Milwaukee is tightening the leash around Flock automatic license plate reader cameras, with elected leaders calling for more oversight and restrictions as investigations into misuse by officers continue. 

Flock cameras utilize AI-powered technology to identify vehicles and license plates that pass within their view on roadways. The data is stored for several weeks or longer, allowing law enforcement officers from anywhere across the country to search for specific vehicles as long as their agency has a contract with Flock. 

An analysis by the Wisconsin Examiner found that at least 221 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies searched the Flock network during the first half of 2025, and that officers often used vague search terms to query the system. That same year, the multi-billion dollar Flock Safety company spent $102,000 lobbying the state government for grants to allow law enforcement agencies to acquire license plate reader cameras, though the Republican-backed bills were unsuccessful. 

On Tuesday, a directive went out from the office of Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley to county departments and the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office to limit Flock-related operations on county property, and to work towards adopting new transparency and accountability standards. 

“Public safety partners should have the right tools to keep Milwaukee County safe, but unchecked surveillance isn’t the answer,” said Crowley, who is running against Republican Tom Tiffany to become Wisconsin’s next governor, in a statement. “We have seen what can happen when this technology operates without clear rules, transparency and accountability. Protecting our residents’ privacy and maintaining the public’s trust is a responsibility I take seriously. That is why I am directing all County departments to limit the usage of all Flock camera systems and establish safeguards proactively, before a breach of public trust can occur.”

Crowley is calling on the Office of Corporation Counsel and the Information Management Services Division to evaluate current policies governing the use of any surveillance tech and to develop binding standards for its use. The standards will determine how surveillance technology can be used, how long data is kept, who can access that data and why, and limit when data is shared with an emphasis on prohibiting use for federal immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant, a county press release stated. These standards would also establish independent audits and enforceable consequences when surveillance technology is misused. 

Crowley is also calling on other local elected leaders to look closely at their own use of Flock cameras and adopt similar policies. Ultimately, these efforts could result in the adoption of a consistent standard across the county for Flock. 

In April Tiffany said he had never heard of Flock cameras, when he was asked about controversy around their use. “I’m going to sound ignorant on this, what are Flock cameras?” Tiffany said during a virtual question-and-answer session. 

More recently, Tiffany said that “government should not be building an AI surveillance network that tracks law-abiding Wisconsinites everywhere they drive.” Tiffany said that he would pause state funding for Flock and create a task force to establish stronger protections, penalties for misuse, limits on data sharing, and safeguards against foreign adversaries. Tiffany criticized Crowley for “repeatedly” seeking to install “more red-light cameras, speed cameras, and massive funding increases for automated license plate readers.” 

Police departments often acquire Flock cameras through non-competitive sole source contracts which bypass a public bidding process, keeping local councils and residents from even knowing that the technology has been acquired.

The changes in Milwaukee County come after the Milwaukee Police Department announced on Monday that it will be further restricting its Flock network. In a Monday press release the department said that it “supports the use of technology to assist in solving crimes that cause harm to our community,” and that new technology can help solve cases more quickly than traditional methods for investigations. 

“With that, we recognize that the use of such technology, like Flock technology, comes with great responsibility,” the department said in the press release. “These tools must always be used to prevent and reduce harm, not create more.” The department acknowledged the growing discontent and angst over Flock technology in the community, saying that “we do not dismiss these opinions.” The department went on to say that it “acknowledges the harm that former department members have caused that has damaged the trust we work so hard to build” and that it “acknowledges the human error that comes with the use of technology” and that the department is “working tirelessly to reduce error as much as we can.”

The Milwaukee police  announced that access to Flock has been restricted to supervisors only, and that the department will no longer share its Flock data with neighboring jurisdictions. Furthermore, the cameras may only be used for “Part I crimes” such as homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault including non-fatal shootings, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson, human trafficking, as well as for critically missing people and investigating drug trafficking organizations. 

Earlier this year, the department began revamping its auditing procedures and limited the number of officers with access to Flock cameras to an “as needed basis,” risk manager James Lewis told the Examiner in June.

“MPD will continue to robustly audit its Flock systems,” the department’s Monday press release reads. “We are better together!”

The changes were followed on Tuesday by a statement from Mayor Cavalier Johnson that while technology can help law enforcement, “it is essential that we recognize the limitations and dangers associated with these tools.” Johnson added that “I recognize the benefits of the Flock cameras system.” He said that “on multiple occasions this tool has located critical missing persons and helped apprehend violent criminals in Milwaukee. The technology has also been misused in several notable instances, both locally and nationally, compromising the rights of individuals.” 

Several of those cases played out in Milwaukee and elsewhere in Wisconsin. Josue Ayala of Milwaukee, Cristian Morales of Menasha, and Frank McGrath of Kenosha County were all charged with either misdemeanor or felony misconduct in public office after using Flock to surveil their current or former romantic partners. Ayala was given a year of probation and avoided incarceration, whereas Morales was sentenced to six months in jail and three years of probation while avoiding prison time. McGrath’s case is still ongoing. 

In July, Tehrangi Chapman, a Milwaukee police internal affairs detective who was involved in investigating Ayala’s misuse of Flock, was also charged with using the cameras and car-mounted GPS devices to keep tabs on someone who he’d surveilled since 2019, before Flock even arrived in Milwaukee. Chapman has been charged with felonies, and his case is still ongoing. On Aug. 26, Chapman pled not guilty, and is expected back in court for a scheduling conference on Oct. 7, according to online court records. 

Each of the officers who’ve been found to have abused their access to Flock used terms like “suspicious” or “investigation” to search the Flock network, which were common terms found in the Examiner’s 2025 analysis. Other cases have also emerged, such as that of a man who is now suing the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department after a deputy searched him in Flock following a traffic stop, for which the man sought to file a complaint against the deputy. 

As misconduct cases have emerged, communities across the state have opted to drop their Flock cameras including Kaukauna, Sturgeon Bay, Verona, Appleton, Oshkosh, Dane County and Stoughton. 

In Oshkosh, the request to cancel the Flock contract actually came from the police chief, who told local elected officials that representatives of the multi-billion dollar Flock Safety company had misled him on whether the cameras were able to develop heatmaps depicting a vehicle’s movement patterns. 

Elsewhere, community members have packed public meetings to tell local officials that they don’t want to be placed under perpetual surveillance, expressing fears about how the cameras could be misused by both local and federal law enforcement. Police leaders have had mixed responses to the concerns from residents. The police chief in Green Bay has opted to keep the cameras, citing their usefulness in solving violent crime while also acknowledging that steps need to be taken to protect people’s privacy, while a chief in the small city of Chetek threatened to do background checks on residents who spoke against the cameras in a public meeting.

Exactly how to handle the cameras is still a question local and national leaders are trying to answer. In August,  President Donald Trump said that the cameras have “pros and cons” and that “it’s being studied right now, we’ll have an answer soon as to our views on it.” When asked whether he’d consider banning Flock cameras statewide, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said, “I don’t know what the solution is, but I think there’s people all across our country that’s talking about it.” Evers said he recently talked with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz about Flock cameras. “Whether that [banning the cameras] is the answer, all’s I know is that we need to have an answer.”

Reading Time: 5 minutes

In May, Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman sat on a panel at Sherman Phoenix to discuss gun violence, along with four women whose loved ones had been killed or injured by gunfire. 

The panel discussed a range of factors contributing to gun violence and ways to reduce it. But both men pointed to one factor as a uniquely influential force in their lives, one that helped steer them away from gun violence growing up in Milwaukee — parenting. 

“Everything begins at home,” Johnson said that day.

Both men spoke with NNS recently about their experiences as children growing up in Milwaukee and their experiences as parents. 

‘Lulled to sleep by the sound of gunfire’

For Johnson, childhood meant constant change.

His parents separated when he was 3 years old. He moved frequently with his mother, living at addresses across Milwaukee and attending six elementary schools before he graduated from Bay View High School.

Johnson recalled times of food insecurity and nights of routine gunfire. 

“Too many kids, myself included, were living in neighborhoods where we were sort of lulled to sleep by the sound of gunfire,” he said. “I have seen it all. Everything you see on the news, everything you read about, all the negative social indicators – I have seen it and lived it all.”

Despite this instability, he smiles when talking about his grandmother’s house on West Walnut Street. 

“I think of all the places that I lived growing up, that’s the one that seemed the most familiar, the most stable,” Johnson said. 

Though separated from his mother, his father remained a consistent presence in his life. 

Together, those sources of stability helped him navigate the challenges, he said. Sometimes, that support came in the form of discipline.

“If we made a decision to go out and do something that we weren’t supposed to, you’d be held accountable for that at home,” he said. “Because you knew that there was a consequence, you were less likely to partake in that behavior.”

He said other adults from his neighborhood reinforced these lessons. 

“You had folks in the neighborhood that were mentors and held kids accountable,” Johnson said. 

Today, Johnson said, he speaks with children facing similar circumstances, hoping to help them envision a different path.

“My hope is that I am planting the seed for them to think more broadly and have a bigger vision for themselves and their lives above and beyond what they may be exposed to,” he said. 

Research backs up his theory. 

“If you see multiple paths, you’re going to make less rash decisions in the moment,” said Dr. Michael Levas, a professor of pediatric emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children’s Wisconsin.

‘Our children are a reflection’

Norman, who’s led the Milwaukee Police Department since 2020, said his parents divorced when he was in sixth grade. His father remained actively involved in raising him and his brother.

Norman described him as demanding and a disciplinarian.

“I’m very appreciative,” Norman said.  

Growing up, he regularly encountered opportunities to make bad decisions, including the use of violence. 

Norman said one of his close childhood friends was killed over an article of clothing. He said he was able to make different choices because of the adults in his life.

He did the same for his children, often working the late shift while sleeping only a few hours each day so he could attend meaningful moments such as rehearsals and parent-teacher conferences. 

“They saw that,” Norman said. “Sometimes our children are a reflection of what they were – or were not – given.”

This, too, is backed up by evidence. 

“We’re a product of our experiences from birth to the present,” Levas said. “All of those experiences shape us.”

While parenting can contribute to a lower risk for gun violence, there are limits. 

“There are some really, really good adults, parents, role models out there who are really trying,” Levas said. 

Levas said privilege and environment are big factors.  

“If you don’t have a choice about what school you’re going to, and it’s a school that is chaotic, or doesn’t have a lot of resources, that’s an eight-hour period where your kid’s not with you,” he said.  

Johnson said as mayor he’s working to address challenges related to poverty, housing instability and neighborhood violence.

He pointed to his Year of Housing initiative, efforts to expand affordable homeownership and targeted neighborhood investments as examples of how his administration is trying to address the conditions he experienced growing up.

Norman said even though police cannot solve these issues, parents’ consistent commitment is still crucial to improving the lives of their children. 

“It ain’t about the material things,” Norman said. “Kids want to see that you’re there for them, that you have worked your ass off, no matter what little bit you have.”

Although today’s children face some added risks such as cellphones and social media, what children need has not changed, Norman said.

For parents who may be busy with work, parents can recruit other responsible mentors, Levas said. 

“I think it’s trying to expand the community,” he said. 

Levas said there are three traits that make a good mentor: “I think it’s availability, affability and ability, in that order.” 

Bare minimum

Aries Anthony, a father of four whose three youngest children attend Milwaukee Public Schools, said he agrees on the importance of parents being present in their children’s lives. 

For Anthony, that means maintaining close relationships with his children’s teachers, principal and other school staff. 

“I try to take initiative,” Anthony said. “I want to be active. I want to know all of the people – everyone that works at the school.” 

But, he said, he feels like those things are the bare minimum.  

Anthony said he also works to model the right behavior for his kids, recalling a recent incident when he was rear-ended by another driver who then fled the scene. 

His first instinct, he said, was to chase the vehicle. But he stopped himself. 

“I had that emotional intelligence to be like, ‘OK, I’m not going to take this person down and gun them down because they rear-ended me.’” he said. “I can’t do that if I’m saying that I want to see different in the world.”

What Anthony wants are more resources to help teach children both firearm safety and conflict resolution.

“Education would be the best combatant of gun violence,” he said. 

Levas said talking with children about firearms is important, as is storing guns properly, including having them unloaded, locked and separate from ammunition.

What do you think?

Are you a parent worried about gun violence? What would help you as a parent? What resources does your family need? 

Reach out to dblake@milwaukeenns.org with your thoughts and opinions.

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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.

Milwaukee leaders say consistent parenting can help steer children away from gun violence 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.

The Justice Department rejected Milwaukee’s attempts to prohibit immigration agents from wearing masks in a Friday letter to Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson and City Attorney Evan Goyke. “We write to seek assurances that neither your offices, the Milwaukee Police Department, nor any other entity in Milwaukee plans to enforce Milwaukee Code ordinances…(“Mask Ban” or “Ordinance”) against federal law enforcement officers,” the letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate and U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin Brad Schimel, states. “The enforcement of such a law would be unconstitutional under the Supremacy Clause.”

The Supremacy Clause in Article VI  of the United States Constitution holds that federal law overrides state and local laws. “Unfortunately, some states and localities have seemingly forgotten this bedrock principle of American law, passing so-called ‘sanctuary policies’ to impede federal immigration enforcement and going so far as to even directly regulate federal law enforcement in the performance of their official duties, ” the letter states. “This is precisely what Milwaukee has done with its Mask Ban.”

Over recent weeks, as immigration arrests have escalated, Milwaukee officials developed a package of city ordinances designed to regulate the behavior of federal agents in the city. One of those ordinances prohibits  agents from wearing masks, with elected leaders and advocates arguing that residents should not be confronted by masked men in unmarked cars and without badges or other clear proof that they are law enforcement officers. 

The letter states that agents require the now notorious masks, which cover the entire face and are often paired with dark sunglasses and caps, to prevent the public from identifying them and then harassing them or their families. “Some doxxing and harassment incidents have resulted in federal charges,” the letter states. “The modification of uniforms to prevent identification also prevents suspects from identifying officers and taking preemptive actions to evade apprehension or obstruct enforcement efforts.” 

The letter cites a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) press release which claimed that immigration officers have faced an 8000% increase in death threats against them and their families. Compelling federal immigration agents to be identified like any other law enforcement officer “potentially exposes federal officers to enforcement against them in the performance of their federal duties, chilling their ability to perform those duties,” the letter states. “And it raises the specter of a confrontation between local and federal law enforcement.”

The letter blasts  Johnson, saying that the mayor “has deplorably compared our brave federal agents enforcing federal law to the ‘Gestapo.’” It demanded an assurance from city officials that they will not enforce the mask ban by July 17. 

Johnson is among many local officials in Milwaukee and across the country who have denounced the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, especially after agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti during the ICE surge in Minneapolis. Recently, ICE officers shot and killed a Mexican man in Houston, Texas, who had lived in the United States for 35 years, working to send his three U.S.-born sons to college. The man, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, had no criminal record, and his family is demanding an independent probe, saying the federal government’s charge that he tried to drive his car into ICE agents is false. 

This week U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore joined Mayor Johnson, state Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee), state Rep. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D-Milwaukee), and other elected and community leaders in denouncing the surge in immigration arrests in Milwaukee with 57  people apprehended over three days. One of the people agents arrested, who was later released, described agents insulting and threatening him and his fiance after having followed them in unmarked vehicles. The arrests led to a protest through Milwaukee’s South Side last week.

Other residents also witnessed or filmed violent arrests, some of which involved parents violently dragged from their cars in front of their young children, who remain traumatized from the experiences, local advocates said. In those encounters, witnesses were unable to identify the agents. The targeted immigration arrest and eventual release earlier this year of Salah Sarsour, president of Milwaukee’s Islamic Society — which a federal judge ruled involved First Amendment retaliation against Sarsour by federal agencies — is also still fresh in the city’s memory. 

Milwaukee’s mask ordinance came out of meetings of the  Common Council and County Board of Supervisors last winter, as Wisconsinites watched on their phones, computers, and television sets the broad-daylight killings of Good and Pretti in Minnesota, as residents organized against the so-called Operation: Metro Surge. Agents were found to have lied about the events surrounding a third, non-fatal shooting in Minnesota, Homeland Security officials admitted in February. Concern was high, town halls were filled with people worried about their communities and wanting elected officials to do something about it, even if it later got struck down in court, Ald. Alex Brower said at the time. 

It’s unclear how local officials will respond to the letter from the federal government. The city attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

A report published earlier this year by the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative noted that “courts and commentators have long pondered and debated the question of when and how state and local governments can regulate federal officers.” Local efforts to prevent agents from wearing masks “highlight unanswered questions in the Supremacy Clause and Intergovernmental Immunity doctrines,” the report states. “How should courts determine what actions are ‘authorized’ by federal law? When is something necessary and proper to the fulfillment of federal duties? Where is the line between state-laws that incidentally burden the federal government and those that directly regulate it? These are the questions that will be sorted out in court. While existing doctrine gives opponents of these laws ample grounds to challenge them, it also offers proponents a variety of cogent defenses.”

A spokesperson for Johnson said in an email that the mayor maintains that “some actions and behavior of Federal immigration agents have been inappropriate and dangerous.” The spokesperson added, “Federal agents are undermining the trust our residents have with their aggressive enforcement efforts.”

 

Elected leaders and civil rights groups gathered in Milwaukee Thursday to denounce the recent surge of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Wisconsin. U.S. Rep Gwen Moore said that rather than going after violent criminals, the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign has targeted people without criminal records, and has resulted in the deaths of American citizens. 

Moore was joined by Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson, Common Council President Jose Perez, Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee), Voces de la Frontera executive director Christine Neumann-Ortiz, state Rep. Sylvia Ortiz-Velez (D-Milwaukee), and others. 

Moore  pointed to the case of Yessenia Ruano as a prime example of the kinds of people being targeted by ICE. Ruano, a public school teacher’s aid in Milwaukee, self-deported last year to El Salvador, along with her young twin daughters who were born in the United States. She crossed the border in 2011, fleeing gang violence after the murder of her brother. 

Ruano had no criminal record and was applying for a T-Visa, which would have protected her as a victim of human trafficking, yet, ICE denied her request for an emergency stay to her deportation proceedings. Earlier this week, Ruano returned home to Milwaukee, following a federal judge’s ruling in May that she must be allowed to return to the United States.

Moore stressed that while a judge eventually ruled in her favor, “that didn’t stop the separation, the anxiety, the expense, the GoFundMes, all of the trouble that we’re putting innocent people through.” She added that Ruano “was certainly not a rapist, not a murderer. She had a T-Visa, she didn’t even have any parking tickets, which many of us cannot say that we don’t have.” Moore also mentioned Salah Sarsour, the president of Milwaukee’s Islamic Society, who was arrested by ICE earlier this year and detained in a facility in Indiana. A judge later ordered his release, ruling that the arrest was First Amendment retaliation for Sarsour’s criticism of the Israeli government and his advocacy for Palestinian people.

“Thank God that he is free today,” said Moore. “But again, here’s someone punished for their speech, for their high profile in the Muslim community as the president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, and because of his high profile, his criticism of American policy and what is going on in Gaza, he became a target. And you know, everything that they can’t prove they just make up about you.” 

Sarsour had also been in the country for decades, and had never accumulated a criminal record in the United States. “These are just a couple of stories, but there’s people’s names that we don’t know,” said Moore. “They’re being kidnapped, as my colleague Pramila Jayapal shared with us, they’re being disappeared, they’re being rushed through a judicial process without due process because they don’t have any money, and we’re here to decry that.”

Mayor Johnson said that ICE is “violating constituents’  trust in federal agencies and putting our residents in Milwaukee at greater risk with the aggressive operations that they’ve been deploying, not just here but in communities all across this country.” Johnson said that while arresting serious felons and other criminals not controversial, “aggressively snatching our residents off the street, taking actions like that — including people who are in the midst of the formal proceedings necessary in order to obtain legal status — is just plainly wrong. It’s just wrong.”

Neighbors, educators, family members, and workers in restaurants, hotels and hospitals, shouldn’t be targeted by ICE, said Johnson. “So the behavior that ICE has done here has incited chaos, and fear, in communities that every single one of us is tasked to serve and tasked to protect,” said Johnson. 

He highlighted local government efforts to regulate ICE activity, such as by prohibiting ICE agents from wearing masks or using city property. The city of Milwaukee passed those  policies in  a local ICE Out package, and the county board has approved similar restrictions. However, ICE made it clear through their actions and public statements that the agency has no intention of respecting  local ordinances. 

During the surge earlier this month, which led to the arrest of nearly 60 people, ICE agents were filmed staging in a Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) parking lot, despite the department’s explicit policies prohibiting cooperation with ICE. MPD said that it did not give permission for ICE to use the lot, and that the federal agency was reminded to not use city police property. Agents were also reminded by the sheriff’s office to not use county parks after they’d been seen there as well, in violation of local policies and ordinances. 

The Wisconsin Examiner asked Johnson whether any efforts have been made to ensure that MPD’s Homeland Security-adjacent intelligence Fusion Center isn’t also cooperating with ICE, but the mayor pointed  to the department’s policy against working with the immigration agency. There are also growing concerns in the neighboring city of West Allis, which does not include a requirement for a judicial warrant for arrests by  ICE.

The surge has eroded trust in local law enforcement’s pledges to not work with ICE, and raised doubts about whether local elected officials can do anything at all to rein in the agents. Several arrests that have been witnessed or filmed by residents showed masked agents violently wrestling people to the ground and detaining them. One detained man, Galo Suárez, 25, said that agents repeatedly called him and his fiance “dogs” in Spanish, and that they refused to release his fiance, Reyna Elizebeth Garcia, despite the fact that they both had work permits. Suárez said that the agents told him to walk away and that he wouldn’t like what happened to him if he chose to look back. Other witnesses described ICE agents leaving unattended children behind in cars filled with broken glass, after shattering windows to arrest their parents in front of them. In one case, ICE reportedly left an abandoned vehicle flipped on its side in the middle of the street.

Johnson wanted to assure residents that “they are not without recourse” and that “there still are options out there.”  He encouraged voters to “send a message to the president” that “change is coming,” and that people who don’t support Trump’s crackdown policies will be elected to office. 

Carpenter said that Trump’s immigration policy has failed, and that he doesn’t hear any conversation about providing a pathway to citizenship for people in the country without full legal documentation. Carpenter compared the way ICE has arrested people on the street to the way human traffickers operate. “I’ve seen it out there…white vans…I don’t know what’s going on at some of these stops,” said Carpenter. “They are very scary. I don’t know if something’s going on and I should intervene, but then I would be breaking the law or get in trouble. But I can guarantee you that on streets like Greenfield, National, Mitchell Street, there are abductions going on right now for people that are going into human trafficking slavery.” 

The senator called the trauma being experienced by the children of immigrants targeted by ICE “reprehensible,” “anti-family,” and “anti-American.” While he condones the arrests of people who are criminals, Carpenter condemns the recent arrests and detentions  in Wisconsin. Perez  said that communities are sending a message to Trump that they do not consent to these policies. “Due process is a fundamental right in this country,” said Perez. “Every person deserves to be treated with dignity, fairness, and respect under the law. And we will make our voices heard, waiting for the time when we can again trust those charged with our protection.”

Neumann-Ortiz asked for a moment of silence for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant and Texas resident who was killed by ICE during an attempted traffic stop. Araujo was reportedly picking up workers in his van when ICE attempted to stop the car. ICE has said that the agents fired after Arajuo, the father of three U.S. citizens who lived in the U.S. for nearly 35 years, attempted to “weaponize” his vehicle. His family has called for an independent criminal investigation. Neumann-Ortiz  said that this is another example of an agency which is “completely out of control, makes our communities less safe, and is a gross misuse of public dollars.” 

In Milwaukee, several groups are  conducting know your rights training, canvassing neighborhoods, protesting, and verifying ICE sightings. Neumann-Ortiz said that Voces de la Frontera is tracking multiple cases of excessive force, injuries to arrested people, and questionable access to due process. One child, who witnessed his mother’s arrest, remains traumatized after the incident, Neumann-Ortiz said. The son replays the arrest over and over in his head, and he gets scared whenever he sees police, fearing  that they’re coming to take his father as well. “That’s post-traumatic  syndrome, that’s what that is,” said Neumann-Ortiz. “How is that making us any safer?” 

Neumann-Ortiz encouraged residents to get informed on what their rights are and to use  the 1-800-427-0213 hotline number if they see or encounter ICE. She also praised mutual aid efforts like donating food and other supplies which are  distributed to  neighbors afraid to leave their homes  by volunteers, as well as groups providing legal aid and advice. These are examples  of what’s possible “when we unite,” said Neumann-Ortiz.