‘UpFront’ explores ACLU’s ICE detainer suit

Attorneys for five Wisconsin sheriffs named in a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union pushing to ban ICE detainers in county jails are asking to have the case heard in federal court.

“Fundamentally, immigration is a federal issue,” Sam Hall, an attorney representing the sheriffs, told WISN 12’s “UpFront,” which is produced in partnership with WisPolitics-State Affairs. “When law enforcement officers in Wisconsin are cooperating with ICE, they’re doing so under these 287 agreements, and with these 287 agreements, there’s a formal conferral of federal law enforcement authority, so when a sheriff’s official pulled someone in the jail honoring the ICE detainer, they’re actually doing that as a federal law enforcement officer.”

The Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in December. Sheriffs in Walworth, Brown, Marathon, Kenosha and Sauk were all named in the lawsuit.

“They certainly have ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to say as to whether or not they enter into a 287 agreement,” Hall said. “The concept of whether they have to cooperate with ICE is an open question.

“The scope of whether a sheriff could ever face criminal prosecution for not complying with the detainer, I guess, is still to be determined,” Hall added. “But as an attorney, I’m not inclined to recommend my clients push the envelope too much.”

This weekend, sheriffs from across the country are meeting for their national conference in Washington, D.C.

“What we’re hearing is sheriffs feel they’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” Hall said. “I think genuinely, every sheriff that I work with is focused on keeping their community safe and to get individuals who commit violent offenses off the street by any means, and I think there’s a general desire to work with federal law enforcement partners just as they do with the U.S. marshals, just as they do with the FBI. But then, at the same time, they’re getting feedback from states that maybe using this as a political issue, using it as a wedge issue to try to prevent them from doing that, and from a sheriff’s perspective, this is law enforcement cooperation, just like it is with the FBI, just like it is with the U.S. marshals.”

Meanwhile, attorneys for the ACLU are fighting to keep the lawsuit before the Wisconsin Supreme Court as they filed their first brief in the case last week.

“The Wisconsin Supreme Court, being the ultimate authority on Wisconsin law, ought to be the court to tell sheriffs in the state of Wisconsin whether or not they can honor these ICE detainers,” Tim Muth, senior staff attorney for the ACLU of Wisconsin, told “UpFront.” “It’s pretty clear that there is no authority under Wisconsin law for sheriffs to make these arrests, which is really what honoring an immigration detainer is.”

ICE detainers allow sheriffs to hold a person for 48 hours after they otherwise would have been released to give agents time to pick up and take the person into federal custody.

“A situation where you go in to pay a traffic ticket and suddenly you are handcuffed and told, ‘We’re going to detain you. We’re going to hold you so that ICE can come,'” Muth said. “Or you were charged with a crime, but a jury of your peers acquitted you at trial, and you should have been able to walk free, but you are instead handcuffed and taken into a jail cell because there is an ICE detainer, or you pay your bail, your family paid your bail.

“Each of those is an actual case that’s happened here in the state of Wisconsin,” Muth added. “The Legislature has never said that sheriffs can make immigration arrests in the state of Wisconsin. We’re not saying the Legislature couldn’t say that, but what we’re saying is the Legislature has never said that, and without that, there is no power to honor ICE detainers.”

Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski is pushing for a change in state law that would allow municipalities to mandate that sprinklers be installed in older apartment buildings. But he acknowledged the change is unlikely.

“I’m optimistic that people are at least talking about it,” Lipski told “UpFront.” “Am I optimistic that ends up in some big victory? I’d be lying if I said I am. I’m not optimistic about it, but we have to keep the conversation going.”

Current law requires multifamily buildings built after 1974 to have sprinklers, but a majority of buildings in Milwaukee were built before that.

Democratic state Sen. LaTonya Johnson introduced legislation to allow municipalities to set their own regulations, but the bill has gone nowhere.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos recently said he opposed the legislation, saying, “People are worried about the price of rent. The ability to go back and say to the landlord, ‘You’re not going to be able to raise rates, but you’re going to have to put all this new equipment.’ Well, that’s not free, so either the landlord eats it, which is not realistic because they want to invest in their building, or the tenant has to pay higher rents. So, that’s the free market.”

Vos is a landlord.

“Let me start out by saying I have a tremendous amount of respect for Speaker Vos,” Lipski said in response. “You heard right there, the affordable housing, right? And why is it that fire suppression and fire safety takes a backseat to all the other concerns all the time? Why is it that us attempting to just have a conversation about this is met with vociferous opposition from the most powerful man in our state government? How is that possible?”

GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany says he will be an “independent voice” when asked whether President Trump’s endorsement could hurt him during the general election.

“I make up my own decisions, and I will continue to do that,” Tiffany told “UpFront.” “I agree with so much of what President Trump has done, but if there’s something I disagree with, I express that also, so I’ve always been an independent voice out there, and I will continue to be because this is about one thing, and that is making Wisconsin one of the great states in America once again.”

Tiffany said he learned of Trump’s endorsement the same way everyone else did, through his social media post on Truth Social.

“I was eating dinner and they put the phone in front of me and said, ‘Take a look at this,’” Tiffany said. “So it was a surprise as far as the timing for me, too.”

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