(Photo: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)

Four county sheriffs in Wisconsin have signed agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in recent months stating they’ll cooperate with the federal agency on immigration enforcement actions. 

Since March, Washington, Waupaca, Winnebago and Wood counties have signed onto ICE’s Warrant Service Officer program, which authorizes sheriff’s deputies to serve immigration warrants against undocumented immigrants in the county jail, according to an updated ICE list of participating agencies across the country. 

These four counties have joined eight others that already had existing agreements with the agency prior to the inauguration of President Donald Trump. 

In January, Tim Muth, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Examiner these agreements were a method the Trump administration would use to find allies in its effort to deport millions of undocumented people. 

“What they do indicate is which are the counties who have already raised their hands and said, ‘we are happy to assist with deporting people from the state,’ and I anticipate that the Trump administration is going to start with that list and say ‘we know who our allies are in this in the state of Wisconsin,’” Muth said. “Let’s see if one: We can get more allies signing these agreements, and, two: For the ones who already have, let’s see what we can do to get them more active in this area.”

Immigrant rights advocates say the pre-existing agreements with ICE were hardly used under President Joe Biden, but under Trump they can be used to deport any undocumented person in the jail, even if they’re there for a low-level offense or before they can defend themselves in court against the charges they’re accused of. 

Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature have been pushing for more county sheriffs to participate in these types of programs, authoring a bill that would require counties to verify the citizenship status of people in custody for a felony offense and notify ICE if citizenship cannot be verified. It would also require sheriffs to comply with detainers and administrative warrants received from the federal Department of Homeland Security for people held in the county jail for a criminal offense.

Under the proposed legislation, counties that don’t comply would lose 15% of their shared revenue payments from the state in the next year.