Movimiento Cosecha, an organization that aims to protect illegal immigrants from law enforcement, led an anti-ICE protest at Mayor David LaGrand’s distillery last weekend.
Members of Movimiento Cosecha protested inside the Westside Long Road Distillers location, which is owned by Mayor LaGrand and former commissioner Jon O’Connor.
The group began chanting for the abolition of ICE and dancing to Latin music while patrons looked on in confusion. They have been conducting an ongoing campaign to boycott the distillery since October 2025.
The group aims to pressure LaGrand into adopting six sanctuary policies that they and GR Rapid Response to ICE have been demanding the city adopt since January 2025. On their Instagram, Movimiento Cosecha has also advocated for the boycott of “all LaGrand business ventures until Grand Rapids is a Sanctuary City.” This includes Less Traveled, LaGrand Law Office, River Bed Investors, and Proverbs 23:13, among others.
The Grand Rapids Movimiento Cosecha chapter began in 2017 and does not have a headquarters or central meeting location. Despite the Grand Rapids chapter being grassroots and unincorporated, organizations like the Grand Rapids Community Foundation have made large contributions to the chapter’s operations.
According to their 2025 tax filings, the foundation donated $10,000 for Movimiento Cosecha to acquire a “community vehicle.” On that form, Movimiento Cosecha’s Grand Rapids chapter is tied with a residential address in the Godwin Heights neighborhood on the southeast side of Grand Rapids.
All tax filings for Movimiento Cosecha run through the Movimiento Cosecha Support Network, which serves as a national umbrella nonprofit for chapters around the nation. In 2024, they claimed $288,000 in revenue.
Movimiento Cosecha was one of the activist organizations involved in protesting for the 2019 nonrenewal of a Kent County Sheriff’s Department contract with ICE. In August of that year, Sheriff Michelle LaJoye-Young announced that the contract would not be renewed.
The organization also collaborates with GR Rapid Response to ICE, another activist group that protests ICE activity in Grand Rapids and Kent County and has advocated the adoption of sanctuary policies that would allow for the harboring of illegal aliens.
Also tied to Movimiento Cosecha’s efforts is Grand Rapids Institute for Information and Democracy (GRIID) associate Jeff Smith, who helps the organization rally anti-ICE activists.
On May 1, the organization plans to participate in a strike for “International Worker’s Day.” Per the organization’s Instagram and Facebook, Movimiento Cosecha Michigan is calling for a “general strike to demand the establishment of sanctuary policies and an end to all cooperation with ICE.”
Some of their latest posts also advocate the abolition of the immigration enforcement organization, claiming that strike participants should commit to “NO WORK-NO SCHOOL-NO SHOPPING” in order to make their voices heard. They ask participants to “join the fight to abolish ICE, for real and effective sanctuary policies and for permanent protection, dignity, respect, and rights for all undocumented immigrants.”