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This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access.

Wisconsin election officials are divided over how to handle the possibility of unarmed federal immigration or law enforcement agents arriving at polling places this November and asking to observe voting.

The disagreement centers on a passage in new Wisconsin Elections Commission guidance intended to help local election officials navigate encounters with law enforcement at the polls. Among other instructions, the guidance says that agents from ICE, the FBI and other federal agencies who want to observe voting must follow the same rules as other election observers.

But officials in Dane County, home to Madison and one of Wisconsin’s most Democratic strongholds, warn that the language could lead poll workers to admit federal agents in violation of federal law. Federal law bans U.S. officials from sending troops or armed agents to the polls except under extremely limited circumstances, and a different law bans voter intimidation.

In an Oct. 15 email to the commission, the county’s attorney argued that the guidance could be read as permitting armed ICE agents to observe voting, despite federal restrictions.

Dane County officials have spent months preparing for the possibility of federal interference in the election. The commission, meanwhile, approved its guidance less than three weeks before Election Day, after receiving what it said were hundreds of questions from local clerks seeking clarity about federal law enforcement at the polls.

Clerks and attorneys interviewed by Votebeat were divided over whether the guidance provides the clarity they need. Some praised it as helpful and others said it came too late or warned that its language could lead election inspectors to misunderstand the limits of federal law.

On page three, the guidance instructs election officials to contact their clerks and the commission if federal agents arrive to observe voting. If federal officials are present “just to observe, they still have to check in like regular observers and are subject to the observer rule,” it states. The guidance does not, at that point, distinguish between armed and unarmed federal agents.

It then discusses circumstances in which armed, uniformed local officers might observe voting.

Only two pages later does the commission explain the federal law restricting armed personnel in federal service from polling places.

The structure of the advice, Dane County attorney David Gault told Votebeat, “creates the implication it’s OK for ICE to be there and observe, and I just don’t think that’s the case.”

“If they’re armed, it’s clearly prohibited,” he said. “If they’re unarmed but still in some kind of a uniform designating them as a federal agent, I think the law is still pretty clear they’re not supposed to be there.”

Dane County officials object to commission guidance

Election officials across Wisconsin have been preparing for months for the possibility of federal law enforcement at the polls, but the concern is particularly acute in the state’s largest, heavily Democratic counties. In Dane County, the state’s second-largest, officials say listening to the commission’s guidance could complicate their efforts to keep federal agents from interfering with voting.

The guidance lays out steps for election officials to take when federal agents appear. Chief inspectors are instructed to immediately notify their municipal clerk, who must then contact the county clerk and commission staff. Agents carrying out legitimate law enforcement duties, rather than observing voting, are treated differently. In those cases, election officials are told to request identification and any warrants, document the encounter and ask officers to conduct their business outside the voting area when possible.

The commission also tells election inspectors they can remove observers if they have a reasonable basis to believe they are, or are about to, intimidate or disrupt voters. In its instructions addressing local law enforcement officers who insist on observing while armed and in uniform, the guidance leaves inspectors to determine whether their presence crosses that line.

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell took issue in particular with the statement that if federal agents wish to observe, they can check in like regular observers.

“It’s inaccurate,” said McDonell, a Democrat. “It’s confusing. It doesn’t reflect what the law is.”

If a back-office ICE employee who’s unarmed wants to observe, that might be fine, McDonell said. “But that’s not how I think anyone would read that,” he said, saying clerks may assume the sentence is referring to armed federal agents.

Sharing McDonell’s concerns, Gault, the Dane County in-house attorney, sent an email to Wisconsin Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe on Oct. 15, the same day the commission finalized the guidance.

Gault said that while armed ICE agents are clearly banned from the polls under federal law, a separate federal law bars a person acting under the color of law from intimidating voters. Gault argued that it would ban even an unarmed but uniformed ICE agent from observing at the polls.

“There is no legitimate reason for ICE to be at a polling place,” he told Wolfe. “Everyone there is presumptively a U.S. citizen. I don’t think WEC’s guidance should imply that an ICE agent can be a legitimate observer.”

Commission attorney supervisor Angela O’Brien Sharpe disagreed, saying federal law doesn’t address every situation that may bring federal agents to the polls. “If federal law enforcement wishes to observe an election, then they are permitted to do so,” she said, adding that they would be subject to Wisconsin observer rules.

She emphasized that the guidance does not authorize armed federal observers and was intended to help poll workers “manage how to respond to varying situations like these” including deciding whether an officer’s presence constitutes intimidation or a disturbance.

Gault was unsatisfied, calling the guidance “confusing at best.”

“If asked, this office will advise election officials and law enforcement in Dane County that armed federal agents should not be at a polling place under any circumstances,” he wrote. “If they are there legitimately to vote they should at a minimum be unarmed.”

Local attorneys can offer advice to city and county election offices that contradicts the commission’s, Sharpe said.

Little precedent for federal agents observing elections

Federal election monitors from the Justice Department have observed voting for decades, but the prospect of ICE or FBI agents arriving at polling places specifically to monitor voting presents a largely untested legal question.

Justin Levitt, an election law specialist at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who worked in the White House under President Joe Biden on voting rights issues, said the commission’s guidance is “legit and accurate,” adding that it’s “straight down the middle of providing lawful advice without picking a fight.”

“I understand why Dane County wants a different emphasis,” Levitt said. “I don’t think that means they were right and the state was wrong. I think that just means they’ve got different interests here.”

He said the commission and Dane County agree more than they disagree: They both agree that armed agents are banned at the polls and that chief inspectors can kick out anyone intimidating voters.

Had the commission gone further and said ICE was banned from the polls entirely, he said, “That would actually be getting Wisconsin in trouble because you cannot single out federal officials for special treatment.”

Sterling Knoche, a staff attorney at the University of Wisconsin Law School-based State Democracy Research Initiative, similarly said the guidance provides clerks with good instructions for minimizing disruptions at the polling place while instructing them to consult the people who could seek a court injunction if necessary.

Knoche said the commission may not have had a sound legal basis to categorically prohibit unarmed federal agents in uniform from observing. Whether their presence is lawful would depend on their conduct and the circumstances, he said.

In Milwaukee on Monday, Wolfe drew a similar distinction. She said that federal and state law prohibits armed federal agents from showing up at the polls, but said the legality of unarmed agents observing is less clear. In that case, she said, chief inspectors and poll workers must determine whether their presence intimidates or disturbs voters.

How clerks are preparing to apply the guidance

Local officials offered differing assessments of how useful the guidance would be, even as some agreed that federal agents in uniform could intimidate voters.

Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood, a Republican, said the guidance was “fine.” She said county clerks have been coordinating with their local sheriffs, who would be their first call if federal agents do show up at the polls. If she were an inspector, she said, she would not allow federal law enforcement agents to register as observers if they’re in uniform, even if they were unarmed.

“We would be on a very strong legal footing to say, ‘You standing there in your FBI vest is intimidating to voters, and so we’re not going to allow that,’” she said.

In an interview, Green Bay Police Chief Chris Davis told Votebeat that the guidance was quite helpful and would be instructive in the unlikely situation that federal agents show up at a city polling place.

“We have to make a decision about what to do fairly quickly,” he said, “so any time we can get guidance like this from an authority, it helps us do that.”

Green County Clerk Arianna Voegeli, a Democrat, said the commission’s guidance came late but was consistent with the guidance that she already had given to local election officials. She agreed that the mere presence of federal officers in uniform could constitute voter intimidation, though she said it’s a legal gray area if they’re unarmed.

“I’m not too concerned about issues here in Green County, just because we’re a smaller county,” she said, though she’s discussed the issue with law enforcement and feels prepared. Larger counties, she said, have likely developed their own plans already.

McDonell, the Dane County clerk, said this guidance might add to the confusion for some clerks instead of taking away from it.

“It would have been better if they hadn’t sent this out,” he said. “It’s at minimum badly worded.”

Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

Can unarmed ICE agents watch voting? In Wisconsin that depends on who you ask 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.

Single-family home completions remain stuck at early pandemic levels as of September as costs, labor supply shortages and high interest take a toll on home builders, especially in the Northeast and South. 

Apartment building was a more mixed picture, down nationally but up sharply in the Midwest (53%) and West (18%). 

New single–family homes dropped to an annual rate of 840,000, the lowest since May 2020, according to new U.S. Census Bureau survey results released Oct. 20. 

Single-family home completions fell in every region, especially in the Northeast (-17%) and South (-15%).  

Builders of single-family homes are stymied by rising mortgage rates, costs for energy and materials, and worsening labor supply, according to an October survey by the National Association of Home Builders. 

More than a third of home builders said immigration enforcement activity caused construction delays and discouraged legal workers from reporting for work, said  Bill Owens, chairman of the home builders group, in a statement. 

Buyer interest in new homes has fallen as costs rise, NAHB chief economist Robert Dietz said, and 43% of builders cut prices in October, the largest share in recent years. 

“Housing remains squeezed by supply-side constraints and significant affordability challenges,” Dietz said in a statement. 

New apartments came in at an annual rate of 339,000, an increase from August’s 295,000, which was the lowest since 2022. Apartment completions were down 64% in the Northeast and 37% in the South. 

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

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Elections officials in battleground Wisconsin on Thursday approved guidance for local clerks to help them know what to do if federal law enforcement officials show up at the polls on Election Day, as some activists fear might happen.

A Republican on the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission cast the lone vote against sending the guidance, saying it “is only going to scare away some people from the polls.” A hotly contested race for governor tops the ballot in Wisconsin.

“I personally think this guidance is unnecessary because we have not seemed to need it the past 201 years,” Republican Commissioner Bob Spindell said.

Clerks have been deluged with questions from voters about what they would do if agents showed up at the polls, Wisconsin elections administrator Meagan Wolfe said. The guidance is intended to explain how to handle it, she said.

“I see this as just like any other contingency planning we do to assist our clerks,” she said.

The memo tells Wisconsin’s roughly 1,800 clerks who administer elections what to do if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, Department of Homeland Security officials, FBI agents or local law enforcement shows up at the polls.

If officers arrive, the guidance says the head of the polling site should inform the municipal clerk, who should then tell the county clerk and the state elections commission. If the agents are there to observe, they must check in like any other observer and be subject to rules governing them, the guidance says.

Democratic commissioner Ann Jacobs said she was concerned about uniformed officers intimidating voters. The commission agreed to her recommendation that the guidance tell clerks to encourage law enforcement agents planning to come to the polls to be in plain clothes and not uniforms.

“I don’t think we want full flak jacket, whatever, law enforcement three feet from our voters,” Jacobs said. “I think that is much different from an ordinary, quiet observation by somebody in plain clothes.”

Department of Homeland Security officials have said they don’t plan to send immigration enforcement officers en masse to patrol the polls and have dismissed concerns that they plan to do so as “fearmongering.”

Election legal experts say federal law clearly prevents the government from deploying any armed troops, agents or officers to election sites except to “repel armed enemies of the United States” — a high bar to clear.

But organizations that represent Latino, Black and Asian American voters say the rhetoric and ICE’s own activity make them worried at a time the number of immigration arrests is soaring as President Donald Trump carries out his mass deportation agenda.

Wisconsin elections officials have been traveling the state in recent days holding news conferences to discuss the process for casting and counting ballots. They have been saying they don’t anticipate anything unusual at the polls this year.

“I expect this election will go like all other elections,” Republican Don Millis, chair of the elections commission, said Thursday.

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 election officials issue guidance for handling federal agents at polls 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.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection need to improve oversight and guidance for federal immigration officers’ use of body-worn cameras, according to a Wednesday report from independent federal investigators.

Officials with the Department of Homeland Security, however, resisted a recommendation in the report from the Government Accountability Office that ICE change its current policy, in which agents choose when to manually turn on body cameras, as opposed to automatic activation. 

In a response to GAO, the department — which oversees both agencies — argued that automatic activation on a body camera presents a risk to ongoing operations, such as recording sensitive interactions with informants or victims or inadvertently filming bystanders.  

GAO said that statement was insufficient. “However, DHS’s response did not include information on environments where automated activation could be effective, or other controls that could help ensure compliance with activating cameras when required by policy,” according to GAO. 

Multiple shootings

The report came after multiple high-profile cases of federal immigration officers shooting and killing people during interactions and enforcement actions, prompting calls for wider body camera use.

GAO made seven recommendations to the Department of Homeland Security to update its guidance for body cameras. 

The department agreed with six, but disagreed with implementing automated camera activation controls, arguing that ICE’s current policy  is sufficient. CBP does have automatic camera activation, which means the body camera turns on and starts recording when a weapon is drawn or emergency lights are turned on.

“Without reliable control activities, ICE risks gaps in documentation and video evidence that can make reviews of incidents more challenging,” according to GAO. 

After federal immigration officers killed two U.S. citizens in January during an aggressive deportation drive in Minneapolis, the Trump administration directed body cameras to immigration agents. 

In June, there were two back-to-back killings of immigrants in Texas and Maine that prompted border czar Tom Homan to announce that during traffic stops at least one ICE officer will wear a body camera. 

Democrats have also pushed for all federal immigration officers to wear body cameras in the wake of the killings and violent interactions from agents that were recorded by bystanders. 

Thousands of body cameras distributed

GAO investigators found that as of April, ICE issued 4,800 body cameras, splitting them evenly between its deportation wing of Enforcement and Removal Operations and the investigative law enforcement arm of ICE, Homeland Security Investigations. 

And in June, CBP issued approximately 11,500 cameras, mostly to Border Patrol.  

But GAO found problems in the cameras’ deployment.

“Most CBP and ICE offices have not developed specific operational guidance that explains how personnel should use, or not use, cameras under their unique operational circumstances,” according to the report. “The lack of guidance at this operational level increases the risk that CBP and ICE personnel will fail to use the cameras as required under policy.”

DHS agreed to the recommendations from GAO that the leaders of ICE and CBP should update their body camera program to include changes in requirements and costs and plan for any contingencies based on current risk. 

The department also agreed that CBP and ICE should implement goals to ensure effectiveness for the body-worn camera program and that both agencies should ensure their sub-agencies are also given proper guidance on the expectations and appropriate uses of the body cameras. 

WASHINGTON — This summer, arrests of immigrants in the United States soared to the highest levels since President Donald Trump returned to office.

An unprecedented increase in cooperation between local and state law enforcement and federal immigration officers through collaborations known as 287(g) agreements helped drive numbers up. 

The agreements allow state and local law enforcement agencies to enforce parts of federal immigration law and have become an arm of Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Republicans in Congress have provided billions in federal funding for local departments that accept the agreements, creating a deluge of new partners.

Theresa Cardinal Brown, a senior Department of Homeland Security official during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations, said the billions in new funding has helped the program grow. 

“Mostly, 287(g) agreements were voluntary, and the costs were borne by the state and local government to train their own people,” she said. “Now, the federal government has money to pay them, and so that’s encouraging more states and localities to do it because it’s a budget plus-up.”

In June, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement recorded roughly 43,000 immigration arrests, followed by 49,000 in July and nearly 51,000 in August. ICE does not distinguish between arrests initially made by local law enforcement or federal officials.

Those three months also saw the most new 287(g) agreements signed since Trump took office, according to a States Newsroom analysis of government data.

“ICE has increased efforts with state and local law enforcement to assist federal immigration officers in our efforts to make America safe again,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in a statement to States Newsroom.

But those efforts have generated protests in some of the communities where they’ve appeared.

Democrats in Maryland and Maine passed laws restricting cooperation between local police and ICE. The Maryland measure’s supporters said it would reduce distrust of police.

Skyrocketing growth

The president’s signature 2025 domestic policy bill, the “One, Big Beautiful” Act, set aside about $4 billion for state and local governments to conduct immigration enforcement, including 287(g) programs. The Secure America Act passed in June allocated more than $31 billion to implement those agreements as well. 

Both packages were passed by Republicans through a legislative maneuver known as reconciliation that did not need Democratic votes. 

The funds incentivized massive growth. 

Before Trump took office in January 2025, the federal government had agreements with 135 state and local police departments. As of Oct. 1, those agreements skyrocketed to 2,608, according to DHS data. 

Local departments or state agencies in 38 states have 287(g) agreements, with the highest numbers in Texas and Florida, where there are state laws requiring local law enforcement to partake in the program. 

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday the Florida Highway Patrol was eligible for $26 million in reimbursements from the federal government for arrests from April through June.

“My educated guess would be that a large number of the arrests and detentions that we’ve seen increasing in recent months in the summer were because there was an increase in 287(g) agreements in Texas and Florida, but other parts of the country as well,” said Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that studies global migration.

ICE does not always specify when an immigration arrest is made through the partnership program, but the Deportation Data Project, a project of the University of California schools in Berkeley and Los Angeles that analyzes government immigration enforcement data, has attributed at least 6,150 arrests in July, about 12.5% of all arrests for that month.

Only 12 states have no such agreements. They are California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state.

Three models

The partnership program was created in a 1996 law, but not actively used until the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It first received federal appropriations in 2006.

Three types of partnerships operate within the program.

The loosest type of agreement is the jail enforcement model, where deputized officers can inquire about the immigration status of people arrested on state or local charges, as well as hold a noncitizen for ICE to pick up for up to 48 hours. 

In another model, the warrants service officer model, ICE trains, certifies and allows state and local law enforcement to issue administrative warrants, which are not signed by a judge, but by an ICE official requesting the arrest of a noncitizen. Local law enforcement officers under this model do not inquire about immigration status. 

The task force model, which involves the greatest immigration enforcement by local officers, allows for immigration officials to deputize local officers to partake in immigration duties such as asking about immigration status or even detaining people and transferring them to ICE.

As part of its immigration crackdown, the second Trump administration revived the task force model after the Obama administration discontinued it in 2012 over concerns of racial profiling. 

It has seen the largest increase under Trump, Ruiz Soto said.

More than 71% of 287(g) agreements now use the task force model, according to Titus Consulting, a firm that tracks the agreements. About 7% use the jail enforcement model and more than 21% use the warrant model. 

The task force model is “hands down,” the most effective method in arresting noncitizens, said Todd Bensmen, a senior research fellow for the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. 

“If they’re not deputized under that, they just come into contact with people that are fully … deportable, and then just leave them be,” he said of local law enforcement. “They can just arrest them on the spot and call ICE, and that way you have a really dramatic force multiplier and ICE doesn’t have to do anything but come and pick them up.” 

Program changes

In 2006, the Bush administration took an interest in exploring 287(g) programs, specifically the jail enforcement model because it was easy for ICE to identify people who are subject to an immigration arrest, said Brown.

“If your job is to find people, wow, that’s the easiest thing to do,” she said of the jail model. 

Brown said that spurred the idea for the Secure Communities program. Under the program, the FBI automatically sent fingerprints of a person booked in custody to DHS to check against its immigration database. If the person was a noncitizen who was unauthorized in the U.S., then ICE was notified.

The program was voluntary, but there was pushback from immigration advocates during the Obama administration, Brown said. 

“There was a concern that this was mixing criminal enforcement and immigration enforcement in ways they weren’t meant to, (and) it was creating fear among immigration communities of reporting crimes for fear that they would be arrested,” she said. 

The Obama administration pulled back and redirected the Secure Communities program to a federal government model.  

“They turned it from like a community-by-community rollout to just a federal-to-federal information sharing agreement that remains in place today,” she said. 

Brown said the difference now is that some communities have decided when ICE is notified, if at all, and whether or not to honor detainers, which are requests from ICE to hold an immigrant until federal immigration officers arrive. 

Local governments that have not wanted to participate in federal immigration enforcement have been dubbed sanctuary cities. 

The Trump administration has threatened to pull federal funding from those cities that don’t want to aid in immigration enforcement and has offered an influx of cash to states and local governments that have agreed to participate. 

The Republican Congress has funded the program for the next three years, Ruiz Soto noted.

“It would then come to … what a future administration or a future Congress would do to continue expanding this or not fulfill them anymore,” he said. “But clearly right now ICE has significant funding to last for 287(g) and much more other enforcement in the near future.”

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This article was produced in partnership with the nonprofit journalism publication Bolts, which covers criminal justice and voting rights in local governments.

Click here to read highlights from the story

• Voters in Sauk and Winnebago counties will choose sheriffs who hold different views on local cooperation with ICE.
• Both Democratic candidates pledge to end their counties’ 287(g) agreements while their Republican opponents support continuing them in some form.
• In Sauk County, both candidates would maintain a contract allowing ICE to house detainees in the county jail, despite disagreeing over the financial and humanitarian implications.
• In Winnebago County, residents have also raised concerns about the law enforcement use of Flock license plate cameras.

Half an hour into a packed June candidate forum in Baraboo, the moderator turned to the issue looming over the race for Sauk County sheriff: immigration enforcement. 

“As chief law enforcement officer of Sauk County, how will you separate the demands of ICE from your duty to uphold the law and protect the residents of Sauk County?” Baraboo Optimist Club President Joseph Viney asked.  

The six candidates at the front of the public library conference room offered well-rehearsed responses.

Three months and a primary later, one Republican and one Democrat remain, with the question still central to the race ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

“People are fired up and they’re frustrated with ICE in general from a national perspective, and it does have local consequences,” Ryan Jesberger, the Democratic nominee, told Wisconsin Watch and Bolts.

ICE agents haven’t turned up in large numbers in the largely rural south-central Wisconsin county to check homes, jobsites and cars for undocumented immigrants. Unlike in neighboring Illinois and Minnesota, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has relied on jails and prisons to make most of its arrests in Wisconsin since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025. 

Sauk County is no exception. ICE has recorded about 100 arrests in the county during that period, almost all through custody transfers at the local jail. An agreement between the sheriff’s office and federal authorities makes a small portion of those arrests possible by allowing county jail supervisors to play a limited role in immigration enforcement.

The Sauk County Sheriff’s Office is one of 20 county law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin that cooperate with ICE through 287(g) agreements: voluntary partnerships allowing designated local officers to carry out some immigration enforcement tasks. Voters in two of those counties — Sauk and Winnebago counties, 90 miles apart — will have a say in the future of their sheriffs’ ICE partnerships this fall. Trump won both counties by less than 5 percentage points in 2024.

The Trump administration has tapped local law enforcement agencies across the country for help in its immigration enforcement push, often in the form of 287(g) agreements. Those arrangements are drawing pushback from immigrant rights organizations and, in some cases, shaking up local elections.

Sheriffs are “the most important state(-level) race for immigration purposes,” said Hannah Schwarz, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Wisconsin. The civil liberties organization opposes local law enforcement cooperation with ICE. 

Sauk and Winnebago county voters will now choose between Republicans promising to stay the course and Democrats campaigning to dial back cooperation with immigration authorities. Both Democrats promise to quit the 287(g) program as soon as they take office.

But the partisan split conceals a more complicated policy landscape in Sauk County, where both candidates in the race favor keeping in place a contract that allows ICE to rent out space in the local jail to detain immigrants.

In Sauk, ICE cooperation takes multiple forms

Sauk County sits on the edge of Wisconsin’s Driftless Area, a region of sandstone bluffs and organic farms that has veered toward Republicans over the past three presidential elections after more than a decade of favoring Democrats. 

Baraboo, the county seat, peters out into cornfields within city limits. Wisconsin Dells, the Midwest’s waterpark capital, spills across the county’s northern boundary. The city’s resorts hire foreign workers on temporary visas ahead of the summer rush; other immigrants, many without visas, milk cows on the county’s dairy farms. 

Signed by Sheriff Richard “Chip” Meister in November 2025, Sauk County’s 287(g) agreement enables the county’s six jail supervisors to execute immigration warrants on people in county custody — a task ICE officers would otherwise perform. Executing an immigration warrant transfers them to ICE custody. 

The Sauk arrangement “streamline(s) our existing relationship with ICE,” Meister wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch and Bolts.

But Meister is set to retire this year after 16 years, leaving the future of this arrangement uncertain. He endorsed Capt. Matt Burch, a Republican, ahead of the August primary; Burch won the primary by a wide margin. 

He takes a position similar to Meister’s. 

“Our focus remains strictly on removing individuals who commit serious crimes rather than targeting members of our community solely based on their immigration status,” Burch wrote in an email. He does not, however, plan to extend the office’s partnership with ICE beyond the county jail. “Our authority applies exclusively to individuals who are already in our custody for violating local or state laws.” 

About half of people transferred from the Sauk County Jail to ICE during Trump’s second term had prior criminal convictions, a Wisconsin Watch and Bolts analysis shows; the other half had pending criminal charges. At least 8% of those transferred to ICE custody inside the jail had a prior conviction for driving while intoxicated — by far the most common conviction among Sauk County arrestees.

Jesberger, the Democratic candidate running against Burch and a University of Wisconsin-Madison police lieutenant, promises to end the county’s 287(g) agreement “on day one.”

“It’s not an anti-ICE or pro-ICE view,” he said. “We’re not talking (about) not doing any interaction,” he added, but instead about scaling back the county’s role. Jesberger also argues the 287(g) agreement sidesteps a contentious and unresolved question about the limits of local law enforcement’s arrest powers.

Law enforcement agencies with or without 287(g) agreements can choose to honor ICE “detainer” requests, which can entail holding people in jail up to 48 hours past their scheduled release to give immigration agents time to take them into custody.

The ACLU of Wisconsin petitioned the state Supreme Court in September 2025 to take up a lawsuit claiming five Wisconsin sheriffs’ offices — including Sauk County’s — violate state law by honoring the requests. The lawsuit argues that jailing someone beyond the person’s scheduled release date on an ICE detainer qualifies as an arrest and that state law does not authorize law enforcement to make arrests solely on the agency’s administrative warrants. 

The lawsuit is currently caught in a jurisdictional tug-of-war.

Jesberger shares the ACLU’s view on detainers, which he called “request(s) to take an action we are not authorized to take.” 

“It’s easy to say we should just hold onto someone,” he wrote in an email. “The problem is that under Wisconsin Law, there is no legal authority to conduct an arrest on this civil detainer.”

Jesberger would, however, honor warrants signed by a judge.

A 287(g) agreement enabling jail supervisors to serve immigration warrants is not the same as honoring ICE detainers, he added, but it still blurs jurisdictional lines. “Entering into the agreement to act as federal agents,” he said, “is going around state law.”

Jesberger also argues that even the county’s current agreement can strain sheriff’s office resources.

“Our deputies are busy enough doing things for the citizens of Sauk County,” he said, “so adding roles and responsibilities and, frankly, liability on top of all that is a concern of mine.”

Alongside its participation in the 287(g) program, Sauk County built on its partnership with ICE last year when it extended a long-standing agreement to hold federal detainees to include people held on immigration grounds. 

The county’s original agreement with the U.S. Marshals Service dates back more than two decades. The sheriff’s office modified that agreement in April 2025 to also include ICE. More than 200 ICE detainees have since passed through Sauk County, most of whom entered ICE custody either at the jail or in other Wisconsin correctional facilities.

ICE reimburses the county $106 per day for housing a person in removal proceedings, plus $38.45 per hour for staff time spent transporting ICE detainees. That contract yielded more than $150,000 for the Sauk County Sheriff’s Office between January and June – less than 1% of the office’s annual budget, and about 15% of what Burch calls its “flexible” budget, or the portion not already devoted to wages and benefits. 

“That money is important to us,” Burch said at the June forum.

Jesberger also promises to maintain the county’s contract to provide jail space for ICE detainees, though he pushes back on Burch’s focus on the revenue it yields, calling on law enforcement to “stop talking about human beings as numbers or revenue generation.” 

Instead, he sees the housing contract as a way to protect immigrants’ due process rights while they await rulings in their removal cases. 

Aside from offering Wisconsin-based attorneys easier access to their clients, Jesberger argues that a responsibly managed contract can ensure people in custody “are treated with respect and dignity, are not laying on a concrete floor with a foil blanket in overcrowded cells (and) are not being shipped out of state to detention facilities with inhumane conditions.”

Some Wisconsin immigration attorneys and immigrant rights advocates aren’t sold on that pitch. “Any amount of custody is an incentive for ICE to continue” its crackdown, said Aissa Olivarez of the Community Immigration Law Center in Madison.

Schwarz of the ACLU of Wisconsin agrees, saying that housing contracts like Sauk County’s make it easier — and cheaper — for the agency to scale up its operations.

Cooperating with ICE in any capacity has a “chilling effect” on immigrant communities, Milwaukee-based immigration attorney Marc Christopher said, and can make immigrants less likely to contact law enforcement in an emergency.

But Christopher also noted that Sauk County is far easier to reach than the larger detention facilities in Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana and Texas where many Wisconsin arrestees land while awaiting outcomes in their removal cases. “I can meet with them in person,” he said. “Their families know where they are, and their families can meet with them.”

Jesberger and Burch have no debates scheduled ahead of Election Day, but a local coalition that opposes all cooperation with federal immigration authorities is planning an Oct. 3 event featuring the ACLU of Wisconsin and immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera. 

In Winnebago, sheriff candidates diverge amid a broader debate on surveillance

Eastern Wisconsin’s Winnebago County is more than twice as populous as Sauk County. Sheriff John Matz entered its 287(g) agreement — also a warrant service model — in March 2025. 

ICE has recorded roughly 25 arrests in the county since last January, almost all inside its jail. Capt. Darin Rice, the Republican running to replace the retiring Matz, says that low number is no reason to end the agreement. 

“I do believe that it needs to continue,” he told a packed audience in an Oshkosh City Hall conference room in September. Still, he underscored that he isn’t interested in “street-level enforcement” or renting jail beds to ICE.

Rice is running against his colleague, Patrol Officer Jason Rippl.

Rippl, the Democratic candidate, has broader 287(g) qualms than Jesberger. 

“I feel like the 287(g) agreement may open the door for additional involvement with (ICE),” he told Wisconsin Watch and Bolts, “and I think that by any modern law enforcement standards, we’ve seen pretty clearly that their tactics are sloppy.”

He promises to void the county’s 287(g) agreement on his first day in office, which he argues would free up time to “clean up our own backyard” by digging out of a backlog of warrants unrelated to immigration.

Rippl said he would honor warrants signed by a judge, but he doesn’t “feel it is the responsibility of local jails” to hold inmates beyond their release date based solely on a non-binding ICE request. 

Though Winnebago County isn’t named in the ACLU lawsuit, a ruling could affect any Wisconsin county’s ability to honor ICE detainer requests. Sheriffs could also refuse to honor detainers absent a court ruling, as some have done elsewhere.

The early attention on Winnebago County’s relationship with ICE may be shifting to law enforcement’s use of surveillance technology. Both Rice and Rippl said they had reservations about the handling of sensitive data from the license plate cameras, citing the well-documented recent history of the technology’s misuse.

The Winnebago County sheriff’s office decided in early September to suspend its partnership with Flock, the embattled tech company that has built up an extensive camera network nationwide and has drawn increasingly bipartisan backlash this year. 

Sauk County’s sheriff’s office continues to operate Flock cameras, introduced as part of a pilot project last year. Burch, the GOP nominee for sheriff, called the program a  “pet project” and credits the cameras for solving several high-stakes cases. Other law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin have, like Winnebago County, ended their contracts with Flock.

“We had a lot of pushback early on to the 287(g) program,” Rice told Wisconsin Watch and Bolts. “That’s now taken a back seat to Flock cameras.”

Rippl agreed that Flock is “certainly the more prevalent conversation topic” in his conversations with constituents, though he does not believe it has “overshadowed” the 287(g) debate.

Ongoing controversies over ICE’s use of Flock camera data link the two issues.

404 Media revealed last year that local law enforcement agencies across the country have queried data from Flock cameras on ICE’s behalf, including some in states with strict restrictions on local cooperation with ICE. Wisconsin has no such restrictions. 

The Sauk and Winnebago County sheriffs did not reply to a request for comment on how often their Flock cameras have been used for immigration enforcement. In Verona, a Madison suburb with a population roughly one tenth of Winnebago County’s, public records revealed hundreds of searches tied to ICE last year.

Correction: This story has been updated to note that Ryan Jesberger is a University of Wisconsin–Madison police lieutenant. A previous version incorrectly reported that he was a former lieutenant.

Two Wisconsin sheriff races test the future of local ICE cooperation 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.

Concerned about conditions in federal immigrant detention facilities but often barred from entering them, some Democratic-led states are fighting to enforce their own health and safety standards at the sites.

The Trump administration, citing the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, argues that states don’t have the authority to regulate federal facilities.

But states counter that because the federal government has contracted with private companies to operate the sites, they have the right — and the responsibility — to make sure those companies follow state health and safety rules.

Washington state, for example, is embroiled in legal fight with the Florida-based GEO Group over a 2023 law that directs state health officials to regularly inspect privately run detention facilities, including those holding immigrants. The GEO Group operates nearly two dozen immigrant detention facilities nationwide.

Despite the law, state health inspectors have repeatedly been denied access to a GEO Group facility in Tacoma, where there have been allegations of medical mistreatment, abuse and neglect and concerns about water quality and food. In an April legal filing, the state cited complaints of rotten, bug-riddled food and only two working bathrooms for 100 people.

The state health department says it has received more than 3,500 complaints about the Northwest ICE Processing Center, but has been denied access 10 times since 2023.

“Our point is that GEO is a private entity, and so it doesn’t get to claim these federal preemption defenses because those are reserved for the federal government,” said Ellen Range, a section chief in the Washington Office of the Attorney General.

“You can’t contract around the law,” Range added.

The GEO Group did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But during a May earnings call, George Zoley, the CEO, chairman and founder of the company, decried what he called “unwarranted litigation” and described state efforts to inspect the detention facilities as “fundamentally unconstitutional.”

“As some blue states are considering more active involvement in oversight of facilities, I think the logical solution to much of that is federal ownership of the facilities. They are federal facilities to begin with, in my opinion,” Zoley said.

Federal ownership “will provide stronger credibility in the courts…that these are federal facilities carrying out the congressional priorities of immigration programs and policies that Congress has passed,” Zoley added, “and that states can only have very limited involvement in those policies and programs.”

At least two other states have enacted laws this year that are similar to Washington’s.

Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey last month signed a law that empowers the state auditor to inspect immigrant detention facilities to make sure they are following local health and safety rules. And in June, Colorado enacted a measure that strengthens the authority of state and local health officials to inspect immigrant detention facilities, ratchets up the frequency of unannounced inspections and specifies what inspectors must look for.

The Colorado law also includes a civil penalty of up to $50,000 for facilities that refuse to allow an inspection.

“Our community has been outraged by the conditions in these holding facilities and in these detention centers,” Colorado Democratic state Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, who authored the bill, said.

“I think that it’s important for the state to set guidelines and guardrails, and for contractors to follow the law,” Velasco said. “The issue is that they’re saying that they are exempted from the law because they are a federal contractor. So that has been very frustrating.”

Colorado and the GEO Group also have been facing off in court. Last month, Colorado sued the company for refusing access and information requests related to a confirmed tuberculosis case at its facility in Aurora. The next day, a federal judge blocked part of Colorado’s law in response to a GEO Group lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the measure.

And in California, Democrats are trying to renew a law that directs the state attorney general to regularly review conditions in detention facilities and report back to lawmakers and the governor. That law is scheduled to expire next year, but Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta is pushing legislation that would extend it indefinitely.

In an email, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said that the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement “is regularly audited and inspected by external agencies.”

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, quality water, blankets, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” the spokesperson wrote. “In fact, ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens.”

Disturbing reports

In May, the Trump administration shuttered the Office of Immigration Detention Ombudsman, created by Congress in 2019 to investigate detainee deaths, access to health care and other issues.

But another government watchdog, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security, last week released a report on its January 2026 inspection of the Florida ICE facility widely known as “Alligator Alcatraz.” Inspectors found that detainees were kept in small metal enclosures for up to two hours, and didn’t have clean drinking water, daily showers, or safely stored food. The facility closed in June.

Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, issued a report citing “over a thousand credible reports of human rights abuses” in immigrant detention facilities since President Donald Trump began his second term. Investigators from Ossoff’s staff found 44 reports of family separation, including mothers being separated from their breastfeeding infants; 206 reports of medical neglect; 88 reports of physical and sexual abuse; and 139 reports of denial of adequate food and water.

The reports come as ICE, using new tactics and striving to meet daily arrest quotas, is detaining more people: Federal immigration authorities say they arrested 51,000 immigrants in July, more than any other month of the Trump administration.

The number of people in detention soared to more than 65,700 in mid-July, compared to 37,000 two years ago, an increase of about 70%, according to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University research group.

“It is worth saying that the detention system has changed a lot in the last year and a half. It’s roughly doubled in size,” said Scott Shuchart, who served as assistant director for regulatory affairs at ICE from 2022 to 2025.

“We’re basically holding people who either haven’t committed a crime or who aren’t being detained for having committed a crime as though they were criminals, and then we do it very badly,” he said. “ICE is not constituted or equipped to manage the contractor facilities well — it has never done it well.”

Taking responsibility

Jennifer Ibañez Whitlock, senior policy counsel at the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for low-income immigrants, said states that are trying to enforce health and safety rules in detention facilities are struggling to fill the oversight role that federal immigration authorities have abdicated.

“It has created this tricky litigation issue, where a state trying to protect the people in ICE facilities has to sue both the federal government — ICE — and a private prison company,” Whitlock said. “And what these two entities often do is it’s a little bit of like hot potato, where the private prison company says, ‘Oh, we’re not the right defendant.’”

Claire Trickler-McNulty, an assistant director in the Department of Homeland Security during the Biden administration who helped oversee ICE detention facilities, cautioned that there could be some unintended consequences of the new state laws.

Federal contractors might opt to move detainees out of a state where there are a lot of restrictions to one with fewer restrictions, said Trickler-McNulty, who is now an immigration policy fellow at Hyphen, a nonprofit group. That would make it more difficult for families of detainees to support or even find their loved ones from a distance.

She also suggested, as Zoley of the GEO Group did, that the federal government might buy more facilities to thwart state oversight. In that case, states would have to think creatively about what they can control.

For example, she said, federal facilities will still have to use local resources, such as sewage and water lines, and likely would have to hire private contractors to handle security.

“The actual facility is quite dependent on the state and local resources. So ideally, it would be a collaborative arrangement,” she said. “If you want it to be better and have improvements, you really need a willing partner on the other side.”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — A coalition of civil rights groups and union organizations Friday sued the Trump administration to prevent the deployment of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to polling locations during November’s midterm elections.

The suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is the second this month, following comments from top Trump officials citing a federal policy to allow ICE officers to enter polling locations in certain circumstances to conduct immigration enforcement.

The groups argue the policy violates the federal law that prohibits “armed men” at election sites, and also causes voter intimidation, which is barred under the Voting Rights Act.

Under federal law, “troops” or “armed men” are allowed at polling locations only if “such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States.” And the section of the Voting Rights Act the groups cite prohibits “intimidation,” “threats,” or “coercion” against a person for voting or attempting to vote.

“The result is predictable: voters across the country—particularly Black, Latino, and Asian voters, naturalized citizens, and members of mixed-status families—are afraid to vote, help others vote, and participate in civic life,” according to the suit. 

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin earlier this month noted that agents could conduct immigration enforcement at polling places. And before U.S. senators this week, FBI Director Kash Patel did not rule out sending FBI agents to polling locations, but said officers would “follow the law.”

The Department of Justice dismissed the idea that officers would be sent to polling locations. 

“The DOJ has never said it would send federal law enforcement to polling locations,” a DOJ spokesperson said in a statement to States Newsroom. “Any suggestion otherwise is fearmongering.”

In a statement to States Newsroom, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said those “who are here legally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear.”

“Allegations that DHS law enforcement engages in ‘racial profiling’ are disgusting, reckless, and categorically FALSE,” the spokesperson said. “What makes someone a target for immigration enforcement is if they are illegally in the U.S.—NOT their skin color, race, or ethnicity.”

The DHS spokesperson added that ICE was not planning any operations that targeted polling locations. 

NAACP among groups suing

“We reject this administration’s attempt to desecrate our polling sites by converting them into militarized zones through the unlawful deployment of ICE or any other federal agent,” Kristen Clarke, the NAACP’s general counsel, said in a statement. 

NAACP is one of nine groups that filed suit. The rest are Mi Familia en Accion, Asian Pacific American Advocates, the National Urban League, Minnesota 8, the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of Teachers, the International Union of Painters and the United Food and Commercial Workers International.

“Turning the fundamental right of exercising our vote into a high-stakes encounter with the militarized strong arm of the current administration isn’t protection and it isn’t oversight; it’s disenfranchisement, period,” Clarke said. “The NAACP calls on the court to reject this blatant attempt by federal officials to obstruct our elections through tactics pulled straight from the Jim Crow playbook.” 

The nine groups are represented by the Legal Defense Fund, the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, LatinoJustice PRLDEF, the National Immigration Law Center, Protect Democracy and the Democracy Defenders Fund. 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled this week that it would not suspend the legal license of former Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, who was convicted earlier this year of obstructing federal agents trying to make an immigration arrest in the county courthouse. 

In an order released Wednesday, the Court overruled the request of the state Office of Lawyer Regulation to suspend her license on the grounds that she was convicted of a “serious crime.” Wisconsin’s court rules state attorneys found guilty of a serious crime can have their licenses suspended until their disciplinary proceedings are complete. 

Dugan was convicted of one felony count of endeavoring to obstruct a pending proceeding after helping an undocumented man appearing in her court briefly evade federal agents. The case drew national attention and in July she was sentenced to pay a $5,000 fine. 

The Supreme Court suspended Dugan from her position as a circuit court judge in April 2025, shortly after she was arrested. 

In its Wednesday order, the Court found that “in its exercise of its discretion … a summary suspension of Attorney Dugan’s license to practice law is not warranted under the facts of the matter.” 

The two conservatives on the Court, Brian Hagedorn and Annette Ziegler, dissented from the order. 

Ziegler wrote that the standard practice of the Court has historically been to suspend attorneys convicted of crimes to expedite the investigation of the Office of Lawyer Regulation. She also questioned why the majority wouldn’t act to discipline Dugan for her actions. 

“These charges concerned then-Judge Dugan, in her capacity as a circuit court judge, wearing a judicial robe, at the courthouse, obstructing federal agents,” Ziegler wrote. “I am confounded by our court’s inaction.”

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The family of a Milwaukee man falsely accused last year of threatening to kill President Donald Trump plans to sue the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for $5.5 million for emotional pain and suffering.

Ramón Morales Reyes, 56, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on May 22, 2025. Six days later, then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem issued a press release accusing him of sending a handwritten letter to ICE stating he would self-deport after using a hunting rifle to “shoot your precious president in his head.”

The letter was fake and didn’t come from Morales Reyes. Milwaukee resident Demetric Scott later admitted writing it to frame Morales Reyes to prevent him from testifying against Scott in an upcoming trial. Scott was convicted of identity theft and witness intimidation and sentenced in February to more than 16 years in prison.

At a press conference Friday in Milwaukee, attorneys representing Morales Reyes said DHS knew the threat was fake but still told the nation their client intended to assassinate Trump.

His children said the lie hurt their family and they just want things to go back to normal.

“Seeing my dad being framed for something he did not do was very heartbreaking,” said Ana Morales, the 25-year-old daughter of Morales Reyes. “He’s been going through depression, anxiety, he doesn’t like going out anymore because he feels like everyone knows him due to what he was framed as, and ever since it has taken a lot from us.”

Milwaukee immigration attorney Caine Oulahan, who represents Morales Reyes, said local law enforcement and the U.S. Secret Service had determined he didn’t write the letter days before issuing their release.

“And after they determined it was likely not him, it was still published,” Oulahan said.  

An affidavit from a Milwaukee Police Department officer who also works with the FBI states that they interviewed Morales Reyes on May 22, 2025. The officer said he didn’t believe Morales Reyes sent the threatening letter. A search warrant of Scott’s calls from jail also produced recordings in which Scott coordinated with someone to send packets to several law enforcement officials. Scott said his plan was to have Morales Reyes arrested so the criminal case against him would be dropped.

“And the judge will agree ’cause if he gets picked up by ICE, there won’t be a jury trial so they will probably dismiss it that day,” Scott said. “That’s my plan.”

That DHS press release is still online. A small disclaimer was added at the bottom stating Morales Reyes “is no longer under investigation for threats against the President” but he still faces deportation proceedings

The Morales Reyes family has notified DHS it intends to sue the agency for $5.5 million for emotional pain and suffering caused by the federal government’s false claim. According to the legal claim, DHS also posted that day on X thanking ICE officers for detaining Morales Reyes for threatening to assassinate Trump.

The White House Instagram account later posted Morales Reyes’ face alongside the letter used to frame him.

Antonio Morales, the 20-year-old son of Morales Reyes, said he was scared when he saw negative comments about his father online. He said he believes DHS knew the posts contained false information at the time. 

“It was hard seeing your dad all over social media posted as some sort of assassin almost, and that’s just not who my father is,” Antonio Morales said. “I really think that they knew what they were doing. They wanted to do this to more immigrants, and they really want to keep terrorizing the community going forward.” 

Attorney Mark Thomsen, who also sits on the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said the case is about more than compensation for the family. 

“They knew it was a lie, and they still haven’t taken it down,” Thomsen said. “They haven’t thought for a second about apologizing. This is the most powerful government in the world, and here they are out to crush us, each of us, like bugs, like gnats on a rhinoceros.”

Thomsen said it’s up to everyone in America to stop tolerating a federal government willing to lie in pursuit of the Trump’s aggressive deportation efforts.

DHS did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the family’s claim.

The deportation proceedings against Morales Reyes come amid reporting that ICE arrests and detentions in Wisconsin have hit new highs this summer, with 220 arrests in June — up from 119 in May, according to a Wisconsin Watch analysis.

Voces de la Frontera Executive Director Christine Neumann-Ortiz said the most recent surge occurred mostly in Milwaukee from late June through the July 4 holiday weekend. She said immigration agents used excessive force in several alleged cases, and that the group’s statewide network of ICE observers must continue.

A version of this story was originally published by WPR.

Family of Milwaukee man falsely accused of threatening Trump plans to sue DHS 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 arrests in Wisconsin hit a new peak. Follow what happens next. 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 appeals court in Chicago on Thursday rejected the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy for immigrants in removal proceedings, ending its split over a year-old policy that has prevented thousands of immigrants in federal custody from requesting bond. 

The 2-1 decision may allow hundreds of detainees in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin — the three states within the court’s jurisdiction — to seek bond hearings in immigration court.

At the center of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling: Jaciel Cirrus Rojas, a Mexican national who immigration authorities picked up in Racine last summer as “collateral” while searching for a different target. 

The 7th Circuit joins five other federal appeals courts in ruling against the detention policy. Two courts have sided with the administration, likely setting the stage for the nation’s highest court to take up the issue.

“Detention without sufficient purpose, or indefinitely prolonged detention, threatens due process,” Judge Joshua Kolar wrote in the court’s majority opinion, joined by Judge Candace Jackson-Akiwumi. Former President Joe Biden appointed both judges to the 7th Circuit.  

“My colleagues and I could debate until we’re blue in the face,” wrote Judge Diane Sykes, a George W. Bush appointee, in her solo dissent. 

“At this point, only the Supreme Court can bring uniformity and settle this question once and for all. I anticipate that it will do so soon.”

A fight over mandatory detention

The legal battle centers on opposing interpretations of a decades-old federal law.

The 1996 Immigration Reform Act requires immigration authorities to detain — without bond — anyone found crossing the U.S. border without authorization. Prior administrations applied that rule narrowly, allowing many immigrants arrested in the country’s interior to seek a bond hearing in immigration court.

The Trump administration bucked that approach in July 2025, when ICE Director Todd Lyons issued a new legal interpretation requiring detention without bond regardless of where immigrants are arrested.

The Board of Immigration Appeals, a panel of judges who set the rules for the federal immigration court system, signed off on the interpretation in September.

With bond off the table, tens of thousands of immigrants in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody turned to a backup option: filing habeas corpus petitions in federal district courts to challenge their detention. Unlike immigration courts, which are part of the U.S. Department of Justice, federal district courts belong to the judicial branch and, therefore, are technically independent of the White House. When a federal district court grants a habeas petition, it generally orders an immigration court judge to hold a bond hearing.

Wisconsin’s Western and Eastern District courts received roughly 100 habeas petitions in the past year. About 30 of those cases remained open as of Thursday, and the appeals court’s ruling does not necessarily take them off the docket.

From Racine to the 7th Circuit

Cirrus Rojas left his rural hometown in southern Mexico as a teenager, reuniting with his brother in Racine in 2018. He remained off immigration authorities’ radar until ICE agents arrived at his home in June 2025 looking for a prior tenant, said his attorney, Milwaukee-based Jennifer Bizzotto. 

“He answered their questions,” she added, “and they used his responses to detain him.” 

Wisconsin court records show no prior criminal convictions or civil citations under his name.

Cirrus Rojas’ first language is a dialect of Chatino, a group of indigenous languages spoken by roughly 50,000 people in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. 

“There are not a lot of forms or information available in Chatino,” Bizzotto added — a barrier that she said largely explains why Cirrus Rojas didn’t file for asylum until he entered ICE custody, citing fear of torture if he returned to Mexico.

He spent much of the following nine months in custody at the Dodge County jail as his case wound through the immigration court system, separated from his partner and child. Eastern District of Wisconsin Judge Brett Ludwig rejected his attempt to secure a bond hearing via habeas petition last October, but Cirrus Rojas and the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin appealed that denial to the 7th Circuit. 

Cirrus Rojas was among the relatively few ICE detainees able to leave custody on bond in February after a federal district court judge in California vacated the mandatory detention rule. The San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals stayed that decision less than a month later.

His case before the 7th Circuit continued even after he left custody. Just days before the Thursday ruling, immigration authorities signaled they intend to take Cirrus Rojas back into custody. He remained out of custody as of Friday afternoon.

Courts split nationwide

The 7th Circuit remained split on the issue for months, leaving Wisconsin’s federal district court judges to reach their own interpretations of the 1996 immigration law. Three judges in the Milwaukee-based U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin ruled in the Trump administration’s favor, while seven Wisconsin judges — including two in the Western District  — ruled against the administration. 

Federal appellate courts are similarly divided. The New Orleans-based 5th Circuit and the St. Louis-based 8th Circuit have upheld the mandatory detention rule; the former has jurisdiction over many of ICE’s largest detention facilities. The 7th Circuit joins appellate courts based in New York, Cincinnati, Denver, Atlanta and San Francisco in rejecting the rule. 

“If Congress had indeed demanded — but not funded — no-bond detention for all unlawful entrants, that may well have thrown the nation’s immigration system into chaos,” Kolar wrote. “Immigration authorities might have found themselves quickly overwhelmed by a colossal unfunded mandate to arrest and detain millions.”

Sykes took a different view of Congress’ goals. Lawmakers must have intended to “put all aliens who have not lawfully entered the country on equal footing,” she wrote, not to provide additional rights to those detained in the interior of the U.S.

A path to bond — for some

While detainees and attorneys nationwide await the Supreme Court’s guidance, some in Wisconsin are preparing for a wave of bond hearings. 

ICE held more than 1,000 people across Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin as of the beginning of July, including more than 100 at the Dodge County jail. The 7th Circuit’s ruling does not mean all of them will get a bond hearing. 

Congress’ 2025 Laken Riley Act requires detention without bond for immigrants “charged with, arrested for, (or) convicted of” an array of offenses ranging from shoplifting to assaulting a law enforcement officer. That requirement — along with procedural rules predating the Trump administration — could still bar some current detainees from securing bonds. 

Just over half of all ICE detainees who passed through Wisconsin detention facilities between January 2025 and March 2026 had prior criminal convictions, most commonly for driving under the influence of alcohol. Another quarter had pending criminal charges when they entered ICE custody. The share with no prior criminal history, including Cirrus Rojas, has climbed in recent months. 

The 7th Circuit’s ruling also does not force the hand of immigration court judges, who retain the authority to set bond amounts or reject bond requests altogether. 

“It was hard enough to get bond before this interpretation (took effect) last year,” said Milwaukee immigration attorney Ben Crouse, though the mandatory detention rule added costly and time-intensive hurdles.

The anticipated flood of bond hearing requests had yet to appear as of Thursday evening.

Bizzotto worries that the appeals court’s decision is another step in a game of “whack-a-mole.”

If some immigration judges begin denying bond requests “under any pretext,” she said, immigration attorneys may need to open a new front in federal court to push for more neutral arbitration.

Nevertheless, Bizzotto said she has already begun preparing a stack of bond hearing requests and expects fellow immigration attorneys are busy doing the same.

This story was updated with additional reporting.

Wisconsin immigrant’s case breaks appeals court split on mandatory detention rule 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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The chief federal judge for Wisconsin’s Eastern District has begun clearing a path to bond hearings for immigrants in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, months after attorneys first asked her to rule on challenges to the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy.

Over the past month, Judge Pamela Pepper has sided with at least four immigrants challenging the legality of their detention — her first rulings on a Department of Homeland Security policy that has landed thousands of immigrants nationwide in custody, sometimes for months.

Pepper’s rulings place her among a growing number of federal judges who have rejected the administration’s interpretation of immigration law. But courts nationwide remain divided over whether immigrants can seek release from ICE custody while fighting their deportation cases.

Those disagreements have created a patchwork of rulings that federal appeals courts or the U.S. Supreme Court may ultimately resolve.

Pepper, appointed by then-President Barack Obama in 2014 and the district’s chief judge since 2019, is among the last of her colleagues to rule on the issue.

New detention policy sparks dispute

The dispute centers on opposing interpretations of a decades-old federal law.

The 1996 Immigration Reform Act requires immigration authorities to detain — without bond — anyone found crossing the U.S. border without authorization. Prior administrations applied that rule narrowly, allowing many immigrants arrested in the country’s interior to seek a bond hearing in immigration court.

The Trump administration bucked that approach in July 2025, when ICE Director Todd Lyons issued a new legal interpretation requiring detention without bond regardless of where immigrants are arrested.

The Board of Immigration Appeals, a panel of judges who set the rules for the federal immigration court system, signed off on the interpretation in September.

With bond off the table, thousands of immigrants in ICE custody have turned to a backup option: filing habeas corpus petitions in federal district courts to challenge their detention. Unlike immigration courts, which are part of the U.S. Department of Justice, federal district courts belong to the judicial branch and, therefore, are technically independent of the White House. When a federal district court grants a habeas petition, it generally orders an immigration court judge to hold a bond hearing.

If the district court judge grants the petition in time for an immigrant to leave custody on bond, the person’s removal case moves to the slower-moving “non-detained” docket, buying time to build a case for staying in the U.S.

The mandatory detention policy has triggered tens of thousands of habeas petitions over the past year, overwhelming the federal prosecutors responsible for defending ICE detentions. Wisconsin accounts for roughly 100 of those cases, filed in its Western and Eastern District courts. Pepper received 15, more than any other Eastern District judge.

Judges split over Trump policy

Legal battles over the validity of the mandatory detention policy are still unfolding in federal courts nationwide.

Judges in Wisconsin’s Western District have uniformly rejected the mandatory detention policy while those in Wisconsin’s Eastern District remain divided.

Eastern District judges Brett Ludwig, William Griesbach and J.P. Stadtmueller — appointed by Presidents Trump, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan respectively — have consistently upheld the mandatory detention policy.

“It would make little sense to reward those undocumented immigrants who successfully evaded detection upon arrival in the United States and traveled into the interior of the country with discretionary release, while mandating the detention of those individuals who were not so successful or who sought entry at a border or port of entry,” Griesbach wrote in a December 2025 order denying a Venezuelan detainee’s petition.

Judges Lynn Adelman, Byron Conway, William Duffin and Nancy Joseph have each ruled against the mandatory detention policy at least once in the past year. Adelman and Conway were appointed by Democratic presidents; Duffin and Joseph were selected by a panel of judges.

“There are plausible reasons for treating noncitizens who are well-settled in communities, perhaps working jobs and supporting families, differently from new arrivals. As a noncitizen spends years in the country, it is expected that he or she will develop connections to the United States and its citizens that may help establish a defense to removal or a path to permanent legal status,” Adelman wrote in March.

Conway became the first Eastern District judge to rule on the issue last October, when he granted a habeas petition filed by a Nicaraguan man whom ICE agents arrested in Sun Prairie while searching for his roommate. Most Eastern District judges ruled on the mandatory detention policy within one to two months of receiving a petition challenging the policy.

Pepper didn’t grant a habeas petition until June, more than six months after that Nicaraguan petitioner sought the court’s intervention. She has yet to deny a petition.

Pepper echoed Adelman’s reasoning in her recent rulings, arguing in a June 17 order that the Trump administration’s interpretation of the 1996 law “cannot be squared with the text of the statute.”

Her order also noted inconsistencies within the federal appeals court that could settle the question in Wisconsin. Judges on the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears appeals from Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, remain divided on the detention policy.

The U.S. Department of Justice requested in May that the 7th Circuit hold expedited oral arguments, but it has yet to do so.

Appellate courts based in New York, Cincinnati and Atlanta have ruled against the Trump administration’s policy. Courts based in St. Louis and New Orleans have sided with the administration. The Louisiana-based court has jurisdiction over most of ICE’s largest detention facilities.

The question may eventually fall to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It’s up to the justices whether they want to take the case,” said Milwaukee immigration attorney Marc Christopher, “but traditionally on cases involving immigration, cases where there’s been a clear circuit split, and where it affects literally tens of thousands of people, I think it’s going to be near the top of the issues they want to resolve.”

Legal uncertainty, human costs

The lack of clarity only increased pressure for Wisconsin’s federal court judges to begin tackling the growing pile of habeas petitions, Milwaukee-area immigration attorney Jennifer Bizzotto said.

Even if Pepper were not the court’s chief judge, Bizzotto added, “there are so few judges that it really does matter a great deal.”

Pepper’s recent burst of activity brings relief to attorneys and immigrants with cases on her docket, but some lament the long wait’s human toll. “Of course people are happy to be released,” said Claire McNulty, another Milwaukee-area immigration attorney, “(but) how much of a win is it when it’s taken this long?”

“You’re just sitting in detention for months and months with no movement,” Bizzotto said. “These are real people’s lives that hang in the balance.”

Pepper’s recent rulings came too late for at least one immigrant in custody.

Jarwin Martinez Rayo, a Nicaraguan national arrested by ICE officers in Janesville shortly after President Trump’s second inauguration, filed a habeas petition in August 2025. Pepper took up the petition in late January, ordering DHS to respond within a month.

DHS placed Martinez Rayo on a flight to Mexico in mid-February — an increasingly common practice known as a “third-country removal” wherein federal authorities deport immigrants to countries other than their own. The agency did not notify the Eastern District court until June, at which point Pepper dismissed the case without commenting on the administration’s mandatory detention rule.

Bizzotto said the 7th Circuit’s split leaves even more immigrants in limbo.

“We’re all living on borrowed time here,” she said, “and if you want to go for optimism, at least we have one more judge who we know is willing to rule against (the policy).”

Court split grows over Trump’s mandatory immigration detention policy 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: 12 minutes

Yaay Yang held onto his 3-year-old brother King’s hand as the two walked home on a sunny June afternoon. Their mom had caught King playing in a muddy puddle and asked the eldest of her five boys to escort him home for a change of clothes. 

A few blocks away, Yaay’s relatives sat under a pavilion at Lorraine Park in South St. Paul, waiting for his return so they could celebrate his high school graduation.

“I do understand it … being the role model,” Yaay, 17, said on the walk home. “It’s what I have to do. Even if I’m really not the best, I still want to be a good one for them.” 

Yaay’s life turned upside down five months ago when his dad, Zong Yang, 48, was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in February. Yaay, who also goes by his middle name Aden, found himself stepping into his father’s shoes. His mother, Linda Yang, became a single parent overnight, raising five sons without Zong – King, 3; Titan, 7; Everest, 8; Kenji, 15; Yaay, 17.

“I don’t want to disappoint them,” Yaay said of his younger brothers.  

Days after his dad was detained, he started falling behind in school. He eventually bounced back and started caring for his brothers after school. He’s taken on more house chores and cooks for his brothers.

“Admittedly, I’m not that good,” he said of his cooking skills, a slight smile on his face.

Zong had impressed on Yaay the importance of being a strong leader for his brothers long before federal immigration agents flooded Minnesota in late 2025.

“He wants to make sure that I’m ready, and that I have everything all figured out,” Yaay said. “I know that he does care deep down, and I do see that with myself too.”  

Relatives embrace Yang family

Yaay helped unload food from relatives’ cars earlier in the day at Lorraine Park as others finished setting up his graduation party. Luna, a black puppy, sat nearby under a picnic bench. The family bought Luna about a year and a half ago for Titan, but Yaay wound up as her main caretaker. 

In between greeting guests, Yaay found a quiet moment to check on King as he sat with cousins on a bench and gently rubbed the side of his cheek. 

Family members from North Carolina and Minnesota gathered after a heavy rain in the morning left puddles. Pop music played loudly over a speaker as guests ate pasta and Cheetos while Yaay’s uncle, Genue Lor, grilled sausages. While the mood was joyful, tears punctuated the day, as it was the first time the family had gathered in such large numbers since Zong’s deportation in May. 

As news of immigration agents arresting Hmong residents emerged last year, Zong’s potential deportation began looming over the family. Yaay said his dad had held onto the hope that he could avoid detention and deportation so he could attend the graduation events. 

Yaay pictured seeing both of his parents sitting among other families as he walked across the stage in his graduation cap and gown. 

“It does hurt,” he said of his dad’s absence from his graduation ceremony in early June. “A lot.” 

Zong was deported due to a felony burglary conviction from his early 20s and is one of many Hmong and Southeast Asian residents from Minnesota and elsewhere who were deported during Operation Metro Surge.

“He’s the glue that kept everybody together,” Linda said of Zong at the graduation party. “He’s kind of a jokester, and he likes to keep everybody entertained. If anything, he would be with everybody just drinking with them.” 

Dozens of children and adults danced to the music at the party. A large handmade sign hung in the background, reading “Congratulations” in large cursive red and white letters – Yaay’s high school colors. 

“It’s really big,” Yaay said of the party. “Can’t believe this is actually for me.” 

Linda’s older brother, John Lor, who lives in Inver Grove Heights, came with his wife and children. He was in the Yang family’s backyard with Zong when Linda called Zong on Feb. 4 to inform him that federal agents had abruptly cut her off on her way to work, and that they planned to pick him up the next morning. 

“I stayed with the family that day,” Lor said. “It was really heartbreaking. I try my best now to help my brother-in-law and my sister.”

Linda’s younger sister, Mai Cua Lor, who was at the party, looked up to Linda her entire life as a model for how to be a wife and mom. 

“She and her husband – they made such a big impact in our lives, showing us what love is and how to care for one another and putting family first,” Mai Cua said, adding that Linda is a “strong, independent woman.” 

But losing Zong has taken a toll on Linda, Mai Cua said. 

“She don’t ever ask for help. She don’t ever cry. She don’t ever show her weakness. So, when she turns to us and says, ‘I need help. I need support,’ it breaks my heart,” she said, her voice breaking. “Cause that’s my sister; she don’t ever ask for anything.” 

Mai Cua, who lives in North Carolina, felt helpless that she couldn’t do anything when Zong was detained, but she told Linda and her sons to never hesitate to ask for help.

Pa Houa Lo, one of Linda’s three sisters, lives in Elk River and drives down often to lift Linda’s spirits. 

“She’s so strong for her kids, and she doesn’t want her kids to see her cry, but then she turns to us,” Pa Houa said, breaking into a sob, ”and she just tells us she’s broken, ‘cause her rock is gone.” 

Linda grew up in North Carolina and was living there when a mutual friend introduced her to Zong, who lived in Minneapolis at the time. They kept in touch until they met in person in 2007; they married a year later. 

Linda’s brother, Genue Lor, drove 18 hours from North Carolina with his two children to support her. He said he’ll always support his sister and brother-in-law, but understands why opinions are divided over the reason for Zong’s deportation.

Linda knew about Zong’s past. He attended regular check-ins with federal immigration officials for 20 years. Since Laos historically refused to accept deportees from the United States, Linda and Zong never imagined he would be sent abroad. But things started to change last year as Laos shifted its stance due to political pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration. Reality settled in. 

Linda told Sahan Journal she plans to move to Laos after their children are grown. 

“I believe in my sister, and she believes in the law of the system, too,” Genue said. “They really do believe in the American system. That’s why she still has hope that, one day, things will be better. Maybe not in the short-term, but in the long-term, because it’s just the hope of returning together and seeing each other again.” 

A dad’s toast from abroad

Surrounded by Yaay and her parents, who flew in from North Carolina, Linda delivered a short speech in the afternoon, thanking Yaay for stepping up to care for his brothers while also dealing with the pressures of being a high school senior. 

She smiled as tears ran down her face. 

“We haven’t done much for you, but you’ve done so much for us,” she said in a trembling voice.

She paused for a breath.

“And now you’re leaving me!” she said before bursting into laughter. 

Yaay wrapped his arm around his mom in a hug, prompting smiles among the guests. She leaned her head on his chest. Then, she announced a pre-recorded video toast from Zong. 

“But this toast isn’t my toast, ‘kay?” she said, her voice cracking. “This is Zong’s toast to everybody, ‘kay?”

She held up her phone, and Zong’s face appeared on the screen. 

“I just want to do a little toast,” he said as cars zoomed by in the background.

He thanked the guests for their attendance and said he was proud of Yaay. Speaking in Hmong, he said his heart cries when he thinks of the distance between himself and his family. 

“Aden, I’m very proud of you, son,” he said in English. “You did it. You made it. … It tears me up every time to think about you guys.” 

Yaay choked back tears as he stood next to his mom with his arms behind his back, his hands clasped together. Chong Lo, Yaay’s 65-year-old maternal grandmother, gave him a hug. Linda’s sister, Pa Houa, buried her face in her scarf. Everest, Yaay’s 8-year-old brother, cried as he listened to Zong’s recording.  

“Just want to say I love you — miss you man,” Zong said in the video, addressing Yaay. “I wish I could be there, but I can’t.” 

Zong held up a can of beer. 

“Remember, do the right thing in life,” he told Yaay. “Cheers you guys.” 

He downed the drink. Guests at the party lifted their beers and drank them all in one go.  

‘I’m not doing good’

Zong told Sahan Journal in an interview later that he couldn’t appear at the party via a livestream because seeing his family’s faces and hearing their questions would have flooded him with emotions. 

“I knew if I came live, I would have just been crying,” he said. “I would just be bawling, so I couldn’t do it like that.”

He couldn’t bear the thought of his family asking him how he was doing.

“I’m not doing good,” he said in a shaky voice. “I miss my wife, I miss my kids – so that’s why I couldn’t do it live.” 

Zong was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and was never issued citizenship in Thailand, Laos or the United States. He received a green card when he immigrated to the United States with his family as a child and said he never applied for citizenship because he assumed that his green card secured lifelong residency in the country because it said, “Permanent Resident.” 

His family first settled in California, where most of his siblings and his mom still live. He has an older brother in Minnesota. His dad died several years ago from a sudden illness. 

Zong was convicted of felony burglary in Wisconsin in 1999 for stealing several semi-automatic handguns from the Gander Mountain store in Appleton, Wisconsin, when he was 21. He was sentenced to 12 years in prison, serving about seven years before he was released at the end of 2006, according to court records. His criminal record also includes a conviction for drug possession in 2019. 

@wisconsinwatch

Yaay Aden Yang’s relatives gathered in late June to celebrate his high school graduation. His father, Zong Yang, appeared at the party in a pre-recorded message because he was deported to Laos in May. Our partners at @SahanJournal followed Aden in the latest installment of an occasional series documenting how deportation reshapes families long after a loved one leaves. #Hmong #Deportation #MetroSurge #SouthStPaul #Minnesota #Midwest

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The burglary conviction is considered a removal offense by the federal government and stripped Zong of his green card and prevented him from ever applying for U.S. citizenship. It also resulted in a final order for deportation against him that required him to regularly check in with ICE at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building at the discretion of his immigration officer, or until the government could find a country that would accept him as a deportee.

Zong spent about four months earlier this year in immigration detention facilities in Texas and Louisiana, before he was put on a flight to Laos. When he arrived in Laos on May 9, he was moved to a detention facility operated by the Lao government. He was later released because a local sponsor vouched for him, which is required of U.S. deportees before they leave Lao custody. 

“Nervousness is still there,” he said of his slow assimilation to life in Laos, a country he had never stepped foot in before. 

These days, he’s less intimidated buying food from local vendors, or when meeting new people. He’s making small steps to care for himself: He often goes to the gym with a friend and recently opened up a bank account. 

He lives alone in an apartment located 15 minutes from the National University of Laos in Vientiane, the country’s capital. 

“It’s like watching your life just live before you, and you can’t do nothing about it, just go on without you, you know? Like I was supposed to be in the picture,” Zong said of why he didn’t appear live at Yaay’s graduation party. “I’m not supposed to be 2,000 miles away. I’m not supposed to be in the Eastern Hemisphere, you know? I’m supposed to be right there with them.” 

Yaay prepares for college

After Zong’s toast, Linda passed the microphone to Yaay, who was caught by surprise. Yaay told the guests he plans to attend Winona State University this fall and study chemistry. 

“I’m just going to go and see what life has planned for me,” he said, holding tightly onto the microphone as he nervously glanced at the ground.  

“You got it baby!” his maternal aunt, Pa Houa, shouted.

Yaay graduated on June 4, walking across the stage in his red cap and gown as his dad watched live on WhatsApp through Linda’s cellphone. Zong, who didn’t attend college, always reminded his children to focus on education. 

Yaay walked with about 200 high school seniors. He wore a red stole with a Hmong design of the elephant foot motif and his name written in Hmong, “Yej Yaj.” Some of the student and teacher commencement speakers briefly addressed the federal immigration operation that rippled across Minnesota from late 2025 through early 2026. 

“It is a city built on the backs of immigrants, and it continues to be a community where we are strengthened by our immigrant families,” student speaker Jackson Schultz said about South St. Paul. 

Yaay was one of the last students called on stage. Linda zoomed in on him to give Zong a better view. Linda’s sister, Pa Houa, and Zong’s cousin, Mai Zoua, cheered loudly. 

“It’s emotional,” Linda said at the graduation ceremony. “I know his dad wanted to be here; it’s another one of those bittersweet moments.” 

Yaay, filled with a mix of excitement and nervous energy, found his family when the ceremony ended. 

“It’s the first time that my life’s not really being directed by going to the next school grade,” he said. “It’s going into college and moving up and living on my own. It’s adulting, basically.” 

Yaay smiled happily for photos, holding a bouquet of flowers and a string of balloons. He’s relied on close school friends to cope with his dad’s deportation. 

“It is a big accomplishment and obviously with all this stuff going on, I wish my dad was here to witness me do this, and just be here with me in this moment,” he said. “Being able to make my parents proud and being able to live up to their expectations, even how basic it is, it’s still heartwarming.” 

More than 7,000 miles away, Zong watched from Laos at about 8 a.m. as Yaay walked across the stage at 8 p.m. Minnesota time.

“I was just happy to see people that still love us to go support even though I wasn’t there,” Zong told Sahan Journal in an interview later, his voice cracking. “It was hard, but it’s just something that I was happy to see.”  

He hopes to find ways to still be a part of his sons’ lives during big and small milestones. 

“I hope that as they get older, they will understand the whole situation,” he said. “I hope that they do not hold on to say that I left willingly, that you know, that I had a choice, and I just went. That’s what’s going to hurt me the most.” 

Not dead, but gone

Yaay’s maternal grandfather, Nhia Ying Lo, 67, also gave a speech at Yaay’s graduation party, telling Linda to have a big heart, and that she has a family to rely on. He bent over and cried into his hand at times, overcome with emotions. 

Nhia Ying told Sahan Journal in an interview that what happened to Zong is unfair, given how the United States enlisted Hmong allies to fight in the Vietnam War. 

The United States started to recruit Hmong men and boys in 1961 to fight in a CIA-backed operation against Vietnamese communists. An estimated one-fourth of the Hmong men and boys who were recruited died in service, according to the Minnesota Historical Society. 

Following the end of the Vietnam War, Hmong people fled political persecution prompted by their alliance with the United States. Many ended up in Thai refugee camps. Many Hmong, including Zong, were born in the camps and later immigrated to the United States. 

That generation of Hmong people don’t know the Lao culture or language, Nhia Ying said, and only have familiarity with the Hmong community in the United States.    

“Why would they take people like this, with access to jobs, to go live in Laos? They know we are people who don’t know anything (in Laos),” he said.  

When it was time for her speech, Yaay’s maternal grandmother, Chong Lo, 65, stood in front of him, one hand clasped over his shoulder.

“Help each other,” she said in Hmong. “Love your mom.” 

She cried every time she talked about Zong, or heard his name mentioned at the party. 

“I want people to see this, to know what the pain is like, that his life – he’s not dead, but he’s gone,” she said in an interview.

She pressed a tissue to her nose. 

“For a family to actually survive this, the parent with the children has to work double — double shifts,” she said, crying so hard she could barely finish her sentence. 

Seeing Yaay and Kenji helping Linda gives her some relief, she added. Linda’s sister and brother, Pa Houa and John Lor, who live in Minnesota, regularly visit the Yang family to help with the children.

“We’re never going to be able to replicate his dad, but we’re here to just show our love and support in every way possible, because he’s (Yayy) as much as our son, and that’s (Zong) as much as our father as well,” Pa Houa said. “It’s good to see (Yaay) pass his milestone, but it’s also a little bitter because you wish everyone could join you.”

Most of their family members were playing volleyball when Yaay and King returned to his graduation party after a 10-minute absence to change Yaay out of his muddy clothes. Yaay let go of King’s hand. King took a few steps and glanced back at Yaay with a look of uncertainty on his face.  

“Go,” Yaay said softly, motioning to the playground. 

Dozens of relatives from both sides of the family awaited them.

“Seeing everyone here,” Yaay said, “it’s nice, and I think I also needed this – just to see all the people who are there to back me up, and help me, and just give me something to work for and not fail.”

Minnesota teen balances graduation, new responsibilities after dad’s deportation to Laos 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.