For Immediate Release: Sunday, November 1st, 2026
Contact: No Detention Centers in Michigan, info@nodetentioncentersmi.org; Metro Detroit DSA, media@metrodetroitdsa.com; Movimiento Cosecha GR, movimientocosechagr@gmail.com; Greater Lansing DSA, lansingdsa@gmail.com
Baldwin, MI — In observance of the Latin American holiday of Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead, today Michigan organizations including No Detention Centers in Michigan; Movimiento Cosecha GR; West Michigan Clergy Action; the Coalition to Shut the Camps; Asamblea Popular Detroit; and Metro Detroit DSA, in partnership with several other chapters of the Democratic Socialists of America, held a vigil at the North Lake Processing Center to honor people who have died in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) captivity and who were killed by ICE and Border Patrol agents in 2026.
Around 150 people gathered outside North Lake, the largest detention center in the Midwest, to stand in solidarity with those held inside at a moment of escalating immigration enforcement across the state and to acknowledge the deadliest fiscal year in ICE’s history. There have been at least 60 deaths in ICE custody since the start of the second Trump administration—including the death in Baldwin last December of Bulgarian national Nenko Gantchev, whose relatives have raised lingering questions about his access to required medical care—and at least 11 fatal shootings by ICE and Border Patrol agents. Sunday’s vigil, part of a nationally coordinated weekend of action, included testimony from immigrants who had spent months inside North Lake and from the family of Mario David Coronado Juárez, who was killed on September 20th when ICE agents pursued his vehicle in Grand Rapids.
“We demand #JusticeForMario and call on the public to support our three demands: immediately enacting the Grand Rapids ‘Privacy, Safety and Dignity for All’ ordinance to protect immigrant families; an independent investigation with full transparency regarding Mario’s fatal crash; and accountability for the agents and agencies responsible for his death,” said a representative for Cosecha Michigan. “We cannot accept the loss of another community member without answers and accountability. As Mario’s surviving direct family in Guatemala prepares to say goodbye, we stand in solidarity with them during this painful time.”
Since its construction by the Florida-based GEO Group in the late 1990s as a for-profit youth prison, North Lake has closed and reopened four times, most recently operating as a federal immigrant-only prison between 2019 and 2022. It remains the only facility in Michigan to function exclusively as an immigration detention center, following the defeat this summer of a proposal by the Department of Homeland Security for a new detention warehouse in Romulus, though four county jails maintain contracts to detain immigrants for ICE. Hundreds of people imprisoned at North Lake participated in multi-unit hunger strikes and work strikes earlier this year to call attention to prolonged confinement, brutal conditions, and inadequate medical care, echoing earlier hunger strikes at the facility in 2020. New reports have emerged in recent weeks of sporadic strikes and labor stoppages in response to the same enduring conditions.
“To those who are detained today, to their families, and to everyone still waiting for an answer, I want you to know that your lives matter,” said Luis, an immigrant held at North Lake for eight months before his release earlier this year, in a written statement shared with the crowd on Sunday. “Your pain matters. You are not numbers, case files, or statistics. You are human beings with names, stories, loved ones, and dreams. And to those who lost their lives, today we honor you. May your names never disappear from the record. May your stories never be forgotten. And may your families find the strength and justice they deserve.”
In “Deadly Failures,” a 2024 report by the ACLU, American Oversight, and Physicians for Human Rights, independent medical experts found that 95 percent of deaths in detention were deemed potentially preventable if ICE had provided clinically appropriate medical care. “Deadly Failures” adds to investigations into deaths in immigration detention including “Code Red: The Fatal Consequences of Dangerously Substandard Medical Care in Immigration Detention”; “Fatal Neglect: How ICE Ignores Deaths in Detention”; and “Systemic Indifference: Dangerous and Substandard Medical Care in US Immigration Detention,” showing that medical neglect in ICE detention has contributed to numerous deaths.
“No one is safe when ICE is present—whether on the streets or in one of the agency’s more than 200 abuse-ridden detention facilities. The evidence against ICE is indisputable. ICE kills people and threatens community safety across the country,” said Nanci Palacios, Organizing and Membership Director at Detention Watch Network. “Our message is clear: Immigrant lives are of value, and immigrants deserve safety, dignity and respect. We mourn the loss of life in ICE custody, valued loved ones who deserved to return to their families alive.”
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No Detention Centers in Michigan is a statewide coalition organizing to abolish immigration detention and migrant incarceration in Michigan and beyond.
Detention Watch Network (DWN) is a national coalition building power through collective advocacy, grassroots organizing, and strategic communications to abolish immigration detention in the United States.
