Demonstrators denouncing the opening of the former North Lake Correctional Facility as an an immigrant detention center in Baldwin, Michigan. July 4, 2025 | Photo by Leah Craig/Michigan Advance
An open letter to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer published Tuesday is asking her to reject federal grant funding for new immigration enforcement detention centers in Michigan.
The letter was drafted by the No Detention Centers in Michigan coalition following the July announcement of a nationwide support grant program operated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, with $608 million for the construction of new centers like Florida’s “Alligator Alacatraz.” Opponents have called the facility’s conditions inhumane, but it has been lauded by supporters of President Donald Trump and his administration’s immigration policies.
With the Florida facility already facing lawsuits challenging rights violations, as well as prisoner reports on the lack of food and water at Alligator Alcatraz, the No Detention Centers in Michigan coalition is asking Whitmer to back away from any deal offering federal money to build new centers in Michigan.
“Conditions such as these are endemic to the U.S. immigration detention system. They will only worsen as the Trump administration continues its push for an unprecedented expansion of the detention and deportation machine, with increasing reports nationwide of death, medical neglect, discrimination, abuse, and punitive transfers,” the letter said. “We know that whatever new prisons are built will come with their own incentives to be filled, and that the continued growth of this cruel apparatus represents a key facet of an emboldened white nationalist program.”
The federal government has already allocated more than $150 billion for immigration enforcement, which includes money to reopen previously-shuttered prisons, including the former North Lake Correctional Facility in Baldwin, Michigan.
Now referred to as the North Lake Processing Center, it was a federal immigration-only prison beginning in 2019. It was shut down in 2022 but reopened with an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract in June of this year. The facility is now the largest ICE detention center in the Midwest and one of the largest in the nation.
Advocates noted that immigration raids in Michigan have escalated in frequency in recent months, which trends with the reopening of the Baldwin center. They have also cited Whitmer’s lack of a public commitment to not participate in FEMA’s grant program. The coalition said it had concerns that the state-funded Michigan Works! employment agency has collaborated with the Florida-based GEO Group on hiring staff for the North Lake center.
The letter also urged Whitmer to ensure that Michigan Works! no longer collaborates with GEO Group.
“The Trump administration’s current attempt to weaponize FEMA as an additional tool of mass imprisonment and deportation is emblematic of a white supremacist agenda that prioritizes the sadistic scapegoating of immigrants over the provision of resources needed for all people’s safety and flourishing,” the letter to Whitmer said.
Richard Kessler, a member of the coalition that sent the letter, said the last thing Michigan needs is more prisons – for immigrants or otherwise.
“It’s already unacceptable that Michigan Works! is funneling taxpayer money and resources toward the GEO Group so they can cash in on tearing families apart and locking up our immigrant neighbors in Baldwin,” Kessler said in a statement. “The news about FEMA is another reminder that private prisons aren’t the only problem. What allows companies like GEO to swoop in and profit from suffering is the agenda set by the federal government. And it’s very clear to us that this administration will go after immigrants with whatever methods they can.”
Whitmer’s office deferred comment to the Michigan Department of Corrections.
Jenni Riehle, public information officer, said the North Lake Correctional Facility located in Baldwin is owned and operated by the GEO Group, a privately-owned company.
“The federal Department of Homeland Security has contracted with this facility,” Riehle said. “The facility has never been owned or operated by the State of Michigan, or the Michigan Department of Corrections, and the state of Michigan has no authority over its operations.”
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Comments