by Ann Mullen

The ACLU of Michigan and the national ACLU filed a federal lawsuit on Jan. 22 to force U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Michigan county jails it contracts with, to release records about detained immigrants held by ICE in local detention facilities. 

Although county jails are required under state public records laws to disclose records about what happens in their facilities, ICE has repeatedly forbidden local jails — including those in Michigan — from releasing information related to immigrants held under detention contracts with ICE. ICE has instructed county jails it contracts with to deny state-law records requests if they are related to a detained immigrant, and instead redirect those requests to ICE. But ICE does not possess most of the requested county-created records, and does not produce these records under the federal Freedom of Information Act. This renders these detainee records — vital to transparency about conditions of confinement in these facilities, such as intake, medical, disciplinary, and other records generated by county jails — completely secret. 

Alyshia Dyer, the Washtenaw County Sheriff, was asked if her jail is holding any immigrants detained by ICE. She said she is “following the situation daily.”

In 2019, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan (ACLU) and the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC) sent letters to nine county sheriffs, prosecutors, and two police chiefs, urging that they stop detaining people in jails at the request of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) without a court order. 

The ACLU of Michigan’s 2019 letter was sent to law enforcement agencies in: Allegan County; Eaton County; Macomb County; Monroe County; Muskegon County; Oakland County; Oceana County; Ottawa County; and Saint Clair County. The letter was also sent to the police chiefs of Dearborn and Detroit Police Departments.

As part of President Trump’s present crackdown on illegal immigration, the Department of Justice will be empowered to investigate and even criminally prosecute state and local government officials who do not comply with restrictive orders on immigration.

The move, outlined in an internal memo reported by multiple news outlets last week, effectively targets many state and local officials, who have vociferously defended measures designed to make it possible for undocumented immigrants to work and get an education.

ICE has achieved this secrecy through an obscure federal regulation which says that county facilities shall not disclose records related to people detained by ICE, and should instead let ICE disclose them through the federal Freedom of Information Act. However, ICE abuses this regulation by forbidding counties from disclosing records that they have created and maintained, and that ICE doesn’t possess (and has likely never even seen). 

A primary goal of the lawsuit is to stop the regulation from being used to keep state and local entities, such as county jails, from disclosing important records about detained immigrants that are not in ICE’s possession. Without these records, immigration service providers cannot adequately assist detained immigrants, and organizations like the ACLU cannot fully shed light on the treatment of immigrants behind bars. 

The ACLU of Michigan’s lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Ramis Wadood, staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan, had this to say about the lawsuit: “Public scrutiny of government conduct is a hallmark of our democracy. This is especially true for jails, prisons, and immigration detention centers, where government officials have almost total control over the daily lives of incarcerated people—and where they exercise that control behind closed, locked, and guarded doors. ICE has wrongly been misusing an obscure federal regulation to thwart scrutiny by keeping what should be public information secret. The goal of this lawsuit is to put a stop to that illegal and anti-democratic practice.” 

My Khanh Ngo, staff attorney with the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, added: “ICE shouldn’t be pursuing an end run around state transparency laws in an attempt to shield themselves from public scrutiny — particularly in light of the agency’s long history of abuse. With the Trump administration pursing a mass deportation and detention agenda, it’s more important now than ever that we know what happens inside ICE detention facilities.” 

The Jan. 2025 memo from acting U.S. Deputy Atty. Gen. Emil Bove instructs state and local officials to comply with federal immigration directives and repeats myths Trump hammered on the campaign trail about the threat of undocumented immigrants in the country — such as gangs, drugs and crime. Studies have found that immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than American citizens.