A survey of immigrants in four major cities in Southeast Michigan found that more than half either knew someone who, or had themselves, avoided everyday activities like going to the doctor or dropping their kids off at school out of fear of heightened immigration enforcement.
Researchers from the University of Michigan analyzed responses from more than 200 people who were born outside of the U.S. but currently lived in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, and Ypsilanti.
“We're talking about Michiganders who are avoiding church or avoiding work, or taking a child to school, or avoiding travel, avoiding health care,” said Mara Cecilia Ostfeld, a U-M Ford School of Public Policy professor who co-authored a report on the survey.
She said that those absences have a ripple effect across communities. “This is a public health issue and an education issue and an economic issue.”
The impact might be more readily apparent in some sectors of society. Immigrants tend to make up a larger part of certain industries — notably many that require so-called “frontline workers” including grocery clerks, custodial workers, and childcare providers.
Most of the respondents to the survey — about 60% — identified as naturalized citizens. Ostfeld says her organization didn’t verify immigration status since the survey was anonymized so some might have claimed to be citizens out of fear.
Given that, Ostfeld said the findings were likely an underestimate of the fear that immigrants in Michigan are experiencing due to an increased presence of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
“There's a lot of people who are afraid to go to work,” she said. “So of course, they're going to be more hesitant to participate in surveys.”
As a community organizer with Congress of Communities, Elizabeth Gonzalez said the sense of fear has been palpable in Southwest Detroit, where the organization — and many immigrants — are based.
She said one of her neighbors caught a bad virus, but he told her that he didn’t want to seek treatment. “He was afraid of ICE being at the emergency room.”
Gonzalez said people in the community are stepping up to help others. Coworkers are helping to organize ride shares, neighbors are delivering groceries, and parents are helping other parents set up video calls with teachers so they don't have to go to school for meetings.
Even so, Gonzalez said, Southwest Detroit has been quieter than usual.
“Local businesses are struggling to stay afloat because people are afraid to patronize their shops or their employees are afraid to work,” Detroit City Councilmember Gabriela Santiago-Romero testified to the State Senate Committee on Civil Rights, Judiciary, and Public Safety in January regarding a set of bills that would put limits on where and how immigration enforcement can take place in Michigan. “Families are literally starving.”
Of immigration enforcement officers, she said, “They are manufacturing chaos and fear.”
One year into the Trump administration’s ramped up immigration enforcement efforts, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, said that it had deported 605,000 people and that another 1.9 million had “voluntarily self-deported.”
Currently, there are more than 60,000 people in immigrant detention, according to a dataset of government figures maintained by Syracuse University. The vast majority of them — 70 percent — have no previous criminal record, and many who do have committed minor crimes including traffic violations.
