“The Trump administration is threatening our state’s fundamental values by commanding ICE and its agents to ignore due process, rip people from their communities and repeatedly violate basic human rights,” Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee) said. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin Democrats are calling for prohibitions on state and local support for the Trump administration’s mass deportations and for greater transparency surrounding law enforcement officers and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers helping carry out arrests.
Lawmakers, led by the Democratic Socialist caucus, proposed a package of five bills to meet those goals at a press conference Thursday. Federal agents have used increasingly aggressive tactics to arrest immigrants as they seek to advance the Trump administration’s immigration agenda. In Wisconsin, ICE arrests have doubled under Trump with agents arresting an average of 85 people per month since January.
“The Trump administration is threatening our state’s fundamental values by commanding ICE and its agents to ignore due process, rip people from their communities and repeatedly violate basic human rights,” Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee) said. The bills, he said, will implement “strong accountability measures so that all Wisconsinites, regardless of their background, are welcome and safe here.”
Rep. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D-Milwaukee) said that most of the people being detained by the Trump administration aren’t criminals. According to ABC News, a recent report found that since late May, people with no criminal convictions and no pending criminal charges have started to make up an increasing percentage of those arrested by ICE.
“The vast majority have been people who pose no public threat,” Ortiz-Velez said. “They are the essential workers that put food on our tables, milk the cows and keep the meat factories operating. They build our homes, and they’re our neighbors, and they’re our friends.”
Republicans, who hold majorities in the Senate and Assembly, would be necessary for the bills to advance.
Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) said it’s unlikely Republicans will sign on.
“We hope that our Republican colleagues will work with us on common-sense legislation, especially when the stakes are this high, but no, I don’t anticipate any support from our Republican legislative colleagues on this,” Clancy said.
Republicans introduced a bill earlier this year that would require local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE. It passed the Assembly in March.
One of the bills in the Democratic package is a measure introduced earlier this year by Ortiz-Velez to do the opposite by prohibiting cooperation of law enforcement with ICE
Another bill would require law enforcement officers to identify themselves when arresting someone including making their name and badge number visible, providing the authority for arrest or detention and prohibiting them from covering their face or wearing a disguise. Face coverings would be allowed if worn for safety or protection.
Violations would be a Class D felony and carry a penalty of maximum $100,000 fine.
Leaders of the Department of Homeland Security have said agents are covering their faces to protect themselves from doxing and threats, according to NPR.
“It’s not normal for any law enforcement officer, any agency to wear masks and hide their identity, nor is it safe,” Ortiz-Velez said. “No exception should be made here.”
One bill would prohibit state employees and police officers from aiding in the detention of someone if the person is being detained on the “sole basis that the individual is or is alleged to be not lawfully present in the United States.” The bill would also prohibit law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin from participating in 287(g) agreements.
The federal 287(g) program provides the opportunity for state and local law enforcement agencies to partner with ICE, allowing local officers to perform certain immigration-related duties, including identifying, processing and detaining removable immigrants in local jails.
According to the ACLU of Wisconsin, there are 13 counties in Wisconsin as of the end of July that formally participate in the program. Several have joined this year including Kewaunee, Outagamie, Washington, Waupaca, Winnebago and Wood.
“It’s important to remember as we’re here at the state capitol that Wisconsin has shown strong opposition to policies like 287(g),” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director and co-founder of Voces de la Frontera, a nonprofit immigrant rights organization.
Neumann-Ortiz noted that in 2016 thousands protested immigration legislation that Republicans were proposing at the time, and it ultimately failed.
“People can make the change,” Neumann-Ortiz said.
Another bill would prohibit state and local facilities from being used to hold detained immigrants and would prohibit funds from being used to establish new immigrant detention facilities. The bill’s co-author, Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire), called it “the Communities, Not Cages” bill.
“Over the past eight months, my constituents have stopped me at events and contacted my office and shared personal stories of fear and horror that grows and comes with watching the Trump regime abduct, detain and deport people they perceive to be immigrants without due process without accountability, often without even showing their faces,” Phelps said. “Our constituents in every corner of the state wish for us to be welcoming, safe and humane — a state that invests in communities and not in cages.”
The final bill would establish a grant program run by the Department of Administration for community-based organizations in Wisconsin to support them in providing civil legal services to people and families in immigration matters.
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