Hillary Scholten

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Eight current and former Grand Rapids elected officials are challenging U.S. Rep. Hillary Scholten’s support for reforming U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement rather than dismantling it, exposing a divide among local Democrats over the agency’s future.

The officials said Thursday that they were working with Scholten’s office to schedule a group meeting to discuss their concerns.

The dispute stems from remarks Scholten made in a July 25 video explaining her endorsement of U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic primary for U.S. Senate.

In the video, Scholten said President Donald Trump had allowed ICE to get “out of control,” but she rejected a call by Abdul El-Sayed, who defeated Stevens in the Aug. 4 Democratic primary, to abolish the agency.

The Grand Rapids Democrat argued that ICE performs important public safety functions, including investigating human trafficking and drug smuggling, and said misconduct within the agency should be addressed through stronger oversight.

“If we abolish ICE altogether, who’s going to help us track down and investigate human trafficking in our community?” said Scholten, who has represented Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District since 2023.

The eight current and former elected officials responded this week with a joint statement saying ICE has endangered immigrants and spread fear in West Michigan. They said other federal agencies handled trafficking, smuggling and immigration enforcement before ICE was created in 2003.

“We hope this is an opportunity for the congresswoman to be a unifier and firmly reject the notion that ICE has made our communities safer in any capacity, or that it was ever meant to be,” the group said.

The statement was signed by Democratic Kent County Commissioner Nancy Morales; Grand Rapids City Commissioner Marshall Kilgore; former Democratic Kent County Commissioner Ivan Diaz; former Democratic state Rep. Rachel Hood; and four Grand Rapids Public Schools board members: José Rodriguez, Amber Kilpatrick, Eleanor Moreno and Erika VanDyke.

The Rev. Nathan Dannison, senior minister at Fountain Street Church, also signed the statement.

In response, Scholten called the statement an “unfortunate mischaracterization” of her positions and expressed disappointment that the signatories had not contacted her office to discuss the policy changes they wanted before publicly criticizing her.

“This is a time for bold and engaged action, not sowing division on social media,” Scholten said in a statement.

Scholten said she has supported legislation to hold ICE accountable, visited immigration detention facilities and met with federal officials to demand answers.

“For over 20 years, I’ve worked to make our immigration system more just, more fair, more humane, and I’ll never stop doing that work with boldness and conviction — for our community and our country,” she said.

The local officials who criticized the congresswoman said they “look forward to speaking with Rep. Scholten regarding the crucial work of listening to communities living in fear due to ICE operations in West Michigan.”

Reached Thursday, Kilgore rejected Scholten’s argument that the group should have approached her privately before releasing its statement.

“She made a public video. We made a public statement,” Kilgore said. “This is a policy disagreement. So these things need to be public.”

Kilgore said the disagreement was not personal and described the statement as a respectful effort to press Scholten for a different approach. But he said ICE is too fundamentally broken to be repaired through the type of oversight Scholten supports.

“This department may be lawful on the books, but this is unjust,” Kilgore said.

Diaz said the statement does not call for ending federal immigration enforcement. Instead, he said, it calls for eliminating ICE as an institution and creating a broader immigration system centered on human rights.

“Yes, ICE needs to be abolished, but that doesn’t mean that there’s not going to be a federal agency that’s enforcing immigration law,” Diaz said.

Scholten’s video that drew the local group’s criticism included strong criticism of ICE. She said two U.S. citizens had been killed during federal immigration enforcement operations and that the agency had “compromised” training and “little oversight.”

But Scholten compared the movement to abolish ICE to efforts to defund police departments, saying the idea could appeal to people “rightly enraged” by abuses while leaving unanswered questions about who would conduct certain investigations.

Scholten said most immigrants are “good, law-abiding people” seeking a better life but argued that federal agencies must also protect the country from traffickers, drug smugglers and terrorists.

In endorsing Stevens, Scholten highlighted the Hold ICE Accountable Act, legislation that she said would create an independent special prosecutor to investigate misconduct by ICE agents. Scholten also pointed to Stevens’ participation in what Scholten described as an oversight visit to an ICE detention facility in Baldwin.

Scholten visited the North Lake Processing Center in Baldwin in February while seeking answers about a detainee’s death and conditions at the ICE facility. She also voted against a Department of Homeland Security funding bill in January, saying it failed to provide adequate oversight and accountability for immigration agents.

However, the local officials’ statement criticized Scholten for voting for the Laken Riley Act, which Trump signed into law in January 2025. The law requires federal detention of unauthorized immigrants accused of theft or violent crimes, according to the Associated Press.

Scholten was among 46 House Democrats who joined Republicans in passing the measure. The only other Michigan House Democrat to vote for it was U.S. Rep. Kristen McDonald Rivet of Bay City.

Morales, one of the signatories, said discussions about publicly challenging Scholten’s stance on ICE began after her vote on the Laken Riley Act.

Morales said the law of scapegoats immigrants event though it was presented as a public safety measure. Scholten’s comments about ICE brought those concerns back to the forefront, she said.

“As a fellow Democrat, I was appalled to hear her speak out in defense of ICE rather than our most vulnerable population,” Morales said.