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Residents urge Oakland County to fund legal aid and bar ICE activity after months of detentions
Summary
Dozens of residents told the Oakland County Board of Commissioners that recent ICE arrests have torn apart local families and urged the county to provide $50,000 for legal aid, $100,000 for food assistance and to bar ICE activity on county property without judicial warrants. Speakers said proclamations recognizing family reunification felt hollow without policy changes.
Dozens of residents pressed the Oakland County Board of Commissioners on June 11 to take concrete steps after what speakers described as repeated Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detentions in county communities.
Speakers, many from immigrant‑advocacy groups, urged the board to fund legal and emergency assistance for families and to adopt firm limits on ICE activity. "Get ICE out of Oakland County. Do something that's meaningful," public commenter Jenna Lindsay said during the meeting's public comment period. Members of the group Community Aid for Empowerment (Cafe) and other advocates described multiple cases in which people they said were detained locally despite holding work permits or other legal paperwork.
Why it matters: Commenters framed the requests as urgent public‑safety and humanitarian priorities. They asked for three immediate items frequently during the meeting: $50,000 to establish legal aid for impacted families; $100,000 for immediate food and emergency support; and a county policy requiring judicial warrants for ICE actions on county property and an explicit prohibition on 287(g) agreements.
Speakers provided personal stories to underline the scale of the problem. "We have seen schools that have lost so many students that they need to reduce the number of classrooms," said Emily Duan, describing effects on attendance and local school funding. Several speakers detailed individual cases (named by advocates in public comment) and called on the board to translate the proclamation recognizing Family Reunification and Preservation Day into policy and funding.
Board response and context: Commissioners acknowledged hearing the testimony but did not adopt any of the community's funding requests or the writ‑of‑warrant policy during the meeting. Several commissioners said they supported discussing some requests in committee; others said procedures required committee review before spending or formal policy changes. In earlier committee reports read into the record, commissioners noted that the county's neighborhood and housing development division intends to start a legal aid program in part by reallocating American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds and related general‑fund strategies; Commissioner Markham said a $380,000 personnel reallocation would “free up the same amount of general fund support to start a legal aid program.” That reallocation was part of the consent agenda the board adopted unanimously.
What advocates want next: Advocates asked the board to (1) approve immediate grants for legal and emergency aid, (2) adopt a policy barring ICE activity on county property without a judicial warrant, (3) prohibit 287(g) agreements, and (4) add community members to the existing Community Safety and Civil Rights ad‑hoc committee for oversight. Many speakers said they would return to future meetings to press the board for action.
The next step: Commissioners did not vote on the community's specific requests on June 11. Advocates said they would pursue continued public pressure and legal‑aid funding proposals in committee sessions and at future meetings.
Ending note: The board adopted the wider consent agenda, which included ARPA reallocations supporting housing and other programs, but the community's targeted asks on immigration enforcement and emergency legal aid remain outstanding following the meeting.
