When Christine Bell looks for help for Detroit’s immigrant families, the city’s immigrant affairs office is rarely the first place she turns.
“It doesn’t feel like the city has had a plan around what you do for immigrant populations,” said Bell, executive director of Urban Neighborhood Initiatives, a community nonprofit based in Southwest Detroit.
Bell said her organization has taken matters into its own hands — training staff and teaming up with local groups to support youth, from legal aid to bilingual healthcare.
“The city is not a place that I think about going to for those types of services,” she said. “It’s not been a consistent office — there is (little) staffing, and so they’re not coming out and talking to people.”
In recent months, local groups have renewed calls for Detroit to become a sanctuary city, release high schoolers under federal custody, and end police collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Central to those demands is a push to reinvest in the city’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and Economic Inclusion.
“I see the office as an office in name, not really in function,” said Gabriela Santiago-Romero, councilmember for District 6. “It lacks the resources and support that it needs to actually support our immigrant communities.”
‘The voice of immigrants’
The immigrant affairs office has helped resettle refugees. But Santiago-Romero said it could do more to support residents “in their daily needs to really help them integrate more with the city.”
“It’s things like finding affordable housing, finding a job, being able to read city documents, and making sure that language access ordinance that we passed is being enforced. And if it’s not, they (should) have a champion in the Office of Immigrant Affairs to go to the water department and say, ‘Hey, these documents that you sent over to the residents are not in Arabic. They need to be.’”
Foreign-born residents make up 8% of Detroit’s population — roughly 54,000 residents — hailing from all parts of the world, especially Latin America and Asia.
“It’s really wonderful when the community pushes for a thing,” Santiago-Romero said. But the office “completely lacked the money, the staff, the goals for things to actually be met.”
Detroit opened an office department to serve immigrants in 2015 after advocates urged the city to do more for its growing migrant population. In its early years, the office made some headway: drafting a refugee resettlement plan, working with City Council’s Immigration Task Force to create a city ID card, and providing stimulus funds to undocumented migrants.
Still, funding has remained limited and inconsistent over its 10-year history. The Office of Immigrant Affairs and Economic Inclusion operates with just over $519,000 and three staff positions. Mayor Mary Sheffield’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year cuts that by 7%.
City officials also moved the office into a newly created Department of Human, Homeless and Family Services, led by Luke Shaefer. In his first public remarks as chief executive, Shaefer said addressing immigration enforcement at school and workplaces is a “top priority.” He added that the administration is reviewing policies and approaches other cities have taken.
At the time, Sheffield’s Chief of Staff David Bowser said the office is “supposed to be the voice of immigrants in this city,” and that the administration will seek public input as it builds out new programs.
In March, the city named Freedom House Detroit CEO Elizabeth Orozco-Vasquez to lead the office, citing her experience “identifying and creating systems to help dismantle barriers” for refugees and asylum seekers.
Orozco-Vasquez said her work is shaped by her own experience translating for her mother and navigating city services after her family moved to the U.S. from Mexico.
“What if the barriers weren’t there?” she said. “What if we could make it more accessible, whether through language services or making sure that, whenever we could, not asking questions that might disqualify someone unnecessarily or make them afraid to even apply.”
A month into her tenure with the city, the longtime Southwest Detroit resident said she’s focused on learning about city programs, listening to residents and identifying opportunities for philanthropic support.
In a statement, Santiago-Romero said she was “excited to work with” Orozco-Vasquez.
“During a time when our immigrant neighbors are living in our city in fear — afraid to go to school, work, purchase groceries, or visit the doctor — the need for a director of the Office of Immigrant Affairs and Economic Inclusion cannot be overstated,” Santiago-Romero said.
Living ‘in the shadows’
Seydi Sarr, founder of ABISA, spends much of her time supporting Detroit’s West African community and helping asylum seekers prepare for immigration court hearings.
She recently mobilized support for the release of Mor Ba, a 19-year-old student at Western International High School arrested by ICE in November. A fundraiser to pay his $10,000 bond allowed him to return home in January.
At least five Detroit teens have been detained by federal immigration agents since the start of Trump’s second presidency.
Without stronger leadership from the city, Sarr said many people will continue living “in the shadows.”
“I’m hoping that this new administration is not going to shy away from really supporting the community,” she said. “There’s a lot of times where immigrant communities are being asked to hush, to hide, because they are afraid that if they are too visible, then the city is now going to be a target of” the Trump administration.
Sarr said the immigrant affairs office could help residents advocate for migrants in detention, and connect undocumented and asylum-seeking residents with Detroiters who can assist.
“We need community letters of support that are saying ‘we need this man, he is a good person, and we are sending this letter of good moral character,’” she said. “Because they’re asking for harder proof of (immigrants) being anchored in the community.”
Cindy Gamboa is the executive director of MI Poder, which promotes civic and political engagement among Latinx Michiganders. She said stronger language access across city departments — along with legal assistance for residents navigating immigration court — would benefit the entire city.
The group joined a coalition that pushed for a $1 million legal defense fund for Detroiters detained by immigration authorities. The proposal was not included in the final city budget.
“Our community is under attack, and the legal resources are scarce,” Gamboa said. “Even lawyers can’t keep up with the demand.”
Bell, of Urban Neighborhood Initiatives, said even modest improvements would signal change.
“What I’d love to see the city do is translate documents,” she said. “If they could get that right this year, I would throw a frickin’ party.”
