Pro-Palestinian protestors at the University of Michigan Encampment led by the TAHRIR Coalition. Since November 17, 2023, over 50 demonstrators have been arrested at the behest of the University Board of Regents and State Attorney General Dana Nessel. YPSILANTI, MI—FBI agents and Michigan State Police conducted early morning raids this week targeting pro-Palestinian activists in Washtenaw County on Wednesday.
At least five residences in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, and Canton were searched, with activists detained and electronic devices confiscated—actions denounced as political repression and attempts to cripple free speech. The raids began around 8:00 a.m. with officers detaining multiple individuals, including a member of the Graduate Employees’ Organization (GEO) Local 3550, the University of Michigan’s graduate workers’ union. Dawud Walid, Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations–Michigan Chapter, said, “We call into question the aggressive nature of this morning’s raids of activists’ homes, which follows the recent misuse of prosecutorial power in Michigan and throughout our country against pro-Palestinian activists.
“This disproportionate response further fuels the perception that Muslim and Arab students, and those who stand in solidarity with them, are being treated in a hostile manner by law enforcement compared to those who commit harm toward American Muslims.” The TAHRIR Coalition, a pro-Palestinian campus organization leading the campaign to divest the University of Michigan’s $18 billion endowment from Israeli and pro-war industries, said in a statement that law enforcement officers confiscated electronics and detained and questioned two activists at an Ann Arbor residence before they were released. At an Ypsilanti residence, FBI agents, local and state police raided the home of several activists. Law enforcement refused to show warrants before using a battering ram to break open the door, taking personal belongings and electronics, and handcuffing three people who were later released.
TAHRIR said an additional residence was raided in Canton by local police, but no none was detained. No probable cause was given on any of the judicial warrants eventually provided, all of which were signed by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel. Several hours after the morning raids, Danny Whimmer, a spokesperson for the Attorney General, told MLIVE that the search warrants were related to an “ongoing vandalism investigation.” The TAHRIR Coalition condemned the raids as an escalation against protesters opposing Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
The coalition, which includes Jewish Voice for Peace U Mich, and GEO, accused Dana Nessel of greenlighting the crackdown. “These raids are an attempt to intimidate and silence dissent,” said GEO in a statement. “We demand an end to the repression of political activism and call on university administrators and Nessel to stop endangering students and workers.” Authorities have not disclosed the reason for the raids, leaving activists and civil rights groups demanding transparency.
As of Wednesday evening, no charges had been filed, but the seizures of devices and personal items again raised concerns about repression of anti-war organizing. In a collective statement, the Jewish Voice For Peace chapters in Michigan called on universities to “take action to protect their students and community members” and to “defend free speech and the right to protest which are under attack from an authoritarian regime.” None of the raids that happened yesterday were at the houses of any of the activists who have already been charged. Activists at UMich who spoke to People’s World under anonymity said that this move is “a clear escalation and expansion to build a new, and probably bigger case” against the ceasefire activists and the broader Palestinian solidarity movement.
Charges 11 people Last September, Nessel criminally charged 11 people who were involved in pro-ceasefire demonstrations at the University of Michigan earlier that year. Seven people face felony charges of obstructing a police officer, punishable under current prosecuting standards by up to two years in prison. Four others were charged with misdemeanors.
The Michigan District of the Communist Party USA called on people to contact Nessel’s office to demand she drop the “bogus charges.” “We view this as an outrageous breach of our Constitution, including the rights to free speech and assembly. This action is part of the capitalist class’s general drive towards anti-democratic, reactionary policies that seek to demoralize and criminalize democratic peoples’ movements against fascism and war,” the party said in a statement. Further charges were levied against anti-war protesters in January of this year, when three people were charged in connection to a die-in protest on the University of Michigan’s Diag at the start of the academic year, two of whom were charged with felonies.
Liz Jacob, an attorney at the Sugar Law Center for Economic and Social Justice, said Attorney General Nessel’s “irresponsible conduct has already endangered Michigan residents, putting them in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant and anti-democratic assaults.” Furthermore, the lawyer representing one of the protestors charged with felonies, Amir Makled, was detained and his phone was searched by the Tactical Terrorism Response Team of the TSA earlier this year after returning from a family trip to the Dominican Republic. “The purpose of searching my phone doesn’t have anything to do with terrorism, there’s only a chilling effect, and it’s done to be intimidating, in my opinion, for the causes that I was engaging in,” Makled said. “I’m standing up for students.
I’m standing up for immigrants and political dissenters. And I think this was a way to try to dissuade me from taking on these types of cases.” The intensified crackdown on pro-Palestine activists under the second Trump administration is nationwide, with labor leaders, elected officials, and activists alerting to the attack on free speech, due process, and the right to assemble. In Boston, Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts University graduate student and SEIU Local 509 member, was seized by federal agents while on her way to break her Ramadan fast shortly after writing a pro-Palestine op-ed in her student newspaper.
In New York, Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and UAW Local 2710 member, was targeted for protesting Israel’s assault on Gaza in front of his pregnant wife. In March, Columbia University expelled the president of the graduate student union, Grant Miner, on the eve of contract negotiations. Their union, UAW Local 2710, like the GEO at UMich, was deeply involved in the Palestine solidarity movement on campus.
“Let us be clear: this is an attack on our basic freedoms and a move designed to intimidate those who dare to speak out against genocide against the Palestinian people,” Brandon Mancilla, UAW Region 9A Director said. Brandon Chew contributed material for this story. CONTRIBUTOR Cameron Harrison Cameron Harrison is a trade union activist and organizer for the CPUSA Labor Commission.
He also works as a Labor Education Coordinator for the People Before Profits Education Fund.
