Protestors at the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of Michigan, May 13, 2024, in Ann Arbor. (Adam J. Dewey/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(JTA) — Federal and state agents in Michigan raided at least three different home addresses connected to pro-Palestinian protesters Wednesday.
The raids — at homes in Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti and Canton — were tied to a vandalism investigation and not to immigration issues or on-campus demonstrations against Israel that have taken place over the last year and a half, according to a spokesman for Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel.
“These search warrants were not investigative of protest activity on the campus of the University of Michigan nor the Diag encampment,” the spokesman, Danny Wimmer, said in a statement, referring to the location of Michigan’s pro-Palestinian student encampment last year. “Today’s search warrants are in furtherance of our investigation into multijurisdictional acts of vandalism.”
A viral video showed officers breaking down the door of a home. Pro-Palestinian advocates said the homes all belonged to students or former students at the University of Michigan who have engaged in pro-Palestinian activism.
The raids — during which some people were detained but not arrested — follow acts of vandalism at the homes of members of the University of Michigan’s Board of Regents, whom pro-Palestinian activists want to cut university ties with Israel.
In December a group of protesters threw rocks through the window of Jordan Acker, a Jewish regent, while he and his children were home in the heavily Jewish Detroit suburb of Huntington Woods, and left pro-Palestinian graffiti on his car. Non-Jewish regents at the university have also been targeted by protesters in their own homes.
Acker declined to comment on the raids Wednesday. He previously called the targeting of his own home “terrorism” and “Klan-like.”
The involvement of federal agents in investigating local vandalism is unusual. An attorney representing several University of Michigan protesters told the Detroit Free Press that she believed the raids showed that Nessel’s office was collaborating with the Trump administration, which has cracked down on pro-Palestinian protesters and schools where they have been active and dispatched federal immigration authorities to arrest non-citizen student activists.
“Everyone who was raided has taken part in protest and has some relationship to the University of Michigan,” said the attorney, Liz Jacob of the Sugar Law Center in Detroit. “We are totally convinced that, but for their viewpoints, these students would not have been targeted.”
The University of Michigan, which has large Jewish and Arab American student populations, has taken more aggressive action against protesters since President Donald Trump’s reelection. In February, it suspended a leading pro-Palestinian student group for two years, in part over its demonstration at a regent’s home.
The school also announced last month, amid pressure from the Trump administration, that it would do away with its flagship Diversity, Equity and Inclusion program. The school had previously fired a senior DEI staffer who allegedly made antisemitic comments at a conference.
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