Joe Tarr
Several restaurants — including the Tipsy Cow on King Street — temporarily closed because of the ICE enforcement.
After Madison officials announced Sept. 21 that federal immigration officers were making arrests in the area, Alicia Navarrete sprang into action. A small business owner with a large social network and long list of contacts in Madison’s Latino community, she began gathering, verifying and posting information about the location of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in real time on Facebook.
“People out spotting vehicles, that’s our best resource right there,” says Navarrete, who owns Wisconsin Financial Services Credit Solution. “All the information I’ve been putting out, it’s been firsthand accounts — photos and things we’ve been able to confirm.”
Over the weekend, Navarrete served as a conduit for a network of community members out driving through neighborhoods and apartment complexes where immigrant families live. Hundreds shared her posts as she provided updates on which areas were safe, broadcasted information about immigrant rights when dealing with ICE agents, debunked the rumors and misinformation that had spread on social media, and helped coordinate deliveries of food and medicine to undocumented people who had been advised not to leave their homes.
“It’s crazy,” Navarrete says of the situation. “But people are pulling together. I feel so blessed and fortunate to be part of this community.”
From Sept. 21-24, ICE deportation officers arrested 83 immigrants across Wisconsin, including 20 from Dane County. In a release, the agency described the operation as an “enforcement surge” aimed at targeting “criminal aliens, public safety threats, and individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws.” But Madison and Dane County officials, including local law enforcement leaders, denounced the action as dangerous, unnecessary and unwelcome.
“This is completely contrary to city policy,” Mayor Paul Soglin said Friday at a press conference. The operation took local officials by surprise — in the past, ICE has contacted the city’s assistant police chief before making arrests in the city. But this time, the agency did not contact Madison police. “We’re very disappointed in how ICE and the federal government are conducting themselves, and we are going to make our best effort to work with community leaders and make sure the rights of those individuals in custody are fully protected.”
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, who was among the first Democrats to call for the abolition of ICE, on Friday called it a “rogue agency” that has gone “significantly off its mission.” ICE was created after 9/11 as a bureau within the newly formed Department of Homeland Security to fight domestic terrorism. Now, Pocan says, agents sit in the parking lot of the Head Start program in Beloit. “That’s what’s happening with this agency,” he said. “This is clearly something they did to try and send a message.”
Erin Barbato, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at UW-Madison, was with her students at the Dodge County Detention Facility on Friday morning when she learned about the first arrests. She says that day the jail — one of only two immigration facilities in the state — was unusually full, and by the end of the day the 250-bed facility was at capacity. With no room left at the Dodge County jail, she says immigrants arrested from Dane County were taken to the Kenosha County Detention Center. “It’s much more difficult for us to get there, and also for their families and attorneys to talk to them and meet with them,” Barbato says. “That was pretty disappointing.”
Barbaro says ICE agents came into the community with a list of specific targets — people who had either a criminal record, pending charges or a prior order of removal. “But they also did arrest people who did not have those if they came across them during the search,” she says. “Most of the people arrested were on the list, but a few were just caught up in the search.”
Alicia Armstrong, an immigration attorney based in Sun Prairie, says one of her clients was picked up on Friday morning — a man she’s been working with for years to secure his status as a lawful resident. Armstrong believes the arrest was unconstitutional, as ICE agents reportedly entered the man’s home without a search warrant, pushing past his wife as she told them not to enter. “That’s a violation of the Fourth Amendment,” she says.
Her client is being held in Kenosha, but as of Wednesday she’s been unable to speak to him. “They don’t allow attorneys to make phone calls there,” she says. “We really don’t know what’s going on. It’s just triage at this point.”
The four-day enforcement operation left the city on edge. Several businesses closed, some because immigrant workers were too afraid to show up and some out of concern for immigrant clientele. Eldorado Grill on Williamson Street closed on Saturday after one of its cooks was arrested. The man also cooked at another local restaurant, which also closed down following his arrest. “The employees were terrified,” says the man’s coworker, who asked Isthmus not to publish the name of the restaurant out of concerns that ICE might target the business. The restaurant has since reopened, but not all the employees have come back to work. The employee says the mood is “pensive.”
“We need this immigrant workforce, and we are scaring them and making the situation unbearable,” the employee says, calling their coworker’s arrest “unconscionable.” The man has a young son and a wife, and the employee says he has no criminal record other than two traffic violations.
“I want to go yell from the rooftops, but I don’t want to jeopardize the other employees,” the coworker said. “This is an affront to the U.S.A. This is not who we are.”
People who have been affected by ICE arrests should call Dane County Immigration Affairs Coordinator Fabiola Hamdan at 608-242-6260.
To report ICE activities, call Centro Hispano at 608-255-3018.
Donate to the Immigration Assistance Fund to help with legal representation and other immediate needs for affected families: https://www.madisongives.org/immigrantassistance
