President Trump’s masked police force claims a mandate to keep Americans safe from criminal immigrants, but an ongoing record of violence against community members prompted the gubernatorial candidate’s proposal.
The violence and terror being spread by President Donald Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) militia has led to a national conversation about whether the agency is engaged in activity designed to protect Americans or if they ironically need protection from ICE. Believing it’s the latter, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez is proposing that Wisconsin adopt limits on ICE actions in the state.
“We just need to have clear guidelines in Wisconsin,” Rodriguez told UpNorth News. “Other states are moving quickly to make sure they can protect their own community members. Let’s do this proactively before ICE has a large presence in Wisconsin.”
Rodriguez, one of more than half a dozen Democratic candidates for governor, said she would impose limits on ICE’s self-described crackdown on undocumented immigrants, starting with restraining one of the most basic tactics of ICE officers: rounding up people without a specific arrest warrant for that person.
“We want them to have judicial warrants before they indiscriminately go in looking for people,” Rodriguez said. “They need to have somebody who they are specifically looking for with a name and an identification that they can talk about.”
Under the Rodriguez proposal, ICE would be barred from conducting raids and arrests at sensitive areas like schools, churches, domestic violence shelters, hospitals, and courthouses unless there was a threat of imminent harm. Rodriguez would also require agents to wear body cameras and not face coverings.
“We’ve seen what happened in Minneapolis with schools, churches, hospital systems into courthouses” she said. “People should be able to access these sensitive places without fear of being indiscriminately picked up by federal agents.”
Rodriguez is troubled by the way people are rounded up en masse based on assumptions about race, language, and activities.
“My husband is a naturalized citizen from Mexico,” Rodriguez said. “We speak Spanish in our house. And it was really disturbing to me to see what the federal agents are doing all across the country, indiscriminately picking people up based on their skin color or the fact that they spoke Spanish.”
Gov. Tony Evers told reporters last week he was concerned such restrictions could backfire.
“We can take a look at that, but I think banning things absolutely will ramp up the actions of our folks in Washington, DC,” Evers said. “They don’t tend to approach those things appropriately.”
Rodriguez expressed a difference in opinion on the matter, however.
“I absolutely understand where Governor Evers is coming from and I have immense respect for him,” Rodriguez responded. “But I do disagree with him on this. I think we should be proactive in protecting our community members. We should be proactive in making sure that there are clear guidelines for federal agents within the state of Wisconsin.”
