Immigration is a key issue for many Michiganders as they cast their vote for the next U.S. president

Van Buren County Sheriff Daniel Abbott’s southwest Michigan county is a long way from Mexico. But he says immigrants who cross the southern border are sometimes ending up in his county jail.

Abbott said at any time there are four to nine people in his jail, accused of serious crimes, with federal immigration holds.

“The fact of the matter is on a regular basis, especially over the last couple years, we’ve seen over and over and over, not only on the roadside but in the jail, that inmates coming in and out of the jail are getting flagged on a regular basis by ICE once they’re put into the system,” said Abbott.

Abbott said he wants to see the next president do something to slow the immigrant flow across the nation’s border with Mexico, which he blames for increased crime in his rural county.

But advocates object to labeling immigrants as a criminal element.

Susan Reed is with the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center in Kalamazoo.

She said the main problem with immigration is the confusing, often long process for immigrants to obtain legal status.

“I have a client who lost his work permit and has been waiting 15 months for the replacement. He can’t work without it,” said Reed. “He’s very skilled, has a great background working in a variety of settings and just can’t work ’cause he lost a document.”

Reed wants the next president to streamline the immigration and work permit system rather than imposing new obstacles.

Detroit has long been a destination for immigrants. And over time, where those immigrants have come from has changed.

“When my family moved in here, it was predominately Mexican and Puerto Rican. In the early 2000s, we started having more Central American immigrants come in,” said Adonis Flores. He helps undocumented immigrants seeking to stay in the U.S.

Flores said he’d like to see the next president change the part of immigration law which allows individuals to apply for permanent residency, but only if they’ve been in the U.S. since 1972.

Flores would like to see the date of registry updated to 2015.

“If somebody, for example, arrived in this country in the early 2000s or in the late 90s, and haven’t been able to fix their status because of that date of registry,” said Flores. “If that date gets updated, all of a sudden they have American kids and an American spouse that might be able to help their immigration status.”

Mara Cecelia Ostfeld is a U of M researcher. She said a recent University of Michigan study found the perception of whether immigrants are good or bad depends on an individual’s personal experience.

“Overall, a plurality of the residents in the communities we looked at: Flint, Grand Rapids, Ypsilanti and Detroit, did favor making it easier for foreigners to immigrate to the U.S. legally,” said Ostfeld.

However, some Michiganders are not as welcoming to their new neighbors.

“Young Black men are saying right now that they feel that people who are illegally coming into this country are getting treated better than they are,” Pastor Lorenzo Sewell told a group of Republicans gathered in Roseville back in August.

Sewell said his parishioners in Detroit, Pontiac and other Michigan cities want the immigration system changed.

“We need a president who’s willing to make a hard decision, send people back and then if they want to come in this country,” Sewell said. “They need to come the way, whatever way we feel as a country, they need to go through the process.”

Former President Donald Trump says the federal government should stop the flow of migrants across the southern border, and conduct a mass deportation effort of undocumented immigrants. Vice President Kamala Harris says she wants to fix the immigration system and create an earned pathway to citizenship.

You can learn more here about how all the presidential candidates on the Michigan ballot stand on this and other issues.