"The Voice of the New Due Process Army" ————– Musings on Events in U.S. Immigration Court, Immigration Law, Sports, Music, Politics, and Other Random Topics by Retired United States Immigration Judge (Arlington, Virginia) and former Chairman of the Board of Immigration Appeals Paul Wickham Schmidt and Dr. Alicia Triche, expert brief writer, practical scholar, emeritus Editor-in-Chief of The Green Card (FBA), and 2022 Federal Bar Association Immigration Section Lawyer of the Year. She is a/k/a “Delta Ondine,” a blues-based alt-rock singer-songwriter, who performs regularly in Memphis, where she hosts her own Blues Brunch series, and will soon be recording her first full, professional album. Stay tuned! 🎶 To see our complete professional bios, just click on the link below.
Putting an ugly exclamation point on a most disappointing season that started with a (in hindsight totally bogus) #4 national ranking, the Wisconsin Badgers “no showed” at Camp Randall Stadium on a gray and gloomy Saturday against the highly motivated, yet mediocre at best, Minnesota Golden Gophers. The game was not nearly as close as the blowout 37-15 final score would indicate.
The Badgers stunk in all aspects of the game — offense, defense, special teams, kicking, and coaching. The game essentially was over by the end of the listless first quarter.
The Badgers last lost to Minnesota when George W. Bush was in his first term! And, for what it’s worth, they also lost the “Paul Bunyon’s Ax Trophy.”
Coming off several weeks on the sidelines with a concussion, Badger QB Alex Hornibrook was truly horrible — interceptions, fumbles, missed receivers, lack of leadership, bad decisions, etc.The offensive line played like a group of oversized flag footballers, failing to open holes against a not very talented Gopher defense whose best player departed early as the result of a “targeting” call.
Star Badger running back Jonathan Taylor exceeded the 100 yard mark while having no discernible impact whatsoever on the outcome of the game, thus proving that flashy rushingstats in the 2018 version of the “Medium-Small Ten” can be deceiving. Meanwhile, the inept Badger defense made the very pedestrian Gopher offense look like the Alabama Crimson Tide.
Indeed, in so-called “crunch time” in the fourth quarter, the Badgers allowed a nine plus minute drive — the longest in the Big Ten this season!
The Gophers improved to 6-6, thus becoming “bowl eligible” a fairly meaningless, almost dubious, honor in this time of irrelevant, over-hyped post season games. The NCAA should let the top eight teams compete for the national championship and keep everyone else at home with the eggnog during the holiday season,
Last season, Coach Paul Chryst took the Badgers to new heights with a 13-1 record and a major bowl victory. But, this season the under achieving Badgers more closely resembled “Little Ten Bottom Feeders” Indiana, Illinois, and Rutgers than they did a “Top 25” outfit. After the game, Chryst expressed gratification that his 7-5 group would have a chance to “redeem” themselves in a totally meaningless “Grade C” bowl game. Based on their season finale, fans would be well advised to take in a holiday movie instead.
MADISON, WISCONSIN (The Borowitz Report)—A Wisconsin man with no marketable skills was unable to keep his job on Tuesday night, sources close to the man have confirmed.
The man, Scott Walker, had been an employee of Koch Industries since 2010 until he was unceremoniously dismissed.
“No one likes to lose his job, but, really, Scott has nothing to complain about,” one source said. “When you have no useful skills whatsoever but you manage to hang onto a job for eight years, that’s a pretty good run.”
Although Walker faces a job market that will be daunting for a man with only rudimentary literacy and scant understanding of math, a spokesperson for Wisconsin’s teachers said that they stand “ready and willing” to give him the education he so sorely needs.
“As teachers, we see it as our duty to educate all of Wisconsin’s students, even super challenging ones like Scott Walker,” the spokesperson said.
In the fall of 2011, I was an unemployed recent journalism school graduate in a country still clawing its way back from recession. At a family reunion, my grandma pulled out a piece of paper with a list of signatures — signatures required to trigger a recall election against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who’d just inspired massive protests by ramming through a bill that stripped public sector employees of their right to bargain collectively.
She asked me to sign the recall petition, and I did.
Three years later, while I was working for a small political magazine in D.C., I wrote an innocuous blog post about Walker. The Walker campaign called the magazine’s managing editor — my boss’s boss — and complained that I couldn’t write about the governor because I had signed the recall petition three years earlier. The managing editor was furious with me for failing to disclose my actions as an unemployed 22-year-old. I was terrified, sure that I was going to get fired.
That’s the type of guy Walker is. He governed Wisconsin with the same vindictive pettiness, transparent corruption and laser-like focus on further oppressing already marginalized people that we now see in the Trump administration (there’s a word for this style of governance.) He was the sad, preservative-laced ham sandwich in the otherwise unassuming brown paper bag of Wisconsin politics. He would tell you, unconvincingly, that he needs his black and orange Harley Davidson jacket when he is about to go into a controlled slide on his hog. He is Miracle Whip personified. He’s the kind of guy who’d call your boss’ boss to try to get you fired.
Now he’s the one out of a job.
Beneath his corn-fed, “aw shucks” facade, Walker is one of the most conniving figures to emerge from conservative politics in the past decade.
Walker’s loss on Tuesday night had a sort of poetic justice: After the 2016 election, Walker and Republicans in the state legislature passed a rule tightening the state’s recount law. The new law requires that candidates must lose by 1 percent or less to ask for a recount. On Tuesday, Walker lost the governorship to State Superintendent Tony Evers by 1.1 percentage points.
Walker and his allies will surely consider the devastation he brought to Wisconsin over the past eight years a success. Taken together, Walker’s legacy adds up to eight years of ruin for Wisconsin’s working classes, for people of color and for the environment — all in service of further enriching the already-rich.
Beneath his corn-fed, “aw shucks” facade, Walker is one of the most conniving figures to emerge from conservative politics in the past decade. It will take decades to repair the damage he and his allies did to my home state. And much of what he broke can never be made whole again.
Throughout his two terms as governor, Walker has remained consistent in his core political strategy: promising jobs that will never appear. Look at Walker’s election-year gambit: to bring Taiwanese electronics manufacturer FoxConn to Wisconsin with promises of well-paying, high-tech jobs for Wisconsin workers.
Reality has not lived up to those expectations. FoxConn promised to create 13,000 jobs at its Wisconsin factory at an average salary of $53,875. In exchange, Walker’s administration awarded FoxConn more than $3 billion in state tax breaks and credits — equaling more than $230,000 per job the company promised. Walker could have used that money to fund a public works program to employ more than four times as many people, at the same salary, for the same cost of the FoxConn deal.
Let’s just say that, under Walker, Wisconsin underperformed its Democrat-run cousin, Minnesota, on nearly every meaningful metric: Non-farm job growth. Median income. Population growth. Median hourly wages. The share of people with health insurance.
I suspect that one reason Walker failed so badly is that although he is conniving to his core, he is not smart. Think back to when he took a prank call from someone pretending to be David Koch. Or when, as Milwaukee County executive, he signed a letter to a Jewish constituent with, “Thank you again and Molotov.” Or when he claimed he got his bald spot from bumping his head on a kitchen cabinet door. Walker has a Ph.D. in power lust and an “I tried!” sticker in political acumen.
He wasn’t even good at hiding his corruption. During his campaign for governor, while serving as county executive, Walker’s staff set up a secret wireless router in his public office to communicate about the campaign using taxpayer resources. One of Walker’s aides at the time was sentenced to six months in prison for felony misconduct.
Walker was a cheap date for corporate executives in search of friendlier laws. A John Doe investigation revealed that after a billionaire lead producer gave $750,000 to a conservative group supporting Walker and his party in the 2012 recall elections, Walker and his party passed a measure that retroactively shielded paint makers from liability.
So, on Tuesday night, Walker did what he has always done, from the moment he decided to pursue a career in politics: He failed. I hope some of his supporters, including some of my own family members, will now wake up to the fact that they were duped.
Scott Walker failed as a governor. On Tuesday, he failed as a politician. The schmuck even failed at getting me fired. Good riddance.
Congrats, Wisconsin voters on returning decency, honesty, and competency to your Governor’s office!
APPLETON – Heritier Muhorana talks to his wife and daughter every day.
He can hear their voices on the phone. He can look at their faces on a screen. But for more than three years, he hasn’t seen them in person.
In 2000, Muhorana fled horrific violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the relative safety of crowded refugee camps in Burundi, a neighboring country in central Africa.
Muhorana met his wife, Chantal, in one of those refugee camps. That’s where they got married. But in late 2014, Muhorana was approved for resettlement in the U.S. — a process that took nearly two years and began before he was married.
He came alone to the U.S. in 2015, expecting his wife would be able to join him soon after. That didn’t happen. His daughter, Deborah, will be 3 years old in December. He has never met her in person.
His wife and daughter left the refugee camps and now live in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi. They’re working with World Relief Fox Valley in an effort to get to the U.S., but so far haven’t been successful.
The situation isn’t likely to improve anytime soon. The number of refugees being allowed to settle in the U.S. has sharply fallen in the last two years.
In September, the Trump administration announced a plan to limit the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S. this fiscal year to 30,000, down from a limit of 45,000 set last fiscal year — already the lowest since Congress passed the Refugee Act in 1980. The limit during the final year of the Obama administration was 110,000.
Despite the limit of 45,000 last fiscal year, the U.S. only admitted 22,491 refugees, which is the lowest number in decades, according to State Department records.
The number of refugees arriving in northeast Wisconsin has also significantly declined in the last two years. World Relief Fox Valley, which has offices in Appleton and Oshkosh, had 209 arrivals in fiscal year 2016. That fell to 70 in fiscal year 2017 and 57 in fiscal year 2018, which ended Sept. 30.
Phil Stoffel, immigration manager for World Relief Fox Valley, said the situation for refugees trying to bring close relatives to the U.S. has gotten more difficult recently.
“People all across the nation in networks and affiliates that we work with are telling me they’re not getting any answers for any of these cases right now,” he said.
Many refugees have started to lose trust in the system they’re relying on to help them, Stoffel said. World Relief Fox Valley has at least 50 cases of refugees trying to bring close relatives to the U.S., but it doesn’t appear anything is going to change in the near future, he said.
“There’s no other way to explain what’s going on,” he said. “The politics in this are really bad right now.”
Stoffel has one piece of advice to anyone unsure whether the U.S. should welcome refugees at all: meet one.
“Once you meet one, it changes,” he said.
‘A very tough moment’
In 1998, Muhorana fled with his family from their village in Katanga, a former province in the southern part of Congo. The country was descending into war. He was just 12 years old.
He still remembers the night they left. It was about 6 p.m. That’s when they started walking. They didn’t stop until about 2 p.m. the next day. And his family wasn’t alone.
“Thousands of people moving at one time, just walking,” he said. “It was very painful.”
Muhorana didn’t bring much with him, other than what he could carry. He remembers a cousin asking him to hold a bottle for her baby, to help her as they were walking.
They walked for weeks without enough food to eat and in constant danger of being caught up in the violence unfolding around them.
“At that time, what mattered was just to save our lives,” he said.
But they couldn’t always avoid the fighting. The exposure to violence left many people traumatized — or worse, Muhorana said.
“I saw some people who were hurt or shot, some other people were killed on the way,” he said. “It was a very tough moment.”
Muhorana, though, safely found his way to Kalemie, a town on the western shore of Lake Tanganyika, where a relief organization provided food to the crowd of refugees. He stayed there for more than a month, but safety was still a concern.
He eventually continued north to South Kivu, a province near the border with Burundi, and stayed there for almost two years, despite treacherous living conditions. He stayed in churches or schools, often in close quarters with thousands of other people.
“We didn’t have enough food to eat. We didn’t have medical assistance,” he said. “So, everything was just a little bit. It wasn’t enough.”
Disease was a problem, too. Many people got sick. Some died. But safety from the violence remained the primary concern, Muhorana said.
“People were still being killed there,” he said.
He couldn’t think about his plans for the future. The situation didn’t allow it. So, in an effort to find peace and a place he could think about his goals in life, he and his family decided to flee for Burundi.
‘We were limited’
Muhorana was a teenager by the time his family crossed the border into Burundi and arrived at their first refugee camp. They stayed for more than a year, then were forced to move to another camp in the northeast part of country.
The violence unfolding in Congo was behind them. But in the camps, his family encountered other problems. Sickness, mostly.
“I would see people dying every month, every year,” Muhorana said. “You bury a lot of people.”
Their camp was packed with about 10,000 people, he said. And it wasn’t the only camp around. Burundi had multiple refugee camps set up for those fleeing across the border.
The camp was not a good place to live, Muhorana said. He felt trapped, unable to go anywhere without asking permission first.
“When you are young, you have dreams. You have goals. You have ambition. You have something in your heart you desire to achieve,” he said. “In the camp, we were limited.”
Still, despite the limitations, Muhorana found a way to work toward a better life. He left the camp after a few years and made his way to Rwanda, a country to the north of Burundi. There, he was able to finish high school and get a college scholarship, which he used to earn a bachelor’s degree in business.
Then, in 2013, Muhorana returned to the camp, where his family still lived. That’s when he met the woman who later became his wife. She had fled a similar situation in Congo and was already living in the camp when he returned.
He found a lot to like about her, Muhorana said, but her generosity stood out to him. The prospect of getting married in the camp wasn’t ideal, he said. But, in 2015, without other options, that’s exactly what he did.
He hadn’t specifically planned on coming to the U.S. — he simply wanted to find a country where he could live a normal life. But when he was approved for resettlement in the U.S., the prospect excited him.
“We were thinking that maybe life was going to be different than what we have here,” he said.
The process of getting approved for resettlement took nearly two years. And when it was over, Muhorana didn’t get to choose where he was sent. His wife, who hadn’t yet been approved, wouldn’t be able to join him.
“We couldn’t travel together because I was already at the final step,” he said. “I was already ready to come.”
So, with no other choice, he left on his own.
‘Change will come’
Muhorana didn’t speak English — not much, at least — when he arrived in the U.S. in 2015. And that was far from the only challenge he faced.
He was thrilled to arrive, but those first few years weren’t easy at all, he said. The culture was entirely new to him and it took time to adjust.
“I couldn’t imagine that I would have friends and I would get familiar with people here,” he said.
World Relief Fox Valley has services meant to help refugees acclimate to life in the U.S., said Tami McLaughlin, the organization’s executive director.
The organization recruits volunteers who spend time with refugees and serve as companions and valuable sources of information, McLaughlin said.
“Those friendships make the difference in how well somebody transitions into a completely new culture and community,” she said.
To do basic things, such as apply for a job, enroll a child in school, or get health care, can be overwhelming at first for refugees who are often simply relieved to be safe, McLaughlin said.
“You celebrate the little wins and take the little steps,” she said.
As much as Muhorana tries to remain optimistic about his future, it’s difficult not to be upset with his wife and daughter living thousands of miles away, he said.
The conversations he has with them tend to focus, almost inevitably, on when they might see each other again.They’re still working hard to have a life together, despite the distance between them.
“I try to share my life, my experience here, so I can tell them the difference,” he said.
Muhorana has been working with Stoffel, the immigration manager, for about two years to get his wife and daughter to the U.S., but it’s unclear how much progress they’ve made.
“I can’t begin to tell you how much paperwork we’ve had to file and go through,” Stoffel said. “It’s just a constant back-and-forth with no clear answers from the government.”
Any refugee trying to enter the U.S. has to go through exhaustive background checks, according to U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services. Muhorana’s wife and daughter both have passed those checks, but attempts to get updates on the status of their case have gone unanswered, Stoffel said.
But despite the frustration and the length of time the couple has spent apart, his wife is still excited by the idea of coming to the U.S., Muhorana said.
“She can dream of a bright future too,” he said.
For now, Muhorana will wait. It’s all he can do.
“In life, nothing is permanent,” he said. “Everything is subject to change. So, change will come.”
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.
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.
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.
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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.
Green Bay Packers wide receiver Randall Cobb (18) scores a touchdown on a 75-yard reception during the fourth quarter of their game against the Chicago Bears Sunday, September 9, 2018 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wis. Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sent
GREEN BAY – Just over nine minutes of game action and halftime was all that was needed for a quiet Lambeau Field to erupt in cheers Sunday night, as Aaron Rodgers ran out of the Green Bay Packers’ locker room to his sideline after ending his first half being carted off the field.
The final 30 minutes of game play nearly brought the house down as Rodgers led the Packers to a 24-23 comeback victory.
Rodgers returned with 9 minutes, 10 seconds left in the third quarter and fired an 8-yard pass to Davante Adams on the next play. He led a 12-play drive that produced a Mason Crosby field goal that trimmed the Bears’ lead to 20-3.
The scare woke up the Packers offense, as Rodgers brought the Packers to within 20-17 with touchdown throws to Geronimo Allison and Davante Adams in the fourth quarter.
After Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky led a 14-play, 61-yard drive that took up 6:22 and ended in a 32-yard Cody Parkey field goal to put the Bears up 23-20, Rodgers had 2:39 and 75 yards in front of him to win the game.
He only needed 26 seconds.
On 3rd-and-10, Rodgers found Randall Cobb in the middle of the field and the receiver raced up the field untouched, outrunning Khalil Mack. Rodgers drifted out of the pocket to his left, and Cobb cut away from Bears safety Eddie Jackson. It was a relatively easy pitch-and-catch and Cobb was home free.
It was a much different feel at the 9:22 mark of the second quarter, as a silence fell over the stadium as trainers hustled out to the Packers quarterback, who had been sacked at his own 25-yard line by Bears defensive end Roy Robertson-Harris.
Rodgers got up to try and walk off, but immediately grabbed his left knee and went back to the turf. After a few more moments on the ground, he walked off – albeit gingerly – to the Packers sideline.
Rodgers spent the next Chicago possession being examined under the blue medical tent on the Packers’ sideline. At the 6:44 mark, DeShone Kizer came out to lead the Packers’ offense and Rodgers was carted to the locker room.
The Packers were trailing 10-0 at the time.
Rodgers, who missed nine games last season due to a broken collarbone suffered in Week 6 at Minnesota, had dropped back to pass on third-and-nine at his own 36 before the Bears’ defense collapsed the pocket. As Rodgers went down to take the sack, his left leg was left extended and the 294-pound Robertson-Harris dove on top of him. No flag was thrown on the play.
To that point in the game, Rodgers was just 3-for-7 for 13 yards (42.9 percent) for a rating of 50.3. He was sacked twice.
After the injury?
Rodgers went 17-for-23 for 273 yards. He wasn’t sacked again and his rating shot up to 130.7.
At halftime, the Packers deemed his return to action in the second half as questionable before he ran out of the locker room to cheers.
In his absence, Kizer fumbled away the ball in the Bears’ red zone on a strip-sack by Khalil Mack with three minutes to go, and then Kizer threw a pick-6 to Mack with under a minute left to give the Bears a 17-0 halftime advantage.
Rodgers had his 2013 season interrupted by the Bears when he suffered a broken collarbone at Lambeau on Nov. 4.
The 34-year-old quarterback signed a $134-million contract extension on Aug. 29, a deal that could keep Rodgers in a Packers uniform through the year 2020.
(1) The term “prostitution” in section 101(a)(43)(K)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(K)(i) (2012), which provides that an offense relating to the owning, controlling, managing, or supervising of a prostitution business is an aggravated felony, is not limited to offenses involving sexual intercourse but is defined as engaging in, or agreeing or offering to engage in, sexual conduct for anything of value.
(2) The offense of keeping a place of prostitution in violation of section 944.34(1) of the Wisconsin Statutes is categorically an aggravated felony under section 101(a)(43)(K)(i) of the Act.
We disagree with the Immigration Judge and with the case law on which he relied because the term “prostitution” in section 101(a)(43)(K)(i) does not necessarily have the same meaning as it does in the inadmissibility provision at section 212(a)(2)(D). “It is not unusual for the same word to be used with different meanings in the same act, and there is no rule of statutory construction which precludes the courts from giving to the word the meaning which the Legislature intended it should have in each instance.” Atlantic Cleaners & Dyers v. United States, 286 U.S. 427, 433 (1932); see also Evntl. Def. v. Duke Energy Corp., 549 U.S. 561, 574 (2007).
KEY QUOTE FROM DISSENT:
I respectfully dissent. I agree with the Immigration Judge’s decision that the respondent’s conviction is not for an aggravated felony under the existing Federal definition of “prostitution.” The majority has crafted a definition of prostitution for purposes of section 101(a)(43)(K)(i) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. § 1101(a)(43)(K)(i) (2012), as engaging in, or agreeing or offering to engage in, sexual conduct for anything of value. The majority decision concludes that this newly crafted definition categorically covers the conduct proscribed by the Wisconsin statute at issue in this case, but it notes that the precise contours of the term “sexual conduct” will be decided in future cases. This overly broad definition is supported by limited analysis, and it is contrary to immigration law, the law of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, and the canons of statutory construction.
The majority does not provide any analytical authority for its definition other than noting that the definition is “similar” to that of Black’s Law Dictionary and providing, without any analysis, a survey of the definitions of “prostitution” from the 50 States and the District of Columbia in 1994. Additionally, the majority does not even discuss the ramifications of its new definition of prostitution for section 101(a)(43)(K)(ii) of the Act, which references the provisions of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2421, 2422, and 2423 (2012), which relate to engaging in “prostitution, or in any sexual activity.”
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Judge Cole’s dissent makes sense to me. Nice to see that occasionally BIA Appellate Immigration Judges stand up for legal constructions that don’t invariably favor deportation of respondents who have been convicted of crimes.
While constructions of immigration statutes often divide Article III judges, all the way up to the Supremes, the BIA’s “Post Ashcroft Purge” jurisprudence has been intentionally bland and one-sided — largely without dissent or transparent deliberation. Moreover, as I have observed before, the BIA’s practice under the Ashcroft “Reforms” and the Obama Administration’s “Go Along to Get Along” approach has been largely to issue published precedents by three-judge panels, rather than en banc.
This allows 80% of the BIA’s permanent judges to avoid expressing a view for against any particular precedent. Indeed, some BIA judges appear hardly at all on “precedent panels,” while others appear frequently. Thus, some BIA judges regularly avoid both possible controversy as well as accountability for their legal positions and votes on critical, life-defining issues. Rather a strange way for a so-called “expert deliberative tribunal” to operate, if I do say so myself.
MADISON (The Borowitz Report)—Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, said on Wednesday that he was “dismayed and alarmed” that people in his state had somehow become smarter despite substantial cuts in education.
“Ever since I took office, I have slashed education with the goal of making the voters of this state markedly dumber and incapable of critical thinking,” he told reporters. “Instead, what I am looking at is a doomsday scenario.”
Walker said that his cuts were based on a theory known as “trickle-up stupidity,” in which students in Wisconsin’s schools would become less informed and their ignorance would eventually infect their voting-age parents.
“Clearly, what looked like a can’t-miss plan on paper has not panned out,” he said.
Although Walker said that “it’s not time yet to press the panic button,” he warned that a so-called Smart Wave could be coming in his state.
“If Wisconsin voters continue to get smarter, that will be the end of me,” he said.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement appears to have ignored a directive from prevent the deportation of noncitizen troops and veterans, seeking to remove a Chinese immigrant despite laws that allow veterans with honorable service to naturalize, court filings show.
Xilong Zhu, 27, who came from China in 2009 to attend college in the United States, enlisted in the Army and was caught in an immigration dragnet involving a fake university set up by the Department of Homeland Security to catch brokers of fraudulent student visas.
Zhu paid tuition to the University of Northern New Jersey, created by DHS to appear as a real school, long enough to ship to basic training using the legal status gained from a student visa issued to attend that school.
Then ICE found him and asked the Army to release him for alleged visa fraud. He left Fort Benning, Ga., on Nov. 10, 2016, in handcuffs as an honorably discharged veteran. He was detained for three weeks and released.
Zhu is waiting for a Seattle judge’s ruling on his removal proceedings, which are based on allegations by ICE that he failed to attend classes in violation of his student visa. His attorney says his client is a victim of federal entrapment.
Zhu’s case comes amid Trump administration pressure on immigration judges to speed up deportation proceedings in an apparent move to adjudicate more removals, aligning with President Trump’s stated goals.
But it also comes after Mattis said he would protect certain immigrant recruits who enlist through a program designed to trade fast-tracked citizenship for medical and language skills. Those assurances followed sustained controversy over how the Pentagon has exposed more than a thousand foreign-born recruits to deportation. A background-screening logjam began in late 2016 when fears of insider threats slowed clearances to a glacial pace.
“Anyone with an honorable discharge … will not be subject to any kind of deportation,” Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon in February, describing exceptions for those who commit a “serious felony” and anyone who has been authorized for deportation in an agreement he said was made with DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.
Zhu’s attorney, retired Army officer Margaret Stock, told The Washington Post those exceptions do not apply to him.
DHS referred questions to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Spokesman Jonathan Withington declined to comment, citing the pending litigation. ICE declined to provide a comment attributable by name.
But through court documents, ICE has interpreted the Mattis directive applies to a narrow group of foreign recruits that exclude Zhu. It’s unclear whether ICE consulted with the Pentagon on the subject, or if the agency has moved to deport other immigrant recruits since Mattis spoke in February.
Xilong Zhu at Army basic training graduation in 2016. (Xilong Zhu)
Zhu graduated from basic training on June 9, 2016, and was handed over to ICE custody months later, after the Army lost a battle to retain him, Stock said. Zhu was included in a group of “holdovers,” an Army term he disdains that refers to soldiers who fail training.
That wasn’t him.
“It made me nauseous to be lumped into that group,” he told The Post.
How Zhu got in his predicament is a strange, bureaucratic odyssey after he graduated from Beloit College in Wisconsin in 2013. He wanted to become a U.S. citizen, so he decided to enlist through the Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI) program that his father in China had read about. It trades expedited citizenship for language and medical skills in short supply among U.S.-born recruits.
Gee whiz, I thought that spending a week with the grandchildren in Beloit, Wisconsin might get us away from most of the Trump zaniness. But, no such luck as this story about a Beloit College graduate hit during the week. No end to the ways that ICE can think up to waste taxpayer money, clog already overwhelmed Immigration Court dockets with cases that no responsible prosecutor would even file, and exhibit mindless cruelty and irrationality in the process. Small wonder that some pols are starting to suggest that American would be safer and better off without ICE.
Jairus Lyles #10 of the UMBC Retrievers reacts after a score against the Virginia Cavaliers during the first round of the 2018 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Spectrum Center on March 16, 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
It happened. It actually happened. At the 136th time of asking, a No. 16 seed finally beat a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. And it wasn’t even close. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County Retrievers absolutely pantsed the top-ranked Virginia Cavaliers, 74-54.
How did this happen? Forgive me for getting technical, but the Retrievers kicked Virginia’s butt.
Virginia plays slow. No one in the country plays at a slower tempo. Given the environmental predicament in which we currently find ourselves, calling them “glacial” would be woefully inappropriate. They operate on a cosmic timeline. They grind you into dust with defense and wait for that dust to evaporate. But the Retrievers were impatient. They were having none of Virginia’s slow-cooked nonsense.
Teensy Retrievers point guard K.J. Maura kept pushing the pace and setting up his teammates in rhythm for three-pointers. Against Virginia’s all-universe defense, UMBC went 12 for 24 from behind the arc.
There was no shortage of great individual performances. Forward Arkel Lamar scored 12 points and pulled down 10 rebounds. Joe Sherburne added 14.
And then there’s Jairus Lyles. The senior guard was nothing short of heroic. He went 9 for 11 from the field, drove at will, and finished a variety of circus shots at the rim. Lyles played through cramps throughout the second half, but he still finished with 28 points. All that’s left is to figure out who will play him in the movie.
I mean, just look at this guy.
The game was tied at halftime, 21-21, but it only took four minutes for the Retrievers to burst to a 14-point lead in the second half. It was the biggest deficit Virginia had faced all season. That deficit would get bigger. The Cavaliers are supposed to be the boa constrictor, not the hare—forgive me, Aesop—and they had no clue how to catch up. UMBC was relentless, and it was a joy to watch.
Sure, Virginia played without the injured De’Andre Hunter, the Cavaliers’ most versatile defender, but cutting them any slack would be needlessly charitable. They came in as the tournament’s overall No. 1 seed, yet you’d struggle to pick a single moment from Friday night in which the Cavaliers looked to be worthy of sharing the floor with the mighty Retrievers, who needed a last-second shot against Vermont to even make it to the NCAA Tournament. In the end, the Cavs were lucky to only lose by 20.
After the game, Virginia coach Tony Bennett said his team, which finished the year 31-3, had a “historic season.” If there’s a bright side for Virginia, it might be that the Cavaliers had already suffered what’s widely considered the biggest upset in college basketball history, losing to tiny Chaminade as the nation’s top-ranked team in 1982. Naturally, a storied institution like Virginia will take pride in honoring such a cherished tradition.
With its win on Friday night, UMBC improved to 25-10, and they’ll have a chance to make the Sweet 16 with a win over Kansas State on Sunday. Going into the tournament, you would’ve been hard pressed to pick the Retrievers’ best games of the season. Yes, that three-point win over Vermont in the America East title game was nice. But what else? That squeaker against Northern Kentucky in December? Their well-rounded effort against Coppin State?
Now, UMBC can claim the most amazing performance in NCAA Tournament history. But even that’s not going far enough. After the game, TNT’s Kenny Smith compared UMBC over Virginia to Buster Douglas over Mike Tyson and the Miracle on Ice. That’s not hyperbole. The Retrievers just made the Mount Rushmore of sports upsets. Hell, let’s put them on there twice.”
It’s been a “different” March Madness this year. For the first time in about two decades, my Wisconsin Badgers are “out of the dance” — quite properly since they had their first losing season in about 20 years. Wait till next year!
The good part, is that I’ve been able to follow the NCAA Men’s BB Tournament with a little more “objectivity” and less stress than usual. And, one of the many “bennies” of being a Federal retiree is that I can now 1) watch every game live on TV, and 2) enter any pool I want to without any of those tiresome (but necessary, I guess) Ethics Office warnings about all the potential civil and criminal penalties for getting “March Madness” at the office! I guess stuff like that doesn’t apply if you’re employed by someone like Warren Buffet. But, hey, want does he know? At any rate, at least Warren’s potential million dollars annually for life payout for the perfect bracket is safe for another year, thanks to the Retrievers! And, “Luna the Dog” our curly coated retriever was pleased with the outcome.
Melissa Siegler reports in the Green Bay Press Gazette:
“WISCONSIN RAPIDS – Katrina Jabbi’s daughters keep asking for their daddy.
Her husband, Buba Jabbi, 41, on Feb. 15 was detained by immigration officials when he voluntarily reported at an annual check-in. He has since then been held in federal detention, and Katrina has been notified by U.S. government officials that on Tuesday he will be deported to The Gambia — a West African country he hasn’t called home for more than 20 years.
“I don’t want my kids to feel like their father abandoned them,” she said. “They’re asking and crying for daddy every single day.”
Katrina Jabbi is a Wisconsin Rapids native. She met Buba on a Greyhound bus in 2009, she said, and fell in love with him for his kind, loving spirit. They got married in 2013 and have two daughters, Nalia, 5, and Aisha, 1. Katrina said she works part-time from home; her husband had been working as a truck driver.
The couple moved back to Wisconsin Rapids in 2016 to be closer to Katrina’s family. They are expecting their third child in October.
Buba Jabbi appears to be part of efforts by the Trump administration to increase strict enforcement of immigration laws. He has not been charged with a crime in Wisconsin and his detention was not the result of an arrest.
According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement data, the U.S. is stopping fewer people crossing the border illegally but deporting more who already were in the country without legal documentation. According to the data, ICE removed more that 81,000 illegal immigrants in 2017. Of those, 61,000 occurred after Jan. 20 of last year, which was an increase of 37 percent over the same time period in 2016.
The New Sanctuary Movement of Milwaukee, organized by immigration advocacy group Voces de la Frontera, has also seen an increase in the number of people being detained, according to the movement’s coordinator, Shana Harvey.
Buba Jabbi came to the United States in 1995 on a temporary travel visa to attend the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, according to Katrina. She said she wasn’t sure about the amount of time his visa allowed him to remain in the country, but that he overstayed the visa. When he tried to change his status, the paperwork he filed was incorrect and he was moved into removal proceedings, where he remained for several years, she said.
“He kind of got stuck in a system,” Katrina Jabbi said. “It was hard for him to move out of that.”
However, Buba Jabbi was considered “undeportable” because his country would not provide travel documents on his behalf, she said. Instead, he was given orders of supervision, requiring him to report to immigration once a year and obtain work authorization, which, according to Katrina Jabbi, he has done for the last 10 years.
Buba was at his annual appointment Feb. 15 in Milwaukee with immigration officials when he was detained and told he would be deported, according to Katrina.
His attorney filed a stay of removal on Buba’s behalf. According to ICE Public Affairs Officer Nicole Alberico, a stay of removal can be granted for up to one year and is meant to give the deportee time to get their affairs in order.
Alberico declined to speak about the details of Buba Jabbi’s case.
Katrina said she will continue to fight for her husband by filing a 601 Waiver, which argues that the Jabbi family would endure extreme hardship as a result of Buba’s deportation.
Katrina, who first shared her family’s story on a GoFundMe page, said she finds comfort in knowing that Buba will be with his family in The Gambia, including his parents, whom he hasn’t seen since coming to the U.S.
“I really appreciate everyone’s support and kindness,” she said. “It’s humbling to know so many people are supportive of our situation. It is a very complex situation. I appreciate the people that open their minds and try to understand.”
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Yup. Tearing apart American families, hurting communities, and deporting our friends and neighbors. That’s what the “New ICE” is up to.
But, the affected U.s. citizens do have the “ultimate remedy.” They can vote Trump and his enablers out of office and demand sane, humane, sensible immigration laws and enforcement that benefits, not hurts, America and our future. “Green Card ” holders can eventually become citizens and vote. If everyone in America who has been affected by the evils of Trumpism goes to the polls, the next two years could be better, and Trump can be removed after four years.
U.S. citizen children who now are helpless victims of Trump’s ICE will eventually grow up and become voters. They should remember who took their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters away from them!
Kramer # 64 In Foreground Leads Way As Pack Vanquish Dallas Cowboys 21-17 on Dec. 31, 1967 For NFL Title — “Icebowl” Was Played In -13 Temperature In Green Bay!
Bottom right– Jerry Kramer, aged 82, as he looks today, 51 years after the Icebowl!
From Today’s Green Bay Press Gazette, Pete Dougherty reporting:
In his 11th time as a finalist, the former Green Bay Packers guard was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday.
Kramer needed 80 percent of the vote from the 47 voters who were in attendance, which meant that no more than nine could vote against him. The Hall doesn’t reveal the vote totals, but Kramer hit the requisite 80 percent.
According to Hall protocol, after the vote was completed Saturday afternoon, David Baker, the president of the Hall of Fame, visited the hotel where the nominees were staying and notified each individually whether he was in.
“I said that (knock on the door) is it,” Kramer said. “And the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen (Baker), the big hunk down here at the end was standing there with the cameras and stuff behind him. I was over the top. It was something I was afraid to believe in, I was afraid to hope for. So I kept trying to keep those emotions out there somewhere. But hey, I’m here and I’m part of the group. Thank you very much.”
The other members of the 2018 class were fellow senior finalist Robert Brazile, and contributors candidate Bobby Beathard, as well as five modern-era candidates: Ray Lewis, Brian Urlacher, Brian Dawkins, Randy Moss and Terrell Owens.
Kramer, 82, becomes the 13th member of the Packers’ dynasty in the 1960s that won five NFL championships in seven years to be voted into the Hall. The others are coach Vince Lombardi, fullback Jim Taylor, tackle Forrest Gregg, quarterback Bart Starr, linebacker Ray Nitschke, cornerback Herb Adderley, defensive end Willie Davis, center Jim Ringo, running back Paul Hornung, safety Willie Wood, defensive tackle Henry Jordan and linebacker Dave Robinson.
Kramer said he had dinner with Robinson on Friday night, just as they had dinner the night before Robinson was voted into the Hall of Fame in 2013. And Taylor was with him Saturday.
“I miss ’em,” Kramer said of his other Hall of Fame teammates. “But I wish they were here, I wish we had an opportunity to be here together. Bart has been sensational in writing letters and doing all sorts of things, and Hornung has been sticking up for me for 20 years. So many of the guys, Willie D (Davis) is a great pal, and Robbie (i.e., Robinson) and Wood and Adderley and so many of the guys in, and (Nitschke) was such a great pal, Forrest Gregg … we’ve had a lot of guys, 10, 12 guys in the Hall. Jimmy is here and that’s about it, Jimmy Taylor. But I miss those guys. I’ve shared so much with them over the years and it would be nice to share this with them.”
Kramer also is the 25th Hall inductee who spent most of his career with the Packers. That’s second most in league history, behind the Chicago Bears’ 27.
It has been a long road for Kramer to get to the Hall. He was a modern-era finalist (i.e., among the final 15 candidates) nine times in the 14-year period from 1974 through ’87 but never was voted in. Modern-era players and coaches have been retired anywhere from five to 25 years.
Then in 1997, he was the seniors committee nominee (for players who have been retired for more than 25 years) but failed to reach the 80 percent threshold among the selection committee for Hall induction.
But at long last, he’s in.
“I don’t think it can get sweeter,” Kramer said. “It’s the ultimate honor in the game, in our game. It’s the top of the heap. It’s the crown of the trail of this whole process, it’s here. If you make it here you’ve made it in professional football. So whenever you’ve made it here it’s a wonderful moment and a wonderful time and a wonderful event. … I told Mr. Baker that this is it, it doesn’t get any better than this. He goes, ‘Jerry, this is just the beginning.’ So I can’t wait to see how it turns out.”
Kramer is tied for fourth on the list of most times being a finalist before induction. Lynn Swann was a finalist 14 times before he was voted in, followed by Carl Eller (13) and Hornung (12).
Kramer joined the Packers as a fourth-round draft pick out of Idaho in 1958, the year before Lombardi took over as coach. He started all 12 games as a rookie and then when Lombardi took over became a key player as a pulling guard in the coach’s famed sweep.
Kramer achieved his greatest fame for his block on the Dallas Cowboys’ Jethro Pugh that helped open the way for Starr’s game-winning touchdown on a quarterback sneak in the Ice Bowl for the 1967 NFL championship. It’s perhaps the most famous block in NFL history.
Former Green Bay Packers guard Jerry Kramer shares memories from the Ice Bowl, which was played 50 years ago on Dec. 31, 1967. USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin
Kramer played all of his 11 seasons with the Packers. Along with being named to the league’s 50th anniversary team, he also was on the NFL’s all-decade team for the ‘60s. He was named first-team all-pro five times (1960, ’62, ’63, ’66 and ’67) and went to three Pro Bowls (’62, ’63 and ’67).
Besides playing right guard, Kramer doubled as the Packers’ kicker for parts or all of the 1962, ’63 and ’69 seasons.
In ’62 he made 81.8 percent of his field-goal attempts (9-for-11) and finished fourth in the league in scoring (91 points). Then in the Packers’ 16-7 win over the New York Giants in the NFL championship game that season, he scored 10 points (three field goals and an extra point).
This was almost surely the last time Kramer would get a shot at the Hall. Because he has been retired from the NFL for more than 25 years, he could become a nominee only through the seniors committee, and this year was his second time making it through as the senior candidate.
He was only the fourth nominee to twice come through the committee, and with many deserving seniors candidates in wait, there was no chance he’d get a third shot. So this essentially was his last opportunity to receive pro football’s highest individual honor.
Kramer and the rest of the Class of 2018 will be inducted Aug. 4 in Canton, Ohio.
Aaron Nagler of USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin contributed.”
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Man, I remember the “Icebowl” as if it were yesterday! I was home from college, following the first semester of my Sophomore year at Lawrence University in Appleton, WI. I was preparing to leave right after the New Year for a “Semester Abroad” program at the Lawrence Campus in Bonnigheim, Germany! A rather big deal since I had never before flown in an airplane, anywhere!
Our whole family was crowded around the 13″ GE color TV in our living-room on Revere Avenue in Wauwatosa, WI. Since there were only a few seconds left in the game, and the Pack had no timeouts left, I thought they would probably kick a field goal to send the game into overtime, or throw a short pass that if incomplete would have stopped the clock for a last second field goal (or course, a “sack” by the Cowboys would have ended the game.) I’ve watched lots of Packer games, but the Icebowl was probably the best victory ever!
Later in January, we listened on Armed Forces Radio in our dorm in Germany as the Packers beat the Raiders in the”Superbowl II.” Sort of anti-climactic after the “Icebowl!”
As noted in the article, Kramer is the 13th player from the “Lombardi Era” Packers to enter the Hall of Fame, and the 25th Packer overall!
Although, sadly, the Pack aren’t in this year’s Superbowl, there are still some Packer connections. Of course the “Lombardi Trophy,” awarded to the winner is named for legendary Green Bay Coach Vince Lombardi.
And, the Philadelphia Eagles’ Coach Doug Pederson, played a number of seasons as backup QB to recent Packer Hall of Fame QB Brett Farve. Of course, the backup job to Farve didn’t involve much “real game action,” since Farve was in the midst of a NFL record 297 consecutive starts as QB. However, Pederson appears to have been a “good learner” from a coaching and strategy standpoint. Apparently, those years of “holding the clipboard” behind Farve paid off. Big time!
“MADISON – Amid all the defeats and disasters Democrats have suffered in Wisconsin, there’s one spot on the map that gets brighter for them all the time.
The capital city and its suburbs comprise one of America’s premier “blue” bastions.
Dane County’s liberal tilt is nothing new.
But obscured by the Democratic Party’s statewide losses since 2010 is the rapid, relentless growth of its voting power.
Fueled by a tech boomlet, Dane is adding people at a faster rate than any county its size between Minnesota and Massachusetts. Between 2015 and 2016, it accounted for almost 80% of Wisconsin’s net population growth and is now home to more than 530,000 people.
“It is just stunning what has happened,” said economic consultant and former university administrator David J. Ward, describing a physical transformation that includes an apartment-building spree in downtown Madison as well as Epic Systems’ giant tech campus in suburban Verona, a new-economy wonderland where more than 9,000 employees (many in their 20s) work in a chain of whimsical buildings planted in old farm fields.
What’s going on in Dane County is gradually altering the electoral math in Wisconsin. Dane has been growing about four points more Democratic with each presidential contest since 1980, while adding thousands more voters every year. As a result, it packs an ever stronger political punch. Democrats won the county’s presidential vote by a margin of roughly 20,000 votes in 1984, 50,000 votes in 1996, 90,000 votes in 2004 and almost 150,000 votes in 2016.
Mobilized against a lightning-rod Republican governor (Scott Walker) and president (Donald Trump), these voters are poised to turn out in droves for the mid-term elections this fall. Organized political groups and informal political networks proliferate here, some with deep roots, some triggered by the state’s labor and recall fights, some sparked by Bernie Sanders’ presidential run last year, some spurred by Trump’s election.
“I’ve never seen this level of political activity,” said Democrat Mark Pocan, who represents Madison and the surrounding area in Congress.
Part of an ongoing series: Wisconsin in the age of Trump.
Craig Gilbert of the Journal Sentinel is on a fellowship established through Marquette University Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education. The fellowship is aimed at providing support for journalism projects on issues of civic importance. All the work is done under the direction of Journal Sentinel editors.
“Right now, as (county) clerk, I have to assume crazy turnout,” said Scott McDonell, who orders the election ballots for Dane County. “Because people are so intense about wanting to send a message.”
Dane is the embodiment of some of the Democratic Party’s rosiest national trend lines: a growing appeal to the young and college-educated and a growing dominance in prosperous metropolitan areas.
But Dane also points to the double-edged nature of that appeal. A parade of GOP victories in 2010, the 2012 recall fight, 2014 and 2016 shows that this area’s rising clout guarantees nothing for Democrats when it’s offset by deep losses in small towns and northern blue-collar battlegrounds like Green Bay and Wausau. In 2016, Dane delivered a bigger vote margin for Hillary Clinton than it did for Barack Obama, but Clinton lost the state thanks to her (and her party’s) epic collapse in rural counties.
These two dynamics — Dane getting bigger and bluer, northern Wisconsin getting redder — are at the heart of the battle for Wisconsin.
Some strategists in both parties believe the two are at least partly connected; that Democrats’ increasing reliance on Madison (and Milwaukee, the party’s other anchor) makes it harder for them to compete for more conservative blue-collar and rural voters.
When Madison Mayor Paul Soglin joined the vast Democratic field for governor last month, Walker immediately played the “Madison” card.
“The last thing we need is more Madison in our lives,” said Walker on Twitter, saying “businesses have left and murders have gone up.”
Democrats scoffed at Walker’s grim portrayal of the city and accused him of beating up on a place that embodies the economic success he covets for the state.
The episode set off a round of feuding over whether Madison is a damaging symbol for Democrats because of its left-wing image or an increasingly attractive one because of its economic vigor.
“We’re obviously doing something right and a lot better than the way (Walker) is doing it for the rest of the state. And it’s not because we’re the home of the state university and it’s not because of state government, because he has spent the better part of the last seven years strangling them,” said Soglin in an interview, arguing that his city represents a growth model of investing in education and quality of life and “creating a great place where people want to be.” (He contrasted it to the use of massive subsidies to bring FoxConn to Wisconsin).
Dane County Executive Joe Parisi, who also bristled at Walker’s tweet, pointed to the state’s new ad campaign to draw millennials from Chicago, noting the Madison area is the one place in Wisconsin attracting that age group in significant numbers. (Many of Epic’s employees settle in downtown Madison and take a dedicated bus every day to the Verona campus.)
“Guess where millennials want to live? In communities that are tolerant, that invest in quality of life, that care about their environment, that provide recreational opportunities for them, a thriving downtown — everything Dane County has. We’ve worked on that,” Parisi said.
In a statement for this story, Walker political spokesman Brian Reisinger said that contrary to what his opponents say, the governor isn’t anti-Madison.
“The governor believes there are good people in Madison, like everywhere else in Wisconsin. But that doesn’t change the harm of a liberal governing philosophy that pits those hard-working families against their best interests. The governor enjoys a Badger game as much as anyone — the point is, Madison would be much better off if it had lower taxes and a better business environment, like the rest of Wisconsin does under his leadership.”
“It was liberal Madison politicians who gave us big budget deficits, massive tax increases, and record job loss,” Reisinger said.
But if the story of Madison figures in the campaign debate this year, the conversation could be awkward for both sides.
Walker is faced with the inconvenient fact that Wisconsin’s fastest-growing county is a place Republicans love to put down and where his party could hardly be less popular. National studies and stories in recent years have singled out Madison as an emerging technology hub for health care, life sciences, even gaming — much of the growth rooted in the University of Wisconsin and its myriad research centers. Madison routinely makes “best cities” lists. Nonstop flights to San Francisco are starting this summer, a sign of its tech growth. Dane has added far more private-sector jobs than any other Wisconsin county since Walker took office. And in a state where more people are moving out than moving in, it has experienced a net in-migration of more than 20,000 since 2010. No other county in the state is close.
You could argue that the tech-fueled expansion in greater Madison is the state’s brightest economic story, and Epic, the health care software firm that has been adding almost 1,000 employees annually, its brightest business story. But Walker, an aggressive cheerleader for Wisconsin’s economy, has not mentioned either in his eight “state of the state” speeches.
Meanwhile, this area’s prosperity creates its own “messaging” challenge for Democrats, who are painfully aware that “Madison” comes with baggage for some Wisconsinites, whether they see it as a symbol of government or left-wing politics or intellectual elitism or urban culture.
“It’s all of that combined, which in my mind is why it’s so powerful. It’s whatever part of it irks people,” said UW-Madison political scientist Kathy Cramer, who chronicled perceptions of the state’s capital in her book, “The Politics of Resentment,” about rural attitudes toward cities and their effect on politics.
Economics may be adding another wrinkle to this dynamic. Cramer said that Madison’s relative prosperity has the potential to provoke either “pride” or “resentment” elsewhere in the state.
Zach Brandon, a Democrat and head of the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce, laments Madison-bashing, but said, “Madison, too, has to make sure it’s telling a story that doesn’t separate us from the rest of Wisconsin.”
Thanks to Trump’s election, Walker’s victories and even the attention Cramer’s book has received here and nationally, voters and activists here seem more sensitive than ever to their cultural and political distance from some parts of the state and how that can influence elections.
“You get up in these others parts (of) Wisconsin and they don’t like Madison people,” said Ronald Stucki, a Democratic voter in Dane County, who was interviewed as he spoke to a party volunteer canvassing in the city last month.
Some Madison progressives said they hoped Democrats don’t nominate someone from Madison against Walker because they feared it would make it harder to win votes elsewhere. The party’s very crowded field includes several Madison candidates, and the Democratic U.S. senator on the 2018 ballot, Tammy Baldwin, is from Madison.
(The actual history of Madison Democrats in big statewide races isn’t a bad one at all: winners include Baldwin for Senate in 2012, Russ Feingold for Senate in 1992, 1998 and 2004, and Jim Doyle for governor in 2002 and 2006; losers include Feingold for Senate in 2010 and 2016 and Mary Burke for governor in 2014.)
There is no way to really measure whether, or how much, the Democratic Party’s growing reliance on Madison and Milwaukee has contributed to the party’s struggles elsewhere in the state. Both trends are part of a growing partisan divide nationally between cities and small towns and between college grads and blue-collar voters.
In private conversations, GOP strategists differ over how to view the inexorable growth in Dane’s voting power. Some say it puts Democrats in a political box, dragging them further to left and out of touch with “average” voters. They also note that it’s little use to Democrats in legislative races since that vote is so concentrated geographically.
But some in the GOP are troubled by the trend lines. While many rural Republican counties are losing population, the bluest part of the state is growing the fastest — and still getting bluer. Even the burgeoning suburbs outside Madison have shifted sharply Democratic.
For many years, the Republican answer to Dane was Waukesha County, the big, ultra-red, high-turnout suburban county west of Milwaukee. But Dane has been adding more jobs and more voters than Waukesha County for many years. Since 2010, it has added five times as many people as Waukesha County. In fact, Dane’s combination of size, one-party dominance, growth and extreme turnout has few analogs anywhere in the U.S. And while Wisconsin’s rural voters have a history of swinging, the unflagging expansion of the Democrat vote around Madison is the most enduring trend anywhere on the Wisconsin political map.
What does that mean for elections beyond 2018?
Craig Gilbert talks about his Lubar Fellowship analyzing Wisconsin in the age of Trump. Mike De Sisti, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Here is how pollster Charles Franklin of the Marquette Law School quantified Dane’s trajectory: based on a nearly 40-year trend line in presidential voting, the Democratic Party’s winning margin in Dane County is growing by more than 15,000 votes every four years. That’s bigger than the winning margin in two of the state’s past five presidential contests.
Here is another way to measure it:
Back in 1980, Dane County accounted for 7% of the statewide vote and gave Democrats a 17-point advantage. When you multiply those two numbers together, it means Dane boosted the party’s statewide performance by a little more than one point. Its “value” to Democrats has quintupled since then. In 2016, Dane accounted for more than 10% of the statewide vote and voted Democratic by almost 50 points. Multiply those numbers together, and it means Dane boosted the party’s statewide performance by 5 points.
In their Wisconsin victories, Walker and Trump overcame this trend by making their own deep inroads elsewhere. But as long as it keeps getting bluer and growing faster, Dane County may become harder for Republicans to neutralize.
Craig Gilbert is reporting an ongoing series on the shifting political landscape in Wisconsin after the state helped propel Donald Trump to the White House.
A view of new apartments and construction along E. Washington Ave. in Madison. Fueled by a tech boomlet, Dane is adding people at a faster rate than any county its size between Minnesota and Massachusetts. Between 2015 and 2016, it accounted for almost 80% percent of Wisconsin’s net population growthand is now home to more than 530,000 people. As its population grows, Dane County’s voting power also growing. Michael Sears / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel”
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Energizing, registering, and “getting out the vote” are critically important. The “will of the real majority” across the country is what the GOP really fears! And, that’s what didn’t prevail in 2016! That’s why the GOP is so dedicated to voter suppression and gerrymandering! And skewing the census data against ethnic minorities and Democrat-leaning jurisdictions is high on the Trump/Sessions “suppression of democracy” agenda.
Here’s a sense of “deja vu.” When I was at U.W. Law School in the early 1970s, now Madison (and Dem Governor hopeful) Mayor Paul Soglin was one of my classmates. He actually sat in front of me in Environmental Law, although he seldom actually made a physical appearance. That’s probably because he was busy being the “Boy Wonder” progressive City Councilman who eventually ousted Madison’s arch-conservative GOP Mayor and became the “Boy Mayor” while Cathy and I were still living on Madison’s East Side.
After being out of office for a while, he made a “comeback” and is now Mayor of “MAD-CITY” again! Not a “Boy Wonder” any more. But, still “stirring up the pot.”
“If you are appalled by the chaos, division and meanness of the Trump presidency, if you are tired of the lies he and his apparatchiks tell, take heart. Most of your fellow Americans feel the same way.
There is a condescending habit in the nation’s capital of seeing voters as detached and indifferent to the day-to-day workings of government.
The folks who promised to drain the swamp are guilty of a particularly pernicious form of this elitism. President Trump’s defenders regularly claim his base is so blindly loyal that nothing he says or does will ever drive its members away.
But news from across the country should shatter these illusions. A large majority of voters, including many erstwhile Trump supporters, is rebelling. The evidence is overwhelming that the president’s foes are as determined and motivated as any opposition in recent memory.
This message was already delivered in elections in November and December. The latest tidings are from Wisconsin, which led the way toward the style of politics that Trump exploited to get to the White House, even though he fared poorly there during the 2016 Republican primaries.
Democrat Patty Schachtner was elected to represent a traditionally conservative Wisconsin Senate district in a victory over Republican Adam Jarchow on Jan. 16.(WQOW)
In the rural 10th Senate District in the state’s western reaches, Democrat Patty Schachtner defeated Republican Assemblyman Adam Jarchow by an impressive nine percentage points in a special election on Tuesday. Also consider that Trump carried the district by 17 points in the last presidential election (up from a six-point margin for Mitt Romney in 2012), and that the seat had been held by a Republican for 17 years.
It was, as my Post colleague David Weigel noted, the Democrats’ 34th legislative pickup from the Republicans since Trump’s election. Republicans have flipped just four.
And lest anyone dismiss the importance of what happened, Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who rode to power in Wisconsin on the 2010 conservative wave, warned that Schachtner’s victory was “a wake up call for Republicans in Wisconsin.”
It might usefully rouse Republicans in Washington, too.
Wisconsin matters, and not simply because it was, along with Michigan and Pennsylvania, one of the closely contested states that gave Trump his electoral college victory. It is a place where American progressivism took root at the turn of the last century, but also one where conservatives have staged a dramatic realignment of popular sentiments over a short period.
. . . .
But backlash politics provokes a backlash of its own, and during an interview on Wednesday, Cramer said the voters are weary of division. “Wisconsinites believe in ‘Wisconsin Nice,’ ” she said, “and they really dislike ‘us versus them’ politics.”
This is certainly Schachtner’s view. The chief medical examiner for St. Croix County — Trump prevailed there by 18 points — told the Associated Press that her victory “could be” a portent of Democratic gains, and added: “My message has always been: be kind, be considerate and we need to help people when they’re down.”
Now this would be a change of pace.
With Washington engulfed in controversy over Trump’s hate-filled comments about people from certain countries, Republicans would do well to note the costs of unkind politics.
A Quinnipiac poll released on Wednesday made clear where the passion in politics lies right now. The survey found Trump with a dismal 38 percent job approval rating. More significantly, only 29 percent strongly approved of his performance, while 49 percent strongly disapproved. Intensity of feeling is important to voter turnout, especially in midterms.
Predicting November’s elections in January is, of course, a fool’s game. But failing to see the depth of the loathing for Trump is a form of political malpractice. He has given nice a chance to prevail.”
Forget “S___gate,” the Budget, North Korea, and all that other stuff. Even forget the Pack’s post-season reorganization of their coaching staff and front office following a disappointing 7-9 season, The front page news from Green Bay is that the Superstar QB Aaron (“AR”) Rodgers is dating recently retired race driver Danica Patrick.
Here’s what the Green Bay Press Gazette had to say about it in an article that forced most other news to the second page!
“Buckle up, Packers fans: Aaron Rodgers and Danica Patrick’s relationship just hit the fast lane.
“Yes, Aaron and I are dating,” the race car driver confirmed Monday to the Associated Press.
Speculation that Rodgers, 34, had moved on from actress Olivia Munn with Patrick, 35, surfaced earlier this month when sports gossip blogger Terez Owens reported the two had been spotted at Chives Restaurant in Suamico after Christmas and “couldn’t seem to keep their hands off each other.”
Neither Rodgers nor Patrick had commented publicly about the report, but it didn’t stop Maxim from quickly declaring them “the sports world’s newest super couple.”
Patrick told the AP the two first met at the 2012 ESPY Awards. There is, however, a wrinkle: Patrick, who was born in Beloit and grew up in Illinois, is a Chicago Bears fan.
“I told him (Rodgers) a long time ago I’d always root for him as a player,” Patrick told the AP. “Now I am probably going to cheer for the whole team. Take out the word ‘probably.’ Now I’m going to cheer for the whole team.”
Rodgers split from actress Olivia Munn in 2017 after three years together. In December, a spokesperson for Patrick announced she and fellow NASCAR driver Ricky Stenhouse Jr. were no longer a couple after nearly five years.
TMZ posted a photo over the weekend of Rodgers and Patrick dining with other guests on Saturday night at a Mexican restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona. Patrick lives in Arizona.
In November, Patrick announced her retirement from full-time racing and said she plans to make the Daytona 500 and Indianapolis 500 her final two races.
She has recently been promoting her fitness book, “Pretty Intense: The 90-Day Mind, Body and Food Plan That Will Absolutely Change Your Life,” which came out Dec. 26.”
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Wow! Dinner in Suamico! Can’t get much more romantic than that! We were actually in Green Bay right after Christmas. But, we mostly ate (vegan) Mexican and carry out! Actually, a fantastic and very authentic Mexican restaurant is right in Wick’s neighborhood. I was impressed with how well they had meshed the Mexican and Packer themes. A bunch of big screen TVs tuned to football and low-priced generous Margaritas didn’t hurt either. I highly recommend El Serape (two locations) the next time your travels take you to Packer city.
No speculation yet on how this will affect AR’s play next season. I suspect that the performance of new Defensive Coordinator Mike Pettine and how the Pack does in the draft and in free agent signings will have more to do with AR’s stats and the Packer’s success next fall than Danica!
And, yeah, even though as a lifelong Packer fan I don’t normally have much of a warm spot for the Minnesota Vikings, I was very happy for them and their fans after the “miracle catch” by Stefon Diggs for the winning TD. Good luck to them in the NFC Championship game v. the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday! Congrats to Arlington ICE Deputy Chief Counsel David Kelly, a native Minnesotan and die-hard Vikes fan! I just wish my daughter-in-law Anastasia’s mother Susan Rathman had lived long enough to see her beloved Vikes a game away from the Super Bowl!
