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• More than a month since an immigration judge agreed to grant a Sheboygan Falls mother a green card, she was still sitting in an ICE jail waiting for a required background check, which Department of Homeland Security officials said staffing issues had delayed.

• The predicament illustrates how President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has strained some of the immigration system’s most basic infrastructure. Immigration attorneys say increased pressure from mass arrests has “exponentially inflamed” many of its long-standing flaws.

• Defendants in felony cases have been deported before a judge can issue a verdict, fast-changing asylum rules have led to inconsistent outcomes, and inefficiencies like the mother’s background check delay have dramatically affected residents’ lives.

Update, Dec. 19, 2025, 12:50 p.m.:

Cleveland immigration court Judge Richard Drucker cancelled Elvira Benitez’s removal from the country on Friday, her attorney Marc Christopher told Wisconsin Watch. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reserved the right to appeal his ruling within the next 30 days, but Christopher expects she will be able to return to Wisconsin before the end of the year.

Original story:

Elvira Benitez of Sheboygan Falls is just one step away from receiving her green card. 

But more than a month since an immigration judge agreed to grant her permanent residence pending a biometric background check, she’s still sitting in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Ohio, where she has spent half of 2025. 

The reason? The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, told an immigration court judge that a staffing shortage delayed the background check, which requires running her fingerprints through a national registry.

The ongoing immigration crackdown has strained some of the immigration system’s most basic infrastructure, and Benitez is one of many stuck as a result. Many immigration attorneys, including Benitez’s, say increased pressure on the system from mounting arrest numbers and rapidly shifting policies has “exponentially inflamed” many of its long-standing flaws, even as the Trump administration spends billions trying to keep up with its own demands.  

Those flaws have appeared in many forms: defendants in felony cases deported before a judge can issue a verdict, inconsistent application of ever-changing asylum rules and inefficiencies that cost the administration little while dramatically affecting the lives of people like Benitez. 

How has that played out in Wisconsin? Wisconsin Watch has documented the shifting landscape in a range of stories during a chaotic year for immigration policy. 

Accidental Canadian trip triggers arrest

Benitez, 50, fled an abusive home in Michoacán, Mexico, as a teenager, crossing the border with her 8-year-old sister and making her way to the Midwest, said Crystal Aguilar, Benitez’s eldest daughter. She lived without legal status for more than three decades, entering the immigration court system only after her arrest this year.

She landed in ICE custody in July after accidentally crossing the Canadian border due to a GPS mixup during a family road trip in Michigan. In her absence, her two adult daughters – both U.S. citizens – took charge of their school-age siblings and the family’s painting and cleaning business.

“I have four kids of my own,” Aguilar said. “So we’re kind of just all over the place, taking turns.”

Benitez was among more than 25,000 people ICE arrested in July alone, a Wisconsin Watch analysis found. Monthly arrests eclipsed 30,000 by September, including at least 143 in Wisconsin. Relatively few of those detainees have remained in the U.S. More than 65% of those arrested from January through mid-October have already left the U.S., either through deportation or, less frequently, voluntary departure. 

The time between an arrest and a deportation can vary widely. One Mexican man picked up in an October ICE raid in Manitowoc, for instance, was deported within four days of his arrest, while a Nicaraguan asylum seeker arrested in the same operation waited over a month in custody before opting to return to Nicaragua. 

The Trump administration’s “big” bill-turned-law, encompassing most of its policy and spending priorities, took effect just days before Benitez’s arrest. It included a record $178 billion for DHS, including funding for at least 1 million annual removals, additional detention beds and thousands of new ICE officers and federal immigration prosecutors. The bill added or expanded upon nearly two dozen fees for immigrants, asylum seekers and seasonal visa holders, including a $1,600 fee that Benitez paid to cancel her removal from the U.S. 

Wisconsin’s jails at center of crackdown

The additional funding has enabled ICE to contract with a growing number of Wisconsin sheriffs’ offices to secure beds in county jails for its detainees. 

The Dodge County jail in Juneau, for instance, held an average of more than 100 ICE detainees per day in September – the most recent complete month of detention data. 

Other county sheriffs have supported ICE enforcement efforts by honoring agency detainer requests by holding inmates suspected of immigration violations past their scheduled release dates, buying time for ICE agents to take them into custody. The Wisconsin Supreme Court this month agreed to hear a lawsuit challenging the legality of such practices.

While Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has claimed the administration is prioritizing “the worst first” for deportation, just over 40% of immigrants arrested by ICE nationwide between January and mid-October had prior criminal convictions, and nearly a third had no prior criminal history or pending charges. 

In Wisconsin, however, nearly 60% of immigrants arrested by ICE during that period had at least one prior criminal conviction, while less than 20% had no prior criminal history or pending charges.

Most immigrants with prior convictions or pending charges arrested by ICE in Wisconsin this year have been deported. Roughly half of arrested immigrants with no criminal record — such as Benitez — have not. 

But even the quicker deportations of immigrants facing pending criminal charges pose challenges. When defendants land in ICE custody, their criminal cases generally go on without them, often with no explanation of their absence. 

The immigration crackdown has left Wisconsin courts with loose ends: missing defendants, victims without a chance to testify and thousands of dollars in forfeited bail. For some defendants facing serious prison time, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne argued that deportation can serve as a “get-out-of-jail-free card.”

Asylum seekers face legal whiplash

Immigrants with no criminal history have often landed in drawn-out legal proceedings complicated by sudden rule changes. 

Reversing decades of precedent, DHS announced in July that most immigrants in ICE custody would be ineligible for bond and instead subject to “mandatory detention.” Benitez, whose arrest nearly coincided with the rollout of the policy, was among the detainees unable to leave custody as a result.

Asylum seekers have faced particularly intense policy whiplash. Among other changes, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals opened the door in October for immigration courts to more easily toss out asylum cases and instead deport applicants not to their home countries, but to “third countries,” primarily in Latin America and Africa. 

The volume of cases before federal immigration courts — faced with a backlog that has declined only slightly from a peak of 3.7 million cases in 2024 — and the pace of rule changes have led to inconsistent prosecutions. 

In November, DHS prosecutors moved to deport the Nicaraguan asylum seeker arrested in Manitowoc to Honduras. His attorney said he ultimately chose to return to Nicaragua, where he risks retaliation for his involvement in protests against authoritarian President Daniel Ortega, to avoid landing in Honduras, where he spent only a few days on his trek north to the U.S.

But DHS did not suggest third-country deportation when a fellow ICE detainee in Dodge County appeared in court just over a week later. 

Diego Ugarte-Arenas, a 31-year-old asylum seeker from Venezuela, was arrested alongside his wife during a routine check-in at a DHS office in Milwaukee in late October. An immigration court judge in Chicago granted the couple asylum last week, though Ugarte-Arenas will remain in ICE custody while DHS appeals the judge’s ruling. Meanwhile, his wife, Dailin Pacheco-Acosta, just returned to Madison, where the couple has lived since 2021. Pacheco-Acosta spent the past two months in an ICE detention facility in Kentucky, but a federal judge approved her release earlier this month.

“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 Venezuelan couple. The inconsistency, Crouse added, reflects the “crazy arbitrariness of the system.” 

Arrest brings opportunity

The peculiarities of federal immigration law turned Benitez’s arrest into an opportunity to secure permanent residency. She had few pathways to legal status as an undocumented immigrant, her attorney Marc Christopher said, but her placement in deportation proceedings brought her before a judge who could cancel her removal and issue her a green card. 

Judge Richard Drucker of the immigration court in Cleveland signaled his intent to do just that on Nov. 6, citing the hardships Benitez’s absence would impose on her U.S.-born children. 

But the long-delayed background check stood in the way.

DHS notified the court on Wednesday that it was finally complete, setting the stage for what may be Benitez’s last hearing by the end of this week. 

The agency did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s questions about whether staffing shortages were delaying background checks systemwide.

Aguilar says the step forward in her mother’s case does not resolve the systemic problems that have kept her jailed.

“The disorganization surrounding my mom’s detention underscores a broader failure,” she wrote to Wisconsin Watch. “When families cannot get basic information or timelines, it reflects a system that has lost its ability to function responsibly.”

Background check delay shows crackdown’s strain on immigration system 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.

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A deputy known for making a large number of arrests, but who had a history of unreliability in his reports and court testimony, resigned from the Waushara County Sheriff’s Office in early December.

Scott Schaut had worked for the sheriff’s office since 2018 and was making about $34 per hour, according to county administration.

After The Badger Project requested records of his disciplinary record in September, Scott Schaut resigned a few days later from his leadership position as the night shift sergeant, dropping himself down to a patrol deputy. In November, The Badger Project published a story about Schaut’s work history, including a performance improvement plan he had been under, and at least two documented instances of the officer’s changing testimony led to a dismissal of criminal charges.

“After careful consideration, I have decided that it is best for me to move on,” he wrote in his resignation letter, which The Badger Project obtained from the county via a records request. “The current direction and internal environment of the department no longer align with what I believe is necessary for me to be successful in my role. For that reason, I feel it is in everyone’s best interest for me to step away at this time.”

The Waushara County Sheriff’s Office has been under great scrutiny in recent months, as an investigation from The Badger Project found that Sheriff Wally Zuehlke had collected more than $20,000 in stipends for his K9 after quitting the law enforcement trainings with the dog. The county board voted to force Zuehkle to repay that sum plus interest.

Another investigation by The Badger Project found the sheriff’s office promoted a deputy who had been sending and requesting lewd photos to and from officers in the department. That deputy resigned after The Badger Project requested his records.

And the sheriff’s office’s second-in-command, Chief Deputy Jim Lietz, resigned in October after pressure from citizen journalist Sam Wood, who makes online videos watched by thousands in the county and beyond, regarding his handling of the lewd photo investigation and other accusations.

Schaut had previously been on a performance improvement plan with the department, during which he conducted what may have been an illegal search, documents from the plan note.

Wood had also been criticizing Schaut in his recent videos, derisively calling him “Schnauzer” due to his aggressive and frequent searches for drugs.

But documents show that, on at least a couple occasions, Schaut failed to follow department policy, and the law, when executing searches.

Before conducting a house check in the village of Coloma in April, Schaut and other deputies received verbal permission from a caller to ensure no person was in the home. But body camera video showed Schaut looking in boxes, the refrigerator and a washing machine, areas too small for a person to hide, according to a sheriff’s office report.

For his breaking of department policy, the top administration of the sheriff’s office decided Schaut would be penalized with two unpaid days off, Lietz wrote in the report.

Upon Schaut’s resignation from the sergeant’s position, Lt. Stacy Vaccaro ended the improvement plan.

“Overall, Sgt. Schaut’s performance has been mediocre without much change,” Vaccaro wrote in the final report. “After speaking with Schaut about concerns or issues, he would acknowledge his understanding, improve for a short period of time, and then regress back.”

Schaut, Vaccaro and Zuehlke did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Schaut also had trouble with reliability in his police work in other documented instances.

In a case from 2024, Schaut reported receiving consent to enter a man’s home, in which he found drug paraphernalia. However, when a judge asked Schaut to note on an audio recording where he had received that consent, the officer said he could not, according to the court transcript. That led to the judge dismissing the paraphernalia charge because Schaut had not obtained consent and had no warrant.

In another case involving underage drinking in 2023, Waushara County District Attorney Matthew Leusink and Assistant District Attorney Joshua Zamzow alerted the court that Schaut had misremembered facts during his testimony, leading to the dismissal of a citation.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.

This article first appeared on The Badger Project and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Waushara County deputy quits sheriff’s office following The Badger Project’s investigation 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.

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• Prisoners say there aren’t nearly enough work release jobs to go around, and officials at the Department of Corrections say they’re not keeping count.

• Several neighboring states routinely track how many people have work release jobs or are eligible for them.

• One prisoner told Wisconsin Watch he believes less than a third of those eligible at his facility have work release jobs.

• Officials at the Wisconsin Department of Corrections say not everyone who is eligible for work release wants to work. Some are in education, therapy or substance use treatment programs that don’t allow them to work full time.

Most of the jobs available to Wisconsin prisoners are paid not in dollars, but cents. Minimum wage laws don’t apply behind bars, so some people scrub toilets for less than a quarter an hour.

But one type of job lets people leave prison for the day to earn the same wages as anyone else.

Wisconsin was the first state to offer this opportunity, known as work release. The century-old program matches the lowest-risk prisoners with approved employers, who are required by law to pay them as much as any other worker. In some cases, that’s more than $15 an hour. 

Through those jobs, prisoners boost their resumes, pay court costs and save up for their release. Employers find needed workers. And taxpayers save money, since work release participants must pay room and board. 

Ten of the state’s 16 minimum-security correctional centers are dedicated to work release. But prisoners at those facilities say there aren’t nearly enough of those jobs to go around, and officials at the Department of Corrections say they’re not keeping count.

One prisoner told Wisconsin Watch he believes less than a third of those eligible at his facility have such work release jobs. Prisoners routinely wait many months for the opportunity, he said, and many never get it at all. 

“Having that money saved up to, say, get an apartment or get furniture, or even money for transportation?” said Ben Kingsley, 47, who wrote to Wisconsin Watch in August from Winnebago Correctional Center, a work release center in Oshkosh. “These guys know what’s at stake … They want to go out to work.” 

Only prison officials can add more positions, and he questions whether they’re trying. This summer, he began lobbying prison officials and lawmakers to expand the opportunity.

“The DOC/State employees are doing the bare minimum in trying to put more people out to work,” he wrote to legislators in October.

Work release jobs are scarce, prisoners say

To qualify for work release in Wisconsin, a prisoner must be classified in the lowest custody level (“community custody”) and have permission from prison officials. In some states, eligible prisoners search for jobs on their own and can work in any role that meets Department of Corrections standards. In Iowa, for example, work release participants are barred from bartending or working in massage parlors. 

In Wisconsin, prison officials hold the cards. Here, people approved for work release can work only for one of the Department of Corrections’ partner employers.

“Placements cannot be guaranteed for all eligible inmates,” reads Winnebago Correctional Center’s official webpage. “Work release and offsite opportunities are a privilege, not a right, and are provided at the discretion of the center superintendent and warden.”

About 70% of eligible people incarcerated at Winnebago don’t have work release jobs, Kingsley estimates. 

Kingsley, who hopes to qualify for work release after his custody status is reevaluated next year, said he began advocating for more jobs after hearing from eligible prisoners waiting to be “put out to work.”

To find out how many people were working, he asked prisoners who work as drivers, shuttling work release participants to and from their jobs. 

Of the 295 people incarcerated at Winnebago at the end of October, 224 had the lowest custody status, which is required for work release, according to the Department of Corrections. By Kingsley’s calculations, just 67 have work release jobs. That’s less than one in three. 

“Oh gosh, it’s a huge concern,” Kingsley said.

Officials offer explanations. Not everyone who’s eligible wants a work release job, said Department of Corrections spokesperson Beth Hardtke. Some are in education, therapy or substance use treatment programs that don’t allow them to work full time. And those who seek work release must first work at least 90 days in a prison job, followed by a stint on a “project crew” supervised by Corrections staff, before getting permission from the warden or superintendent.

“The capacity of the work release program is not just about the number of jobs available,” Hardtke said when asked whether the department is looking to add more jobs. “The program must be limited to the number of individuals that DOC staff can safely support and in settings where we can safely support them.” As Wisconsin Watch has previously reported, the Department of Corrections has been plagued by crippling staff shortages in recent years.

Additionally, Hardtke said, some can’t do manual labor. “Some individuals may not meet the employer requirements or standards, and some individuals may not have the level of training or skills necessary to complete certain tasks or jobs … As the prison population ages, some individuals may not be able to succeed in those types of work or have an interest in doing work that can have a physical toll.”

Officials and prisoners tout benefits

Work release got its start in 1913 when the Huber Law, named for Progressive Republican lawmaker Henry Allen Huber, created the opportunity at Wisconsin’s county jails. It later spread to state prisons and to nearly every state in the country. 

More than a century later, Wisconsin prison leaders continue to extol the virtues of letting people leave prison and return at the end of their shifts.

“Work release gives the men and women in our care the opportunity to feel like they belong to something, to feel like they’re part of a positive contribution to the community, to feel like they belong in the workplace,” said Sarah Cooper, then-administrator of the Division of Adult Institutions, at a virtual presentation for prospective employers in 2022.

Research suggests people who participate in work release programs are less likely to return to prison. A study of former prisoners in Illinois from 2016 to 2021 found those who had held work release jobs were about 15% less likely to be rearrested and 37% less likely to be reincarcerated.  

“Work release really is a significant part of keeping our community safe,” Cooper said.

Work release also offsets some of the taxpayer costs of imprisonment. Each participating prisoner must pay $750 a month for room and board, about 20% of the roughly $3,650 a month the state pays to incarcerate each prisoner in the minimum-security system. They must also use their wages to make any legally mandated payments, including child support and victim restitution.

In 2010, for example, 1,726 work release prisoners collectively paid more than $2 million in room, board and travel costs; more than $320,000 in child support and more than $350,000 in court-ordered payments, according to a department report. 

Work release jobs aren’t without controversy. In Alabama, a 2024 investigation by the Associated Press revealed prisoners were being pressured to work and faced retribution if they refused. Some were denied parole, despite working for years in fast-food restaurants and other jobs in the community. Critics argue the program is a modern version of the post-Civil War practice of convict leasing, in which prisons rented incarcerated people out for forced labor. 

In many states, including Wisconsin, work release participants aren’t classified as employees and don’t have all the same workplace rights. But advocates for incarcerated workers told the AP that many people behind bars want to work and that eliminating the program would only hurt them.

For men in Wisconsin prisons, work release jobs are usually in manufacturing. For women, there are jobs in food service or cosmetology too. They’re “low-level, intensive labor jobs,” Kingsley said, but people are eager for the chance to start saving, especially since a criminal record and gaps in work history could make it tough to find work when they get out. 

“When you get locked up, you lose everything,” Kingsley said. “You lose all your possessions, your … credit score goes down, all your bills go unpaid … The benefit (of working) far outweighs the negatives.” 

No statewide data available

How many prisoners participate in work release statewide? Corrections officials don’t consistently keep track, Hardtke said. 

The department’s public data dashboards show prisoner demographics, recidivism rates and enrollment in educational or treatment programs, among other things. Employment numbers are not included.

Prison staff record each prisoner’s jobs and privileges in the person’s individual file but don’t routinely gather that data across the system, Hardtke said.

“What’s important from a correctional standpoint is that you know where everybody is,” Hardtke said, adding that such jobs data “would need to be compiled from multiple sources.” 

The latest numbers Wisconsin Watch could find are from 2024. Responding to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau request for a report on state prisons, the department’s research team manually calculated that 781 people had work release jobs in July 2024, Hardtke said.

Asked for a current figure, Hardtke said “that number is not something we have readily available nor is it something you could accurately pull from a single source or document.”

Officials also don’t track how many people are eligible for work release. As of Oct. 31, 2,778 Wisconsin prisoners were at the department’s lowest custody level.

Several neighboring states routinely track how many people have work release jobs or are eligible for them. Of the 11 other Midwestern states Wisconsin Watch asked, seven responded. 

• Four said they track the number of participants but not the number of people eligible: Minnesota (186), Missouri (202), North Dakota (13) and South Dakota (183).
• Iowa officials said they track eligibility (418) but don’t track how many people have work release jobs.
• Nebraska officials said they track both: 378 were eligible, and 374 were working.
• Officials in Michigan said they don’t offer work release.

Prisoner pushes for more jobs

In July, Kingsley wrote to Warden Clinton Bryant, who oversees the men’s minimum-security centers, asking him to add 100 more work release jobs. 

“By writing you first, I hope that changes can be made. Changes that not only benefit the guys here or at other centers, but also the DOC and the state as a whole,” Kingsley wrote. Adding those jobs would generate $75,000 a month in room and board payments, along with state taxes, he wrote. 

Bryant responded that Winnebago Correctional Center “collaborates with community employers on a daily basis” and that prison officials can’t require employers to hire anyone. 

Jobs aren’t particularly hard to find near Winnebago Correctional Center. Like the rest of the state, Winnebago County faces a growing worker shortage as baby boomers retire. Prisoners aside, the share of the county’s population that’s working or actively looking for work has fallen 7.4% since 2000, according to the Department of Workforce Development. 

Winnebago County’s unemployment rate — which excludes people in prison — was among the lowest in the state in 2024, according to DWD data. 

Wisconsin’s labor market has softened since last year but remains strong, said Dave Shaw, a regional director of the Department of Workforce Development’s Bureau of Job Service, which manages the state website that matches employers and job seekers. 

“It’s still fairly easy to find work, and there are a lot of jobs out there,” Shaw said.

It can be harder to find a job with a criminal record, but Shaw said his team works with a variety of companies that are “interested in giving individuals a second chance” to get back in the workforce. 

“There are employers all around the state who are willing to do that,” Shaw said, noting that the state offers tax credits and free insurance to employers who hire people with criminal records.

When Kingsley contacted Bryant again, urging the department to establish minimum job placement rates for work release centers, the warden ended the conversation.

“My office addressed these matters and provided you a response,” Bryant wrote. “No further correspondence on these matters will be addressed by my office.” 

So Kingsley took the issue to the State Capitol. In May, Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would give bonuses to probation and parole officers who increase the employment rate among the people they supervise. Kingsley asked them to do the same for work release centers. 

All of the bill’s authors and cosponsors either declined Wisconsin Watch’s request for comment or did not respond. 

As of publication of this story, Kingsley has yet to receive a reply.

Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.

A century after pioneering work release, Wisconsin corrections officials don’t track how many prisoners participate 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.

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Update, Dec. 10, 2025:

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release Dailin Pacheco-Acosta from custody on Wednesday, less than a day after an immigration court judge in Chicago granted asylum to Pacheco-Acosta and her husband, Diego Ugarte-Arenas. 

Pacheco-Acosta did not immediately leave Campbell County Detention Center in Kentucky, which contracts with ICE to hold detainees facing immigration charges. The couple’s attorney, Ben Crouse, told Wisconsin Watch he filed a new bond motion for Pacheco-Acosta on Wednesday afternoon, and she will return to Madison once the immigration court approves her bond. 

But her husband will remain in custody in the Dodge County Jail while awaiting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s potential appeal of the couple’s asylum claim. 

If DHS appeals and Ugarte-Arenas remains in custody, their next legal phase could take another 6 months. But Crouse noted another lawsuit winding through federal courts could reopen the more straightforward path for immigrants in ICE custody to be released on bond. That case sits in the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Wisconsin.

If ICE releases Ugarte-Arenas from the Dodge County Jail, the couple’s case would shift to the immigration court system’s “non-detained docket,” Crouse said, where cases move far slower than those of immigrants in custody.

Original story, Dec. 9, 2025:

A Chicago immigration court judge has granted the asylum request of a Madison couple who U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested during a routine check-in at the agency’s Milwaukee office in October.

Judge Eva Saltzman sided with Dailin Pacheco-Acosta and Diego Ugarte-Arenas on Tuesday afternoon, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – ICE’s parent agency – reserved the right to appeal.

The ruling does not automatically free the couple from ICE custody. 

“It’s not over,” said Ben Crouse, the couple’s Milwaukee-based attorney. 

Ugarte-Arenas remains in the Dodge County jail, which contracts with ICE to hold immigrants facing deportation, and Pacheco-Acosta sits in a county jail in northern Kentucky. A recent Trump administration policy has prevented them from posting bond and continuing their asylum case from Madison, where they settled in 2021 after fleeing Venezuela. 

The couple crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without a visa, but because of a clerical error by Customs and Border Patrol officers they encountered near Eagle Pass, Texas, they did not initially land before an immigration court and were instead able to file for asylum with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services upon reaching Wisconsin. The couple refiled for asylum with the immigration court in Chicago after their arrests in October. Neither has a past criminal conviction nor a pending criminal charge.

As they await the next step in their legal battle, the Trump administration is defending the policy that has kept the couple in custody for more than a month, even after a federal judge in California challenged its legality. How higher courts rule will determine whether thousands of immigrants in ICE custody can post bond for the first time in months.

Trump officials seek ‘mandatory detention’

Reversing decades of precedent, DHS announced in July that most immigrants in ICE custody would be ineligible for bond and are instead subject to “mandatory detention.” The Board of Immigration Appeals, a body within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that sets rules for immigration courts, sided with DHS in September. 

But a Nov. 20 ruling by U.S. Judge Sunshine Sykes of the Central District of California gave the Madison couple and ICE detainees nationwide a moment of optimism. 

Sykes partially ruled on the side of four undocumented immigrants ICE picked up during a June immigration raid in Los Angeles. The four immigrants, represented by attorneys from multiple immigrant rights organizations, had filed a class action lawsuit challenging the rule after they were denied bond. 

But both DHS and DOJ, which oversees immigration court judges, argue Sykes’ decision doesn’t apply to all immigrants in similar positions nationwide. Many immigration court judges, including in Chicago, the court with jurisdiction over most immigrants detained in Wisconsin, have continued to deny bond hearings for immigrants in custody, citing the administration’s reasoning. 

DOJ spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly said department leaders are not instructing immigration judges to specifically reject bond motions.

“Immigration judges are independent adjudicators and decide all matters before them on a case-by-case basis,” Mattingly wrote in a statement to Wisconsin Watch.

Next steps for Madison couple

Crouse, the couple’s attorney, filed motions seeking the Madison couple’s bond before the California ruling. Their motions, even if futile, could help clarify the scope of Sykes’ ruling, he said. 

Crouse and other attorneys are separately testing the last remaining pathway to release: filing “habeas petitions” asking judges to rule on the lawfulness of their clients’ detention. A district court judge in Milwaukee denied a petition for Ugarte-Arenas on Monday, and Pacheco-Acosta is still awaiting a decision from a judge in Kentucky. If Pacheco-Acosta’s petition is successful, she will receive a bond hearing. 

Back in Chicago, Judge Saltzman is preparing a written order outlining her reasoning for granting the couple asylum. DHS signaled plans to challenge her decision before the Board of Immigration appeals. It has 30 days to do so after Saltzman releases her written order. 

Though Crouse called the couple’s case strong — not least because of mounting U.S. military actions in Venezuela —  he noted that recent board decisions siding with DHS mean nothing is assured. 

After asylum win, judge rules ICE must release Madison woman who fled Venezuela. Her husband will remain detained. 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.

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will move its Milwaukee processing operations from a downtown building owned by the Milwaukee School of Engineering to a site on the Northwest Side, an ICE spokesperson said in an email to NNS.

ICE has been using the university-owned building at 310 E. Knapp St. as a processing center, a presence that has drawn weekly protests from students and community members since June. 

A spokesperson for the General Services Administration, the real estate arm of the federal government, said the GSA “remains focused on supporting this administration’s goal of optimizing the federal footprint, and providing the best workplaces for our federal agencies to meet their mission,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to NNS.

Demonstrators have been calling on the university to cut ties with the agency.

MSOE officials say the university inherited the federal lease when it purchased the building in 2023 and does not have the legal authority to remove ICE.

Alan Madry, professor emeritus at Marquette University Law School, said there is no question the federal government has eminent domain authority in such situations. 

The federal government has the legal power to take or use property for public purposes even if a private landowner or local government objects.

A ‘phased’ transition

In a statement to NNS, ICE said the transition “will follow a phased approach to ensure a smooth and efficient process” and that the agency “remains committed to maintaining continuity of operations as the office becomes fully operational.”

Processing centers are typically used to conduct interviews and sometimes hold people for the short term rather than overnight detention. 

The ICE spokesperson did not provide a timeline for the move, but said the new location at 11925 W. Lake Park Drive will operate as a processing center, not a detention facility.

In a statement, Jeremy McGovern, spokesperson for the Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services, said the city has no additional inspections scheduled for the Lake Park Drive site and that the certificate of occupancy is already in place. 

Because the federal government is not subject to local zoning and permit requirements, McGovern said, the city cannot determine when the site becomes active and has limited knowledge about the federal timeline.

Protests continue

The university says it intends to use the Knapp Street building for academic purposes once ICE leaves. But Noah Dinan, a sophomore studying software engineering at the school, said the lack of clarity about the move raises troubling possibilities. 

The transition could take years, or ICE could expand its Milwaukee operations rather than relocate, said Dinan, who is a member of the university’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America.

The organization has circulated petitions, contacted alumni and joined the weekly Friday protests. 

Dinan also pointed to the financial incentives of leasing to ICE. 

According to the General Services Administration’s September 2025 lease inventory, the federal government is paying the university about $2.1 million per year to occupy the Knapp Street site through April 2028.

Despite the news that ICE has plans to transition from Knapp Street to its new property, Dinan said he and other students plan to continue protesting. 

“Our campaign is one of sanctuary,” Dinan 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.

ICE plans to leave Milwaukee School of Engineering facility 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.

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• ICE records list more than 130 arrests at county jails in Wisconsin between January and July 2025. Nearly 40% were awaiting a ruling in their first criminal case. 

• While defendants sit in ICE custody, their criminal cases generally continue without them — sometimes with no explanation of their absence.

• That leaves defendants without their day in court, victims without a chance to testify and thousands of dollars in forfeited bail paid by family and friends.

Stacey Murillo Martinez arrived at the Fond du Lac County courthouse in June to pay a $1,500 cash bond for her husband, Miguel Murillo Martinez, as he sat in jail facing drunken driving, bail jumping and firearms charges. 

Scraping the funds together was no small feat. Stacey lives on a fixed income, so Miguel’s boss chipped in. She expected the court to eventually return the $1,500. Bond is meant to serve as collateral to incentivize defendants to show up for their court dates, as she believed Miguel would. 

She did not know U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would wait inside the Fond du Lac County Jail later that day to take Miguel, an immigrant from Honduras, into their custody. 

Five months later, Miguel still sits in an ICE facility near Terre Haute, Indiana. His detention caused him to miss a court date in September, prompting the Fond du Lac County judge to issue a bench warrant for his arrest. 

“They didn’t tell me, ‘You’re guilty’ or ‘You’re not guilty,’ ” he said, his voice muffled and distorted by the facility’s phone system. 

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Stacey said in early November, referring to the fate of her husband and the bail money – three times the monthly rent for the couple’s double-wide in a Fond du Lac manufactured home park. 

ICE records list more than 130 arrests at county jails in Wisconsin between January and July 2025. Nearly 40% were awaiting a ruling in their first criminal case.

While defendants sit in ICE custody, their criminal cases generally continue without them — sometimes with no explanation of their absence to the court. As ICE ramps up its enforcement efforts nationwide, Wisconsin courts are increasingly left with loose ends: defendants without their day in court, victims without a chance to testify and thousands of dollars in forfeited bail paid by family, friends and employers.

“If I get out, I’m going back to my house, and then I have to appear in county court,” Miguel said. 

Miguel is not the only recent example: ICE picked up his nephew, Junior Murillo, at the Fond du Lac County Jail in October as he faced charges for disorderly conduct and domestic abuse.

The Fond du Lac County Jail has transferred 10 people into ICE custody this year, Sheriff Ryan Waldschmidt said. His county is among 15 Wisconsin local governments to have signed agreements with ICE to assist in identifying and apprehending unauthorized immigrants. These are often called 287(g) agreements, referencing the section of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act authorizing the program. 

Fond du Lac is also among the more than two dozen Wisconsin counties participating in the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, through which the Department of Justice partially reimburses incarceration costs for agencies that share data on unauthorized immigrants in their custody. Fond du Lac County received nearly $25,000 through the program in fiscal year 2024, according to Waldschmidt.

Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney said ICE has been “very easy for us to communicate and work with,” and his prosecutors inform judges if a defendant is arrested in the courthouse. Waldschmidt noted that while his office communicates with prosecutors about inmates in county custody with ICE holds, it lacks a written policy requiring them to notify prosecutors of handoffs to ICE. 

Criminal and immigration courts collide

Wisconsin courts do not consistently track whether a defendant has entered ICE custody, but multiple Wisconsin defense attorneys told Wisconsin Watch that immigration authorities frequently arrest defendants shortly after they post bail. 

“The judge will issue a $500 cash bond, somebody in the family will post it before I’m able to tell them, ‘please don’t,’ and the client will get transferred into immigration custody, where they’re really not able to make the appearance in circuit court,” said Kate Drury, a Waupaca-based criminal defense and immigration attorney.

In rare cases, prosecutors work with ICE to extradite defendants from detention centers in other states – or, even rarer, from other countries. Doing so is complicated and expensive, especially for smaller counties.

Toney said his office can’t justify expenses for bringing any out-of-state defendant back to prosecute lower-level cases, such as driving without a license. 

Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne is similarly reluctant to spend thousands to extradite defendants from faraway detention facilities. “If it’s a misdemeanor retail theft (charge), let’s say, and the person is in California, that extradition cost may be $5,000,” he said. “We’re probably not going to spend $5,000 or bring that person back.”

Ozanne’s office did, however, successfully fight for custody of a Honduran woman accused of killing two teenagers while driving drunk on Highway I-90 north of Madison in July. ICE detained Noelia Saray Martinez Avila, 30, after her attorney posted a $250,000 bond to release her from the Dane County jail in August. Martinez Avila is scheduled to appear in Dane County court in December.

Defendants in ICE custody can sometimes appear for Wisconsin court hearings via video call, though some attorneys report struggling to schedule those from immigration detention centers. 

“Jails and private prisons that operate immigration detention facilities aren’t super focused or motivated in helping defendants make their scheduled court appearances,” Drury said.

When a defendant misses a court date, Toney’s office typically requests a bench warrant and moves to schedule a bail forfeiture hearing — regardless of whether ICE detention caused the absence, he said. 

Making exceptions for ICE detainees would mean “treating somebody differently because of their immigration status,” Toney said. Still, attorneys in his office can exercise their own discretion when deciding whether to seek a warrant or bail forfeiture, he added. The prosecutor responsible for Junior Murillo’s case, for instance, did not request that the court forfeit his bail after his ICE arrest.

Ozanne argued against forfeiting defendants’ bail if they miss a court date while in ICE custody. 

“It wasn’t their unwillingness to show up” that prevented them from appearing in court, he said, adding that his office would be willing to return bail money to whomever posted it on the defendant’s behalf.

“The problem is that we don’t necessarily know” whether a person is in custody, Ozanne added. While he, like Toney, has reported no difficulties communicating with ICE, the agency doesn’t proactively inform his office when it arrests immigrants with active cases in Dane County. 

ICE did not respond to emailed questions from Wisconsin Watch.

Mindy Nolan, a Milwaukee-based attorney who specializes in the interaction between criminal cases and immigration status, said judges generally issue warrants for defendants in ICE custody to keep their criminal cases alive if ICE releases them or they return to the country after deportation. 

“Over the years, what I’ve heard from judges is (that) if the person is present in the United States in the future, they could be picked up on the state court warrant,” she said.

Hearings without defendants

Wisconsin law gives courts at least 30 days to decide whether to forfeit a defendant’s bail. 

“The default assumption seems to be that the immigrant could appear and the statute places the burden on the defendant to prove that it was impossible for them to appear,” Drury said. “But how does the defendant meet that burden when they’re being held in immigration custody, transferred all over the country, potentially transferred outside the United States?”

Wisconsin courts have held more than 2,700 bail forfeiture hearings thus far in 2025, though the state’s count does not provide details on the reasons for defendants’ absence. If the defendant misses the hearing, the defendant’s attorney or those who paid the bail can challenge the forfeiture by demonstrating that the absence was unavoidable. 

On a Friday morning in late October, a Racine County judge issued a half-dozen bail forfeiture orders in just minutes. The court had scheduled a translator for most of the cases, and she sat alone at the defense table, occasionally scanning the room in case any defendants slipped in at the last minute.

“The problem is getting someone at the bond forfeiture hearings to assert those arguments on behalf of clients,” Drury said. Public defenders are often stretched thin, and family members may be unaware of upcoming hearings. Court records indicate Miguel Murillo lacks a defense attorney assigned to his case in Fond du Lac, leaving only Stacey to argue against bail forfeiture. 

Such hearings tend to be more substantial when attorneys are present, boosting the likelihood of bail money being returned. 

Miguel Murillo’s case does not involve an alleged victim, meaning forfeited bail would go to Fond du Lac County. Court costs typically exceed the value of forfeited bail, Toney said. 

When cases involve alleged victims, Wisconsin law requires that courts use forfeited bail for victim restitution – even without a conviction.

What’s missing are judicial findings that the defendant is responsible for the alleged actions and caused suffering to the victim, Drury said. 

“Without a conviction, I don’t understand how you maintain that policy and the presumption of innocence, which is such an important constitutional cornerstone of this country.”

Immigration arrests often throw a wrench in the gears of the criminal justice system, Ozanne said. 

“It’s most problematic for us when the person hasn’t gone through their due process,” he said. “We have victims… who don’t really get the benefit of the process or have the ability to communicate with the courts about what they think should happen.”

“In a sense,” he added, “that person has a get-out-of-jail-free card.” 

Months in ICE detention 

Miguel Murillo left Honduras a decade ago, initially settling in Houston. While in Texas, he says he survived a shooting and sought, but never obtained, a U-visa, which provides temporary legal status to victims of certain crimes. 

The shooting prompted him to head north to Wisconsin, where he found construction work and married Stacey, a lifelong Wisconsinite. Court records mark occasional run-ins with law enforcement and misdemeanors over the last five years, culminating in the April 2025 charges that preceded his ICE arrest. 

Stacey, who is receiving treatment for breast cancer, relied on her husband to keep their household afloat. In his absence, she said, “I have to beg, plead, and borrow to get any assistance.” 

“Right now, as I go through this situation… there’s no one to take care of her,” Miguel told Wisconsin Watch. The couple hope that argument will sway a Chicago immigration court judge to release him from ICE custody. The court held its final hearing on his order of removal case in late October, Stacey said, but has yet to issue a ruling.

Junior’s case progressed far more quickly. After his arrest in October, he spent just over a week in ICE custody before immigration authorities put him on a plane to Honduras. 

Miguel, on the other hand, has spent roughly five months in various ICE detention facilities. He was scheduled to appear by video in Fond du Lac County court Thursday morning. He never joined the call. 

“I don’t know what happened,” he wrote to Wisconsin Watch afterwards. “I was waiting and (facility staff) didn’t call me.”

Stacey couldn’t attend the hearing for health reasons, and Miguel has yet to secure an attorney for his Fond du Lac case. Court records do not indicate whether the prosecutor requested forfeiture of his $1,500 bail.

Courts left with loose ends when ICE detains criminal defendants 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.

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If you or someone you know is considering suicide, call or text the three-digit suicide and crisis lifeline at 988. Resources are available online here.

A recently released report details problems at Wisconsin prisons including high staff turnover, overcrowding and issues with solitary confinement.  

Wisconsin’s Department of Corrections paid the firm Falcon, Inc. roughly $500,000 to complete the yearlong review of the prison system’s adult facilities.

Among other issues, the report zeroed in on the department’s policies for solitary confinement, officially known as restrictive housing.

Alarms raised about solitary confinement of people with serious mental health struggles

The report raised concerns about how often people are locked up in solitary confinement while dealing with serious mental health issues.

“Individuals with SMI (serious mental illness) placed in restrictive housing are more likely to become violent and, if released from restrictive housing, are more likely to return,” the report’s authors noted, citing outside research. “Those individuals housed in restrictive housing are also more likely to die by suicide than those living in other housing settings.”

On the last day of March 2025, 872 adults were locked up in solitary confinement through the DOC, making up close to 4% of the prison population. That was roughly on par with the percentage of inmates in solitary confinement six years prior.

A significant number of those in solitary confinement — 101 people on the day measured in March 2025 — were classified as having a serious mental health issue.

The report noted that people who spend extended periods of time in solitary confinement are more likely to be part of the DOC’s mental health caseload, meaning they’ve been referred for mental health needs of varying severity. Sixty-nine percent of the people locked up in solitary confinement for more than 120 days were part of the DOC’s mental health caseload. By comparison, 46% of the general prison population was on that mental health caseload.

The report did commend the DOC for attempting to limit extended stays in solitary confinement by adopting a May 2024 policy that requires a higher-up to approve solitary confinement stays longer than 120 days.

It urged DOC to change its solitary confinement policies by creating “alternative” units for people with serious mental illness, “so they can automatically be diverted from restrictive housing.”

DOC urged to change practice of using solitary confinement for people on suicide watch

Per its policies, the DOC can send people to solitary confinement as “disciplinary separation,” which is punishment for bad behavior.

It also sends people to solitary confinement through what it calls “administrative confinement,” which is when people are deemed a threat to themselves or others if they’re kept with the general prison population. Typically, that extends to people who are flagged for “suicide watch,” if they’re deemed to be at risk for suicide.

But putting suicidal people into solitary confinement cells is likely making the situation worse, the report warns.

“Observation cells are typically in restrictive housing units, which is problematic,” the report notes. “Individuals on observation status are not allowed therapeutic items, visits, phone calls, or recreation.”

The report urges the DOC to stop that practice and instead move its areas for observing at-risk people to “more appropriate environments that support therapeutic care and patient safety.”

Marianne Oleson, an activist with Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing of Wisconsin, described the DOC’s existing solitary confinement policies as barbaric. She spent five years incarcerated in Wisconsin.

“It’s torture,” Oleson said of solitary confinement. “As someone who has spent time in their quote-unquote ‘restrictive housing’ unit for being suicidal, you’re only compounding the harm and the hurt.”

She said solitary confinement left her with permanent psychological scars.

“My mind was my weapon,” Oleson said. “My mind was destroying me, and the answer they gave me was to lock me down with that weapon. And I nearly broke. I’ve seen women break, honestly.”

In an email, DOC spokesperson Beth Hardkte acknowledged that most observation cells for people on suicide watch are located in the restrictive housing units of prisons, although she said there is no specific DOC policy requiring them to be located there.

“Observation cells are specially designed to ensure safety and property can be restricted to prevent self-harm,” she said. “Observation status also requires more intensive staffing and availability of psychological or health care staff.”

Report also highlights issues with overcrowding, high staff turnover

Also noted in the report are struggles with “staff attrition” and a large proportion of inexperienced staff members.

“WIDOC has experienced a great deal of staffing changes, with a
significant number of the current staff hired during or after the COVID19 pandemic,” the report notes.

And it detailed the DOC’s struggles with overcrowding. Nearly every state prison is holding more people than it was designed for. On average, men’s prisons were at 130% capacity, and women’s prisons were at 166% capacity.

That overcrowding is leading to delays for people who are supposed to be transferred from one prison to another, the report notes. In some cases, that means people aren’t locked up according to their designated security level, such as men classified as medium-security remaining in a maximum-security prison.

Currently, there are more than 23,000 adults locked up in Wisconsin’s prisons — making them over capacity by more than 5,000 people. The state’s prison population is now roughly at pre-pandemic levels, which is more than triple the size of the prison population in 1990.

Oleson said the report highlights the need for policy and legislative changes to cut back on the number of Wisconsinites behind bars.

“It confirms what we have said for years,” Oleson said. “Wisconsin’s prisons are dangerously overcrowded, under-resourced and in desperate need of healing.”

Wisconsin’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who first took office in 2019, has said he wants to decrease Wisconsin’s prison population, although that reduction hasn’t happened in practice. Some Republican members of the GOP-controlled Legislature have said they oppose his goals of eventually decreasing prison beds and expanding certain early release programs.

In a statement, DOC Secretary Jared Hoy says the report by Falcon, Inc. shows the prison system is “moving in the right direction.”

“Falcon experts recognized the work of countless dedicated DOC employees to modernize our health care and restrictive housing policies,” Hoy’s statement said. “As much as we’ve done, we can always do more, do better and the recommendations in the report provide a guide for our agency.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

Review details problems with solitary confinement, overcrowding in Wisconsin prisons 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.

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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.

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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.

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Several groups in Milwaukee saw a need in the community for a space to grieve and receive healing services. So, they created it. 

LaPorche Kimber, founder of Butterfly’s Sacred Journey, and Kewannee Allen, founder and CEO of the Amareon Allen Foundation, are organizers of the Grinding & Grieving Bootcamp. 

The boot camp was held with and at The Missing Peace Community Collective, 3248 W. Brown St., Milwaukee, on Sept. 27. 

“I just hope that we’re able to help someone get through the grief process because it is a journey,” Allen said. 

Her son, Amareon Allen, was shot and killed in 2021. 

Processing loss and moving forward

Gathered outside on a warm morning in late September, boot camp participants received small envelopes and carefully opened them. 

Butterflies emerged.

Each butterfly moved at its own pace, some eagerly taking off while others clung to the envelopes, grass, clothing or hands of the people releasing them. 

The activity symbolizes the act of releasing lost loved ones but also overcoming challenges, according to Kimber. 

When Kimber lost her son, Maurice Grimes Jr., to gun violence in 2019 and went through a divorce, she said she felt angry and like she had nothing to live for. 

“I found healing in spaces where I could connect with people that experienced some of the grief that I did,” Kimber said.  

Trying to stay strong

The boot camp combines the sharing of personal experiences with speeches and resources about mourning and financial planning. 

“I’m here to turn my tragedy into triumph and to be around other people that’s going through something,” Kamid Everett said. 

Everett’s 14-year-old son, Bryant Triplett, was shot and killed in December 2024 at North 21st Street and West Concordia Avenue in Milwaukee while she was already recovering from her mother’s death from lung cancer. 

She said she tries to stay strong for her family, but things like the back-to-school season and trying Bryant’s favorite food, sushi, remind her of him. 

“He didn’t get a chance to leave his mark on the world,” she said. 

Techniques and tools for navigating grief

During the boot camp, participants used art therapy techniques to express their emotions, including coloring a mask to reflect how the outside world sees them versus how they actually felt inside. 

Some of the speakers created affirmations or “I” statements to comfort and empower the audience. 

Monette Harmon, a funeral director apprentice and certified death doula with Neka’s Funeral & Cremation Services, led a mock funeral in front of a casket adorned with flowers, candles and photos.  

She reminded attendees they had the right to grieve, to rest and practice self-care and to not lie about their feelings. 

“People can’t help you if you can’t be honest,” she said. 

Daniel Harris, a gospel and rap artist, wrote a book about grief and asked participants to record audio on their phones as they repeated messages like “I am a storm survivor” after him. 

“There’s going to be times when you’re going to need words of encouragement when no one is around,” he said. 

Everett said Harris’ message of surviving the storms of grief resonated with her. 

“His whole message was just everything to me because you got to keep going, and then people don’t know what you’ve been through because we always try to hide what we’ve been through,” Everett said. 

The organizations plan to continue to provide grief services and offer their own events. 

Babett Reed, executive director of The Missing Peace Community Collective, said she hopes to open a rage room in the space. She thinks the community needs more events like the boot camp. 

“Every month, we need to have a place where we can go and be healed and be able to talk to someone,” Reed said. 

Butterfly’s Sacred Journey offers resources and events using art therapy, books and journals to support grieving children. 

The Amareon Allen Foundation’s Next Chapter Resource Hub & Healing Circle meets from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. every fourth Saturday of the month at rotating locations. It also hosts Thanksgiving and Christmas givebacks for families impacted by gun violence. 

Click here for a list of resources to help interrupt violence

How three Milwaukee organizations help residents ‘grind’ through grief 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.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ sweeping plan to overhaul Wisconsin’s aging prison system, which includes closing a prison built in the 1800s, moved forward Tuesday with bipartisan support despite complaints from Republican lawmakers that their concerns weren’t being addressed.

The bipartisan state building commission unanimously approved spending $15 million to proceed with planning for the Evers proposal. Republicans objected, saying his plan was “doomed to failure,” but they voted for it in the hopes it could be changed later.

Evers voiced frustration with Republicans who said they weren’t part of development of the plan.

“We’ve got to get this damned thing done, that’s the bottom line,” he said.

Evers in February presented his plan as the best and only option to address the state’s aging facilities. Problems at the lockups have included inmate deaths, assaults against staff, lockdowns, lawsuits, federal investigations, criminal charges against staff, resignations and rising maintenance costs.

Republicans have opposed parts of the plan that would reduce the overall capacity of the state prison system by 700 beds and increase the number of offenders who could be released on supervision. The GOP-led Legislature called for closing the troubled prison in Green Bay by 2029, but Evers vetoed that provision earlier this year, saying it couldn’t be done without getting behind his entire plan.

The building commission’s approval on Tuesday for spending the $15 million in planning money starts that process.

Republican members of the building commission complained that Evers was plowing ahead without considering other ideas or concerns from GOP lawmakers. Republican state Sen. Andre Jacqué objected to reducing the number of beds in the prison system that he said is currently “dangerously unsafe.”

He called it a plan “doomed to failure” and “not a serious proposal.”

“I feel like we’ve decided to plow ahead without the opportunity for compromise,” Jacqué said. “We’re merely asking that any ideas from our side of the aisle have the option of being considered.”

A GOP proposal to expand the scope of the plan was rejected after the commission, evenly split between Republicans and Democrats, deadlocked.

Evers said any Republican who wanted to be involved in the process going forward could be. Republicans said ahead of the vote that they were not included in discussions that led to the current proposal.

“Those other options will be discussed,” Evers said.

Department of Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy said that approval of the planning money was needed to keep the momentum going for closing the Green Bay prison, which Republicans support.

The entire plan, once fully enacted, would take six years to complete and cost an estimated $500 million. Building a new prison, as Republicans had called for, would cost about $1 billion. Evers is not seeking a third term next year, so it would be up to the next governor to either continue with his plan or go in a different direction.

The multitiered proposal starts with finally closing the troubled Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake juvenile correctional facilities in northern Wisconsin and building a new one near Madison at the site of a current minimum-security prison. The Lincoln Hills campus would then be converted into a medium security adult prison. The prison in Green Bay, built in 1898, would be closed.

The plan also proposes that the state’s oldest prison, which was built in Waupun in 1851, be converted from a maximum-security prison to a medium-security center focused on vocational training. The Stanley Correctional Center would be converted from a medium- to a maximum-security prison and the prison in Hobart would be expanded to add 200 minimum-security beds.

Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.

Wisconsin moving ahead with prison overhaul plan despite Republican objections 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.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ plan to overhaul Wisconsin’s prisons is set for a crucial vote this week that could determine whether the state can meet a 2029 closure of the Green Bay Correctional Institution and the long-awaited shutdown of Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake youth facilities. 

The State Building Commission at a public meeting Tuesday is expected to vote on whether to release $15 million for advancing Evers’ plan, an amount the Legislature included in the 2025-27 biennial budget. Subcommittees will meet prior to the full commission Tuesday afternoon, which could signal how Republican members may vote on the money for Evers’ plan. Republican lawmakers were tight-lipped Monday morning about whether they have an alternative plan and whether they plan to roll it out Tuesday. 

Evers in February announced what he called a “domino series” of projects that would include closing Green Bay Correctional Institution, converting Lincoln Hills into a facility for adults and turning Waupun’s prison into a “vocational village” that would offer job skill training to qualifying inmates. Evers describes the plan as the most realistic and cost-effective way to stabilize the state’s prison population. 

The Green Bay prison has been roundly criticized as unsafe and outdated, Lincoln Hills has only in recent months come into compliance with a court-ordered plan to remedy problems dating back a decade, and Waupun has had lockdowns, inmate deaths and criminal charges against a former warden.

The $15 million would fund initial plans and a design report that would allow capital projects in Evers’ proposals to be funded in the 2025-27 budget, according to the governor’s office. It would also prevent delays of Evers’ plan while he is still in office. Evers is not seeking reelection next year, and Wisconsin will have a new governor in 2027. 

But it’s unclear how the eight-member commission, which includes four Republicans, will vote on whether to release the $15 million for the governor’s plan. Sens. Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, and Andre Jacqué, R-New Franken, declined to comment while still reviewing the proposals. Reps. Rob Swearingen, R-Rhinelander, and Robert Wittke, R-Caledonia, did not respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch. 

In addition to Evers, the commission includes Sen. Brad Pfaff, D-Onalaska; Rep. Jill Billings, D-La Crosse; and citizen member Barb Worcester, who served as one of Evers’ initial deputy chiefs of staff. 

Pfaff, who said he will support Evers’ request, said he is “cautiously optimistic” that the $15 million will get approved with the necessary bipartisan support for it to pass. It’s not a final policy decision, Pfaff said. 

“I think it’s important to know that the proposal that’s being brought forward is a design and planning stage, so it’s not the end-all or be-all,” Pfaff said. 

At least one Republican, Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard, has asked fellow party members on the commission to support Evers’ request. Howard represents a district near the Green Bay Correctional Institution. 

“I believe that the release of the $15 million will be important in moving corrections planning forward in our state,” Steffen wrote in an Oct. 14 letter to the Republican commission members. 

Corrections plans in the Legislature 

The funding for Evers’ prison plan, which was included in the governor’s original budget proposal, totaled $325 million. During the budget process the Legislature approved just $15 million for corrections projects and a 2029 closure of the Green Bay Correctional Institution.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, criticized the governor for not including GOP lawmakers in the process and suggested the party would form its own plan. 

“The idea of letting thousands of people out of jail early, tearing down prisons and not replacing the spots, I can’t imagine our caucus will go for it,” Vos told reporters in February. 

A spokesperson for Vos did not respond to questions from Wisconsin Watch about whether the party started a process for forming its own plan. Evers in July partially vetoed the 2029 deadline for the Green Bay Correctional Institution and criticized Republicans for setting a date without providing a plan to close the prison.   

While lawmakers on the State Building Commission have since been tight-lipped about which way they plan to vote, leaders in both Waupun and Allouez — on whose land Green Bay Correctional sits — haven’t been shy to express their support for the plan. 

Waupun Mayor Rohn Bishop said he favors any plan that will keep Waupun Correctional Institution open. With three prisons within its jurisdiction, Waupun has been called Prison City in honor of its major employers. 

“We take pride in the fact it’s here,” Bishop said of the 180-year-old prison. 

Under the proposal, Waupun’s prison would turn from a traditional, maximum prison to what’s been called a vocational village that would offer job-skill training to those who qualify. The idea is modeled after similar programs in Michigan, Missouri and Louisiana. 

“The first and most important thing is to keep the prison here for the economic reasons of the jobs, what it does for Waupun utilities, and how our wastewater sewage plant is built for the prison,” Bishop said. “If it were to close, that would shift to the ratepayers.”

In recent years, complaints about dire conditions within the cell halls have mounted, with inmates describing a crumbling infrastructure and infestations of birds and rodents. Under Evers’ proposal, Waupun’s prison would have to temporarily close while the facility undergoes renovations.  

Meanwhile, under Evers’ plan, Green Bay’s prison is slated to close. In Allouez, where the prison stands, village President Jim Rafter said the closure can’t come soon enough.   

“I’m more optimistic than ever that the plans will move forward this time,” Rafter said, pointing to the bipartisan support he has seen on the issue. 

For Rafter, his eagerness to close the prison is partly economic: The prison currently stands on some of the most valuable real estate in Brown County, he said, and redeveloping it would be a financial boon for the village of Allouez. 

But it also comes from safety concerns for both correctional officers and inmates. 

“GBCI historically has been one of the most dangerous facilities across Wisconsin, built in the 1800s, and it has well outlived its usefulness,” Rafter said. “Its design doesn’t allow for safe passage of inmates from one area to the other. So safety is a huge concern.”

Wisconsin Republicans mum on prison plans heading into key vote on moving projects forward 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.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

In the days following the release of my report focused on the shortage of public defenders in Wisconsin, Tracy Germait — the main subject of the story, who after three years and more than 10,000 calls still didn’t have a defense attorney — received a flood of messages. 

“I know they passed out the newsletter in the jails because I have a friend that’s in Redgranite (Correctional Institution), and he’s like, ‘I seen your article,’” Germait said. “Then somebody in Brown County (jail) messaged me too and said that. I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’”

On Sept. 8, Wisconsin Watch published the investigation. The next day Germait saw her story on the front page of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Hours later Germait received notice that a Milwaukee-based criminal defense attorney, Jane Christopherson, had taken on her drug cases from 2022 and 2023. 

Without an attorney earlier, Germait spent years in legal limbo despite her constitutional rights. Like many other Wisconsin residents caught up in the criminal justice system, she had to abide by bail conditions or face time in prison related to crimes she had not yet been tried for.

Now that Germait has an attorney, she will report to court on Oct. 22 for the preliminary hearing for her 2023 case. After that, she will report to court again in November for her 2022 case. 

Germait also recently passed her Wisconsin state exam to be a certified parent peer specialist for the next two years, supporting parents and families who are navigating similar situations.

Wisconsin’s court system is under intense stress, and yet when lawmakers had a chance to address those issues in the latest state budget, they increased funding for prosecutors to file more cases, rather than protecting more people’s right to a speedy trial. Our story points out the toll that legislative decisions can take on individuals when their Sixth Amendment right is neglected, exacerbating jail crowding, eroding evidence and witness testimony for cases, and decreasing the strength of cases due to overburdened public defenders.

At Wisconsin Watch, we’re thrilled to shed a light on stories like Germait’s and see individual problems get resolved. We remain hopeful that the bigger problems get solved, too.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to remove an incorrect description of Christopherson’s representation of Germait.

Wisconsin mother gets defense attorney after three years in legal limbo 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.

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Derek Williams, 51, has been spending a lot of time thinking about certain numbers.

He committed 12 armed robberies in and around Milwaukee 30 years ago. In 1997, the North Side native was sentenced to 15 years in prison for each robbery – a total of 180 years.

In 2023, a Milwaukee County judge cut that sentence in half after Williams stopped an attack of a correctional officer who was being stabbed with a sharpened pen. The reduction in his sentence made Williams eligible for parole. 

But Williams, who was transferred to Sturtevant Transitional Facility from Oakhill Correctional Institution in September, has learned that parole eligibility is not the same as being released. Now, he worries about another number – how many days he will have to wait to go home to his family. 

“I’m seeing a parole process that really has no clear path on what a person’s supposed to do,” Williams said. “They create an ideal, and at every turn it’s another road going left or right.”

Frustrations with the parole process

In Wisconsin, only people who committed their crimes before Dec. 31, 1999, can become eligible for parole. 

Those sentenced for crimes committed on or after Jan. 1, 2000, fall under 1997 Wisconsin Act 283, more commonly known as the Truth-in-Sentencing law. These people must serve the entirety of their prison sentence. 

Those sentenced before Truth-in-Sentencing took effect become eligible for parole after serving one-quarter of their prison sentence or after reaching their mandatory release date, whichever comes first.

Before Williams’ sentence was reduced, he would have been eligible for parole in 2042.  

Since his sentence reduction in 2023, Williams has gone before the Wisconsin Parole Commission twice – in May 2024 and June 2025. 

Both times, the commission said he wasn’t ready for release.

State regulation requires the Parole Commission to consider several factors when deciding whether to grant release: acceptable conduct in prison; completion of required programming; reduction of risk to the public; sufficient time served so release does not depreciate the seriousness of the crime; and an approved release plan.

For both of his parole hearings, the Parole Commission said Williams’ conduct and participation in programming were adequate. 

Yet both times the commission deferred Williams’ parole to be reconsidered at some later date. The commission cited an “unreasonable risk to the public” and said Williams had “not served sufficient time for punishment.”

Williams said he doesn’t understand how the commission arrived at these conclusions, especially after the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office and the judge who modified his sentence reduction said he had already served enough time. 

“In terms of the armed robberies themselves, we were most acutely concerned with the level of violence,” said Paul Dedinsky, an assistant district attorney for Milwaukee County, during the sentence modification hearing. “I found them to all be extremely serious and necessitating an enormous amount of incarceration, but we believe that end has been met.”

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jack Davila agreed. 

Williams’ frustration with the parole process is not surprising, said Laura Yurs, a Remington legal fellow at the University of Wisconsin Law School. 

“Because parole release is discretionary, it is impossible to predict and tends not to operate as a standardized set of steps,” Yurs said. “For example, what is deemed ‘sufficient time for punishment’ can vary widely from person to person – even when the crime of conviction is the same.” 

Parole trends

In recent years, fewer people in Wisconsin are being granted parole, according to Department of Corrections data.

An average of 37 people were granted parole in 2023 and 2024, compared with an average of 144 a year from 2017 to 2022, the data show.  

From Jan. 1 to Aug. 31 of 2025, there have been 234 parole hearings for people convicted in Milwaukee County. Out of these, 19 people were granted parole, 201 were deferred and 14 were denied. 

As of Aug. 31, 43 people had been granted parole in Wisconsin in 2025, out of 551 hearings. 

Williams hopes to add his name to the list of people granted parole, but that is still in question. 

‘Not an entitlement’

A spokesperson for the Wisconsin Parole Commission said in an email to NNS that a parole is “not an entitlement.” He said all five parole requirements must be met, including reducing the risk someone poses to the public and that a person has served enough time. 

He said risk reduction is determined using several factors, including sustained good conduct, completion of required programming, transition through lower security levels and the approval of their release plan. 

“This requirement is met when the risk to the public upon release is considered not unreasonable,” the spokesperson said.

For time served, the commission spokesperson said the requirement is met “when the amount of time served is sufficient to not diminish the seriousness of the original offense.”

Red tape?

Williams, whose next parole hearing is scheduled for January, disputes the commission’s assessment. Nevertheless, he is trying to follow its guidance leading up to his next hearing.  

Williams said this is easier said than done, given the lack of clarity about parole. 

Williams said he is also worried about being deferred again because of a lack of coordination within the Department of Corrections. 

After his most recent parole hearing in June, commissioners endorsed a transfer for Williams to a less restrictive facility – called a Wisconsin Correctional Center System facility – where he would be able to participate in work release. 

Programming and activities at these facilities place an emphasis on life after release and only house people requiring minimum security.

About a month after his June parole hearing, the Program Review Committee at Oakhill could not reach a consensus on whether to transfer Williams, according to paperwork he received from Oakhill staff.  

After learning of the split decision, Rikki Williams, Derek’s wife, raised their concerns to Jason Benzel, director of the Department of Corrections’ Bureau of Offender Classification and Movement.

In an email, Benzel told Rikki to “be patient and allow the process to occur.” 

She then contacted Jared Hoy, secretary of the Department of Corrections.

“I understand your frustration, I really do,” Hoy wrote in an email to Rikki. “If we cut corners for Derek and rush the process, or if I intervene and put my thumb on the scale, that would not be fair to the many, many others who go through a similar process.”

These explanations ring hollow for Rikki.

“Everyone tells us to ‘trust the process,’ ” Rikki said. “What process?” 

Recent progress for Williams

Wayne Olson, the warden at Oakhill, and another Department of Corrections administrator reviewed the Program Review Committee’s split decision on Williams’ transfer. They approved a transfer but not to a Wisconsin Correctional Center System facility. 

Instead, on Sept. 16, Williams arrived at Sturtevant Transitional Facility, which houses people requiring minimum or medium security. 

Olson and the DOC administrator chose Sturtevant because it can provide a more “gradual transition” from Oakhill, according to the paperwork.

Off-site employment is available at Sturtevant, the paperwork stated, “at the discretion of the warden,” and requires a “period of monitoring on-site.”

As Williams waits in limbo, he often returns to a particular irony. 

“I made a life-or-death decision in a heartbeat,” he said. “But it’s taken years for anyone to decide what to do with my life.”

---

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

His 180-year prison sentence was cut after saving a guard’s life. Years later, he’s still waiting to go home. 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.

Reading Time: 9 minutes

Click here to read highlights from the story

• The state’s prison population keeps growing — as does the share of older prisoners who have increasingly complex health care needs. 

• Increased use of compassionate release could help ease costs and crowding with minimal risks to public safety, prisoner advocates and legal experts say.

• Wisconsin courts approved just 53, or 11%, of 489 compassionate release petitions received between January 2019 and June 2025.

• California offers a different model for sick and dying prisoners, including by processing compassionate release applications more quickly, the result of a legislative overhaul.

It’s hard to find hope in a terminal illness. But for Darnell Price, the spread of a cancerous tumor opened the door for a new life. It was a chance to spend his remaining days outside of prison.

Two Wisconsin Department of Corrections doctors in 2023 projected Price would die within a year — one of several criteria by which prisoners may seek a shortened sentence due to an “extraordinary health condition,” a form of compassionate release.  

That was only the first step. A Corrections committee next had to vet his application. Its approval would send Price’s application to the court that convicted him for charges related to a 2015 bank robbery.

Victims of the crime did not oppose an early release, and a judge granted Price’s petition. That allowed him to walk free in August 2023 after an eight-year stint behind bars.

Price beat the odds in multiple ways. He’s still alive in his native Milwaukee and has authored a memoir about his journey. That his application succeeded is nearly as remarkable as his survival. 

Wisconsin grants few applicants compassionate release, leaving many severely ill inmates in short-staffed prisons that often struggle to meet health care needs. 

Wisconsin courts approved just 53, or 11%, of 489 compassionate release petitions they received between January 2019 and June 2025 — about eight petitions a year, Corrections data show. Courts approved just five of 63 petitions filed in all of 2024. 

That’s as the state’s adult prison population has swelled past 23,500, eclipsing the system’s built capacity. A growing share of those prisoners — 1 in 10 — are 60 or older with increasingly intense health care needs. 

Increased use of compassionate release could help ease costs and crowding with minimal risks to public safety, prisoner advocates and legal experts say, but it remains off limits to a significant share of the prison population in Wisconsin and elsewhere, including those posing little threat to the public.  

“The door is closed to so many people right at the very beginning,” said Mary Price, senior counsel for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a nonprofit advocate for criminal justice reform. 

“There’s lots of good arguments why they ought to be released: They’re the most expensive people to incarcerate and the least likely to reoffend.”

Wisconsin’s aging prison population 

Wisconsin’s struggle to care for its graying prison population has long drawn concern.

By 2014, Corrections counted more than 900 inmates over the age of 60, or about 4% of the overall population. Citing that number, then-department medical director James Greer wondered in a WPR interview: 

“What’s that 900 (inmates) over 60 going to look like? It’s going to (be) 1,100? Is it going to be 1,200 in five years? And if so, how are (we) going to manage those in a correctional setting and keep them safe?”

Those projections undershot the trend. By the end of 2019, state prisons held more than 1,600 people older than 60. That number stood at 2,165 by the end of last year, nearly 10% of the population.

The state’s truth-in-sentencing law, which took effect in 2000, has helped drive that trend. It virtually eliminated parole for newly convicted offenders.

“Old law” prisoners sentenced before the change were eligible for release after serving 25% of their time. They were mandatorily released after serving two-thirds of their time. 

Truth-in-sentencing required prisoners to serve 100% of their sentences plus post-release “extended supervision” of at least 25% of the original sentence. Parole remains available only to those sentenced before 2000. 

The overhaul increased lockup time by nearly two years on average, said Michael O’Hear, a Marquette University Law School professor and expert on criminal punishment. That likely contributed to the aging trend. Lengthened post-release supervision played an even bigger role, if indirectly. 

“​​The longer a person serves on supervision, the greater the likelihood of revocation and return to prison,” O’Hear said.

Separately, harsher sentencing for drunken driving also sent more people to prison. 

Older prisoners need more health care 

As prisoners age, they develop more complicated medical needs. Research is finding that the conditions of incarceration —  overcrowding, lack of quality health care and psychological stress — accelerate those needs. Such conditions can shorten life expectancy by up to two years for every year behind bars, one study in New York state found.

“In Wisconsin overcrowding is a huge issue. Assigning more people to a room than they’re supposed to, which, of course, affects your sleep,” said Farah Kaiksow, associate professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, who has researched aging and care in prison. 

The state has recognized the growing needs of older prisoners. In 2023, for instance, it opened a $7 million addition to the minimum-security Oakhill Correctional Institution that includes dozens of assisted living beds. 

“Patients are helped with daily living tasks such as eating, dressing, hygiene, mobility, etc. Patients may be admitted for temporary rehab stays after injury or illness or longer-term stays due to age and frailty,” Corrections spokesperson Beth Hardtke said.

Hardtke also cited hospice programs at Dodge, Taycheedah and Oshkosh prisons. 

But the department has struggled to recruit and retain competent medical staff. A Wisconsin Watch/New York Times investigation last year found nearly a third of the 60 prison staff physicians employed over a decade faced previous censure by a state medical board for an error or breach of ethics. Many faced lawsuits from inmates accusing them of serious errors that caused suffering or death. 

That included a doctor whom Darnell Price sued for failing to order a biopsy on his growing tumor. She had surrendered her medical license in California after pleading guilty to a drug possession charge and no contest to a charge of prescription forgery. 

Meanwhile, two Waupun Correctional Institution nurses are facing felony charges relating to deaths of two prisoners in their custody. One prisoner, 62-year-old Donald Maier, died in February 2024 from malnutrition and dehydration.

Compassionate release seen as cost saver

Advocates say boosting compassionate release could save taxpayer money in a state that spends more than its neighbors on incarceration. Health care tends to cost more for older prisoners.  

Wisconsin lawmakers in the state’s most recent budget assumed that per prisoner health care costs will increase to $6,554 by 2026-27 — a fraction of the roughly $50,000 officials say it costs to incarcerate one person in Wisconsin. 

The corrections department did not provide information breaking down health care costs by age. But a study of North Carolina’s prison system found that it spent about four times as much on health care for prisoners older than 50 compared to others. A 2012 ACLU report found it cost twice as much to incarcerate older prisoners nationally.

Most states and the Federal Bureau of Prisons have some version of compassionate release, though they vary wildly. 

Wisconsin offers two main avenues: one based on medical condition and the other based on age and time served. Over the last seven years, Wisconsin has been more likely to grant petitions for early release based on medical reasons. 

State law bars compassionate release for old law prisoners convicted before 2000 — about 1,600 people today. Parole is their only option for early release, and the state parole commission has been releasing fewer people on parole in recent years.

That leaves out people like Carmen Cooper, 80, a wheelchair-bound inmate at Fox Lake Correctional Institution who struggles to breathe. He lives with Parkinson’s disease, recurrent cancer and other ongoing pain and says he doesn’t always receive proper medication. 

Convicted of murder and attempted murder in 1993, he is not eligible for parole for another 12 years. He has submitted two compassionate release applications with doctors’ affidavits, but the timing and nature of his convictions ban him from such relief; state law categorically excludes people convicted of Class A or Class B felonies, the most serious types of crime.

Cooper has little hope of dying outside of prison. 

His daughters Qumine Hunter and Carmen Cooper say the incarceration has left a wide gap. He has missed deaths of close family members and births of grandchildren and great-grandchildren he has not met. The sisters never stop looking for ways to bring him home.

“If we got five years, 10 years, two years, whatever years we got left with him, we want all of them,” Hunter said. 

Renagh O’Leary, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, represents people in compassionate release hearings. She said several elements of the state’s process limit access, including that petitions first go to a Department of Corrections committee, which must include a social worker and can include health care representatives. 

Committee members might ask for a person’s plan for housing or to explain minor infractions from time in prison. The petition advances to a judge only if the committee unanimously approves. 

Sending petitions directly to the sentencing court would be fairer, O’Leary said. Those and other major changes to the process would require legislative action. 

“We’re talking about how long someone should serve in prison,” she added, “and I think those questions are best answered in a public courtroom, in a transparent process by a judge in the county that imposed the original prison sentence.” 

The courtroom is where crime victims can weigh in. Their opinions depend on individual circumstances, said Amy Brown, the longtime director of victim services at the Dane County District Attorney’s Office. 

“Victims don’t all fall into one category, just like offenders don’t all fall into one category,” she said. 

Another wrinkle in Wisconsin’s compassionate release system: Doctors must attest to prisoners having less than six to 12 months to live. Some doctors feel uncomfortable making such a prediction. 

“It’s really hard for a doctor to say, ‘Yeah, he’s going to be dead in six months,’” said Michele DiTomas, hospice medical director for the California Medical Facility in Vacaville, California. “You just don’t know. Some people will be dead in three months, some people will go on for 18 months.”

California a compassionate release model

California offers a different model for sick and dying prisoners. 

The 17-bed hospice unit DiTomas runs, the first of its kind in the U.S., offers dying men as much comfort as can be found within a prison: medications that ease pain, visits from family members, time outdoors and attention from other incarcerated men who have been trained to provide hospice care. That hasn’t stopped DiTomas from working to get people approved for compassionate release so they can finish their lives at home.  

California’s compassionate release process used to require a string of signatures — from the corrections secretary, the parole board, the governor and the original sentencing court — and often took longer than a person had left to live, she said. Similar barriers exist in many states.   

The state a decade ago approved about 10 applications on average each year, DiTomas said, with approvals taking four to six months. A legislative overhaul streamlined the process. The state now approves about 100 compassionate release applications a year, taking as little as four weeks each, DiTomas said. 

The changes resulted from leaders’ collaboration after recognizing that the previous system wasn’t working.

“We can give people their humanity and preserve public safety,” DiTomas said. “It’s not necessarily one or the other.” 

Housing shortage complicates release 

Price initially lacked a place to stay while applying for compassionate release in 2023. It was his job to fix that or risk dooming his application.

“They can deny you for not having a solid plan for housing, but it’s not something they help you with,” he said.  

He found a room in a transitional housing unit in Milwaukee through a faith-based organization. Had he required more intensive care, a nursing home may be a better option. But many nursing homes don’t accept someone fresh out of prison — a challenge described in a 2020 Legislative Audit Bureau report.  

Wisconsin faces a wide shortage of affordable senior care beds, let alone for people with a criminal record. 

That’s a problem nationwide, said Price, the Families Against Mandatory Minimums attorney. As more than 60,000 people aged 50 or older leave prison each year, housing demand continues to outpace supply. Her organization is creating a clearinghouse to help match prisoners who qualify for compassionate release with pro bono lawyers to help them find beds. 

O’Leary said that illustrates how expanding compassionate release in Wisconsin would require more post-prison housing options. 

Life on the outside

Price now lives in a modest efficiency apartment on Milwaukee’s north side. It doesn’t have much, he said, but it has everything he needs, including a laptop and smart TV to watch Packers highlights. On his wall hangs a framed version of the Wisconsin Watch/New York Times story that detailed his struggle to receive medical care in prison — a gift from his attorneys. The tumors still lurk in his body, though for now they do not seem to be growing. 

Price has faced some of his toughest challenges since leaving prison. 

The opioids doctors prescribed to ease his pain triggered a past cocaine addiction, Price said, and drug use cost him the first place he stayed.

But Price checked into a treatment facility in February 2024. He managed to stay sober in 24-hour increments. The days eventually turned into weeks.  

“At that time I didn’t have a plan. But in treatment, I started feeling better and better until finally, the lights started coming back,” he said. “Then there came a point that I even wanted to go back to that life.”  

Kyesha Felts, with whom Price shares a daughter, is also taking life one day at a time, enjoying the time she gets to spend with the man she has loved for 30 years. 

“I love it,” she said of Price being home. “I’m enjoying every minute of it. Because tomorrow’s promised to nobody.”

She said she admires his intelligence, the way he treats people and his strength and resilience. 

Price is now eight months sober, and he’s proud of the memoir he published, “The Ultimate Betrayal,” a chronicle of addiction, incarceration and redemption. He tells his story around the community. He doesn’t hold anything back, he said, because it’s all part of his testimony. 

Wisconsin rarely grants compassionate release as aging, ailing prisoners stress systems 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.

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• A Manitowoc County dairy farmer can’t find an attorney and has no idea where her husband is after he was among 24 people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Manitowoc County on Sept. 25.
  
• Wisconsin immigration attorneys said they were surprised to hear that, unlike during other recent federal government shutdowns, immigration court hearings for clients not in ICE detention would continue as planned. 
  
• Only about a third of immigrants in Wisconsin with upcoming hearings in federal immigration court have legal representation.

A Manitowoc County dairy worker arrived for her shift early on a Thursday morning in late September and waited for a message from her husband. It’s their routine, she said: rise early, commute to jobs at separate dairies and check in by phone.

“But when I called him, he didn’t answer,” she said in Spanish. “And so I was calling and calling and I said, ‘something happened, because he’s not answering – that’s not normal.’”

Her husband, Abraham Maldonado Almanza, was among the 24 people arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers in Manitowoc County on Sept. 25. As far as she knows, officers picked Maldonado Almanza up in the Walmart parking lot where dairy workers gather to carpool hours before sunrise. Within a matter of days, he had — at least from her perspective — effectively vanished, carried away at breakneck speed by the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown.

The pace of enforcement operations, lack of transparency and sudden shifts in policy have disoriented both those targeted in the crackdown and immigration attorneys already managing overwhelming caseloads.

A Department of Homeland Security press release tied the arrests to a joint operation with the FBI, IRS and other federal law enforcement agencies targeting an alleged human and drug trafficking ring. Neither DHS nor the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Wisconsin responded to inquiries about whether the investigation has resulted in criminal charges against any of those arrested last month, nor did federal district court dockets point to criminal charges resulting from the investigation as of Friday.

Over the following days, the dairy worker says she made her way through a list of immigration attorneys’ phone numbers, none of whom agreed to take her husband’s case. She attributed the reluctance to a preexisting removal order on her husband’s record, which can speed the deportation process. But without a reliable source of information, she was left relying on hearsay to keep track of Abraham’s case.

As the federal government entered a shutdown on Wednesday, several Wisconsin immigration attorneys said they were surprised to hear that, unlike during other shutdowns in recent memory, immigration court hearings for clients not in ICE detention would continue as planned. 

Attorneys had not expected the shutdown to slow down the cases of immigrants in detention, but the speed of operations has still caught some off guard. Some of those arrested in Manitowoc County last month were already out of the country days before Congress missed its funding deadline, according to Aissa Olivarez, an attorney with the Community Immigration Law Center in Madison.

“Historically, people are taken to (the Dodge County Jail) and we’re able to at least do an intake and speak with them before anything else happens,” Olivarez said. “But it seems like in this operation, they knew who they were looking for, or exactly what they were going to do. … They did this really, really fast.”

As of Friday, three of the six arrestees named in a DHS press release about the Manitowoc County operation were still in the Dodge County Jail, according to ICE’s detainee locator tool. 

Maldonado Almanza was not among them, though his name and photograph appeared in the press release, which also claimed he had a prior conviction for identity theft. 

Wisconsin circuit court records yield no matching criminal record, nor do trial court records in Iowa, where his wife says they lived after emigrating from Mexico and before moving to Wisconsin. Iowa court records do, however, reflect that Maldonado Almanza was fined for driving without insurance in 2009.

As first reported by the Wisconsin Examiner, another man named in the September DHS press release on the Manitowoc County operation had been in ICE custody since July. That man, Jose Hilario Moreno Portillo, was charged with second-degree sexual assault of a child in Manitowoc County in May. 

The dairy worker said her husband had previously received a deportation order in an immigration court case that began while the couple was living in Iowa. That detail matches Olivarez’s understanding of the Manitowoc operation. “It does seem like there were people who have been ordered deported before,” she said. In those cases, “without a quick stay of removal or motion to reopen, the government executes that removal order right away.”

“Because there is such a low capacity (of attorneys) in the state in general, when people already have removal orders, we can’t work fast enough to stop it,” she added.

Maldonado Almanza’s whereabouts remained unclear as of Friday.

Milwaukee immigration attorney John Sesini says his firm took the case of another man picked up in the Manitowoc operation only to discover he had been deported to Mexico within four days of his arrest. The man had no criminal record, Sesini said, and it remains unclear whether he had a prior deportation order. If not, it may still be possible to challenge the deportation in court. 

Only about a third of immigrants in Wisconsin with upcoming hearings in federal immigration court have legal representation. Unlike courts operated by the federal judiciary, immigration courts – part of the U.S. Department of Justice – do not provide free representation. Instead, immigrants must pay out of pocket, rely on the few free and low-cost legal services organizations like Olivarez’s legal center or face the courts alone. Those able to find attorneys are vastly more likely to avoid deportation than those who attempt to represent themselves. 

For some immigrants facing court dates in the coming weeks, a typical government shutdown could have provided breathing room. In past shutdowns, the DOJ has typically deemed only the cases of immigrants in detention “essential” enough to move forward. The shutdown from late December 2018 to mid-January 2019, for instance, forced the cancellation of at least 80,000 hearings nationwide, according to immigration court records analyzed by the nonprofit Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

A Wisconsin Watch analysis of federal immigration court data suggests that as of August, almost 1,000 immigrants with Wisconsin addresses had hearings scheduled for October. So far, the DOJ has not called off those hearings en masse, though the agency has also not clarified whether immigration courts will continue holding hearings of immigrants who are not detained during a prolonged shutdown.

But in a press release issued on Wednesday, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin underscored that the shutdown will not slow ICE. “The deportations will continue,” she wrote.

Rapid deportation push leaves immigrant families in the dark 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.

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Although all can agree that a fatal car crash in Milwaukee on Sept. 16 was a tragedy, there is less consensus on how to prevent similar incidents in the future. 

That day Pler Moo, 50, and her two sons, Moo Nay Taw, 21, and Kar Lah Kri Moo, 15, were killed and two other children seriously injured when their car was struck at North 35th and West Vliet streets by another vehicle fleeing police. 

Since the crash, some have called for changes to police pursuit policies, while others blame the crashes on those who flee police. 

“It is a very complex issue,” said Ruth Ehrgott, whose pregnant daughter, Erin Mogensen, was killed in 2023 when a reckless driver fleeing police crashed into her car. 

“I will always stop anybody that says, ‘Well, you know, the problem is … .’ These problems are too complex for that.” 

Ehrgott takes a nuanced approach to reckless driving through the nonprofit she founded in honor of her daughter, Enough is Enough – A Legacy for Erin.

She believes the entire community has a part to play in reducing deaths and injuries from reckless driving. 

Ongoing trend

The crash that occurred Sept. 16 likely would not have happened a decade ago, when the Milwaukee Police Department restricted vehicle pursuits to violent felonies.

In 2017, then-Police Chief Edward Flynn expanded the department’s policy to allow pursuits in cases involving drug dealing and reckless driving.

The following year, police pursuits rose 155%  – from 369 instances to 940 – with about two-thirds of the chases initiated because of reckless driving, according to a report from the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission. In 2024, there were 957 police pursuits in Milwaukee, and just under one-third ended in a crash, according to another Fire and Police Commission report. 

There have been five deaths caused by crashes during police pursuits in Milwaukee since July. On July 29, El Moctar Sidiya was killed when a man fleeing officers crashed into his car on West Brady Street. On Aug. 23, Hasan Harris died after his car was struck by an individual who was fleeing police on West Center Street. 

The increase of pursuit-related deaths in Milwaukee is often cited as evidence of a link between looser pursuit policies and greater traffic risks, said Geoffrey Alpert, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina and an expert on police pursuits. 

MPD acknowledges the widespread effects of these pursuits. 

“Police pursuits present significant challenges due to the physical, emotional and financial impact on officers, the public and fleeing suspects,” an MPD spokesperson told NNS.  

Change to pursuit policy

Alpert said if the goal is to reduce traffic injuries and deaths, pursuits should be limited to cases involving violent crimes. 

He also said it is a myth that limiting police chases to violent crimes causes an increase in other offenses, such as drug dealing. He cited a study in Virginia that found more narrow pursuit policies did not lead to higher crime rates.

There were calls to change MPD’s pursuit policy from members of the public during a Fire and Police Commission meeting on Sept. 18. 

Kayla Patterson put it bluntly in her public comment. 

“Committing crimes and traffic stops should not be death sentences,” she said.

Others weigh in

Mayor Cavalier Johnson, while speaking at a news conference on Sept. 18, addressed reckless driving and high-speed pursuits. 

He said that traffic-calming measures had reduced reckless driving in the city, but high-speed chases involving police remain a serious problem. 

Johnson said the city is considering different options, including using technology to warn people about pursuits.

But the primary responsibility for stopping chases is on those who flee, Johnson said. 

“I believe that one of the most effective things we can do in order to eliminate these chases … is to listen to officer commands to pull the vehicles over and not proceed with the chase,” Johnson said. 

Ald. Peter Burgelis, vice chair of the Milwaukee Common Council’s Public Safety and Health Committee, agrees. 

“Criminals fleeing from police contribute to injuries and deaths,” Burgelis said in an email to NNS. 

Calling the Sept. 16 crash “particularly devastating,” Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern said police must be involved in the response to reckless driving. 

“It is important to keep in mind that reckless driving has injured and killed a number of innocent people in our community, without any police pursuits involved,” Lovern said. “Police cancel pursuits where the public safety concerns indicate that is the appropriate course of action.”  

Drea Rodriguez, global program officer at WomenServe, suggested that police get more training, including on ideal routes to take. 

In this way, she said, residents can be a part of the solution and “easily share some hot spots to be aware of.” 

A spokesperson for MPD said the department is committed to making sure its training, policies and risk mitigation strategies reflect national best practices. 

Ehrgott said in addition to proper training for police, there should be strong repercussions for those who flee from police in addition to greater awareness of its dangers.

“These problems are societal,” Ehrgott said. “It’s happening to all of us.”

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 residents and officials weigh in on police pursuit policy after fatal crash 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.

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As immigration enforcement increases in Milwaukee, some community members want to better document the activities of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.  

Comité Sin Fronteras, an arm of Voces de la Frontera, is training people to serve as “community verifiers,” who confirm or deny reports of ICE actions and document incidents when they do happen. 

A key element of the project, dubbed “La Migra Watch,” is to raise awareness about the hotline anyone can use to report possible ICE activity, said Raul Rios, an organizer with Comité. 

“That is how, statewide, we can get involved and get on the ground to help each other,” Rios said. 

In the video above, Rios explains how the verification process works, and we follow a verifier after a call to the hotline is made. 

Video: How ‘community verifiers’ work to inform residents about 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.

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If you avidly read Wisconsin Watch, you’ve learned plenty about prisons in Wisconsin. As our reporting has shown, they’re overcrowded, understaffed and particularly expensive to operate. In 2020, the state spent $220 per resident to lock up people — significantly higher than neighboring states. 

Wisconsin Watch has covered prison issues for more than a decade, but we’ve prioritized that coverage since reporter Mario Koran teamed up with The New York Times to expose a staffing crisis that resulted in extended lockdowns, substandard health care for prisoners and untenable working conditions for correctional officers. Our press corps colleagues joined us with months of sustained coverage, forcing lawmakers and the Department of Corrections to respond in some ways. 

We’re proud of that reporting. But as we continue exposing such problems, we’re doubling down on exploring solutions. For instance, Addie Costello and Joe Timmerman last month profiled Camp Reunite, a unique program that helps Wisconsin prisoners maintain relationships with their children — recognizing that family visits have been shown to reduce recidivism. 

But how might Wisconsin solve its biggest prison problems? We’re discussing that as a staff. The question is tricky because so many challenges outside of prison walls shape the problems within them, whether its barriers to housing, jobs or health care. That’s why we’re discussing coverage with beat reporters across the Wisconsin Watch and Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service newsrooms. 

In the coming months, expect more coverage that highlights more humane and cost-effective ways to protect public safety and rehabilitate people who do break the law. What can Wisconsin learn from other states that have reduced prison populations without jeopardizing safety? We’re asking. 

As with all of our stories, we’ll prioritize those with the potential for impact. Our journalism aims to help people navigate their lives, be seen and heard, hold power to account and come together in community and civic life.

Meantime, we want to hear from you. What topics or storylines do you hope to see us follow? What perspectives would you like to share? Feel free to email me at jmalewitz@wisconsinwatch.org.

How we’re reporting on Wisconsin prisons 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.

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• Criminal defendants needing a constitutionally guaranteed lawyer are experiencing longer and longer waits for their day in court.

• The median time it takes for felony cases to be adjudicated increased from 126 days in 2015 to 205 days in 2024. The case backlog remains more than 12,000 as of Aug. 1. A 2022 lawsuit against the State Public Defender office continues to move through the courts.

• The state budget added far more funding for prosecutors than support staff for the State Public Defender office. State reimbursement rates for private attorneys continue to lag average lawyer pay.

Tracy Germait has waited more than two years for a public defender in her Brown County felony drug cases.

In the time since her two cases were first opened, Germait has worked on turning her life around: She has led two addiction support groups, became a certified peer support specialist, worked toward her bachelor’s degree in criminal justice online from Colorado Tech University, gained custody of her three children and has stayed clean for 18 months. 

But every day she faces the possibility of being sent to prison once she finally has legal representation and stands trial. 

“My biggest fear is not being there for my kids,” Germait said. “I’m barely getting their trust back, having them on a routine, a schedule, and giving them stability, and that getting ripped all away.”

Germait reports to court every couple of months, only to learn she still lacks an appointed attorney. The last time she appeared, the court told her it attempted to contact an attorney 10,410 times for her 2023 drug possession case and 4,184 times for her 2022 drug possession and delivery case. 

“I’m kind of just stuck here,” Germait said. “I wish I could spend my vacation time with my kids, or doing something outside of work with them, but I can’t because I don’t know how many court dates I’m going to have in between now and the end of the year. So that is taxing.”

Germait isn’t the only defendant facing a long wait. In 2022 several indigent defendants lacking timely appointment of counsel filed a lawsuit against Wisconsin’s State Public Defender (SPD) office, claiming an ongoing pattern of delays in appointing a public defender for open criminal cases around the state. The suit found at least 8,445 defendants experienced a delay of 30 days or more in obtaining counsel for trials since 2019.

In January, the plaintiffs renewed their motion for class certification, meaning the suit would be able to continue. The case is awaiting a court ruling on the motion. If granted, the next step would likely be to begin litigating the case, moving toward a resolution. 

As of Aug. 1, the Wisconsin Court System reported a backlog of around 12,586 felony cases.

Court data show the median age of pending felony cases has risen since before the pandemic. In 2015, the median time cases were pending was 126 days. In 2020, during the pandemic, it was 192 days, compared to 205 days in 2024.

And yet in the latest state budget, Republican lawmakers only granted 12.5 of the 52.5 requested SPD support staff positions, while increasing the number of prosecutors statewide by 42 and providing state funding for 12 expiring federally funded prosecutors in Milwaukee. As Wisconsin Watch reported in August, those 12 Milwaukee positions may have been funded in a way that violates the state constitution.

A right guaranteed by the Constitution and courts

The Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article 1, Section 7, of the Wisconsin Constitution guarantee a defendant the right to a fair, speedy trial, including a lawyer. The landmark 1963 Supreme Court decision Gideon v. Wainwright required states to protect those rights. But how to do so was largely left up to the states. 

For the first few years, Wisconsin took a county-by-county approach to assign counsel, rather than relying on a state standard. But in 1977, Wisconsin established the independent Office of the State Public Defender to enforce the Gideon decision statewide. 

“That office was never expected to handle all of the cases,” said John Gross, director of the Public Defender Project at the University of Wisconsin Law School and a former New York state public defender. “It was never funded to that degree.” 

The backlog of open criminal cases stems from problems dating back decades that have yet to be solved.

When SPD first started, the agency was only expected to handle about half of the cases, and members of the private bar would enter into agreements to take on remaining public defender appointments, according to Gross. 

“It’s necessary in any system for the simple reason that you have conflicts of interest, so if three guys get arrested for a robbery, the public defender’s office can only represent one of them,” Gross said.

In Germait’s 2023 case, she was told there was an unspecified “conflict,” which means she’s waiting for SPD to appoint a private attorney.

The Legislature didn’t raise the $40 hourly rate — the lowest nationwide — for private attorneys handling public defender appointments for nearly 20 years. In 2020, it was raised to $70, then in the 2023-25 state budget the rate increased to $100 an hour.

But that rate remains well below the average hourly private attorney rate in Wisconsin, which averaged around $248 in 2023, according to SPD’s 2023-25 biennial budget request. 

Over the past decade private attorneys have handled anywhere from 37% to 40% of public defender cases. 

But private attorneys are often not interested in taking up public defender appointments due to low pay or just the stressful nature of working in a trial setting. 

Christian Thomas, a Milwaukee County-based criminal defense attorney, said one of the first things he looks for in a public defender appointment is whether the defendant has previously had an attorney. 

If an attorney previously dropped the case, that could make it more difficult to obtain evidence because a new attorney would rely on the previous lawyer rather than getting it directly from the prosecutor.

“After having spent much of my career doing sexual assault and homicide cases, I don’t take those anymore, unless they are my full pay clients,” Thomas said. “The public defender’s office is left holding on to a number of very serious cases that need very serious defense for whom there are very few of us (private attorneys) around, and most of us that have been around just don’t want to touch those cases anymore.” 

For the 2025-27 budget cycle, SPD requested and Gov. Tony Evers proposed a $25 hourly increase for the most severe criminal cases, which the Legislature rejected. 

Even when a private attorney takes on a public defender case, the lower reimbursement rate compared to full-paying clients incentivizes attorneys to cut a quick deal, risking the defendant’s legal outcome, according to a report from the Sixth Amendment Center.

To make the problem worse, during the COVID-19 pandemic, more public defenders aged out of the system to turn to the private sector, which increased wages more quickly than government employers to respond to pandemic-era inflation, the Wisconsin Policy Forum reported. 

Meanwhile, the State Public Defender office is struggling to attract law school graduates who are discouraged by low pay and the demanding nature of public defender appointments while still paying off student loans. The office has 37 unfilled positions, amounting to a 10% vacancy rate. The vacancy rate has decreased since the pandemic, when it rose to about 25%. 

Private law school tuition today is 2.54 times more expensive than it would have been if it had increased by inflation since 1985, while public law school tuition is over five times more expensive. 

The annual starting salary for a public defender in 2023 was $56,659, a Wisconsin Policy Forum analysis found, less than half of averages for all lawyers statewide.

Lawmakers this budget cycle approved two wage increases: a merit-based 3% general wage adjustment for all civil servants in the state for 2025 and 2% for 2026. 

But higher pay alone won’t likely solve the backlog issue that has plagued Wisconsin and other states. The Oregon Legislature, for example, approved hourly wage raises for public defender appointments, but the state still has a massive backlog. 

Public defenders require extensive training and education, so it may take years to see a noticeable increase in law school graduates willing to pursue a career as a public defender.

Recently, the UW Law School laid off Gross among other employees due to budget cuts. The future of the Public Defender Project, a clinic designed to prepare law students for a career in public defense, remains uncertain.

Cases in limbo destabilizing families

Defendants are facing consequences as cases pile up without attorneys to defend them. Even though those charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court, an open felony case can hurt a defendant’s chance of finding employment and housing, creating financial instability for them and their families.

Housing and job insecurity put someone at risk of homelessness, increasing their chances of ending up back in jail or stacking up additional charges. 

Delaying a hearing by years or even months also jeopardizes the credibility of the evidence and witness testimony, said Amanda Merkwae, advocacy director at ACLU Wisconsin. In 2024, only 28% of cases were active for fewer than 90 days in Wisconsin. Over 5,000 cases were open for nearly two years.

“When people are detained pre-trial, it makes the problem even worse from a civil rights and liberties perspective because even spending a few days in jail can have devastating, long-lasting consequences for people who are presumptively innocent under the law,” Merkwae said. “It impacts them, it impacts their families, you think of the risk of job loss, losing housing, potential impact on child custody and parental rights.”

Many defendants awaiting counsel are sitting in jail because they can’t afford bail. 

In Brown County, only one in five county jail inmates is serving a sentence. The rest are awaiting a sentence. On July 30, the jail, which has a capacity of 750 inmates, was over capacity by 107 people with an average stay of 256 days.

So what can be done?

A problem that has worsened in recent decades has no quick fix. 

This past budget cycle, the State Public Defender office proposed two budget items aiming to  decrease the backlog and increase staffing. Neither passed as proposed. 

The first was to increase SPD administrative and support staff by about 52.5 positions; the agency was ultimately only granted 12.5. 

Support staff include investigators, who help collect evidence and identify witnesses for a case, and personnel to help clients understand the legal system, ensuring they are well-equipped for court.

Merkwae said another way to reduce the backlogs is reexamining and changing charging practices. 

The state’s three most charged crimes are disorderly conduct, felony bail jumping and misdemeanor bail jumping. 

This past budget cycle, the public defender office recommended changing the sentencing and charging for a first-time disorderly conduct violation, which was projected to yield $1.9 million in savings for SPD by affecting 2,448 cases.

Felony and misdemeanor bail jumping are bail rule violations that get tacked onto other felony cases. They range from missing a curfew or appointment to not updating an address or having beer, and they can dramatically affect case outcomes, Merkwae said, adding that they can make defendants feel “coerced into entering a plea to their original charge because of the leverage that’s created by the bail jumping charges.”

Wisconsin is one of only seven states that allow prosecutors to file additional felony charges if someone violates pretrial release conditions.

During this budget session, the Legislature also added 42 new prosecutors around the state, with the highest number in Brown and Waukesha counties, where felony bail jumping is the most commonly charged felony.

Adding prosecutors without boosting resources for public defenders and private attorneys could exacerbate backlog issues, according to Thomas.

“This is simple economics,” Thomas said. “If you’re paying 12 extra people to do that job, you’re going to end up with 12 extra people’s worth of charges.”

In Wisconsin, the median case age at disposition for nontraffic felony cases is 247 days. In Brown County, it’s 373 days, with over 2,000 open felony cases filed in 2024. 

For Germait, the limbo is constantly on her mind — and it’s shaping her life. 

After living in Amanda’s House, a sober-living home for women and children, Germait applied to several housing programs and apartments but was denied from most due to the active felony case.

Germait now lives in a transitional housing unit set to expire in April 2026. But with no updates or progress on her open cases, Germait faces the added stress of finding stable housing for herself and her children. 

“I had to do an appeal and go through all that, and eventually they said yes because I had letters of support,” Germait said. “We have to move out in April, and it’s like, ‘What am I going to do then?’”

Three years and more than 10,000 lawyer calls after being charged, this Wisconsin mother still doesn’t have a defense attorney 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.