DETROIT - The Michigan Immigrant Rights Center (MIRC), ACLU of Michigan and U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib are calling on U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to end the detention and disappearance of people at the Ambassador Bridge. The group held a virtual press conference (see recording below) after learning that individuals and families were detained by CBP at the Ambassador Bridge in a setting not intended for long term detention. During these extended stays, individuals are not listed in the ICE detainee locator system and they are denied access to legal counsel and contact with family.
On March 21, U.S. Representative Rashida Tlaib visited the site where CBP has been holding people at the Ambassador Bridge facility to inspect the conditions. Her visit revealed that CBP had detained more than 210 people, including families, between January and March 2025. More than 90% of detainees arrived at the bridge by accident. Shockingly, one individual held at the detention site at the tunnel attempted suicide.
On March 8, MIRC’s client Sarahi was detained by CBP along with her two U.S. citizen children. They were held for five days in a windowless room without access to medical care, adequate food, and other essentials. She was not given the opportunity to call a lawyer or her Consulate.
Specifically, the advocates call for:
- An end to secret detention of people and families by CBP. Information should be immediately added to a detainee locator tool for CBP detention sites.
- An end to CBP sites used for long term detention. Facilities were not designed for this purpose.
- An end to family separation. Families should be released together under supervision, except in extraordinary circumstances.
- Transparency about detention of families, children, and U.S. citizen children.
- Congress must ensure oversight of immigration detention and demand restoration of the Department of Homeland Security oversight offices: Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (CRCL), Office of the Immigration Detention Ombudsman, and Office of the Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman.
- Passage of common sense legislation to ensure individuals have access to counsel and humane conditions in detention: Dignity for Detained Immigrants Act and Access to Counsel Act.
MIRC and the ACLU also sent a letter and public records request to CBP asking for detailed information about people held at the Ambassador Bridge (see letter below).
Ruby Robinson, Michigan Immigrant Rights Center Managing Attorney, had this response:
“CBP detention is a virtual black box with no way to know where people are or how long they have been in custody. Individuals are not being allowed to call anyone, including an attorney. Every person has the right to access legal counsel in every detention setting in the United States, and that must apply to people in CBP custody. No matter who you are or where you’re from, you deserve to be treated fairly and with dignity.”
Rashida Tlaib, U.S. Representative, had this response:
“A wrong turn at the border should not lead to disappearance. It is outrageously cruel and inhumane to hold families at our northern border. We can’t lose our soul as a country and stand by and let this happen to our neighbors. I urge everyone to vigilantly look out for one another, and continue to speak out against this lawless administration that is separating families and disappearing people.”
Miriam Aukerman, ACLU of Michigan senior staff attorney, had this response:
“It is a dangerous day when our nation is disappearing people and denying them their constitutional right to legal counsel and due process. It is naïve to think that if we tolerate such incommunicado detention and disappearances for non-citizens, the government won’t start doing the same thing to citizens. We demand transparency and oversight from our government. CBP needs to come clean about how many families and children have been held at the northern border, and it must immediately stop detaining them. Families belong together, and they belong in the community, not behind bars.”
Find the recording of the virtual press conference and press release here.
Find notes from Rep. Tlaib’s visit here.
Find the FOIA letter to U.S. CBP here.
Find the letter re: detention of families here.