Sheboygan protest Friday takes aim at Sheriff's Department agreement with ICE

SHEBOYGAN - A protest is scheduled for Friday afternoon in front of the Sheriff's Department over an agreement with the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Sheboygan County Sheriff Cory Roeseler addressed the protest and the agreement in a Facebook post Wednesday morning, garnering hundreds of reactions.

The agreement allows the Sheriff's Department to serve detainers, or the documentation telling someone they are being detained by the federal government because their status as a legal resident is being investigated. ICE describes detainers as requests that law enforcement agencies notify ICE at least 48 hours before an undocumented immigrant will be released from custody and then hold the person for an additional 48 hours for DHS to pick that person up.

Roeseler's decision makes Sheboygan one of five other sheriff's departments in the state that have signed a formal agreement that is part of a year-old program created by ICE for local law enforcement agencies that want to honor the detainers but can't under state and local policies. The sheriff's departments in Fond du Lac, Manitowoc, Marquette and Waushara counties have also signed onto the program. Waukesha's department has a similar agreement, though it allows officers to perform more actions, like interrogation.  

According to TRAC, a Syracuse University organization that tracks data from the federal government, the number of detainers served in Wisconsin has varied in the past decade, ranging from fewer than 600 to more than 1,500. Since 2007, Sheboygan County has had as many as 38 detainers in one year — 293 total since then, TRAC said.

The protest is scheduled for noon to 7 p.m. Friday in front of the Sheboygan County Sheriff's Department, 525 N. Sixth St.

Critics of Roeseler's decision left comments on the Facebook post sharing concerns over undocumented immigrants being targeted and the poor conditions detainees face in ICE's custody, specifically children being held in cages.

The ACLU of Wisconsin urged the Sheriff's Department not to fulfill detainer requests for ICE at the end of March in a letter to Roeseler. 

In the letter, staff attorney R. Timothy Muth urged Roeseler not to honor detainer requests, especially during the coronavirus pandemic "when you must be searching for every means possible to lower the jail population in order to avoid the risk of COVID-19 spread within the jail."

The ACLU sent the letter to several other sheriff's departments in the state that receive the most detainer requests, including Brown, Racine, Kenosha, Walworth, Waukesha, Rock, Trempeleau, Jefferson, Outagamie and Fond du Lac counties.

Muth emphasized in the letter that the ICE detainer requests are voluntary and that if honored, the Sheriff's Department is making an arrest by detaining someone who would otherwise be free to leave. Sheriff's departments don't have the authority to do that under Wisconsin law, Muth said. Milwaukee and Dane are the two largest counties that receive detainers, but neither honors them.

Whether sheriff's departments have the power to enforce immigration laws under formal agreements with ICE is a topic of debate. The arguments against the agreements state the enforcement goes beyond the scope of sheriff's departments, which operate under state law, said Erin Barbato, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at UW-Madison's law school.

Federal courts have found holding people for the additional 48 hours ICE requests to be unconstitutional, Barbato said, and sheriff's departments then become liable for damages if they do hold people for additional time. Milwaukee and Dane counties don't comply with detainers for that reason, Barbato said. 

The agreements, Barbato said, can create communities that are scared to comply with law enforcement, particularly in the immigrant community. For example, Barbato said, a victim of a serious crime who is undocumented may not contact law enforcement if they are scared of facing removal.

Roeseler said in an interview the agreement isn't about finding undocumented immigrants in the community, but it allows the Sheriff's Department to serve the detainers to people already in jail.

But Muth expressed concerns in April over detainers during the pandemic, which, if honored, cause sheriff's departments to keep people in custody for longer — up to 48 hours after they would normally be released or post bond to leave the jail. ICE has 48 hours after either of those things happens to come pick the person up. The concern is that people would be taken out of the Sheboygan jail and taken to ICE centers, where there have been documented cases of coronavirus, Muth said.

Cases at ICE centers have increased drastically. According to ICE's website, it has had more than 2,700 detainees test positive since the start of the pandemic.

Muth also said there is a pattern in jurisdictions that have these agreements with ICE, where people are arrested for minor state law offenses, like traffic violations, and taken to jail, where the possibility of a detainer awaits. The process then becomes a pretext for immigration enforcement, Muth said.

"We are very concerned this could happen in Sheboygan County," he noted.

TRAC Co-Director Susan Long said, "The largest share of folks that ICE takes into custody is not by arrest out in the community, but assuming custody from other law enforcement agencies of somebody that's been pick up." That leaves the decision to book someone up to local law enforcement, Long said.

The places that have formal agreements with ICE tend to embrace the Trump administration's push for enforcement on undocumented immigrants, Barbato said.

"It seems to be places where the sheriff's department wants to increase enforcement for people who are here, either undocumented or are not citizens," Barbato said.

Roeseler said the agreement will only change who can serve the detainer to someone already in jail for a crime. The Sheriff's Department will be trained and able to serve those documents, Roeseler said, instead of a member of ICE having to come to Sheboygan to serve it themselves. Jurisdictions have the option to hold people for up to 48 hours after they'd be released for ICE, something the Sheriff's Department has done for years, Roeseler said.

"Our future involvement is limited to having Correctional Staff trained and empowered to serve that paperwork, thus saving Immigration a trip (saving tax payer dollars). Nothing else changes," Roeseler said in his Facebook post.

In the Facebook post, Roeseler also cited keeping the community safety as a concern and listed some of the crimes committed by people in Sheboygan who ICE put detainers on in the past, emphasizing their severity.

TRAC's data show that as of November 2015, ICE assumed custody of 162 people of the 196 that were served detainers. ICE has since refused to provide the number of people ICE picks up after they receive detainers — something co-directors of TRAC, Long and David Burnham, are suing the federal government to get. 

Of the 196 people served detainers, 69 had not been convicted, 55 were accused of a misdemeanor, 21 were accused of less serious felonies and 51 were accused of serious felonies.

The coronavirus has delayed the agreement between the Sheriff's Department and ICE, Roeseler said, and deputies won't be able to serve the detainers until they are trained. The training would be about six to eight hours and would be conducted by ICE, Roeseler said. While he signed the agreement earlier this year, Roeseler said he isn't sure when they would be able to start serving the detainers.

Contact Diana Dombrowski at 920-242-7079 or ddombrowski@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @domdomdiana

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