The Pipeline to Give ‘New Americans’ Power in Michigan

If you thought the carpetbagger problem in Michigan politics is bad, wait until “new Americans” hold the gavels in Lansing.

Jocelyn Benson is a Pittsburgh native who came to Michigan to find her in-road to politics.

But the prospective leaders of the Michigan House and Senate are so-called “new Americans.” And that pipeline is just beginning to flow.

A program called New American Leaders is seeding Michigan, and many other states, with “first and second generation” Americans, who are trained to run campaigns or be candidates themselves.

While reading through personal financial disclosures, I saw that Sen. Darrin Camilleri has a second source of income. He’s a trainer for New American Leaders.

Among the program’s alums are Democrats like state House Rep. Mai Xiong and state Sen. Stephanie Chang.

If Democrats win the Michigan Senate, Camilleri will likely be Senate Majority Leader. And Rep. Ranjeev Puri would likely be House Speaker if Democrats win the House.

Both men are alums of New American Leaders. Camilleri gives back by training others. Puri gave back by serving on its board.

If Democrats win on Nov. 3, both chambers of the Michigan Legislature could be led by “new American leaders,” who have both shown themselves hostile to the values we hold dear.

The NGO claims that 64 candidates in Michigan in 2026 fit the definition of New Americans. The names in its New American Candidate Database range from Abdul El-Sayed to Rep. Rashida Tlaib to Mike Cox, who was a Republican contender in the governor’s race.

If there are two things that make America America, and not some lesser country, they are the First and Second Amendment. Expect both to face challenges if Camilleri and Puri take power.

Camilleri isn’t big on the First Amendment. He led the Senate push to repeal Michigan’s right-to-work law in 2023, back when Democrats held all the gavels. Michigan now holds a dubious distinction: It’s the only state to have had a right-to-work law, and that law be repealed.

Right-to-work laws remove union membership as a precondition for hire at shops like Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis.

In 2018, in Janus v. AFSCME, the U.S. Supreme Court applied the right-to-work concept to public employees, such as teachers, across America. The court ruled that government employees have a First Amendment right against forced associations.

But Janus doesn’t apply to private sector employees, like automakers. Camilleri presented the right-to-work repeal as “greater freedom” for workers. But forcing people into unions is the exact opposite of freedom.

If you’ve wondered why the fruits of President Donald Trump’s industrial policy sometimes skip past Michigan, forced union membership plays a role.

Right-to-work states signal to the world that they are open for business. States like Michigan find it more important to send the signal to unions that they are supreme. Businesses have options, and choose to set up or expand elsewhere.

If Puri becomes House Speaker, expect more infringements on the Second Amendment.

Puri campaigned for Barack Obama in 2012. That year, there was a shooting at a Sikh house of worship in Wisconsin that his parents helped found. He decided then that guns were the problem, and legal gun ownership should be restricted, and Obama agreed.

Puri’s profile at New American Leaders tells the tale: “In 2012, years after our family had moved, that same community fell victim to a mass shooter,” Puri explains.

“I was working for then-President Barack Obama and shared a personal conversation with him about the shooting and the need for action. My decision to run for office was rooted in that hate crime – leading to my fight to combat hatred and bigotry and work towards common sense gun reform. No community, regardless of background or belief, deserves to live in fear, and our work is not over until every person in all corners of our state is free from that threat.”

Let me translate.

“Need for action” does not mean the enforcement of laws on the books. Democrats like Puri actually oppose that, and favor a criminal justice reform that releases criminals early, if it imprisons them at all.

Puri famously said “f— your thoughts and prayers” after the MSU shooting in 2023. Christian sentiment was not welcome in Puri’s midst. Only new laws.

His colleagues, like Republican Sen. Jim Runestad, pointed out immediately that the MSU shooter had been arrested before and should not have been free to commit the shooting if local prosecutors had done their job. Because he was given a multitude of second chances, he was available to commit carnage at MSU.

When Puri says there’s a “need for action,” that means new laws are needed to disarm legal gun owners—the kind of people who actually obey laws.

Puri led the charge for “red flag” laws in Michigan, which allow the government to confiscate guns without even charging a crime or making an arrest.

Both Camilleri and Puri see America’s foundational amendments as defective, a hindrance to the perfect world they’d like to create.

They’re not here to celebrate America. They’re here to change it.

While Democrats are building a foreign pipeline into politics, Republicans have no robust recruiting operation.

Each new candidate, like Marcie Gryzwacz, Camilleri’s opponent, is a unicorn.

Gryzwacz is an ICU nurse. Her origin story in politics is, she moved to Rockwood, didn’t like how it ran, and decided to run for city council. In that race she was the highest vote-getter.

Now Gryzwacz looks at Lansing and has the same mission. She’s run a sweat equity campaign, heavy on door-knocking.

What she lacks are the pipelines and the institutional support that pushed Camilleri and Puri to power. As the kids would say, Gryzwacz had to “get it out of the mud,” every lesson she’s learned about politics and how to run and win.

“You don't even know when you're supposed to file for office,” as a new candidate, Gryzwacz told Michigan Enjoyer. “I had to figure out, when is the deadline? How do I do this? And so it is incredibly frustrating.”

Republicans have a pipeline problem. Every Marcie Gryzwacz or Laura Perry, who is running for state house in Western Wayne County and Monroe, is a miracle. They either have a personal drive to run for office or can be pushed to that point by friends who believe in them.

But there is no system to create more Marcies and Lauras.

Another candidate told Gryzwacz the situation early on.

“He said ‘listen no one's going to help you,’” Gryzwacz said. “You're not going to get any money from anybody. So the only thing that you can do that's different than [Camilleri] because you're not going to have the money, is knock doors. That's the one thing he's not going to do.”

Meanwhile the Democrats have a flowing pipeline for “New Americans” that turns nobodies into staffers and candidates into elected officials.

If Democrats sweep, and Camilleri and Puri hold the gavels in Lansing, Michigan will be the Exhibit A success story for New American Leaders.

And we will wish for the day when coastal carpetbaggers were the biggest outside influence on Michigan politics.