Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and Madison Common Council leadership issued a statement today saying that Madison will “stand with the immigrant community and will work collaboratively with community leaders to respond to any increase in ICE enforcement” after a recent statement from President Donald Trump announcing immigration crackdowns that were coming.
Trump tweeted out Monday night that his administration plans on a sweeping immigration enforcement crackdown from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) which would include coordinated raids in multiple cities.
“Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States,” Trump wrote. “They will be removed as fast as they come in.”
Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, joined by Council President Shiva Bidar and Vice President Barbara Harrington-McKinney, issued the following statement.
“It is unfortunate that President Trump continues to threaten immigrant communities. We, as a city, stand with the immigrant community and will work collaboratively with community leaders to respond to any increase in ICE enforcement. We fully understand that we all benefit because our immigrant friends and neighbors are here, and support their efforts to live, work and raise a family in Madison and the surrounding area.
At this time we have not received any information of an increased enforcement in the Madison area, the statement added, but are keeping a close eye and will keep the public informed.
Madison Police Chief Mike Koval issued a warning attached to his daily blog on Tuesday morning indicating fears that ICE may be conducting raids in the coming weeks, spurred by an uptick in tweets and threats from President Trump.
“Knowing that this is particularly disturbing to many of our residents, I want to affirm MPD’s Code of Conduct and SOP with respect to ICE plans,” Koval said. “Unless there is a compelling and/or serious underlying criminal violation, MPD officers are not going to be active participants in routine deportation operations.”
Chief Koval said that the Madison Police Department will not self-initiate contact, detain, arrest or investigate any persons solely for a suspected violation of immigration status laws. That has been and remains the practice of the MPD.
ICE, however, released a statement early Tuesday morning as well saying that the cooperation of local law enforcement is vital to the removal of what the statement called criminal aliens.
“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) relies upon the cooperation of local law enforcement officials to expeditiously remove dangerous criminals from our communities. ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations’ (ERO) mission is to identify, arrest and remove aliens who present a danger to national security or are a risk to public safety,” the office of Immigration and Customs and Enforcement wrote in their daily email updates that Madison365 obtains. “There is an inherent increase in risk to personnel and bystanders when ICE officers and agents must go out into the community to proactively locate these previously detained criminal aliens. ICE commends our local law enforcement colleagues who work to minimize that risk by cooperating with ICE to apprehend criminal aliens at the time of their release from local custody.”
No information has been provided stating that there are ICE raids imminent in Madison. But anyone who sees anything suspicious or is needing help or information should call Centro Hispano at 608-255-3018.
