About 50 people gathered at Detroit and Catherine streets in downtown Ann Arbor on Sunday and marched to the federal building to protest Immigration and Customs Enforcement detentions happening around Washtenaw County. The demonstration came as county-wide arrest figures have climbed sharply in recent months, with organizers warning that ICE encounters are becoming more frequent and more aggressive.
The march was co-hosted by the Movement for Immigrant Rights Action and Ann Arbor Indivisible, according to MLive.com. Laura Sanders, co-founder of the Movement for Immigrant Rights Action, told the outlet the protest marked a beginning and that organizers did not know what to expect from the turnout. Sanders cited 20 detentions or ICE encounters in recent memory, including at least 12 within Washtenaw County itself.
Sanders pointed to several specific incidents fueling the group's concern, including an ICE encounter at an Ypsilanti-area gas station late last month, detentions in Canton, and a fatal crash in Grand Rapids that occurred as a man fled ICE agents. Those examples, as relayed to MLive.com, illustrate the pattern organizers say has emerged across the broader region in recent weeks.
Arrest Totals Climb Across the County
The protest followed new data showing the scale of ICE activity in Washtenaw County has been undercounted for months. A Deportation Data Project dataset found that roughly 240 people have been arrested countywide, more than double a previous estimate of 109, per the same MLive.com reporting from September. More than 150 of those arrests — about 63% of the county total — happened in Ypsilanti.
The updated dataset also broke down who has been detained: 225 men, 13 women and one person of unknown gender, with an average age of 37, the outlet reported. Monthly arrest averages have continued rising, with totals in the latter half of 2025 and first half of 2026 exceeding the pace seen early in President Donald Trump's administration. August and October of 2025 were tied for the highest single-month total at 24 arrests, according to the same dataset.
The Movement for Immigrant Rights Action receives weekly and sometimes daily reports of ICE activity in the county, according to The Eastern Echo, which has tracked the group's efforts to monitor sightings as encounters have multiplied. Michigan United has separately been tracking ICE arrests statewide, as reported by WXYZ.
Speakers Invoke Local Cases and Community Response
Barb Wetula, who is in her 60s, told the crowd that ICE pickups were becoming increasingly commonplace and egregious, and said her group would keep protesting. Rev. Deborah Dean-Ware, pastor of Ann Arbor's Church of the Good Shepherd, also spoke at the federal building and highlighted the case of Trinity Health nurse Chloe Freeman, who has been federally charged for allegedly helping an immigrant escape ICE custody.
The Sept. 30 incident Sanders referenced played out in real time outside a Ypsilanti Township fuel station, where residents gathered while ICE agents attempted to apprehend someone. Community members showed agents a green card for one of the people detained, and the agents then released that person at the scene, the outlet reported.
Local Policy Fights and a Dismissed Federal Lawsuit
Washtenaw County Commissioner Yousef Rabhi, who is running unopposed for Ann Arbor mayor next month, encouraged the crowd to vote as a way of sending a message about ICE enforcement. Rabhi said he plans to push for city policies mirroring existing county rules that bar ICE agents from county property without a judicial warrant. Ann Arbor's current city policies already prohibit ICE from entering private or closed public-facility areas for civil immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant.
Those local policies previously drew a federal lawsuit from the Trump administration, which the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed it filed against Washtenaw County, the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners and Sheriff Alyshia M. Dyer, according to a U.S. Department of Justice announcement. A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit in August.
Sunday's march was not the first show of organized opposition in the area. Ann Arbor Against ICE held its first formal rally outside the Federal Building in February, drawing dozens of attendees along with numerous elected officials who spoke, according to Current Magazine. The group, under the banner A2 Against ICE, followed with another downtown march in March. A couple hundred Community High School students also staged their own half-mile walkout march to the federal building, an action CBS News Detroit reported student organizers had been planning since the preceding Friday and that inspired walkouts at several other Ann Arbor schools.
Organizers of Sunday's protest said they plan to gather again on Nov. 15 and Nov. 29, with both events set to start at 3 p.m. outside the Detroit Street Filling Station at 300 Detroit St. in Ann Arbor.
