Challenging Immigration Detainers: Wisconsin Supreme Court to Hear Voces de la Frontera Lawsuit
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has agreed to hear a lawsuit filed by the immigrant-rights group Voces de la Frontera challenging the authority of county sheriffs in the state to detain individuals based on detainers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). This lawsuit will bypass the circuit court level and go directly to the Supreme Court for consideration. The case arises amidst a national debate on the extent to which local law enforcement should cooperate with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
Several states, including New York, Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Montana, have already ruled that state law prohibits local law enforcement officers from complying with federal immigration detainers. In Illinois, a state law explicitly prohibits local cooperation with federal immigration agents. In Wisconsin, over a dozen county sheriffs' offices have signed agreements with ICE, granting them some immigration enforcement authority, such as questioning individuals about their immigration status and holding them in jail under federal detainers.
The Dodge County sheriff's office in Wisconsin has an agreement with the federal government to detain various types of federal detainees, including immigrants, in their jail. This agreement also involves sheriff's deputies transporting detained migrants to and from an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois. Some departments in the state, like Madison and Milwaukee, have stated that they will not cooperate with federal immigration efforts. Voces de la Frontera's lawsuit argues that Wisconsin law does not authorize law enforcement officers to engage in civil immigration enforcement.
The Supreme Court's decision to accept the case will focus on whether Wisconsin sheriffs have the authority to arrest individuals as part of civil immigration enforcement actions and how 287(g) agreements impact the application of state law. Notably, conservative Justices Annette Ziegler and Rebecca Bradley dissented from the decision to hear the case, departing from the usual practice of unsigned decisions. Justice Brian Hagedorn emphasized that the decision to accept a case requires the agreement of four justices and that dissenting opinions do not necessarily reveal individual justices' positions on the matter.
Under the Court's order, Voces de la Frontera has 30 days to file a brief in the case. The outcome of this lawsuit could have significant implications for the role of local law enforcement in immigration enforcement and the interpretation of state law in Wisconsin.