WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on July 13 killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a Colombian national with legal work authorization, in Maine, making him the 22nd person shot at by federal immigration officers during President Donald Trump’s second term. 

Nearly all of those 22 incidents – 19 – involved Department of Homeland Security officers shooting upon people in their vehicles during traffic stops, a crucial nexus, according to a States Newsroom review of news reports and documents. The encounters spanned the nation, from Colorado to Texas to Oregon to New Jersey.

Since Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, where he promised to carry out an aggressive immigration crackdown, federal immigration officers have killed six people, three of them U.S. citizens. Four deaths came during traffic stops.

Following Guerrero’s death, the second immigrant to be killed by ICE officers during a traffic stop in a week, DHS put a pause on traffic stop enforcement. But Trump quickly ordered the department to abandon those plans.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that officers will conduct vehicle-related enforcement stops “in order to continue their deportation campaign.”

The agency has plenty of funding at hand. Congressional Republicans last year used a legislative maneuver to allocate roughly $175 billion to DHS for immigration enforcement, detainment and deportations, without needing Democratic support. GOP lawmakers did the same move this year to fund $75 billion for ICE and Border Patrol until September of 2029.

After the ICE shooting in Biddeford, the entire Maine congressional delegation called for an independent investigation, with Republican Sen. Susan Collins urging an end to vehicle enforcement.

A Thursday report from the American Civil Liberties Union found patterns of misconduct by immigration agents during Trump’s second term, identifying 432 incidents where agents either used or threatened to use force against immigrants and bystanders.

The report reviewed more than 1,200 incidents across eight states — Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland and New Mexico. 

Of the traffic-related enforcement, the ACLU found in 76 instances, people and passengers were pulled from their cars; windows were smashed 47 times; officers 14 times rammed vehicles into people’s cars; and they hit people with cars six times. 

What happened afterward

In the moments after those 22 shootings, DHS has quickly accused those who were fired upon of using their vehicles as weapons against immigration officers. 

But independent video has often contradicted that narrative. 

In at least five cases DHS brought, charges were dismissed after the department accused U.S. citizens and immigrants shot by federal agents as being the aggressors. 

In August 2025, Francisco Longoria, a Mexican national, was driving his vehicle in San Bernardino, California, when federal immigration agents in unmarked cars tried to pull him over. He fled and the agents fired upon him.

The Department of Justice charged him with attempting to harm agents, but prosecutors couldn’t defend the DHS actions and charges were dismissed. Longoria was not injured.

Marimar Martinez was labeled a domestic terrorist by DHS and indicted after she was shot in her car five times by Border Patrol agents in October 2025, during the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration deportation campaign in Chicago. DOJ dropped its charges against Martinez, a U.S. citizen, after the Trump administration accused her of using her car as a weapon.

When the president initially directed immigration agents to the nation’s capitol, Phillip M. Brown, a U.S. citizen, was pulled over by law enforcement, including an immigration officer who shot into his vehicle. During the October 2025 shooting, Brown was not injured, but charged with fleeing from law enforcement. The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute the case.

During the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation drive in Minneapolis in January, that left two U.S. citizens dead, a Venezuelan immigrant, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis was shot by a federal agent while in his home. DHS accused Cesar Sosa-Celis of striking an immigration officer with a broom handle, but Cesar Sosa-Celis denied it and surveillance video contracted the federal government’s claim.

The immigration agent who shot Cesar Sosa-Celis was prosecuted by local Minnesota officials and arrested in May for falsely reporting a crime and for assault.

In Houston, on July 7, ICE officers killed 52-year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, saying he tried to run over agents as has been the case in other incidents.

Salgado Araujo was driving several other people to work that morning when immigration officers approached his van. He was not considered a person of interest, DHS has stated.

The FBI has sought a search warrant to seize plastic bags with “crystal-like substances,” to test for methamphetamine, according to the Texas Tribune. One of the lawyers representing Salgado Araujo’s brother, who was in the van during the shooting, said it was granulated salt.

A grim beginning to the year

The most people shot by federal immigration agents was in January.  Three of the five people shot by ICE and Border Patrol officers were in Minnesota, with two of them fatalities. 

The two deaths were in Minneapolis, where the Trump administration conducted an aggressive deportation campaign that targeted the city, which has a high Somali refugee population. 

That month, federal immigration agents shot and killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both U.S. citizens, and shot and wounded Cesar Sosa-Celis. 

Good was killed while in her vehicle, which then DHS Secretary Kristi Noem labeled her as a domestic terrorist. DHS accused Good of using her SUV as a weapon, but independent video did not uphold that allegation.

A week later, federal immigration officers shot and killed intensive care unit nurse Pretti, who was recording agents on his phone and helping a woman who was pushed down by them. Noem again labeled him a domestic terrorist and said he was attacking agents, but multiple videos taken from different angles do not show that.

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.”

 

Between June 29 and July 1, federal immigration agents arrested 57 people in Wisconsin during a surge of arrests. Those arrests sent a wave of unease through the state, as people recounted their experiences being detained in violent scenes and tried to find their loved ones who were seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). 

Law enforcement and immigration rights advocates, called the arrests “targeted.” The Department of Homeland Secuirty  said that the detainees had criminal histories such as sexual assault, intoxicated driving, obstruction, drug trafficking, domestic abuse, larceny and fraud. Advocates from the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera said that the vast majority of the people targeted  had no criminal histories. 

Galo Suárez, 25, who is in the country on a work permit along with his fiance Reyna Elizabeth Garcia, was arrested during the surge with Garcia’s brother. Suárez said the couple was followed from a food market and violently arrested by masked agents in unmarked vehicles who broke out their windows, refused to answer their questions, and repeatedly called them “dogs” in Spanish. Suárez was released and told to “run and not look back” or else he’d regret it. The agents kept Garcia and her brother. Jacqueline Eckstrom, a resident of the suburban city of Greenfield, witnessed another arrest where agents broke out windows and arrested a woman, leaving her young children behind screaming in the glass-strewn car.

In late June, Diana Socha Torres and her 8-year-old son were also taken from  their home in the Wisconsin Dells. They were transported to an ICE office in downtown Milwaukee and then transferred to the South Texas Residential Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. Socha Torres has an active asylum case and was wearing an ICE-issued ankle monitor, and had no criminal charges or convictions in Wisconsin. 

Arrests were also reported in and around the Madison area. Suárez joined concerned residents and local activists who marched through the South Side of Milwaukee last week to call for his fiance’s release. Just prior to the protest, ICE agents were seen circling the park near the site of the march. 

DHS has said repeatedly since the surge began that being detained “is a choice,” and encouraged people in the country without legal documentation to accept $2,600 from the Trump administration to self-deport. The agency has also denied claims that detainees are not afforded due process. 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a stay Monday in the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera’s lawsuit against local sheriff’s departments partnering with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, declining to hear arguments in the case until a federal appeal is exhausted. 

Voces filed the lawsuit against ICE’s 287(g) agreements with local sheriff’s departments last year and in December, the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed to accept the case as an original action. Across Wisconsin, 23 sheriff’s offices have agreed to assist federal immigration enforcement efforts through the controversial program. 

The Court’s decision to stay the case comes as ICE has become more active across the country in recent weeks, including in southern Wisconsin where dozens of immigrants were arrested by ICE last week. 

After the state court agreed to hear the case, the sheriffs of Walworth, Brown, Marathon, Kenosha and Sauk counties sued to move the case to federal court. U.S. Judge William Conley ruled in May they waited too long to file the petition and sent the case back to the state court.

The sheriffs have filed an appeal of the district court decision. Voces had requested that the Supreme Court set a schedule for filing briefs and holding arguments while the federal appeal is pending. 

In its Monday order, the Court said it wouldn’t move forward with the state case until the federal appeals are exhausted.

“To avoid potential uncertainty and conflict, we decline the petitioner’s request to order a briefing schedule that would allow the case to proceed simultaneously with the federal appeal of the order remanding the case to this court, and we grant a stay pending further order of this court,” the Court ruled. 

According to federal court records, the sheriffs’ briefs to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals are due by August 5 and Voces’ response is due by September 4.

Protesters gathered at Kosciuszko Park Wednesday evening to stand in solitary with immigrant families in the predominantly Latino neighborhood in Milwaukee. Speaking to the crowd through a microphone, Alan Chavoya, a local activist with the ICE Out Coalition, said the gathering is both educational and “to show that this community stands together, and we’re ready to fight back.” 

Earlier this week, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents launched a flurry of arrest operations in communities across Wisconsin. In Milwaukee, witnesses described masked agents following people through town, smashing car windows and violently arresting their targets, sometimes in front of young children. 

Local immigrant rights groups and the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) described the surge as “targeted,” with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) saying 39 people had been arrested as of Wednesday. Although the federal agency said that the people arrested had a variety of criminal histories, from sexual assault and domestic violence to property damage and obstruction, local advocates have said that the vast majority of arrestees do not have criminal records. 

ICE agents were also seen staging in a MPD parking lot and county park, despite local ordinances meant to prevent that from happening. During public comment at a Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission meeting Thursday, two residents denounced the presence of ICE at the MPD District 2 parking lot, saying that the department should have prevented it.

Galo Suárez, whose fiance Reyna Elizabeth Garcia was arrested Sunday along with her brother Teodoro, attended the protest Wednesday night to call for their release. “Milwaukee, we have to unite against these people,” he told the crowd, his words translated from Spanish by Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera. “We cannot live in peace when there are people running around who are separating families, who are masked. I am here because I am one of the people that was affected by these people who are terrorizing our community, and who has my loved one incarcerated right now.” 

Neumann-Ortiz and legal observers from the Milwaukee Turners separately told Wisconsin Examiner that ICE agents had been seen earlier that day driving around the park in an apparent attempt to intimidate the people gathering there. 

Suárez told the crowd that when his fiance asked why they were being arrested, agents told her, “you have no rights, dog.” Suárez said that “it’s time for us to unite as a community, to have a single voice, and to help the families that are being impacted by this. We do not want ICE terrorizing our families in the streets.” He added, “It’s time for us to unite, to hold hands, because that’s the way that we’re going to be able to accomplish driving these people out of our streets.”

Chavoya said that “these are humans that are being terrorized by those monsters in ICE.” He described the people being targeted as “hardworking immigrants” and said, “these are not criminals, the criminals are the ones hiding their faces, the ones that have those stupid vests that say ‘police’. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, those are the criminals, those are the people who should be behind bars.” Chavoya translated everything he said into Spanish as well.

ICE Out Coalition members also held a know your rights session. They said that ICE cannot enter your home and workplace without a judicial warrant, unless you give them permission. The crowd was warned that agents may try to use deception to get the access they want. People also have the right to remain silent and not answer questions from ICE agents, organizers said. People also are allowed to film ICE agents. They said that publicizing details about the number of ICE agents, where they are, what they’re doing, what unit they’re from and when sightings occurred are important.

Luz Hernández, vice president of the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association (MTEA), said that the Latino community of Milwaukee’s South Side is in distress. Besides ICE agents patrolling neighborhoods, an elementary school  burned down on the same day that Suárez first told the world what happened to his fiance Reyna. Hernández, a bilingual teacher and an immigrant whose parents came from Mexico, said ICE “will not intimidate us, we will not give them that satisfaction!” 

She said “undocumented or documented, we all have inalienable rights, we will defend those rights! We will defend one another, and we refuse to let fear divide us.” Hernández said that “education workers know that no child can learn while living under fear that a parent or family member may disappear.” 

MTEA has established know-your-rights, ICE verifier and legal observer trainings while also organizing “school defense teams, marches, and rallies such as this one,” Hernández said, adding, “together we are building a community that protects its own.”

In temperatures rising to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, the protesters marched through the surrounding neighborhood before returning to the park. Suárez was among those at the front, holding a banner that said “stop scapegoating immigrants.”

MPD and Milwaukee County Sheriff vehicles kept a close eye on the protest while also helping block off traffic. A drone shadowed the crowd from a distance. All along the protest route, people came out of their homes to cheer the marchers on. One restaurant worker rushed outside to hand out free drinks, and a woman in the neighborhood wept and thanked the marchers. 

The ICE surge has been distressing for local officials and ordinary residents alike. Milwaukee Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic and County Supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez expressed their concerns earlier this week, asking residents to document what they see while elected officials try to work out legal or legislative solutions. Although the city passed an “ICE Out” package, which included a prohibition on ICE using city property and wearing masks, the agents are openly defying those ordinances, and DHS has said that federal law overrules state and local regulations. Martinez said that residents should document ICE sightings, such as staging in county parks, so that local governments can file lawsuits.

The Fraternal Order of Police in Milwaukee criticized the city’s ICE Out package, calling it divisive and irresponsible. A representative from the order told WISN Channel 12 News that agents hide their faces to protect their families and their personal lives. 

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore denounced the reports of ICE activity in Milwaukee. “Their reckless tactics are terrorizing families and inflicting real harm on our residents, especially across the South Side,” Moore said in a statement. “ICE is operating like a rogue agency and its abuses make clear that serious reforms are long overdue. This is exactly why I refused to give this out-of-control agency one more penny.” Moore added that people “should know they are entitled to due process in our country. Every person has rights, no matter their status.”

ICE arrests are also occurring  outside of Milwaukee. Centro Dane County, a local immigrant outreach group, posted a warning to Facebook Tuesday that seven arrests had occurred in the Madison area. “Do not open the door unless ICE presents a judicial warrant signed by a judge,” the post advised. 

In late June, Diana Socha Torres was arrested by ICE along with her 8-year-old son at their home in the Wisconsin Dells. Socha Torres and her son were taken to an ICE office in downtown Milwaukee, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported and then were transferred to the South Texas Residential Detention Center in Dilley, Texas. Socha Torres had an active asylum case and wore an ICE ankle monitor, and does not have any criminal charges or convictions in Wisconsin.

Socha Torres’ partner of 20 years told reporters that they feel desperate after her arrest. 

Attorney Marc Christopher, who represents Socha Torres, has filed a motion to have her deportation order reconsidered. She has a credible fear of violence, he said, and has carefully followed the rules while seeking asylum. The reason for her arrest was a missed hearing, but she was unaware her hearing had been rescheduled, Christopher said, adding that it was a frequent occurrence as immigration hearings have been rapidly rescheduled recently and many immigrant clients say they were caught unaware.

The Texas detention center where Socha Torres and her 8-year-old son are being held has been cited by Amnesty International for inhumane conditions, including lack of medical care, food and water.  

A DHS spokesperson said in a statement earlier this week that “being in detention is a choice.” The agency has not responded to a request for updated arrest numbers. 

People can call 1-800-427-0213 to report ICE detentions or credible sightings, Centro Dane County posted.

Galo Suárez, 25, was in a car near the El Rey Food Market on 13th St. in Milwaukee with his fiance Reyna Elizabeth Garcia and her brother Teodoro last weekend, when they realized they were being followed. A truck stopped in front of them and four more pulled up behind them. Suárez, related the experience  in Spanish as members of Voces de la Frontera translated during a Tuesday press conference. He said  masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents began breaking their car windows and threatened them with “several heavy consequences” if they didn’t comply. 

“They had guns pointed at us,” Suárez said, as he sat beside other witnesses of ICE arrests, Voces de la Frontera leaders and local elected officials at the Voces office in Milwaukee. “They didn’t ask us for our names, they didn’t ask us for an I.D. They took us violently out of the car.” His fiance was put against the car “in a very violent way” said Suárez. The agents called her a dog, he said, and told her “that is what happens to you.”

The encounter was not an anomaly. As of Tuesday, Voces de la Frontera’s hotline had corroborated 26-28 ICE detentions over the last few days in Wisconsin. “We know that many of the people are being held in Dodge, Waukesha County, Chicago-Maywood, Kentucky, Miami, Florida,” Voces said in a statement. Even as the press conference played out, two more confirmed ICE reports came in from Fitchburg, a suburb of Madison.

Some detainees have serious medical conditions, Voces director Christine Neumann-Ortiz said, adding that the detentions have been traumatic. She said Voces has documented four cases of excessive use of force and two cases of people who were crime victims actively going through legal proceedings when they were detained by ICE. “One of which is a U-Visa applicant, that is not supposed to be deportable,” she said.

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said in an email statement that ICE arrested “39 illegal aliens” in Wisconsin over the weekend, stating that “many of them” had criminal histories including sexual assault, driving under the influence, obstructing police, domestic abuse, property damage, “dangerous drug possession,” and other crimes. The spokesperson said that all detainees receive due process, and that pending applications for protected status or asylum “do not confer legal status in this country.”

Neumann-Ortiz called this “a targeted ICE surge” hitting “working-class families” including those seeking asylum from violence in their home countries and people with Temporary Protected Status. The “overwhelming majority” of the people ICE has swept up in Wisconsin over the last several days have no criminal record, Neumann-Ortiz said, though some have deportation orders. Voces is partnering with the Community Immigration Law Center to review cases, help families locate their loved ones and to prepare legal support.

Violence, insults and trauma from federal agents

Suárez said that he and his family were handcuffed by agents who refused to tell them where they were going and would not allow them to speak. “They said I didn’t have the right to know anything, “perro” — dog,” said Suárez, his words translated into English by Alexandra Guevara, communications director for Voces de la Frontera. “We stopped at a parking lot. They took my belongings. They took my wallet, found my working permit. They were trying to force me to say it was fake. I insisted that it was real and that he could check online, so he did.” Most of the agents behaved this way, Suárez told Wisconsin Examiner. 

He kept asking the agents about his fiance, as they had been separated by the agents. “The agents said that she definitely would be detained and not come back yet,” he said. When one of the agents found his documentation and said he’d be freed, another reneged the assurance because they also wanted to look for drugs among his belongings. When the agents questioned why he had money in his wallet, Suárez said it’s because he works. They checked the work permit again, said, “You’re a good person,” and agreed to release him. They took the cuffs off and told him to “run and not look back, because if I looked back I would regret it.” 

His fiance, who also has a work permit, and her brother were kept in detention. Although Suárez has been able to contact his fiance, who was taken to Kenosha, he hasn’t been able to find her brother. “We don’t know where he is,” said Suárez. 

Jacqueline Eckstrom, a resident of the suburban city of Greenfield, witnessed another arrest. On Friday afternoon she has just left a market where she was buying  food  when she saw SUVs with Illinois license plates blocking the road. She chose to park behind the vehicles instead of driving into oncoming traffic. “They did have police vests, but they also had masks,” Eckstrom said, adding that she knows Milwaukee well enough to know that police officers don’t wear masks. “They proceeded, they smashed the window of the car and grabbed the mom aggressively out of the car. And it all happened real quickly, and they took off.” 

Eckstrom remembers crying children, and walking up to the car’s broken window. “There’s shards of glass everywhere,” she said, “and there’s two kids in the backseat.” Her voice trembled as she spoke.  Eckstrom recalled that “the sister was hugging her brother. It broke my heart.” Neumann-Ortiz translated Eckstrom’s words, her voice also strained with emotion. Eckstrom recalled meeting a child  whose mother had been deported and who came through her foster home a decade ago. “He had trauma, but he never watched his mom smashed and grabbed out the car,” said Eckstrom. “I can’t get it out my mind, this weekend, the trauma that these kids are going to think, with someone wearing police vests, that’s not the police, with masks on their head, taking their mom.”

 

 

A neighbor and the fiance of Estenderly Marte Polanco, from the Dominican Republic, also spoke at the Voces office Tuesday. Polanco was arrested on Saturday. The neighbor said she’d gotten a call from her 11-year-old son, who was crying because he didn’t know how to console Polanco’s distraught son, who was in the backseat when agents removed his mother from the car. Her neighbor said that Polaco fainted at one point, and that she was telling agents they were hurting her as she was taken to the car. The arrest was captured on video. 

The masked agents took the keys and made the father and the son walk home. The neighbor said she’d lived near Polanco for two years, and sees her as a dedicated mother who is not a threat to the community. Her fiance called her “a very good person” and said the arrest has been “very devastating for our family.” She added that the agents busted Polanco’s lip, threw her on the ground, called her names and choked her. “They had her face in between her legs where she couldn’t breath,” Polanco’s fiance said, stating that she had to bite one of them to make him let her go.

The sister of a Nicaraguan man who was arrested on Friday also spoke at the press conference. She said that her brother has kidney disease and is sick. “It’s a serious problem,” the woman said in Spanish as Guevara translated. She described him as a shy, hard worker who supports his kids and takes care of his mother. She said that she has been trying desperately to reach him. “He is in urgent need of medicine or his kidneys could collapse and he could even die,” Guevara translated. “He really needs special attention and special food.” The arrest has devastated his family and his sister. Unsure of what to do, they are begging for assistance.

A Homeland Security spokesperson said that ICE agents are trained to use “the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations,” and that agents prioritize the safety of detainees, the public and officers. All use of force incidents are documented and subject to review, the spokesperson said. Although the spokesperson said that detainees get “comprehensive medical care,” deaths in ICE custody in 2026 are outpacing those from 2025, when 32 people died, making it the worst year for deaths in ICE custody in two decades. 

Broken trust and promises with Milwaukee PD and sheriff 

Like Neumann-Ortiz, Milwaukee city Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic and Milwaukee County Board Supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez — who also attended the Tuesday press conference — became emotional while listening to the stories of witnesses. Dimitrijevic shook her head, looking disgusted. Neumann-Ortiz cried at one point, and Martinez looked weary and sad. 

Video of the arrests shows ICE agents violating the city’s prohibition on law enforcement wearing masks. The prohibition is part of Milwaukee’s “ICE Out Package,” which local officials passed almost unanimously after watching the scenes of violence during the ICE surge in Minnesota.

A Homeland Security spokesperson said that such local orders are unconstitutional, that federal law trumps state or local laws, and that agents wear masks to protect themselves and their families from “real-world threats,” claiming that assaults on agents are up more than 1,300%, vehicular attacks by more than 3,300%, and death threats death threats by 8,000%. Dimitrijevic said that masked agents are unidentifiable and are terrifying to local residents.

Dimitrijevic said that the recent arrests do not make the city safer. She also said that city officials were shocked to learn that some of ICE’s activities were filmed taking place at a Milwaukee Police Department station. “We didn’t believe it, we couldn’t believe it,” she said. Not only did the ICE Out Package prohibit that sort of thing from happening, but MPD has its own long-standing policy of not cooperating with or participating in immigration enforcement in order to preserve the community’s trust in local law enforcement. 

An MPD spokesperson confirmed that ICE agents used the District 2 station on Milwaukee’s South Side. The spokesperson said that MPD has asked ICE to not use the parking lot, and that the department did not know in advance that ICE would be using it. MPD also said that no one, including the district’s command staff, gave ICE permission to use the parking lot or allowed them in. 

Suárez said that he was confused by the use of MPD facilities by ICE. “It’s very confusing to think that they’re taking us to a parking spot that is the police’s parking spot,” said Suárez, as Guevara translated, recalling his arrest. “And knowing that they’re not supposed to collaborate, but all of a sudden we’re there in front of that area. And so it does make me think and wonder if they’re not really collaborating.”

 

 

Martinez said that the county board learned that ICE had staged in a county park, violating a local ordinance. Sheriff Denita Ball said that she only found out after the fact, and that deputies will communicate to ICE in the future that the agency can’t stage in the parks. 

Martinez urged residents to continue documenting these instances so that the county can sue ICE in the future for not complying with local ordinances. 

“These are kind of small things that we’re trying to get done,” said Martinez. “Not allowing them in our parks is the idea here to slow them down or stop what they’re doing to terrorize our communities as much as possible. Just hearing these stories…My brain is a little bit scrambled right now. I feel like we’re not dealing with people. I feel like we’re dealing with some kind of entity that’s just here to terrorize, and disrupt, and break apart our way of life.” 

Dimitrijevic said that moving forward the city will need to trust what MPD says about ICE activity, but also verify it. “And there is now going to be more questions and an investigation into what happened, who knew, etc.,” she told the Examiner. Martinez said he’s been skeptical of law enforcement ever since officers pulled guns on him when he was 11 years old. “I would hope that they would do what they’re supposed to do,” he told the Examiner. “And all I can do is just keep pushing and making sure that they’re going to do what they’re going to do.”

He also rejected a suggestion  from a reporter that  the ICE Out Package was a bad idea and put a target on the city. Pointing to President Donald Trump’s promises of a mass deportation campaign, and internal ICE memos saying that judicial warrants aren’t needed to enter homes, and other examples, Martinez said, “We had to prepare for what was coming and what we were going to be dealing with.”

A Homeland Security spokesperson said that “being in detention is a choice.” The agency encouraged “all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App,” adding that immigrants without documents are being offered $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport. “We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”

Neumann-Ortiz said that ICE needs to be abolished. “It’s a fairly new agency,” and yet it has a “long record of functioning like a rogue agency,” she said. 

She said ICE has been one of the worst agencies in terms of oversight and accountability. “And I think that has just reached its most extreme level, and clearly the priorities are not safety. It is white nationalist ideology, and it’s using violence to enforce this,” Neumann-Ortiz said. She called for comprehensive  immigration reform and said Wisconsin’s political importance is also a reason why the surge is happening now.

“I want people to know that they are lying,” Suárez told the Examiner. “They’re saying that they are only detaining criminals, but the truth is my fiance and her brother are good people, they’re hardworking, they have no record, and those lies are being used against us and to confuse us.”