Trump wants federal oversight of Detroit's midterm elections

President Trump is continuing to push lies about the 2020 presidential election in Detroit.

During an executive order signing to end the government shutdown, Trump told reporters he thinks Republicans should take election rights away from some states that the president did not win in 2020. He used three prominent swing states as examples.

"Take a look at Detroit... take a look at Pennsylvania... take a look at Philadelphia. You go take a look at Atlanta. Look at some of the places that... horrible corruption on elections."

Prominent Republican strategist and Trump-ally Steve Bannon has said ICE agents would be sent to polling places in this year's midterm elections.

Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey says any attempt to take over voting would be partisan politics at its worst. Winfrey says the results were fair and transparent then and subsequent elections have been, too. The U.S. Constitution says states decide how to conduct elections. Congress can enact some regulations, but the president has no control over elections.

Additional headlines for Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026

Critique on Sheffield's order on assessments

The Coalition of Property Tax Justice says Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield’s recent executive order is too vague and does not do enough to stop over assessments in the city. 

Sheffield signed an order last week aimed at improving transparency in the city’s assessment process and requiring the office to meet national standards.  

Professor Bernadette Athutahene says the order does not specify how to conduct an assessment ratio study, which is required by the property tax reform ordinance. 

"We thought that the executive order would say, you know, to do a mass appraisal report, and those two things are different. The mass appraisal report, you can't apply Iao standards to a mass appraisal report."

The coalition did praise Sheffield for requiring the office follow the ratio standards of the International Association of Assessing Officers.  The coalition published a revised version of the executive order with more parameter specifics for a property assessment. 

ICE detention facility proposed in Romulus

A 500 bed ICE detention facility has been proposed for Romulus, but officials say it’s not set in stone. Romulus was among 23 locations nationwide identified in a recent Bloomberg report detailing the Trump administration's plan to buy warehouses and convert them into ICE detention centers.

The Washington Post reported in December that a warehouse in Highland Park was being looked at as a potential location. The Mayor of Highland Park has recently said the city was not interested at all and the city lacks the space for such a plan.