In other news, thirteen county
jails in Wisconsin now cooperate
with ICE with sheriff's departments
either serving warrants or
identifying undocumented people
and then holding 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 Sovereign.
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.
So what can you tell me about the
immigration enforcement landscape
right 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 through
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.
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 four
or five years, maybe six 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 roles 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 in the system, in the
immigration system, awaiting a
hearing, who are 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 U.S.
Because they couldn't face 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 leave their
community. And they followed a
process that the 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
she has the color of
skin that the government thinks is
deportable or an accent that people
are going after.
But if you get through this 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 lawyer 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 apprehended who
have 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 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 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
clients or the people that you work
for are afraid to
go out to go to their jobs?
Everybody is afraid right now, and
this is the part.
The government is trying to make it
so difficult.
There are maybe 160,000 people
in Wisconsin 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 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 and abilities are
of the government.
Grand Sovereign.
Thanks very much.
Thank you.