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Up until this week, House representative and Democratic Senate candidate Haley Stevens’s campaign shared a mutual consultant with far right tech surveillance company Palantir, new reporting reveals, bringing renewed attention to Stevens’s record on ICE as she faces a contentious race against Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.
Drop Site News’s Ryan Grim reported on Thursday that the consultant, Caitlin Legacki, was consulting for Stevens’s communications outfit while also “secretly” consulting for Palantir. Legacki was “one of Stevens’ key spokespeople,” as local outlet Michigan Advance wrote.
After Grim reached out to the campaign for comment on Legacki’s dual appointment, they terminated her and said that Stevens was “unaware” of her work for the tech giant. Legacki is also a senior fellow at conservative Democrat-aligned think tank Third Way, Grim reports.
The campaign also replied with a statement touting Stevens’s record on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Palantir has been central to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) mass deportation efforts. Among other collaborations, ICE granted Palantir a $30 million contract last year to build out a surveillance program to track the movements of immigrants.
“Haley believes ICE is out of control, putting Michiganders in danger, and needs an immediate overhaul. That’s why she’s voted against giving them another cent without serious reforms, including prosecuting any ICE agents who commit crimes and abuse their power, forcing ICE agents to wear proper ID and prohibiting them from wearing masks to conceal their identities, and taking away their $75 billion slush fund,” the campaign said.
However, Stevens has previously come under fire for her record on ICE. In February, Stevens visited a Michigan ICE jail where an immigrant who was being detained, Nenko Gantchev, died. After the visit, she praised the facility for employing women — a comment that was mocked online.
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“Of note, there is female leadership here, and there are women who walked with us today and explained, on the intake process, how important it is to treat people with humanity,” Stevens said, Michigan Advance reported at the time. “And that obviously really stuck out to me, because some of the things that we are witnessing before our eyes, in our neighborhoods, in our streets, is really a lack of humanity.”
Stevens has also been criticized for being one of 75 Democrats who voted for a resolution that expresses “gratitude to law enforcement officers, including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel,” after an attack at a mall in Boulder, Colorado last year.
“Congresswoman Stevens said she’ll stand up to ICE, all while she took talking points and advice from a compromised corporate apologist now revealed to be a key advisor in Trump’s deportation machine,” said a spokesperson for El-Sayed’s campaign, Roxie Richner, in a statement. “Perhaps it’s why Stevens voted to thank and fund ICE. Abdul has been clear and consistent on his stance since 2018: Abolish ICE.”
Stevens — who was first elected to Congress by primarying incumbent Rep. Andy Levin with the help of AIPAC, in 2022 — is locked in a fierce race against former public health official and progressive candidate El-Sayed.
AIPAC has poured nearly $30 million into backing Stevens in the race, making it the pro-Israel PAC’s largest-ever investment into a single race, and amounting to nearly double the Democratic National Committee’s entire war chest for 2028 so far, Grim pointed out this week.
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