Republicans pass bill to micromanage county sheriffs on immigration enforcement

The Assembly passes a bill to boost President Trump’s plan of stepped-up racial profiling, despite the risks of errant arrests and silencing crime victims.

County sheriffs in Wisconsin have wide latitude in determining the extent to which they will cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. That discretion would change under a bill passed Tuesday by Republicans in the state Assembly. The bill calls for a 15% reduction in state aid to communities where local law enforcement refuses to carry out stricter practices sought by US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

The measure (Assembly Bill 24) moves over to the state Senate, though Gov. Tony Evers is unlikely to sign it into law.

Cooperation with ICE varies widely around the state. According to a survey done by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Burnett County is an example of a county with an active approach that even includes asking about immigration status at routine traffic stops and notifying ICE if they discover the victim of a crime is undocumented.

Unauthorized immigration is not a criminal offense. It is usually a civil violation.

Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett’s department, meanwhile, does not report people who are crime victims or witnesses.

“We want to protect victims and survivors of any sort of crime, no matter what their status is,” Barrett said.

While Republicans said their bill is about enhancing public safety and would only apply to people arrested for felony-level crimes, Democrats say it’s an unfunded mandate law enforcement leaders aren’t seeking, as they deal with tight budgets and staff shortages.

“I want us to prioritize legislation that doesn’t weaponize discrimination for political gain,” said Rep. Francesca Hong during Tuesday’s floor debate on the bill. “Laws like [this bill] don’t just harm immigrants. They also expand the surveillance and policing of communities under the guise of public safety, forcing officers to play the role of federal immigration agents and then expecting them to navigate the very complex areas of federal immigration law. It only sows confusion. It weakens community trust.”

“What are we gaining?” asked Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) during a committee hearing, according to the Wisconsin Examiner. “Law enforcement already has the opportunity to allocate their resources as they need.”

Critics say the legislation would only increase the likelihood that crimes would go unreported by victims who fear arrest, even if they are citizens, permanent residents, or were brought to this country as young children. Recent instances of ICE detaining Wisconsinites have also terrified people who believed they were on the right path toward US citizenship. Such cases raise issues of whether removing a sheriff’s discretion would take time away from threats to public safety and lead to resources being spent to lock up people with no record of violent crime.

Ma Yang, a Milwaukee area mother of five who came to this country as a baby with her Hmong refugee parents, was detained earlier this month and flown to Laos—a country she has never lived in and does not speak the language – without the insulin she needs to treat her diabetes. There, she is under constant guard at a rooming house. According to the Journal Sentinel, Yang had been taking part in regular check-ins with ICE in connection with a 2020 arrest for counting cash for marijuana distributors.

Camila Muñoz was a college student from Peru when she came to Wisconsin Dells on a work-study visa, taking a job picking up towels at a waterpark. According to a USA Today story, Meñoz remained in the US past her visa expiration date due to the COVID pandemic, working in food service jobs. Muñoz later met and married Bradley Bartell, and she was taking steps to become a US citizen. They were returning from their honeymoon last month when she was detained at an airport and remains in custody at a center in Louisiana that costs taxpayers at least $282 per day.

Bartell, who said the money they had been saving to buy a house has been lost to legal fees, admits to having second thoughts about voting for Trump last year—thinking he was going to target people other than his fiancée who had already been vetted.