Pro-immigrant rally held during Trump’s visit to Grand Rapids

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — As former President Donald Trump visited Grand Rapids to criticize President Joe Biden’s immigration policies and blame them for an increase in crime, local immigration activists and Democrats derided his comments.

Movimiento Cosecha Grand Rapids held a pro-immigrant rally at Rosa Parks Circle downtown, not far from DeVos Place Convention Center, where Trump held his event.

Former President Trump talks immigration in Grand Rapids

A couple dozen people attended the rally, which started around 1 p.m. Organizers displayed a sign that said “End family separation; Michigan welcomes immigrants; Permanent protection, dignity & respect.” Attendees carried signs that said things like “No one is illegal,” and “Dignity for undocumented immigrants.”

In both English and Spanish, the speaker, Gemma, called for Michigan to issue driver’s licenses regardless of immigration status, saying that is the organization’s main effort right now.

The event included a moment of silence for Ruby Garcia.

“Thank you for remembering a young life that was taken from our community too quick,” Gemma said.

Authorities say Garcia was killed by Brandon Ortiz-Vite. The Kent County prosecutor has said it was a case of domestic abuse that led to homicide. Ortiz-Vite came to the U.S. illegally as a child and remained for years under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump took credit for deporting Ortiz-Vite in 2020, after his DACA status lapsed in 2019. Ortiz-Vite later returned to the U.S. illegally, though it’s unclear exactly when.

Gemma condemned those who used Garcia’s death to reinforce anti-immigrant sentiments.

“The candidate, now-ex-President Trump, comes to our city to enhance the anti-immigrant rhetoric and the hate to our community,” she said. “It is a tragic event where a young life was lost, allegedly killed by an immigrant, does not represent our community. One incident in the thousands and millions of people of immigrants that come here to do the jobs that nobody else does in this country is what we need to hear and represents our community.”

“As human beings, as people, that we’re here to contribute to this society,” she continued. “That we demand that people look at us as a human being, as a person, that contributes with labor, with our consumption, with our taxes, with everything that the immigrant community represents.”

Kent County Commissioner Ivan Diaz, a Democrat, was at the rally to support the immigrant community.

“Unfortunately, we have seen that many people in elected offices, in those aspiring to political office, are taking advantage of a tragedy here in the Grand Rapids area to advance their political interests,” Diaz said.

After Gemma spoke, demonstrators marched through downtown Grand Rapids to the convention center, where they led pro-immigrant chants across from street from the Trump supporters.

“We’re Christians, we’re Catholic, we believe that everyone is equal in God’s eyes,” Catherine Kleinebreile of metro Grand Rapids, who demonstrated with the pro-immigrant group, said. “We’re all from somewhere else. Our ancestors, unless we’re Native American, and I’m not … our ancestors came from somewhere else. And we were immigrants at one point, and some of us were refugees, I assume, at one point. And at that time, the United States was open to having people come, and now they aren’t so much. So we’d like to go back to the way it was.”

DEMOCRATIC LAWMAKERS: TRUMP IS ‘ABOUT DIVISION’

On Tuesday morning, three Democratic lawmakers from Michigan held a news conference in which they characterized Trump as divisive.

“Let me just start today really underscoring the fact that Ruby Garcia’s death was a horrible tragedy. And so is every life taken by violence, including domestic violence, regardless of who commits the crime. Period,” U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow said. “But unfortunately, Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are hell-bent on exploiting Ruby’s death for their own politics. Frankly, I think it’s shameful.”

“As Trump goes, so go Michigan Republicans. From claiming a bus carrying Gonzaga’s men’s basketball team was an invasion of immigrants, to callously invoking Hiroshima and Nagasaki when talking about Gaza, to trying to make the death of Ruby Garcia about immigration and fear instead of domestic violence. Donald Trump is always about division instead of unity,” state Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks of Grand Rapids said, criticizing Trump’s stance on abortion and his policies that “created incentives to ship Michigan manufacturing jobs overseas.”

“Donald Trump is coming to Grand Rapids to do what he does best: divide, distract and fearmonger instead of doing something to address real issues that matter to our country,” said U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens of southeastern Michigan.

Why Trump’s alarmist message on immigration may be resonating beyond his base

Stabenow blamed Trump for the failure of a bipartisan border security proposal in February.

“Senate Democrats and Republicans worked together for months to negotiate a tough border security bill, the first bipartisan bill in 20 years. And we had the votes to pass it, right up until the last minute,” Stabenow said. “Then Trump decided he didn’t want us to pass it because he thinks chaos at the border will help his campaign. So he got the MAGA Republicans to kill the bill.”

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