Masked federal immigration officers talk while they patrol at the Jacob K. Javitz Federal Building in New York City on Oct. 16, 2025. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) 

WASHINGTON — Federal immigration officers are making unlawful arrests in the District of Columbia because they are relying on ethnicity to identify targets, immigration advocates argued in federal court Wednesday.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are allowed to make warrantless arrests if an officer has probable cause or reason to believe a person is in the United States without legal authorization and can escape before a warrant is obtained. But the immigration advocates challenging ICE’s methods say the officers are using ethnicity-based criteria that have led to wrongful arrests.

“People are living in fear that they will be arrested unlawfully or subject to detention,” Ama Frimpong, the legal director of immigration advocacy group CASA and lead counsel in the case, said.

CASA is seeking class certification for people affected by the policy.

U.S. Justice Department attorney John Bardo said the Trump administration was against class certification because it would cause “micromanaging” by the courts for federal immigration officials and he argued that the plaintiffs in the class have different immigration statuses.

“You don’t even have commonality among the four plaintiffs,” Bardo said.

U.S. District Senior Judge Beryl A. Howell said she would make a decision on class certification and whether to narrow a preliminary injunction soon. 

Quota challenged

The suit stems from President Donald Trump’s emergency declaration in the district that flooded the 68-square-mile capital with federal law enforcement and National Guard troops. As a result, there has been an uptick in aggressive immigration enforcement.

Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said officers should arrest 3,000 people per day on suspicion of being in the country without legal authorization. 

Bardo confirmed that policy in court Wednesday, but said the figure was a goal. 

Questioned by Howell, he said the quota was not leading to unlawful arrests and that officers were properly trained. 

Profiling policy

A policy that allows officers to target people based on factors like ethnicity and accent has also swept up U.S. citizens and legal residents. 

Groups challenged the policy, and the U.S. Supreme Court eventually heard it. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in a 6-3 decision temporarily allowing profiling based on ethnicity that citizens face few problems in having their immigration status verified if federal agents apprehend them.

The four individual plaintiffs in the case in Howell’s court are immigrants who have some form of legal status such as a pending asylum case or temporary protections but were arrested by federal officers. They argue they were targeted because of their ethnicity and fear they will continue to be targeted because they are Latino. They have moved for class certification.

One plaintiff, B.S.R., said in his declaration he was arrested twice by officers in the district, despite having a pending asylum claim.

Another plaintiff, N.S., said in his declaration that was leaving a Home Depot after buying supplies and was arrested by officers, even after he showed his documentation showing he had Temporary Protected Status for Venezuela. He was transferred to several ICE facilities across the country and detained for 28 days before he was released and able to return to his family in the district.

A third, R.S.M., has a pending application for a visa category for victims of a crime who are helpful to law enforcement in cases. 

In her declaration, R.S.M. said that during her arrest, officers scanned her husband’s face, and found he was not the person they were looking for. 

“For a moment, I was relieved and thought they would not arrest us, but one officer said it did not matter that my husband didn’t match the person they were looking for, and the officer decided to arrest us anyway,” she said, adding that only one officer out of the seven who arrested them was in clothing that identified them as law enforcement.

R.S.M. said she was released and given an ankle monitor, but her husband is still detained.

‘Like being kidnapped’

In a declaration submitted to the court, the lead plaintiff, José Eliseo Escobar Molina, detailed how he was detained by federal immigration officials. 

Escobar Molina came to the U.S. in 1998 and obtained Temporary Protected Status in 2001. The status is granted when the Department of Homeland Security deems a national’s home country too dangerous to return to due to violence, natural disaster or other unstable environments.

He lives in the district neighborhood of Mount Pleasant, which has a large Salvadoran immigrant population, with his significant other and their two sons, both U.S. citizens. Escobar Molina, who works in construction as a scaffolder, said he was getting in his truck to head to work.

“Officers dressed in plainclothes got out of the vehicles,” he said in his declaration. “First, two of them grabbed me by the arms and immediately handcuffed me, and then the two officers from the other Suburban came over and grabbed me by the legs.”

Escobar Molina said the officers didn’t identify themselves and he tried to inform them of his legal documentation, which he said was in his wallet.

“I felt like I was being kidnapped,” he said. “Once in the car, I told them again that I had papers. The driver of the car, who was one of the officers that handcuffed me, told me, ‘Shut up b–-h! You’re illegal.’ After he yelled at me, I stayed silent. I did not try to resist arrest or to flee.”

Escobar Molina said he was asked no questions from any law enforcement officer before being transferred to a facility in Chantilly, Virginia. He said that during his 23-hour detention, all he was given was “one small bean burrito, something sweet, and a glass of water.” 

Officer mistake

Escobar Molina said while at Chantilly, Virginia, one of the officers at Homeland Security said his TPS “doesn’t count as being legal here,” and he was then transferred to Richmond, Virginia. 

TPS for El Salvador is still valid, and DHS extended the status earlier this year. 

Escobar Molina said once he was at Richmond, an ICE supervisor realized the mistake and said he was free to leave.  

“He said to me, ‘Sorry you had to live through this. These are new officers. They do not know what they are doing,’” Escobar Molina said, recounting his interaction with the ICE supervisor. “He gave me a copy of my TPS approval notice and told me to carry it with me so I could show it if officers stopped me again.” 

Escobar Molina said when he was arrested in the summer, it was the first time he had been arrested since being in the U.S. for more than 20 years. 

“I fear the same for my sons because even though they are U.S. citizens, they are Hispanic just like me,” he said. “I told them to carry their U.S. passports with them at all times just to be safe.”

A woman is detained by federal agents after exiting a hearing in immigration court at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building on Sept. 3, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — More than 60 members of the congressional Democratic Women’s Caucus Tuesday sent a letter to the head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raising “extreme concerns” about the treatment of pregnant immigrants in detention. 

“The health and safety of pregnant women should not be threatened as a result of the administration choosing not to adhere to Federal regulations,” the 61 Democratic lawmakers wrote to ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons. “That is why we urge the administration to fully comply with the existing regulations and immediately correct the violations.”

They specifically cited concerns at ICE facilities in Lumpkin, Georgia; Basile, Louisiana; and Broadview, Illinois. 

“At the detention centers, it was reported that pregnant women were being shackled, locked in restraints, or placed in solitary confinement,” they wrote, citing American Civil Liberties Union reports. The women have also been deprived of proper prenatal, postpartum, lactation and miscarriage care, they said.

The letter argues that ICE’s own regulations do not require pregnant, postpartum or nursing immigrants to be detained and detainment should only occur if the release is “prohibited by law or exceptional circumstances exist.”

“By detaining vulnerable women in appalling conditions while pregnant, you are subjecting both the pregnant individual and the unborn child to significant risks and possible death,” according to the letter. “We urge the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE to follow its own rules and regulations on detention of pregnant women and demand their humane treatment.”

Lawmakers are asking for ICE to immediately release any detained immigrants who are pregnant. 

They are also pushing for ICE to answer several questions, including the number of pregnant immigrants in detention; the number of births or still births that took place in detention; the number of medical incidents experienced by pregnant detainees; and how many pregnant immigrants have been shackled by ICE. 

Lawmakers asked ICE for a response within 45 days. 

ICE officials did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment. 

House lawmakers who signed the letter include:

• Robin Kelly of Illinois
• Delia Ramirez of Illinois
• Sydney Kamlager-Dove of California
• Sylvia Garcia of Texas
• Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico
• Joyce Beatty of Ohio
• Jasmine Crockett of Texas
• LaMonica McIver of New Jersey
• Emily Randall of Washington state
• Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida
• Deborah Ross of North Carolina
• Nikema Williams of Georgia
• Julie Johnson of Texas
• Pramila Jayapal of Washington state
• Norma Torres of California
• Melanie Stansbury of New Mexico
• Andrea Salinas of Oregon
• Lois Frankel of Florida
• Lucy McBath of Georgia
• Judy Chu of California
• Kelly Morrison of Minnesota
• Lateefah Simon of California
• Valerie P. Foushee of North Carolina
• Yvette D. Clarke of New York
• Gwen Moore of Wisconsin
• Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey
• Yassamin Ansari of Arizona
• Ro Khanna of California
• Becca Balint of Vermont
• Jahana Hayes of Connecticut
• Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia
• André Carson of Indiana
• Danny K. Davis of Illinois
• Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon
• Veronica Escobar of Texas
• Troy A. Carter of Louisiana
• Laura Friedman of California
• Summer L. Lee of Pennsylvania
• Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida
• Rashida Tlaib of Michigan
• Mike Quigley of Illinois
• Val T. Hoyle of Oregon
• Janice D. Schakowsky of Illinois
• Glenn Ivey of Maryland
• Jennifer L. McClellan of Virginia
• Terri A. Sewell of Alabama
• Juan Vargas of California
• Jesús G. “Chuy” García of Illinois
• Julia Brownley of California
• Shri Thanedar of Michigan
• Angie Craig of Minnesota
• Nydia M. Velázquez of New York
• Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr. of Georgia
• Frederica S. Wilson of Florida
• Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri
• Diana DeGette of Colorado
• Nanette Diaz Barragán of California
• Dina Titus of Nevada
• James P. McGovern of Massachusetts
• Zoe Lofgren of California
• Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania 

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• A federal board ruling has paved the way for courts to more easily toss out asylum cases and instead deport applicants, not to their home country, but to a “third country” they barely know.

• The ruling has the potential to affect the cases of thousands of immigrants who entered the asylum process since 2019.

• The Department of Homeland Security is using its extra power inconsistently, moving to send some asylum seekers to third countries while making more traditional motions in other cases. One immigration attorney says it illustrates the “crazy arbitrariness of the system.”

Milwaukee immigration attorney Anthony Locke spent the first weekend in November wrapping his head around the latest ground-shaking rule change for asylum cases. His Department of Homeland Security (DHS) counterpart apparently did the same while pushing to deport one of Locke’s clients.

Locke represents a Nicaraguan asylum seeker arrested in a late September ICE operation in Manitowoc. That client was set to appear before an immigration court judge on Nov. 4 in a hearing Locke hoped would move the man closer to securing his right to remain in the U.S. 

But five days earlier, the Board of Immigration Appeals — a powerful, if relatively obscure Department of Justice tribunal that sets rules for immigration courts — had paved the way for courts to more easily toss out asylum cases and instead deport applicants, not to their home country, but to a “third country” they barely know. 

Just before the Nov. 4 hearing, the DHS attorney motioned to dismiss Locke’s client’s case and deport him to Honduras, through which he had only briefly passed on his trek north. Locke now has until early December to argue that his client could face “persecution or torture” in Honduras. 

“Trying to demonstrate that they’re scared of a place they’ve had minimal contact with,” he said, is akin to proving a negative. 

If the judge sides with DHS, the Nicaraguan man will be sent to Honduras without an opportunity to make his case for remaining in the U.S.

“I am, quite frankly, not too hopeful, and I’ve had to be quite honest with my client about that,” Locke said. “This is so sudden, so jarring, and it has such an immense impact.”

The full impact of the appeals board ruling remains to be seen, but it has the potential to affect the cases of thousands of immigrants who entered the asylum process since President Donald Trump’s first administration in 2019 began establishing “safe third country” agreements, starting with Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. 

U.S. law for decades guaranteed anyone physically present in the U.S. the right to seek asylum, but the agreements allowed the U.S. to instead send asylum seekers to third countries to seek legal status there. 

While Joe Biden suspended most third country agreements during his presidency, Trump, upon returning to office in January, revived them as a means to limit asylum applications and facilitate deportations. The list of countries willing to accept the deportees is still growing, though not all have signed formal “safe third country” agreements.

The Board of Immigration Appeals overhauled the process of sending an asylum seeker to a third country. Its ruling allows DHS to send asylum seekers to countries through which they did not pass en route to the U.S. It also requires immigration courts to consider whether asylum seekers can be sent to a third country before hearing their cases for remaining in the U.S., creating the proving-a-negative scenario Locke described. 

The ruling may not impact those who filed for asylum before third country agreements were forged. 

DHS did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s request for comment.

Locke’s client entered the U.S. in 2022, requesting asylum on the grounds that his protests against Nicaragua’s ruling party made him a target for persecution. The man entered the country through a Biden-era “parole” program that allowed some immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to live and work in the U.S. for two years, Locke said. Roughly a third of new arrivals to Wisconsin who entered the immigration court system since 2020 came from Nicaragua, though not all secured parole. 

The Trump administration ended the parole program earlier this year, claiming that the roughly 500,000 immigrants who entered the country through the program had not been properly vetted and that participants limited opportunities for domestic workers.

Locke’s client landed in the immigration court system in September after his arrest in Manitowoc. He is currently in custody in the Dodge County jail — one of a growing number of local detention facilities in Wisconsin housing ICE detainees. 

One of his fellow detainees, Diego Ugarte-Arenas, faces a similar predicament. The 31-year-old from Venezuela entered the U.S. in 2021 alongside his wife, Dailin Pacheco-Acosta. The couple filed for asylum upon reaching Wisconsin, citing their involvement in opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Pacheco-Acosta found work as a nanny in Madison, and Ugarte-Arenas found a restaurant job. 

ICE last month arrested the couple during a routine check-in at DHS’ field office in downtown Milwaukee, forcing them to argue their asylum case in the immigration court system. Ugarte-Arenas remains in Dodge County, while his wife sits in a county jail in northern Kentucky. Another recent Board of Immigration Appeals decision limits their ability to post bond and continue their case while reunited in Wisconsin. 

The couple appeared in court for the first time on Nov. 12, both via video call. Though separated by hundreds of miles, the cinderblock walls behind them made their settings look almost identical. 

As they waited for their case to reach the top of the queue, the couple watched the court field-test the new rule on third-country deportations as the DHS attorney motioned to send another asylum seeker to an unnamed third country. But when Judge Eva Saltzman called their case, the DHS attorney did not make the same motion.

“When you move this quickly and have this volume of cases, not every case gets treated the same,” said Ben Crouse, an attorney representing the couple. The inconsistency, Crouse said, reflects the “crazy arbitrariness of the system.” 

After scheduling a follow-up hearing, Saltzman allowed the couple to speak to one another for the first time since their arrest. 

“Everything will be OK, you hear me?” Ugarte-Arenas said through tears. 

Saltzman moved on to the next case.

‘So sudden, so jarring’: Immigration ruling streamlines deportations to countries asylum seekers barely know is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Afternoon light shines on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service Processing Center in El Centro, California, on May 27, 2022. (Getty photos)

An immigrant advocacy organization and the ACLU of Wisconsin are criticizing the Marathon County Sheriff’s decision to partner with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an agreement that gives county jail staff some immigration enforcement authority. 

ICE records show the county signed an agreement on Tuesday to participate in the ICE 287(g) jail enforcement program. Under the jail enforcement model, county jail staff can question people in the jail about their immigration status and the county can hold non-citizens in jail for up to 48 hours to be picked up by federal agents. 

Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, ICE has been working to significantly expand the program across the country. Marathon is the fifth sheriff’s department in Wisconsin to sign an agreement with ICE this year, increasing the total from nine to 14. The Palmyra police department has also signed an agreement with the agency. 

“By applying to participate in the 287(g) program, the Marathon County Sheriff is offering to have his department be turned into an arm of ICE’s deportation machine,” the ACLU of Wisconsin said in a statement. “The 287(g) program is notorious for leading to racial profiling, unconstitutional policing, and wrongful detention of US citizens — and it makes communities less safe. People are less likely to seek help and report crime when their local law enforcement is seen as a partner with ICE, and going to the authorities could mean that they, a family member or a friend could be deported.”

Aside from 287(g), the Dodge County sheriff’s office has a contract with the federal government to hold federal detainees at the county jail. That agreement includes holding migrants on behalf of ICE and sometimes transporting them to and from out-of-state facilities such as the controversial ICE processing center in Broadview, Ill. 

Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant advocacy group, said the sheriff, Chad Billeb, should have engaged with the community before deciding to sign the agreement. 

“Sheriff Chad Billeb, as an elected official, should not have signed this agreement without engaging the community and local leaders in a transparent, democratic process that ensures accountability and information sharing. There is still time to do so and reverse course,” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, the organization’s executive director.

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• ICE agents arrested roughly 75 immigrants at or near its Milwaukee office between January and July of this year, mostly those without a past criminal conviction or a pending criminal charge.

• The arrests of one Venezuelan couple reflect an apparent shift in ICE’s interpretation of protections for asylum seekers. Officers are now detaining even immigrants who don’t have removal cases in immigration court.

A Venezuelan couple arrested Oct. 23 during a routine check-in at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s downtown Milwaukee office are attempting to continue their asylum cases while detained — one in ICE’s Dodge County detention facility and the other in a Kentucky facility. 

The arrests reflect an apparent shift in ICE’s interpretation of protections for asylum seekers, posing new risks for those waiting for immigration officials to hear their cases.   

Diego Ugarte-Arenas and Dailin Pacheco-Acosta fled Venezuela in 2021, crossing the border at Eagle Pass, Texas, by November of that year and encountering border patrol officers, according to an ICE spokesperson. Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have made the same journey in the last decade, of whom at least 5,000 have settled in Wisconsin. 

Milwaukee immigration attorney Ben Crouse, who took on the couple’s case after they were detained, told Wisconsin Watch that border patrol officers initially provided Ugarte-Arenas and Pacheco-Acosta with notices to appear in immigration court. Critically, those notices didn’t provide a date or time for their future hearing, preventing the immigration court system from opening removal cases against them. 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) at that time routinely issued notices to appear without specifying a hearing date, Crouse said, despite multiple U.S. Supreme Court rulings underscoring that notices must specify a time and date. 

“There was a lag time between the Supreme Court saying they had to have times and dates on the notice to appear and DHS actually communicating with (the Department of) Justice to put things on calendars,” Crouse noted.

The couple then made their way to Wisconsin and filed for asylum, a legal protection from deportation for immigrants fleeing persecution. Their joint application cited their involvement in the political opposition to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as grounds for asylum, Crouse said.

Immigrants can take two paths to claim asylum in the U.S. 

Ugarte-Arenas and Pacheco-Acosta filed for “affirmative” asylum, managed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and generally open only to those without removal cases before an immigration court. Without complete notices to appear, Crouse noted, the couple’s cases had not yet reached the court, opening the door to this pathway.

Immigrants with open removal cases apply for “defensive” asylum with an immigration court judge.

At least 100 immigrants with Wisconsin addresses have entered the defensive asylum process between January 2020 and August of this year, court records show. Most came from Nicaragua, Colombia and Venezuela. Between 2019 and 2024, immigration court judges in Chicago — the court with jurisdiction over most Wisconsin cases — denied roughly 40% of asylum petitions, according to data collected by the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Under the Biden administration, immigration authorities began correcting incomplete notices to appear, enabling them to move asylum applications from the affirmative process to the defensive process. That swap rarely landed asylum seekers in detention, Crouse said.

Ugarte-Arenas’ and Pacheco-Acosta’s arrests are part of a broader shift in ICE’s attitude toward asylum. Multiple Milwaukee-area immigration attorneys say the agency is now detaining immigrants after terminating their affirmative asylum case. 

An ICE spokesperson did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s questions about its new approach. 

“ICE does not ‘randomly’ arrest illegal aliens,” the spokesperson wrote in an email. “Being in the United States illegal (sic) is a violation of federal law. All aliens who remain in the U.S. without a lawful immigration status may be subject to arrest and removal.”

The couple is now pursuing the defensive asylum process while separated by hundreds of miles. In September, DOJ’s Board of Immigration Appeals, which can set rules for federal immigration courts, ruled that immigrants in ICE custody who entered the country “without inspection” are ineligible for release on bond. The decision mirrors an argument that the Department of Homeland Security has made in immigration courts nationwide since July. 

Navigating the asylum process from ICE detention is logistically difficult, Crouse noted. Scheduling a brief phone call can take days, he said, and attorneys must rely on faraway sheriffs’ offices to ferry paperwork to and from their clients. 

“Tiny little things take days to fix,” he added.

ICE’s shifting approach to asylum is not limited to affirmative cases.

In recent months, the agency has also begun filing motions to dismiss the immigration court cases of defensive asylum seekers, said Milwaukee immigration attorney Marc Christopher. Once the immigrants’ cases are dismissed, ICE can place them in “expedited removal” proceedings — a fast-moving process that does not require a hearing. 

In some cases, Christopher said, “they dismiss a case in court and ICE is waiting right outside. Or they wait until they come to a check-in and arrest them there.”

ICE agents arrested roughly 75 immigrants at or near its Milwaukee office between January and July of this year, more than at any other Wisconsin site listed in agency arrest records during the period. Most of those arrested at the office, including Ugarte-Arenas and Pacheco-Acosta, had neither a past criminal conviction nor a pending criminal charge.

The Milwaukee office also includes a “holding room” in which an average of six people were detained at a time as of June, according to Vera Institute of Justice data. 

DHS recently extended its lease on the property, which is owned by the Milwaukee School of Engineering, until April 2026, with options to retain the space until 2028. ICE is preparing to open a new office on Milwaukee’s northwest side this fall.

ICE arrests of asylum seekers in Milwaukee show shifting tactics is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Razor wire follows the banks of the Rio Grande on the Texas side of the U.S.-Mexico border in 2024. The Trump administration now expects about 600,000 total deportations in 2025, fewer than the 685,000 under the Biden administration in fiscal 2024. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

The Trump administration now expects about 600,000 total deportations in 2025, fewer than under the Biden administration’s final fiscal year, as a drop in border crossings outweighs the effect of increased deportations elsewhere, according to a report released Oct. 30 by the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. 

State and local officials are kept in the dark by limited information on deportations, the report noted, whether or not they support the administration’s mass removal agenda. 

There were 685,000 total deportations in fiscal year 2024 under Biden compared with the 600,000 projected by the Trump administration for this calendar year, the report states. 

During the 2025 fiscal year that ended in September, there were about 340,000 deportations, the report estimates, including both orders of removal and people choosing to end detention with voluntary departure. The Trump administration has projected 600,000 deportations for this calendar year, well short of an earlier goal of 1 million. 

Unauthorized migration at the border “plunged dramatically” from 2.1 million to 444,000 border encounters in the past fiscal year. Migrants also returned to a former pattern: People crossing the border were mostly single men from Mexico and children from Central America, after a previous surge of border crossers from around the world, the report states.

At the same time, news reports indicate that thousands of migrants who were headed for the U.S. border have reversed course and headed back through the Panamanian jungle to reach South America again. 

The lower level of border activity has made it possible for U.S. officials to send border patrol agents to cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago, the Migration Policy Institute report says. 

“The steep decrease in unauthorized arrivals at the border and return to nationalities that are easier to turn back because of existing repatriation agreements has permitted the administration to direct its focus to immigration enforcement in the U.S. interior,” the report states. 

For the first time since at least 2014, deportations from inside the United States outnumbered apprehensions at the border. 

The report noted that the administration has not updated many statistics that would help show trends. 

“It has become increasingly complicated to track results because only selective statistics have been made public,” the report stated. 

“Returning to regular reporting of detailed data on immigration enforcement across the various Department of Homeland Security (DHS) immigration agencies could not only improve the public’s understanding of current immigration enforcement activities but also inform state and local stakeholders who want to collaborate or who are affected by enforcement,” it said.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Demonstrators protest outside the immigration processing and detention facility this month in Broadview, Ill. President Donald Trump wants to deploy Texas National Guard members to the Chicago area but has been blocked by federal courts. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

As President Donald Trump prepares to send National Guard troops — from either Oregon, California or possibly Texas — into Portland, Oregon, entrepreneur Sarah Shaoul watches with deep concern.

A three-decade resident of the Portland area, Shaoul leads a coalition of roughly 100 local small businesses, including many dependent on foot traffic. Armed troops could spook customers and, she fears, trigger a crisis where none exists.

“I don’t want this to be a political conversation but, I mean, the fact you bring people from other states who maybe have different politics — I think it shows an administration that’s trying to pit people against other people,” Shaoul said.

Trump’s campaign to send the National Guard into Democratic-leaning cities he describes as crime-ridden has so far reached Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Memphis, Tennessee; Chicago and Portland. He has federalized — taken command of — hundreds of active-duty guard members to staff the deployments.

But in the two most recent attempted deployments to Portland and the Chicago area, the Trump administration has turned to out-of-state National Guard troops, the part-time soldiers who often respond to natural disasters.

National guards are usually under the control of state governors, with state funds paying for their work. But sometimes the troops can be called into federal service at federal expense and placed under the president’s control.

In addition to federalizing some members of the Oregon and Illinois National Guard within those states, the president sent 200 Texas National Guard troops to the Chicago area and plans to send California National Guard members to Portland. A Pentagon memo has also raised the possibility of sending some Texas troops to Portland.

Presidents who have federalized National Guard forces in the past, even against a governor’s will, have done so in response to a crisis in the troops’ home state. That happened to enforce school desegregation in Arkansas in 1957 and Alabama in 1963.

But the decision to send one state’s National Guard troops into a different state without the receiving governor’s consent is both extraordinary and unprecedented, experts on national security law told Stateline.

The cross-border deployments evoke concerns stretching back to the country’s infancy, when the Federalist Papers in 1787-1788 grappled with the possibility that states could take military action against one another. While the recent cross-state deployments have all included troops under Trump’s command, Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has been an enthusiastic supporter of Trump ordering his state’s National Guard to Chicago.

The troop movements raise questions of state sovereignty and how far the president can go in using the militia of one state to exercise power in another. At stake is Trump’s ability to effectively repurpose military forces for domestic use in line with an August executive order that called for the creation of a National Guard “quick reaction force” that could rapidly deploy nationwide.

“It’s really like …  a little bit like invading another country,” said Claire Finkelstein, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania who studies military ethics and national security law.

The Trump administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to proceed with the Chicago-area deployment, which is currently blocked in federal court. On Monday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the deployment in Portland to move forward, overruling a district court judge, but additional appeals are expected.

The deployments come as Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to expand his ability to use the military for law enforcement. Presidents are generally prohibited from deploying the military domestically, but the Insurrection Act, which dates back to 1792, could be used to bypass restrictions and potentially allow National Guard members to make immigration-related arrests.

For now, Trump has federalized National Guard members under a federal law known as Title 10, which allows the president to take command of National Guard members in response to invasion, rebellions against the United States and whenever the president is unable to execute federal laws with “regular forces.”

He has characterized illegal immigration as an invasion and sought to station National Guard members outside of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, facilities and other federal property.

While Chicago and Portland fight Trump’s moves in court, other cities are bracing for the arrival of troops in anticipation that the deployments will continue to expand. Washington state went so far as to enact a new law earlier this year intended to prevent out-of-state National Guard members from deploying in Washington. The new state law doesn’t pertain to federalized troops, however, only to those that might be sent by another governor.

“I’m incredibly concerned but not necessarily surprised by the president’s method of operation, that there seems to be a theme of fear, intimidation, bullying without a clear plan,” Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said in an interview with Stateline.

Harrell, who is running for reelection to the nonpartisan office in November, said Seattle officials are monitoring what’s happening in other cities. Any deployment of guard members — whether they were from Washington or elsewhere — would be concerning, he said.

“At the end of the day, they would be following orders with some level of military precision, so my concern isn’t so much out-of-state or in-state. I just oppose any kind of deployment.”

Courtroom fights

Whether the out-of-state status of National Guard members matters legally is up for debate. Experts in national security law are split over whether sending federalized troops across state lines poses constitutional and legal problems, even as they broadly agree the move is provocative.

Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the left-leaning Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, doubts the cross-state deployment of federalized troops is itself a legal issue.

Still, he criticized the decision to send in out-of-state National Guard and, speaking about Chicago, called the underlying deployment unlawful and unjustified. In ordering troops to Illinois, Nunn said, Trump was abusing his presidential power, regardless of the servicemembers’ home state.

“It is unnecessarily inflammatory,” Nunn said of that choice. “It is, I think, insulting to say we’re going to send the National Guard from one state into another.”

Democrats, especially in cities and states targeted by Trump, condemn the deployments as an abuse of presidential power, regardless of where the troops are from. Republicans have largely supported or stayed silent about Trump’s moves, though Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, who chairs the National Governors Association, has criticized the sending of Texas troops to Illinois.

Abbott wrote on social media in early October that he had “fully authorized” Trump to call up 400 Texas National Guard members. Abbott’s office didn’t respond to Stateline’s questions.

“You can either fully enforce protection for federal employees or get out of the way and let Texas Guard do it,” Abbott wrote on X.

In the Chicago area and in Portland, the Trump administration wants the National Guard outside ICE facilities where small protests have taken place in recent weeks. Dozens of people have been arrested in Portland since June, but there’s been no sign of widespread violence. A Stateline analysis of U.S. Census Bureau and federal crime data found that Trump’s National Guard deployments have not, with a single exception, targeted the nation’s most violent cities.

For weeks federal courts have kept National Guard troops off the streets of Portland and the Chicago area as legal challenges play out, but that could be changing. The Trump administration on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to allow it to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area. If the court sides with the administration, the decision could clear the way for additional deployments elsewhere.

In the Friday filing to the Supreme Court, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote: “This case presents what has become a disturbing and recurring pattern: Federal officers are attempting to enforce federal immigration law in an urban area containing significant numbers of illegal aliens. The federal agents’ efforts are met with prolonged, coordinated, violent resistance that threatens their lives and safety and systematically interferes with their ability to enforce federal law.”

The U.S. Department of Defense didn’t directly answer questions from Stateline about whether further cross-state deployments are planned, saying only that it doesn’t speculate on future operations.

U.S. District Court Judge Karin Immergut wrote in an order blocking deployment of the National Guard in Portland that a handful of documented episodes of protesters clashing with federal law enforcement during September were “inexcusable,” but added that “they are nowhere near the type of incidents that cannot be handled by regular law enforcement forces.”

But on Monday, a divided three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump had “lawfully exercised his statutory authority” to deploy Oregon National Guard servicemembers to Portland. Lawyers for Oregon and Portland are seeking a review by the full appeals court, a move that would put the case in front of 11 appellate judges.

Shaoul, the Portland business leader, said the presence of troops would itself risk creating “drama” at the expense of taxpayers.

“Tell me how that’s helping anybody to go in and intimidate a bunch of people who are dressed up in friggin’ costumes, playing music,” Shaoul said. “I mean, if nothing else illustrates what a joke this is, that should tell you right there.”

10th Amendment concerns

Top Republicans have long telegraphed their desire to use the National Guard to aid immigration enforcement.

In December, before Trump took office, 26 GOP governors — at the time, every Republican governor except Vermont’s Phil Scott — signed a statement promising to provide their national guards to help.

Since Trump’s inauguration, at least 11 Republican governors have ordered National Guard members to help ICE, typically by providing logistical support. At least four states — Florida, Louisiana, Texas and West Virginia — have entered into federal agreements that allow ICE to delegate some immigration enforcement duties, potentially including arrests, to National Guard members.

Trump’s decision to federalize National Guard members goes further, placing troops under the president’s command. The cross-state deployments represent the next step in testing his authority to command guard members.

Finkelstein, the national security law professor, said sending one state’s National Guard into another state raises serious legal issues under the 10th Amendment. The amendment reserves for the states or the people powers not specifically granted to the federal government — the idea at the core of federalism.

A president and governor may reasonably disagree about whether federalization is necessary to help their state, Finkelstein said, but “even that fig leaf” isn’t available when troops are sent to another state. California gets nothing out of the deployment of its National Guard to Oregon, she said. And unless it’s California’s governor — rather than the president — making the choice to deploy guard members elsewhere, it’s a “very real problem” that undermines state autonomy, she said.

Washington state Rep. Jim Walsh, who chairs the Washington State Republican Party, has been monitoring the attempted deployment in Portland, as well as the possibility of a deployment to Seattle. He said Trump has broad discretion under federal law to federalize National Guard members.

Still, Walsh said federalizing the National Guard gives him pause and is something that a hypothetical president — “leave this one out of the equation” — might overuse. But he argued state and local leadership in cities where the National Guard has been deployed have brought the situation on themselves by allowing a breakdown in law and order.

Asked about cross-state deployments, Walsh largely dismissed any legal concerns.

“I guess they would know the area better,” Walsh said of troops deployed in their home state. “But this is kind of a specious argument. … The president, whoever he or she is, can federalize National Guard units.”

Walsh said he doesn’t see a situation at the moment that would necessitate a Guard deployment within Washington state.

But Seattle isn’t taking any chances.

Harrell, the Seattle mayor, signed two executive orders in October, one that pushes back on the practice of federal agents making immigration arrests while wearing masks, and another that seeks to maintain control over local law enforcement resources if the National Guard is deployed in the city.

“I’m critically concerned about what can occur as a reaction,” Harrell said. “That’s exactly what Trump’s goal is, to raise tension and create chaos and to use blue cities as scapegoats.”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the year, 1957, that President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalized National Guard troops to enforce desegregation in Arkansas. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

Military personnel enter Broadview ICE facility Thursday | Photo by Andrew Adams/Capitol News Illinois

CHICAGO — A federal judge on Thursday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from deploying 500 National Guard troops to Chicago as the administration’s immigration enforcement actions have intensified — along with protests against them.

U.S. District Judge April Perry noted the ongoing protests outside a local immigration processing center have never exceeded 200 demonstrators. She said the demonstrations fall far short of the high legal bar needed to be characterized as a “rebellion” that would allow the administration to take control of the Illinois National Guard and deploy troops from Texas and California to Chicago.

“I have seen no credible evidence that there is a danger of rebellion in the state of Illinois,” the judge said as she issued her oral ruling late Thursday afternoon.

While Perry acknowledged protesters have assaulted immigration agents and damaged federal property — namely vehicles belonging to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol — the judge said there was far more evidence that the feds actually escalated or even caused clashes with activists.

More than a dozen protestors have been arrested in recent weeks outside an ICE processing center in the suburb of Broadview, approximately 13 miles directly west of Thursday’s hearing in Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Courthouse.

The ICE facility has been the epicenter of protests against the Trump administration’s ramped-up immigration enforcement actions in the last month. The Department of Homeland Security claims “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago and its suburbs has resulted in the arrests of more than 1,000 people.

Read more: Court scrutiny of ICE mounts as judge rules warrantless arrests violated order

National Guard would add ‘fuel to the fire’

DHS claims the federal troop deployment is necessary to protect the facility, along with federal immigration agents working in and around it.

But the judge agreed with arguments put forth by the state and city of Chicago in its lawsuit that deploying the National Guard was more likely to lead to civil unrest than be a force for peacekeeping, as guardsmen are “not trained in de-escalation.” Throughout nearly three hours of arguments in her courtroom, she continually pushed back on U.S. Department of Justice lawyers’ claims that Chicago-area immigration protests had grown out of control due to violent agitators.

Perry noted that for 19 years, weekly prayer vigils outside the Broadview facility occurred without incident. But she said most of the evidence pointed to federal agents — not protesters — as the catalysts for violence. She recounted recent incidents in which agents used chemical agents and nonlethal rounds against crowds “as small as 10 people.”

Deploying the guard “will only add fuel to the fire that the defendants themselves have started,” she said.

The judge will publish a written decision on Friday. But after giving her a verbal ruling Thursday, she agreed to use the widest possible wording to prevent the Trump administration from deploying troops from other states while her 14-day temporary restraining order remains in place.

For now, the feds won’t be able to order troops to perform their “federal protective missions” anywhere in Illinois.

That includes members of the Texas National Guard, who made their first appearance Thursday morning at the Broadview facility.

Texas Guard is already here

The Trump administration dispatched National Guard troops to Illinois from Texas earlier this week, even after the judge on Monday urged them to wait for Thursday’s hearing. Fourteen members of California’s National Guard were also sent to the Chicago area in order to train Illinois troops. Eric Wells, a top lawyer for Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, argued the move was a harbinger of “wanton tyranny.”

“I can only say that what I think what we heard from the United States Department of Justice was startling, unbounded, limitless and not in accord with our system of ordered liberty of federalism, of a constitutional structure that has protected this nation and allowed it to prosper for hundreds of years,” Wells said as he began his final arguments.

Raoul sat front-row throughout Thursday’s arguments in the courtroom and grew emotional while answering reporter questions after Perry’s ruling. He called the attorneys who worked on the case “true American heroes.”

“This is an important decision not just for the state of Illinois but for the entire country,” he said. “The question of state sovereignty was addressed in this decision. The question of whether or not the president of the United States should have unfettered authority to militarize our cities was answered today.”

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Trump administration to appeal

The Trump administration is poised to appeal Perry’s decision, just as it challenged a decision from Trump-appointed federal judge in Oregon who also blocked the National Guard’s deployment to Portland over the weekend. The 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday heard the case, during which two other Trump-appointed judges appeared amenable to arguments that a president should be given deference in matters of national security, according to reporting from POLITICO.

DOJ lawyer Eric Hamilton also pushed for deference in his arguments to Perry Thursday. He said it wasn’t up to the judge to decide whether there was a risk of rebellion or even whether Trump was “relying on completely invalid evidence,” as Perry put it.

Hamilton painted a much darker picture of the protests in Broadview and Chicago, claiming that “sustained violence” in recent weeks was preventing DHS from “executing federal law.”

“They are not protesters,” he said. “They are the violent resistance of duly enacted immigration laws.”

Hamilton said dozens of agents have been “injured, hit, punched” — one even had his beard ripped off by a protester, he alleged.

“How — how did that happen?” Perry asked at one point. “Like an entire … not pieces of hair? His whole beard?”

“I believe that’s what the declaration says,” Hamilton said, referring to a filing in the case.

‘DHS’ version of events are unreliable’

In delivering her ruling, Perry said the DOJ’s arguments in the National Guard case seemed to add to “a growing body of evidence that DHS’ version of events are unreliable.” She said the administration’s characterization of immigration protests “cannot be aligned” with the accounts of local and state law enforcement submitted in legal filings.

For example, Hamilton referenced recent arrests of protesters, including a couple who were arrested for allegedly assaulting officers and happened to be carrying their licensed concealed weapons. But a federal grand jury this week declined to indict the couple, along with a third person, all of whom had already been released on bond.

Over the weekend, a Customs and Border Protection agent shot a woman in Brighton Park on Chicago’s Southwest Side during an altercation with agents. DHS officials allege the woman was one of 10 drivers who were following federal agents’ vehicles Saturday morning and eventually boxed them in.

But her attorney told a federal judge this week that body-camera footage contradicts that narrative and shows an officer shouting “do something b—-,” according to reporting from the Chicago Sun-Times. She and another driver were arrested over the weekend but the judge ordered them released.

Hamilton also referred to the incident several times, claiming drivers were “ramming” into immigration vehicles.

None of the other protesters arrested by either federal or local authorities in recent weeks remain in detention, with most arrestees handcuffed and immediately released after receiving a citation.

Federal prosecutors on Thursday dropped charges against one of the arrested protesters, one day after a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order against ICE barring agents from arresting peaceful protesters or journalists covering immigration demonstrations. It also bars federal agents from using harsh crowd control methods such as tear gas and other non-lethal weapons and ammunition.

The judge pointed out the Trump administration activated the National Guard the same weekend a federal immigration official stationed in Broadview described as a “great weekend” in an internal email late Sunday night. The official said the relative calm was due to the Illinois State Police, which last week formalized cooperation with Broadview Police and the Cook County Sheriff’s Office into a “unified command” and put up fencing around the building.

Perry cited the dropped charges for protesters this week, the First Amendment restraining order won by journalism groups, and another federal judge’s ruling Tuesday that ICE violated a consent decree restricting warrantless arrests.

“So to summarize, in the last 48 hours, in four separate unrelated legal decisions from four different neutral parties, they all cast doubt on DHS’ version of events,” the judge said.

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.

This article first appeared on Capitol News Illinois and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker speaks at a news conference in Chicago on Oct. 6, 2025. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson stands at right. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

A federal judge will hear arguments Thursday in Illinois over Chicago’s lawsuit challenging President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to the state before deciding whether to block the move, the judge wrote in an order.

In a one-paragraph order, U.S. District Judge April M. Perry, whom Democratic President Joe Biden appointed to the bench, set an 11:59 p.m. Wednesday deadline for the Trump administration to respond in writing to the suit filed by the Democratic leaders of Illinois and its largest city, which they filed Monday morning. 

Perry did not immediately grant the restraining order Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson sought to block the deployment at the outset of the case.

Perry said she expected the federal government’s response to include evidence about when National Guard troops would arrive in Illinois, where in the state they would go and “the scope of the troops’ activities” once there. She set oral arguments for 11 a.m. Central Time on Thursday.

The suit seeks to stop Trump’s federalization of Illinois National Guard and mobilization of Texas National Guard troops to the state. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has also agreed to send Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, at Trump’s request.

Pritzker and Johnson’s complaint calls the federalization of state National Guard troops “illegal, dangerous, and unconstitutional.” The Democrats added that the move was “patently pretextual and baseless,” meaning it could not satisfy the legal requirements for a president to wrest from a governor control of a state’s National Guard force.

Pritzker, appearing at a Tuesday event in Minneapolis with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said the federal government has been noncommunicative about the plan for the National Guard troops, but had received “reports” that troops have arrived at a federal facility in the state.

“We don’t know exactly where this is going to end,” he said. “What we know is that it is striking fear in the hearts of everybody in Chicago.”

A federal judge in another case blocked the deployment to Portland after city and Oregon leaders sued to stop it. The federal government appealed that order, and a panel of the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments Thursday, according to a scheduling notice posted Tuesday.

Insurrection Act cited by Trump

Trump has said the extraordinary use of troops, which raises serious legal and constitutional questions about the line between military forces and domestic law enforcement, is necessary to control crime in some Democrat-led cities, including Chicago and Portland. 

State and local leaders in those jurisdictions, as well as Los Angeles, have said military personnel are not needed to supplement local police. Pritzker called the proposed deployment to Chicago an “invasion.”

Trump indicated Monday he may seek to further escalate the push for military involvement domestically, saying he would have no qualms about invoking the Insurrection Act, which expands presidential power to use the military for law enforcement.

“We have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” he told reporters. “If I had to enact it, I’d do that. If people were getting killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that.”

Democratic U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin of Illinois, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden of Oregon and Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff from California — the three states where Trump has sent troops over the governors’ objections — called on Trump to withdraw the troops in a Tuesday statement that warned of the escalating conflict between blue states and the federal government.

“Donald Trump is stretching the limits of Presidential authority far past their breaking point and moving us closer to authoritarianism with each dangerous and unacceptable escalation of his campaign to force federal troops into American communities against the wishes of sovereign states in the Union he is supposed to represent,” the senators wrote.

Dems in Congress question raid

Trump’s use of National Guard troops is in part a response to protests in Democratic cities over this administration’s crackdown on immigration enforcement.

Trump has surged immigration enforcement officers to certain cities. Those agents have pursued sometimes aggressive enforcement, including a Sept. 30 raid on a Chicago apartment building that has been criticized for using military-style tactics.

A group of eight U.S. House Democrats wrote Monday to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem calling for an investigation into that raid.

The members were Homeland Security Committee ranking member Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin of Maryland, J. Luis Correa of California, Pramila Jayapal of Washington, Shri Thanedar of Michigan, Mary Gay Scanlon of Pennsylvania and Delia Ramirez and Jesús “Chuy” Garcia of Illinois.

“We write to express our outrage over the immigration raid,” they said. “Treating a U.S. city like a war zone is intolerable.”

J. Patrick Coolican contributed to this report.

AG Josh Kaul speaks at a town hall in Green Bay in April 2025. (Photo by Andrew Kennard/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Trump administration has backed away from a threat to demand that states cooperate with federal immigration enforcement if they want access to federal funds to aid crime victims, according to Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul.

Wisconsin was one of 20 states and the District of Columbia that sued the administration in August over a demand that states join in federal immigration enforcement efforts if the wanted access to Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grants.

Fees, fines and penalties collected in federal court proceedings  are distributed under VOCA to states to use on victim services, including operating community-based organizations such as domestic violence shelters and rape crisis centers and victim-witness offices within county district attorneys’ offices. 

The Wisconsin Department of Justice estimated the state would have lost more than $24 million in grant funds if the threat had been  carried out.

The U.S. Department of Justice abandoned the plan after the lawsuit was filed, Kaul said Monday.

“This is funding that helps make a difference for victims of crime,” Kaul said in a statement. “The Trump administration shouldn’t have tried to tie states’ access to this funding to their assistance with immigration enforcement.”

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

Immigrant rights groups sounded the alarm after seven people were arrested by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Madison Thursday morning, in what is being called a targeted action by the federal agency. Voces de la Frontera, a Milwaukee-based immigrant advocacy organization, said that calls flowed into their hotline around 10:30 Thursday morning, Madison365 reported, and that organizers are attempting to determine why the people were detained. Voces is working with Centro Hispano, a Dane County group, to connect with the families of those arrested by ICE.

Neither ICE nor the Dane County Sheriff put out a statement following arrests but the Madison Police Department did eventually confirm the arrests. 

The Madison arrests, along with an ICE raid in Manitowoc that resulted in the detention of 24 dairy workers, mark an escalation in immigration enforcement activity in Wisconsin.

At a Friday press conference, Darryl Morin of Forward Latino called the ICE raids in Madison and Manitowoc “a new sad chapter in immigration enforcement right here in our great state.” 

Centro Hispano of Dane County posted a message on Facebook confirming the seven arrests at a single address in Madison on Oct. 2. 

“This is the only confirmed incident in Madison at this time. No other verified reports of ICE presence elsewhere in the city,” the post stated. “Centro and Voces de la Frontera are gathering verified information and providing support to impacted families.

“We are aware of many rumors about the presence of ICE in Madison, including schools, workplaces, and other spaces. We want to be clear: none of these rumors have been confirmed as actual ICE presence. There has only been one verified presence and arrests by ICE  this morning at a  residential location that ICE specifically targeted.

“We ask our community that if you have firsthand information about ICE activity, please call the Voces de la Frontera Community Defense Hotline at 1-800-427-0213 immediately.”

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The federal government has extended its lease on a downtown Milwaukee property used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to federal lease records and the building’s owner. 

The property at 310 E. Knapp St. is owned by the Milwaukee School of Engineering but will remain in use by the federal government through at least April 2026, with options to extend through 2028, said JoEllen Burdue, the college’s senior communications director. 

“We do not have immediate plans for the building and will reevaluate next year when we know whether or not the government wants to extend the lease,” Burdue said.

The lease was originally scheduled to expire in April 2025. 

With a new ICE facility under construction on the city’s Northwest Side, the downtown lease extension raises the possibility that the federal government is expanding local immigration infrastructure or enforcement. This would be consistent with other forms of expansion in immigration enforcement, statewide and nationally. 

“I’m upset and concerned about what this means for my immigrant constituency. For my constituents, period,” said Ald. JoCasta Zamarripa, who represents the 8th District on the South Side.

Immigration infrastructure

The Knapp Street property is used by ICE as a field office for its Enforcement and Removal Operations, according to ICE. 

This includes serving as a check‑in location for individuals under ICE supervision who aren’t in custody and a processing center for individuals with pending immigration cases or removal proceedings.

According to a Vera Institute of Justice analysis, the number of people held at the Knapp Street location has been increasing. 

The Vera Institute is a national nonpartisan nonprofit that does research and advocates for policy concerning incarceration and public safety. 

The most people held by ICE at a given time at that Knapp Street location during the Biden administration was six. On June 3, 22 people were held there – also exceeding the high of 17 during President Donald Trump’s first administration, according to data from Vera Institute. 

The office generally does not detain people overnight but can facilitate transfer to detention centers that do. 

The functions carried out at the Knapp Street office mirror those planned for the Northwest Side facility.

City records show the West Lake Park Drive property will be used to process non-detained people as well as detainees for transport to detention centers.

The records also state that the property will serve as the main southeastern Wisconsin office for immigration officers and staff.

The U.S. General Services Administration, the federal government’s real estate arm, initially projected the new site would open in October. However, a spokesperson said there was no update and did not confirm whether that timeline still stands.

Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, responded to NNS’ requests for comment. 

Rise in immigration enforcement

As local immigration enforcement grows, so does enforcement throughout the state and the rest of the country. 

Nationally, the number of immigrants booked into ICE detention facilities increased in less than a year – from 24,696 in August 2024 to 36,713 in June 2025, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. 

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonprofit at Syracuse University that conducts nonpartisan research. 

Not only are more people being detained, but they are being detained for longer, said Jennifer Chacón, the Bruce Tyson Mitchell professor of law at Stanford Law School. 

A July 8 internal memo from ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons instructs agents to detain immigrants for the duration of their removal proceedings, effectively eliminating access to bond hearings. 

Eighty-four of 181 detention facilities exceeded their contractual capacity on at least one day from October 2024 to mid-April 2025, according to a July report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. 

The Dodge County Jail, which ICE uses to detain people apprehended in Milwaukee, is one of the facilities that exceeded its contractual capacity. On its busiest day, it held 139 individuals – four more than its 135-bed limit.   

In addition to Dodge County, Brown and Sauk county jails have also entered into agreements with ICE to house detained immigrants, according to records obtained by the ACLU of Wisconsin. 

ICE’s unprecedented budget

Noelle Smart, a principal research associate at the Vera Institute, notes that it remains unclear whether increased immigration enforcement drives the need for more detention infrastructure or expands to catch up with more infrastructure. 

But, Smart said, with ICE’s unprecedented new budget, the question of which one drives the other becomes less relevant.

Trump’s proposed ICE budget in 2025 was $9.7 billion – a billion more than ICE’s 2024 budget. An additional $29.85 billion was made available through 2029 for enforcement and removal as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” 

“We know this administration intends to vastly increase the number of people subject to arrests and detention, and we expect to see increases in both given this budget,” Smart said.

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Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Federal government extends lease at downtown Milwaukee building used by ICE is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.