The Brown County Jail and Juvenile Detention Facility. PC: Fox 11 Online
(WTAQ-WLUK) — A federal judge ruled the lawsuit challenging the legality of ICE detainers must remain under the jurisdiction of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, rejecting an attempt by five county sheriffs to have the case moved to federal court.
The lawsuit was brought by the ACLU of Wisconsin on behalf of Voces De La Frontera, and was filed against sheriffs in Walworth, Brown, Marathon, Kenosha and Sauk counties, all of which honor those requests.
The petition was filed directly to the state Supreme Court in September of last year, and the justices agreed to hear the case in December. The sheriffs then tried to take the litigation out of the Supreme Court’s purview, filing a notice of removal to federal court.
In response, the ACLU filed a motion to remand, arguing that the sheriffs’ action was not permitted and requested the case return to the Wisconsin Supreme Court. A judge in the Western District of Wisconsin has now agreed, ordering that the matter must be adjudicated by the high court.
Tim Muth, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of Wisconsin wrote:
We now know that our litigation challenging ICE detainers will proceed before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Immigrants continue to live in constant fear of being falsely arrested and detained by ICE, so ending this illegal practice is no less urgent now than it was when we brought this case.
Voces’ Executive Director, Christine Neuman-Ortiz stated:
“Hopefully, we are closer to the day when local sheriffs and police can no longer detain innocent immigrants without cause until ICE comes to arrest and deport them.”
Honoring an ICE detainer means the sheriff agrees to hold the person for 48 hours after they otherwise should have been released under state law. The goal of detainers is to give ICE agents more time to pick someone up if they are suspected of being in the country illegally.
The ACLU wants to prohibit sheriffs from holding people on ICE detainers, which are based on administrative warrants. Holding someone for extra time must be authorized by a judicial warrant, in which a court determines there is probable cause to keep them longer, the ACLU argues in the lawsuit.
The ACLU argues that keeping the person in custody for that extra time constitutes an illegal new arrest. It is illegal because Wisconsin law does not allow officers to make civil arrests except in certain circumstances, none of which apply to immigration enforcement, the lawsuit argues.
In the first seven months of this year, ICE sent more than 700 requests to local jails across Wisconsin, asking them to hold someone 48 hours beyond when they were set to be released, the lawsuit contends.
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