This year marks a time of transition in the city of Detroit.

Voters will elect a new leader of the city to replace long-time Mayor Mike Duggan, who is leaving to run for governor.

And experts at the think tank Detroit Future City predict the new mayor will face several challenges, like building new infrastructure to handle flooding and power outages.

But the group’s CEO, Anika Goss, told WDET one of the core issues the city must focus on is growing a sector some analysts say is disappearing — Detroit’s middle class.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Anika Goss, Detroit Future City: We use the language of “middle class,” but you can also use the language of “middle wage,” those within the median income for Detroit. And this particular demographic trend we really feel is important, because this is generally your tax base. They are staying in homes, buying homes, investing in their communities. And we want to focus on this because it is the largest demographic to leave Detroit.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: What would you advise Detroit’s next mayor to do to help grow that segment of the populace?

AG: First, develop the neighborhoods. Make the neighborhoods places that would retain and attract middle-class households. The second issue is, how can Detroiters grow wealth and remain in Detroit? What kind of jobs are there nearby and available that actually have a middle-class wage, not only entry wages but also growth wages. It’s an environment that also creates strong businesses and entrepreneurs that can actually grow their own business. These are elements that can appeal to middle-class households. Two other things that I think are really important, and this can be tough for mayors, but they’re going to have to figure out property taxes. They are still uneven and very, very high in Detroit. So really thinking about what can we do to stabilize and lower the property tax rate. And second, work cooperatively with the schools, public and private and charter, so that the education system in Detroit also becomes something to attract and retain families.

QK: When you talk about raising incomes, outgoing Mayor Mike Duggan has touted how many companies he says have located in the city over the last decade or so. And oftentimes those businesses are supposed to give first preference for new hires to Detroiters. The city also has work training programs available. Would you say the next mayor should they try to build on that or go beyond it somehow?

AG: I think build AND go beyond. I think what was great about the Duggan administration is that he did really set this environment of Detroit being a place for you to invest in. And it was at a time when a lot of companies were not thinking of coming here. Now they are. But what we found is that a lot of the companies are still looking at Detroit proper as a place for low-wage labor. We have to really market Detroit as a place that has talent for a diversity of income ranges. Really work with these companies to ensure the jobs that we’re receiving in Detroit are jobs where you can actually grow your wage over time. I feel like there were really good deals made for low and moderate wages earners. There are people who are out of work that definitely need those jobs. But we can’t just stop there and declare it a success. We have to also really consider how we bring in other jobs and prepare Detroiters for those other jobs that are making a higher wage.

QK: Along with the income and job situation, people in the city have talked for years about the overall development in Detroit seeming to focus on the downtown area. And how does it get out to the neighborhoods? Duggan, for one, had launched a series of projects to try to strengthen various blocks in the city. Again, is there something you think the next mayor should do to go beyond that? Or should they try some entirely new approach?

AG: I think that it will be imperative for the next mayor to take the Strategic Neighborhood Fund and other neighborhood initiatives even further. To really create neighborhoods that have a diversity of housing choices, that have amenities and that are looking at places for investment in these areas. There’s still several neighborhoods in Detroit where there are no mortgages, whole census tracts that do not have mortgages in Detroit. The next mayor will have that challenge of not just stabilizing the strategic neighborhood places but also thinking about where else throughout the city can we target for a variety of households and a variety of incomes. You should be able to live in a neighborhood and increase your income and not have to move out of the city. You should be able to identify neighborhoods where you can do that. And right now, even with the Strategic Neighborhood Fund initiative, there’s still only 12 middle-class neighborhoods in Detroit out of more than 200 census tracts. We still have a long way to go.

QK: Do you think there’ll be enough funding available to push such efforts?

AG: There’s never enough money to do all of the things that we want to do. You really are going to have to prioritize. And if the North Star for the next mayor is, “How do we actually lay out a growth plan for Detroit and Detroiters?” That’s a very different proposition than thinking broadly about how to make Detroit better. I feel like the Duggan administration got us to this point. It’s really important now for the next mayor to take it even further. It’s something that is absolutely imperative. I don’t see an alternative.

Some university faculty members across the Big Ten system want the schools to pool resources to help defend each other if the Trump administration threatens their funding or programs.

Those schools include the University of Michigan, where the faculty senate voted overwhelmingly to approve a non-binding resolution creating such an alliance.

Michigan State University’s faculty senate also voted recently to ask the school’s administration to enact the joint-defense proposal.

MSU Faculty Senate Vice Chair Jack Lipton told WDET the measure stems from a recommendation first developed and passed by educators at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Jack Lipton, Michigan State University Faculty Senate: They had come up with this idea to create an agreement that ran like NATO, “an attack on one is an attack on all,” and propose this out to the schools who are part of the Big Ten Academic Alliance. We took it up with the idea that the federal government, through executive orders, is trying to control what universities are doing through intimidation, through loss of funding. And by going after schools one at a time, it’s difficult for schools to mount an effective defense when they are looking at potentially losses of millions to hundreds of millions of dollars in their funding. Soultimately the faculty senate, which is an advisory body, asks that our president lead with the other presidents of the Big Ten in pushing back against what we consider to be inappropriate and unlawful incursions into the academic mission of private and public universities.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: What would this have the university do if, in fact, administrators accepted it?

JL: The university would put funds into a central repository that would be accessible to all members of the Big Ten, and also utilize human capital, with respect to the offices of the General Counsel and their attorneys. They would work together to mount defenses of any member school if they are challenged by the federal government, through these executive orders, with a loss of funding where they’re targeted based upon perfectly legal actions as universities. They’re all following Title 9 regulations related to students. A lot of what the federal government is trying to do is to say that schools are involved in unlawful discrimination, when the schools are actually supporting equity and inclusion, which this particular administration doesn’t seem to be particularly fond of. Giving all people equal opportunity to gain access to higher education, whether it’s through their work or through education or through jobs.

QK: Have you had any reaction yet from the Michigan State administration as to whether or not they might follow your recommendations?

JL: I’ve not. Anything that we pass in the faculty senate is strictly advisory. It’s our sense of what should be done and the university president has no obligation to act on our resolution. I would hope that as it garners continued public attention, the president will work with other big Ten leaders to try and figure out some way to support each other so that we’re not essentially picked off one by one.

QK: There have been a number of faculty senates now throughout Big Ten schools that have either voted for this proposal or seem to be considering it. There were some on your faculty that were a little iffy about doing it. Why is that?

JL: Everyone looks at this differently, right? Some individuals feared that by the very fact we’re considering this, we are putting a target on our backs for the federal government to act specifically against Michigan State University. And there were some that had some trepidation regarding passing it. But then there were others who specifically study things like authoritarian regimes and human rights, they felt this is really that critical point when we have to decide whether we are going to do the right thing or we’re going to do the safe thing. While differences of opinion were clearly present, ultimately, when it came to a vote, we shut off debate and it passed. I think that most faculty are obviously concerned about passing something like this. But even despite that, they saw the value and the appropriateness of taking a stand and making a recommendation. We really want to ensure that higher education can continue to maintain its high ideals and be a place where academic freedom and free speech can be lauded and expected.

“Seeing an administration that is so contemptuous of higher education, so contemptuous of freedom of thought and freedom of expression, is really alarming; they are trying to silence faculty by using the power of the purse and withholding federal funding.”

– Jack Lipton, MSU Faculty Senate Vice Chair

QK: You’ve been involved in high-level academia for decades now. Have you ever seen something similar to this in regards to the federal government’s view of and actions towards higher education?

JL: I don’t think anyone has ever seen anything like this. The post-World War II expansion of higher education has been kind of a crown jewel of the United States. The growth of higher education, the growth of universities, particularly public universities like Michigan State University, have been such a gift to this country. And seeing an administration that is so contemptuous of higher education, so contemptuous of freedom of thought and freedom of expression, is really alarming. They are trying to silence faculty by using the power of the purse and withholding federal funding. We all use those funds in our research, like I and the people in my department do to work on neurodegenerative diseases and find the causes and cures of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. They are trying to hold those kinds of funds hostage so that we’ll be quiet. I think that’s wrong, and I’m hopeful that this is a sad, yet brief chapter in American history when it comes to higher education.

Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell is one of 50 U.S. House Democrats demanding a full explanation of an alleged National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) data breach. 

Whistleblower Daniel Berulis, who did IT work for the NLRB, says a representative from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) did more than search for fraud and waste when it visited the agency last month. 

Berulis says DOGE appears to have uploaded a huge amount of data from NLRB’s computers, erased traces of what it did and then left all of the system’s security features turned off. Then someone with an internet address based in Russia repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, tried to access the NLRB computers. 

DOGE never requested access to their systems and the agency’s own internal investigation found no sign of a computer breach,  a spokesperson for the NLRB said. 

Dingell spoke to WDET Senior News Editor Quinn Klinefelter about her concerns and what DOGE could have done with the data. Klinefelter also joined The Metro on Tuesday to recap their conversation.

Use the media player above to hear the full conversation.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

More stories from The Metro

Tens of thousands of immigrant children — including hundreds in Michigan — came to the U.S. fleeing gangs, human trafficking or trying to re-unite with family members.

Nonprofit groups supplied attorneys to help keep the children here, some so young they need a teddy bear to calm them when they testify in immigration court.

But the Trump administration is halting federal funding for the effort, apparently defying the courts to do so.

That’s hitting the nonprofit Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) hard.

Christine Sauve, manager of policy and communication for MIRC, told WDET the group has to make severe cuts in key areas.

Listen: Michigan Immigrant Rights group shares repercussions of federal funding cuts

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Christine Sauve, Michigan Immigrant Rights Center:  We did lose federal funding for two of our programs. One is the help desk in immigration court. We had previously received a stop-work order on that program. There was a court order for us to return to services and then just last week, the federal government terminated the contract completely. There is continued litigation on that. However, the funding has been terminated for now. The other program is our unaccompanied children’s program. We provide legal representation and “Know your rights” information to all immigrant children in Michigan in court proceedings. Unfortunately, that program had received a stop-work order. Then it was lifted too. But the contract was terminated at the end of March. There was litigation filed in that case as well. And unfortunately, to date, the Trump administration has not followed the court’s orders. Payment has not been made for those services, and due to the financial pressure from the loss of both of those contracts, we’ve had to lay off 72 staff in our five offices across the state. We will still have our small help desk team, five individuals operating outside of the Detroit immigration court. We have 49 staff remaining distributed in our five offices across the state.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: In terms of what the administration is supposed to do according to the courts, have they ordered them to fund you guys and they are simply not?

CS: In the unaccompanied children’s case, the hearings are ongoing. But after the last judge’s order to return to services, the government has not complied with those orders. There has been no payment and no communication with the contractor. We are a subcontractor for the services. There’s been no communication, no follow through, no intention shown to provide payment for the services. So without the federal funding coming in we were left with very difficult pressures to continue our services as best we can. What we do know is that under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, a bipartisan act passed by Congress decades ago, it acknowledged the unique vulnerability of children and actually codified the federal government’s obligation and responsibilities to ensure that unaccompanied children have legal representation so they’re not facing that risk of deportation without due process, without a chance for a fair hearing in court.

“Most unaccompanied children are eligible for permanent status and other forms of relief under current U.S. law. But they can’t access that relief without an attorney to help make their case in court. It’s so heartbreaking because children just cannot meaningfully navigate immigration court alone. We don’t expect children to do that in any other court process in America.”

– Christine Sauve, Michigan Immigrant Rights Center

There was a recognition that it could not be a fair hearing if the child did not have an attorney or representation. Most unaccompanied children are eligible for permanent status and other forms of relief under current U.S. law. But they can’t access that relief without an attorney to help make their case in court. It’s so heartbreaking because children just cannot meaningfully navigate immigration court alone. We don’t expect children to do that in any other court process in America.

QK: At times some unaccompanied kids try to get a sponsor in the U.S., perhaps a family member, after they arrive here. There’s concerns from some sponsors now about doing that going forward, because some of their own personal information could be revealed that didn’t used to have to be. How is that process unfolding?

CS: The Trump administration had authorized information-sharing between agencies. There’s something known as the “foundational rule” for the unaccompanied children’s program. It previously stated that information about sponsors’ immigration status could not be shared with other federal agencies, in particular Immigration, Customs and Enforcement. This administration has changed course to permit sharing of sponsor immigration status with law enforcement, specifically for the purposes of achieving their goals of mass deportation. They are looking at all avenues to do so. And unfortunately, it affects some of the most vulnerable of our community members, the children who are placed in those homes. They’ve been placed with family or relatives that they know and trust. Removing the sponsor would affect the health and outcomes for the child as well. So that is challenging our work right now.

QK: With your current situation, while you still watch what’s going on with the litigation that’s underway, where do you guys go from here? How badly understaffed are you? Is it going to affect your mission tremendously as you go forward?

CS: The capacity will be lowered but we will not stop representing the children that we currently have in our caseload. We currently have 800 cases that are still proceeding. We’ll have a small team focusing on those cases for the next nine months to complete as many of them as we can. But unfortunately, we won’t be able to accept any new children’s cases for the foreseeable future. We have done a fair amount of fundraising. But there’s a reason that public funded services exist and it is because often other entities are unable to provide that level of funding. We have been very busy over the past couple of months reaching out to as many foundations and private donors as possible to raise the funds to have this small team continue over the next nine months. I don’t think with the current funding we have available at the moment we could continue that beyond nine months.

Michigan Republican U.S. Rep. John James says he’s running for governor.

That leaves an open seat among the GOP’s very narrow majority in the U.S. House.

Several Democrats are already vying to fill that void in Michigan’s 10th Congressional District.

They include Pontiac Mayor Tim Greimel, a past Democratic leader in the Michigan state House who officially declared his candidacy for Congress on Thursday.

The long-time lawmaker told WDET he has spent his entire adult life working to help the “middle class.”

Listen: Tim Greimel on his Congressional campaign, being a ‘problem solver’

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Pontiac Mayor Tim Greimel: I’ve done it as a union-side labor lawyer and a civil rights attorney. I’ve done it as a school board member, county commissioner and as the State House Minority Leader. Working people have been hurting for years. They’ve been especially hurting from high inflation and now facing the economic chaos and uncertainty coming out of Washington. So now more than ever, we need fighters like me in Washington, D.C., and I’m prepared to stand up for everyday people and stand up against unelected billionaires like Elon Musk.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: You served before in the state Legislature, so you know how that kind of a body works. But you’re leaving as mayor of Pontiac. Is there anything that you can take from being mayor that you think would inform what you would do if, in fact, you were elected to Congress?

TG: Being a mayor is all about being a problem solver. And I’ve always been solution oriented in my approach to public policy issues. We’ve successfully reduced crime in Pontiac and improved public safety. We’ve created more housing opportunities and we’ve broken ground on hundreds of housing units. Those are the kinds of common sense approaches to policy that people all across this country want. When I was in the state legislature as the House Minority Leader, I successfully fought to expand Medicaid coverage to provide health insurance to over 600,000 Michiganders who otherwise would not have been able to access health care. We successfully fought and raised the minimum wage as well as indexing it to inflation here in the state. Again, those are the kinds of policies that truly make a positive difference in people’s day-to-day lives. That’s what residents want. They want solutions to the problems they face day-in and day-out. And those are the solutions that I’m going to bring to Washington, D.C.

QK: There’s always some political division, it seems. But nowadays it’s a divide that’s more like a chasm. If, in fact, you were in Congress, what are the major issues that you see facing people, specifically in the 10th Congressional district?

“This reckless approach to imposing tariffs on Canada has already idled auto plants, it’s already put people out of work. People want sensible economic policies that increase good paying jobs.”

–Pontiac Mayor Tim Greimel

TG: Most importantly, people want good paying jobs. They don’t want unelected billionaires like Elon Musk creating economic chaos. They also want sensible trade policies where we have targeted strategic tariffs against bad actors like China but where we don’t go after countries like Canada with which we have shared economic interests. This reckless approach to imposing tariffs on Canada has already idled auto plants, it’s already put people out of work. People want sensible economic policies that increase good paying jobs. Part of that is investing in education, because people won’t have the skills to get good paying jobs unless people have access to the education and training needed to fill those positions. So we’ve got to make sure that rather than cutting or eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, we’re actually investing more in education. People want to make sure that if they’re willing to work hard and play by the rules that they can have and keep a good paying job that supports their family. That’s why we need to increase the federal minimum wage and index it to inflation. And people want to make sure that they can still live the American dream of purchasing and owning their own house. That’s why bringing down the cost of housing and making sure that it is attainable, that people can have an affordable mortgage at a lower interest rate, is essential. I’m going to fight on all of those issues, as well as making sure that we’re protecting clean water. The 10th Congressional District has a long shoreline on Lake St Clair. It has a lot of great rivers and streams inland and people really enjoy boating and fishing. We’ve got to make sure that those resources and that opportunity to enjoy recreation on our waterways remains available to people in Macomb County.

QK: The current representative of the district, John James, is making a bid as a Republican for governor. But during the last couple of election cycles Democrats lost running against James, although it was in fairly close contests. Apart from the fact that James won’t be there now, why do you think your campaign would be different than the previous Democratic candidate?

TG: I’ve always run high energy campaigns where the focus is on talking to voters and meeting voters where they are. That’s going to be the kind of campaign that I’m running this time as well. We’ve always been focused on the issues that matter most to residents and voters. Those issues are economic issues, improving people’s economic well-being, expanding opportunity, making sure that everybody who’s willing to work hard and play by the rules can achieve the American dream. And that’s going to be the focus of our campaign and my work in Congress.

QK: It is a rough political climate where a lot of people are not getting along one way or the other. You see that almost every time someone looks or hears the news from Congress, in particular. Why would you want to get in the middle of all that? In some ways it sounds almost like a thankless task.

TG: Well, public service sometimes is thankless. But I didn’t get into public service to get thanked. I got into it to improve the quality of life and economic opportunity for the American people and especially people here in southeast Michigan. Now more than ever, especially because things are so polarized and so divisive, we need solution-oriented, proven leadership that has a track record of delivering positive results for everyday people.

President Donald Trump’s flurry of tariffs is already forcing changes in the auto industry.

Stellantis is temporarily stopping production at some factories in Windsor, Ontario and in Mexico while laying-off workers in Michigan and Indiana.

It’s also offering discount pricing for customers. So is Ford Motor Company.

Some foreign automakers vow not to raise their prices either, for now.

But financial experts still predict a big hike coming in the cost of a vehicle after a tariff on imported auto parts takes effect in May.

The upheaval concerns Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, who spent more than three decades in the car business.

Dingell told WDET that she believes tariffs can be useful, but Congress may still try to revoke Trump’s authority to levy them.

Listen: Dingell talks tariffs, unions, NAFTA and where Trump is going wrong

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell: I think tariffs are a tool in the toolbox so that we are competing on a level playing field with China, who subsidizes production, owns the companies and doesn’t pay a decent wage. But what’s been done the last couple of weeks has just created chaos. It’s impacting the economy. I’ve talked to multiple lawyers who are still trying to interpret what was announced for Canada and Mexico and the impact on the auto industry. We’ve seen what the market has done. We need an industrial policy that brings manufacturing back to this country. Not only do I want to see the auto plants here but we have a steel issue that’s a national security issue as much as it is an economic security issue. And when you talk about pharmaceuticals, 80% to 90% of the drugs that we need are made in China and India. We need to bring that production home. But we have to have an integrated policy that incentivizes that. And you can’t do it overnight. If everything goes totally right, and when is the last time anything went totally right, it takes 2.5 to 3 years to build a new plant. So I’m concerned about how this is being done. I will work with anyone to bring manufacturing back here, to have a level playing field, but you’ve got to do it in a way that doesn’t create chaos.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: Automakers often seem to treat the U.S., Mexico and Canada as one big country. They have parts go back and forth across the borders repeatedly. In your view, should the auto tariffs treat Canada and/or Mexico differently than they would China or some other country?

DD: I think NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) was one of the worst pieces of trade legislation because it did take our plants away. Many of them were relocated to Mexico. They left cities devastated. And a Mexican worker is making $3 while a worker in this country is making $30 an hour. And I think that’s a fair wage. When the president was in his first term I worked with his administration when they renegotiated. They got rid of NAFTA. They negotiated the USMCA, the U.S., Mexico and Canada trade relationship. And the auto companies are operating under that agreement. I do believe that we need to renegotiate USMCA, because it allows China to put a plant in Mexico and then market it as a North America product.

QK: Some of the people who have praised tariffs as a good thing have been somewhat surprising to those that follow politics. For instance, the president of the United Auto Workers Union, Shawn Fain, was a pretty vocal critic of President Trump during the most recent campaign. But he has endorsed the new auto tariffs as a good way to try to keep jobs in the U.S. or increase U.S. manufacturing. Does it surprise you that organized labor would come out in that fashion?

DD: I think that organized labor is more where I am in that they think tariffs are a useful tool in the toolbox. There needs to be a strategy and people don’t understand what the strategy is. But I told people in 2016 Donald Trump was going to win, and everybody thought I was crazy — I wasn’t — because he understood how workers felt about seeing their jobs shipped overseas. How could they compete when there’s not a level playing field and workers were being paid such low wages in Mexico, they weren’t making a living wage. By the way, I think Canada and Mexico are two different countries and I think it’s time to treat them as such. Canada would never let China build a plant in Canada and market it as a North American vehicle. But I’m not surprised by union support for tariffs because workers are the ones who have felt the pain. But it’s the way this is being done. I go in the union halls and workers are glad to see somebody fighting for them. But they are also worried about increased costs. So it’s got to be done the right way, strategically. You can’t do it overnight and it can’t be done chaotically.

QK: Do you have any concerns that, as some analysts predict, tariffs overall could push the U.S. economy back into a recession?

DD: I think we have to be very careful. I think everybody’s concerned when you see what the market has done. And I want to see our economy strong, I want to see it thrive. I want to see jobs come back to this country. And I hear the economic concerns of workers who are worried about the grocery prices, worried about whether they can afford their home. And quite frankly, workers want to know their job is safe.

QK: The president had the power to start levying these tariffs because he declared a national economic emergency when he took office. Congress can revoke that authority. The U.S. Senate recently took what was in some ways a symbolic vote to do that, at least in regards to Canadian tariffs. But the House can’t really follow suit because of a procedural maneuver that was used by the speaker of the House. Is that kind of the end of Congress’ options regarding tariffs or is there any more that could be done?

DD: I think that you will be seeing further action in the House in the next couple of weeks to do something similar to what was done in the Senate. Stay tuned.

The heads of the Detroit Regional Chamber and the trade association MichAuto are just two of the many business leaders requesting a pause to tariffs.

They sent a letter last week asking the White House to avoid tariffs on auto parts and vehicles and instead renegotiate the free trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico and Canada (USMCA.)

The administration enacted the auto tariffs anyway.

Now MichAuto Executive Director Glenn Stevens Jr. says price hikes are both inevitable and potentially damaging to Michigan’s economy.

Listen: Auto advocates want Trump to hit the brakes on tariffs

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length. Listen to the full conversation above.

Glenn Stevens, Jr., MichAuto: (Interview edited for clarity.) When we look at the impact of the tariff stack that’s going on, and there are multiple tariffs that have been applied so far, we’re concerned about the rise in the input costs to the suppliers of all sizes, the vehicle manufacturers across Detroit and all of Michigan. The second thing we’re concerned about is how these costs stack up. The overall selling price of a new vehicle, which is already at a near record, is $49,000 a year. So any impact on that selling price, we’re concerned about what that does to market demand. It has a negative impact if that demand is not strong. And we really would like to see the USMCA trade agreement reopened, as is called for in 2026. But we hope that the president will continue to evaluate goods going between our three countries.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: The president has argued that these tariffs are a way to try to force, in effect, manufacturing back to the U.S. Do you see that as a possibility if these tariffs continue forward, or do you think they’re going to have some counterproductive effect?

GS: No one would argue, and we certainly wouldn’t, that increasing manufacturing in Detroit and Michigan in the United States is a bad thing. No one would argue that improving our border security against illegal drugs and illegal immigration is a bad thing. However, it takes significant time to make these changes, years, not months, in the case of moving assembly plants. So that’s one thing. The second thing is we have to remain globally competitive and we have a supply chain that already works between our three countries. Does it need to be improved? Yes, that’s why reopening and renegotiating the USMCA would be a good way to go. So there are some concerns, but there are opportunities. And yes, eventually over time, if those decisions are made, we could see increased production in the United States, which would not be a bad thing at all.

QK: Mexico and Canada and the U.S. have operated essentially like one big country for the auto industry. They regularly have parts going back and forth over the border. Now the president may not only be trying to force more manufacturing to the U.S., but he’s also causing some countries to levy reciprocal tariffs.

GS: In the case of Michigan and Ontario, we operate seamlessly. This is a 120-year-old industry between our two regions, Ontario and Michigan, let alone the whole Great Lakes region and really North America. Unraveling that supply chain is costly, disruptive and will cost jobs on both sides of the border. Again I stress that we would like to see the tool that we have at hand, the USMCA, to be reopened and renegotiated. And out of that can come more manufacturing, but it also can keep a trade block that works intact for the U.S. auto industry to be globally competitive.

QK: Do you see any upside in the near future in regards to these tariffs, whatever happens in the long run?

GS: I’m a pretty positive, upbeat, glass-half-full person. But there’s not a lot of positives and goods we’re seeing today. If I look at the stock market, at companies which are paralyzed and I look at us, really, in a trade war with our friends and neighbors literally across the Detroit River, I’m not seeing a lot positive in the short term. That’s pretty clear today.

QK: You and the president of the Detroit Regional Chamber recently sent a letter to the White House and other lawmakers arguing your point. If it falls on deaf ears, so to speak, what other recourse do you see that the auto industry might have to try to enact some changes to what’s currently in place?

GS: We’re going to keep communicating with the White House, with our congressional delegation. That letter was also sent to all the members, Republican and Democrat, in the Michigan federal delegation to Washington. We work closely with other companies, other organizations, other trade associations, and we’re all in this together to communicate the importance of the industry and its complexity. But if these tariffs continue, the industry is going to have to make some tough, long-term decisions. We’re going to have to help mitigate that and hopefully we don’t see employment loss, we don’t see companies leave, we don’t see companies financially under duress. I stressed before how important it is for Michigan and the entire region, which includes Ontario and our Great Lakes states and North America as a whole, to be globally competitive. We have a Chinese auto industry that did not exist just a few short years ago that is really expanding globally and is really competitive from a cost, quality and design and engineering standpoint. We can’t isolate ourselves from the world and ignore the fact that Chinese industry is growing. We have to be able to compete with it. And unraveling a trade block and supply chain that works very efficiently is not the direction we should be going in. We should be looking at how we can be more competitive?

QK: In your view, what would make it more competitive?

GS: We talk about this every day. Unfortunately, we had to take our eye off the ball a little bit the last couple months. But the industry is looking at how do we make our plants more efficient? How do we make our people more prepared for the digital skills needed? There will be more automation, but that’s not eliminating jobs as much as it is providing new opportunities for good jobs to interact and program and repair and maintain that automation. We have to look at how do we be more competitive with the technologies at hand, including things like AI? That’s what we want to focus on, that’s what we’re going to have to do together as a partnership between government, labor and industry. That’s really what we want to get back to.

One of the few issues that often bridges the political divide is concern over the condition of the nation’s roads, rails and other infrastructure.

Those worries extend to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), which grades U.S. infrastructure every four years.

The group’s most recent report card gives the nation a mediocre “C.” It rates Michigan’s infrastructure as being slightly worse than that.

But ASCE’s chair of the infrastructure report card project, Darren Olson, told WDET both Michigan and the country as a whole have improved in at least one area.

Listen: Darren Olson on why ASCE gave US infrastructure a ‘C’ grade

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Darren Olson, ASCE: Our highest grade was for ports. They received a “B.” They were initially very much impacted by the pandemic. We can remember those situations where all the goods were bottled up at ports. Then they had a lot of private and public sector investment into the ports. And after that initial shock to the system, we saw a lot of improvement in the ability for our ports to take in and move goods at a level right now that is really helping our national economy.

As a state, Michigan received a “C-.“ Just a little bit below the national average. Roads in Michigan have always been a very hot button topic. But there has been some recent investments in that area as well, the Rebuilding Michigan Program, the Building Michigan Together plan. So there has been some investment set to help the roads, although that is still in the “D” range. One of the other ones that we see, which is consistent with ratings nationally, is the storm water grade. Michigan’s storm water grade is a “D.” Part of it is because Mother Nature is throwing at us storm events that most of our infrastructure isn’t designed for. I think a year or two ago, the Detroit airport flooded severely because four or five inches of rain came down pretty quickly.

Our storm water infrastructure just isn’t designed to handle some of these increasingly severe rainfall events. That’s one of the huge recommendations of our report card, to make our infrastructure more resilient. We don’t want to design our infrastructure for what we might expect today, let’s design it for what we’ll be expecting in 20, 30, 40 years from now. Infrastructure investment is such a long game that it really makes sense to design and build it accordingly.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News:  You gave Michigan’s road infrastructure a “D” grade. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ran on the slogan, “Just fix the damn roads.” So from what you’re finding, the roads are not exactly getting fixed the way one would hope?

DO: There’s certainly progress being made. But what we see a lot of times, and what people maybe don’t understand so much about infrastructure, is that these projects take a long time. Nationally, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act came out in 2021. And Michigan has had some pretty strong funding mechanisms for large scale infrastructure planning. But infrastructure takes a long time to go from planning to design and permitting to the construction process. So there is progress being made in Michigan on the roads. Unfortunately, after we’ve been underinvesting for decades, it’s going to take time, both in Michigan and nationally, to turn this around and bring them a grade they’re all proud of.

QK: Some of these projects require federal funding. The Trump administration has frozen or withdrawn funds for a variety of items. Is that affecting efforts to improve the nation’s infrastructure or, in your view, might it be likely to impact it in the future?

DO: Well, I can’t really comment on whether some of the funding will come to fruition or not. But what I can say is we have seen an improvement in our nation’s infrastructure over the past four years because of federal investment. We are urging our lawmakers to continue that level of investment. We’ve come from a “C-“ to a “C” nationally. It’s going to take us a long time to get to a level where we can give a grade that we’re all proud of. But a key to get there, after decades of underinvesting, is to continue to invest like we are now and increase funding where necessary. We’ve got a state and local and private sector role to play in this as well. And I think when we bring all of those stakeholders together to help fund our infrastructure, there is improvement.

QK: Beyond roads and bridges and the like, your group also examined the infrastructure surrounding school facilities. How are the schools faring there?

DO: Schools are a very tough infrastructure category to analyze because so much of that is funded at the local level. Sometimes there’s just not a whole lot of data on what the status is of that funding and what the needs are of the schools. Unfortunately, it’s kind of ironic that schools which issue grades also got one of our lowest grades, a “D+.” That’s something that we would hope can get turned around in the next four years.

QK: When you say “D+” does that mean there’s poor investment in school buildings themselves or the heating, air, cooling units, or all of the above?

DO: All the infrastructure associated with schools as a category gets a “D.” That really means that it’s in poor condition and at risk. In fact, poor infrastructure overall is costing American families $2,700 a year. That’s money that we spend because of extra time and traffic congestion, which I’m sure Michigan is familiar with. When we have to buy bottled water because of a water main break or maybe have to throw out all of our groceries in the refrigerator because the power goes out. If we just invest like we are now, we will be saving American families $700 of that every year. That’s money they can put back into buying goods and services. Manufacturing, which is something that Michigan really relies on for employment, becomes much more efficient when we have good infrastructure. Manufacturing needs water, it needs roads, it needs ports. When we invest in those we see improvements in the infrastructure and we see our economy working more efficiently.

President Trump is threatening to raise tariffs on Canadian softwood lumber to 27 percent as soon as this week.

The move could impact everything in the U.S. from lumber needed to build affordable housing to wood chips used to make toilet paper.

Trump says his administration would compensate by harvesting more trees from national forests, which includes several in Michigan.

But some experts say it’s not that simple.

The Michigan Sustainable Forestry Initiative’s Jesse Randall says the issue goes beyond how many trees are available in the state or the nation.

Listen: Trump tariffs on Canada lumber could chop U.S. wood supplies

Jesse Randall: Michigan sits kind of at the forefront of very high-valued timber. And we utilize it in a sustainable manner. I think the material that the president is looking at in terms of tariffs is really going to affect our partners in the Pacific Northwest and down South. I know of one Michigan producer who says they haven’t seen any major uptick because of these proposed tariffs yet.

I think tariffs are a double-edged sword. Our mills and our operators are constantly needing to procure and maintain equipment. So I think that will cost them more money, tariffs or anything that will shut down a supply coming in that is used for construction.

We’re really facing now the start of that spring building period. I think that will add extra pressure to it. And I think you might see, at least initially, some speculative up-buying where people are trying to lock in what they’re going to need for the near term, not knowing what the tariffs will do or if they will be in place for very long.

Some of these larger companies are diversified across the border. I do know that some shipments were held up, they cost a little bit more to get into the country. I believe that’s going to be a blip on the radar and it’ll work itself out.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: Why do you think it’ll be just a blip on the radar?

JR: I think our U.S. mills have already begun to adjust to the possibility. I think they’ve already started to look at their procurement side of the equation and say, “If tariffs do come in and we get raw material from across the border, where will we have to source that from instead? Who are our major players on the procurement side?” I think what the proposed tariff has done is really sped up those conversations inside U.S. producers. “Who are we going to have new contracts with? How flexible are those contracts to ramp up?”

Frankly, right now, I see us having a bigger problem than running out of material. We’re going to run out of Qualified Logging Professionals (QLPs) to harvest the material. Within this country, we have an aging demographic in the forest products industry. Not a lot of folks are going into that profession. It’s a lot like agriculture, it’s getting older and they’re becoming more mechanized. But there’s still a level of retirement that is not being replaced with new logging professionals.

What’s scary to me is if these mills immediately call for more material coming from our woods, which we do have in Michigan, they won’t have people to harvest that wood, they won’t have people to haul that wood. That’s what we’re faced with.

We have 1,000 QLPs. That’s not enough to meet the demand that these mills would have if they ran wide open seven days a week. They don’t have the manpower.

QK: One of the things the Trump administration argues in favor of tariffs is that they will cause production to be based more in the U.S. Are you concerned primarily that there is just not enough qualified professionals here at the moment in the lumber business? Or are there other factors you worry about, if it was going to be mainly a U.S.-based timber industry, as opposed to using lumber from Canada?

JR: The cost of entry into this. The equipment is incredibly expensive. Interest rates have risen to the point where the machinery has gotten out of direct reach for a lot of new people to get into. It’s a lot like agriculture. I would have loved as a young adult to have gotten into either forestry or agriculture. But you need to almost be born into an agricultural family that has an established business to be your own producer. It’s very hard for a new person to break in and pay for this equipment and make go of it.

Now, if there’s increased demand and there’s a lack of QLPs, supply and demand laws tell us that the price per unit goes up. Perhaps that will attract more new people to go out and get the loans to begin to start their own businesses.

But there’s another factor. We’ve also had a lot of natural disasters natiowide. And our Michigan QLPs and our trucking professionals are sought-after talent when natural disasters strike. We have a lot of QLPs and haulers that have been put under contract to go and respond to the storms down South and out in the central U.S.

QK: To get rid of fallen trees and the like?

JR: Correct. We saw a lot of that in North Carolina. And our QLPs had gotten these federal contracts to go out and really help those individual states after hurricanes and tornadoes. That all has to be cleaned up by somebody that knows what they’re doing, that has the right equipment. And those contracts aren’t one or two months. Those contracts are six to nine months. That effectively takes them out of Michigan for the better part of the harvest year. You don’t replace that equipment and that level of knowledge overnight. I can’t take a young person who is fresh out of high school or college and put them on a machine and have them be safe and productive. It takes years to develop those skills. And, right now, we have a loss of talent.

Using hostages as bargaining chips remains a favorite tactic of some nations and terrorist groups.

Negotiating their release is often tricky.

It took seven countries cooperating last summer for the U.S. and Russia to complete the largest prisoner swap since the Cold War.

Among those exchanged was 55-year-old former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan.

But since returning home, the Michigan native says he’s still felt trapped.

Only this time it’s in a web of governmental bureaucracy.

The long-delayed return 

Concerns about resuming life in the U.S. seemed very far away for Paul Whelan last August, when a swarm of media trained their cameras on the small plane delivering him home.

It had just touched down at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C. amid a small crowd where some had waited years for this moment.

Whelan was the first to emerge from the aircraft. Tall, light-haired, wearing glasses and the dirty clothing he had on when Russia first detained him years ago, which guards had stored away until now.

He steadied himself on the hand railings of the steps leading from the plane, weak from malnourishment after years in a Russian labor camp.

Then he snapped-off a crisp salute to the figure waiting for him.

It was then-President Joe Biden, who embraced Whelan. After several conversations between the two, in an impromptu moment, Biden removed his American flag lapel pin and handed it to the former U.S. Marine.

Announcers on CNN noted that Whelan waved to the crowd on the tarmac. And, they said, “America waved back.”

Imprisoned by the system

Whelan now says, in some ways, it was a wave goodbye.

“What we found is that once your home, you’re actually on your own. The attention turns on the next guy that’s still locked-up somewhere abroad,” he said.

Whelan had returned from a Russian labor camp, wrongfully detained for five years, seven months and five days on false espionage charges.

The government spent a few weeks checking his medical and psychological condition, then released him.

Whelan says he was not in great physical shape.

His former employer, BorgWarner, had dropped him as its director of global security after the first year he was detained by Russia.

That also meant losing his medical insurance at a crucial time for Whelan in the prison camp.

“I had a hernia that needed surgery and then I was unemployed. I didn’t have the means to pay for a private operation,” Whelan said, adding that Russia wouldn’t act until his case was dire. “I basically had to wait until I had to have emergency surgery.”

Back home in Michigan, Whelan needed some kind of immediate income.

But he found that since he had not had a job in Michigan recently, he did not qualify for unemployment.

“Because the laws were written so specifically, my situation falls outside the cookie cutter. I was working but I was working in a Russian labor camp. And apparently that doesn’t count,” he said.

A member of Congress had to contact Michigan’s Secretary of State just for Whelan to get a driver’s license and identification.

And being convicted of a crime in Russia, even a crime the U.S. government declared was bogus, created problems.

“When I applied for a renewal of my global entry card, which comes from Customs and Border patrol, I had a hard time with them,” Whelan said. “Because they kept focusing on the fact that, ‘You were arrested and you were imprisoned overseas.’ And I said, ‘Yeah and look at the pictures of the president meeting me at Andrews Air Force Base when I came back.

Strangest of all, he says, was when he tried to get full Medicaid coverage through the state.

“I had a letter back that said I didn’t qualify because I wasn’t a U.S. citizen. It makes you scratch your head, to be quite honest. How could somebody have sent that to me? But they did. And I said ‘You can just Google my name right now.’”

Whelan is actually a citizen of four countries.

He was born in Canada to parents who hailed from the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland. He moved to the U.S. as a child.

A law without funding

It’s not supposed to be that difficult for returning hostages.

Congress created the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act specifically to provide medical and other help to them and their families for five years after their release.

But it’s never been funded.

Michigan U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens says there’s a bipartisan effort to add that appropriation.

“We need to do that. That’s next phase. Someone like Paul Whelan, five and a half years taken from him, if he was wrongfully imprisoned in the United States he’d arguably get compensation. Paul Whelan right now is living off of a GoFundMe. And it’s unacceptable. And it’s wrong,” she said.

Stevens says the latest Defense reauthorization bill did include money to strengthen sanctions against countries who take hostages and help families who lobby for a loved one’s release.

Whelan helped lobby for those changes.

He says he’s also pressing for the Social Security Administration to cover retirement payments hostages lost while detained.

He’s talked with various government entities about the need for better communication among agencies dealing with wrongfully detained Americans.

Ironically, for someone falsely painted as an espionage agent, Whelan has even been a featured guest at the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C.

He discussed his firsthand experience of dealing with Russian security forces and Moscow’s prison system.

Putting the puzzle pieces together

Paul Whelan scraped the last of his soup from a bowl on a modest table in the Manchester Diner, named for the small Michigan village about 60 miles away from Detroit.

Whelan lives there now with his elderly parents.

The former Marine said he’s contacted several organizations that help veterans.

But except for a bit of assistance from a Boston group affiliated with Harvard, the rest have turned him down because his captivity as a hostage was not related to his military service.

So Whelan said he is literally depending on the kindness of strangers in his community.

Auto dealers from the area offered him a leased vehicle.

Private practitioners have provided him with some medical and dental help.

Even the Manchester Diner’s owner, Leslie Kirkland, stopped by his table with a job tip, saying that one of her regular customers runs a cyber security company that might fit Whelan’s employment expertise.

“I’ll try to talk to him this weekend, I know he’ll come in for chicken waffles. I can see if he’s got something for you or he can put you in the right direction for something,” she said.

Whelan smiled and thanked her, then glanced at his phone, receiving a message from another former hostage, Mark Swidan, who was recently released by China.

He’s one of several detainees who Whelan says regularly text each other, seeking advice and encouragement.

“It’s a small community but we keep in touch,” he said. “Sort of like a group of misfit toys. Ha!”

Whelan said he’s also remained in contact with some still incarcerated at the Russian labor camp where he was held.

The prisoners use the kind of burner phones Whelan did when he talked surreptitiously with U.S. government officials, he said, though the phones aren’t technically allowed at the prison.

But, Whelan says, they are still easy to obtain with a cigarette slipped to the right guard or warden.

“We practice English. And I have family and friends in other countries that are helping to send over-the-counter medications and things into Russia to go to my friends in the camps. That’s helping keep them healthy,” he said.

Whelan is also keenly aware of his own physical, financial and emotional health.

“The reality is that when you get off the plane, you find that your former life isn’t there. The homes that we’ve left are not the homes that we come back to. It’s a process of putting puzzle pieces together yourself.”

–Paul Whelan

He remembers hearing that returning from a hostage situation is akin to having held your breath underwater, then suddenly rising to the surface and gasping for air.

“The reality is that when you get off the plane, you find that your former life isn’t there,” Whelan said. “The homes that we’ve left are not the homes that we come back to. It’s a process of putting puzzle pieces together yourself.”

Whelan wants to help the government develop new methods to support the next returning hostages.

Then, he says, maybe his over half-a-decade in the darkest corners of the Russian prison system will count for more than just time taken away from him.