The people of Romulus have made it clear from the start that a detention warehouse is not welcome in their community. Now DHS and ICE appear to be backing down, reportedly planning to sell the building on Cogswell Street along with six of the other industrial warehouses they had purchased around the country.

This is a hard-fought victory for the people of Michigan in a struggle that will continue until ICE no longer cages anyone. The brave participants in recent hunger and labor strikes that have taken place in detention centers from coast to coast—including the GEO Group’s North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin—remind us that immigration detention is an inherently inhumane system in which no one is safe. A cage is wrong in Romulus and in Baldwin, and it would be just as wrong in any other community DHS might target. If ICE tries to open another detention camp anywhere in this state, it will meet the same coalition, the same neighbors, and the same answer: not here, and not anywhere. And we will keep fighting until North Lake is closed and there are no detention centers in Michigan or anywhere else.