U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday that its agents arrested 39 people across Wisconsin over the final weekend in June — among the largest enforcement operations in the state since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025.
An ICE spokesperson claimed that “many” of those arrested had criminal records, including convictions for sexual abuse, driving under the influence and drug possession; Wisconsin Watch and NNS could not independently verify the agency’s count nor the number of detainees with prior convictions.
“All of the illegal aliens arrested have or will receive full due process. They will remain in ICE custody pending their removal or removal proceedings,” the spokesperson wrote.
The operation sent shock waves through the city’s immigrant neighborhoods as residents shared video and photos of alleged ICE enforcement actions in Milwaukee across social media.
Immigrant rights advocacy group Voces de la Frontera told reporters at a Tuesday morning press conference that its network of volunteers has recorded more than two dozen arrests over the past week, primarily in and around Milwaukee. Executive Director Christine Neumann-Ortiz interrupted her remarks to share reports of an additional three arrests in Fitchburg, a Madison suburb. Neumann-Ortiz said her team is aware of Wisconsin detainees held as far away as Florida, though many remain in detention facilities in Wisconsin and Illinois.
Neumann-Ortiz, flanked by Milwaukee Ald. Marina Dimitrijevic and Milwaukee County supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez, also noted that ICE agents used the Milwaukee Police Department’s (MPD) District 2 station parking lot as a staging area for operations at least once during the weekend’s operation. MPD has since clarified that it did not give ICE officers permission to use the parking lot and, upon learning of the incident, asked the federal agency not to stage in the lot.
The Common Council voted unanimously in March to bar ICE officers from using city property as staging areas during enforcement operations. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson enacted a similar rule via executive order last fall as ICE mounted a much larger enforcement push in Illinois.
Milwaukee’s policy includes no clear enforcement mechanism, nor does Milwaukee County’s new requirement that immigration authorities secure permission before staging in county parks — a policy Martinez claims agents also violated over the weekend by gathering at Mitchell Park on Milwaukee’s South Side. “It’s not that (the city’s rule) is not working,” said Dimitrijevic. “It’s not being respected.”
While both MPD and the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office do not conduct immigration arrests as a matter of policy, both agencies have raised questions about their roles in enforcing local laws intended to constrain ICE activity. “No one has given us an answer” as to the circumstances in which local law enforcement officers could arrest a federal counterpart, Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball said during a February town hall on Milwaukee’s South Side.
“Given the legal questions that have been presented,” an MPD spokesperson wrote in an email on Tuesday afternoon, “the Department has requested a formal written legal opinion from the City Attorney’s Office regarding the ordinance’s applicability and enforceability.” The Milwaukee City Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Martinez suggested that local governments could sue the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — ICE’s parent agency — for violating city and county rules. “Right now, we’re just gathering as much information as we possibly can,” he said on Tuesday.
ICE’s ongoing operation in Wisconsin seems to mark a departure from the agency’s standard operations in the state over the past year. Agency records indicate most of the at least 1,700 immigration arrests in Wisconsin over the past year took place in prisons, jails, courts and the DHS field office in downtown Milwaukee.
While roughly 80% of those arrested by ICE in Wisconsin between January 2025 and March 2026 had prior criminal convictions or pending criminal charges, most immigrants arrested during check-ins at the DHS office had no prior criminal history.
Daylight arrests in full view of the public have been relatively rare, but relatives of those arrested over the weekend — and some detainees themselves — describe a shift in tactics.
Galo Suárez, a Nicaraguan asylum seeker detained alongside his fiancee and her brother on Sunday, offered a vivid account of his arrest on Milwaukee’s South Side. An unmarked truck pulled in front of his car along S. 13th Street, and four more appeared to box him in. “An agent broke the window with his gun drawn,” he told reporters. “They didn’t ask for our identification, they didn’t ask for our names. They just took us down violently, and when my fiancee tried to ask why, one of them pushed her against the car (and) said she was provoking him.”
He also alleged that an agent called his fiancée a “bitch” during the arrest.
Asylum seekers like Suárez, his fiancée, and her brother are eligible for work permits while awaiting rulings on their asylum applications. The agent who found his work permit while searching his wallet insisted it was forged, Suárez said.
Agents released Suárez later that day, but his fiancée, 25-year-old Reyna Elizabeth Garcia, remains in custody in Kenosha County. He doesn’t know the whereabouts of his would-be brother-in-law, 37-year-old Teodoro Rafael Garcia. “They took the cuffs off and told me to not look back,” he said. Shaken by his run-in with immigration authorities, Suárez said he plans to leave Milwaukee for the time being.
Friends and relatives of Estenderly Marte Polanco, an undocumented immigrant from the Dominican Republic, shared photographs of bruises, scrapes and cuts on Marte Polanco’s neck, arms and lip — all allegedly left by immigration officers who pulled her out of her car on Saturday morning during a traffic stop on Milwaukee’s South Side. Marte Polanco’s son watched the arrest from the car’s back seat.
“Our kids are not doing well,” said Frankeli, the father of Marte Polanco’s children. Frankeli, who is undocumented, asked Wisconsin Watch to refer to him by his first name alone while he navigates the aftermath of Marte Polanco’s arrest.
Wisconsin court records show no prior convictions or citations under Marte Polanco’s name, nor any prior convictions or citations tied to Suárez, his fiancée, or her brother.
Olivia Villarreal, the wife and business partner of El Rey grocery store chain co-founder Ernesto Villarreal, said a manager of her store on West Burnham Street saw ICE agents follow a vehicle into the parking lot, arrest a man and leave quickly Monday. An onlooker caught the arrest on video.
Villarreal’s message for the wary public: “Don’t be intimidated and try to live your normal life. You have to live and feed your family, attend church and school.”
This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
