August 15, 2024
Voces de la Frontera Statement:
(Waukesha, Wisconsin) Yesterday morning, while Wisconsin voters took to the polls for the Fall Primary Election, the Waukesha Sheriff’s Office and representatives from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) held a community input session on renewing their 287g contract, that is now mandated once every three years by the Biden administration.
287g is a discriminatory program that turns local law enforcement into immigration agents with the power to investigate immigration status and separate immigrant families. For Wisconsin, a state that removed access to drivers licenses for immigrants in 2007, 287g has the potential to make driving a deportable offense, raising community concerns not only in the immigrant community, but for their employers.
Under the Trump Administration, 287g was expanded to facilitate Trump’s mass deportation machine and terrorize immigrant communities and communities of color. 287g was implemented in 2017 without public input in Waukesha, as well as in Manitowoc, Sheboygan, Marquette, Brown, Fond du Lac, Lafayette and Waushara.
Ahead of the meeting, Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Executive Director of Voces de la Frontera, shared the importance of ending 28g saying, “The 287g program in Wisconsin grew under Trump to serve to deport millions. Tens of thousands marched and went on strike in Waukesha to protest its implementation in 2018. Though the Biden Administration’s restored federal enforcement priorities, that has provided some protection, the program still encourages racial profiling, promotes fear and places people in deportation proceedings who have been here for decades, driving without a license second offense is considered a crime and in Wisconsin immigrants without a social security number cannot get a driver license. Those individuals can end up in jail for not showing up to court unaware that they had to show up because they paid their ticket, or it was a minor violation, or were innocent. The impact of this program is that it creates fear in the Latine and immigrant community that extends to families, not just the person who is undocumented, and people are actually more afraid of approaching law enforcement. We call on Sheriff Severson to rescind this unconstitutional program immediately and replace it with a judicial warrant standard that is constitutional and respects due process. ”
The Voces de la Frontera-Waukesha chapter, in coalition with the national group Never Again Action, Racine Interfaith Coalition, SOFIA, and LULAC, organized a turnout of over 50 individuals, packing the small hearing room with people standing along the walls. Community members represented a diverse range of ages, races, and backgrounds, but were united in the call for Sheriff Severson to “end 287g”. Some wore t-shirts that read “Biden Mayorkas End 287g Now”, in reference to the executive powers the president has to end the program nationally.
Community members from Waukesha and others were familiar with the program, and the negative impact it’s had on the community. Multiple members spoke out against the program, citing personal experiences with racial profiling while driving, and asked how can the Waukesha Sheriff’s county assure 287g won’t be used as a tool to specifically target Black, Brown, and immigrant communities?
While Waukesha Sheriff Severson quickly brushed aside these concerns, data backs these real-lived experiences. According to the ACLU, a 2022 report found 65 percent of all 287(g) partners have records of racial profiling and other civil rights violations, while 59 percent have records of pushing anti-immigrant hate. The dismissal of racial targeting led a community member to share, “coming here today makes a lot of people feel uneasy…when we come to these rooms and we tell you how we feel, and how your programs make us feel, and you dismiss us, you make us feel unsafe, and we are members of your community.”
Speaking to that point, an undocumented immigrant mother from Waukesha gave an emotional bi-lingual testimony. The brave mother described her experience having lived in Waukesha for 25 years, a place she calls home, and where she raised her U.S. citizen children. Explaining the impact of once having a driver’s license, and what it meant for her family to have that taken away after 2007, relying on Uber to send her children to school, and the crippling fear she has that 287g will tear her family apart. “I’m not crying so that you feel sorry for me, I am crying so that all of us have a consciousness that we’re here because we need to be here. It’s not fair. I pay taxes. I work hard. I have to take two buses to get to work. ‘why don’t you drive?’ people ask me, because I don’t have a license. A month ago they stopped a friend of mine, and she was detained. The police told her, ‘she didn’t do anything, but didn’t have a license’.”
Community members were quick to point out that the date and time for the hearing excluded many people and they would like to see other changes in how the sheriff’s office remains transparent and engaged with the community on this issue. Specifically expressed was (1) increased community oversight through more frequent meetings where interpretation is available, as well as better outreach; (2) a follow-up meeting scheduled in September for continued conversation; (3) data specific to the concerns raised such as the costs to the county for participating in the program, how much money is being generated how many individuals this impacts, what offense caused the person to end up in jail and what they were convicted of; and (4) providing interpretation for Spanish-speakers; (5) to simply rescind the 287g program; (6) replacing the program with a judicial warrant standard to ensure constitutional rights are protected.
Feeling initially dismissed, community members were hopeful that their requests for transparency and change were heard, and remain committed to organizing to end this discredited program.
Wisconsin Bail Out the People Movement 