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."

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.

The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center said Tuesday that it's ending legal representation for more than 500 unaccompanied immigrant children after the federal contract that funded its work expired at the end of July.

The loss of federal funding leaves hundreds of vulnerable children in Michigan to navigate the U.S. immigration court system on their own, the center said.

The Immigrant Rights Center is a statewide nonprofit legal aid organization that has represented unaccompanied minors in federal custody in Michigan since 2017. With the termination of the federal contract, MIRC said it's being forced to make difficult decisions regarding which cases it can afford to maintain.

Out of nearly 950 active children’s cases currently on the center's docket, more than half will have to be closed due to the loss of funding, the organization said.

The legal services contract was administered through the Acacia Center for Justice, a national nonprofit that passed federal funding from the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement to local legal providers like the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center.

The United States Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the refugee resettlement office, told the Guardian last month that the office offered the Acacia Center a new contract, but the center turned it down.

"ORR offered Acacia the opportunity to receive a second bridge contract that included requirements to provide data on whom they represent and to bill the government when they submit applications for immigration relief," the agency said, according to the Guardian.

Acacia said the contract would have required attorneys to share confidential client data.

The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center echoed those concerns. "It included terms that would require attorneys to violate attorney-client privilege and their ethical duties of confidentiality to clients," said Ana Devereaux, MIRC's senior managing attorney. "That's something that no attorney can enter into while maintaining their law license."

Devereaux added that immigration court is extraordinarily complex, even for adults. For children, she said, navigating court procedures without an attorney is virtually impossible.

As a result, Deveraux said, unrepresented children will end up "facing deportation and being forced to return to situations that they had fled usually for their safety."

"So many of our clients have suffered abuse, abandonment or neglect or persecution in their home country, which is why they've come here to seek the protection that does exist under the law," said Devereaux. "But without an attorney, we don't expect they would be able to successfully acquire that protection."

Despite the termination of federal funding, MIRC said it will continue representing more than 400 unaccompanied immigrant children using emergency funds. The organization said its other immigration programs will remain active at its offices in Detroit, Ypsilanti, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, and Lansing.

Legal payouts by the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) more than doubled in fiscal year 2025, topping $7 million in judgments and settlements. Despite the increase, civil rights attorneys note that the figure remains a fraction of the department's multi-billion-dollar operating budget.

Detroit-based civil rights attorney Jon Marko, who represented one of the plaintiffs in the key lawsuits against the state, argued that the $7 million total is minimal given the scale of the agency.

"The settlement payouts for the size of the entity and its budget are very small," Marko said. "The budget of the Michigan Department of Corrections is over $2 billion. So when we're talking about a budget of that much... $7 million is a drop in the bucket."

According to state reports, the bulk of last year's payout total stemmed from three major cases.

One being Darrin Rushing v. Michigan Department of Corrections, which consisted of $2.3 million dollars. The former employee alleged disability discrimination after the department refused reasonable work accommodations following a severe inmate attack.

The other two were from fatal stabbings from 2022 at the Macomb Correctional Facility in Lenox Township. Nearly $3.9 million was split across judgments and resolved claims arising from three separate stabbing incidents. The violent attacks left two inmates dead and another severely injured.

MDOC did not respond to requests for comment regarding the state report or the lawsuit settlements.

While MDOC’s payouts increased by nearly $3 million from the prior fiscal year, the total remains significantly lower than previous years, such as the $33.9 million paid out in fiscal years 2021–22.

Marko emphasized that because MDOC operates as a self-insured state entity rather than purchasing commercial liability coverage, paying $7 million in annual legal settlements costs taxpayers considerably less than what third-party insurance premiums would run for an agency housing thousands of inmates across dozens of facilities.

"A single lawsuit can be tens of millions or hundreds of millions of dollars if it's egregious enough," Marko noted, referencing a recent $300 million jury verdict against Corizon Health, a private healthcare contractor previously used by MDOC.

"So I think the taxpayers should be like, 'Hey, that's pretty good."

Dearborn Public Schools officially launched an informational campaign for a historic $1.51 billion bond proposal that will appear on the November 3, 2026 ballot.

The proposal lays out a 20-year plan to replace or renovate every single school in the district all without raising the overall property tax rate for Dearborn homeowners.

Homeowners in the small portion of Dearborn Heights served by Dearborn Public Schools will see a slight tax increase.

"Small investments produce small results, and Dearborn's kids deserve more than a Band-Aid on a system that needs to be rebuilt," said Superintendent Mike Esseily. "Over the next 20 years, every single school and building in this district will either be replaced or extensively remodeled."

Kathi Martin, president of the Dearborn Federation of Teachers, highlighted how deteriorating facilities directly impact staff and students. She recalled a 5th grade student in a wheelchair who had to transfer schools because a building's elevator remained out of service for nearly a year, as well as recurring pest issues and poor ventilation systems that exacerbate asthma.

"These are not just maintenance issues, they affect the health, safety, and daily experiences of the people inside our schools," Martin said. "Investing in our facilities is investing in student success. This is not about luxury. It is about necessity."

If approved by voters in November, the bond will fund district-wide improvements across all 36 facilities including six brand-new preschool-through-8th-grade campuses and all three traditional high schools — Fordson, Dearborn High, and Edsel Ford — will be preserved and modernized.

School Board Trustee Mary Petlichkoff noted that the plan combines findings from two comprehensive district studies: the Fielding study, which focused on future spatial and educational needs, and the Quinn Evans study, which evaluated structural preservation.

"We believe we have found the right formula," Petlichkoff said. "We can do this with the least impact to our taxes, and still generate the funds needed to build the quality of schools our students deserve now and into the future."

District leaders confirmed that construction will roll out across four distinct phases over 20 years, with public input gathered before each phase to ensure plans adapt to community needs.