Madison Common Council resolution on Dane County municipality relations with
Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE)
ICE Relationship Issues Flare Up Once More
Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE)
ICE Relationship Issues Flare Up Once More
Far left) Dane County Sheriff
Dave Mahoney
(left) Alders Shiva Bidar-Sielaff
((l) and Marsha Rummel
Dave Mahoney
(left) Alders Shiva Bidar-Sielaff
((l) and Marsha Rummel
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 2 of 2
Last May when Arizona made being in Arizona illegally a criminal as opposed to a civil matter and authorized local law
enforcement to check people’s citizenship status if the law enforcement officer suspected that the individual was in the United States
illegally, Madison Alder Shiva Bidar-Sielaff felt it was important for the city of Madison to once again affirm its support for its immigrant
community. On June 1, Bidar-Sielaff introduced a resolution to the Madison Common Council that would join Madison with other cities
like Los Angeles and Boston in protesting the anti-immigrant environment that was gaining steam in Arizona and other states. That
resolution passed the city council unanimously.
The main provision of the resolution asked Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney to change his office’s reporting relationship with
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which some feel have led to the deportation of undocumented workers and negatively
impacted their families — citizen and non-citizen alike. This has been a source of contention between the sheriff’s office and a
significant number of Latinos for the past two years.
At the June 1 city council meeting, dozens of individuals spoke in favor of the resolution and the measure passed unanimously
with five alders absent from the meeting. It guarantees that this issue will not go away soon with both sides of the issue beginning to
draw lines in the sand.
“I think it is important that as a community we make a statement about the role of the sheriff in treating our immigrant residents and
neighbors and community,” Alder Marsha Rummel said before the council meeting. “I disagree with his policy. But overall nationally, we
are faced with so much fear. Part of it is due to the recession and the loss of jobs and the resulting insecurity. People are lashing out
against people whom they think are here illegally. But in my view, we are all humans. We came before the nation-states. We certainly
have rules. But the thing is that we have not been able to create a better policy. This is a statement joining other cities like Los Angeles,
Boston and San Diego to ask our federal government, who should be in charge of citizenship issues, to have a policy so there is a
message about how you become a citizen. In that regard, I join happily in support of this ordinance.”
Mahoney emphasizes that the reporting of individuals to ICE is purely based on two questions that are asked of everyone booked
into the Dane County Jail for identification purposes only. “Anyone who comes into the Dane County Jail, it doesn’t matter what the
charge is, if you are booked into the Dane County Jail, it is the same thing,” Mahoney said. “In reality, I’m not going to separate out what
those offenses are. The purpose of identification does matter if you’re on a triple homicide or you’re on littering, if the Madison Police
Department brings you to the Dane County Jail, we’re going to use every mechanism we can to positively identify you and get as much
identification as possible. It’s about identification. It’s not about the crime. It isn’t about immigration status. It’s about getting as much
information as I can to safely house and classify inmates in my jail.”
Bidar-Sielaff remains skeptical. “Even if you say that you want to make sure that undocumented people are not here, how do you
determine that,” Bidar-Sielaff asked. “As we know, you can do that through racial profiling. It’s the same thing in the jail. If I show up in
jail and they ask if I am a U.S. citizen and I say yes — because I am — am I going to get questioned further because I have an accent or
am I going to be taken at my word? So that is why this is on the slippery slope of racial profiling. We’re targeting undocumented, but they
have an image of who they think that is. This feeds into the racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Is this about the fact that
people didn’t commit a crime or is it that there is more policing in certain places where more people of color live or the sentence is
longer? People will say ‘If they committed a crime, they should be in jail. Who cares what color they are?’ Is it the same level of
vigilance on people committing a crime? Is a 17-year-old Black male under the same kind of scrutiny as a 17-year-old White male? I
think that anyone who is an advocate for saying that we should deal with racial disparities in our criminal justice system should
advocate for this because I certainly wonder how we determine U.S. citizenship when people get booked.”
Back in the 1930s, millions of U.S. Latino citizens were illegally deported to Mexico during the height of the Great Depression.
Thousands of Japanese Americans were detained in internment camps during World War II even though they were U.S. citizens. When it
comes to citizenship-non-citizenship issues, for many, it is about more than one’s legal status.
“I actually was born in Laos and my family came here as refugees in the 1980s,” said Kabzuag Vaj at the hearing. “I often think to
myself ‘What if you were walking and I asked you for your citizenship proof? Would you have it on you? What if you went to renew your
license plate and I asked you if you had your birth certificate. Would you have it on you?’ To enforce such policies that disproportionately
affect immigrant, refugee, Brown, Black, people of color, is unjustified and it should not be happening here in Madison. If you aren’t a
person of color, ask yourself right now ‘Do I have my proof of citizenship right now? Do I have my birth certificate with me?’ As a person
of color, these are things that we have to carry with us because we might be afraid that if we don’t have it on us that we can’t prove that
we are supposed to be here. If you don’t pass this resolution, you’re forcing a population within your community to live in fear and to live
with having to prove who they are. I just believe that is not right. If it disproportionately affects me, you should be concerned also. It
affects everyone negatively. It is a new form of racial profiling. If I’m going to be asked about my citizenship, then so should you. If you’
re not going to be asked, then no one should be asked. Protecting me is protecting you.”
While not immediately impacted by immigration issues, Celia Jackson, co-chair of the county’s disparities committee, felt solidarity
with the issue of disenfranchisement. “On a much deeper level, we are really in this together,” Jackson testified. “I always get
concerned when people want to frame things in a way of excluding people. I come here today not as a person that is an immigrant. I
was born in this country. But I am a person who is brown skinned and I know what it is like to be disconnected, disenfranchised and not
treated the same way. I think that gives me a sense of solidarity and a sense of connectedness in a way that I can only just profoundly
share with you. But today, I ask you to dig a lot deeper and pass this resolution. It is going to make a big difference for this community
and the welfare of everyone.”
The resolution, however, may have little immediate impact on the sheriff’s policies. “No one has presented the city resolution to
me,” Mahoney said. “I heard that they passed a resolution calling on the sheriff to have no contact with ICE except in the case of
felonies. No one from the council, whether it is the president, the president pro tem or even the author, has presented that resolution to
me for insight or discussion. There were a few people who have an appointment today to come in and talk to me. This is putting the
wagon before the horse in passing this resolution. I think in the spirit of trying to get cooperation between two governmental bodies that
they are a little late now.”
Part 2 of 2
Last May when Arizona made being in Arizona illegally a criminal as opposed to a civil matter and authorized local law
enforcement to check people’s citizenship status if the law enforcement officer suspected that the individual was in the United States
illegally, Madison Alder Shiva Bidar-Sielaff felt it was important for the city of Madison to once again affirm its support for its immigrant
community. On June 1, Bidar-Sielaff introduced a resolution to the Madison Common Council that would join Madison with other cities
like Los Angeles and Boston in protesting the anti-immigrant environment that was gaining steam in Arizona and other states. That
resolution passed the city council unanimously.
The main provision of the resolution asked Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney to change his office’s reporting relationship with
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which some feel have led to the deportation of undocumented workers and negatively
impacted their families — citizen and non-citizen alike. This has been a source of contention between the sheriff’s office and a
significant number of Latinos for the past two years.
At the June 1 city council meeting, dozens of individuals spoke in favor of the resolution and the measure passed unanimously
with five alders absent from the meeting. It guarantees that this issue will not go away soon with both sides of the issue beginning to
draw lines in the sand.
“I think it is important that as a community we make a statement about the role of the sheriff in treating our immigrant residents and
neighbors and community,” Alder Marsha Rummel said before the council meeting. “I disagree with his policy. But overall nationally, we
are faced with so much fear. Part of it is due to the recession and the loss of jobs and the resulting insecurity. People are lashing out
against people whom they think are here illegally. But in my view, we are all humans. We came before the nation-states. We certainly
have rules. But the thing is that we have not been able to create a better policy. This is a statement joining other cities like Los Angeles,
Boston and San Diego to ask our federal government, who should be in charge of citizenship issues, to have a policy so there is a
message about how you become a citizen. In that regard, I join happily in support of this ordinance.”
Mahoney emphasizes that the reporting of individuals to ICE is purely based on two questions that are asked of everyone booked
into the Dane County Jail for identification purposes only. “Anyone who comes into the Dane County Jail, it doesn’t matter what the
charge is, if you are booked into the Dane County Jail, it is the same thing,” Mahoney said. “In reality, I’m not going to separate out what
those offenses are. The purpose of identification does matter if you’re on a triple homicide or you’re on littering, if the Madison Police
Department brings you to the Dane County Jail, we’re going to use every mechanism we can to positively identify you and get as much
identification as possible. It’s about identification. It’s not about the crime. It isn’t about immigration status. It’s about getting as much
information as I can to safely house and classify inmates in my jail.”
Bidar-Sielaff remains skeptical. “Even if you say that you want to make sure that undocumented people are not here, how do you
determine that,” Bidar-Sielaff asked. “As we know, you can do that through racial profiling. It’s the same thing in the jail. If I show up in
jail and they ask if I am a U.S. citizen and I say yes — because I am — am I going to get questioned further because I have an accent or
am I going to be taken at my word? So that is why this is on the slippery slope of racial profiling. We’re targeting undocumented, but they
have an image of who they think that is. This feeds into the racial disparities in the criminal justice system. Is this about the fact that
people didn’t commit a crime or is it that there is more policing in certain places where more people of color live or the sentence is
longer? People will say ‘If they committed a crime, they should be in jail. Who cares what color they are?’ Is it the same level of
vigilance on people committing a crime? Is a 17-year-old Black male under the same kind of scrutiny as a 17-year-old White male? I
think that anyone who is an advocate for saying that we should deal with racial disparities in our criminal justice system should
advocate for this because I certainly wonder how we determine U.S. citizenship when people get booked.”
Back in the 1930s, millions of U.S. Latino citizens were illegally deported to Mexico during the height of the Great Depression.
Thousands of Japanese Americans were detained in internment camps during World War II even though they were U.S. citizens. When it
comes to citizenship-non-citizenship issues, for many, it is about more than one’s legal status.
“I actually was born in Laos and my family came here as refugees in the 1980s,” said Kabzuag Vaj at the hearing. “I often think to
myself ‘What if you were walking and I asked you for your citizenship proof? Would you have it on you? What if you went to renew your
license plate and I asked you if you had your birth certificate. Would you have it on you?’ To enforce such policies that disproportionately
affect immigrant, refugee, Brown, Black, people of color, is unjustified and it should not be happening here in Madison. If you aren’t a
person of color, ask yourself right now ‘Do I have my proof of citizenship right now? Do I have my birth certificate with me?’ As a person
of color, these are things that we have to carry with us because we might be afraid that if we don’t have it on us that we can’t prove that
we are supposed to be here. If you don’t pass this resolution, you’re forcing a population within your community to live in fear and to live
with having to prove who they are. I just believe that is not right. If it disproportionately affects me, you should be concerned also. It
affects everyone negatively. It is a new form of racial profiling. If I’m going to be asked about my citizenship, then so should you. If you’
re not going to be asked, then no one should be asked. Protecting me is protecting you.”
While not immediately impacted by immigration issues, Celia Jackson, co-chair of the county’s disparities committee, felt solidarity
with the issue of disenfranchisement. “On a much deeper level, we are really in this together,” Jackson testified. “I always get
concerned when people want to frame things in a way of excluding people. I come here today not as a person that is an immigrant. I
was born in this country. But I am a person who is brown skinned and I know what it is like to be disconnected, disenfranchised and not
treated the same way. I think that gives me a sense of solidarity and a sense of connectedness in a way that I can only just profoundly
share with you. But today, I ask you to dig a lot deeper and pass this resolution. It is going to make a big difference for this community
and the welfare of everyone.”
The resolution, however, may have little immediate impact on the sheriff’s policies. “No one has presented the city resolution to
me,” Mahoney said. “I heard that they passed a resolution calling on the sheriff to have no contact with ICE except in the case of
felonies. No one from the council, whether it is the president, the president pro tem or even the author, has presented that resolution to
me for insight or discussion. There were a few people who have an appointment today to come in and talk to me. This is putting the
wagon before the horse in passing this resolution. I think in the spirit of trying to get cooperation between two governmental bodies that
they are a little late now.”
