- There's also a lot of fear and uncertainty in communities
in north central Wisconsin according to local authorities.
There's a large Hispanic population in and around Wausau
and that's where local law enforcement
is working to calm fears.
We're joined tonight by the chief deputy of the Marathon
County Sheriff's Department Chad Billeb.
Thank you for being here.
- Thank you for inviting me.
- How did you become aware there are fears in the Hispanic
community about new immigration rules?
- The sheriff and I were approached by a member of the
Hispanic community.
He's an activist with that community who told us about
fears especially on the west end of our county
where parents were afraid to take their children to school,
were afraid to go to work and go about their daily routines.
So we suggested and asked that he link us up
with those individuals.
And that we do our best to help quell their fears.
- Are those fears unfounded?
- I don't know where those fears come from.
I'm sure that some of what they hear in the media and news
reports just word of mouth that goes through those communities
is what gets that fear started.
And we want to reassure those citizens they have nothing to
worry about.
- Because what are you telling people in that regard?
- What we're telling them is that at this point in time we
have had no new information or new direction provided to us and
that we'll continue to work with their communities like we always
have and that we are not actively out enforcing
immigration law because we've never been tasked with that in
the past and this point in time do not plan to do any type of
enforcement activity like that.
- What law enforcement ramifications are there to
people being afraid of law enforcement?
- What our fear is, if there's a perception of fear that any
law enforcement officer they come in contact with is going to
be enforcing immigration law, that they might take drastic
actions to flee or evade or heaven forbid, fight with law
enforcement in order to maintain that freedom they believe they
have.
- And in what kind of circumstance would this be most
likely to happen?
I understand, you know, people might be, as you say, afraid to
kind of leave their house and would that include driving on
the highway?
- It can include any number of different scenarios.
Driving is certainly one of them.
We know that they have to get to and from school.
They have to get to and from work and if their fear is being
pulled over by a law enforcement officer might result in their
detention, we don't want them to take off on us.
That's our goal in reaching out to them because it puts everyone
in the community at risk when something like that happens.
- And can you speak on behalf of your sheriff's department
about what would be the reaction there if, in fact, ICE came in
with major enforcement?
- What I can tell you from our perspective is right now we are
running a jail that is extremely overcrowded.
We currently have inmates housed in several surrounding counties.
Today we have close to 120 inmates housed out.
We simply don't have the space to detain any more individuals
in our county.
We're putting forth a lot of effort in order to control that
jail population, a lot of alternative programs and quite
honestly considering the drug problem we're having here in
central Wisconsin, it's becoming increasingly difficult.
So housing alone would be a huge obstacle for us.
- And yet you aren't suggesting, I presume, that if
there are immigrants, undocumented immigrants that
actually are wanted for a particular crime that you're not
going to touch them?
- Absolutely.
What I can tell everyone is we'll continue to do as we have
in the past.
If someone has a warrant, there is a detainer for them or
they've committed a crime, then we will detain.
We will go through the standard immigration practices like we
have in the past and we will handle those cases on a
case-by-case basis.
We are not going out and actively searching out
individuals to detain, though, who have not committed a crime,
don't have a detainer or a warrant.
- And when we describe committing a crime, is that any
kind of crime?
- It's a crime that would normally have someone
incarcerated or arrested so they be treated no differently than
anyone else that we would come in contact with.
Major offenses.
We're not talking a speeding ticket or a parking violation.
These are crimes that would normally receive law enforcement
attention just like any other citizen.
- What kind of guidance has your department or others had
from ICE or other federal agencies on this?
- At this point, we have had no further direction.
We hear the same reports other citizens are through media
reports and until we get further direction we will continue
as we have.
- All right, Chief Deputy Chad Billeb.
Thanks very much for joining us.
- Thank you for having me.