East Lansing Mayor Requested Trump Admin Remove City From List of Sanctuary Cities; Immigration Agents Came to Meridian Twp
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents were present in Meridian Township last week, according local police. Additionally, East Lansing Info confirmed East Lansing’s mayor implored the Trump administration to remove the city from the federal list of “sanctuary cities” in August.
Meridian Township, which shares East Lansing’s eastern border, was not provided any details on the nature of the federal agents’ activities last Thursday, Township Supervisor Scott Hendrickson said in a statement to media outlets that day.
Township officials, including members of law enforcement, had no involvement in agents’ operations, Hendrickson said, adding in his written statement that they “do not assist federal agents solely acting on the purpose of enforcing immigration laws.”
“As far as we are aware, the operation has concluded and ICE agents are no longer in the Township,” Hendrickson wrote.
Hendrickson originally told media outlets U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, otherwise known as ICE agents, were in the area, but Meridian Township Assistant Chief of Police Bart Crane told ELi over the phone Monday that the township supervisor was mistaken and the agents were from Customs and Border Protection, which also deals with immigration.
The police department doesn’t have any details on why agents were in Meridian Township, Crane said, outside of being told federal agents were working an operation.
In terms of what local residents should know about the events of last week, Crane said the public responded appropriately by alerting the police department to out-of-place activity.
“I think what happened is the right thing to happen, somebody saw something initially that they were concerned about, which is, they called us,” Crane said. “They saw some people and they weren’t sure, so they called us and we verified who the folks were… So the public recognized something that looked out of place to them and they made a phone call.”
Residents ought to feel secure in their homes and in their community, Hendrickson said in his statement last week and the Meridian Township Board encourages residents to know their rights if they encounter immigration agents in the future.
Following this incident in Meridian Township, ELi received documents through a Freedom of Information Act request outlining correspondence between U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Mayor George Brookover surrounding East Lansing’s “sanctuary city” status.
“This ends now”, Bondi wrote Brookeover on Aug. 13, saying that East Lansing has been identified as a local government that engages in activities that violate federal immigration laws or “thwart federal immigration enforcement to the detriment of the interests of the United States.”
East Lansing adopted a “sanctuary city” status for the undocumented immigrant community in 2023 and this summer the U.S. Department of Justice released a list of jurisdictions the Trump administration asserts obstruct the work of federal authorities.
There are concerns in East Lansing that its inclusion on the Department of Justice’s list makes residents a target for raids by federal agents, as Democrat strongholds with sanctuary policies like Los Angeles and Chicago have seen increased federal agent presence.
The resolution creating East Lansing’s sanctuary city status outlines that the city in tandem with state and federal law will not collaborate with federal agents to enforce federal immigration law or use city resources to enforce federal immigration law. At the same time the resolution says in following state and federal law, the city, including its local law enforcement, “may cooperate with federal immigration agencies in matters that involve criminal activity, and the protection of public safety.”
Brookover defended East Lansing’s “sanctuary city” status to Bondi in a response letter on Aug. 18 saying the city’s resolution to declare itself a sanctuary city does not violate any federal law she included in her letter.
“After speaking with our city manager and police chief I also can confirm that we are unaware of any specific action by a city employee or law-enforcement official that has in fact impeded or thwarted federal immigration enforcement in the City of East Lansing, nor is there an intent to do so,” Brookover wrote.