Bice: Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke wants officers to enforce immigration laws
Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. wants his law enforcement agency to be the first in Wisconsin to win federal approval so his deputies and correctional officers can enforce immigration laws locally.
In a two-page letter sent Wednesday, Clarke — a big fan of President Donald Trump's crackdown on undocumented immigrants — asked a top federal official to sign an agreement that would give the sheriff's officers the power to perform the function of immigration officers, first at the Milwaukee County Jail and then in the community.
The program, called 287(g), allows officers who have been through a four-week training program to interview, arrest and detain anyone thought to be in violation of immigration laws. Right now, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has agreements with 37 law enforcement agencies in 16 states, but none in Wisconsin.
"I am deeply concerned about the potential threats posed by illegal aliens to the safety and security of the citizens residing within the 19 cities, towns and villages of Milwaukee County," Clarke wrote to Thomas Homan, acting director of ICE.
But Clarke's move immediately came under widespread criticism.
Christine Neumann-Ortiz, head of the immigrant advocacy group Voces de la Frontera, accused the sheriff of trying to grab headlines by entering a program that would allow deputies to racially profile, interrogate and detain community members.
"We promise massive resistance," Neumann-Ortiz said in a statement. "To resist racial profiling and efforts to persecute and separate our families under 287(g), we will take escalated action leading up to an international general strike on May 1st."
Milwaukee County Executive Chris Abele, whose office wasn't consulted by the sheriff, said the 287(g) program has been ineffective and expensive. "What would actually work for improving public safety is a sheriff who is present and interested in working collaboratively with the rest of the criminal justice community," Abele said.
Patrick Curley, chief of staff for Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, said the move makes no sense given that Clarke "doesn't enforce the laws on the books right now." He pointed to FBI statistics that showed the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office was involved in investigating no murders and only five rapes from 2012 to 2014.
"Why give that (immigration enforcement) authority to the sheriff when he doesn't fight crime as a matter of course?" Curley asked.
Clarke offered no comment on the matter, but his office posted two pictures on the Facebook page for the Sheriff's Office showing Clarke signing the two-page letter of intent and posing for a photo with signed document.
The letter wasn't immediately made available to the public. Fran McLaughlin, spokesman for Clarke, said the document could be obtained only via an open records request.
An enlarged but still hazy version of the Facebook letter indicates that the sheriff is asking initially for special training for correctional officers working at the County Jail under what is called the "jail enforcement model." He said investigations often find that a number of inmates at the jail, which often operates close to capacity, are found "not to be legal citizens of the United States of America."
Clarke then says in the letter he wants to enforce the "task force model," which allows deputies to "identify and process removable aliens in community settings," according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Deputies can do this either as part of their regular duties or in tandem with ICE.
"Such law enforcement partnerships with our federal government," Clarke wrote, "will allow our deputy sheriff and correctional officers to assist in enforcing immigration laws and ensure that individuals who commit crimes and are in the country illegally are properly identified and turned over to federal authorities for potential deportation."
In January, Trump signed an executive order on immigration enforcement that included measures to ramp up 287(g) program. Later in the month, federal immigration agents, with the help of Clarke's office, said they arrested 16 Mexican nationals in the Milwaukee area with criminal records. Those arrested include a 50-year-old man who had twice been deported to Mexico, authorities said.
Clarke told The Associated Press at the time: "No more catch and release of criminal illegal aliens. I will assign as many deputies to this initiative as I can. It is a public safety priority."
But Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn made it clear in a talk earlier this year at the general assembly of Voces de la Frontera that he has no interest in changing his agency's practices in response to Trump's immigration order.
"It really is still for us inconsistent with our core mission, which is to protect and serve the residents of our community," Flynn said. "And you can't do that if you're terrifying them and trying to round them up."
Contact Daniel Bice at (414) 224-2135 or dbice@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter @DanielBice or on Facebook at fb.me/daniel.bice.
