🎶 ROCK QUEEN 👸🏾TINA TURNER DIES @ 83! — Talent, Energy, Perserverance Inspired Generations!

Tina Turner
Ike & Tina Turner play Madison, WI in 1971
PHOTO: Wisconsin Historical Society

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/tina-turner-dead-obit-192002/

Tina Turner, the raspy-voiced fireball who overcame domestic abuse and industry ambivalence to emerge as one of rock and soul’s brassiest, most rousing and most inspirational performers, died Wednesdayat age 83.

“Tina Turner, the ‘Queen of Rock & Roll’ has died peacefully today at the age of 83 after a long illness in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich, Switzerland,” her family said in a statement Wednesday. “With her, the world loses a music legend and a role model.” A cause of death was not immediately available, though Turner had a stroke and battled both kidney failure and intestinal cancer in recent years.

Starting with her performances with her ex-husband Ike, Turner injected an uninhibited, volcanic stage presence into pop. Even with choreographed backup singers — both with Ike and during her own career — Turner never seemed reined in. Her influence on rock, R&B, and soul singing and performance was also immeasurable. Her delivery influenced everyone from Mick Jagger to Mary J. Blige, and her high-energy stage presence (topped with an array of gravity-defying wigs) was passed down to Janet Jackson and Beyoncé. Turner’s message — one that resounded with generations of women — was that she could hold her own onstage against any man. 

But Turner’s other legacy was more personal and involved a far more complex man. During her time with Ike — a demanding and often drug-addled bandleader and guitarist — her husband often beat and humiliated her. Her subsequent rebirth, starting with her massively popular, Grammy-winning 1984 makeover Private Dancer, made her a symbol of survival and renewal.

Born Anna Mae Bullock on Nov. 26, 1939, Turner grew up in Nutbush, Tennessee, a rural and unincorporated area in Haywood County chronicled in her song “Nutbush City Limits.” According to Turner, her family were “well-to-do farmers” who lived well off the business of sharecropping. Still, Turner and her older sister Ruby Aillene dealt with abandonment issues when their parents left to work elsewhere.

. . . .

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Read the complete obit at the link.

Cathy and I, along with friends, heard Ike & Tina Turner in concert in Madison, WI in 1971! Certainly one of the all-time greats!

R.I.P.

PWS

05-25-23

 

😎🗽 PROF. ERIN BARBATO @ UW LAW WITH SOME GOOD NEWS!

Professor Erin Barbato
Professor Erin Barbato
Director, Immigrant Justice Clinic
UW Law
Photo source: UW Law

Good morning Judge Schmidt,

I hope this email finds you well. It is already getting chilly in Wisconsin but fall is one of my favorite seasons here. In case you are interested, this is a little piece that Newsy put together about a lovely family and Ngwa, an asylum seeker from Cameroon, who became part of their family. How a Cameroonian Immigrant Was Granted Asylum in the U.S. (VIDEO) (newsy.com) I do believe there are other families like this across the country willing to welcome people. The political use of humans seeking refuge is horrifying these days.

Thank you for all you do! I appreciate you.

Erin M. Barbato
Director Immigrant Justice Clinic
University of Wisconsin Law School
975 Bascom Mall
Madison, WI 53706
(608)262-2276
She/Her/Hers

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is built on the ancestral land of the Ho-Chunk Nation. In an 1832 treaty, the Ho-Chunk were forced to cede this territory. We respect the inherent sovereignty of the Ho-Chunk Nation, along with the eleven other First Nations of Wisconsin.

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View the video at the above link! Thanks, Erin, my friend for sending this in and for all that your and your wonderful students do for humanity and for Due Process in America! Many thanks to the Swandbys and other great American families for standing by refugees in need and being role models for the best in America at a time when so many of our politicians and their followers are “modeling bad behavior and lack of fundamental values!”

It’s always good to keep in mind that many Americans do have sound values and welcome asylum seekers and other immigrants, rather than using their situation to engineer political farces at the expense of vulnerable humans who have come here seeing legal refuge and are allowed to be in the US while pursuing their claims. As I have pointed out many times, any government official truly interested in addressing migration issues would prioritize spending money for 1) representation of asylum seekers, 2) orderly relocation to places where support systems are available and asylum claims are more likely to be fairly an timely adjudicated. But, that would take a thoughtful, cooperative, governing for the common good approach rather than wasteful political stunts.

Voters in both Florida and Texas will have a chance to remove their “stuntmen” in November. Unfortunately, however, it’s not clear that will happen.

We also shouldn’t let the Biden administration “off the hook” for: 1) failing to put in place a reasonable program for resettling asylum seekers away from stressed border communities; 2) the abject failure of the Immigration Court’s asylum adjudication process which is driving much of the haphazard response to legal asylum seekers; 3) the failure to achieve meaningful reforms, training, and appropriate staffing of the USCIS Asylum Offices (even assuming that the “new asylum regulations” were the answer, the implementation has been inexcusable, inept, and ineffective, just as many experts predicted); 4) the gross failure to establish a robust, generous, realistic refugee admission system for the Western Hemisphere to process refugees for admission before they are forced to come to our borders; and 5) their overall failure of leadership on refugee and asylum issues in both the national and international arenas.

🇺🇸 Due Process Forever!

PWS

09-25-22

⚖️SOCIAL JUSTICE & PROGRESS:  MADISON, WI MOVES FORWARD WITH PROMISING LOCAL LEADERS COMMITTED TO MAKING THINGS BETTER FOR EVERYONE — Esther J. Cepeda @ Wisconsin State Journal

Esther J. Cepeda
Esther J. Cepeda
Columnist
Wisconsin State Journal
PHOTO: John Hart WI SJ

https://madison.com/opinion/column/esther-j-cepeda-madison-embraces-leaders-of-color/article_b8142fad-87be-5431-af70-52063f11347e.html

. . . .

This is the point of electing people of color to positions in which they are likely to be able to add a unique view to discussions about allocating public resources that centers disparities in particular communities.

The people of color who were elected to the Dane County Board — Brenda Yang, 19th District, Dana Pellebon, 33rd District, Olivia Xistris-Songpanya, 13th District; April Kigeya, 15th District — are cultural ambassadors who likely have the beginnings of answers to thorny questions that have bedeviled the Madison area for years.

Questions like how to perform outreach in communities that are cut off from Madison’s glittering Downtown and its majestic campuses; what to do about the lack of jobs for those approaching the job market with few skills; and how to string together disconnected neighborhood enclaves into a multicultural coalition that could hold their representatives to account.

Intertwined with how county leaders move toward equality for the most vulnerable is Tuesday’s election of women of color to the Madison School Board.

Nothing is more important than establishing the local public schools as safe places where children of color can read, write and compute math at the same level as their white, grade-level peers.

As a former Madison teacher, I can tell you from personal experience that the Madison schools have put an incredible amount of energy, time and cash behind training and programs to guide staff toward an understanding of the special needs, talents and assets of children of color.

School Board president and first-term incumbent Ali Muldrow was re-elected Tuesday, and Nichelle Nichols won an open seat. These women bring extensive personal and professional experience with Madison schools and the district office to bear on huge budgets meant to target the neediest students while still nurturing high-flyer learners.

Both the School Board and the Madison City Council have majorities of people of color leading them.

Surely, the authors of the “Race to Equity Project” report wouldn’t declare that the “mission” to promote “greater public awareness and understanding of the depth and breadth of the racial disparities that differentiate the white and black experience in Dane County, Wisconsin” is accomplished.

But they did tip their hat to all those who came before them. “Long before we came along, mission-driven institutions and a host of committed Dane County activists had been compiling an impressive record of struggle against racism, discrimination, and unequal opportunity. They have fought for equality and fairness for people of color from their positions as public officials, in the classroom, from the pulpit, at neighborhood centers, and in the day-to-day work of improving the future for at-risk children and families.”

Amen. It is on the shoulders of those who have gone before them that leaders of color in Madison are finally getting their due. There is much work to be done, but things are moving in the right direction. Compared to so many other municipalities, Dane County and Madison are moving relatively quickly to address big needs — this is exciting!

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Read Esther’s complete article at the link.

The “grass roots level” is a great place to make fairness and equity work for everyone in the community.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-11-22

🏀⛹🏿BANK STAYED OPEN LATE FOR CHUCKY HEPBURN, AS BADGERS BEAT BOILERS 🚂 70-67 FOR SHARE OF B-10 TITLE!

Chucky Hepburn
Chucky Hepburn
Guard
Wisconsin Badgers
PHBOTO: Twitter

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Sports Exclusive

March 2, 2022

Preseason “experts” predicted that the Wisconsin Badgers, returning only one starter (G, Brad Davison), would finish well down in the Big-10 — 10th place, or even 12th out of 14 squads. Last night, Coach Greg Gard’s gang proved the doubters wrong with a stirring, hard-fought 70-67 win over the #8 Purdue Boilermakers (24-6, 13-6)  before a capacity home crowd at the Kohl Center!

Wisconsin led for most of the game. But, behind stars Jadon Ivey (22-5-5) and Zach Edey (17-9-0), the Boilers went on a 14-2 run to take a one-point lead with 7:42 left. The Badgers rallied and appeared to have things in hand when Brad Davison (7-4-0) was fouled with 16 seconds to go and the Badgers up 67-64. Davison, the B-10’s best free-throw shooter (88.2%), had hit 25 in a row, and was in position to make it a two-score game.

Brad Davison
Brad Davison
Guard
Wisconsin Badgers
PHOTO: Twitter

 

But, shockingly, he missed the front-end of a one-and-one. Edey rebounded and when Ivey hit a tough 3-point shot to tie it at 67 with 11 seconds to go, overtime looked to be in the offing. But, freshman guard Hepburn (17-0-2, 0 turnovers) wasn’t having it. When his 3-pointer hit the glass and banked in with 1.5 to go, the game effectively was over. A last second desperation pass by Purdue was intercepted by forward Tyler Wahl (19-2-2) to seal the deal, as the crowd stormed the court and Gard prepared to cut down the net.

Johnny Davis
Johnny Davis
Guard-Forward
Wisconsin Badgers
PHOTO: Wikipedia

In addition to Hepburn’s heroics, likely B-10 player of the year Johnny Davis (16-8-1) was key in the second half, although he couldn’t match his previous 37-point performance against the Boilers. 

Wahl continues to be one of the most under-rated players in the conference if not in the country. He led the Badgers with 19 points, adding two rebounds, two assists, five steals, and two blocked shots. Again, he was consistently able to “post-up” the taller Edey and Purdue and made clutch shots in the paint. He plays like he’s 6-11, not 6-7. He’s also a great defender and perfectly ready to hit the floor to get after loose balls.

Tyler Wahl
Tyler Wahl
Forward
Wisconsin Badgers
PHOTO: Facebook

Wisconsin has now won 15 games in a row that were decided by 6 points or fewer. With a victory over Nebraska (9-21, 3-16) in Lincoln on Sunday, the #10 Badgers (24-5,15-4) will be the outright conference champs for the first time since 2015. While that might not seem like a difficult task, the last place Huskers are not necessarily an “easy out.” They have won their last two, including a 78-70 victory over #23 Ohio State last night.

Greg Gard
Greg Gard
Coach
Wisconsin Badgers
PHOTO: Twitter

No matter how it comes out, Gard should be the B-10 Coach of the Year for the job he has done with a team that everyone predicted was “bound for nowhere!” 

 

🗽AS LAST AFGHAN REFUGEES LEAVE FT. MCCOY, WI, U.S. RESETTLEMENT SYSTEM CONTINUES TO SUFFER FROM DAMAGE INFLICTED BY TRUMP KAKISTOCRACY!☹️

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‘I don’t know what will happen’: After months at Fort McCoy, Afghan family resettled in separate states

Living 120 miles apart, family shares hopes and anxieties while navigating ‘chaotic’ resettlement process

Lamha Nabizada spent nearly six months at Fort McCoy, a 60,000-acre Army base in Monroe County, Wis., before she was relocated with part of her family to Rockville, Md. Here, she looks through the window of a hotel room on Feb. 22, 2022, during the family’s search for permanent housing. She is among 76,000 Afghans evacuated to the United States during the country’s largest resettlement operation since the Vietnam War. (Eman Mohammed for Wisconsin Watch)
By Zhen Wang February 28, 2022
Wisconsin WatchIn her final hours living at Fort McCoy, an Army base in rural Monroe County, Wisconsin, Lamha Nabizada searched for an interesting place to pose for a photo at this reporter’s request. The task wasn’t easy.“Everywhere is the same thing, same barrack,” the 27-year-old told Wisconsin Watch.Venturing outside into frigid air, she posed in front of a flagpole and gun turret.It was Feb. 6, the day before Nabizada and her 22-year-old brother Masroor would travel to Maryland — continuing a resettlement journey that began last August when the Taliban took over Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul. They were among tens of thousands airlifted from the country with passports, legal documents and little else.Nearly six months later, the siblings were among the last to leave Fort McCoy, which housed as many as 12,600 Afghans.

Lamha felt mixed emotions as she prepared to leave: hope for new opportunities and anxiety about moving to an unfamiliar place.

“I don’t know what will happen in the future,” she said.

On Feb. 15, Fort McCoy became the seventh of eight U.S. military installations to send its final evacuees to host communities. Four days later, the eighth base cleared out the last of the 76,000 total evacuees who arrived for the largest resettlement operation since the Vietnam War.

Through Feb. 23, Wisconsin had resettled about 820 of the 850 Afghan evacuees currently slated for the state, according to Bojana Zorić Martinez, director of the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families’ Bureau of Refugee Programs.

Zorić Martinez said serving so many people at once was difficult. Aside from housing, they need Social Security numbers, jobs, food and other basic items.

Evacuees are eligible to apply for benefits available to refugees, according to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement. That includes job preparation, English language training and medical aid. They may also be eligible for other federal benefits such as Medicaid and food assistance.

Zorić Martinez said the system shrunk under Trump, who slashed the country’s refugee cap each year he was in office, which meant less money for resettlement agencies.

“We are now seeing the consequences of that,” she said.

Read the full story

 

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ZHEN WANG / WISCONSIN WATCH

zwang@wisconsinwatch.org

Zhen Wang joined Wisconsin Watch as a reporting intern in May 2021. At UW-Madison, she is pursuing a master’s degree in journalism, honing her investigative journalism skills, and preparing herself for a career in health care journalism. She previously worked for the Guardian Beijing bureau and China Daily. Before joining the journalism industry, she worked in various sectors and obtained a master’s degree in international relations in New Zealand. She speaks Chinese and is a member of Asian American Journalists Association.

More by Zhen Wang / Wisconsin Watch

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Reprinted from Wisconsin Watch under Creative Commons License. Full story available at the link. Nice reporting by Zhen Wang!

Here are some additional quotes from Zhen’s article from my good friend and NDPA superstar Professor Erin Barbato of the U.W. Law Immigration Clinic, among the many clinical teams who have “stepped up” for Afghan refugees:

“The government has to provide more resources, if we’re going to ensure that everybody has their basic needs met during this transition time, and it’s wonderful to see people in the community coming together,” said Erin Barbato, director of the Immigrant Justice Clinic at the University of Wisconsin Law School. “But that’s not going to solve the problem for everybody.”

The legal clinic is helping evacuees file for asylum and training attorneys to represent them in that process — positions that are in short supply. Barbato and other immigration experts fear some people will fall through bureaucratic cracks unless the federal government takes action to stabilize the system.
. . . .

Barbato, the UW legal clinic director, said the two-year parolee status leaves evacuees vulnerable to future deportation — a potentially deadly proposition. The U.S. asylum program last year faced a backlog of nearly 413,000 applications.

Congress has historically passed such laws to protect evacuees from U.S. military conflict zones, including in Vietnam and Iraq.

 

Echoing immigration advocates and veterans, Barbato said an Afghan Adjustment Act, which has yet to be introduced in Congress, could pave a safer, quicker path to citizenship. Lawmakers must also inject more resources into the immigration bureaucracy, she added. How these resources are allocated will shape the fate of applicants who have waited years in the queue — as well as new Afghan arrivals.

Professor Erin Barbato
Professor Erin Barbato
Director, Immigrant Justice Clinic
UW Law
Photo source: UW Law

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

 

PWS

o3-01-22

🏀 FIGHT CLUB: JUWAN HOWARD GOES DOWN FOR FIVE AFTER HIT ON BADGER ASST. COACH! — Apparently, Adult Behavior Not A Job Requirement For U. Mich. Athletics!

Juwan Howard
Juwan Howard
Michigan Head Men’s BB Coach
PHOTO: https://www.marc-gregor.com/Main
Creative Commons License
“Coach Howard is getting some time off to work on his ‘courtside manner.’”

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Sports

Feb. 22, 2022

Michigan Head Basketball Coach Juwan Howard was suspended Monday for the balance of the regular season (five games) and fined $40,000 for delivering a bizarre “head slap” to Wisconsin Assistant Coach Joe Krabbenhoft following the conclusion of the Badgers dominating 77-63 victory over the Wolverines Sunday afternoon in Madison. The penalty was imposed by the Big-10 Conference. 

Wisconsin Coach Greg Gard was fined $10,000 by the Big-10 for an apparent “illegal touching” of Howard, while two Michigan players and Wisconsin reserve guard Jahcobi Neath were suspended for one game for throwing punches in the televised melee that followed Howard’s assault on Krabbenhoft.

Howard, a former star at Michigan and in the NBA, delivered a “rote apology” for his actions following the suspension. This was after lamely appearing to defend his conduct at the postgame press conference. 

Howard’s claim that he was outraged by a timeout call by Gard with 15 seconds left and that he felt “threatened” in the “handshake line” (which he initially tried to avoid) after being touched on the arm by the 52-year-old, full-head-shorter Gard, who has never “gone after” anyone, failed to pass the “straight face test,” although many members of the media and commentators appeared to accept it at face value. This is the second major “out of control” incident for Howard, who was ejected from a game last season after threatening then Maryland Head Coach Mark Turgeon.

Howard’s childish conduct gained instant national media coverage, overshadowing what should have been the real story: a near perfect second half coached by Gard and executed by his Badger squad. Led by breakout sophomore sensation guard Johnny Davis, who scored 11 straight at one point, the home team broke open a game that had been tied at the half. 

Davis finished with 25 points, 6 rebounds, an assist, and 3 blocked shots on defense. Perhaps, Howard’s frustration with being out-coached by Gard and his team seriously outplayed by Davis and his Badger mates was what really was behind the unusual and uncalled-for outburst.

Coach Gard’s Badgers have been one of the better stories in NCAA Men’s hoops. Unranked preseason and picked to finish in the “lower bracket” of the 14-team Big-10, Bucky is now 21-5, ranked 13th nationally, 12-4 conference, and tied with Illinois for second place, just one-half game behind Purdue for the league lead!  The Badgers beat the Boilermakers earlier on the road on a night featuring another dominating 37-point performance from Davis.

Davis has been the pleasantly unexpected difference. As a freshman “off the bench” last season, he averaged 7 points and 4 rebounds per game. His “high game” was 17 points. He was a solid, but hardly awe-inspiring, presence.

This season he averages more than 20 and leads the team in scoring, rebounds, and assists while playing tough defense. He is a serious contender for national player of the year. Davis gets lots of help from his friends: scrappy senior forward Brad Davison, highly skilled junior post forward Tyler Wahl, 7-foot inside-outside threat sophomore center Steven Crowl, and calm, cool, and collected freshman floor leader and point guard Chucky Hepburn. 

While many expect Davis to be off to the NBA after his breakout season, the Badger faithful are savoring every moment of his extraordinary play. He has developed a “step back, off balance, fade away” jump shot that is basically un-defendable, as the Wolverines learned on Sunday.

As for Howard, with the loss, his Wolverines find themselves in jeopardy of missing the “Big Dance,” with a lackluster 14-11 record (8-7, B10). Perhaps, that will give Howard a little more “time off” to work on his anger management and “role model” skills. They certainly need to improve, and fast, if he is to have a future in college coaching. Assistant Coach Phil Martelli, previously the long-time Head Coach at St. Joseph’s, will take the Wolverines’ helm during Howard’s suspension.

🏈SPORTS: EXPOSED! — Badgers End B-10 Season With Inept Effort @ MN!  — No Offense, Little D, Lead To Embarrassing Loss — Wisconsin Avoids Michigan Re-Match!

Sad Badger
Sad Badger
PHOTO: Facebook

🏈SPORTS: EXPOSED!— Badgers End B-10 Season With Inept Effort @ MN!  — No Offense, Little D, Lead To Embarrassing Loss, Avoids Facing Michigan In Big-10 Title Game!

By Paul Wickham Schmidt

Courtside Exclusive

November 28, 2021

When the Wisconsin Badgers took the field in Minneapolis on Saturday, afternoon they knew they were one win over the then 7-4 Gophers away from a rematch with the Michigan Wolverines in the Big Ten Title Game next Saturday. For the next 60 minutes, the Badgers looked every bit like a team that wanted to avoid that potential matchup. (Michigan beat the Badgers 38-21 at Camp Randall in October). In the process, the Badgers also lost “Paul Bunyun’s Axe” for the second time in the past four years while being subjected to the Gopher fans’ imitation of Wisconsin’s “patented jump around.” 

Wisconsin was soundly beaten on both sides of the ball by a modestly talented, yet better coached and clearly more motivated, Gopher team. The Badgers failed to score an offensive touchdown. Their sole trip to the end zone came in the first half on a lucky tipped “pick six” by Scott Nelson.

For the second straight week, Coach Jim Leonhard’s “shut down” Badger defense couldn’t get a “less than awesome” offense off the field, particularly yesterday when it counted. The Gophers controlled the tempo of the game from opening kickoff to final whistle.

Perhaps the “best” illustrations of Badger futility came early in the second half. Ahead 10-6 despite a lackluster first half, the Badgers received the second half kickoff with a chance to “make a statement.” They did! But, not the kind they wanted.

Deep in his own territory, Badger QB Graham Mertz lofted a weak pass to 6th year receiver Kendrick Pryor, who made only a half-hearted effort to catch it. Instead the Gopher defender took the ball away, setting up a short field. Three plays later, the Gophers trotted into the end zone to take a 13-10 lead as a bewildered Badger “D” passively looked on. 

On the following possession the Badgers drove methodically inside the Minnesota 10. With second and two from the Gopher five, three downs to make 2 yards, and a then a potential four downs to score, the Badgers appeared destined to retake the lead. Instead, they were forced to settle for a tying field goal that proved to be their last score.

The Golden Gophers then scored the final 10 points and held the Badgers at bay to notch the 23-13 victory. Badger freshman “sensation” running back Braelon Allen was a non-factor. The Badger “O Line’s” inability to open holes was matched by Allen’s failure to break tackles. The few attempts to hit Allen ‘in space” ended with him being stoned by Gopher defenders.

Badger senior tight end Jake Ferguson was another non-factor. Big Ten defensive coordinators have finally figured out how to defend him, particularly in the “red zone.” By contrast, Badger Coach Paul Chryst doesn’t seem to have developed an alternative.

Mertz is a good athlete, but at best an average “pocket passer.” Why not roll him out to create a run option when the receivers are covered? At least force the opposing D to make some difficult choices!

So, instead of a trip to the Big Ten Title Game in Indianapolis next week, the Badgers (8-4, 5-3) “earned” another trip to a “Podunk City Piddly Bowl” against a failed team from a different conference. The “B-Team” announcers sentenced to that (non) “classic,” will be required to shill about the wonders of the Badger defense, the prowess of Allen, and the brilliance of Head Coach Paul Chryst and Defensive Coordinator Jim Leonhard.

But, that won’t hide the truth about a mediocre team that once again underperformed preseason expectations.

🦁⚖️👩‍⚖️LION(ESS) OF THE LAW, FORMER WISCONSIN CHIEF JUSTICE SHIRLEY ABRAHAMSON DIES AT 87

 

Hon. Shirley Abrahamson
Hon. Shirley Abrahamson
1933-2020
Copyright holder: Shirley Abrahamson, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/20/shirley-abrahamson-longest-serving-member-wisconsin-supreme-court-dies-87/3983456001/

Patrick Marley reports for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

MADISON — Shirley Abrahamson, the first woman to serve on the Wisconsin Supreme Court and its long-time chief justice, died Saturday after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, her son said Sunday. She was 87.

During her four decades on the court, Abrahamson developed a national reputation as a leader in liberal judicial thought.

“Among jurists I have encountered in the United States and abroad, Shirley Abrahamson is the very best,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a 2019 video message played at a ceremony for Abrahamson.

“As lawyer, law teacher and judge, she has inspired legions to follow in her way, to strive constantly to make the legal system genuinely equal and accessible to all who dwell in our fair land,” said Ginsburg, who died this September, just three months before Abrahamson.

Democratic Gov. Patrick Lucey appointed Abrahamson to the state Supreme Court in 1976 after Chief Justice Horace Wilkie died. Abrahamson stayed on the court for 43 years, longer than anyone else in state history.

“When I joined the court, I was given a voice — a voice that I have not hesitated to use,” Abrahamson said in a 2018 statement announcing she would not seek another term the following year. “The best expression of appreciation I can give the people who have elected and repeatedly re-elected me is to continue to speak with the clarity, forthrightness and compassion that come from a life I have tried to devote to service and to justice for all.”

. . . .

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Read the rest of the compelling story of Chief Justice Abrahamson at the link.

I had then Professor Abrahamson for Tax Law at Wisconsin Law back around 1972.  While she didn’t inspire me to become a tax lawyer, I remember her as a brilliant intellect and a formidable presence in class. A Professor whose every word you wanted to record. She also made a very complex subject understandable. That’s something I’ve always tried to do in the field of immigration.

I last saw her at a UW Law Reunion a few years ago. She was reminiscing to our group on her career and related to us how although she graduated at the top of her law school class, she had no job offers because of her gender. While I found her rise to the very top of our profession inspirational, I also felt outraged by the bias and stupidity of those who passed over such a brilliant intellect, who also had great leadership qualities, based solely on her gender. 

R.I.P. Chief  Justice. You inspired generations of us to continue the fight for social justice and equal justice for all.

I feel privileged to have had you for a teacher and role model.

On Wisconsin, and Due Process Forever!

PWS

12-20-20

“TORTURE” UNDER U.N. DEFINITION! ☠️— “GOVERNMENT-SANCTIONED CHILD ABUSE!” — WHAT HAVE WE BECOME AS A PEOPLE & A NATION? — AMERICA HAS PUT NOTORIOUS CHILD ABUSERS AND SHAMELESS “PERPS” OF “CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY” IN CHARGE — We Now Have A Chance To Throw Them Out & Start The Return To Human Decency As An Overriding National Value! 🗽

 

Here’s an array of reports on how America under the Trump regime has joined the ranks of dictatorships, torturers, child abusers, persecutors, and human rights criminals!

Eugene Robinson
Eugene Robinson
Opinion Columnist
Washington Post
Source: WashPost Website

Eugene Robinson @ WashPost:

What kind of people are we? As a society, are we so decadent and insecure that we show “toughness” by deliberately being cruel to innocent children? Is this what our nation has come to? Or are we better than that?

This election demands we answer those questions. The choice between President Trump and Joe Biden is not just political. It is also moral. And perhaps nothing more starkly illustrates the moral dimension of that decision than the Trump administration’s policy of kidnapping children at the southern U.S. border, ripping them away from their families — and doing so for no reason other than to demonstrate Trump’s warped vision of American strength.

We learned this week that some of those separations will probably be permanent. As NBC News first reported, 545 boys and girls taken as many as three years ago — the children of would-be immigrants and asylum seekers, mostly from Central America — have not been reunited with their parents and may never see their families again.

These are not among the nearly 3,000 families separated at the border in 2018, when children were kept in cages like animals or shipped away to facilities across the country, hundreds or thousands of miles from the border. We now know, thanks to the American Civil Liberties Union and other pro bono lawyers, that an additional 1,500 children were torn away from their families beginning in 2017, when the Trump administration conducted a trial run of the separation policy.

Please think about that. The shocking scenes we saw two years ago did not result from a sudden spasm of presidential anger. They didn’t stem from a Fox News segment Trump might have seen one evening. Rather, the administration rehearsed this form of cruelty.

What the administration did not plan for was how to reunite the children taken in 2017 with their families. Many of the parents were deported, and their children were placed in shelters around the country, then ostensibly released to parents or guardians, placements that the ACLU is still trying to confirm.

[Our Democracy in Peril: A series on the damage Trump has caused — and the danger he would pose in a second term]

The ACLU and other organizations have sent investigators to towns and villages in Central America in an attempt to find the kidnapped children’s families — an effort complicated not just by time and distance, but also by the covid-19 pandemic. Parents of 545 children have not been found, the ACLU reported this week.

Disturbingly, the Department of Homeland Security suggested that some of the parents declined to get their children back so they could remain in the United States. Keep in mind that most of these families were seeking asylum from deadly violence in their home countries. The Trump administration changed immigration guidelines to make it unlikely that the families would ultimately be allowed to stay in the United States, but federal law gives them the right to apply for asylum and to have their cases heard. They did nothing wrong. They should never have been asked to choose between parenting their children and getting them to safety — not by their home countries, and not by the United States.

Trump’s racism and xenophobia have been hallmarks of his presidency from the beginning, so perhaps it should be no surprise that he would preside over such an outrage. But he didn’t do this by himself. He had plenty of help.

Former attorney general Jeff Sessions seized an opportunity to make his rabid antipathy toward Hispanic immigration into policy. White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, a former Sessions aide in the Senate, was the architect of Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy. Then-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly said in 2018 that the children taken would be “taken care of — put into foster care or whatever.” Former homeland security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said last year that she regretted that “information flow and coordination to quickly reunite the families was clearly not in place” — but not the separations themselves.

. . . .

Read the rest of Eugene’s article here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/do-we-tolerate-the-kidnapping-of-children-this-election-is-our-chance-to-answer/2020/10/22/0f60d17c-1496-11eb-ad6f-36c93e6e94fb

***********************

Elise Foley
Elise Foley
Deputy Enterprise Editor
HuffPost
Photo Source: HuffPost.com

Elise Foley @ HuffPost:

President Donald Trump’s administration started and carried out a policy that took more than 4,000 children from their parents, at least 545 of whom are still split apart years later. But at Thursday’s debate, the president insisted that he did nothing wrong at all ― blaming his Democratic predecessors and even insisting the kids are doing fine.

“They are so well taken care of,” Trump said of the children taken from their parents by his administration. “They’re in facilities that were so clean.”

Trump’s first term was marked by a full-out assault on immigration, both legal and unauthorized. The most dramatic was his “zero tolerance” policy on unauthorized border-crossing, used in a 2017 pilot program and expanded more broadly in 2018, that led to criminal prosecution of parents and locking up their kids separately. Splitting up families was intentional and calculated, according to multiple reports.

Thanks to mass public outrage and a court order, Trump was forced to stop his family separation policy. Most families were reunited, but the American Civil Liberties Union, which was part of the lawsuit against the government that stopped the policy, said this week that at least 545 kids are still away from their parents.

“Their kids were ripped from their arms and separated,” Democratic nominee Joe Biden said during the debate. “And now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”

. . . .

Read the rest of Elise’s article here:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-debate-family-separation_n_5f924368c5b62333b2439d2b

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Ruth Marcus
Washington Post Columnist Ruth Marcus, moderates a panel discussion about chronic poverty with Education Secretary John B. King and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, during the National Association of Counties at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park, in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2016. U.S. Department of Agriculture photo by Lance Cheung.

Ruth Marcus @ WashPost:

545.

That is the number of children still separated from their families by the Trump administration — separated deliberately, cruelly and recklessly. They might never be reunited with their parents again. Even if they are, the damage is unimaginable and irreparable.

545.

Even one would be too many. Each one represents a unique tragedy. Imagine being ripped from your parents, or having your child taken from you. Imagine the desperation that the parents feel, the trauma inflicted on their children.

545.

That number represents an indelible stain on President Trump and every individual in his administration who implemented this policy, flawed at the conception and typically, gruesomely incompetent in the execution. It is, perhaps in the technical sense but surely in the broader one, a crime against humanity. It is torture.

545.

That number — I will stop repeating it, yet it cannot be repeated enough — represents a moral challenge and responsibility for the next administration. If Joe Biden is elected president, he must devote the maximum resources of the federal government to fixing this disaster. The United States broke these families; it must do whatever it takes to help them heal.

Nothing like that would happen in a second Trump term, because Trump himself doesn’t care. He doesn’t grasp the horror that he oversaw. He doesn’t comprehend the policy, and he is incapable of feeling the pain it inflicted.

Those truths could not have been clearer cut than during Thursday night’s debate.

Moderator Kristen Welker of NBC News asked the president a simple question: “How will these families ever be reunited?”

First, Trump misstated the situation: “Their children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here, and they used to use them to get into our country.”

No. These are children separated from their families, not separated from smugglers. They are children brought by their parents in desperate search of a better life, desperate enough that they would take the risk of the dangerous journey.

Then Trump pivoted to the irrelevant: “We now have as strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers. And we let people in, but they have to come in legally.”

Welker persisted: “But how will you reunite these kids with their families, Mr. President?”

Trump responded by pointing his finger at his predecessor: “Let me just tell you, they built cages. You know, they used to say I built the cages, and then they had a picture in a certain newspaper and it was a picture of these horrible cages and they said look at these cages, President Trump built them, and then it was determined they were built in 2014. That was him.”

This is typical Trumpian deflection, bluster undergirded by ignorance. The “cages” are ugly but irrelevant to the topic at hand: the deliberately cruel plan to deter border-crossing by separating children from parents. That was a Trump administration special, implemented with callous sloppiness and so extreme that even the Trump administration abandoned it.

Welker, for the third time: “Do you have a plan to reunite the kids with their families?”

At which point Trump made clear that he did not: “We’re trying very hard, but a lot of these kids come out without the parents, they come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.” The children, he added later, “are so well taken care of, they’re in facilities that were so clean.”

. . . .

Read the rest of Ruth’s op-ed here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/545-children-are-still-separated-from-their-families-what-if-one-of-them-were-yours/2020/10/23/63d3be04-154f-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html

********************

Bess Levin
Bess Levin
Politics & Finance Writer
Vanity Fair


Bess Levin
@ Vanity Fair:

The third and final presidential debate gave Donald Trump and Joe Biden the opportunity to make their final pitch to the American people before the 2020 election. For the Democratic nominee, that meant driving home the point that he believes in science, that he’ll take the COVID-19 pandemic seriously, that climate change is real, and that systemic racism must be dealt with. For Trump, it meant making it clear that in addition to being a science-denying, QAnon-promoting dimwit, he’s also an actual monster who thinks separating small children from their parents, in some cases permanently, is absolutely fine.

Asked by moderated Kristen Welker about the news that parents of 545 children separated at the border—60 of whom are under the age of five—cannot be located, Trump defended the policy and gave no explanation for how the government plans to find these people and reunite their families. “Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they’re brought here and they used to use them to get into our country,” Trump said, which is objectively false, as they are brought here by their parents, which is why it’s called the family separation policy. “We now have as strong a border as we’ve ever had. We’re over 400 miles of brand new wall. You see the numbers and we let people in but they have to come in legally.”

pastedGraphic.png

Noting that Trump hadn’t answered the question, Welker pressed: “But how will you unite these kids with their families?”

“They built cages, they used to say I built cages…that was him,” Trump said, pointing to Biden and referring to the fact that the Obama administration did build temporary enclosures but failing, naturally, to mention that his predecessor did not separate families.

“Do you have a plan to reunite the kids with their parents?” Welker asked a third time. Again, Trump responded by claiming that the children “come without the parents, they come over through cartels and through coyotes and through gangs.”

At this point, Joe Biden was given a chance to weigh in and used his time to describe the policy implemented by Trump as the horror show all non-sociopaths know it to be. “Parents, their kids were ripped from their arms and they were separated and now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone, nowhere to go. It’s criminal.”

Then Trump interjected with what he apparently believed was an important point that would cast his administration in a much more favorable light and perhaps might even win it some awards or sainthood by the Catholic church. “Kristen, I will say this,” he told the moderator, of the children stolen from their parents. “They’re so well taken care of. They’re in facilities that are so clean.

pastedGraphic_1.png

With regard to that claim, NBC News reporter Jacob Soboroff weighed in on that after the debate, telling Rachel Maddow: “I was one of the reporters I guess the president mentioned, they invited me to go to the epicenter of this policy…what I saw was little children sitting on concrete floors, covered by mylar blankets, supervised by security contractors in a watchtower, it makes me sick every time I recall it. And Physicians for Human Rights…called this torture…the American Academy of Pediatrics called this state-sanctioned child abuse, and the president of the United States I guess interprets that as children being well taken care of.”

pastedGraphic_2.png

Read the rest of The Levin Report here:

https://mailchi.mp/c4319dce073e/levin-report-trumps-heart-bursting-with-sympathy-for-his-buddy-bob-kraft-2882762?e=adce5e3390

********************

Jacob Soboroff
Jacob Soboroff
NBC Correspondent
Jacob Soboroff at the ABC News Democratic Debate
National Constitution Center. Philadelphia, PA.
Creative Commons License

Here’s a video from NBC New’s  Jacob Soboroff, who has actually been inside “Trump’s Kiddie Gulag.” Surprise spoiler: It’s not “nice.” More like “torture” and “child abuse.”

https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/watch/soboroff-the-conditions-of-migrant-children-trump-described-as-well-taken-care-of-made-me-sick-94450757764

*********************

Julia Edwards Ainsley

And, here’s another video from NBC News’s always incisive and articulate Julia Edwards Ainsley:

https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/10/21/lawyers-cant-find-parents-of-545-migrant-children-separated-by-the-trump-administration.html

*******************

There is neither moral nor legal justification for what the Trump regime has done to asylum seekers and other migrants over the past four years as part of their racist, White Nationalist, nativist agenda. But, we can show that we’re a better country than his horrible vision by voting him and all of his enablers out of office! Vote ‘Em out, vote ‘Em out!

PWS

10-25-20

NDPA SUPERSTAR ⭐️ PROFESSOR ERIN BARBATO 🦸‍♀️ ORGANIZES EVENT, SPEAKS OUT IN MADISON CAP TIMES ON ICE ABUSES IN THE “NEW AMERICAN GULAG” (“NAG”) — “We must rebuild the system from the ground up and work toward a future in which immigrants are treated with respect and dignity. Our shared humanity demands it.”

 

Professor Erin Barbato
Professor Erin Barbato
Director, Immigrant Justice Clinic
UW Law
Photo source: UW Law

https://madison.com/ct/opinion/column/erin-m-barbato-immigrant-detention-today-relies-on-systemic-racism-and-life-threatening-policies-it/article_0b8a6c14-99bf-5aa4-bd81-30b7923d9c54.html

Last month, a nurse at a federal immigration detention center in Irwin, Georgia, filed a whistleblower complaint detailing the abhorrent treatment of people detained there. She charged that women in detention were subjected to hysterectomies and invasive gynecological exams without their knowledge or consent, and often without assistance from interpreters.

The complaint is heartbreaking, but far from surprising. These atrocities are consistent with practices employed at U.S. detention centers for decades, and they are sadly consistent with our tragic history of forced sterilization of minority women. The implications of the complaint are perfectly clear: we must end the civil detention of immigrants, so fraught with systemic racism that undervalues the lives of Black, Indigenous and other people of color. There is no other option.

With over 200 detention centers, the United States has the largest immigration detention system in the world. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has over the past two years detained an average of 40,000 daily, an astonishing number that surpasses the population of Wisconsin cities like Brookfield and Wausau. Yet the detention of immigrants is just a microcosm of the inhumanity that characterizes our immigration system today. Many immigrants come to the U.S. to seek refuge and a better life for themselves and for their families. But when they arrive in this country, they are forced into conditions that violate human rights principles under both international and domestic standards, and that, frankly, violate our moral obligations to each other as human beings.

ICE has the authority to release most people from detention through monetary bonds or parole, and ICE policy requires that people seeking asylum are released from detention when they can establish their identity and demonstrate they are neither a danger nor a or flight risk. Instead of using these tools, though, ICE almost always chooses detention, ostensibly to deter others from coming into the country. But far from showing detention to be an effective deterrent, statistics reveal the opposite: harsher penalties have not reduced the numbers of undocumented migrants crossing U.S. borders. What the data does show is how immigrant detention has become a big business, with taxpayer dollars helping to subsidize a billion-dollar private prison industry that profits from human trauma.

Often located in remote places, immigrant detention facilities are ripe for the abuse of detained migrants. There is no community oversight and little — often no — access to legal representation. People in detention will only have an attorney if they can afford one or are lucky enough to find pro bono representation.

. . . .

***********************

Read the rest of Erin’s article at the link! Erin reinforces points that I make often here on Courtside: the real objectives of unnecessary and highly cost-ineffective “civil detention” are to deprive migrants of access to counsel, coerce them into abandoning potentially successful claims, punish them for exercising legal rights, and deter others from asserting legal rights.

All of these are clear violations of  Constitutional due process and equal protection!  The conditions under which these non-criminals are held to “punish” them for their audacity to assert their legal rights also violate the Eighth Amendment, as some lower Federal Court Judges have found.

Unfortunately, too many Article III Judges have abdicated their oaths to uphold the Constitutional rights of the most vulnerable persons among us in the face of improper political pressure and a regime overtly out to undo American democracy and institute a far-right reactionary, white nationalist kakistocracy.

And, here’s info on a great “virtual event” that Erin helped organize to raise awareness of the existence and devastating effects of “Baby Jails” in the U.S. Allowing  such cruel and inhuman abominations to flourish in our nation is beyond disgraceful! (See also the recent book Baby Jails: The Fight to End the Incarceration of Refugee Children in America, by my good friend and Georgetown Law colleague Professor Phil Schrag).

https://law.wisc.edu/calendar/event.php?iEventID=32578180

The Flores Exhibit: Stories of Children Held in Immigrant Detention Facilities

WHEN

Wednesday, October 14, 2020

7:30 pm to 8:30 pm

WHERE

Virtual 

EVENT DESCRIPTION

Artists, lawyers, advocates and immigrants read the sworn testimonies of young people under the age of 18, who were held in two detention facilities near the U.S./Mexico border in June 2019. Followed by a discussion with panelists. 

Organized by the Immigrant Justice Clinic, Latinx Law Student Association, and American Constitution Society at UW Law School. 

Zoom link will be sent to via email to those who register.

Registration

INTENDED AUDIENCE

Faculty, Students, Staff

EVENT CATEGORY

Speaker/Discussion

Email this event

Download for import into your calendar

« Back to the Calendar

******************

I proudly note that my good friend Judge (Ret.) Jeffrey S. Chase and other distinguished members of our Round Table of Former Immigration Judges are “readers” in “The Flores Exhibit.”

I am also inspired by all that Erin has accomplished and the lives she and her students have saved through the Immigrant Justice Clinic at my alma mater, UW Law!

Erin and others like her are exactly the type of progressive, practical, scholar-problem solvers that we need as Federal Judges and in key Government policy-making positions. We need to replace the reactionary kakistocracy with a progressive, equal justice oriented, practical, problem-solving humanitarian meritocracy. 

“Equal Justice For All” isn’t just a “throwaway slogan.” It’s a vision of a better, more efficient, more effective, more tolerant, more inclusive, more diverse, more representative Government that will work with people of good faith everywhere to maximize opportunities for all and promote a brighter future for everyone in America! It’s in our power to make it happen,and the necessary change starts this Fall.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

10-12-20

LIGHT IN A TIME OF DARKNESS: Humanity & Law in America Probably Had Their Two Best Moments  (LGBTQ Rights & DACA) in Three Years Of Trump’s Darkness — Chief Justice John Roberts Made It Happen — How His  Decision to Stand Up For Dreamers & The Rule of Law Against Trump’s Inhumanity, Cruelty, & Lawlessness is Already Making A Difference in The Lives of American Young People Across Our Broken Nation!

John Roberts
Chief Justice John Roberts
Theresa Vargas
Theresa Vargas
Reporter
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/behind-defund-the-police-and-abolish-ice-is-a-shared-hope-that-more-dads-make-it-home/2020/06/20/a8c0969a-b28a-11ea-8f56-63f38c990077_story.html

Theresa Vargas reports for WashPost:

By Theresa Vargas

June 20 at 10:30 AM ET

Angel Romero was about 8 years old when his bus rides home from school changed.

His family was living in Prince William County in Virginia at the time, and the elementary school student didn’t understand much about the agreement the county had entered into with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He knew only that some of his classmates had arrived home after school and found their parents gone.

“I started worrying if I would have parents when I came home,” he recalls.

On those bus rides home, he would sit with his anxiety until his bus came to his stop.

Some days, he would see his mom and dad standing there, and feel immediate relief that they hadn’t been deported. Other days, his mother would wait alone, because his father had to work at his construction job, and the boy would carry his fears with him until his dad walked in the door.

“It would be really scary not knowing if he was at work — or somewhere else,” the now 21-year-old tells me when we talk on a recent morning. “There is still that subconscious fear that has stuck with me. It’s never gone away.”

In the past week, Romero has been able to celebrate on a personal level two nationally recognized victories: Prince William County’s decision to not renew its 287(g) agreement with ICE and a Supreme Court ruling that blocks President Trump’s attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that offers protections to immigrants who were brought to the country as children.

[[Large Virginia county ends immigration enforcement agreement]]

Romero, who is a DACA recipient, stood in front of the Supreme Court on the day that decision was made. At one point, he took a knee and raised a fist in the air. A line of people, who, like him, had worked with the immigrant advocacy group CASA toward that moment, did the same.

It’s a posture that has been seen over and over again in recent weeks as streets across the country have filled with people protesting police brutality and other racial inequities. The push to “Defund the Police,” which has grown from those protests, may seem a distant fight from the effort to “Abolish ICE,” which immigrant rights groups have demanded, but many of the activists who are on the front lines right now, pushing for change, see the two as connected. They see them as two cries in the same battle.

What “Defund the Police” and “Abolish ICE” share is an acknowledgment that bad law enforcement practices, no matter what the badge looks like, unjustly separate families. They leave children not knowing whether their dads (or moms) will make it home, not because of what they did that day, but because of who they are.

Both also directly affect black immigrants.

In rallies that took place before the Prince William County decision, brown hands held white signs declaring “Black Lives Matter.” And in the hours after the Supreme Court decision, black activists called for an end to how the country enforces immigration. The system, which has seen in-custody deaths of adults and children, criminalizes people for entering the country while not providing clear paths to citizenship.

“These movements should be very linked, and I believe they are getting more and more linked as we are fighting together,” says Luis Aguilar, the Virginia state director for CASA. He is a DACA recipient and has spent years working toward seeing Prince William County end its agreement with ICE.

He is also Afro-Mexican. His dad comes from a region of Mexico where runaway slaves settled.

“When I see things like what happened to George Floyd, it goes beyond the personal,” the 33-year-old says of the police-custody killing that has sparked weeks of protests. “It goes to a space where you start thinking about why these things are happening, and you realize that currently society isn’t in a place where it truly respects each person as a human being.”

Aguilar was 15 and living in Falls Church when his father was deported.

“I would not want any other child to experience the results of a broken immigration system,” he says. “I think we owe it to society to fix the system.”

The decision by Prince William lawmakers not to renew its agreement with ICE when it expires at the end of the month received a blip of attention compared with the Supreme Court decision. But it is a significant development for the Washington region. That program changed the county. It created a hostile atmosphere, and not just for undocumented immigrants. It forced Latino families to leave the county and some to avoid calling the police, even when they needed help.

I know this not only from studies that have been conducted over the years, but also from personal observation.

When I came to The Washington Post, it wasn’t as a columnist. I was hired to cover the Prince William County Police Department. I had been in that job less than a year when county lawmakers approved 287(g), which gave law enforcement officials some of the same powers as immigration enforcement agents. They did that despite hearing concerns from the police department that it would erode community trust, prevent immigrants from reporting crimes and require a whole lot of money.

When Corey Stewart was running for a Senate seat, I wrote about what I saw and experienced after the crackdown happened — including how a man yelled at me, “Go back to your country!” — to show the intangible ways in which it failed the community. (And for those who want to point to it as a solution to crime, Prince William Police Chief Barry M. Barnard was recently quoted as saying, “I’m not seeing any hard data where the 287 program has been shown to be the direct cause of any measurable crime reduction.”)

Instead, it left people feeling scared and targeted — and it did that to residents who weren’t even out of elementary school yet.

Angel Romero says for him, “that moment just changed everything.”

“It changed my personality,” he says. “I used to be a really talkative kid, and I had like a switch, where I became very closed off and introverted.”

. . . .

*******************************

Sophie Bolich
Sophie Bolich
Reporter
Madison.com (WI)

https://madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/an-amazing-feeling-of-relief-immigrant-community-cheers-daca-ruling/article_3d3a943b-ef1c-5228-aa44-af5bba8b347f.html?utm_source=BadgerBeat&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=News%20Alerts

Sophie Bolich reports for the Madison.com:

When Sharet Garcia heard the U.S. Supreme Court decided to uphold the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, all she could do was cry.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” she said.

As a DACA recipient and founder of the online networking space UndocuProfessionals, Garcia said that the decision came as a shock. “We’re very excited, of course, and very happy…but at the same time, we know there’s still a lot of work to be done,” she said.

In the year since its creation, UndocuProfessionals has garnered a nationwide following. In the past months, it has become a gathering space for DACA recipients — also called DREAMers — to find support through the uncertainty of the approaching decision.

Garcia said she stayed awake into the early hours Thursday morning answering messages from other DREAMers who were anxiously awaiting the results.

“I was there trying to support them in the best way I can,” she said.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision, which came after months of anticipation, ruled that the Trump administration improperly ended the DACA program in 2017. The announcement left DREAMers and their loved ones with “an amazing feeling of relief,” said Centro Hispano director Karen Menendez Coller.

It was the second defeat this week for the Trump administration, coming just days after the court ruled in favor of anti-discrimination protection for LGBTQIA+ employees under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

“The emotional impact is huge,” Menendez Coller said. “I can’t even describe the burden that this has lifted from so many people in the community.”

Anticipating the court’s decision against the backdrop of the pandemic, she added, was “an incredible load to carry,” noting the financial impact as well as the daily emotional turmoil that DREAMers face.

“You kind of have to put [the worry] at the back of your mind and ignore it,” said a Madison-area DACA recipient, who asked to remain anonymous. At the same time, she said, the thought was always lurking. “At any moment, had the outcome been negative, your whole world is going to change.”

She added that while many people weren’t hopeful about the decision, she was.

“There’s a lot more opportunities that people have had now for eight years,” she said, noting that, since the program’s 2012 inception, DREAMers have started small businesses, graduated college and worked for big companies.

“I think that that’s a big reason why I was like, maybe they’ll think twice about it. And thankfully they did.”

Though she counts the decision as a win, Menendez Collar said that the path to equity is “a long road.” Centro Hispano plans to continue mobilizing and raising funds to assist DREAMers and the undocumented community. They plan to collaborate with the Immigration Office of Affairs and increase the Immigrant Assistance Fund, which is housed at the Madison Community Foundation and helps DREAMers access legal help and cover fees associated with filing DACA applications.

. . . .

********************

Read the rest of Theresa’s and Sophie’s articles at the respective links above.

Imagine how many lives could be saved and changed for the better and how great America could become as a nation if Chief Justice Roberts and all other Federal Judges could find it within themselves to stand up for the legal, human, and Constitutional rights of refugees, asylum applicants, and migrants in every case challenging the Administration’s systemic, lawless, and invidiously motivated attacks on our legal system and the lives and humanity of the most vulnerable among us?

And, special thanks to Theresa and Sophie for reporting that puts humanity back in the law where it belongs. Without mercy, humanity, fairness, and decency, there can be neither law nor true justice.

Due Process Forever!

PWS

06-21-20

THANK UW LAW: Unemployment Insurance Was The Brainchild of Two Amazing UW Law Students Who Were Also In Love — It All Began In L-1 Torts! — PLUS: The “Wisconsin Idea” Continues Today Through The Work of Professor Erin Barbato!

Michael S.Rosenwald
Michael S. Rosenwald
Enterprise Reporter
Washington Post

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/04/18/unemployment-checks-great-depression-coronavirus/h

Michael S. Rosenwald writes in the WashPost:


A line to apply for unemployment benefits in San Francisco in 1938. (Library of Congress)

A line to apply for unemployment benefits in San Francisco in 1938. (Library of Congress)

They first laid eyes on each other in torts class.

It was 1923, a period of prosperity before the Great Depression.

He was the son of Walter Rauschenbusch, a prominent theologian and key figure in the Social Gospel movement. She was the daughter of Louis Brandeis, the progressive Supreme Court justice and the most famous Jew in America. Each inherited their parents’ zeal for social justice.

At the University of Wisconsin Law School, these two idealists — Elizabeth Brandeis and Paul Raushenbush — noticed each other immediately. She was brainy and shy, her hair long and dark. He was handsome and outgoing. On hikes and canoe outings, they fell in love romantically and intellectually — a partnership instrumental in passing the nation’s first unemployment compensation law.

The story of how they did it is largely forgotten, but the 22 million people who have applied for unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic — and, of course, the millions before them — have this unlikely couple to thank. The law they conceived of and helped pass in Wisconsin laid the foundation for unemployment insurance throughout the country.

“Their story is absolutely staggering to think about right now,” said their grandson Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, a Baptist minister and senior adviser for public affairs and innovation at Interfaith Youth Core, a nonprofit organization. “It was their life’s work to make laws like this available to everyone.”

Raushenbush, who lives in New York, has spent the last few years writing a history of his family, including interviewing his father, Walter, who is 92 and lives in McLean, Va. Raushenbush was working on the unemployment insurance section as the coronavirus pandemic arrived in America.

Elizabeth Brandeis Raushenbush and Paul Raushenbush. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)
Elizabeth Brandeis Raushenbush and Paul Raushenbush. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)

As part of his research, Raushenbush has been reading a privately published book his grandparents wrote based on interviews they gave to a Columbia University oral history project. The book is the story of the legislation — where the idea came from, the characters involved, how the law was ultimately passed.

“It really reads like a novel,” Raushenbush said.

The main characters, of course, are his grandparents.

And Wisconsin.

His grandmother moved there to attend law school. She had lost her job as a researcher for the D.C. Minimum Wage Board following the Supreme Court’s ruling that the minimum wage for women was unconstitutional. Justice Brandeis, who as a lawyer and jurist was renowned for his progressive stance on social issues, did not cast a vote because of his daughter’s job.

E.B., as she was known to family and friends, wanted a career at the intersection of economics, labor and the law. She hoped to attend an elite East Coast law school, but those programs, including Harvard, where her father studied, didn’t accept women. With her father’s approval, she chose the University of Wisconsin, where the “Wisconsin Idea” — fusing academic research to solving social problems — was flourishing.

“I have no doubt that the Wisconsin Law School is good enough for your purposes,” E.B.’s father wrote to her, “and should think it probable that you would find economics instruction, and doubtless, other considerations more sympathetic there than at Yale.”

Her future husband chose Wisconsin for the same reason. There, the couple studied under professor John R. Commons, an influential social economist who crafted Wisconsin’s workers’ compensation law. Commons tried and failed several times to pass legislation protecting unemployed workers, whose numbers were soaring, especially after the stock market crash in 1929.

Paul Raushenbush signing the paperwork for the first unemployment compensation check in 1936. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)
Paul Raushenbush signing the paperwork for the first unemployment compensation check in 1936. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)

Commons took a particular interest in his graduate students, inviting them for regular dinners on Friday nights to discuss societal problems.

“I suppose the characteristic thing about Commons was that he was trying to use his brains and enlist the brains of his students in attempting solutions of economic problems,” Raushenbush said during the Columbia University oral history interviews. “This was no ivory tower guy. Sure, he did research and wrote books, but perhaps the main interest that attracted his students was that they were being invited to participate in an attempt to deal with difficult problems on an intelligent basis.”

By 1930, E.B. and her husband both were teaching economics at the University of Wisconsin. They had become friends with Philip La Follette, the local district attorney, whose parents were friends with Justice Brandeis. One day in June, La Follette invited the couple, along with another Wisconsin economist, Harold Groves, to his house in Madison.

La Follette told them he planned to run for governor, that he planned to win, and that he wanted to pass legislation instituting unemployment compensation. He asked the trio to come up with a plan.

And did they ever.

They spent the weekend hiking along the Wisconsin River batting around ideas. Their key idea — one that survives today — was that the benefits should be funded entirely by employers, thus giving them the incentive to maintain steady levels of employment or bear the cost of not doing so. The economists also decided that Groves, who grew up on a Wisconsin farm, should run for the State Assembly and introduce the legislation.

Everything clicked.


In 1932, Wisconsin Gov. Philip La Follette signs the nation’s first unemployment measure into law. Elizabeth Brandeis Raushenbush and Paul Raushenbush are second and third from the left. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)
In 1932, Wisconsin Gov. Philip La Follette signs the nation’s first unemployment measure into law. Elizabeth Brandeis Raushenbush and Paul Raushenbush are second and third from the left. (Courtesy of Paul Brandeis Raushenbush)
The first unemployment check issued in Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Historical Society)
The first unemployment check issued in Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Historical Society)

. . . .

********************

Read the rest of the article in the WashPost at the link.

Scholarship, teamwork, creativity, hard work, and a healthy dose of romance produces results that are still “making a difference” today. Nice story! Beyond that, it’s an inspiring story for today’s world.

What if we had more folks like the Raushenbusches in government today? Folks looking for ways in which government could work to make the lives or ordinary working people better. Compare that with the “Trump Kakistocracy,” a bunch of self-centered incompetents mostly out to disable government, screw working folks, line their own pockets, glorify and suck up to their “Supreme Leader-Clown,” and shift blame for their mess, all while attempting to advance a destructive far-right political agenda that cares not for the public good! Then we had folks like Phil La Follette; now we have Stephen Miller!

Professor Walter Brandeis Raushenbusch, the son of Elizabeth & Paul, was on the faculty of U.W. Law when I was there from 1970-73. However, I never had him for a class. We did study the “LaFollette Era” and its contributions to President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” in several of my classes.

I believe that U.W. Law gave me a strong grounding in teamwork with my colleagues (now retired Wisconsin State Judge Thomas S. Lister was one), how to apply scholarship to achieve practical results, and solving complex problems.

Speaking with Judge Lister earlier this year during a “pre-lockdown” visit with his wife Sally to D.C., I could see how our time together at U.W. Law had a continuing profound influence on both of our careers, particularly the “judicial phases.” In our different ways, we were always striving to establish “best practices,” promote “good government,” and make the “system work better” for the public it served. Just like some of the “progressive ideas” that were interwoven with our legal education in Madison. “Teaching from the bench” was how I always thought of it. Sometimes we succeeded, other times not so much; but we were always “in there pitching,” even up to today. See, e.g., the “Lister-Schmidt Proposal” for an Auxiliary Judiciary for the U.S. Immigration Courts here: https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/08/19/an-open-letter-proposal-from-two-uw-law-73-retired-judges-weve-spent-90-collective-years-working-to-improve-the-quality-delivery-of-justice-in-america/.   We haven’t given up on this one!

Thomas Lister
Hon. Thomas Lister
Retired Jackson County (WI) Circuit Judge

And, the “Wisconsin Idea” is still alive and thriving at U.W. Law, thanks to dedicated professors like my good friend and fellow warrior for the “New Due Process Army,” Professor Erin Barbato, Director of the U.W. Immigrant Justice Clinic. Erin uses creative scholarship, teaches practical, usable, courtroom and counseling skills, promotes teamwork, and saves “real lives” in her work with asylum seekers and other migrants. She is also a role model who is inspiring a new generation of American lawyers committed to advancing social justice and guaranteeing Due Process and fundamental fairness for all. Indeed, Erin was a guest lecturer at my Georgetown Law class and inspired my students with her courage, energy, and real life examples of “applying law to save lives!” It really made the “textbook come alive” for my students! Thanks for all you do, Erin!

Professor Erin Barbato
Professor Erin Barbato
Director, Immigrant Justice Clinic
UW Law

On Wisconsin!

On Wisconsin!
On Wisconsin!

Due Process Forever!

PWS

04-19-20

HAIL TO THE U.S. WOMEN — X-Badger Rose Lavelle Leads US Women’s Soccer Team To Back To Back World Cup Triumph — Scores “Backbreaker” Goal Against Tough Dutch!

https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/2019/07/07/former-badger-rose-lavelle-scores-world-cup-final/1668577001/

JR Radcliffe
JR Radcliffe
Sports Reporter
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Rose Lavelle
Rose Lavelle
US Women’s Soccer

 

JR Radcliffe reports for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

University of Wisconsin product Rose Lavelle scored a goal on the biggest stage in women’s soccer, the World Cup final, Sunday at Stade de Lyon in Lyon, France. Her strike gave the United States a 2-0 lead over the Netherlands.

Lavelle, a 24-year-old native of Ohio and former Badgers star soccer player, has been a breakout star in the World Cup, starting with two goals in the first U.S. match in group play and continuing with a highlight-reel “nutmeg” maneuver in the semifinal win over England.

Lavelle was three times an All-American at UW and four times a member of the All-Big Ten squad during her time with the program from 2013-16. She was the first overall pick in the 2017 National Women’s Soccer League draft. .

JR Radcliffe can be reached at (262) 361-9141 or jradcliffe@gannett.com.

Follow him on Twitter at @JRRadcliffe.

*********************

Congrats to Rose and the rest of her amazing teammates on a truly remarkable accomplishment: back to back World Cup Championships! What great competitors and role models!

No, The U.S. Women don’t deserve to be paid the same as the U.S. Men — they totally deserve to be paid significantly more based on demonstrated results and what they have done for soccer and the US! 

PWS

07-08-19

CALL US CRAZY, BUT . . . . THERE ARE SOLUTIONS TO THE IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG PROBLEM THAT WILL ENHANCE FAIRNESS & DUE PROCESS WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK — It Just Requires Some Imagination, Initiative, & An Unswerving Commitment To Putting Due Process & Fairness First — The “Lister-Schmidt Proposal”

 

CALL US CRAZY, BUT . . . . THERE ARE SOLUTIONS TO THE IMMIGRATION COURT BACKLOG PROBLEM THAT WILL ENHANCE FAIRNESS & DUE PROCESS WITHOUT BREAKING THE BANK — It Just Requires Some Imagination, Initiative, & An Unswerving Commitment To Putting Due Process & Fairness First — The “Lister-Schmidt Proposal”

 

The other day I got a call from my good friend and UW Law classmate, retired Wisconsin State Judge Tom Lister. The conversation went something like this:

 

TOM: Schmidt, I’ve been reading about the backlog in your blog — 1.1 million cases! No way it’s going to be solved just by hiring more judges. But, hey, I’m out here living well in retirement, and I’d be happy to help out. And there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of other retired judges throughout the U.S who probably would be willing to pitch in too.

 

ME: Yeah, sounds nice Tom, but I doubt there is any money in the EOIR budget for hiring retired judges. They once claimed they would bring back some of my retired colleagues, but the program doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere.

 

TOM: I don’t need a salary. I’m willing to volunteer! Just pay my incidentals.

 

ME: Well, then there’s this thing called the Anti-Deficiency Act that prevents agencies like DOJ from accepting free services. It would take some kind of statutory waiver . . . .

 

By that time, I felt that I was retreating into just the type of bureaucratic “yes-buts” or “passive yeses” that I used to hate during my days as a bureaucrat right up until the present.

 

But, what if Congress created an independent Immigration Court free of the “bureaucratic no-nos” that plague the DOJ bureaucracy? And what if the system were run by actual sitting judges committed to using “teamwork and innovation” to solve problems, institute “best practices,” and aspire to become “the world’s best tribunals” guaranteeing fairness and Due Process for all?”

 

Maybe we’d have things like this:

 

SENIOR JUDICIAL DUE PROCESS BRIGADE

 

Retired judges of all types would be trained and available to assist the Immigration Courts in dealing with “surges,” retirement waves, changes in the law, and other “emergencies” on a volunteer basis.

 

DIVISION A: RETIRED IMMIGRATION JUDGES

 

They could be trained to handle all types of immigration cases on a volunteer “as needed” basis.  This would be very similar to the Senior Judge Corps used by other Federal Courts.

 

DIVISION B: RETIRED JUDGES FROM OUTSIDE THE IMMIGRATION BENCH

 

They could be trained to handle certain types of Immigration Court adjudications that are primarily fact-findings that would require some basic knowledge of immigration law but not the degree of specialized expertise that might be expected of a permanent Immigration Judge. Like “Division A” they would be volunteers, requiring expense reimbursement only.

 

Obvious candidates for “Division B Judges:”

 

  • Cancellation of Removal all types where basic eligibility is uncontested and the only issues are hardship and discretion;
  • Bonds where there are no statutory eligibility issues;
  • Adjustments of Status;
  • “Voluntary Departure Only” cases;
  • Master Calendars;
  • Withdrawals and other stipulated cases;
  • Status Conferences;
  • In Absentia dockets.

 

 

ASYLUM OFFICER MAGISTRATE BRIGADE

 

Put the Asylum Officers under the Immigration Courts where they can be used for a wide range of adjudications much like U.S. Magistrate Judges. This would include, but not be limited to, asylum, withholding, and CAT cases. Another obvious candidate would be certain Non-Lawful-Permanent Resident Cancellation of Removal cases.

 

Since the existing USCIS program would be folded in, the expenses of this conversion would be minimal and the possibilities for improving justice, due process, and efficiency limitless!

 

This is by no means the full extent of what could be done to improve the delivery of justice and fairness in the U.S. Immigration Courts.  But, to let the “creative juices and efficiencies flow,” it will require Congress to move the Immigration Courts out of the DOJ and create an independent court where judges are free to work as a team and with “stakeholders” to solve problems, rather than creating new ones or aggravating existing ones.

PWS

02-14-19

 

 

ICE BRINGS MINDLESS CRUELTY TO THE HEARTLAND – Badger State Feels The Sting Of Trumpist Xenophobia!

https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/they-re-basically-destroying-our-family-madison-leaders-react-to/article_692096c3-556a-58b5-a2e5-9ac77f3f76d4.html

Abigail Becker reports from Madison, WI for The Capital Times:

Gissell Vera was on her way to school Friday morning, but turned around when she received a text message from her aunt informing her that someone had knocked “aggressively” at her door.

Vera, 18, is the strongest bilingual speaker in her family and her language skills were needed at home to get information from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who came to detain her uncle, Erick Gambao Chay.

“They’re basically destroying our family,” Vera said at a press conference Monday at Centro Hispano. “Why are they doing that? It’s just chaos.”

Gambao Chay, a father of three children under the age of 10, was one of approximately 11 individuals known to be detained by ICE agents in the Madison area starting Friday, according to Voces de la Frontera, an immigrants rights advocacy group based in Milwaukee.

Over the weekend, reports of co-workers, employees and family members surfaced on social media, heightening tension in the community.

“It may seem a small number, but these are the breadwinners from the families,” Dane County immigration affairs specialist Fabiola Hamdan said. “They are the ones that are (leaving) behind kids, moms, wives and the community … it’s a super hard day for us, not only Latinos but all immigrants.”

Kazbuag Vaj, the co-executive director of Freedom Inc., reminded those at the press conference that the issue of immigration does not only affect the Latino community. Vaj works with Hmong and Cambodian refugees who could also be vulnerable to ICE.

“As a community that’s already heavily policed because we live in low-income housing and we live right around this area … having ICE, an additional militarism, in this community adds additional stress to the families,” Vaj said. “We are in crisis also.”

‘They are not police’

Voces de la Frontera also reported that ICE agents arrested 15 people in Arcadia, three people in Milwaukee and five in Green Bay as of Monday morning. In some cases, including the arrest of Vera’s uncle, ICE agents are “falsely identified themselves as police,” they said.

Vera explained to a packed room of reporters, local and state officials, and dozens of community members that her family is used to working with local police officers.

“We live in a very unsafe neighborhood, so it’s normal for law enforcement to come and ask questions,” she said. “We always cooperate because we live in a really united community.”

The agents identified themselves with ICE and arrested Gambao Chay as his children clung to him. Gambao Chay’s three children and wife were previously hiding in the attic for fear of deportation.

“Once my uncle walked up to the door, they said, ‘We’re ICE police and you have to come with us because you haven’t been behaving well and you don’t have the right to be here,’” Vera said.

Mayor Paul Soglin said the tactic is a lie used by ICE to “create confusion and worsen an already bad situation.”

“We are going to continue to protest the use of police in regards to ICE’s activities,” Soglin said. “They are not police. They are federal agents who are using their authority to come into a local situation.”

Soglin said the city’s priority is to identify the individuals who have been detained and get them access to legal services. He also requested a meeting with mayors from across the nation and ICE officials to discuss the lack of communication with local agencies.

“We do not need you making your determination that someone who may have some traffic violations, someone who may only be undocumented or have some other minor offenses is someone who is of danger to our community,” Soglin said, directing his comments to the federal agency.

Madison Police Chief Mike Koval and Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney have reiterated their commitment to the Madison and Dane County community and not to enforcing immigration law.

Koval said Friday that he was not informed that ICE would be in the area even though the MPD has a standing agreement with the agency to be notified when agents will be in the community. Koval has reiterated that enforcement of immigration laws remains primarily with the federal government.

“To this end, MPD will not self-initiate contact, detain, arrest, or investigate any person(s) solely for a suspected violation of immigration status laws,” according to the department’s code of conduct.

MPD cooperates with ICE when the operation deals with “serious crimes directly relating to public safety” including the following situations as listed in the MPD’s standard operating procedure on the enforcement of immigration laws:

  • The individual is engaged in or is suspected of terrorism or espionage.
  • The individual is reasonably suspected of participating in a criminal street gang.
  • The individual is arrested for any violent felony.
  • The individual is a previously deported felon.

Mahoney has refused to cooperate with ICE and rejected requests by ICE to hold people for 48 hours after they post bail or serve their sentences so ICE officials can arrange to detain them.

“Raiding our community without notifying local law enforcement puts our community at risk,” Mahoney said.

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan called ICE an “increasingly rogue agency” and has strayed from what said is the agency’s original purpose, which was to “protect domestically from terrorism.” Pocan said the agency would publish a list online of individuals who have been detained within the next two days.

“To not tell the sheriff you’re coming in and doing raids, to not tell the Madison police, to not talk to your federal representatives along the way, is exactly what’s wrong with the agency,” Pocan said.

Those who have been affected by ICE can call Hamdan, the Dane County’s immigration affairs specialist, at 608-242-6260.

**********************************************

Meanwhile, up in Green Bay, things are no better:

https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/2018/09/24/ice-making-arrests-green-bay-madison-milwaukee-immigration-rights-group-says/1414936002/

, report for the Green Bay Press-Gazette:

GREEN BAY – A father of eight children, and a man preparing for his children’s baptism, were among at least six people arrested in Green Bay this weekend in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operation carried out in more than a dozen Wisconsin counties.

No one from ICE could say Monday who had been arrested, or what charges they might face.

“Yesterday, ICE knocked on my door and took my ex-husband and the dad of my kids,” Cruz Sedano said through a translator at a community meeting Monday.  “… we were all preparing for my (children’s) baptism.”

The ICE operation was unusual in that Green Bay authorities had no notice that an operation was planned. The agency in the past has alerted police when they’ve planned an operation, and sometimes asks for assistance, city Police Chief Andrew Smith said.

Police officials and a representative from the mayor’s office met with members of the Hispanic community Monday night at Peace United Methodist Church, which hosted a community meeting with the hope of answering questions and calming fears about the arrests.

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As children played outside the meeting, Smith and Celestine Jeffreys, chief of staff to Mayor Jim Schmitt, tried to reassure people that the city wants to protect community residents within the bounds of the law. But they also acknowledged that ICE has the authority to enforce federal immigration statutes.

“Unfortunately, this is the ugly balance that we have to strike as a municipality in between the community and the federal government,” Jeffreys said. “So we cannot inform the community that ICE is here … I know that’s an answer you don’t want to hear.”

‘Very afraid’

The arrests clearly sent ripples of fear through the Hispanic community, whose members worry a loved one or neighbor could be arrested and deported.

Maria Plascencia, director’s assistant at the Green Bay-area Hispanic resource center Casa ALBA Melanie, said her group fears “many more” arrests are possible.

“This community is very afraid to send their kids to school, because they do, it (might be) the last time they will see them,” Plascencia said.

She said her agency has fielded questions since Friday from community members who had family members arrested.

Smith said the arrests were part of an ICE operation in 14 counties. Milwaukee, Dane and Trempealeau counties also saw similar arrests by Immigration and Customs agents, the group Voces de la Frontera reported.

An ICE spokesman wouldn’t discuss details of the Green Bay arrests Monday afternoon, but said in a statement the agency focuses on people “who pose a threat to national security, public safety and border security.”

‘Targeted arrests’

“ICE officers are out in the community every day conducting targeted arrests,” the statement said. “ICE conducts targeted immigration enforcement in compliance with federal law and agency policy. While looking for those specific individuals, ICE officers sometimes encounter others who have violated U.S. immigration laws.

“However, as leadership has made clear, ICE does not exempt classes or categories of removable aliens from potential enforcement. All of those in violation of U.S. immigration laws may be subject to immigration arrest, detention and, if found removable by final order, removal from the United States.”

Police chief Smith said this ICE visit was different. “It’s been their standard operating procedure to let local law-enforcement know,” Smith said. “They did not call us this time.”

ICE will typically inform police about who the group is looking for, and inform the department about specific individuals if they are wanted for felony crimes, Smith said.

He said Green Bay police do not ask people they arrest about citizenship, saying that remains a federal issue and that the department’s priority remains keeping the city’s residents and visitors safe.

“I understand there’s a lot of fear, there’s a lot anxiety, there’s lot of apprehension,” he told the group. He reminded them that police are here to protect “anybody who’s been a victim of a crime … who’s being extorted (because they might be worried about their citizenship status) … or being used by their landlord or their bosses.”

At least two of the people arrested this weekend were in the U.S. as part of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, said the Rev. Ken DeGroot, co-founder of Casa ALBA.

DACA allows some people who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children to receive deferred action from deportation and become eligible for a U.S. work permit in the U.S.

‘Tearing apart families’

At Monday night’s meeting, Sedano told the audience about the arrest of her former husband, Antonio Juarez. She said ICE officers arrested Juarez, father of her two children, allowed other family members to remain inside the house.

“I do have to say that ICE behaved well with us,” she said in Spanish. “… they returned all of his belongings, and gave us phone numbers so that we could be in contact with them.”

DeGroot, though, said the arrests are bad for the community.

“They’re tearing apart families, they’re arresting good people. They’re causing tremendous suffering and trauma,” he said. “They are also depriving families of being supported.”

He said his group is advising people not to open their doors for people they don’t know. If someone says he or she is part of law enforcement, DeGroot said, the person should insist on seeing a warrant from a judge.

President Donald Trump has declared cracking down on illegal immigration to be one of his priorities. The crackdown, which includes discussion of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, has proven controversial, particularly among advocates for immigrants from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries.

‘Same fears, same dreams’

Witnesses in Green Bay said one man was convinced to come outside his house to answer questions about ownership of a car parked outside, and one of the men arrested is a father of eight.

Smith said the people who were arrested were taken to Dodge County. Dodge’s sheriff, Dale Schmidt, said the jail has a contract with the federal government to house prisoners and houses federal inmates daily.

Schmidt wouldn’t say if any prisoners were from this weekend’s ICE arrests.

Voces de la Frontera said 11 people had been arrested in the Madison area, three in Milwaukee and 15 in Trempealeau County, north of La Crosse. The group said arrests were made at workplaces, during traffic stops and in homes.

“Many of us are great people, hard-working, with the same fears and same dreams as anyone else,” said Plascencia, the Casa ALBA official.

In Madison, Mayor Paul Soglin planned to meet with law enforcement officials and community organizers to get a better idea of the number of people detained by ICE officials, the Associated Press reported.

Madison officials say ICE detained immigrants without prior communication with the police department. Police Chief Mike Koval says the department has an agreement with ICE to know when and where arrests are made.

Shelby LeDuc contributed to this story.

************************************************

Tearing families apart and spreading terror in American communities. Small wonder that the “Sanctuary Cities” movement is growing and that “Abolish ICE” is gaining steam.

Remember, I predicted early on that under the inhumane, senseless, and ultimately ineffective leadership of Trump, Sessions, Homan, and Nielsen, ICE would become the most despised law enforcement agency in America.  They are ahead of schedule.

PWS

09-25-18