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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