In 2006, Vidal told his parents he wanted to come to America to create a new life for himself. They did not like that proposition. “If you don’t let me go I will go by myself,” he told them. They eventually said yes because Vidal put them in a tough situation.

His journey began on the 9^th of May in 2006 in Mexico with an ex-boyfriend of his sisters and ended May 16^th with his aunt in America.

Vidal’s sister’s ex-boyfriend knew someone that could help them. In 2006 it was cheap so they charged him $3,000.

Coyotaje (coyote) are a group who smuggle people into the U.S. from Mexico. This group is often compared to the Mafia. They will help get you into America, but only on their terms.

The Coyotaje found them a hotel to stay in for a few days. They are very smart and know what to do in case of a situation with ICE or the police. “Once we got to the hotel we had to stay there for a few days because they tried to recruit a lot of people,” Vidal said. Not everybody will cross but we each person is paying 3,000 to 5,000 dollars and the Coyotaje want to bring 30 people; that is a lot of money for them.

What is very important about this process is that the immigrants cannot call the Coyotaje Coyotaje. They must call him guy. The Coyotaje is risking his life by leading all of these people to the U.S. so nobody can know who he is.

The journey began in the desert and lasted four days. There was one Coyotaje in the front of the pack, one in the middle, and one in the back. “We had to follow them in any situation,” Vidal said, “because the desert is dangerous.” There are snakes, spiders, and animals. You must sleep on the ground and sometimes there is no water.

They had to walk during the nighttime when it was dark and had to hide during the day because ICE would fly around in helicopters looking for them. From the times of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. they would fearfully hide and the rest of the night they tirelessly walk step by step.

While on their way to “the North” as they call America, Vidal and his friend got jumped by two men wearing masks and carrying large guns. They were most likely working with the Coyotaje, according to Vidal. Coyotaje know the area so they will wait for people to drive by to rob them. “I had 100 pesos and they took it away.” He was left with two cents, not even enough to make a call.

The Coyotaje play games with the group. On the third night they said they were almost there so they better drop their backpacks and water because whoever will pick them up will bring them water and food. This was not always the case. Sometimes the drivers would bring these supplies, but sometimes they would not care.

A lie was told by the Coyotaje. They were not almost there. At 11 a.m., hiding because they did not make it, they were lost.

This journey is very hard for many people. Some get broken legs and some try three, four, or five times to cross, and some do not even make it. When the group got to the U.S. border, they crossed easily. “We didn’t have that many problems. The only problem was when we got lost and we had to drink dirty water that cows drink,” Vidal explained.  

When Vidal decided to take on this journey he did not have a lot of money. “I had one opportunity to cross. If I got caught by ICE, I would not have another chance to cross,” he tells me. Most of the people suffered, but for me it wasn’t too hard.”

For the next steps of the journey, more Coyotaje had to pick the group up in a car. When the drivers got close to the place Vidal was hiding, he had to prepare himself to be speedy quick. Multiple men would pack into one car, some on the floor and some on the back part of the car. Vidal got lucky because he was fast. But you have to be smart as well. “You never know who you are dealing with, so you have to be careful,” he said.

Vidal’s final destination was his aunt’s house in North Carolina. She was going to pay the Coyotaje the rest of the money but she did not answer her phone when they were getting closer to North Carolina. Because of this he had to be the last person to get dropped off. They went to New York, New Jersey, Chicago, and finally back to North Carolina.

His new life in America finally began. Vidal started working as a farmer which he was not very fond of; it was too much like Mexico, but he had to stay for a couple months to repay the money his aunt loaned him. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I was living in a trailer. I wanted to see a street, I wanted to see people I wanted to see buildings.” He lasted two months and was then off to live with his uncle in Milwaukee.

Vidal was now 17-years-old and wanted a job. This was not too easy for him because he did not look his age. Many businesses he applied to said, “He looks 12, he needs to go to school, he isn’t 21.” Because of this he had to get a fake ID since he didn’t speak English and he didn’t know how the system worked.

He landed a job at a restaurant as the overnight dishwasher and soon became a bus boy which helped with his English. Finally, he moved out of his uncles when he paid him back.

Vidal’s aunt told him he had to make time to go to school so that he could learn English because “There are a lot of opportunities over here,” she said. He took three semesters of English at MATC and “fell in love with American music”. He pushed himself to start writing in English and he is now fluent.

He has not been back to Mexico since 2006 and three years ago he lost his mom. He could not visit her before she passed because it was too expensive. If he were still in Mexico, he would be married with three kids. He is married now but does not have kids. When it is time to have kids, he is going to make sure to give them what he didn’t have, but not just hand it over. He will teach them they will have to work for it.

“I know I am going to become something sooner or later,” Vidal says. “If you do it with love, you are going to make it.” He is a big believer of karma.

Last year Vidal applied to become a documented citizen and they answered, however Vidal needs to save money for a lawyer. Coming to America and going through the process of getting legalized is not an easy process whatsoever, but Vidal yearned for this new life and he fought his way through. Hope and strength is what really kept him going.

“Dream big baby! If an illegal immigrant is working for his dream, why can’t you?” Vidal exclaims.

The post Vidal’s Story appeared first on Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting.

Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney

He began by saying that he has been enticed by ICE to apply to 287g, but he has refused on each occasion, not even applying. “I have no interest, nor do I anticipate having any interest in the future,” he said. In the early aughts of his tenure as sheriff – a position he has held for 12 years – the booking process would require that they inquire about individuals’ immigration status, because of the discrepancies and requests from some embassies.

He continued by saying, if they could not identify an individual, they would fax ICE, to determine if they had any information on an individual. Sometimes, ICE would request a hold on that person, while a potential hearing loomed; however, Mahoney has not honored such ICE requests, because the federal government has changed the fingerprinting process, and details from the National Information Center (NIC) are given to ICE when a non-citizen individual gets arrested.

If Dane County places a hold on that individual, it has no bearing on instances of bail or release upon eligibility. He went on to say that Madison is not a sanctuary city, because they still place holds on individuals (San Francisco is a true sanctuary city, according to the sheriff).

Every year, in Dane County, 30 to 40 individuals have holds placed on them. No holds are honored, in the case that ICE wants Dane County to hold someone – who is in the process of posting bail – for 48 hours.

“Over three-quarters of the federal courts have determined that ICE holds are not legal, that they violate the Fourth and Sixteenth Amendments of the Constitution, specifically search and seizure, and due process,” said Mahoney.

Mahoney said that ICE holds are rarely reviewed by a judge, so it stands as more of a favor. If a warrant is issued by a judge, however, the hold will be honored, as opposed to an administrative request. Outside the jail, non-citizens are issued tickets (for an offense like, say, speeding) and are let go. ICE needs a judicial warrant or probable cause – the only ways Dane County cooperates with ICE, as they do not go on round-ups, nor do they hold individuals on a “favor.”

The process of immigration enforcement, according to Mahoney, needs to be better explained to communities that could be subject to an entity like ICE. The misinformation or lack of information, on the federal level, has heightened fear in those communities. According to Mahoney, victims are more hesitant to come forward to local law enforcement, making the community less safe.

-Interview by Andrew Boldt

Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales

The Chief says that the “policy (on immigration) has changed as of last year in regards to immigration.”

He feels like it is not necessary at this time to change the policy since as of how it stands now, immigration is being taken care of at a federal level. However, he goes on to say, “I cant tell my law enforcement to act on or not to act on immigration laws.”

He says that when people are involved in a crime, armed robbery, nonfatal shooting or homicide or through a drug investigation, that’s when the police are involved in the issue of immigration status.

“Milwaukee is not a sanctuary city,” says the chief. “We are here to enforce the laws. However, when we want to gain the public trust, we want the public to know that when they are victims of crimes, witnesses of crimes, that they should not fear the police.”

He says his job is to work with the community and bring the trust back into the community.

The Mexican Consulate head in Milwaukee, who was at the same meeting where the chief was interviewed, says that people who are victims of domestic violence or petty crimes or theft, often don’t contact police because of the fear that if they were to have contact with law enforcement that their immigration status may be questioned.

-Interview by Amanda Maniscalco

New Milwaukee County Sheriff Earnell Lucas

“I do not want to send the sheriff’s office through a lot of heart ache and misery just because there’s a new sheriff. I have no intention in making any immediate changes other than those that I have announced already. We are going to go in and determine who is committed to in restoring the honor and integrity and trust back into this organization. And then we’ll make those assignments and everyone will help lead the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s office,” Earnell Lucas said.

Asked how he planned to shape his policy on immigration, Lucas said:

“From the start of my campaign, I’ve stated that I was not going to collaborate with ICE when it relates to detain individuals. A request from ICE is no different than a request from anyone in this room. This request is not to be ordered from a judge and therefor… I’m mindful of the fact that when an individual comes into custody of the MCSO and if they satisfy whatever local charges they are detained for, they are released by Madison or posted bail, that should we detain that individual from any time over, we could be violating their constitutional right.”

He added: “I’m not going to drive wedges into our community for the purposes of ICE.”

He talked about working with the MPD, more specifically the chief of police, Alfonso Morales. He wants the discussion with the community to be open. He says they are working to create a safer community, but not by in the means of hunting down illegal immigrants. They are not going to actively be searching to illegals, therefore, in the community they will not be associating with ICE.

It should be noted that ICE does have their own agents and task force that does go into the community when given a tip or once ICE thinks that they found this person, they will go wherever they are to detain them.

When it comes to the jails, Lucas has been clear from the gecko that he will not apply/enforce the 287G program. A

Throughout his campaign, at every speech, and today, he still says that even though it is himself and others in the Sheriff’s Dept, along with the MPD, it is all of us, Milwaukee as a whole that will end up changing things. He stands by sticking together.

 “I plan to serve with honor and integrity. There is a lot of work to do here in Milwaukee. We have a number a problems but we are committed to make change.”

Then LaCrosse County Sheriff Steve Helgeson

Lacrosse County Jail does not try to determine the status of a person. They only try if that person has committed a felony or serious crime including rape or robbery. “We had an undocumented Mexican who raped and murdered a college student,” he said. This was an instance when they did contact ICE to make sure they covered all of their bases. ICE put a detainer on him, and he received life in prison.

They do not look into minor offenses. The sheriff wants the citizens of LaCrosse to feel safe to contact them about a serious crime. If a person is illegal, they will not contact ICE unless the crime is serious, as stated before. “We try to be cautious. We want our citizens to trust us and want to trust in our citizens,” the sheriff said.

They are not interested in having 287g a part of their program. Sheriff Helgeson said that he does not believe there are a lot of detainers.

Interview by Jaylyn Fahey

Captain Rob Drew, Jail Administrator, Polk County Sheriff’s Department

Captain Drew said that they do have ICE hold detainers readily accessible from their software, and that fulfilling an Open Records request for them would require searching all of their paper inmate files manually and would take several hours.

Typically, he said, they receive one or two ICE detainers requests a year. It is not their policy or practice to hold a person solely on an ICE detainer. They require a hard copy of an actual warrant in order to honor that detainer, and hold that person for ICE.

He did say that they do note the ICE detainers, but they will not hold the person unless there is a physical warrant or the person has been charged with other crimes at that time. There must always be other charges (or a warrant) for them to be held for ICE.

He said that the Polk County Sheriff’s Department does not believe that ICE detainers are a legal justification of arresting and holding someone.

-Interview by Catie Middleton

Winnebago County Sheriff John Matz

John Matz, currently Winnebago’s county sheriff, has been working 30 years in law enforcement. In addition to working 30 years in law enforcement, Matz has served over 20-years in the Wisconsin Army National Guard.

Matz’s son also served in the National Guard, and is currently a Dane County Sheriff’s Deputy. Both father and son served in Iraq at the same time, supervising a military prison. Matz said ICE has not been to their county of Winnebago, and ICE will let them know if they did end up coming. Matz said he has not heard or seen any ICE agents in their area as of late. He said they do follow the ICE detainer protocol, and he said they give them 48 hours to come get the individual.

-Interview by Brad Hanney

The post Where Law Enforcers Stand appeared first on Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting.

Rachel Ida Buff, Dept. of History & Cultures and Communities Program

Rachel was asked to confine her remarks to the past though she has a lot to say about the present. Act 1: Birthright Citizenship. African Americans agitated for freedom before, during, and after slavery, before and after the Civil War. They were aware after the war that emancipation would not be enough. The 14th amendment passed 10 years after the emancipation because it was controversial.

This is tested in 1898 when a Chinese American man, Wong Kim Ark, was born in California but educated in China decided to come back to the U.S. He is told he could not enter because he is Chinese, and he says no I am American. This case goes to the Supreme Court and Ark won his case.

Act 2: Learning from the Banana. Around the time Ark was suing for his citizenship, the U.S began to expand its territories abroad. We occupied territories through economic practices. The greatest examples to me is United Fruit which began to have plantations in Central America and the Caribbean. It is important to say that the occupants of the newly acquired territories of the U.S did not have full citizenship rights. It was possible for Americans to eat bananas from all over the world, to view the tropical places where bananas where grown, but it was not possible for people from those tropical plantations to flee to better their lives; they weren’t allowed by law.

Act 3: Refugees. People move; it’s an act of migrant refusal. The Haitians began leaving Haiti in 1963 and pushing to be seen as refugees in this county. The advent of mass detention began. It is still open today as a way to detain people who are petitioning for their rights as refugees to claim asylum.

In the 1980s, a notion of sanctuary starts in the churches. The idea that churches should use their space to offer sanctuary to those fleeing repression, danger, and death in Central America who are continually not acknowledged by the regime here of people who are deserving of refuge and shelter. In the 1990s, politicians started to demonize sanctuary as a place of crime, danger, and linked immigration with crime and danger.

Our campuses are public spaces where we come together on evenings like this to share ideas, to welcome one another regardless of race, ethnicity, or nationality. It is very clear in the current regime that these spaces are going to become more and more dangerous for foreign born students, transgender people, people of color, etc. We need to find ways to take care of and shelter one another.

Mary Flynn, Program Manager of Refugee Resettlement, LSS of WI & Upper MI

Overview of Refugee Resettlement: this is our mission statement- act compassionately, serve humbly, and lead courageously. We do this every single day in our office because refugees come to is having to flee their homes for various reasons but all including persecution, torture, violence, threats. They did not necessarily choose to come to the U.S but one of the things I see every day is America in people’s’ eyes. They had such great hopes and dreams for the U.S.

On January 27, 2017 at 4:30 in the afternoon that all changed with the first executive order which affected the admission of refugees into the United States. I now see something quite different. I see people who are fearful, people who need reassurance that they have permanent legal status that they arrived with, and they need reassurance that what they see on TV isn’t facts that they have to pay attention to.

We work with refugees and asylees. Refugee resettlement is our democratic expression. Refugees are not immigrants but these days they are often included in that discussion. People flee their country, present themselves to the United Nations office, go through rigorous interviews, and if they are lucky they get refugee status. If they are very lucky they might have someone who is already here that they know.

In 2016, 85,000 refugees were allowed in the U.S. in 2017, Obama’s administration had 85,000 plus another 25,000 for Syrians. This year it is 30,000. “We can do better and we have capacity to do better.”

Janan Najeeb, President, Milwaukee Muslim Women’s Coalition

When I heard the title of Immigration in the city in the Trump Era, what I immediately thought was what it probably should have been is America’s History of Exclusionary Immigration Policies instead. Immigration policies in the Trump era is the next step towards our long standing history of discriminatory immigration policies in the U.S that have targeted specific groups for exclusion. The most serious concern affecting immigrant communities is that we don’t know our history and we think our democracy can take care of itself.

If these last two years have taught us anything, it’s how fragile our democracy actually is if we leave it to others to take care of. Also how easily our fellow citizens are swayed if someone else defines us because then we are no longer immigrants, we are illegal immigrants or illegal aliens. We are no longer Muslims, we are terrorists.

In 1916 congress began imposing a literacy test on immigrants which led to the passing of the immigration act.

As we hear the new rhetoric: Muslims are terrorists, Mexicans are criminals and rapists and Africans came from a-hole countries. While the majority of terrorists and acts of mass shootings in this country are committed by white men. Why are we surprised? Hate crimes jumped 17% last year. The Muslim community here has been directly affected by the travel ban and family separation. My husband’s family is dispersed around the world after leaving the Syrian War. The efforts to end birthright citizenship needs to be called what it is: a policy to prevent more black and brown people from entering this country. As minorities we spend all of this energy defending ourselves rather than taking action and becoming empowered.

I believe this changed this past election. In many places in America, people rejected candidates that promoted hate. We need to make that in all places. People who have been in this country for decades and have never voted, voted for the very first time. My experience based on what I do every day is that the vast majority of people are good, decent people that are incredibly uninformed. We need a war of education. We need to mobilize religious leaders. We need to uplift the positive values of diversity and unity’ highlight the immense contributions of immigrants.

Jasmine Gonzalez, Communication Coordinator for Voces De La Frontera

Voces is a pro immigrant pro low income worker grassroots organization. Christine Nuemann-Ortiz started this organization as a center where immigrants can come and learn their rights, take English classes, take citizenship classes and work towards self-sufficiency.

2006 is when it came this huge mobilizing force. In 2006, Jim Sensenbrenner introduced Hr4437 which would have made it a felony to be undocumented and would have criminalized anyone who did not report an undocumented individual. That would have criminalized so many people are doing nothing but exist in this state. When that was introduced, Voces knew they had to do something. It was such an insane law. Voces began to bring in all of these workers, immigrants and allies and began to put pressure on legislatures. They pushed back against this horrible law.

At the federal level, congress was creating a Real Id Legislation which pressures states to ask for documentation when giving driver’s license. You have to provide proof to show you are here legally. Once this law was passed, all of the undocumented immigrants who were once legally able to drive no longer were able to. That is the bases of a lot of what we’re working on now. It has instilled fear into many of these communities because they are terrified to drive and they cannot contribute to their community. If you are caught driving without a license that can lead to families being separated or parents being deported.

The way things have changed now that Trump is president is that all of this anti-immigrant sentiment is now clear. He has defaced and dehumanized all of these good and working people. The only real change is that there is now additional fear and hatred we have to deal with.

This past year we created a program where we took all of our allies and we mobilized as many Latinx voters in the state to step up and vote for people who can fight against this horrible legislation. We had records turnout throughout the state because people were calling anyone and everyone they knew to register to vote.

“At the end of the day all these people want to do is reach that American Dream and we are going to be there for them no matter who is in office.”

Karyn Rotker, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU of WI

In 1848, the original Wisconsin Constitution, allowed immigrants to vote before they became citizens if they were white. That lasted until 1908, around the time where lots of Polish people, Jews, Italians, and Greeks, who were at the time not considered to be white, started coming into this state and suddenly the Constitution was changed because we did not want those people voting.

The ACLU shows the breath of the attack on immigrant communities today. There are cases before the supreme court right now on the right to bail on immigration detention. You have a mass lock up of immigrants who are being deprived of bail. The litigation over family separation and detention tearing children from away from their parents. They did not even keep track, in many cases, of which child belonged to which parent. They are still months later not able to reunite all of these parents.

There is litigation over the census citizenship question. The U.S gov. decided whether they are U.S citizens. The goal is to strike people because they are not going to answer these questions truthfully. If they do not answer these questions, they don’t show up in the Cap so they get fewer representatives in congress, there is less money for those communities because a lot of the funds you get from the gov. is based on population. If people “don’t exist” you don’t have to give them money.

Advocacy and efforts locally: get local law enforcement not be part of Trumps deportation force. There is a special program called 278g where local sheriffs get trained to be immigration agents. Because of advocacy, Milwaukee County applied to be part of it. It was the only community that was turned down because there was so much opposition in the community. Waukesha County did get 287g status. We did open records requests around the state and some sheriffs are cooperating with ICE and some are not so we are going to continue advocating for that.

Being undocumented is not a crime. The mere factor for unlawful presence is not a criminal violation. Just being here and being undocumented is a civil violation.

We are continuing to do open records to try to figure out where the communities that most of these folks are coming from are so we can target some of our education and advocacy efforts.

The post Shape the Future: A Panel Weighs In appeared first on Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting.