By Malachi Barrett
Bridge Michigan
This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. Visit the newsroom online: bridgemi.com.
President Donald Trump is not focusing on Detroit for federal immigration enforcement in part because the city is not interfering, according to Mayor Mike Duggan.
Duggan said Monday on CNN that Detroit isn’t “drawing the kind of controversy other cities are” because it “is not a sanctuary city.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the launch of “Operation Midway Blitz” on Monday, targeting undocumented immigrants in Chicago and other parts of Illinois. A press release says the raid is necessary because Chicago’s status as a sanctuary city prevented Chicago from honoring detainer requests to deport convicted criminals.
Trump has not publicly discussed bringing federal force into Detroit, but politicians are weighing in on the possibility as residents seek sanctuary city protections. A group of residents with the Detroit Community Action Committee asked the City Council on Tuesday to create an ordinance that protects residents.
Duggan joined CNN on Monday to speak on the issue and his 2026 gubernatorial campaign as an independent candidate. He said Detroit is already “working together with the Trump administration to bring the violence down” but reiterated that Detroit is “not a sanctuary city.”
“The Detroit Police Department doesn’t enforce federal law,” Duggan said. “That’s not our job. But if we arrest somebody for breaking and entering, put their fingerprint in the system and ICE calls and says ‘that’s an undocumented immigrant we’ve been looking for,’ we honor that detainer agreement.
“We did that under Obama. We did that under the (first) Trump administration. We did it under Biden. We’re doing it today.”
Council Member Mary Waters denounced federal intervention in Chicago during a Monday interview with Fox 2. Waters said “there’s something very fundamentally wrong” with Trump’s approach to target cities with Black leadership.
“There are issues with all of our cities, in Detroit, Los Angeles and Chicago, but there’s also federal law called posse comitatus — he is not supposed to use the military to go after civilians, and that is what he’s doing,” Waters said. “It’s going against civilians, that’s what this president is doing. Why doesn’t he work with the various cities … so they can govern their own cities.”
She was joined on Fox 2 by former Detroit police chief James Craig, who finished fifth out of nine in the 2025 mayoral primary. Craig said Detroiters in dangerous parts of the city want federal help.
“What’s appalling to me is when folks who sit in their little offices, who have never been out in front of the community to listen to what they want,” Craig said in a heated exchange with Waters. “Black Chicagoans want the help.”
Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C. after declaring a “crime emergency” but is using immigration enforcement as justification for mobilizing in Chicago. Advocates with the Detroit Community Action Committee said there’s an urgent need to sever ties with immigration agents after the latest U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
On Monday, the high court allowed agents to stop people for any of four factors: “apparent race or ethnicity,” speaking in Spanish or accented English, being at a location where undocumented immigrants “are known to gather” — including bus stops, farms and car washes — and working at specific jobs.
Dissenting Judge Sonia Sotomayor argued this ruling allows the government to “seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.” The dissenting opinion included several accounts of U.S. citizens being wrongly arrested by ICE.
Last week, Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Mike Rogers called on Duggan to seek Trump’s help to fight violent crime. Duggan’s spokesperson John Roach called Rogers an “uninformed, grandstanding politician.”
Several Democrats running against Rogers had harsher responses.
Abdul El-Sayed said Rogers is “being a Karen,” while state Sen. Mallory McMorrow reshared a post from 2024 when Trump disparaged Detroit, saying “f**k this guy. Don’t come back.”
U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens said bringing the National Guard to Detroit was “wrong in ‘67 and wrong now,” though Republicans noted that Stevens called for deploying the National Guard to Chicago in 2016.
Bridge Michigan
This story was originally published by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. Visit the newsroom online: bridgemi.com.
President Donald Trump is not focusing on Detroit for federal immigration enforcement in part because the city is not interfering, according to Mayor Mike Duggan.
Duggan said Monday on CNN that Detroit isn’t “drawing the kind of controversy other cities are” because it “is not a sanctuary city.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced the launch of “Operation Midway Blitz” on Monday, targeting undocumented immigrants in Chicago and other parts of Illinois. A press release says the raid is necessary because Chicago’s status as a sanctuary city prevented Chicago from honoring detainer requests to deport convicted criminals.
Trump has not publicly discussed bringing federal force into Detroit, but politicians are weighing in on the possibility as residents seek sanctuary city protections. A group of residents with the Detroit Community Action Committee asked the City Council on Tuesday to create an ordinance that protects residents.
Duggan joined CNN on Monday to speak on the issue and his 2026 gubernatorial campaign as an independent candidate. He said Detroit is already “working together with the Trump administration to bring the violence down” but reiterated that Detroit is “not a sanctuary city.”
“The Detroit Police Department doesn’t enforce federal law,” Duggan said. “That’s not our job. But if we arrest somebody for breaking and entering, put their fingerprint in the system and ICE calls and says ‘that’s an undocumented immigrant we’ve been looking for,’ we honor that detainer agreement.
“We did that under Obama. We did that under the (first) Trump administration. We did it under Biden. We’re doing it today.”
Council Member Mary Waters denounced federal intervention in Chicago during a Monday interview with Fox 2. Waters said “there’s something very fundamentally wrong” with Trump’s approach to target cities with Black leadership.
“There are issues with all of our cities, in Detroit, Los Angeles and Chicago, but there’s also federal law called posse comitatus — he is not supposed to use the military to go after civilians, and that is what he’s doing,” Waters said. “It’s going against civilians, that’s what this president is doing. Why doesn’t he work with the various cities … so they can govern their own cities.”
She was joined on Fox 2 by former Detroit police chief James Craig, who finished fifth out of nine in the 2025 mayoral primary. Craig said Detroiters in dangerous parts of the city want federal help.
“What’s appalling to me is when folks who sit in their little offices, who have never been out in front of the community to listen to what they want,” Craig said in a heated exchange with Waters. “Black Chicagoans want the help.”
Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C. after declaring a “crime emergency” but is using immigration enforcement as justification for mobilizing in Chicago. Advocates with the Detroit Community Action Committee said there’s an urgent need to sever ties with immigration agents after the latest U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
On Monday, the high court allowed agents to stop people for any of four factors: “apparent race or ethnicity,” speaking in Spanish or accented English, being at a location where undocumented immigrants “are known to gather” — including bus stops, farms and car washes — and working at specific jobs.
Dissenting Judge Sonia Sotomayor argued this ruling allows the government to “seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job.” The dissenting opinion included several accounts of U.S. citizens being wrongly arrested by ICE.
Last week, Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Mike Rogers called on Duggan to seek Trump’s help to fight violent crime. Duggan’s spokesperson John Roach called Rogers an “uninformed, grandstanding politician.”
Several Democrats running against Rogers had harsher responses.
Abdul El-Sayed said Rogers is “being a Karen,” while state Sen. Mallory McMorrow reshared a post from 2024 when Trump disparaged Detroit, saying “f**k this guy. Don’t come back.”
U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens said bringing the National Guard to Detroit was “wrong in ‘67 and wrong now,” though Republicans noted that Stevens called for deploying the National Guard to Chicago in 2016.
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