Latino community and Sheriff’s Dept. search for common ground
ICE policy revisited
ICE policy revisited
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 2 of 2
Since spring 2008, members of the Latino community have expressed their
concern over the cooperative arrangement between the Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Dane County Sheriff’s office when people
who are unable to produce an accepted form of identification and indicate
they are not U.S. citizens are booked into the Dane County Jail and ICE is
notified for identification purposes. While the sheriff’s department is duty-bound
to have a positive identification on all who are housed in the jail for security
reasons, the Latino community has expressed its concern that families are being
negatively and unnecessarily impacted when family members are turned over to
ICE because they are undocumented.
Back in 2008, Sheriff Dave Mahoney asked ICE to provide him with
information on 68 individuals whom ICE picked up from the Dane County Jail
after being asked for a positive identification and later deported the individuals.
Some time this spring, Mahoney received the report from ICE. “The breakdown
Part 2 of 2
Since spring 2008, members of the Latino community have expressed their
concern over the cooperative arrangement between the Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Dane County Sheriff’s office when people
who are unable to produce an accepted form of identification and indicate
they are not U.S. citizens are booked into the Dane County Jail and ICE is
notified for identification purposes. While the sheriff’s department is duty-bound
to have a positive identification on all who are housed in the jail for security
reasons, the Latino community has expressed its concern that families are being
negatively and unnecessarily impacted when family members are turned over to
ICE because they are undocumented.
Back in 2008, Sheriff Dave Mahoney asked ICE to provide him with
information on 68 individuals whom ICE picked up from the Dane County Jail
after being asked for a positive identification and later deported the individuals.
Some time this spring, Mahoney received the report from ICE. “The breakdown
in the agencies of these 68 are as follows: 37 were Madison police arrests, 26 were arrests in municipalities within Dane County and five were Dane County
Sheriffs arrests,” Mahoney said during a phone interview with The Capital City Hues.
Mahoney had also compiled information on some of those individuals who had been transferred to ICE custody. During the interview, Mahoney went
through approximately 20 of the cases. Most of these 20 cases were for operating with a revoked license, operating while under the influence, battery, theft and
domestic battery. While many were for felonies, Mahoney also indicated that they could be picked up and jailed for misdemeanors as well.
“Operating while under the influence, third offense is a misdemeanor,” Mahoney said. “It’s not a felony. It doesn’t become a felony until the fourth offense.
Disorderly conduct and resisting/obstructing an officer is a misdemeanor. But you are coming to jail for that. None of these are for speeding tickets and there is
only one that had operating without a valid license. But I can’t tell what that person’s history was that would have them held for that reason. I guess from talking
to our folks that probably it was a detainer placed on them previously like an immigration warrant. So they were picked up, probably stopped for a speeding
violation, didn’t have a driver’s license, they were issued a speeding ticket, but because there was a warrant, that is what they were picked up for.”
There haven’t been any meetings between the Latino community and the sheriff’s department since January. In addition to his other duties, Mahoney has
been participating in the minority disparities taskforce that has also been looking at this issue. “We’re currently meeting fairly often with this DMI small group,”
Mahoney said. “There just isn’t a lot of time to meet in a small group Latino community meeting. I certainly hope we begin meeting again after the conclusion
of the DMI group. I’m open to it and I haven’t heard anything definitive that the others are not.”
Sal Carranza, chair of LUChA, had been one of the individuals who had been meeting with Mahoney and his staff. He is concerned that there have been
meetings with small groups of Latinos that have, intentionally or not, prevented all of those working on the issue from meeting as a group. “We hope we can
continue as a united front because one of the things that is happening understandably is a lot of leaders in the community want this resolved and they try to
resolve it on their own,” Carranza said. “That is understandable. But things take time and we have to be patient and consistent. We have to be collaborative in
my opinion to get a positive result from this for the long term. I hope we can all work together as a community along with our allies from the community to work
with the sheriff’s office to resolve this situation because it doesn’t benefit anyone and really hurts all of us. And that is the bottom line.”
Sheriffs arrests,” Mahoney said during a phone interview with The Capital City Hues.
Mahoney had also compiled information on some of those individuals who had been transferred to ICE custody. During the interview, Mahoney went
through approximately 20 of the cases. Most of these 20 cases were for operating with a revoked license, operating while under the influence, battery, theft and
domestic battery. While many were for felonies, Mahoney also indicated that they could be picked up and jailed for misdemeanors as well.
“Operating while under the influence, third offense is a misdemeanor,” Mahoney said. “It’s not a felony. It doesn’t become a felony until the fourth offense.
Disorderly conduct and resisting/obstructing an officer is a misdemeanor. But you are coming to jail for that. None of these are for speeding tickets and there is
only one that had operating without a valid license. But I can’t tell what that person’s history was that would have them held for that reason. I guess from talking
to our folks that probably it was a detainer placed on them previously like an immigration warrant. So they were picked up, probably stopped for a speeding
violation, didn’t have a driver’s license, they were issued a speeding ticket, but because there was a warrant, that is what they were picked up for.”
There haven’t been any meetings between the Latino community and the sheriff’s department since January. In addition to his other duties, Mahoney has
been participating in the minority disparities taskforce that has also been looking at this issue. “We’re currently meeting fairly often with this DMI small group,”
Mahoney said. “There just isn’t a lot of time to meet in a small group Latino community meeting. I certainly hope we begin meeting again after the conclusion
of the DMI group. I’m open to it and I haven’t heard anything definitive that the others are not.”
Sal Carranza, chair of LUChA, had been one of the individuals who had been meeting with Mahoney and his staff. He is concerned that there have been
meetings with small groups of Latinos that have, intentionally or not, prevented all of those working on the issue from meeting as a group. “We hope we can
continue as a united front because one of the things that is happening understandably is a lot of leaders in the community want this resolved and they try to
resolve it on their own,” Carranza said. “That is understandable. But things take time and we have to be patient and consistent. We have to be collaborative in
my opinion to get a positive result from this for the long term. I hope we can all work together as a community along with our allies from the community to work
with the sheriff’s office to resolve this situation because it doesn’t benefit anyone and really hurts all of us. And that is the bottom line.”