ICE in Milwaukee Follow-up
Reports of ICE stepping up their activity in Milwaukee recently and across Wisconsin serve as a harrowing reminder that we need to be ready for a potential surge like what we saw in Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc… Details are sparse, all we know at the moment is that 39 people were kidnapped across Wisconsin, the majority of those being in the Milwaukee area. The details that we do have are as horrific as you would expect, with reports of ICE agents separating children from their parents and using indiscriminate violence. YouTuber and activist Mike Dubinka also spotted a truck loaded down with ICE vehicles parked outside their new facility. This is all we know at the moment. According to Voces de la Frontera, none of the individuals detained have committed serious crimes. They were predominantly folks with open asylum cases or prior deportation orders. All this goes on top of ICE's recent kidnapping of the Milwaukee Islamic Society's president.
We can never be sure if this increased activity is part of a larger plan to put more of these thugs on our streets, or a more limited action. We have previously reported that, despite a lot of posturing and fanfare, we cannot depend on elected officials to protect us from ICE terror. The only piece of legislation that we could find that the Common Council has actually passed since their ‘ICE Out’ press conference is modifying the Milwaukee police code of conduct so that police are now expected to report and/or intervene if they see an excessive use of force being used by another law enforcement official. The Common Council also prohibited law enforcement officers from covering their faces. Videos of the arrests this past week show masked ICE agents making these arrests, so we already know how effective this law has been.
As we analyzed in our original article, requiring MPD to respond to ICE brutality sounds good on paper, but will have little practical effect in terms of actually preventing ICE from kidnapping our neighbors. Milwaukee police are already expected to intervene/report use of excessive force. All this legislation did was clarify that this already on the books law applies to federal law enforcement as well. This law did nothing to prevent instances of police brutality at the hands of MPD, so can we expect that the case will be any different for ICE agents? This is very much a ‘Who Watches the Watchman’ situation. We are expecting the police, who already are notorious for protecting their own under a Blue Wall of Silence, to suddenly start caring about us? Especially since MPD is already actively recruiting more cops from Trump country. That is not simply not going to happen. As expected, elected officials have barely moved the needle in providing even minimal protections from ICE (but you can sure bet they have found time to grandstand for their personal, pie-in-the-sky political projects). ICE is here now and the Common Council is in basically the same spot that they were months ago.
The topic of how to defend our immigrant brothers and sisters also was discussed during the WISDOM Gubernatorial Candidate Forum last week. The first point to note was how a number of the candidates only seem to view immigrants in terms of how they can contribute to Wisconsin’s economy. As economic units, workers, and it is their economic contributions that make them worth protecting. Not because they are human beings with an innate dignity. Other candidates (especially Hong, Crowley, Rodriguez), thankfully did not fall into this narrative and spoke on how we can defend immigrants because they are human beings. The question of how the state government can realistically resist federal law enforcement came up as well. It was the ‘Republican’ of the race (Manske) who poured cold water on many of the candidates’ plans for legislation, pointing out that it is unrealistic to expect state law to supersede federal law. He is right and Hong was the only candidate who responded to this, voicing what is essentially our stance here as well. Our community must protect ourselves.
We once again will need to defend ourselves from these terrorists. There are a number of organizations actually doing this work such as Comite Sin Fronteras, Milwaukee Turners, Voces de La Frontera, and Forward Latino. These are the voices we should be listening to at this time, not only to know how we can protect one another, but also to be up to date on legitimate ICE activity and not fall prey to fear-mongering or unconfirmed reports. There is also a rally today (July 1st) at 6:00 PM at Kosciuszko Park that we encourage everyone to attend. While the Common Council will probably just keep twiddling their thumbs, we will be sure to provide any updates if they pass any additional half-hearted legislation.
