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A few days before Christmas last year, Livonia police pulled over a pickup truck for a cracked windshield and a “wide right turn.” Officers called U.S. Border Patrol, and arrested the driver and three passengers for violating federal immigration law.
The arrests marked the 32nd time Livonia officers transferred migrants to federal custody since President Donald Trump’s reelection. That figure, already among the highest in the state, would nearly double over the following month.
The Livonia Police Department (LPD) has done more than almost any Michigan department to illustrate the power of local police in aiding Trump’s inhumane and unpopular immigration crackdown.
And few departments have done more to show how local communities can interrupt that power.
“Livonia is one of the few agencies in Michigan that has changed their policies in the right direction,” said Ramis Wadood, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan. “Even small steps in the right direction are helpful and substantial.”
Over the last five years, police in Livonia — a metro Detroit city of less than 94,000 — reported 65 immigration arrests, more than every Michigan department except Shelby Township, public records show. All but two of those arrests happened after Trump’s reelection.
After a public outcry, Livonia police instructed officers to stop investigating immigration violations during traffic stops. Reports of immigration arrests in the city dropped to zero.
The Trump effect: Skyrocketing arrests
From 2021-24, the Livonia Police Department reported two immigration-related arrests.
Since the start of Trump’s second term, the department recorded 63 — the second-highest in the state. (Shelby Township reported 68.)
LPD does not have a formal cooperation agreement with any federal immigration agency.
The arrests typically started with a minor traffic violation. Livonia police cited broken taillights, illegal turns, running a red light or texting while driving as reasons for stops. Twice, officers called Border Patrol after a migrant was involved in a car wreck. In many cases, LPD issued tickets because the driver lacked state-mandated — and often deeply unaffordable — car insurance.
One stop occurred after a passenger “widened her eyes upon seeing me,” an officer wrote. “From my prior training and law enforcement experience, this (is) a known indicator of possible criminal activity.”
Five of those arrested were under 20. Roughly three-quarters were identified as Hispanic. Livonia police listed more than two-thirds as local or Wayne County residents.
Protest, then change
Livonia’s ramped up immigration enforcement drew little public attention in 2025.
Then, in January, Border Patrol’s Detroit office posted on Facebook about three “illegal aliens” arrested and processed for deportation in Livonia “with local law enforcement partners.”
It wasn’t the first time Border Patrol had posted about working with Livonia police, but this one caught the attention of U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit. In a post of her own, she called the arrests “incredibly concerning and dangerous” and warned LPD against racial profiling.
At a City Council meeting a few days later, residents and Tlaib lined up to comment on the department’s collaboration with Border Patrol.
Among city leaders and residents, opinion was mixed. Mayor Maureen Miller Brosnan initially said she wouldn’t commit to changing the city’s approach.
On Jan. 30, LPD said it planned to change its policy on immigration enforcement.
While the department developed a formal policy proposal, it said that its officers “will not investigate immigration violations or contact federal immigration authorities, including ICE and/or Border Patrol, during calls for service, traffic stops, or other routine police activity, unless a valid warrant or court order exists and is signed by a judge who has jurisdiction in Livonia.”
Marcotte described the changes as a response to the “temperature … across the nation” and “current events.”
After reviewing its policy, the department decided that “it’s not the job of our officers to enforce immigration status violations,” Marcotte explained.
Livonia police doesn’t have a formal cooperation agreement with ICE, known as 287(g), and officers are not trained to enforce immigration law. As a result, Marcotte said Livonia officers “don’t have the authority” to make enforcement arrests during traffic stops.
As of last week, LPD still had not adopted a formal written policy.
But public records through mid-February show no reports of immigration-related arrests in the two weeks after the announcement. Marcotte said he is “not keeping track of” whether the department has had contact with Border Patrol since then.
In the meantime, 65 people and their families are dealing with the fallout from enforcement decisions that LPD now says it lacks the authority to carry out.
Migrants detained by federal immigration authorities often face long, demoralizing and sometimes deadly jail stays. Deported migrants are frequently separated from family members and often face dangers in their home countries.
Marcotte said LPD did nothing wrong in handing migrants to federal authorities.
“I don’t think we regret that,” he said. “We didn’t do anything wrong outside of our scope of our law enforcement authority.”
Michigan Public's Adam Yaha Rayes contributed to this reporting.
How we reported this story
This story and the accompanying data visualizations are based on police incident reports submitted to a statewide crime database.
These figures are likely undercounts. Outlier Media identified dozens of incidents where officers transferred migrants to U.S. Border Patrol custody without classifying the arrests as immigration-related.
Accounts of individual arrests are based on officers’ written narratives, which were partially redacted.
All data was obtained via public records requests.
This article first appeared on Outlier Media and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
