depot when Taylor police officer Jowske’s lights flashed in his rearview mirror.
J does not speak nor understand English. He recalled trembling with fear as he tried to follow the officer’s questions and directives.
He spent the next two months separated from his wife and children, shuffled between five different federal jails and detention camps. He described constant searches and ridicule by ICE staff. Between the stress and “disgusting” food, he said he lost 34 pounds.
When ICE deported J in late June, it ended the life that he and his wife had built in the U.S. over roughly four years.
J’s wife and children opted to leave the country and reunite with him following his deportation in late June.(Cydni Elledge / Outlier Media)
The family entered the U.S. in 2022, making an appointment with Customs and Border Protection at the southern border to start an asylum case. They moved to the westside of Detroit and enrolled their kids in school.
The family had gone hungry at times in Colombia. J, a taxi driver there, couldn’t make ends meet.
In Detroit, their lives stabilized. J found work repairing rental houses. Their older children won scholarships to play travel soccer with Detroit City FC’s youth program.
After J was deported, the family decided that his wife and children would also leave the U.S. through the Trump administration’s “self-deportation” program, which provides plane tickets and a payment to migrants who voluntarily leave the country.
On a sunny morning in July, they gathered in the backyard of a relative’s home in Detroit, preparing to catch a flight to Bogotá. Their suitcases were crammed into the trunk of a minivan out front.
The couple’s youngest son, 7, wore a Godzilla baseball cap. Asked what he thought about the trip, he seemed unsure. He was 3 when he entered the U.S., and his mother said he has little memory of Colombia.
His older sister, 9, jumped in to interpret.
“He’s made a lot of friends,” she explained. “He’s sad to leave them.”
Michigan Public’s Beenish Ahmed contributed reporting to this story.
Abdul El-Sayed, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate, speaks at a rally at the University of Michigan on August 26, 2026.( C-SPAN)
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed brought his campaign to the University of Michigan Wednesday, rallying supporters around healthcare reform and trade policy.
The rally was part of a broader push by Democrats to boost youth voter turnout.
El-Sayed championed "Medicare for all," arguing that universal health insurance would decouple coverage from employment and eliminate steep out-of-pocket costs.
"Medicare for all would be cheaper than the current system,” El-Sayed said. “Why? Because the whole system relies on us paying extra money into the system to pay the overhead of the health insurance system. That overhead goes away. No CEOs, no marketing budget, no army of billers — that all goes away."
Meanwhile, El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, former Congressman Mike Rogers, supports a narrower proposal focused on reducing prescription drug prices, containing healthcare costs, and improving price transparency.
Trade policy served as another central focal point of the rally, with El-Sayed sharply criticizing the Trump administration's new tariffs on Canadian goods.
El-Sayed said tariffs already cost a typical Michigan household thousands of dollars, even before the new 50% tariff on some Canadian imports.
The Trump administration has said tariffs protect American industries and workers and keep domestic supply chains running.
El-Sayed argued that while tariffs can be beneficial, the current trade policy is unfairly burdening consumers.
"There is a logical use of some tariffs. This just ain't it," El-Sayed said.
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