Communities across Michigan are asking how, exactly, local law enforcement is working with federal immigration agents as the Trump administration steps up aggressive enforcement, including the killing of two Americans in Minneapolis. In Detroit, that question is playing out on the pages of two police personnel files.
Detroit Police Chief Todd Bettison vowed to fire two officers who broke department rules by calling U.S. Border Patrol during traffic stops, handing people over to federal immigration agents. Then he dropped the terminations.
In one stop, an officer called Border Patrol, believing the person was undocumented. In the other, a sergeant called for help communicating with a driver who didn’t speak English, though the department runs a 24-hour translation hotline.
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Across the country, small businesses in immigrant communities are reporting the same pattern: customers are disappearing, workers aren’t showing up, and revenue is in decline.
Federal immigration enforcement has reshaped daily life in these neighborhoods, and some business owners say it’s hitting them harder than COVID, in part because there’s no PPP loan or government lifeline this time around.
In Los Angeles County, the vast majority of surveyed businesses reported negative impacts, with nearly 50% losing more than half their revenue. In Chicago’s Little Village, business sales have dropped an estimated 50 to 70%. And the Brookings Institution estimates that 2025 may have been the first year in over half a century that net migration to the U.S. went negative.
That same predicament is playing out in metro Detroit. In Southwest Detroit, Dearborn, and Hamtramck, the small businesses that anchor entire neighborhoods are under growing pressure. Business owners along Vernor Highway describe empty storefronts, canceled appointments, and streets that used to bustle with foot traffic now eerily quiet. Community networks — WhatsApp alert groups, volunteer patrols, whistle distribution — have emerged to help residents maintain their daily routines.
Mark Lee is the president and CEO of The Lee Group, a consulting firm that works with small businesses on strategy, marketing, and growth across Southeast Michigan. He joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to talk about what he’s hearing from owners on the ground.
Listen to the full conversation using the media player above.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
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Two of those killings happened in Minneapolis within three weeks of each other: Renee Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24. Both were U.S. citizens, age 37, and in both cases, masked federal officers opened fire, and the Trump administration’s initial accounts were later contradicted by video evidence.
Their deaths spurred protests across the country and accelerated a growing push by local and state governments to impose limits on federal immigration agents.
Local Pushback
In Detroit, City Council member Mary Waters has introduced the Alex Pretti Detroit No Masks Ordinance, which would prohibit any law enforcement officer — local, state, or federal — from concealing their face while performing their duties in the city. The proposal has been referred to committee but has not yet received a vote.
At the state level, the Michigan Senate held hearings last month on a package of bills aimed at how federal immigration enforcement operates in the state. They would ban law enforcement masks, bar ICE from operating in schools, hospitals, and houses of worship, and prevent state agencies from sharing data with federal immigration authorities.
Former chief warns about anonymity in law enforcement
Ike McKinnon led the Detroit Police Department in the mid-90s, laying the foundation for the community policing model in place today.
Former Detroit Police Chief Isaiah “Ike” McKinnon was among those who testified in support of the bills.
McKinnon joined the Detroit Police Department in 1965. Two years later, during the 1967 Detroit uprising, fellow white officers pulled him over while he was in full uniform, put a gun to his head, and shot at him. During that same period, officers across the department were removing their badges to avoid being identified. McKinnon survived — and stayed on the force. In 1993, Mayor Dennis Archer appointed him Detroit’s second Black police chief. Over five years, he overhauled the department’s approach to community trust.
Now 82, McKinnon told Michigan senators he sees the same pattern repeating: officers who conceal their identities operate without accountability.
He spoke with The Metro’s Robyn Vincent about how local police should respond to this moment.
Use the media player above to hear the conversation.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
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In 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump promised mass deportations. Since his election, the president has largely delivered.
In 2025, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security deported more than 620,000 people, with another 70,000 currently in custody.
Millions have taken to the streets in protest. But for places that have seen the greatest influx of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, protests and observation of ICE tactics is a new way of life.
Los Angeles, Chicago, and the Twin Cities have been inundated with federal agents. Residents are putting themselves between immigration officers and the people ICE is attempting to deport.
Protesters have been aggressive in letting agents know they’re not welcome. They’re following them around town, honking horns and blowing whistles. There has been no shortage of profanity.
Protests get bloody
White House Border Czar Tom Homan says those words are violence. “I begged for the last two months on TV for the rhetoric to stop,” says Homan. “I said in March, if the rhetoric didn’t stop, there’s going to be bloodshed, and there has been.”
In Minnesota, the blood that has been shed has come from U.S. citizens. Last month, federal agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti. In justifying Good’s killing, Trump Administration officials said she was armed with a car. In the moments leading up to his death, Pretti was exercising both his First and Second Amendment rights with a gun on his hip and a phone in his hand.
“Being a protester? That’s not justification to kill somebody,” Dulan said. “Filming the police? Not justification to kill somebody. Being armed? Certainly not justification to kill somebody.”
At Second Amendment rights demonstrations at the Michigan State Capitol Dulan has been armed – but also while doing business inside. After a series of armed protests during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Michigan Capitol Commission largely banned the possession of guns inside the Capitol building – something Dulan believes is likely unconstitutional.
Exercising two amendments at once
Dulan says he would defend the rights of people to carry firearms while protesting, though he wouldn’t put himself in a similar situation.
“Personally, I don’t think it’s responsible gun ownership, particularly when there’s a high likelihood that there could be some kind of a physical confrontation,” Dulan said. “You know, we’ve been teaching classes to gun owners for a long time at MCRGO. We teach that situational awareness is incredibly important, and the best way to solve most problems is by avoidance.”
Carrying a gun can also influence how other protesters see you.
Loren Khogali is the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. She says demonstrating 2nd Amendment rights may make others hesitant to exercise their right to peaceably assemble.
“What we need right now in this country is as many people as possible to feel as comfortable possible exercising their 1st Amendment right to speech,” Khogali said.
Acting with impunity
The bigger issue to Khogali is the Trump Administration – and the armed agents enforcing his demands – attacking people with seeming impunity.
“Right now we are watching the government engage suppressing people’s right to speech, suppressing people’s right to protest in the most violent of ways,” Khogali said. “We have watched the federal government murder two people in Minnesota, and so it is extremely important that when you go to a protest, you understand exactly what your rights are based on those state laws.”
Loren Khogali – Executive Director of the ACLU of Michigan
“Law enforcement should be adhering to the Constitution and should be protecting the right of protesters to protest within the law,”Khogali said.
In Minnesota, federal law enforcement has been largely unconcerned with the rights of protesters. Numerous judges have cited ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for violating court orders.
He says those who violate constitutional rights should face consequences, but that’s not the reality.
“Well as a practical matter, very little,” Winter said. “In a theoretical matter, they should both be open to potential civil and criminal liability.”
But asked if he thinks the agents who killed Good and Pretti will face justice… “I think it’d be very unlikely,” Winter said.
Winter says U.S. Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of what can negate qualified immunity. “It’s only a violation–it’s only actionable–if it was clearly illegal, clearly unconstitutional. So that’s easy to muddy up, right?”
Knowing your rights regardless
Even if it’s unlikely you will receive justice if your rights are violated, it’s still best to know your rights and have a plan.
“You always have the right to remain silent and to ask to speak to an attorney. You also have the right to walk away from the police calmly,” Khogali said. “If an officer demands that you should turn over your phone, you should refuse and you should tell them that you would like to speak with an attorney.”
However, witnesses to the killing of Alex Pretti say their phones were confiscated anyway. Other witnesses were taken into custody.
Khogali recommends having emergency contact numbers memorized and to let loved ones know when you’re headed to a protest.
Steve Dulan says the on-going protests can serve as a teaching tool. “I am hopeful that people will take this opportunity to learn about their rights and I’m hoping that the rhetoric cools.”
This week, Homan announced that 700 ICE agents were being taken out of Minnesota. The protests and deportations continue.
The ACLU of Michigan has this handy pocket guide for your rights at protests, and what you should know before, during, and after ICE raids.
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The killing of two American citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration officers has forced the country to look more closely at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. When applying that closer lens, that scrutiny moves beyond individual agents to the system itself. It’s one built through laws, budgets, and a long-standing decision to treat immigration as a criminal problem.
César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at Ohio State University, studies the once less known aspects of the U.S. system: where immigration enforcement operates like criminal policing, and detention functions like punishment even when the government calls it “civil.”
His latest book is “Welcome the Wretched: In Defense of the ‘Criminal Alien.'”
García Hernández joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to discuss what kind of immigration system is actually being built in the name of Americans, and how we got here.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
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There are weeks when the news feels like weather; something that happens over there, something you brace for and then move through.
And then there are times when it lands in your body.
In the last few weeks, vigils have spread across the country after a federal immigration officer killed Renee Good. People are mourning, but they’re also organizing — and not just with signs and speeches. Some are choosing disruption. Some are choosing civil disobedience. They’re asking a blunt question: if systems can take a life in broad daylight and then argue about vocabulary, what exactly are we supposed to do with our grief?
Detroiters know what it means to be extracted from, written off, and still survive. And that makes these stories feel like different chapters of the same book— a book about power, and whose lives it’s allowed to break.
To help us read that book more clearly, Robyn Vincent spoke with Saqib Bhatti of the Action Center on Race and the Economy. His work traces the money behind public pain, and it asks what happens when communities confront the power brokers who, he says, are facilitating that pain.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
WDET strives to cover what’s happening in your community. As a public media institution, we maintain our ability to explore the music and culture of our region through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
Michigan’s schools are increasingly tasked with more than teaching.
They are expected to raise reading and math scores, address rising mental health needs, manage technology and discipline, and serve as safe, stable places for families under stress. In some communities, they’re also absorbing fear sparked by immigration enforcement actions. That includes the detention of Detroit students seeking asylum.
This is the landscape facing Michigan’s new top education official.
Dr. Glenn Maleyko was sworn in last month as State Superintendent of Public Instruction. He steps into the new role after nearly a decade leading Dearborn Public Schools. He has identified literacy as his priority and launched a statewide listening tour.
The Metro’s Robyn Vincent sat down with Maleyko to learn how he plans to lead a system being asked to do more than it was designed to handle.
Listen to The Metro weekdays from 10 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on demand.
WDET strives to make our journalism accessible to everyone. As a public media institution, we maintain our journalistic integrity through independent support from readers like you. If you value WDET as your source of news, music and conversation, please make a gift today.
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