Thread: Sheriff defends actions on immigrants

Sheriff defends actions on immigrants

Pat Schneider
May 9, 2008

Dane County will not become a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants, Sheriff Dave Mahoney said Friday.

"It's not going to happen," Mahoney said in an interview recapping his meeting last week with a leader in the Union de Trabajadores Inmigrantes (Immigrant Workers Union or UTI) after a rally on the steps of the City-County Building.

Several hundred protesters -- some waving a cartoon of Mahoney's face followed by "=ICE" -- marched from Brittingham Park to the City-County Building on May Day to rally for workers' rights and demand an end to Mahoney's policy of reporting non-citizen inmates to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"I will not allow my office to be intimidated by those making unrealistic demands," Mahoney said Friday.

Mahoney's department on Friday released the first public count of the number of jail inmates picked up for deportation by ICE so far this year.

In January, ICE was notified of 25 aliens being held, and picked up four.

In February, those numbers were 24 and four; in March, 45 and six; and in April, 37 and three.

The Sheriff's Department had not been keeping records of the number of inmates actually picked up by ICE, but agreed to do so at the request of The Capital Times.

Mahoney met several times with UTI leader Alex Gillis since more than 100 people jammed a County Board committee meeting in February to protest the ICE notification policy.

Gillis said Friday he had not realized until the most recent meeting that aliens in the U.S. legally were being reported to ICE on being taken into custody at the jail.

"It's even worse than we thought," said Gillis. He said efforts would continue to build public awareness and opposition to the policy.

Mahoney said concerns over people being seized by ICE were overblown and he would watch how many were taken into custody each month.

If it were 45 aliens reported to ICE and 45 deported, "I would be very concerned."

He said that at a meeting this week with members of the Wisconsin congressional delegation, he made a plea for sound immigration policy. "The national policy is impacting us at the local level," he said.

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Gillis said Friday he had not realized until the most recent meeting that aliens in the U.S. legally were being reported to ICE on being taken into custody at the jail.

"It's even worse than we thought," said Gillis. He said efforts would continue to build public awareness and opposition to the policy.

Golly gee, imagine that, our law enforcement actually doing the work they were hired to do.........what a concept.

Glad to see this sheriff will not be intimidated into doing the work for OBL cry babies.

Gillis said Friday he had not realized until the most recent meeting that aliens in the U.S. legally were being reported to ICE on being taken into custody at the jail.

"It's even worse than we thought," said Gillis. He said efforts would continue to build public awareness and opposition to the policy




Worse than he thought that even those here legally were being reported to ICE?

Is he not aware that being in the US legally does not protect those who find themselves in trouble with the law from having status revoked and deportation? Or perhaps it just doesn't matter to people like Gillis.

The Planski: Dave Mahoney's immigrant policy makes this 'Doughface County'
Ben Manski on Friday 05/16/2008 1:15 pm



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Recommend This Article Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney vows to continue his collaboration with the feds regarding "aliens."

Under Mahoney, the Sheriff's Office has reported upwards of 400 immigrants to ICE, the latest incarnation of the former INS (where do the feds come up with these acronyms, anyway? Immigration and Customs Enforcement? Operation Iraqi Liberation? Brilliant!). That's a substantial increase from the record of the previous sheriff, Gary Hamblin, for whom cracking down on undocumented immigrants was not a priority. Hamblin explained his overall approach to immigration issues to The Capital Times in 2003:

There's a perception out here that people who are here illegally and become victims of crime are reluctant to report the crime because of fears of the immigration service coming for them. Nobody wants to see anybody victimized, so this goes in the direction of letting people know it's in the county's policy that you will not be reported."

What changed? Hamblin was replaced by Mahoney. And petitions, resolutions, letters, public outcry of all kinds have not budged him. This local elected official says responding to his constituents on this issue "is not going to happen." No. His first priority? Cooperation with the feds.

It makes you scratch your head. The former sheriff, a Republican, takes a pass on the immigrant-bashing bandwagon. He gets replaced by a Democrat, and suddenly Dane County becomes a haven for immigrant-haters. Why?

Most people I've talked with describe Mahoney as an old-school lawman who has taken his interest in interagency cooperation to an extreme. If they are right, that makes Mahoney a Doughface.

A "Doughface?" Yes. That's what some northern Democrats of the 1850s were called by their Liberty Party, Free Soil, and Republican critics. In the national conflict over the enforcement of federal slave law -- particularly the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 -- there were those who urged resistance to the feds, and those who collaborated. Advocates of slavery appreciated the collaborators, exulting as Rep. John Randolph (VA) did:

They were scared at their own dough faces -- yes, they were scared at their own dough faces! -- We had them."

And the immigrant-haters have Mahoney. Regardless of whether or not he is one of them, he is doing their business – and so, by extension, are all of us.
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