Protesters march outside of a new ICE facility being constructed in Milwaukee. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Activist groups and community members gathered Saturday morning to denounce the construction of a new federal immigration enforcement detention facility on Milwaukee’s Northwest Side. Renovations at the property, located at 11900 W Lake Park Drive, were clearly underway, with construction equipment sitting behind new fencing, piles of dirt and stacks of building materials visible through the building’s dark windows. Outside, protesters marched in the street and delivered speeches. 

The 36,000-square-foot detention and processing center is planned to serve as a central hub for southeastern Wisconsin, holding people before deportation or transfer to other detention centers.

“You may be here, but you are not welcome here,” said Ald. Larresa Taylor — who represents the district where the facility will be located. Although the city cannot prevent ICE from taking over the facility, Taylor said that this “doesn’t mean that we are going to accept it laying down.” 

Activists from Voces de la Frontera, Comité Sin Fronteras, the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Never Again Action–Wisconsin, the Party for Socialism & Liberation, and the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine picketed outside the building for close to two hours. Towards the end of the event, a drone was seen flying overhead, which was not operated by any of the activist groups who held the rally. In a empty parking lot nearby, several deputies appeared to be packing away equipment in the trunk a Milwaukee County Sheriff’s vehicle. The Sheriff’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether its drone team was flying over the Saturday protest. 

Opponents of the facility say that its opening moved forward without community input or consent, and that it will perpetuate troubling uses of force and arrests in cities nationwide including Chicago. The facility will be used to  process ICE detainees, as well as immigrants who must come in for regular check-ins.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, applauded Taylor, calling her “the first person to sound the alarm months ago about the expansion of this detention center, and to call attention and condemn what was happening in our city.”  The building is privately owned by Milwaukee Governmental LLC, which originally requested modifications to the property (something Taylor learned about in December). The LLC is linked to the Illinois-based WD Schorsch LLC, which owns properties leased to federal government agencies. 

“It’s not an accident what is happening, where this facility is being chosen to be built,” said Neumann-Ortiz. “It’s part of a long-term pattern of discrimination and marginalization, and criminalization of working class people of color.” Neumann-Oritz said that instead of spending “millions” on the facility, “that money should be used to pay for FoodShare, BadgerCare, and our public schools.” 

 Angela Lang, executive director of Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC), said, “We are not free, until we are all free.” Lang added that Black communities “know what it’s like to be ripped away from our families and locked away,” and that people are concerned about federal agents’ behavior in cities like Chicago. “And we have been worried for months, if not years, ‘is this going to happen to Milwaukee?’” 

Over recent months months, videos have suggested an escalating patter of force from federal agents including shooting people in the head with pepper balls, placing protesters in chokeholds, deploying tear gas in crowded neighborhoods in broad daylight, arresting and attacking journalists, arresting parents in front of their children, and having unprofessional verbal exchanges with citizens. 

Although Milwaukee hasn’t seen protest-related clashes, ICE stirred anxiety and condemnation earlier this year after arresting members of families with mixed-immigration status at the Milwaukee County Courthouse as they attended court hearings. Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was also arrested and criminally charged after the federal government accused her of attempting to hide a person sought by ICE who’d attended a hearing in her courtroom. Dugan is expected to go to trial in federal court in December. Other high profile arrests and deportations of community members have also occurred in Milwaukee during the first six months of the second  Trump administration. 

Conor Mika, a student activist at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) condemned what he said is a lack of transparency and accountability for his  school’s relationship with ICE, which has been using a university building for operations in Milwaukee. “It’s time MSOE takes a stand. It’s on MSOE to slow down ICE’s operations, and protect its students by removing ICE from this building, and refusing any future collaborations with these agencies conducting mass deportations in our city.”

Leah Janke and Tanya Brown both attended the rally Saturday, and told the Wisconsin Examiner that it was important to make their voices heard. “I think it’s important that people here know that we don’t want this,” said Brown. “It’s not just a small community that doesn’t want it, it’s everybody. We don’t want it.” Janke said. “It’s 2025, and this is completely unacceptable to be running an ICE facility like this, and be deporting people illegally, without due process. This is insanity. It doesn’t feel right in any way.” Janke added, “I’ve seen a lot happening in Chicago, and that’s my fear…that’s my biggest fear.”

Besides attending rallies, Janke has been making “whistle kits” filled with whistles and information about reporting ICE, or alerting the community if an arrest is happening. “Be safe out there,” said Janke. “Because honestly, it’s scary and people are getting  hurt.”

Raúl Ríos, an activist with both Comité Sin Fronteras and Party for Socialism and Liberation, said it was important to rally people on Saturday both on the North and South Sides of Milwaukee, especially since the city is one of the most segregated in America. “Most people that I’ve heard, not only today but previously, had said that they had no idea that this was even being constructed, and that it’s going to be used as the main facility for southeast Wisconsin,” Rios told the Examiner.