In the wake of an uptick in efforts to deport both undocumented and legal immigrants, and the arrest of a Milwaukee judge who allegedly attempted to help an immigrant evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), immigrant rights rights organization Voces de la Frontera will hold protests and rallies today and tomorrow in Milwaukee and Madison.
The events are part of a national day of protest that will see protests and rallies in at least 32 states in the coming days.
“There is definitely momentum building for this very historic national day,” Voces de la Frontera executive director Christine Neumann-Ortiz said in a national press call. “May Day really represents the next iteration in this growing resistance to Trump’s efforts to impose dictatorship in this country and to really challenge the scapegoating of immigrants and refugees for social inequality.”
The Milwaukee event will begin at 9:30 am today at the Voces de la Frontera headquarters, 733 W. Historic Mitchell Street. The march to Zeidler Union Square will begin at 10, with the main program beginning there at 11:45.
In Madison, protesters will gather at Brittingham Park, 829 West Washington Avenue, at 3 pm Friday and march to the Capitol at 4. A rally will take place in the Capitol Rotunda at 4:30.
Neumann-Ortiz said in recent weeks, Voces de la Frontera has received reports of federal law enforcement agents visiting the homes of undocumented immigrants under the guide of “wellness checks” in Milwaukee, Waukesha and Whitewater.
“They were showing up with armed agents… this was obviously a terrifying experience for families in the community,” she said. “We have seen an escalation of ICE presence… none of this makes us safer. It erodes trust in public institutions, undermines people’s rights to due process and justice in the judicial system, and tears families apart.”
The Madison event is billed as a strike, a “Dia sin inmigrantes y trabajadores,” an effort that has been going on since at least 2016.
Both events are about unity, Neumann-Ortiz said. “We are marching to tell the immigrant community also that you are not alone… this solidarity that we’re building going into the march and out of the march is real, and it’s a necessity … We are a country made up of people of every race and background, and we should all live with dignity and without fear.”
