thank you for your work. >> Absolutely. Thank you so
much for giving us this platform to talk about our
response. >> In other news, 13 county
jails in Wisconsin now cooperate with Ice, with
sheriff's departments either serving warrants or
identifying undocumented them for immigration
officials. And according to latest Ice data,
immigration arrests have more than doubled in this
state since January. As of late June. Ice made 445
arrests in Wisconsin. For more on the immigration
enforcement landscape here, we turn to Grant Sovern.
He's a Madison immigration attorney who helped found
the Community Immigration Law Center. And thanks very
much for being here. >> Yeah, thanks for your
interest. about the immigration
now? >> Well, I can say that in
Wisconsin, we're seeing a part of what's happening
across the country, which is dramatically increased
efforts to find people, to detain people and to try
and talk them out of being in the United States. There
are all sorts of coercive methods, but we have not
seen widespread raids like you see in some big cities
like Los Angeles and Chicago. But Ice is
definitely very active in trying to find people who
they have any sense whatsoever might be
deportable. But the difference is they just
have an idea and can allege that. But we don't actually
know that someone's undocumented or deportable
until they go through immigration court.
>> So are most of these individuals criminals or
facing criminal charges? >> That's an easy question.
No. Most of them are not criminals. Most of them are
people who are trying to figure out the immigration
system. A lot of people came in perfectly valid
status over the past 4 or 5 years, maybe 6 or 700,000
people in the United States who followed all the rules.
And now this administration has changed the rules or
ended their programs. So these majority of people
are folks who have been following all the rules all
along, and it's the government that's changing.
>> What kind of catch 22 is that for people?
>> It's really difficult because the government
seems to believe that the majority of people come to
America because of all the opportunities that are here,
and we acknowledge it's a great country. A lot of
people come here for jobs and opportunity, but there
is a really huge percentage of people who come because
they can't live where they are anymore. And
unfortunately, the approach that they're taking, the
government is taking is that everybody just wants
to be here and we can talk them into leaving.
>> Is there any reprieve for people who are like in
the system, in the immigration system,
awaiting a hearing? We're following the prior rules.
>> If you follow the law, the answer is yes. People
who are following the rules, waiting for their day in
court, filing everything the correct way. You are
waiting to be adjudicated about whether and how you
can stay, or whether you are indeed deportable. The
federal government right now is taking everybody and
accusing them of being criminals and saying, you
must leave. So everybody believes in the public and
even the immigrants themselves is that they
have no hope, whereas we have a due process system
that addresses all of these things, and the government
wants to circumvent that. So it costs less and they
can show more numbers faster. Despite whether or
not anyone is actually deportable.
>> What's an example of a case you've handled that
stands out? >> Well, I think right now
I think about a young woman and her children who came
to the US because they couldn't face the the kind
of persecution that was going on where they lived,
and they did not want to come to the US. They had to
leave their family. They had to leave their
community. And they government laid out to be
able to apply for asylum in the United States. And
we're seeing lots of people in this area who have valid
claims or not, but are waiting to find out who are
being deported before they even find out. The good
part is, there is still due process today. And if
somebody can get a lawyer and get through the system,
I think of this young woman who won asylum in
immigration court just in the past few weeks and is
able to stay. It's still fearful because, you know,
she has the color of skin is deportable or an accent
that people are going after. But if you get through the
system, you can stay and it's done legally.
>> Do attorneys like yourself learn where people
deported are being sent? >> That is one of the
hardest things we're dealing with right now.
It's part of the government's effort to make
the whole system more difficult is we represent
people who are normally kept in Wisconsin. But when
ICE learns that they have a lawyer, they move them or
they try and move them without even knowing about
their lawyers status, so that family can't find them
so that they can't make calls. Generally trying to
avoid due process because it slows down their efforts
to reach the numbers they want.
>> Because one thing of note that we saw was that
the ICE dashboard doesn't make recent removal numbers
public. >> I think that's partially
because they don't know what they're doing right
now. There is a lot of disarray where people are
just trying to get to the end numbers and skip over
the due process, so I think they don't actually know
who they're looking for or how many people they've
immigration issues. >> What's happening in
courthouses or in immigration courts where
Ice shows up? >> Well, right now Ice is
trying to make our communities less safe
because people are afraid to go seek justice where
public safety actually happens. Our police, our
sheriffs are trying to help with public safety. Ice has
a mandate to find as many people as they can, no
matter their immigration status, try to arrest and
detain them and deport them before they even find out,
and that that is a problem in between the two. Even
though Ice is considered law enforcement, when we
look at local law enforcement who care about
the community, who live in our community, who are
trying to make things safe, Ice has just one issue and
that they're interested in, and it's even making our
local law enforcement and justice systems much less
safe because people are afraid to take advantage of
them. >> Are you finding that
your client or the people that you work for are
afraid to go out to go to? >> Everybody is afraid
right now, and this is the part the government is
trying to make it so difficult. There are maybe
who are not U.S. citizens, but that goes everywhere
from people who have a green card, permanent
residence status, a work visa, DACA authorization,
and unauthorized. How is it that Ice is figuring out?
By looking at them walking down the street, that they
might be undocumented? They're using systems like
racial profiling or the accent they have. So any of
those people who have those issues are worried whether
or not you're undocumented, whether or not you have a
valid immigration status, and some U.S. citizens who
are worried about the current situation because
the government is overextending, going beyond
what the legal requirements what the legal requirements