Kenosha County courthouse. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Immigrant rights groups are condemning a move by Kenosha County Sheriff David Zoerner to join the federal 287(g) program, a cooperation agreement between local law enforcement agencies and federal immigration enforcement. Although Zoerner previously distanced his office from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), on Monday he announced that an agreement had been signed with the federal agency back mid-December.

Just a couple of months before joining the 287(g) program, Zoerner questioned whether the program would benefit Kenosha County taxpayers. “This is a rapidly evolving program,” Zoerner told TMJ4. “We are monitoring it to ensure that our participation would ultimately be in the best interest of the taxpayers of Kenosha County.” At the time of the interview, the sheriff’s office did not cooperate with ICE beyond honoring immigration detainers for people held in the Kenosha County jail. 

The immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera condemned Zoerner’s policy shift. “As an elected official, Sheriff Zoerner took an oath to defend the Constitution and ensure community safety,” Voces’ executive director Christine Neumann-Ortiz said in a statement. “Instead, he has broken promises behind closed doors and sacrificed the public trust for political expediency. It is the height of irresponsibility for Sheriff Zoerner to deputize his officers as ICE agents in a city that already experienced the tragic shooting of Jacob Blake and the community outrage that sparked massive protests, unrest, and the tragic death of two young protesters in 2020.” 

Neumann-Ortiz said that Zoerner’s decision “only heightens the risk to the community of harm by the militarized tactics of ICE.” 

In a statement issued Monday, Zoerner walked back his  previous caution about cooperating with ICE.

Zoerner said that “for well over a year” he has been working with ICE and other sheriffs “to bring the 287(g) to Kenosha County.” Saying that “this is not a new idea, and this is not reactionary,” Zoerner said that joining the program “is the result of deliberate, responsible planning focused on one mission: protecting the people of Kenosha County.” 

The sheriff pushed back against what he called “misinformation” about the issue and asserted that this office “works closely and consistently with our federal law enforcement partners.” He added,  “I will not tolerate the release of violent criminal offenders back into our community. Period. As Sheriff, I use every lawful tool at my disposal to protect citizens.” Zoerner noted that he currently serves on the Border Security Committee for the National Sheriffs Association, and that he’s undergone border security training and observed enforcement operations along the southern border in Texas and Arizona. 

Zoerner said that he signed a 287(g) agreement under a jail enforcement model. The agreement was signed by ICE and sent back to the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office on Jan. 12. “We have already selected staff for this program and are actively moving forward with implementation,” Zoerner said in a statement, adding that the program “applies only to individuals who are already lawfully in custody for serious criminal offenses.”

Kenosha County’s 287(g) program, Zoerner said, will focus on people arrested for violent crimes, felony drug charges, repeat offenders, or those with histories of assault, sexual violence and other serious crimes. “These are people who pose a demonstrated threat to public safety,” said Zoerner. “This agreement ensures they are not released back into our community.” 

ICE cooperation a campaign issue

On Jan. 7, five days before Zoerner’s announcement, James Beller declared that he will challenge  Zoerner in the upcoming election for sheriff. Beller is currently a Kenosha police captain, and said that if elected he would move forward with joining the ICE 287 (g) program. 

Beller pitched the program as focusing only on serious criminal offenses, using the same language  Zoerner used to describe the deal he struck with the federal government. “This is about public safety and accountability,” Beller said in a press release. “The focus will be on serious offenders already in custody, implemented professionally, lawfully, and consistent with our responsibility to keep the community safe.” 

Those reassurances did not assuage  the concerns of people worried about the effects of ICE surges in Chicago and Minneapolis, where violent clashes with residents have made headlines and U.S. citizen Renee Good was shot and killed last week. 

There are currently 13 law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin with 287(g) programs, all of them sheriff’s offices. “This has to end,” said Nuemann-Ortiz. “We stand with Kenosha families in calling for an end to 287(g) in Kenosha.”

Voces de la Frontera is organizing a protest on  Saturday at 11 a.m.  at Kenosha’s Civic Park.

Chequamegon Family Restaurant, also known as the Ashland Family Restaurant, where two workers were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on Monday, Dec. 15. (Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner)

Federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested two individuals at the Chequamegon Family Restaurant (also known as the Ashland Family Restaurant) Monday, Dec. 15 in the city of Ashland in far northern Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Superior.

This is the second arrest ICE agents have made in the Ashland/Bayfield area since July when an individual was arrested at Washburn Iron Works in the city of Washburn.

The Ashland City Police Department issued a statement Friday, Dec. 19 saying that ICE and U.S. Border Patrol officers had informed the police department that federal officers had a federal warrant for two individuals at the “Ashland Family Restaurant.”

The police department noted the federal officers had “picked up” one employee in the morning, and then returned after requesting that a city police officer be present because “the restaurant staff was very upset with them the first time they were there.”

A Dec. 15 police dispatch report notes that Officer Mark Campry was requested at 12:04 p.m. to the restaurant. 

According to the police statement, when the federal officers returned with the local police officer there was a request to open the doors and a second person was taken into custody.

The police did not say what type of warrant ICE had to make the arrest. ICE has not yet responded to a request for that information.

Alexandra Guevara of Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant workers’ rights organization, says there is an important difference between judicial warrants, signed by judges in cases where individuals are wanted for a crime, and ICE administrative warrants, which lack the same force.

“Nobody should open their doors for an ICE warrant. It’s an illegal instrument,” Guevara said.  “When we do our Know Your Rights trainings, it’s the first thing we tell people — you have to be able to get a warrant that is actually signed by a judge, that includes your address, that includes your name, your official name, and you have the ability to get that warrant, send it to a lawyer, send a picture to a lawyer, and ask, ‘Should I open the door or not?’”

Reporters for the Ashland Daily Press said they also were told by an employee of Deltco, a plastics manufacturer, that an employee at the plant was taken in custody by the federal officers Monday. Deltco management did not return calls from the Wisconsin Examiner attempting to verify whether an employee had been arrested.

Voces de la Frontera has identified one of the restaurant employees, a cook, as Luis Davids Coatzeozon Gomes, but has not been able to find out where he is being held.

“One of the things that happens with some of these detentions is that they’re detained and immediately sent somewhere else,” said Guevara, “so they don’t need to report them. And I mean, that creates a lot of confusion, that makes it impossible for their families to find them. It also makes it very difficult for lawyers to represent them, because they need to be in one place to be represented by a lawyer who can have access to them.”

She added, “We know that the ACLU has been dealing with that, talking all over the nation about how difficult it is now to trace where people are being taken because they’re being moved every two to three days, sometimes crossing state borders, like even being sent to places as far as Florida from here. And that makes it very, very difficult to know exactly how many people have been detained because they’re not being reported here.”

Guevara said most ICE detainees in Wisconsin are held, at least temporarily, in the Dodge County Jail. However, nearby Douglas County also has an agreement to hold ICE detainees. The ACLU reported in September that the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office had billed ICE for detaining 111 persons since the beginning of 2025.

State Rep. Angela Stroud, (D-Ashland) questioned why a city police officer accompanied the federal officers making an immigration arrest.

“My view on this is, if there’s probable cause that someone committed a crime, then you know, that’s a reasonable thing for the police to be involved in, because clearly, fighting crime is part of what we want to happen in our communities,” she said.

In answer to a question about the police involvement in the arrest, Ashland City Police Chief Bill Hagstrom sent the Ashland Daily Press a citation from the city’s police manual, 416.6 “Federal Request for Assistance” that states: “requests by federal immigration officials for assistance from this department should be directed to a supervisor. The Department may provide available support services, such as traffic control or peacekeeping efforts.”

Rep. Stroud also expressed concern about taking workers from employers struggling to maintain adequate staffing during a labor shortage in a city of fewer than 8,000 people.

“We have problems finding people to work generally around here,” she said, “and you know, we have an aging population. We have a lot of workforce shortages. What is the big picture goal here, and how does it help our community? How does this help our community?  I would like someone to explain that. And I recognize people need to, you know, follow immigration laws, but we’re seeing more and more that even people who do follow the law are being deported. And it’s just irrational. I don’t understand the big picture goal, except maybe to terrorize communities, and that’s, needless to say, is completely unethical.”

She added, “Unfortunately, we’re seeing these large raids and sweeps of people who are working and, you know, sometimes we’re even finding people who are American citizens getting caught up in that. So I recognize that people have a lot of strong feelings on this topic.”