It began in a living room in Southfield. Six people around a table in February, trying to figure out what to do about the federal lawyers who had just leased office space five minutes from their neighborhood.

Those lawyers work for the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor, arguing deportation cases on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They are the legal architecture behind ICE’s immigration raids.

The building is One Towne Square, an 18-story office tower on the Lodge Freeway. The owner, a company called Redico, says the lease prohibits law enforcement or detention on the premises. In a statement emailed to The Metro, a Redico representative said violating those terms would break the agreement. 

“From the beginning, we have been in close communication with our employees and tenants and have had ongoing discussions with city officials and community leaders,” the statement reads. “We will continue meeting with city and community leaders and remain committed to transparency.”

The neighbors say that’s not enough, and the number of them pushing back is growing. Six people in a living room became 150 at a recent rally. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, State Senator Jeremy Moss, and faith leaders also showed up.

At the center of all this is Lauren Fink. She co-founded the Southfield Neighbors Action Committee in that living room in Southfield with her husband, Cameron. She joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to talk about what it means to be a good neighbor when people around you are in trouble.

This story has been updated with Redico’s statement. -Ed

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The war in Iran — and the regional fallout — is continuing. 

Without Congressional authorization, President Donald Trump and Israel launched strikes that killed Iran’s supreme leader, and other military leaders of the current regime. And now, over a thousand people have died in this war.  

Iran has retaliated, launching military strikes across the region.

There is no clear path to peace. Neither Israel nor America have signaled that either have much interest in creating stability or democracy in Iran. 

Yesterday, we spoke with a Middle East scholar about what’s happening in Iran, and some of the different perspectives of the 92 million people living there. But there are a lot more voices to consider. What do folks from the diaspora who live in our region make of the situation? 

Layla Saatchi is an assistant Professor of Teaching at Wayne State University. She spoke with The Metro‘s Robyn Vincent.

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Romance books have been growing in popularity over the last few years. Now bookstores are following suit.

Carolyn Haering opened Mon Coeur, a romance bookstore, in Canton, Michigan just last year. The name means “my heart” in French.

Haering says she started the store because she believes the genre allows her to escape into a fun and typically happy story. She joined to discuss her store and recommend books about love.

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Editor’s note: Some images in this story contain language that may be offensive. 

Roughly one thousand protesters gathered outside Romulus City Hall this week to voice opposition towards plans for a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center. Among the crowd were concerned residents, public officials, faith leaders, and Michiganders from across the state. 

Melody Karr was one of the many protestors picketing the building. She said she lives just an hour away from the detention facility that opened last year in Baldwin and has been to multiple demonstrations protesting it’s opening.

“We don’t need any more concentration camps in Michigan. Anybody that’s paying attention can see that we’re not concentrating on the worst of the worst, that they’re running rampant over our constitutional rights,” said Karr.

City officials say they oppose the detention center

The demonstration preceded the weekly City Council meeting, where a resolution opposing any detention center within city limits was unanimously passed. 

Following the vote, Romulus Mayor Robert McCraight said he and the city are doing everything they can to stop the development of an ICE detention facility. Citing his letter of opposition sent the previous week to ICE Director Todd Lyons and Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, McCraight said a detention center would conflict with current zoning regulations and be too close to residential homes less than a quarter mile away.

McCraight said that, despite not hearing from any officials on the federal level since news broke, he would do what he could to prevent the plans from moving forward.

“While I’m sitting in this position as mayor, we will not issue a permit or certificate of occupancy for this structure unless we’re mandated by a federal judge,” said McCraight.

As the mayor spoke, demonstrators could be heard chanting outside the building. Only 49 of the protestors outside were let into the meeting due to safety codes set by the fire marshal. Those in attendance reiterated their opposition during public comment.

Residents urge more action

Dan Doyle lives less than a mile from the proposed detention center. He urged the city to do more to stop the plans.

“I’m requesting immediate action. Cut the utilities, condemn the building, demo it, take it under eminent domain, whatever you can do. Make it impossible for them to use our neighborhood for these concentration camps,” said Doyle. “This will not be solved by a harshly worded letter or a resolution. We need action.”

Outside in the bitter cold, protestors continued their picket at city hall. Darrin Camilleri, who represents Romulus as a member of the Michigan Senate, was one of many public officials who came to support demonstrators. So far, Camilleri has been one of the only state legislators to reach out to Romulus officials after the plans for a detention center went public. He said he has been working with the city to uncover details about the building purchased by ICE.

“We know that an auto supplier, they put a bid in to buy this building, but ICE came in and outbid the auto supplier. So the Trump administration is literally taking away American jobs from our community that would love an opportunity like that,” said Camilleri. “Now we’re getting stuck with a detention center that no one wants, and it’s down the street from where people live. It’s down the street from where kids go to school.”

The building, located at 7525 Cogswell Street, was previously owned by the real estate investment firm Crestlight Capital. John Coury, managing partner at the firm, said he can’t disclose the selling price or the specific agency the building was sold to due to a signed non-disclosure agreement, according to reporting from Crain’s Detroit Business.

Pattern of quiet-buying

Secrecy surrounding these purchases aren’t unique to Romulus, either. In Social Circle, Georgia, officials were blindsided when they heard of plans to convert a warehouse in the city into a detention center. The previous owner of the warehouse, a commercial real estate firm called PNK Group, said they signed an NDA and couldn’t disclose any information to the city or residents. One month later, a deed for the warehouse was obtained that showed the federal government paid over $100 million more than the most recently assessed price.

When asked by WDET if the Romulus warehouse was purchased for an inflated price compared to the 2025 assessed value of $6,988,500, Crestlight Capital did not respond for comment.

At the time of writing, the city of Romulus has not received any documents indicating how much the property was purchased for.

Southfield ICE offices

Earlier this month, the city released a statement saying offices in Southfield’s One Towne Square were to be leased by the US General Services Administration (GSA) to “support administrative and legal functions associated with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.” 

The statement aligns with reporting from last year that showed the GSA was working with ICE to acquire offices across the country to expand it’s operations

Statements from REDICO, the landlord of the office space, said the lease was with the GSA, not ICE, and “the lease explicitly prohibits any law enforcement, detention or similar activities to take place on the premises.” REDICO’s statement prompted the city to remove their statement on the purchase from its website.

When asked about the city’s removed statement, Southfield Mayor Kenson Siver said he has only heard from REDICO, not GSA or ICE, and the city doesn’t have authority to intervene in tenant/landlord issues as long as they are compliant with zoning laws.

Still, residents and lawmakers are on edge amid the confusion. During the Southfield City Council meeting that took place the same time as the Romulus demonstration, residents packed the building to speak out against any potential presence of ICE in the city.

Southfield resident Lauren Fink said the city still needs to do more to address the offices potentially used in association with ICE.

“I’ve seen statements intended to calm our anxieties about this office opening here in our own community, telling us that this office cannot house armed and uniformed agents,” said Fink. “There seems to be this idea that the work being done by people in offices like this is acceptable, but the work being done by the people they enable is not. That kind of attitude is what allows the horrors of an authoritarian regime to continue.”

Southfield City Council unanimously passed a resolution “affirming community safety, civil rights, and local policy” during the meeting. The resolution does not mention the lease with GSA or the planned office.

A call for community action

Following the possible expansion of ICE in the metro Detroit area, Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib released a statement condemning the encroachment and urging more collective action from the community.

“Across the country, people are coming together and fighting to prevent this massive expansion of ICE’s network of abuse and cruelty. We must organize and use every tool at our disposal to keep ICE out of our neighborhoods,” said Tlaib.

The Southfield office and planned detention center in Romulus come as the Trump administration massively increases the budget for ICE and plans on spending $38.3 billion to turn warehouses across the country into detention centers. Both actions have been made possible through last year’s passing of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which has allocated billions of federal funds for the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.

Something is breaking open in Iran — and it’s been building for months. A war, then an uprising, then a massacre, and now a nuclear deal on the table.

Last summer, Israel and the United States bombed Iran’s nuclear sites in a 12-day war. In late December, millions of Iranians took to the streets in the largest protests since the 1979 revolution, driven by economic collapse, a cratering currency, and decades of grievance. The regime responded with what human rights groups are calling the worst government massacre in Iran’s modern history — a crackdown that, according to the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, has killed thousands of protesters. The government imposed a near-total internet blackout, and many families still cannot reach their loved ones.

This week, American and Iranian negotiators sat down in Geneva to try to cut a nuclear deal. Iran’s foreign minister said the two sides reached an understanding on “guiding principles,” though both sides acknowledged significant gaps remain. The talks are mediated by Oman and come as the U.S. deploys two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region.

But here’s what most coverage misses: the millions of Iranians who want this regime gone don’t agree on what should come next.

Saeed Khan, Associate Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Global Studies at Wayne State University and a research fellow at the Center for the Study of Citizenship, joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to break down why what happens inside Iran matters far beyond its borders.

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Across the country, small businesses in immigrant communities are reporting the same pattern: customers are disappearing, workers aren’t showing up, and revenue is in decline.

Federal immigration enforcement has reshaped daily life in these neighborhoods, and some business owners say it’s hitting them harder than COVID, in part because there’s no PPP loan or government lifeline this time around.

In Los Angeles County, the vast majority of surveyed businesses reported negative impacts, with nearly 50% losing more than half their revenue. In Chicago’s Little Village, business sales have dropped an estimated 50 to 70%. And the Brookings Institution estimates that 2025 may have been the first year in over half a century that net migration to the U.S. went negative.

That same predicament is playing out in metro Detroit. In Southwest Detroit, Dearborn, and Hamtramck, the small businesses that anchor entire neighborhoods are under growing pressure. Business owners along Vernor Highway describe empty storefronts, canceled appointments, and streets that used to bustle with foot traffic now eerily quiet. Community networks — WhatsApp alert groups, volunteer patrols, whistle distribution — have emerged to help residents maintain their daily routines.

Mark Lee is the president and CEO of The Lee Group, a consulting firm that works with small businesses on strategy, marketing, and growth across Southeast Michigan. He joined Robyn Vincent on The Metro to talk about what he’s hearing from owners on the ground.

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