A lawsuit against
five Wisconsin sheriffs
in Walworth, Brown, Marathon
Kenosha and Sauk counties
over ICE detainers
or immigration holds
waffles between being heard in
state or federal court.
First of all, how does
an ICE detainer work?
An ICE detainer
is a request sent by ICE
to local or state
law enforcement agencies
asking them to hold somebody
for an additional 48 hours
beyond when they would otherwise
be released under state law.
These are voluntary requests
so the local
law enforcement officers
can decide whether to
follow that request or not.
If they do follow it
then the person would
remain in custody beyond
when they would otherwise
be released.
Waiting for ICE to
come and retrieve.
Yes. Yeah.
So what has that cooperation
on the part of sheriffs and
sheriff's departments
resulted in?
So the petitioners in this case
are arguing that
that results in
unlawful detention
of individuals past when they
would typically be released.
That can have significant
impacts for individuals
potentially dealing with
child care or dealing with
missing work.
This can apply to people
who are not just at the end of
a criminal sentence, but also
in pretrial detention
so who might otherwise be
detained for a
relatively short time.
Those additional couple of days
can have a significant impact.
There are also concerns
that cooperation between
local law enforcement and ICE
can erode trust
in local communities
with law enforcement
and lead to
underreporting of crimes
and less of a close relationship
with the immigration community.