Federal immigration agents arrested three people in Dearborn on Saturday without telling local police first—and the department's chief is complaining about being kept in the dark, even though jurisdictions that refuse to cooperate with federal enforcement built that information wall with their own hands.
ICE and Homeland Security Investigations conducted the operation near Warren Avenue and Mead Street around 8 a.m. on Nov. 7, according to both MLive and the Detroit Free Press. The Dearborn Police Department learned about it only after the arrests were already done. Federal authorities have not provided the identities of those arrested or the reasons for their arrests.
Chief Issa Shahin issued the same statement to both outlets: "Communication between federal agencies and local law enforcement helps support public safety and ensures we can respond accurately to residents' questions and concerns. We encourage federal authorities to communicate with our department when conducting operations in our community."
The Free Press noted this isn't an isolated complaint. Last month, Canton police and Plymouth-Canton Community Schools said they received no advance notice of ICE activity near Hulsing Elementary School on Oct. 20, prompting officials to shelter students and staff in place for more than an hour. ICE's Detroit field office and DHS didn't respond to the Free Press's requests for comment on either incident.
What neither outlet bothered to mention is the obvious context: local jurisdictions across Michigan and the country have spent years adopting policies that limit or outright prohibit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. When you tell federal agents you won't assist them, you forfeit the right to act outraged when they stop coordinating with you. The information wall works both ways.
Neither ICE nor DHS has explained who was arrested Saturday or on what grounds. That is standard operational security when federal officers are working in jurisdictions where local officials can't be trusted not to compromise enforcement actions—or, at minimum, will turn them into political spectacles.
The Free Press framed the story as part of a pattern of local departments being "left out," while MLive kept its framing narrower, simply reporting the department's complaint without the Canton context. Both outlets presented Shahin's call for communication at face value, without asking why federal authorities would share operational details with departments that have structurally opposed their mission.
Shahin says his department will "continue seeking information" from federal authorities. A faster way to get it would be picking up the phone and cooperating with federal law enforcement in the first place.
