MONEY ON ICE

Running for office is an expensive endeavor and candidates are forced to seek funding from all sorts of backers. But some fundraising is just plain wrong in today’s climate, where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers have rounded up, deported and even killed immigrants and protesters. According to The Detroit News, three of the four candidates for the open U.S. Senate seat – Republican Mike Rogers and Democrats Mallory McMorrow and Haley Stevens –received campaign contributions from federal contractors arming or equipping ICE agents. According to McMorrow, who has shown up at anti-ICE protests, while she received a total of $4,750 from a business development employee and an outside lobbyist for Palantir – which has been an ICE contractor since 2011 – she returned the funds on March 1. Stevens, who has sent out several statements criticizing ICE and its endeavors and voted to block funding for the agency, accepted $2,500 in November from a corporate PAC from AXON, a law enforcement equipment company that spent millions of dollars last year lobbying Congress. In addition, David Reid, an outside lobbyist for Palantir and a deputy finance chair for the DNC, hosted a fundraiser for Stevens at his home in Birmingham. According to The Detroit News, she also took an additional $1,500 in contributions last year from a pair of lobbyists from Palantir. Her campaign said she was not returning the money but is leading the fight to overhaul ICE. Rogers, the presumptive GOP nominee, received $5,300 from Palantir founder Jack Londsdale, and has accepted money from two of the largest private prison groups with contracts with ICE, accepting $22,000 from CoreCivic’s PAC and it’s CEO, Damon Himinger.

Mallory McMorrow

Mike Rogers

Haley Stevens