The reality for this student and her parents is that every day harbors uncertainty and the simple drive to work is fraught with peril. The student dreams of telling the stories of her people: The people who go unseen and who exist quietly and carefully, thinking through every movement, from cautiously driving the speed limit to watching who you befriend to never going on vacation because you can’t risk your passport being checked.

The student shares the importance of voting in her community. She is a citizen, even though her parents still are not (they work in blue-collar businesses in the Milwaukee area), and she feels simultaneously compelled to speak on behalf of all her people but too frightened to allow the printing of her name. “My voice is important because it is my parents’ voice,” she tells Media Milwaukee.

“You know,” she adds, becoming emotional and emphasizing the core point she wants people to remember:

“We are people too.”

The public controversy tends to focus on the border and migrant caravan or on Washington D.C. and Donald Trump’s desired wall and national emergency declaration. However, a team of 16 Media Milwaukee student journalists set out on a three-month investigative quest to better understand the immigration question in one major Midwestern community – Milwaukee, Wisconsin – where there is a thriving immigrant population but the topic doesn’t often make national headlines.

Wisconsin is 35th in the country when it comes to the number of ICE detainer holds, with just over 10,000 dating back to 2005. That number comes from a Syracuse University center that has obtained aggregate, comparative numerical data from ICE for years. However, ICE is ramping up secrecy, making it harder for the national clearinghouse to provide even aggregate numbers. Through dozens of open records requests with local jails and the state prison system, Media Milwaukee obtained more than 500 names of people with ICE detainers filed against them since 2014. That allowed the student journalists to get a better picture of how ICE operates in Wisconsin.

Throughout Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the United States, unauthorized immigrants silently live their lives, often economically enriching the communities in which they live, propping up industries (such as the food and dairy industry) with their backbone, holding positions in restaurants but often living in poverty themselves, enrolling in the state’s universities and technical schools, and trying to satisfy themselves as a people, while living in shadows juxtaposed against and in an immigration system almost everyone agrees is broken. When the students started the project an instructor asked if any knew an unauthorized immigrants, many hands raised.

In some cases, as with the complexity of any community, the people who came here are less sympathetic.

What the student journalists found: A system clamped down with secrecy, in which the government – and Wisconsin court system – make it almost impossible to put a human face on who is being deported or whom ICE is trying to detain, including a state Supreme Court that doesn’t want names listed in ICE detainer holds released and a federal government that legally prohibits the public from knowing whom exactly, some might argue, the government manages to systematically “disappear” from communities where they’ve sometimes lived for years. The secrecy justification dates to the 9/11 terrorist attacks but is now applied to an entirely different debate. What does flourish: Rampant fear in the community fueled by the quick-hit of social media and lack of governmental transparency.

Media Milwaukee was able to obtain hundreds of names of people with ICE detainers filed against them likely only due to confusion among local agencies over the state of Wisconsin law, which, since a 2017 state Supreme Court decision, has forbade such release to the public. Multiple state and county agencies refused to release names and even aggregate numbers of ICE detainers in Wisconsin, with some citing that court decision.

At the same time, there exists a complex web of organizations and people who try to humanize and help those who are unauthorized, from a Latino newspaper editor to immigration lawyers to an advocacy group that holds driver’s licensing events for immigrants.

“The ability to do this stuff in secret and, by that I mean, the ability to take faces away from the people detained…then they are not human beings,” says Peter Earle, a local attorney who unsuccessfully tried on behalf of an immigration rights organization to get Milwaukee County Jail ICE holds released to the public so the community could learn who the government has scooped up (Milwaukee and Dane County Jails have by far the most ICE holds issued in the state of any agency.)

Humanized portrayals in the media can lead people to formulate their own conclusions, but misinformation can offset that, keeping everyone in embryo.

“…The possibility of empathy is…removed from the political discourse because they are faceless,” Earle says. “People don’t even know how. We don’t even know how many they are. We don’t know what their names are. We don’t know what their stories are.”

Others end up in Dodge and Kenosha or funneled down to Chicago’s immigration courts, where a judge must sign off on deportation, their stories only episodically told now and then through activist press release or family media outreach. The greater majority simply go untold.

That’s truer yet when it comes to the people ICE rounds up who are not in correctional facilities. They are the “vanished,” at least to the general public. There is a Milwaukee “hold room” run by ICE, but not much is known about the people sent to it. You can’t get a list of those kept there or get a tour, although Syracuse University’s TRAC program says 682 people were detained there in the last year for which data was available, most for less than a day, 85 percent of Mexican heritage, and one-third being sent there directly as a first detention stop, with the rest transferred from another ICE facility.

“A vast majority are hard working people, who want to make a living and support their families, and have to come to think of this country as home,” said Cain Oulahan, a Milwaukee immigration lawyer. “They are giving back and are very positive people. Sure, some have criminal records – in many cases a bad mistake they made when they were younger. And in many cases have tried to turn their life around and make up for it. It is very rare that I encounter someone who has bad intentions. A vast majority are really good folks, and are only a problem because they lack status.”

The student journalists, some of whom are bilingual themselves, attended a Spanish-language driver’s license event, conducted interviews in Spanish, and attended a naturalization ceremony. They covered the Milwaukee police chief’s meeting with the Mexican consulate, an immigration panel at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a talk by the new sheriff.  They found social media aflame with claims that ICE was randomly targeting people for deportation, and they attempted to determine who the agency is focusing on and to what degree.

Student journalists interviewed sheriffs, community activists, ICE spokespeople, immigration lawyers, professors, and, most critically, the unauthorized immigrants who are marginalized to statistics, without a pulpit to humanize themselves. The students also filed dozens of open records requests with county jails and the state prison system in a quest to better understand ICE’s priorities, although studies have found that the rate of criminalization is lower in the unauthorized community than outside of it. They interviewed people on both sides of the political aisle. They also sought a list of all names of those detained from ICE – including people without criminal histories and who were not sitting in correctional facilities when they fall upon the system’s radar – but were ignored.

Among the student investigative findings:

• Although nationally, the political discourse on immigration is often dominated by politicians and the president, in Wisconsin, it’s county sheriffs who stand at the vanguard of the decisions on immigration enforcement in their communities. And they vary widely on that in a way that sometimes follows the fractures of this purple state’s polarized politics. For example, Republican-rich Waukesha County is one of only 78 jurisdictions in the entire country to join with ICE in an unique program that gives local law enforcement immigration authority (and one of just three agencies in the Midwest.) Yet, adjacent largely Democratic Milwaukee County has seesawed back and forth in how it approaches ICE detainer holds depending on the elected sheriff. A pattern of other sheriffs argued that detainers may be unconstitutional, said they won’t honor them, or said they want to see a warrant first.
• Consider, for example, the strong words of former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, long one of the state’s most vocal proponents of tougher immigration enforcement: “They’re illegal aliens in the country illegally… They’re in the country illegally. They trespassed into the United States. If you did that to Mexico or you did it to Iran or you did that to China, you would be arrested and jailed, but all of a sudden the United States wants to enforce immigration laws and they become the bad guy. This is nonsense. That’s why I’m glad that this president is pushing back and pushing back hard on this issue.” Then, consider the words of his replacement, new Sheriff Earnell Lucas, who says, “From the start of my campaign, I’ve stated that I was not going to collaborate with ICE when it relates to detaining individuals. I’m not going to drive wedges into our community for the purposes of ICE.”
• The lack of transparency in how ICE operates and who it seeks to detain leads to widespread fear in the community, often metastasizing on social media. And while ICE maintains it focuses on those who are a threat to public safety, the media and public are basically left to take their word for it. The Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2017 even overturned lower courts and ruled that federal law bars the public from knowing which people in county jails have ICE detainer holds placed on them. The question of whether the detainers must be released under open records laws before inmates are transferred to federal custody is a hotly contested one.
• Some immigration activists and lawyers say they’ve seen an increase in aggression and decline in discretion from ICE. They raise a myriad of issues, including unauthorized people who can’t afford lawyers; who have their bail confiscated or who are located by ICE at probation offices; who end up on ICE’s radar for alcohol-fueled offenses, like drunk driving or for simple marijuana possession cases; and who have American-born children but are deported anyway. “I think that the law is not family-friendly,” says Davorin Ordcic, a Milwaukee immigration lawyer. “In fact, I would say that it is anti-family. I think where the law is unfair is where there are people who have settled and developed roots here, have family members and citizen children who depend on them. There is a lot of collateral damage when a parent gets deported.” Adds Aissa Olivarez, of the Community Immigration Law Center in Madison, Wis.: “Now, we’re just seeing it be done with little discretion.”
• The subset of unauthorized immigrants with ICE detainer holds who are under the supervision of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, which includes the Wisconsin prison system, from 2014 through fall 2018, includes 18 convicted murderers. Almost 50 percent of those on the prison list are registered sex offenders, according to a response to a Media Milwaukee open records request. Media Milwaukee obtained all 275 names and ran them in the court website. In some cases, the student journalists found, the state has indicated it has lost track of registered sex offenders with ICE detainers during that time frame, even occasionally filing felony charges against such inmates for non-compliance with the Wisconsin sex offender registry. However, the overall number is a drop in the bucket compared to the overall prison population. Twenty of those people on the prison list were listed as being on active community supervision; one had absconded and one was living in Louisiana. Some of the people on the prison list had multiple previous felony convictions in Wisconsin.
• There is widespread confusion among Wisconsin sheriffs about whether the public can learn about ICE detainer requests in their jails. Media Milwaukee sent open records requests to most Wisconsin sheriffs, seeking both the aggregate numbers and actual ICE detainers. Their responses varied widely. For example, Dodge County refused to give one of our journalists any detainee information without authorization from ICE; Shawano County wanted to charge over $19,000; some counties didn’t respond at all (a violation of open records laws), and others sent over scads of names and even, in a few cases, fully filled out detainer forms.
• According to the Syracuse center’s data, Barack Obama deported a lot more people and more ICE detainers were issued nationally each year during his administration than in Donald Trump’s first year in office. According to Syracuse University’s TRAC database, the most deportations by ICE from 2012 through 2017 occurred in 2012, when there were just over 400,000. In 2017, there were 226,119 deportations, the least of any year since 2012.
• Unauthorized people living and working in the Milwaukee area describe arduous journeys to get here and, for the most part, said they came to economically support families back home. They describe a fairly fluid system in the past, in which people went back and forth between home country and here. They also describe growing fear in the age of Trump and hurt over dehumanizing rhetoric. “The most difficult part is leaving your family behind,” says Juan, an unauthorized immigrant working in a Milwaukee-area restaurant (Media Milwaukee is withholding his full name for his protection.) He gave the interview in Spanish: “Lo más dificl es dejar la familia.”

Here are examples of some of the forms the student journalists received from county-level authorities. After much debate, the students redacted names if they weren’t able to reach inmates for their side. The prison system refused requests for interviews.

Here is a Wisconsin inmate ICE detainer from a county jail.

Again, Media Milwaukee received the name but blacked it out because the students were not able to reach the inmate in question.

Raids and Fear

How is ICE finding people in Milwaukee, and where do they go from there? Media Milwaukee posed those questions to Sarai Melendez, the workers’ center organizer and receptionist for Voces De La Frontera. The group was founded as a workers’ center. Along the way, immigration became part of the worker rights’ movement and part of Voces, one of the state’s most vocally anti-ICE groups.

Melendez mentioned that there are a few ways that ICE is finding unauthorized immigrants, but one of the most common ways is if the person has multiple reentries and has been contacted by immigration in the border. If they are caught by la patrulla (people in the military), fronteriza (people who work in the border) or ICE agents, they take them in to get their fingerprints printed and that stays in the system forever. Once they reach Wisconsin, she said, some people come on the radar of law enforcement by driving without a license.

If the person is being deported, they put them on a plane that will take them to a detention center that is closer to the border, she says. Once the person arrives at the detention center, a bus takes them inside Mexico; but the bus only drives the person 20 miles inside of Mexico’s border, according to Melendez.

Then the Mexican consulate or Mexican government greet them and take them to a building where they are able to make one call and receive a small amount of money. After that is all settled, says Melendez, the unauthorized immigrant is left to find a way back home.

“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,” said Jasmine Gonzalez, Communication Coordinator for Voces De La Frontera.

Voces has gathered some of the more sympathetic stories and publicized them, highlighting the children left behind; for example, the group tells the story of Erick Gamboa Chay, whom it says was detained by ICE in Milwaukee in 2018, leaving behind his wife and three children under age 8, including a boy who has sickle cell anemia and “requires constant care.” Voces alleges that Gamboa Chay “appears to have come to ICE’s attention after being stopped for driving without a license.” The latter is indeed the only offense that comes up for Chay on the state court website, a Media Milwaukee review shows.

In another case, Carolina Brumfield of Waukesha, Wisconsin has created a GoFundMe page called Free Franco. “Franco Ferreyra, my brother, a young father of four beautiful children, an amazing human being, with the biggest heart someone could have was detained by ICE and ripped away from his family unjustly, on Monday morning, June 11, 2018,” the site reads. The page has raised more than $6,000.

“As you can imagine our family is in a state of crisis and heart broken. In order to fight for his freedom, and to reunite him with his children and family, we have to pay for very expensive lawyer fees, immigration fees, form fees, etc. and unfortunately, we simply don’t have the sufficient funds to help him on our own,” continues the page. Media reports say Ferreyra had a past OWI and driving without a license incident, came to the U.S. at age 13, and was detained when meeting with immigration officials on the driving without a license infraction.

Media Milwaukee reached out to Brumfield, but she did not want to talk.

In contrast, the press releases whipped out by ICE on immigration raids in Wisconsin highlight criminality. For example, in September 2018, ICE announced it had rounded up 83 “criminal aliens and immigration violators” in the state, largely people of Mexican heritage who lived in communities all throughout the state. In 16 cases, the people had no criminal histories, but ICE also listed a litany of other past offenses, ranging from child abuse to larceny or reentering the U.S. after a previous deportation, which is a felony. The agency insists its raids are “targeted.”

The government’s rhetoric combined with secrecy and human stories that filter through the community add up to creating a lot of fear. Jessica Cavazos, the President and CEO of the Latino Chamber of Commerce in Dane County, described rampant fear in the community instilled by loose social media talking. She describes businesses closing and people skipping work when word of ICE raids spreads.

“We really need a pathway to legalization and citizenship that we don’t have,” says Cavazos, who reinforced her viewpoint that members of the Latino community generally strive to be a part of the U.S. economy. “The best way to say it is, right now, there is a witch hunt after the wrong people.”

Vidal is an unauthorized immigrant in Milwaukee who is seeking legal status.

“I know I am going to become something sooner or later,” Vidal told Media Milwaukee. In the cases of unauthorized immigrants interviewed or their family members, Media Milwaukee had the full names of people interviewed but decided not to print them because it could expose those interviewed to potential harm. The more important thing was to gather their perspectives. The student journalists also made requests to interview people incarcerated in the state prison system, but authorities refused those requests. The student journalists wanted to defuse simplistic rhetoric’s spot at the front of the American conversation by looking at the issue from all directions.

“If you do it with love, you are going to make it,” says Vidal, who walked for four days and three nights at the age of 17 to pursue his dream of coming to America (he recalls how some people ended up with broken legs, some didn’t make it at all, and how “we had to drink dirty water that cows drink.”) He worked on a farm, as an overnight dishwasher, and then as a busboy, living in relatives’ homes and a trailer, and still finding time to learn English at a technical college. He is now a married 29-year-old with a job and a dream to one day become an entrepreneur.

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

Growing Secrecy

It’s possible to get some aggregate numbers that shed light on ICE activities in Wisconsin.

From 2005 to April 2018, 10,696 detainer holds were placed on people in Wisconsin by ICE, which withheld information on how many of those people had criminal histories, according to Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, which is run by Syracuse University. That makes Wisconsin the 35th highest state in the country, its numbers dwarfed by border states and also less than some other areas of the Midwest, such as Minnesota and Iowa.

According to data from Syracuse University, Wisconsin was ninth among all 12 Midwestern states for the total number of ICE detainers issued from August 2005-April 2018 (10,696) and in the year 2017, Wisconsin was 25th in the country (1,180).

TRAC data demonstrates that nationally, there were more ICE detainers issued in President Barack Obama’s first full year in office (243,946 in 2009) than in President Donald Trump’s (142,747 in 2017). However, more ICE detainers have been issued under President Trump in Wisconsin during his first full year in office (1,180 in 2017) than in President Obama’s (913 in 2009).

On the national level, secrecy is increasing and such information may no longer be as fully available. The co-directors of TRAC, Susan B. Long and David Burnham, are currently suing ICE for violating the Freedom of Information Act and “unlawfully withholding record related to CE’s immigration enforcement actions and its interaction with other law enforcement agencies,” according to a TRAC press release

In January of 2017, ICE began refusing to provide details, such as the criminal records of people held on ICE detainers and whether those people were deported.

According to the release, ICE stated their release of information in the past was “discretionary” and they have decided not to release information to the public, which TRAC is arguing violates the Supreme Court’s ruling on FOIA’s, which is ironically listed on the Justice Department’s website:

“[The] basic purpose of FOIA is to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed.”

In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court, too, has brought down the curtains of secrecy, ruling that the public is not entitled to know whom ICE tries to detain in county jails. The liberal justices dissented, and the court’s conservative wing overturned appellate and lower court rulings that sided in favor of release in the case brought by Voces.

Essentially, the court argued that a federal law prohibited release. That law, which dates to a few years after the September 11, 2001 tragedy, was concerned in part about releasing detainer lists because of terrorists, saying doing so “could give a terrorist organization or other group a vital roadmap about the course and progress of an investigation” as well as protecting detainees’ privacy interests, the court wrote.

The federal law reads: “No person, including any state or local government entity or any privately operated detention facility, that houses, maintains, provides services to, or otherwise holds any detainee on behalf of the Service (whether by contract or otherwise), and no other person who by virtue of any official or contractual relationship with such person obtains information relating to any detainee, shall disclose or otherwise permit to be made public the name of, or other information relating to, such detainee.”

Despite his rhetoric about the subset of unauthorized immigrants who commit crimes, Sheriff Clarke opposed the release to the public of information about them.

In 2015, Milwaukee County Circuit Judge David Borowski issued a writ of mandamus, ordering Clarke to produce the information. The appeals court sided with Borowski in 2016. The conservative-controlled Supreme Court disagreed.

The argument on the side seeking release held that the detainer forms (called I-247 forms technically) are requests for holds (indeed requests sometimes not honored), and that the individuals are in the custody of county or state facilities and are not yet in federal custody.

There is widespread confusion among Wisconsin sheriffs about this angle – even when it comes to releasing aggregate numbers without identifying details. For example, the Kenosha County Sheriff cited the Supreme Court decision in denying Media Milwaukee’s request for the detainers in that county jail from 2014 to 2018. However, he did provide the aggregate number – 86 – and a list with some information sans names, which you can see below. The student journalists had requested both the names/actual detainers and aggregate numbers without identifying information for 2014 to October 2018.

The Dodge County Sheriff’s Department also cited the state Supreme Court case in denying the information, writing, “In order for me to attempt to fill your request, you will have to obtain authority through ICE directing this agency to release such information to you as it is related to ICE detainees.  If approval is received from ICE, I will further need to redact any personally identifying information from the record.” Unlike Kenosha, though, Dodge did not provide the requested aggregate numbers. 

Milwaukee County told Media Milwaukee that the year-to-date number of ICE detainers placed on people in its jail was 91 through November 2018. From 2015 to the most recent year available, Milwaukee and Dane Counties had the most detainer holds issued of any Wisconsin agency, per TRAC. (Not all detainers issued result in ICE actually taking custody of the person.) Here’s the top 10:

The months with the highest number of ICE detainers filed in Wisconsin since 2005 were January 2017 and August 2011, according to TRAC, with the 2011 figure being the highest month since 2005. The data stops in April 2018. The year 2011 is the most active month for ICE detainers in that time frame, according to the TRAC data.

The court decision aside, some departments responded quickly by email because they had so few cases. For example, Grant County emailed the name of an inmate with a detainer, adding, “Charge:  940.225(2)(cm) – 2nd Degree Sexual Assault-Intoxicated Victim.” Some counties, such as Ashland, Green, Florence, and Crawford, responded that they had none.

“We estimate that it will take 20 hours give or take to complete the manual search. We would need six to eight weeks to accomplish the search at a cost of approximately $1,000.00 give or take,” wrote the Iowa County Sheriff’s Department. Yet, others provided lists of names for free or a few dollars.

Some agencies – such as Oneida County – said they would have to create a new record or conduct an intensive and time-consuming search to determine the information, even in the case of aggregate numbers without names. The Sawyer County Sheriff said that agency has very few ICE detainers, but it would require a lot of work to come up with the number or list because it would entail going through thousands of inmate records to find them.

Indeed, multiple Sheriff’s Departments, and the Wisconsin prison system, freely provided lists of names of people with ICE detainers. St. Croix County emailed the student journalist five names but declined to release dates of birth, and also provided this information:

2014 – 2
2016 – 1
2017 – 1
2018 – to date (10/24/18) – 1

Marathon County emailed pages of names, 74, in all. One had two ICE detainers lodged on different dates. The county also provided this chart:

Names were provided to the left of the below document:

Rusk County emailed three names, two being held for alleged sexual assault and one for a warrant. LaCrosse County sent over a similar chart with 12 names but included the alleged offense, including these:

Marquette County emailed over four booking forms that included names and photos. Again, Media Milwaukee has redacted the inmates’ names only because they could not be reached for comment, in fairness to them. However, the release helped the student journalists form a picture of some of those the government wanted detained. For example, the students ran more than 200 of the jail names they received in the Wisconsin online court records system. They discovered a pattern existed in which some of those with ICE detainers did not appear to have any Wisconsin state charges issued. Others did, and they ranged greatly in seriousness from things like operating with a revoked license to homicide.

In other words, it’s easy to find examples that match the rhetoric on either side of the spectrum if one is looking for it. Perhaps the truth is far more gray and complex.

Manda Walters, an ICE spokeswoman, told Media Milwaukee that, in order for ICE to take any interest in an individual, the person’s case must be related to such things as concerns about public safety (such as those with criminal histories), terrorism, or who already have removal orders. “I can tell you in our last quarter date, from February 2018 Quarter 1 to Quarter 3, that we removed 189,000 people from just the six-state area” that includes Wisconsin, she said.

To be sure, those sitting in correctional facilities are the least sympathetic among the group, and they are not comparatively large in number. Many of those with ICE detainers in the Wisconsin prison system are convicted child molesters and some are murderers, Media Milwaukee discovered, including some felons the system says it’s lost track of. However, they are only a tiny subset of the whole even when it comes to the number of those deported. According to studies, the rate of criminalization and incarceration is lower in the undocumented population than outside of it.

“A lot of stats show undocumented immigrants are law-abiding for obvious reasons. They don’t want contact with the police,” UW-Milwaukee Latino History Professor Joseph Rodriguez said.

Immigrants, he said, “have a huge economic impact. They pay taxes, buy cars, and work decent jobs. Wisconsin is heavily dependent on immigration labor. People see immigrants as low-wage workers, but a lot of them are artists, craftsman.”

In the state prison system, ICE is focusing its resources on the most serious offenders.

The 275 people with ICE detainers from 2014-2018 in the Wisconsin prison system, which Media Milwaukee learned about through an open records request, included heroin and cocaine dealers, child abusers, burglars and more. However, they represent a microscopic percentage of the state prison population, despite rhetoric that often tries to criminalize the issue. For example, prisoners with ICE detainers in 2017 made up 0.4 percent of the state prison population.

Still, there are some bad stories to tell of those on the prison system’s ICE detainer list. For example, they include a man who killed his girlfriend’s toddler by slamming the child to the ground; a woman who cut a man’s throat; a man who broke into a woman’s house while wearing a mask and raped her; a drunk driver who killed a person pushing a car that ran out of gas; a man who alleged that three sexual assault accusers were trying to get visas to stay in the U.S. as crime victims; and a teenager who assaulted a jogger in the Northwoods.

In repeated cases, people had lengthy criminal histories, even more than 10 prior felony convictions in a few cases, and there was a pattern of people having previous probation revocations. In one case, a warrant for not being compliant with the sex offender registry was filed after the ICE detainer had been issued. It appears that, in some cases, felony charges are filed in Wisconsin by state prosecutors for sex offenders not being compliant with their registration requirements, when they were simply already deported. The degree to which they are tracked or the public is alerted in their home country is unclear.

For example, here is the court entry for one such case. “Warrant requested by the State, have information he may have been deported,” the state court entry says.

The defendant in question has a felony conviction for attempted sexual assault with use of force and, before that, a forfeiture in Wisconsin for disorderly conduct, for which he received a public defender, needed a Spanish interpreter in court, and didn’t pay his fines. ICE put a detainer on him in 2014, according to state prison records released to Media Milwaukee. In August 2014, he was sentenced to a four-year Wisconsin prison term for the felony. The felony sex offender registry violation was filed in Pepin County in October 2018.

Some immigration lawyers and activists told Media Milwaukee that ICE is more aggressive than in the past and that people can’t afford to hire lawyers or post bond and then are detained, losing the money. “We know there are good people (working for ICE), but we have seen a turn,” said Darryl Morin, past national vice president for the Midwest region for the League of Latin American United citizens.

“We have seen a pivot in the manner in which ICE operates and how far they will go, which has turned into an attack on human dignity. We’ve seen individuals picked up in front of their children. And the majority of the times we see these raids, there are no support systems put in place for the children who will be left behind. Imagine a child getting off a busy, expecting to be greeted by a parent and there is no parent?”

A National Experiment

The student journalists discovered that Wisconsin, a state whose southernmost point is nearly 1,500 miles from the Mexican border, has an anatomy few Midwestern states have, mainly because of Waukesha County’s recent inclusion in ICE’s 287(g) agreement. The only other Midwestern states with an agency signed up for 287g are Ohio and Nebraska. Texas leads the way with 287g agreements.

Just west of Milwaukee County, in one of the most Republican counties in the country, Sheriff Eric Severson’s disposition pivots sharply from his other law enforcement counterparts in Wisconsin. The Waukesha County Sheriff is a proponent of 287g, which, according to the ICE website, allows a state or local law enforcement entity to enter into a partnership with ICE, under a joint Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), in order to receive delegated authority for immigration enforcement within their jurisdictions. Severson said he wanted this authority in part to protect himself and his constituents from litigation at the hands of pro-immigration groups. A pair of correctional officers, under the instruction of Severson, were sent to ICE training. Under the federal code, this training deputizes local law enforcement to become ICE agents.

What it practically means is that anyone who lands in the Waukesha County Jail – even for the least serious offense that can get you there – will be on the radar of ICE.

You can listen to Severson discuss the issue here:

Severson insists that his county’s residents are happy with 287g, although he said that most of those who support it aren’t vocal about it. He considers the program and his intentions purposely misunderstood often from people outside of it.  

“It prevents me, I think, from facing unnecessary litigation because I think we would win that, and I think people who would look at this would recognize that you can’t say I don’t have the jurisdiction to enforce ICE detainers when the very people who are doing it are federal agents.”

Still, for all the controversy and protests the program has generated, the numbers are small, according to Severson.

“On any given day, I may have only one or two people in custody that have a detainer request,” said Severson.

“Not a large number of people.”

Officers who participate in 287(g) must be a U.S. citizen, pass a thorough background investigation, have a wealth of experience in his or her current position, and have no pending disciplinary action. The program permits those designated officers to perform immigration law enforcement functions, provided that they receive appropriate training under the supervision of ICE officers.

Waukesha County signed its Memorandum of Agreement in February of 2018. Two correctional officers have completed the Designated Immigration Officer (DIO) training, whose authority remains solely within the confines of the detention center.  

Severson says he has been cooperating with the Feds for decades, honoring ICE detainers prior to the implementation of 287(g) last year.

The program was an opportunity to allow compliance with the detainers, as well as the gift of jurisdiction. Severson wanted to ensure what he was doing – protecting the people of Waukesha County – was constitutional.

All 78 agreements operate under the “jail model” of 287(g), one of three models that ICE can utilize, which means that people are only screened upon arrest for criminal charges by local law enforcement.

Severson explained that if someone is arrested and found to be undocumented, having crossed the border into the U.S is a civil offense. If they are arrested, undocumented, and found to have re-entered the U.S. after prior deportation(s), then it becomes a criminal offense.

He continued on to ensure that the deputized officers do not enforce on the streets, however, if the person in question is reluctant to produce ID, they may ask some questions and let ICE know, but they do not have the authority to place that person under arrest.

The complex program, with all its intricacies, is quite hard to understand. Severson thinks that may be a reason why other sheriffs are reluctant to participate. He concluded in stating that 287(g) solves the problems that we’re seeing, and that to advance the narrative surrounding these issues, the truth has to be told.

Outspoken Trump supporter and former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke echoes Severson’s opinions. Back in March of 2017, during his time as Sheriff, Clarke signed a letter of intent to participate in the 287(g) program.

“It’s a violation of our sovereignty,” Clarke says. “They trespass into somebody’s country and try to set up residency.” You can read a Sheriff Clarke-era Milwaukee County Sheriff Department press release here:

Clarke resigned in November of 2017, perhaps with the expectation of appointment to Assistant Secretary in the Office of Partnerships and Programs at Homeland Security, which never actually materialized. His successor, Richard Schmidt, was not as proactive in regards to 287(g) and the request was denied. Schmidt was then ousted by former Milwaukee Police officer and MLB security agent Earnell Lucas.

This year, Sheriff-elect Lucas intends to reverse some of the conservative views on immigration.

“A request from ICE is no different than a request from anyone in this room.” Lucas said. “This request is not to be ordered from a judge and therefore… I’m mindful of the fact that… we could be violating their constitutional right.”

Lucas promises that officers will not actively search for unauthorized immigrants; therefore, in the community they will not be associating with ICE. However, it should be noted that ICE does have their task force with agents that do go into the community when presented with a credible tip. Media Milwaukee obtained a list of ICE agents and called one of them, but was shifted to ICE PR.

At a Town Hall meeting on the South Side, in front of a crowd of Spanish speaking members of the community, Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales echoes Lucas’s statements, saying that police press immigration status when suspects are involved in serious crimes, like armed robbery, nonfatal shooting, homicide, and drug related arrests.  

The Mexican Consulate in Milwaukee says that victims of domestic violence or theft, among other crimes, are reluctant to contact police out of fear that they might question immigration status.

“Milwaukee is not a sanctuary city,” Morales said. “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 the victims of crimes, witnesses of crimes, that they should not fear the police.”

Similarly, Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney says that Madison is not a sanctuary city either.

He insists that the process of immigration enforcement needs to be more clearly explained to communities that could be subject to an entity like ICE, as lack of or false information has heightened fear in those communities.

Mahoney has been enticed by ICE to apply to the 287g program, but he has refused on every occasion, saying that he has no interest, nor does he anticipate having any interest in the future. Every year, 30 to 40 individuals in Dane County have ICE holds placed on them, but none are honored, unless it is a unique situation in which a warrant is issued by a judge.

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

Human Voices

While the current administration’s stance on immigration can be reduced to a wall as the government continues its abeyance over whether the administration can secure adequate funding for the $5 billion project, which would be erected on the United States’ southern border, people like Juan, a Milwaukeean who hails from León, Guanajuato, Mexico, are taking precautions, philosophizing as a chessmaster does – three steps in advance, at least.

Juan, who has emigrated to the States on two separate occasions, was originally drawn here in 2003, as an 18-year-old, to secure a property large enough to house his parents and his siblings. There were eight of them, coming from León – the fourth most populous municipality in Mexico and a bedrock for the leather industry in the country – as he, enervated by 16-hour days and separated from his bed until well beyond the witching hour, sought better pay and fewer hours. Juan admitted the hardest part about venturing to the United States was leaving his family behind, the first time it was his parents and the second his wife and children.  

In 2003 Juan was 18 years old, working, what Americans might consider ungodly long shifts, at a wholesale market in Leon, Guanajuato. With dreams to provide for his parents, brothers and sisters, he decided to embark on his first journey across the border. Juan was young, and he was scared.  

After four years making progress in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Juan was caught without a license by the police and found himself back in Mexico.

Back home, after Juan got married, he spoke to his wife about going to the United States to work again. In the beginning she was opposed, but he asked that she give him a chance. Later, he wondered if she would like to go across the border as well. It peaked her interest as first, but now she fears that if they join Juan in America she might prefer living here, not wanting to return to Mexico. So she said no, and Juan left alone again.

Coyote, or “Coyotaje” in Mexican-Spanish, is the term used in reference to the illegal smugglers that bring Mexicans to America, for a price. The Mexican Migration Project reports that immigrants who enter the United States via the southern border pay several thousand dollars in coyote fees. The trek is very dangerous, traveling through mountains and across the desert, possibly coming into contact with deadly insects, reptiles and other wild animals. Many attempt with a heart full of hope, only to be defeated along the way.

Temperatures in central Mexico during the summertime can reach peak temperatures of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and Juan braved the worst of it on his second trip to the States almost two years ago. He traveled with his cousin a few others, walking sixteen to seventeen hours each day. At one point, Juan felt defeated, instructing his cousin to leave him, that he couldn’t do it anymore.

“There were two or four people who were severely dehydrated, and I was one of them,” Juan said.

That trip will have been his last, Juan says. Working in the United States, as a restaurant worker, has allowed him to purchase a home for himself and his parents, as well as provide for his wife and two boys back in Leon.

Juan’s story is not unique; waves of hundreds of thousands of immigrants have similar tales, bringing with them the shifting tides of triumph and defeat.

The student at the beginning of this story tries to describe her parents in a way that will humanize but not expose them.

“My parents appreciate the finer things in life,” she says. “They work hard for their money and they are proud when they get to do nice things and have nice things.”

She smiled as she thought of her mother, saying her hugs always smelled of Chanel No. 5, the perfume her mother always wears. She gave a nod to father who is a quiet man, with a small social circle, saying, “We have each other and that is enough, if my parents went back to Mexico, they would have no one else.”

For this bright student, making a difference comes in being vocal, sharing the humanity of her parents, who give to others, their community and have armed her with an opportunity to be well educated and go far in life. While people have often given her online profiles a hard time, biting back with criticism and lack of understanding, she knows her experience is similar to many others, and she wants people to recognize the humanity, and patriotism of the people in her household, who are proud of their community and, in their eyes, to be American.  

New Citizens

At Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, in Bonaventure Hall Sr. Camille Kliebhan Conference Center, a naturalization ceremony began. The room was packed, and people filled the seats and lined the walls. Children played on iPads. Toddlers squirmed in the arms of their parents, pining to run and play with other kids. Dozens of cell phones floated above the crowd, capturing photos of the very special moment that over 150 people, from approximately 55 different countries, had waited and worked for.

To become a naturalized citizen, an applicant must be 18-years-old and of good moral character. They must have the ability to speak, read and write English, as well as understand U.S. government and history.  In regards to residence, an applicant must be a lawful permanent green card holder having lived in the U.S. for at least five years, being physically present for at least 30 months. Finally, applicants must be willing to take the Oath of Allegiance.

The judge named off countries one by one, “Albany.” Hands shot up. “Belize.” More hands raised. One after the other, hands held high. “Mexico.” Dozens of hands went up in unison, and cheers rang out – the only country to receive such applause. A single man from Spain cheered as his country was called. The atmosphere was electric, people beaming ear to ear, chatting with families, and taking pictures with their certificates in front of an American flag.  

“The path to this day wasn’t easy,” said Judge Beth Hanan, presiding in Milwaukee and Green Bay. “Each of you is a person with good moral character.”

The Oath of Allegiance has two parts, which the judge carefully explained before everyone took it, reminding them that Americans are enriched be the fact that they have chosen to become fellow U.S. citizens. The Oath orders them to renounce any allegiance to any “Prince state of sovereignty” and swear all allegiance to the United States, although they are encouraged to remember and embrace their native heritage.

“The allegiance you held from the country from which you came will be destroyed, as if it never existed,” says the judge.

They stood up as applicants, right hands raised with fingers pointing to the ceiling, and sat down as citizens. One young girl wore a red shirt “DEPORT RACISTS,” stitched across the front.

Another teenager turned to look at her mother. “Mom, now we are equals,” she said, holding her in a long embrace.

The post Secrecy, Dreams and Shadows appeared first on Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting.

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.

Presidential Administrations

Using the TRAC data, we wanted to compare how many people were deported nationally and in Wisconsin during the two most recent presidents’ first full year in office.

For President Obama, that was 2009, while for President Trump, that was last year in 2017.

During President Obama’s first full year in office, 101,199 more people were issued detainers than during President Trump’s first full year in office.

However, during President Trump’s first year in office, 267 more people in Wisconsin were issued detainers.

Detainers Issued by Region, 2017

Once again, TRAC data demonstrated that the most detainers were issued in the southern and western areas of the country during 2017. A closer look at the top ten and bottom ten reveal which regions incur the most detainers.

Top Ten

Five southern states (Texas, Georgia, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia) dominated the top ten with 49,820 total detainers. Although there are only two western states (California and Arizona) in the top ten, they made up 36,548 of the detainers issued in 2017.

In a distant third, only two northeastern states (New York and Pennsylvania) from the top 10 were home to 7,999 detainers. In comparison, only one midwestern state, Illinois, made it in the top ten with 3,000 detainers.

Border States with Mexico

California, Texas, and Arizona were all included in the top 10 and 64,907 total detainers were issued there. Interestingly, there were only 551 detainers issued in the fellow border state of New Mexico.

Bottom Ten

Four northeastern states (Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island and New Hampshire) made up the bottom ten with 368 total detainers. Two southern states (D.C. and Delaware) had the second-most detainers in the bottom ten with 282. One lone western state, Montana (71), was in the bottom ten as well as one lone midwestern state, North Dakota (108). Alaska (27) and Hawaii (101), which are not part of the mainland, rounded out the bottom ten.

Wisconsin’s National Ranking, 2017

Wisconsin is literally in the middle of the pack – 25^th in the nation – in terms of how many detainers were issued nationwide in 2017.

Detainer Rates by Population, 2017

Using Census Bureau and TRAC Data, we compared how many detainers were issued against the population of each U.S. state.

For context, California and Texas were the most populated states in the country (39,536,653 and 28,304,596 and respectively) in 2017, while Wyoming and Vermont were the least populated states in the country (579,315 and 623,657, respectively) in 2017.

Four states – Texas, Arizona, California and Georgia – which were all included in the top ten states with the most detainers issued were also in the top ten states with the most detainers issued per 10,000 people. Texas and Arizona were highest, issuing 10 detainers per 10,000 people.

Seven states – Vermont, Maine, Rhode Island, Montana, North Dakota, Alaska and Hawaii – which were all included in the bottom ten states with the least detainers issued were also in the bottom ten states with the least detainers issued per 10,000 people. Vermont was lowest, issuing 0.26 detainers per 10,000 people.

Wisconsin, which had a population of 5,795,483, was 33rd on the list with about two detainers being issued per 10,000 people in 2017.

Detainers per Wisconsin County, 2005-2018

Using TRAC data, we developed a histogram to conduct a comparative analysis on how many detainers there were per county.

Simply put, there were 15 counties with between 0 and 10 detainers. The remainder of the data is listed below:

• There were 37 counties with between 11-50 detainers
• There were 15 counties with between 51-100 detainers
• There were six counties with between 101-200 detainers
• There were nine counties with between 201-300 detainers
• There were four counties with between 301-400 detainers
• There was one county with 501-600 detainers, one county with 701-800 detainers, one county with 1101-1200 detainers and one county with more than 1200 detainers.

Wisconsin Counties with the Most Detainers, 2005-2018

Wisconsin Counties with the Fewest Detainers, 2005-2018

ICE Detainers in Midwestern States, 2005-2018

Wisconsin is 12^th among midwestern states in terms of how many detainers have been issued from 2005-2018 and last among all states which touch Wisconsin’s borders (Minnesota, Michigan, Iowa and Indiana)

Over the past 14 years, there have been 764 detainers issued on average per year in Wisconsin.

Also, over the past 14 years, the state of Wisconsin has had 32,973 fewer detainers than Illinois (the leader in Midwestern states) and 9,806 more than North Dakota (the Midwestern state with the least detainers).

Note, this parallels data from the year 2017, which demonstrated that the least detainers were issued in North Dakota (108) among midwestern states and the most detainers were issued in Illinois (3,000).

Frequency of Felonies, 2017-2018

Using records from Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections, we developed another histogram to determine how many Wisconsin state prisoners who had been issued detainers were found guilty of committing felonies.

The data revealed that nearly every prisoner who was issued an ICE detainer between 2017-2018 was convicted of at least one felony.

In fact, most prisoners (55) had one felony, 40 prisoners had two felonies and 11 had three felonies. Outliers included one person with zero recorded felonies, two people with more than ten felonies and eight unknowns.

Sex Offender Registry Status, 2017

We noticed that most of the Wisconsin state prisoners who had been issued detainers were found guilty of committing a sex crime. Consequently, we decided to make two comparisons:

1. Compare the number of overall prisoners* with detainers to the adult Wisconsin prison population
2. Compare the number of prisoners with detainers who are registered sex offenders to the number of incarcerated Wisconsin prisoners who are registered sex offenders.

*The DOC data from their year in review does not specify which prisoner have detainers. Therefore, in determining percentages, we assumed the 98 was included in that figure (therefore, 98 out of 23,519 and 42 out of 6,048).

We found that Wisconsin prisoners with detainers made up 0.41 percent of the entire Wisconsin prison population.

In addition, Wisconsin prisoners with detainers who are on the sex offender registry make up 0.68 percent of Wisconsin’s incarcerated registered sex offenders. In context, the Wisconsin DOC noted that there are over 23,000 adults in the sex offender registry program.

Prison Population Comparison, 2014-2018

Using the DOC’s weekly population reports from the last weeks of 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and the most recent week of 2018 for which we data, we compared that to the number of the Wisconsin state prisoners with detainers for each corresponding year.

After conducting our comparison, we found that Wisconsin prisoners with detainers represented less than one percent of all Wisconsin prisoners.

• In 2014, they represented 0.16 percent of all Wisconsin prisoners
• In 2015, they represented 0.17 percent of all Wisconsin prisoners
• In 2016, they represented 0.27 percent of all Wisconsin prisoners
• In 2017, they represented 0.42 percent of all Wisconsin prisoners
• In 2018, they represented 0.18 percent of all Wisconsin prisoners

Detainers per Jail/County

The map shows how the areas with the most detainers (with the exception of Trempealeau) are concentrated in the eastern, and especially the southeast, portion of Wisconsin. Each dot represents a jail with the number of detainers as well as the county, city, jail name, jail address, and sheriff/warden/jail administrator. The information was compiled using TRAC data.                                               

Data Sources:

• U.S. Census Bureau
• Syracuse University’s TRAC Data
• Prisoners with ICE Detainers: Wisconsin Department of Corrections Prison Data
• 2017 Wisconsin Incarcerated Sex Offenders: Wisconsin DOC 2017 A Year in Review
• 2017 Wisconsin Population Numbers: Wisconsin DOC Inmate Profile 2017

Please report any inaccuracies or typos.

The post Truth in Numbers appeared first on Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting.

What are some of the reasons that people in the community are brought in and detained? For instance.

ICE is involved in departmental sec­­urity and most of this is available on the website. We are tasked with enforcing as well as National Security and Public Safety tasks. So that means not at the border, but our sister agents are charged with interior border protection. The borders and they are the ones checking visas as people go through at points. Also looking at goods that are moved into the country and insuring that they have all the proper documentation.

So what we do at ICE as far as completing our mission to protect the border from cross border crime and illegal immigration is that we are ensuring that the illegal movement of people and goods is minimized or limited based on INA.  So the INA is the federal law that provides jurisdiction, to our Agency, necessary to enforce the laws that are written there. There are general classes of aliens, that are ineligible to receive visas or they are ineligible to enter this country. That is spelled out very clearly in our Constitution under the Immigration & Nationality Act.  When you ask about instances where we would be looking for people, they always need to be related to Public Safety, terrorism, or illegal immigration, it must have one of those three components in order for us to have any interest in that individual.

If you look more closely at the INA, which I really recommend you do, there are two different sections; there is the Section 212 and Section 237. Section 212 will give you the general classes of the major groups of individuals that would be served with a notice to appear and go to court, because they are here illegally; and one is illegal entry and the other is communicable disease, drug abuse, moral turpitude, control substance and multiple criminal convictions, espionage and terrorism activity. Also, Nazi persecution or genocide, it they can traced back to other countries where they participated in their country’s genocide, where we have had cases going back to Rwanda where those people who were participating in the killing of their people, were hiding out in our country, and we would not come across them until that point.

So that is under Section 212, and under Section 237, it goes on to explain what categories of individuals would be eligible for deportation or removal. So one is, they would get a day in court, another way is a Lawyer could give them other options.

The other section goes over whether or not someone would be qualified to be removed and that includes people who violate a status that they are here under. If they did come here on a visa, and just never left, just like in many other countries there would be a consequence. Those people are not entitled to a day in court because they have already been allowed to renew and did not take all the steps so they can be immediately removed. In addition to that, there is also alien smuggling, so if someone is bringing groups of other people across the border, you’ve probably heard about the tractor trailers across the South, where it happens quite often. It also happens in the interior, in different cases where they might be moving, people who are not in control of their own identities or their own payroll. That is what we classify as Human Smuggling. If they obtain a Visa by fraud, or if they have a conviction of a crime of moral turpitude within five years of entry that can also constitute an automatic removal. Aggravated felons, controlled substances or firearm offenses, or mostly because they are not citizens, they do not qualify for firearms. Also, domestic violence will fall under that, violation of a protective order, or false claim to a United States citizen, or lying to law enforcement, and finally any terrorist activities. So 237 is basically saying that any of these people can be removed without a hearing. However, most are usually summoned to appear at a hearing, at the Immigration Court, which is not under Homeland Security, but under the Department of Justice. And then those judges will hear both sides, the side of the government and what their case is, and whether or not that person is removable, is not here on a legal basis, and that individual has the opportunity to have Counsel, and representation at that hearing, and ultimately the Judge decides if they stay or go… or if they have a bond or any other situation, that our Agency is tasked with carrying out the orders issued by that Judge.

How do people who are unlawfully here go from living in the community to being detained by one of your agents? If someone is arrested, for example, does the jail notify you as to their arrest?

That’s a great question. Actually what happens is that if that person has never been encountered before, they are probably able to live quite some time within the community. There could be instances where they commit a crime in their country of origin or maybe wanted on Interpol, but they can sometimes go 10 or 15 years, that happens all the time. In other cases, if someone interacts with local law enforcement, once you are fingerprinted that goes into a national data base that then is distributed to both Homeland Security and the FBI. If that person got in through our Southern, or Northern border or a port of entry, and they were provided a notice to appear because perhaps they did not have a Visa when they came in, and they were given a date because our court system is so backed up. It could be three years down the road.

If they do not show up for that court date and then go live in a community for five, 10 or 15 years, they could do that, and probably not ever hear from us.

So living under the radar is a risk, but what is the benefit of appearing at the court date for the notice to appear to get their citizenship?

Absolutely not. To get your citizenship you go through a different Agency. The Citizenship and Immigration Service Agency, which is also under DHS. The reason they are having consequences is that they are here illegally. So maybe it is better for them not to go to court.

Do Milwaukee officers, if they come across a drunk driver, do they contact a local ICE agent?

As soon as someone is fingerprinted, it goes into a national database, and that database then flags DHS as well as the FBI for that individual. It those prints are in the system, they become a target. It’s not the jails that contact us, we have officers that continually monitor different public sites that have individuals listed there for that reason. If we can take custody from a local jurisdiction without having to go through a community, assuming they are in jail for a criminal offense, it reduces the risk our officers are taking and the community itself, because they are weaponized and do not want to take drastic measures at any time.

It’s a notification we receive through the national data base of all of our fingerprints.

So how or when does a person crossing the border get initially fingerprinted?

When someone presents themselves at the border, when you are served that notice to appear, you will be fingerprinted at the same time.

Once ICE is notified by the fingerprint database, do they know where to go to detain the person?

Manda: Well no…that is why our officers are trained as police, because they have to do investigations and a lot of background work. Sometimes people don’t stay at their given addresses. Or some give the wrong address, so sometimes it takes real detective work to find them.

So the jails don’t know if they have an (unauthorized immigrant)?

No not at all… and sometimes depending on the jurisdiction they specifically do not want to know.

So what is the point of the 287g then?

Oh. that is a great question. If our officers determine that we do have a person we are targeting in our local jails, that is when we serve a detainer. A detainer is asking that jail, once he or she has served their time.. call us and we will take custody.

Let’s say an (unauthorized immigrant) is arrested for drunk driving, they first serve their time and then they are taken?

Actually, it’s up to each jurisdiction. Sometimes individuals would prefer to be removed then to sit in jail. That is worked out between the state and district attorneys.

It used to be that 287g was different than what it is today. Now 287g is only a jail model, that means that ICE enters to memorandums of understanding with a facility that says, we will train an officer in immigration law, in everything our officers are aware of that could include weapons training, or hand to hand combat. In return, that local facility instead of contacting ICE, every time they have an individual who meets the standard or already has a removal order from a Judge, then that officer can make that initial interview. 

For example, there is only one 287g program in the whole Chicago AOR.. which includes  Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin. In the last year, they have only had one case that was fitted from having that officer there and that individual was not even removable.

What do your field agents at your various offices do?

They would do the same thing as any other officer around the country. There are three different divisions, one is fugitive operations, this is where individuals already have a removal order. They are in this case doing the police work to locate the individual and make the arrest. They document it and fill out the reports, a big component of what they do.

In addition, they have the criminal alien program. That is where they have officers who are monitoring jail rolls, sometimes they will go courthouses and see who is on the docket there, for a variety of different crimes, and then see if they match any of the targets for their region or their state. Often times it could be we thought they were in Milwaukee, but now they are in Kansas City, and it actually takes an officer to determine that and pass it off.

The third category is our alternative to detention. These are people who have already been arrested or apprehended and have been served an NTA, and there is area of that enforcement or removal operation that monitors..like probation or ankle monitors. They are expected to check in at certain times, they may or may not already been before a Judge.

The other piece I have not mentioned is Homeland Security investigations. These are the ones that look closely at the prevention of terrorism, and combating illegal movement of people and goods. So they are conducting investigations, on counterfeiting, human trafficking and cyber exploitation, money laundering… all different things.

After serving local sentences, where does ICE hold the detainees?

It depends because some facilities have Video Tele-Conferencing options. If they have that option, sometimes ICE will work with that facility to enable that person to appear via VTC, before they are released. Otherwise, if they are released and ICE takes custody, yes, they can wait in a different facility until they are removed.

There are immigration courts all across the country, and if that individual would want to live in Indiana after their local release, there is a court there in Indiana so they might be transferred somewhere closer to that court. Or like from Milwaukee, the closest court for immigration is in Chicago. So it could be that they then would be moved closer to Chicago.

If it is determined that someone is (an unauthorized immigrant)… what is the outcome likely to be? Do 100% …get deported? What would the purpose of a court date if 100% did get deported?

Another good question! We don’t keep a record of wins or losses. It’s up to the courts to decide. So it’s hard to give you a percentage. I can tell you in our last quarter date, from February 2018 Quarter 1 – Quarter 3, that we removed 189,000 people from just the six state area.

The post We Ask, ICE Answers appeared first on Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting.

There are nearly 700,00 DACA recipients as of September 2017. Most of them are of Mexican decent like Gachuz and most were brought over by family and friends in hopes of a better life.  The beginning of DACA  started in 2012 with President Obama.  With this program Gachuz has been able to stay in the US and has been registering with the program for the past six years.

Mauricio Gachuz Govea. Mexican. American. Gay. Immigrant. College student.

President Trump has announced of end of DACA last year, which means no new applicants could be accepted. The individuals that are registered are left in a stage of limbo with the program still in affect, but on its way out, unsure of when or if it will be eliminated.

The Govea family was well off in Mexico. Gachuz’s father owned a grocery store and his mother didn’t have to work as a result.  Gachuz and his younger brother Daniel attended a private middle school,  Mau was 8 and Daniel was 7 when his parents began to entertain the idea of leaving Mexico.  With all of the luxuries they had in Mexico their parents still felt there was something better for them in America. Members of their extended families had already gone to America and shared with them how much better and safer their new homes were. This was enough for the Govea family to make the move.

“It was the last week of July 2004,” said Gachuz. “ We flew out to the border by San Diego for our vacation where we met up with our uncle.”

Their uncle promised to teach Daniel and Mau how to paddle surf on the Pacific Ocean. “We later found out he wasn’t our uncle, or of any relation to us.”

Their uncle drove Mau and his brother the two hour drive across the border with someone else’s legal documents. They stayed with their “uncle” and his family for over a week and finally were taught how to paddle surf. Only the boys made it across the border.

“I cried every day for my mom,” said Mau in a trembling voice. “We flew to Milwaukee to meet with my godmother, we didn’t know that our parents didn’t make it.”

The Govea family was eventually reunited in Milwaukee, which is now what they all refer to as home. Because of the limited resources at the time, Gachuz was bumped down to third grade with his brother for English Second Language resources. He described this as a soul-crushing experience, already feeling different and now feeling dumb.

“I loved school in Mexico. It took me a while before I learned to love it in America.”

After enrolling in Carmen High School, on the south side of Milwaukee, Gachuz had his sights on college. His teachers pushed him to apply, even though none of his relatives had ever gone. Though everything looked good on paper, getting into school would prove to be a challenge.

The prerequisites for DACA were applicants had to have been brought to the US under the age of 15. They also had to be between the ages of 16 to 31 and lived continuously in the United States since 2007. The recipients also had to be a high-school graduate or still attending school. Gachuz fit all the requirements needed to register. With DACA Gachuz was awarded the work benefits of a Social Security Number, but any Financial Aid, Loans or Grants were off limits unless through a private lender.

“I was focusing on out of state colleges because I thought private colleges would offer more scholarship money for me to go in,” said Gachuz. “UW-Milwaukee wasn’t my first choice, it wasn’t even on my radar.”

Thanks to a clerical error, Gachuz was accepted to UWM and also given in-state tuition. That tuition is something that Gachuz has to petition for every year.

With DACA, Gachuz also gets a permit to work, which is to be renewed every two years. As of now, Gachuz has received this renewal three times.

“Citizenship for me isn’t an option unless I happen to marry someone,” said Gachuz.

As a gay man he faces an equally bleak path to get citizenship through marriage.

“Coming out to my parents was tough,” said Gachuz. “At some point you learn that it’s not something to be scarred about, but something that you have to own. Something that you have to own, that makes you stronger because you’re different, but unique.”

Being gay has proven to be easier to share than being undocumented, according to Gachuz. Depending on someone’s political affiliations it could go badly.

“Telling boys that I was dating was also really weird, how and when I have to tell them is such a personal thing,” said Gachuz.

The political climate today is more threatening than it has been in the past. DACA may be coming to an end, and many recipients are unsure of their future.  

“With today’s political climate I’m afraid of being sent back “home””, Gachuz says. He puts home in quotations because Mexico now seems foreign to him.

“I’m from Milwaukee, I don’t know anything else outside of here, English is now my first language.  I have a Midwestern accent, I say bubbler, cheese is my religion and I can’t get enough custard. I wouldn’t know what things are back ‘home’.”

Though Gachuz praises DACA, saying it is great for people like him, he does call it a “band-aid for citizenship,” and a “broken immigration reform”.  Without a real path to citizenship, Gachuz like thousands of others are stuck in the middle, in this no-man’s land of conflicting identities.

“To me, being Mexican isn’t about wearing sombreros or the mariachi outfits, or the folklore dancing, it’s about being able to care for people and to love them unconditionally. My parents brought us here to live a better life, they brought us here so we could have better things than they could have offered us in Mexico. So being American to me, means that I am working hard to ensure that I live up to what my parents wanted for me.”

“That’s what America was founded upon, people who wanted something better, something new, somewhere they could start fresh.”

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

La reunión comenzó con miembro de Voces, Ramiro, agradeciendo a la audiencia por salir y venir en sábado, y les recordó a todos que se convirtieran en miembros de Voces De La Frontera si aún no lo habían hecho.

“Necesitamos un poquito de su ayuda para seguir en esta lucha,” el dijo.

Directora de Operaciones de Voces, Nancy Flores, luego tomó el escenario, dándoles la bienvenida a todos nuevamente, animando a todos en la audiencia a convertirse en miembros de Voces. Comenzó con una imagen de mapa de los Estados Unidos, explicando que los estados verdes en el mapa tenían licencias de conducir autorizadas para inmigrantes. Wisconsin estaba entre los estados sin color en el mapa, que aún no habían autorizado licencias similares.

“El objetivo de esta campaña, de este esfuerzo, es convertir el estado de Wisconsin en verde,” dijo D.O. Flores. Comenzó a explicar el proceso que debe ocurrir para que Wisconsin se una a los estados verdes en el mapa.

 “Si pasa en las dos camaras, entonces llega al escritorio del Gobernador. Ahí el Gobernador tiene el poder de vetarlo, decir no, no lo accepto o aprovarlo y firmarlo y entonces ahí se convierte en ley,” ella explicó.

 “Ese es el proceso que se dice muy sencillo pero claro que sabemos que es muy complicado,” se carcajeó Flores e inmediatamente abrió el piso a la Directora Ejecutiva de Voces, Christine Neumann-Ortiz.

“Ahora, despues de tantos años de lucha, los Democratas, si podemos contar con su apoyo,” dijo Neumann-Ortiz. “Vamos a necesitar a 15 Republicanos,” explicó que para otorgar licencias de conducir a inmigrantes en Wisconsin, necesitaríamos 15 republicanos de la Asamblea Estatal.

Ella despues hizo referencia a la última reunión que tuvieron sobre las licencias. Después de darse cuenta de que pocos miembros de la audiencia habían asistido a la última reunión, Neumann-Ortiz rápidamente hizo un resumen de lo que habían hablado.

“En lo que quedamos es que vamos a darle preoridad y arrancar fuerte con tratar de incluir esto en el presupuesto estatal,” ella dijo.

Se puesieron de acuerdo en la última reunión que cartas escritas al Gobernador electo, Tony Evers y otros legisladores también estarán en las obras. Voces también intentará coordinar una fiesta de bienvenida para Evers en Madison durante su inauguración el 7 de enero. La idea no es protestar sino priorizar las licencias de conducir para personas indocumentadas y mantener una actitud positiva porque Voces tiene fé en que el nuevo Gobernador electo apoyara las licencias para indocumentados. Apoya esta acción.

Luego le dio la palabra a la abogada Michelle Velásquez, quien explicó lo que podría suceder si alguien indocumentado fuera detenido con una licencia vencida y tambien dio ejemplos de diferentes escenarios posibles. Nancy Flores regresó de nuevo y dividió a la audiencia en grupos. A cada grupo se les pidió que realizaran ideas sobre lo que creían que los próximos pasos de Voces deberían que ser con respecto a las licencias de conducir. Después de 15 minutos, se pidió a cada grupo que eligiera un representante para compartir sus ideas. Todas las ideas, desde escribir cartas hasta planificar el próximo Día sin Latinos, fueron apoyadas por todos. El sentimiento de solidaridad llenó rápidamente la habitación. Después de que el último representante hablara, todos aplaudieron y le dieron la bienvenida por última vez a Nancy Flores, ofreciendo volantes con más información. Finalmente, Christine pidió que una persona de cada mesa describiera cómo la reunión los hizo sentir usando una palabra. A algunos se les hizó difícil usar sola una.

“Con mucha esperanza,” se expresó una mujer de la audiencia

The post Voces De La Frontera: Licencias Para Indocumentados appeared first on Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting.

The meeting opened with Voces member, Ramiro, thanking the audience for coming out on a Saturday, and lightly reminded everyone to become a member of Voces De La Frontera if they hadn’t already.

“We need your help to continue our fight,” he urged.

Voces Operations Director, Nancy Flores, then took over, promptly welcoming everyone again, encouraging all in attendance to become members of Voces.  She began with a map of the United States, explaining that green states on the map had authorized drivers’ licenses for immigrants. Wisconsin was among the non-green states on the map, which were the states yet to authorize similar licenses. 

“The goal of this campaign is to turn the state of Wisconsin green,” said O.D. Flores. She then began to go over the process for Wisconsin to become a green state.

 “If the bill passes the House and the Senate, it will be given to the governor. There, he has the power to veto or approve it and sign the bill. Then it will become a law,” she explained.

 “That is the process that is much easier said than done,” she laughed and immediately opened the floor to Voces’s Executive Director, Christine Neumann-Ortiz.

“Now, after years of fighting, we can count on support from the Democrats,” said Neumann-Ortiz. “We’re going to need 15 Republicans,” she explained, saying that, in order to give immigrants driver’s licenses in Wisconsin, we would need 15 Republicans from the state Assembly.

She made reference to their last meeting they had about the licenses. After realizing that few audience members had attended their last meeting, Neumann-Ortiz quickly summarized what they had spoken on.

“What we agreed upon was that we are going to prioritize this and try to include it in the state budget,” she said.

It was also agreed upon in the last meeting that written letters to Governor-elect, Tony Evers, and other legislators will also be in the works. Voces is also going to try and coordinate a welcoming party for Evers in Madison during his inauguration on Jan. 7. The idea is not to protest but to prioritize drivers’ licenses for undocumented people and stay positive because Voces believes the new Governor-elect will support this action.

She then opened the floor to lawyer Michelle Velasquez, who explained what could happen if someone undocumented were to be stopped with an expired license and gave examples of different scenarios. Nancy Flores returned and split everyone in the audience into groups. Each group was asked to brainstorm what they believed Voces’ next steps should be in regards to the drivers’ licenses. After about 15 minutes, each group was asked to choose a representative to share their ideas. Everything from writing letters to planning the next Day Without Latinos were amongst everyone’s ideas. The feeling of solidarity filled the room quickly. After the last representative spoke, everyone applauded and welcomed Nancy Flores back again, offering pamphlets with more information. Finally, Christine asked one person from each table to describe how the meeting made them feel. Some found it difficult to only use one word.

“With much hope,” expressed an audience member.

The post The Fight for Immigrant Driver’s Licensing appeared first on Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting.

What laws are unauthorized immigrants breaking?

It’s a violation of our sovereignty. They trespass into somebody’s country and try to set up residency.

What did he do as sheriff to cooperate with ICE?

I’m following the law in terms of pretty clear. I have an ethical obligation to cooperate with other law enforcement agencies in pursuit of justice.

It doesn’t enforce immigration law in every authority, which is why we were applying for 287G. What I did was cooperate with ICE and you’ll have to ask ICE officials what they were doing, what they were looking for, what they found. All I did was turn over booking information. Anybody including you has the, uh, legal right to booking information every single day of the week.

On whether he was ever concerned that victims or witnesses to crime would not cooperate out of fear of deportation:

No, there is no empirical research to show that that is actually happening.

Is Wisconsin doing a good job on immigration?

It’s county by county. Waukesha county is doing a great job. Their sheriff applied for and received 287g.

Once a person was in the jail, how did he figure out they were not legally in the country?

We don’t. All we do is turn over the information. They go through all the bookings of people who were arrested and they decide who they’re going to investigate. We don’t ask anything. Booking information? Yeah. See, this is a propaganda, the myth that Voces is out there peddling.

I don’t know what every other sheriff was doing. I only have the authority over the Milwaukee County jail.

Normally that’s ICE. They’re the ones that determine the legal status, not us.

There is thing called a code of ethics, right? Such a thing called the United States constitution. I followed the Constitution. I followed the code of ethics. All of a sudden, that’s controversial.

What does he think should happen to people trying to get into the country on the border?

The southern border needs to be protected as part of the president’s solemn duty.

And like I said, it’s a, it’s a, it’s an issue of us sovereignty, a sovereign nation. We’re a sovereign nation because we have borders, we have identifiable borders. Borders have to be protected. Okay? And enforcing your duty that you swore to, like the president, becomes controversial? How come it wasn’t under Obama doing much the same thing? … He didn’t get blasted by the New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN for doing it. But now because the guy in the White House, they don’t like him [so] all of a sudden, they want to make a big deal about it.

This is a political situation is what it is. It’s a political argument. It’s a political hit job on this president. He’s doing what every other president before him, including Bill Clinton did. But now all of a sudden, it’s controversial. That’s the politics. The president, like I said, he’s right on the politics here though…he’s going to win the political war here. The only thing that is going to get in the way is this ninth circuit in the western part of the United States … Judicial activists are getting in his way, prohibiting him from doing his solemn duty. This is a political argument. Now he will win in court. You also have to pay attention to the politics and he’s doing a great job of paying attention to the politics.

Who are these people on the border?

No, not undocumented immigrants. Excuse me. They were illegally in the country. That’s a wordsmithing game by the left to try to confuse people who are not informed. They are not undocumented immigrants. They are trespassers, they are illegal aliens. That is a legal term. It’s used on firearms regulations or background checks [and] it’s used throughout the United States Department of Justice. But they came along, “they” meaning the left, including Obama and changed [it] to make them more palatable to people. They’re illegal aliens in the country illegally. They are not migrants. They’re not immigrants. They’re in the country illegally. They trespassed into the United States. If you did that to Mexico or you did it to Iran or you did that to China, you would be arrested and jailed. But all of a sudden the United States wants to enforce immigration laws and they become the bad guy. This is nonsense. That’s why I’m glad that this president is pushing back and pushing back hard on this issue.

Should the path to citizenship be reformed?

I don’t know.

It should be hard to become a United States citizen. Being a United States citizen is something special … You should have to demonstrate do you want to be in this country. You support this country, you’re going to live by law, then you’re going to be productive. That’s what every country does in terms of who they’re going to allow in. But again, United States does it now [and] we’re the bad guy. We’re not the bad guy.

The post Q & A With David Clarke appeared first on Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting.

No name. No birth certificate. No identity.

She was adopted by a family, giving her everything she knew about herself. A name and a life that would be drastically different if she wasn’t left at those orphanage steps all those years ago.

Ana – whose real full name is being withheld for her own protection) recalls that her mom had some type of education in Mexico, and she’s fairly sure she had a job as a secretary. Her mom had her older sister in Mexico, but for much of her mother’s past, Ana knows very little.

But when her sister was five-years-old, her mother made the decision to cross over to the United States, in search of a better life. She wasn’t able to apply for a visa to the US, for she didn’t have a birth certificate, even in Mexico.

The story about the crossing is unknown to Ana. The one time she asked her mom about it, she didn’t say much, instead she just cried thinking back to the memory.

These moments that happened long before Ana was even born have shaped her entire life.

Ana is a legal citizen. Her mom is not.

“When I was little, I always knew my mom didn’t have papers,” Ana said. “But I really didn’t understand how it impacted us.”

Now as she goes into her final semester of college at UW-Milwaukee, ‘s thinking about her future career as a nurse, and what this will mean for her family.

Ana knows what struggles her mom had to go for her to get to this place. She also knows what she had to go through to be here.

There was a time when they faced homelessness. There were times when Ana had to support her family. There were times where Ana would know what her mom’s legal status meant for her.

During the winter, Ana’s mom would go door-to-door, asking her neighbors in the community if she could shovel their driveways in order to pay her rent. It was only through her boyfriend’s family that Ana found out about the lengths her mom went through to make sure that she had a roof over her head and food for her after school each day.

There are other moments that still resonate with Ana to this day. When she was little, her sister was married with three children. Her sister’s husband was involved in a bar fight, and was arrested that night. After that incident, he was deported back to Mexico. Ana was only nine.

“So that really, really affected my family,” she said. “My oldest nephew was three and today, like he remembers but barely.”

Then later in her life, Ana faced her sister’s own choices. After her husband was deported, she turned to a life that focused on drugs. Her sister was arrested multiple times. She had her visa taken away, something that Ana is shocked that her sister was so okay with giving up.

On her sister’s most recent trip to jail, there was constant worry that her sister would be picked up by ICE. Day after day, Ana and the rest of the family would wait day to day to hear about her sister. ICE never came for her.

ICE is a constant fear of Ana’s. Whenever she hears about a possible raid or if someone claims to be an immigration lawyer that could help out, Ana automatically worries about her mom. Any hint of a raid on Facebook, Ana calls her mom and warns her to stay inside and that she needs to remember her rights.

“I want my mom to be able to say, ‘I’m in the country without papers,’ and not have to fear that someone’s gonna overhear and deport her.”

But looking forward to after college, Ana has a plan to help her mom. Once she has a stable nursing job, she’s going to hire a lawyer to help both her mom and her boyfriend’s parents, who are also in the country without papers.

This is what she’s waiting for. With graduation around the corner, she only has a little bit more time to wait till she can help make her mom a legal citizen.

The post A Mother and Daughter Story appeared first on Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting.

According to the Delegation of Immigration Authority Section 287g Immigration and Nationality Act, the 287g program allows a “state or local law enforcement entity to enter into a partnership with ICE, under a joint Memorandum of Agreement (MOA), in order to received delegated authority for immigration enforcement within their jurisdictions.”

Waukesha County is one of 78 law enforcement agencies in the country that, in partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), enforces the 287g program. Severson is the only sheriff in the six state ICE region that is 287g.

Under 287g, local law enforcement, like Severson, can honor ICE detainers, which are put on unauthorized immigrants who have been arrested and for whom ICE has reason to believe that they may be removable from the United States.

Waukesha County gets anywhere from six to a dozen detainers issued in an entire year, according to Severson.

For Severson, the reason to take part in the 287g program is twofold; protecting his department from frivolous litigation, while also protecting the public. 

Groups like the ACLU and Voces De La Frontera, began questioning the constitutionality of ICE detainers around five to six years ago, according to Severson. The groups began to file lawsuits against sheriffs who honored ICE detainers.

Part of why Waukesha County is a part of 287g is because of the threat of this litigation.

 “The 287g program, for me, is a mechanism that allows me to comply with detainers without worrying about which side of the law this federal district might rule, if and when they rule,” said Severson.

“It prevents me, I think, from facing unnecessary litigation because I think we would win that, and I think people who would look at this would recognize that you can’t say I don’t have the jurisdiction to enforce ICE detainers when the very people who are doing it are federal agents.”

Severson applied to the 287g in the spring of 2017 and was accepted. The program has been up and running in Waukesha for a little over two months. Severson has received a lot of support from his constituents regarding the program.

After being accepted, Severson had to have his facilities inspected, computer equipment installed, and sent two of his correctional officers to training.

His officers went to a month-long training, and once they completed the training, according to Severson, the officers now have sworn ICE credentials.

“They have the same authority that a federal immigrations and customs enforcement agent has,” said Severson.

“They are federal agents.”

According to Severson, there are three different models of the 287g program. The first model is a task force model but is no longer instituted.

“It is that model that people like [Voces De La Frontera] and the ACLU and a lot of other folks that want to attack ICE, that’s the model that they criticize,” said Severson.

The third model is the jail model, which is what Waukesha County is a part of. The second model is a combination of the first and the third.

Through the jail model, Severson and his department learn about someone’s immigration status typically through the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS), when the person gets booked into the jail.

Waukesha County’s Jail has an average of 430 inmates every day, not including the Huber Facility inmates.

Although, according to Severson, they may discover someone’s immigration status by the person disclosing it prior to the booking process, although he notes that is not common. 

“On any given day, I may have only one or two people in custody that have a detainer request,” said Severson.

“Not a large number of people.”

Severson notes that he has never ignored an ICE detainer, although there was an instance when an inmate was released prior to ICE coming to pick them up.

The release came in response to a Chicago district court case that affected southeastern Wisconsin around two and a half years ago, regarding whether or not an administrative warrant needed to be attached to a detainer.

ICE decided to attach warrants to detainers nationwide and went through the active detainers attaching warrants. According to Severson, they missed some, and one was the inmate that Severson released.

“Immigration law is really, really complicated,” said Severson.

ICE prioritizes cases differently, says Severson, and the difference between being in the country illegally and it being a civil or criminal case is something he understands well.

“You don’t get deported because you committed a crime. You get deported because you don’t belong here.”

However, criminals who commit serious offenses, like murder, often serve their sentence before being released into ICE custody, according to Severson.

As sheriff, Severson takes time to understand and immerse himself in everything he’s doing, and during that has also learned a lot about people too.

“I’ve learned a valuable lesson being sheriff. It’s that people advocate for their positions by not completing the sentence,” said Severson.

A sentence that is not always completed, in Severson’s opinion, is that ICE does a lot more than just deportations. ICE helps with naturalizations and assisting people in becoming legal citizens.

“That’s a story that never gets told.”

Severson firmly believes that the fears that communities are experiencing because of ICE are not his doing.

“All of the naysayers who say, oh the world is going to come to an end and families are going to get separated, and people are going to get arrested for running stop sings. And we’re going to do sweeps of communities and we’re going to go to every Mexican restaurant in the county and start arresting everybody in the kitchen,” said Severson.

“None of that’s true. It’s all lies. It’s not happening, it won’t happen. They can’t advance the narrative that 287g is bad by telling the truth.”

The post One of the Few in the Country: Waukesha’s 287g Program appeared first on Disappeared: 10,000 and Counting.