All posts tagged "michigan"

These states avoided ICE as Trump eyes a bigger prize

Last month it was Greenland. This month it’s Nevada’s election. Donald Trump’s always trying to grab something he has no right to grab.

One way Trump could help assure Republicans retain their grasp of both the House and Senate would be to do something about the cost of living.

But affordability obviously bores him.

So instead of focusing on that, Trump has been bloviating about how he wants to “nationalize the voting” and take charge of elections in multiple states.

“We should take over the voting in at least 15 places,” he said.

He hasn’t named all of them. But you know Nevada’s on his list.

It always is.

Trump began trying — by lying — to undermine democracy in Nevada and discredit the state’s election procedures (and workers) during the 2020 campaign, when it dawned on him that Joe Biden would beat him in Nevada, just as Hillary Clinton beat him in Nevada in 2016.

Trump’s been attacking Nevada voters and their elections ever since, most infamously by organizing an attempted smash and grab on Jan. 6, 2021. The criminal assault on the Capitol was an attack on democracy and the rights of voters in the entire nation. But the voters most directly violated by Trump’s insurrection were voters in Nevada and the six other states where Trump ordered fake electors to send fake certificates to Congress. It was the votes from those states that Trump tried to nullify.

Currently Nevada is one of the states Trump’s weaponized and paradoxically named Department of Justice is suing and badgering to obtain confidential data about voters. It’s part of Trump’s effort to intimidate officials into disenfranchising voters who might be deemed not reliably MAGA by Trump minions.

In the hands of the Trump administration, the data of course would also be bitterly twisted through lies and deceit into false allegations built around one of Trump’s favorite fictional characters, the mythical non-citizen voter.

In addition to whipping up fear and loathing among one part of America for the other, DOJ harassment of Nevada also is a malicious effort to throw more shade on an election system Trump has spent years trying — and lying —so hard to destroy.

In his bellowing this week about wanting to “nationalize” the elections, Trump is echoing a performance he gave for a few news cycles in August. Announcing he was going to get rid of mail ballots — a declaration he said was inspired by one of his flirty chats with Vladimir Putin, no less — Trump said on Truth Social:

“…the States are merely an ‘agent’ for the Federal Government in counting and tabulating the votes. They must do what the Federal Government, as represented by the President of the United States, tells them, FOR THE GOOD OF OUR COUNTRY, to do.”

Trump’s proclamation, rendered in his customary off-with-their-heads Queen-of-Hearts dramatics, prompted state election officials, including Nevada’s, to point out that the Constitution of the United States explicitly empowers states to administer elections.

You might expect a governor to be protective of rights authorized to states in the Constitution — as a former Nevada Republican governor, Brian Sandoval, was this week.

“Nevada has the capability and experience to conduct elections in every county, and I trust our state is best equipped to collect ballots, count votes and certify our elections,” Sandoval said, in his capacity as co-chair of Democracy Defense Project in Nevada.

Current Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo, by contrast, said nothing.

To be fair, for Lombardo, when it comes to protecting his state from Trump, saying nothing might be an improvement.

During Trump’s holy war against mail ballots last summer, in which Trump was declaring states “must do” whatever he says, Lombardo gushed “I would — of course — support President Trump’s efforts to end universal mail-in voting.”

“Ooh, but Lombardo must be Trump-whispering and that’s the only reason ICE isn’t going bonkers in Nevada like it has been in Minnesota,” is a thing people seem to think.

Maybe so, maybe no.

It’s worth noting there has also been no Minnesota-style ICE “surge” in Arizona, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or North Carolina. All are battleground states like Nevada, some with substantial immigrant populations, none with a Republican governor.

Also worth noting: though the first year of Trump’s second term seems to have been very, very long, he’s got three more.

And yet another thing worth noting is a statement Tuesday by Steve Bannon, a member of Trump’s shadow cabinet of right-wing media personalities who seem to have as much sway with the president as his official cabinet of, well, right-wing media personalities:

“You’re damn right we’re gonna have ICE surround the polls come November.”

Trump’s role models are not just autocratic kleptocrats (or kleptocratic autocrats) but mob bosses, so he threatened to take Greenland “the easy way” or “the hard way.”

Greenland, Denmark, and the other NATO nations stood up to him, and he declared a phony victory and backed off.

Standing up to Trump can work, as Europe, China, Brazil, the Wall Street Journal, Jerome Powell, Harvard, and Minnesota, to name a few, have demonstrated.

Sucking up to Trump is pointless, because he can’t be trusted.

Not only is there no guarantee that sucking up to Trump works. It’s also unforgivable public policy.

Whatever consideration Trump gives to international relations, tariffs, interest rates, snooty universities, or whatever other shiny object momentarily attracts his diminishing faculties, the central issue that has always been dearest in his heart — a priority both overriding and underlying the actions and edicts of His Malevolence — is democracy’s destruction.

If he’s allowed to accomplish that, then destroying other things — Congress, the courts, the Constitution, the press, your freedom, your rights, your savings, your safety — and attaining supreme authority over the U.S. (or what’s left of it) comes easy.

Hugh Jackson is editor of the Nevada Current, part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Swing-state Republicans just clearly signaled Trump's next ICE target

Before Michigan ever sees federal officers flood our streets, before another video shocks the conscience, the warning signs are already here — and they are coming from inside our own state government.

As Michigan Advance reported last week, a group of Michigan House Republicans has now openly threatened the funding of state courts if the Michigan Supreme Court adopts a rule that would have the effect of limiting most immigration arrests in courthouses.

In other words, lawmakers are signaling that judicial independence itself is conditional and that courts will be punished for attempting to protect basic access to justice.

This is not a side issue. It is the canary in the coal mine.

Courts are where people go to comply with the law. Threatening to turn those spaces into traps, or to defund them for refusing to do so, is not about public safety or “law and order.” It is about coercion. And it tells us exactly how unprepared Michigan Republicans are to meet a moment when federal power is increasingly exercised without restraint.

That context matters, because the apparent murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis should end any lingering illusion that what is happening elsewhere cannot happen here. Video evidence shows Pretti stepping in to help two women who were being maced by federal immigration officers. For that act, he was set upon by officers, beaten and disarmed of a weapon he was legally licensed to carry. All evidence indicates he never brandished that gun, but at least one federal agent shot him to death.

Whatever euphemisms are offered in the days ahead, what the public saw was not restraint. It was escalation. And it should force a reckoning well beyond Minneapolis.

Michigan must be ready to respond to a similar surge by the Trump administration here.

Ready does not mean issuing statements after the fact. Ready means our leaders deciding now where they will stand, and what they will do, when federal power arrives without restraint and demands compliance.

The hardest question for our leaders is also the most personal: Are we prepared, like Alex Pretti, to place their bodies between what has clearly become an unrestrained mob and our fellow citizens?

That question isn’t rhetorical. It’s a measure of civic courage, and it does not apply only to people in the street. It applies to those in office, those with badges, and those with microphones.

This is where the threat to court funding becomes impossible to ignore. When Michigan Republicans threaten to kneecap the judiciary for resisting ICE arrests in courthouses, they are not merely posturing. They are laying the groundwork for complacency. They are signaling that when federal abuses come, they will not defend the institutions meant to check them — they will discipline those institutions instead.

This from the same crowd that incessantly intones that immigrants must “follow the law” and “come here the right way.” Arresting people in courtrooms, a place they have come specifically to follow the law, exposes the lie at the heart of the so-called law and order movement.

If compliance becomes the danger, then law and order has nothing to do with justice and everything to do with intimidation.

But this moment does not give Democrats an automatic pass. Opposition cannot be selective or symbolic. Sen. Elissa Slotkin has said she will not vote to fund the Department of Homeland Security when the issue comes up later this week. That is good to hear. It shows awareness of the stakes. But it must be the starting point, not the entirety of the response.

Michigan faces a choice. We can tell ourselves the killing of Alex Pretti was an aberration, or we can acknowledge the reality in front of us: federal power escalating without restraint, and political leaders here seemingly preparing to excuse it.

Threatening to defund the courts is not a warning sign — it is the decision itself.

Michigan’s leaders will either defend the rule of law before it is broken here, or they will help normalize its collapse.

Silence will not be mistaken for neutrality. It will be remembered as consent.

Jon King is the Michigan Advance’s editor-in-chief, having previously served as the outlet's senior reporter, covering education, elections and LGBTQ+ issues. King has been a journalist for more than 35 years and is the Past President of the Michigan Associated Press Media Editors Association who has been recognized for excellence numerous times, most recently in 2022 with the Best Investigative Story by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Cleary University. Jon and his family live in Howell. Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Media, take note: this is how you hold Trump to account over Epstein

For three seconds on the floor of a Ford Motor Co. plant in Dearborn, a solitary autoworker did what the political establishment has largely failed to do for three months: remind the country exactly who its president is.

As Michigan Advance reported, when Donald Trump walked through the facility Tuesday, a worker in a now-viral video shouted that Trump was a “pedophile protector,” a reference to the president’s long-running ties to Jeffrey Epstein and the still-unresolved question of why the full Epstein files have not been released.

Trump’s response wasn’t denial, reflection or restraint. He flipped off that Ford employee, since identified as 40-year-old TJ Sabula, a line worker and member of UAW Local 600.

That moment — crude, unpresidential and unmistakable — cut through weeks of both-sides noise and strategic silence. In one exchange, the country saw the same man it has seen for nearly a decade: thin-skinned, angry at accountability, and hostile to anyone who challenges him, especially working people.

And then Sabula was suspended.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), whose district includes many Ford workers, confirmed what Ford itself would not say publicly: Sabula was suspended immediately after the incident.

Tlaib didn’t mince words about what that decision said.

She expressed shock that Ford would punish a worker for stating something “factually true,” while saying nothing about a president who responded by flipping off one of their own employees.

“He’s the president of the United States and he did that,” Tlaib told me in a phone interview Tuesday night. “But they say nothing, and they punish him for speaking up … for survivors.”

That’s the part that should linger. This wasn’t just a heckle. Sabula’s comment went to the heart of a question that refuses to go away: why Trump’s Department of Justice has failed to follow the law and fully release the Epstein files, and why so many powerful people seem determined to let the issue fade.

Tlaib made that connection explicit, noting that the Epstein matter has slipped from headlines even as survivors and advocates continue asking when they’ll get justice.

There certainly has been a lot to be distracted by, whether it’s the killing of an unarmed mother of three in Minneapolis, a military incursion into Venezuela to depose its leader or threats to invade a staunch NATO ally’s territory.

But Sabula wasn’t distracted.

That’s what makes this moment so damning. For months, Republicans have tiptoed around Epstein, issuing vague statements about “process” and “transparency,” while refusing to say plainly what millions of Americans already believe: that Trump’s DOJ is obstructing accountability, and that the failure to release the files protects powerful men, not survivors.

Instead, it took an autoworker, with no press staff, pollsters or protective bubble, to say it out loud, at personal cost.

In doing so, Sabula exposed more than Trump’s ingrained cruelty. He exposed Ford’s priorities.

As Tlaib pointed out, Ford planned the visit, brought Trump onto the factory floor and failed to give workers a heads-up. They placed employees in a volatile situation with a deeply divisive president and then acted shocked when someone exercised their First Amendment rights.

Ford could have hosted Trump at headquarters. They could have limited his access. They could have coordinated with the UAW, which Tlaib noted has historically been involved in presidential visits but notably was not part of this one.

Instead, they made a choice, and then punished the worker who bore the consequences.

That choice sends a message. As Tlaib put it, it tells workers that standing up for sexual assault survivors is a firable offense, while accommodating power is corporate policy. It suggests a company more concerned with pleasing a president than protecting the people who build its cars.

It also reveals how normalized Trump’s behavior has become. A president flipping off a factory worker should be a national scandal. Instead, the fallout landed almost entirely on the person without power.

This is why those three seconds mattered.

They cut through the noise and reminded us that Trump, as well as his administration, still treats accountability as a personal insult. But it also means that institutions — from the DOJ to Fortune 500 companies — still bend to protect him.

Tlaib hopes the public will protect Sabula, noting the real risks he now faces for speaking out. She’s right.

We shouldn’t let a factory worker carry alone what should be a collective demand: release the Epstein files, follow the law, and stop punishing truth-tellers to appease an angry president.

For three seconds, America was reminded who Donald Trump is.

And it took a union member and working stiff to do it.

Jon King is the Michigan Advance’s editor-in-chief, having previously served as the outlet's senior reporter, covering education, elections and LGBTQ+ issues. King has been a journalist for more than 35 years and is the Past President of the Michigan Associated Press Media Editors Association who has been recognized for excellence numerous times, most recently in 2022 with the Best Investigative Story by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Cleary University. Jon and his family live in Howell.
Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

Trump warned factory floor meltdown will haunt GOP: 'That'll definitely appear in Dem ads'

A group of political experts warned Wednesday that President Donald Trump's reaction to an auto worker at a factory this week could have repercussions ahead of the midterms.

Trump was visiting a Ford factory in Dearborn, Michigan when worker TJ Sabula reportedly yelled "pedophile protector" at the president who was walking in the warehouse above a group of workers. Sabula has since been suspended from his job at the factory.

In a video capturing the moment, Trump mouthed back — twice — "F--- you!" He pointed his finger at Sabula below him, then he switched to giving his middle finger directed at him.

During a live broadcast Wednesday with CNN anchor Kasie Hunt, former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned Trump that his expletive response, and finger, could have a backlash on Republicans already weary ahead of the upcoming midterms this November.

"Let's talk politics. Don't flip off an auto worker in Michigan with the midterms coming," de Blasio said.

Alyssa Farah Griffin, former Press Secretary of the Department of Defense, also had a similar sentiment, adding "that will definitely appear in Democratic ads."

Sinister GOP blueprint laid bare by these shameless red-staters

Let’s be blunt: Michigan Republicans, like their counterparts nationally, are no longer merely questioning elections. They are actively seeking to undermine them.

Their latest maneuvers, calling for federal intervention by baselessly smearing Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s ability to fairly oversee elections to cheering President Donald Trump’s pardons of the state’s alleged false electors, reveal a party more invested in manufacturing distrust than in protecting democracy.

Put together, these moves are not isolated issues. They form a strategy: cast doubt, sow suspicion, and demand federal oversight, all the while shifting focus from governance to grievance.

'Conflict of interest' gambit

On Thursday, GOP leaders in the Michigan Legislature demanded that the U.S. Department of Justice step in and monitor the state’s 2026 elections because Benson might have a personal political stake — she’s running for governor — and therefore cannot be trusted to run elections impartially.

But those who know how our elections work also know Michigan has a deeply decentralized system administered across 1,600+ local jurisdictions and that electoral oversight is routinely conducted with bipartisan monitors and observers.

What’s happening here is not about transparency, it’s about casting suspicion.

Rather than offering credible evidence of wrongdoing, these Republicans are demanding a federal takeover of state elections under the guise of “protecting fairness.”

That is opposite the principle of local control and further erodes public confidence.

The optics of a state handing over election control to Washington, D.C., are antithetical to stated conservative principles valuing states’ rights over those not explicitly delineated to the federal government.

Pardons of false electors

Furthering this attempt to undermine elections were the October pardons by Trump of 16 Michigan Republicans who allegedly signed on as a false slate of electors in 2020 in an effort to overturn the certified election results in the state.

The pardons, which were wholly unnecessary after the charges were dismissed, undercuts faith in the very system Republicans insist they are defending.

It is breathtakingly hypocritical.

Keep in mind that the Republicans charged in the false elector case were not exonerated. After having sat through hours of testimony in the case, it was clear to me that the evidence showed an attempt to try and overturn Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.

But a poorly handled investigation and an overreaching prosecution ultimately left the judge little choice but to reject the charges.

When you pardon those who seemingly tried to subvert the system and were already cleared of any consequences, how do you then credibly say you’re working to protect the system?

Why this matters

The integrity of elections is built by process, by transparency, and by predictable rules. In that regard, Michigan is among the best, having been ranked second in the nation for election administration in 2024 by the Elections Performance Index.

Released by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, the report scored Michigan at 88 percent on the index, second only to New Mexico, which also scored 88 percent.

The report noted Michigan had shorter wait times for voters, far fewer registration and absentee ballot issues than the national average and a much lower rate of unreturned mail ballots. Michigan was also higher than the national average in both voter turnout (59.3 percent compared to 47.5 percent nationally) and voter registration (91 percent compared to 84 percent nationally).

Yet now, Republicans lawmakers seem fixated not on improving how we vote but on how they can discredit how we vote.

When political actors sow doubt in elections without credible evidence, they are not engaging in oversight — they are delegitimizing democracy.

When they then demand federal intervention in a state process because they don’t like the referee, they are undermining the system of state-run elections that the U.S. Constitution guarantees.

State Republicans’ relentless refusal to accept the basic legitimacy of our voting system aren’t signs of vigilance: they’re warnings.

If we continue down a path where power matters more than truth and sabotage masquerades as oversight, then the greatest threat to Michigan’s elections won’t come from foreign actors or technical glitches — it will come from those who claim to defend democracy while dismantling it from within.

Jon King is the Michigan Advance’s editor-in-chief, having previously served as the outlet's senior reporter, covering education, elections and LGBTQ+ issues. King has been a journalist for more than 35 years and is the Past President of the Michigan Associated Press Media Editors Association who has been recognized for excellence numerous times, most recently in 2022 with the Best Investigative Story by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Cleary University. Jon and his family live in Howell. Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.

This state shows the grim truth behind Trump's jobs claims

Michigan’s economy has been slowing over the past year, but its jobs picture may be far gloomier than the much-watched monthly reports have indicated.

Newly revised numbers show that Michigan actually lost 13,800 jobs in the 12 months ending in March, instead of the 25,900 jobs reportedly created in the period.

“It was an ouch,” said Gabe Ehrlich, director of the University of Michigan’s Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics.

The preliminary benchmark revision by the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows there were 911,000 fewer U.S. jobs created in the 12 months ending in March than reported in the closely watched monthly figures. It was the largest preliminary revision by the bureau in records going back to 2000 and cut U.S. job growth in the period in half.

Michigan had 39,700 jobs wiped out in the revision, the third most in the country behind North Carolina (56,900) and Colorado (51,200). Most of those lost jobs — 31,300 — came out of metro Detroit.

But the revision added 26,800 jobs to metro Grand Rapids. That was the highest-percentage jobs jump among metro areas with populations of one million or more.

The revision covered the last nine months of President Joseph Biden’s administration and most of the first three months of President Donald Trump’s administration. It didn’t provide monthly overestimates.

Ehrlich, who has been forecasting Michigan’s economy for years, cautioned that the final benchmark revision could reveal a smaller loss when it’s tabulated early next year, as has happened in the past.

And monthly BLS data show that Michigan has added 21,300 payroll jobs since March.

The conflicting numbers illustrate how difficult it is to understand what’s happening in a state economy being roiled by Trump’s chaotic tariff and trade policies and the recently passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

In its latest Michigan economic forecast this month, Ehrlich and his U-M colleagues took the unusual step of not estimating state government revenues for the next two years because of the unknown impact of the new federal tax-and-spending law.

“We believe there are important open questions about how these changes will interact with state revenue collections, and that these changes likely represent the largest updates to our outlook for state revenues since May,” the forecast said. “We expect to issue an updated full report and analysis with our November forecast.”

Their September outlook shows continued payroll job growth over the next two years, although at a much slower pace than the past several years. The state is expected to add 13,700 jobs next year and 12,100 in 2027, down from 38,700 this year.

But Ehrlich said he’s concerned about the state’s shrinking labor force. Employers added 5,000 jobs in August, according to the monthly report from the state Department of Technology, Management and Budget released earlier this month.

But the same report showed that 7,000 fewer people were employed than in July and that 14,000 people dropped out of the labor force last month. August’s state jobless rate fell slightly from 5.3 percent in July to 5.2 percent in August, mostly because of workers holding or seeking jobs.

“All I can say is that this month’s report is a real head-scratcher,” Ehrlich told me, adding that people shouldn’t “over-interpret” one month’s data.

But the labor force has been shrinking for five straight months and is down by 38,000 working-age adults since March.

And jobs are getting harder to find in Michigan. There were 1.44 unemployed people in the state for every available job in June, the highest level in five years.

A major part of the data confusion is the yawning gap between reported payroll jobs created by businesses and a separate household survey that determines the unemployment rate.

That’s not unusual in an uncertain, declining economy. Economists generally put more stock in the payroll numbers reported by businesses. But Ehrlich said this time what working people are reporting in government surveys might paint a more accurate picture of the job market.

“What we see right now is that the household survey may be mostly right,” Ehrlich said. “It’s tough to know.”

And it’s getting tougher, thanks to the Trump administration’s assault on the BLS, which collects a variety of crucial jobs and economic data.

In August, Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer following a weak jobs report. Trump claimed, without evidence, that the BLS rigged the jobs numbers to make him look bad.

(Just wondering: if McEntarfer, aJoe Biden appointee, was cooking the books to hurt Trump, why would she have approved the big jobs revision that diminishes Biden’s record?)

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has kept up the attack, saying the jobs numbers won’t be accurate until key people hired in Democratic administrations are purged from the agency.

Ehrlich said he still has confidence in the BLS, which he called “an unappreciated gem,” but he and other economists say data collection can be improved.

Part of the problem is that initial response rates from businesses and households have been declining since Covid, leading to big revisions as more data is collected.

“The BLS is doing the best job it can,” Ehrlich told me. “It’s a challenging job and there’s always room to improve. The resources have not been there to do that.”

It’s easier for Trump to blame the data rather than his own destructive policies, which are killing jobs, raising prices, stalling business investment and souring consumers.

Rick Haglund writes the "Micheconomy" column for the Michigan Advance. He's a former reporter and business columnist for Booth Newspapers, now the MLive Media Group, with extensive experience covering Michigan’s economy and the auto industry. He now works as a freelance writer based in Southeast Michigan.

Can Harris win back Michigan's crucial Muslim vote?

In key swing state Michigan, Democratic voters of Arab and Middle Eastern heritage say Kamala Harris is going to have to win them back, after they were alienated by President Joe Biden's handling of Israel's military offensive in Gaza.

The town of Dearborn, home to 110,000 people and a cultural hub for Arab Americans, could play a decisive role in deciding the fate of the battleground state in November's presidential election.

Members of the community interviewed by AFP said they were willing to hear what the vice president had to say and weigh their options — a marked change from the outright hostility towards Biden.

"We are in listening mode right now," said Osama Siblani, publisher of The Arab American News.Accepting the Democratic presidential nomination at the party's convention on Thursday, Harris pledged to get a Gaza ceasefire "done" and ensure Palestinians realize their right to "dignity, security, freedom and self-determination."

But there was outrage among pro-Palestinian delegates that their request for a speaker spot at the convention was rejected. The group Muslim Women for Harris-Walz said the decision sent a "terrible message" and announced it was disbanding and withdrawing its support from the campaign.

Harris, who has vowed "not to be silent" about the suffering of Palestinians, recently met with members of the national "Uncommitted" movement that led the charge against Biden during the Democratic primary process.

Although she made no firm promises, leaders said she impressed them with a show of empathy.

At the forefront of concerns are Israel's 10 months of military operations in Gaza, which have devastated the Palestinian enclave since the war began in response to Hamas's attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Growing influence

Michigan, home to the "big three" automakers — Ford, General Motors and Chrysler — has long been an essential stop for White House aspirants.Economic downturns in the 1970s led many to leave the so-called "Rust Belt" state, just as unrest in the Middle East brought new waves of Lebanese, Iraqi, Yemeni, and Palestinian immigrants.

"We're a global city, where nearly 55 percent of our residents are of Arab background," said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud in a recent interview. "For many of us, when you talk about what's happening in Gaza, these are our family and our friends.

"Famous as the birthplace of Henry Ford, Dearborn appears at first glance just like any small US city, with its wide thoroughfares and strip malls. But it is also home to the Islamic Center of America — the largest mosque in the country -- and countless Middle Eastern supermarkets, eateries, and coffee shops.

When Siblani first started his newspaper in the mid-1980s, he remembers the then-mayor campaigned on a platform to address the "Arab problem." But as the community's numbers grew, and the children of blue-collar factory workers took up positions as lawyers, doctors, and businesspeople, so too did their political influence.

'Lesser of two evils'

Historically socially conservative, Arab and Muslim Americans heavily favored George W. Bush in the 2000 election. Years of the US "War on Terror" — which saw wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and Muslim American communities put under stricter law enforcement scrutiny — swung them firmly to the Democratic camp.

In 2018, southeast Michiganders elected Rashida Tlaib, the first Palestinian-American woman in Congress — a milestone for the community.

Three Arab-American mayors have also recently been elected in suburbs known for historic racism towards non-whites.

Angered by former president Donald Trump's travel ban on Muslim countries, support for Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, and more, Dearborn voters overwhelmingly backed Biden in 2020, helping secure Michigan for the Democrats by a slim margin.

Residents here are tired, however, of being asked to vote for the "lesser of two evils" and instead want candidates who will deliver on demands, such as a permanent ceasefire and an end to the supply of weapons to Israel.

"I think VP Harris has a window of opportunity," said Faye Nemer, a community activist and CEO of the MENA American Chamber of Commerce. "She can either continue President Biden's legacy or set her own agenda."

Arab Americans in Dearborn have been impressed by Harris's pick of Tim Walz as her running mate. Walz has taken a conciliatory approach to opponents of the war, unlike Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who took a hard line against college protesters.

But demands are hardening."We don't want crumbs anymore," declared Soujoud Hamade, a business lawyer and long-time Democrat, who vowed to vote for Green Party candidate Jill Stein if Harris did not deliver on the campaign trail.

Police remove former Michigan Republican Party chair from GOP convention for trespassing

Even after being officially ousted from her role as chair of the Michigan Republican Party, Kristina Karamo still made an appearance at the Michigan Republican Convention this weekend in Flint. At least, until party officials called the police on her.

On Saturday, the Detroit News' Paul Egan tweeted a video of Flint police escorting Karamo from the premises while she insisted she was doing nothing wrong. Karamo was heard blaming her removal from the convention on "[current Michigan GOP chair] Pete Hoekstra's thugs" and decrying the "corruption" within the state party organization.

Egan wrote that Michigan GOP leaders apparently only called law enforcement after Karamo proved to be uncooperative with their requests: Namely, that she refused to take a seat at the convention and even declined a guest credential. He added that the convention now has a heightened police presence due to what Michigan Republican Party executive director Tyson Shepard described as "the disruptive actions of a few."

In another video taken by Bridge Michigan reporter Craig Mauger, Karamo is seen being led through a doorway from the convention floor while a throng of both supporters and critics surround her. When a man tried to sneak past police to get closer to Karamo, a convention security worker grabbed his arm, prompting a brief scuffle.

After the former Michigan GOP chair was taken outside, police continued to walk with her to her vehicle, clearly agitated by the scrum of reporters peppering her with questions. At one point, while Karamo was describing how she was only at the convention to support a candidate, a female Flint Police Department officer erupted, saying: "OK enough of your campaign. Where is your car?" That officer confirmed to Bridge Michigan reporter Simon Schuster that Karamo was "trespassed."

"You can't stop me from talking! I'm not committing any crimes," Karamo responded. "I'm walking to my car."

Karamo's contentious appearance at her party's convention comes as the former chair continues to dispute that her ouster was legal. A majority of state party committee members voted to remove Karamo from her position in February, and put former Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Michigan) in charge.

Republicans in the Mitten State ultimately decided to force Karamo out due to the dismal financial state of the party's finances. In December, eight of Michigan's 13 Republican congressional district party chairs co-signed a letter calling for her removal due to reports that she had driven the state party more than $600,000 in debt.

Karamo — a 2020 election denier who ran a failed campaign for Michigan secretary of state in 2022 — was elected to her position in 2023. However, her short-lived tenure was rife with controversy, particularly due to her inability to get the state party's coffers out of the red in a crucial election cycle. In November, Comerica Bank sent the state GOP a notice of default letter informing Karamo that the party had failed to pay interest on a loan in excess of $500,000.

Watch the videos of Karamo being removed from the convention below, or by clicking this link.

'U lost my vote': Trump's fans respond to his latest statement with criticism and bigotry

Donald Trump has said he could shoot a person in the middle of the street and not lose voters, but he lost at least some after a recent statement that appears to be an attempt to woo disaffected swing-state Muslims.

Trump late on Tuesday evening spread a story about a Michigan police officer who was slain in the line of duty in the swing state. But in part because of the officer's name, Mohamed Said, things went off the rails for the former president.

"23-year-old Melvindale Police Officer Mohamed Said, a true American hero, was gunned down by a suspect he was pursuing last Saturday," Trump wrote on his Truth Social account. "Dearborn Police Chief Issa Shahin described Officer Said as a 'kind soul who proudly served the residents of Melvindale.'"

ALSO READ: How much access did $50,000 buy someone at the Republican National Convention?

Trump then added, "The men and women of law enforcement deserve our respect for the selfless job they do every day serving our communities."

"Pray for Officer Said, his family, and all law enforcement!" the ex-president concluded.

The comments didn't go as Trump had planned.

"Michigan is mostly Muslims, infiltrated via CAIR by Obama," @AlJahn wrote. "Their main tactic is to eliminate police. That's all you need to know."

@Mfnmkr said, "That's a no go zone. Sharia law runs that place. Wake up sheep it's spreading."

"Sounds like Dearborn is infested with Muslims," another user, @Sicaj526, wrote on Trump's post.

"Dearborn is a world class s---hole!" wrote @Patriot_Dad_67. "The middle easterners have taken over the town and made it just like home, riddled with crime and killing."

@Magadonian wrote, "He looks like a terrorist to me. It's the name."

@Marknunya99 said, "Sorry but Mohamad wants all Christians dead. No concern here."

Ryan Deakins, @Ryandeakins, said simply, "U lost my vote."

'I think he should stay in': Swing state voters on CNN change position after Biden presser

Some members of a panel of Democratic and independent voters on CNN changed their position on whether president Joe Biden should stay in the presidential race after the president's press conference Thursday, saying he assuaged their concerns.

A panel of seven women in Michigan was interviewed just after Biden's press conference, which included a "very telling" component, saying they still support the president over Trump. Two of them initially said that they were unsure if Biden should stay in the race, but after the speech, they changed their tune.

EXCLUSIVE: Trump’s ‘secretary of retribution’ has a ‘target list’ of 350 people he wants arrested

CNN's Anderson Cooper turned the spotlight on CNN national correspondent Gary Tuchman, who watched Biden's press conference with the group of women in the key swing state. Five out of the seven women said it was better than they expected it to be, while two said it was they same as they expected.

The two individuals who weren't sure if Biden should stay in changed their mind, with one saying she is "relieved" while another said he is "the logical choice" for Democrats.

Watch the video below or click the link.