Illegal immigrants and supporters banged drums and shouted at people in downtown Grand Rapids on Monday as they called on officials to declare the city a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.

“In extremely cold weather, at least 100 protesters are marching through downtown Grand Rapids calling for no deportations under the Trump administration,” WOOD TV reporter Byron Tollefson posted to X, along with a video of the protest. “An organizer with Movimento Cosecha tells me they also want Grand Rapids to be declared a sanctuary city.”

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

The attached video showed dozens trekking through single-digit temperatures and snow toting signs, mostly in Spanish.

“The people united, we’ll never be divided,” many chanted to a drum beat as they lumbered down a snowy a sidewalk. Others hauled massive banners that read “No Deportations,” “Immigrants Are Not Criminals” and “The People United Will Defend Immigrant Families!”

Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial

How do you feel President Trump is doing on the border and illegal immigration?

By completing the poll, you agree to receive emails from The Midwesterner, occasional offers from our partners and that you've read and agree to our privacy policy and legal statement.

“We’re still out here because we care enough (for) our community,” Gema Lowe, organizer for Movimento Cosecha GR, told WOOD. “We need to fight.”

“The fear is always there,” Lowe said. “Whoever’s in the White House is just another person that is getting us in fear. The fear of deportation is always there, regardless of who’s in power. We want that to end.”

Shortly after taking his oath as the 47th POTUS, Donald Trump on Monday launched what’s expected to be the largest deportation of immigrants in the country illegally in the history of the United States.

Through a series of executive orders, Trump revived policies from his first administration, including his Remain in Mexico policy and border wall construction, shut down a Biden-era app for incoming migrants, and moved to end birthright citizenship in some cases, The Associated Press reports.

Trump also declared a national emergency at the southern border, and vowed to use the “full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement” to go after cartels he designated as foreign terrorist organizations.

“All illegal entry will immediately be halted. And we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came,” Trump said in his inauguration speech. “We will reinstate my remain in Mexico policy. I will end the practice of catch and release. And I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country.”

Protestors in Grand Rapids with the Party for Socialism and Liberation told WXMI the event was intended to send a message to state and local leaders that they expect protections from Trump’s immigration enforcement.

“From the local authorities to the state authorities to declare this as Michigan in the state, in the city and the county a sanctuary, sanctuary for immigrants, so the police would not cooperate with ICE for any deportations,” Lowe said. “We want that to have permanent protection for everyone and undocumented workers, because there’s people here that been for more than 20 years contributing to society, working on those jobs that nobody else takes, working in harsh weather.”

“Our labor is needed, so our humanity needs to be respected,” she said.

The protest comes just months after previously deported illegal immigrant Brandon Ortiz-Vite, 26 was sentenced to 39 years in prison for the gruesome murder of Grand Rapids’ Ruby Garcia, 25.

Brandon Ortiz-Vite, who was deported by the Trump administration in 2020, shot and killed Garcia with an illegally purchased handgun before dumping her body alongside US-131 and fleeing in Garcia’s vehicle in March.

“I am a proud Mexican national whose actions have brought great shame and dishonor to our people,” he said at his sentencing, according to The Detroit News.

That murder followed another in Grand Rapids in May 2023 involving illegal immigrant Luis Bernal-Sosa, who gunned down the mother of his young child, 22-year-old Leah Gomez, while she was sitting in her car with the child in the back seat. Bernal-Sosa, also a Mexican national, was sentenced to life in prison with no option for parole in April.

Those murders are among many other heinous crimes committed by illegal immigrants in Michigan in just the last year, and served as examples cited by Trump of the consequences of Biden-Harris open border policies.

In July, previously deported illegal immigrant Severiano Marcos Maximo, 42, was deported again after pleading guilty to three felony charges for attempted criminal sexual conduct involving underage children.

The Mexican national, who was busted by a child predator task force in 2023, had crossed illegally into the U.S. on at least two separate occasions.

It was a similar situation for previously deported illegal immigrant Miguel Angel Aparicio-Navas, 36, who faced felony charges for multiple sexual assaults in Ann Arbor in recent years.

There’s also 25-year-old Miguel Hernandez-Ruiz, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who allegedly sexually assaulted two girls under the age of 13 after breaking into a mobile home in Sturgis in March.

Others in Michigan have lost their lives to illegal immigrants in deadly car crashes and hit-and-runs, including Dominican illegal immigrant Louis Angel Otanez-Castello, who was charged with multiple felonies after what police believe was an alcohol involved crash that killed 53-year-old Robert Delgado in Grand Rapids in May.

Michigan is home to several sanctuary cities and counties, which do not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions. They include Lansing, and the counties of Ingham, Kalamazoo, and Wayne, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The cities of Detroit and Ann Arbor also limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities, but have not officially designated themselves as sanctuaries, the news site reports.

The Center for Immigration Studies previously designated Kent County as a sanctuary jurisdiction, based on policies that hinder cooperation with ICE officials, but Kent County officials successfully petitioned to remove the designation amid public outrage over Ruby Garcia’s murder.

“The Kent County Sheriff’s Office is committed to transparency and collaboration with all law enforcement agencies, including ICE, to safeguard our community while upholding the highest standards of legal and ethical responsibility,” the department wrote in a statement in April.

Michigan Republicans introduced legislation to ban sanctuary jurisdictions last year, but were blocked by Democratic majorities in both chambers of the legislature. A new Republican House majority elected by voters in November has vowed to help the Trump administration carry out its immigration policies.