Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke has pledged to crack down on undocumented immigrants.
The Daily Mail reports that thousands marched from Milwaukee’s predominantly Hispanic south side to the downtown courthouse to protest the Sheriff’s decision to deputize local law enforcement officers as federal immigration agents. Clarke intends to do so in partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Last month, he said in a statement that the United States has an interest in controlling its borders, including for national and domestic security reasons, to prevent the spread of infectious diseases, and to “control the number of another failed nation’s refugees which would overwhelm America’s limited public services.”
Sources say that busloads of demonstrators from about a dozen communities around Wisconsin arrived to join local protesters in the mile-long “Day Without Latinos” march. The goal of the march is “to stop Milwaukee County Sheriff and Trump ally David Clarke from turning sheriffs into Immigration agents;” organizers also want to show the profound influence that immigrants have on various industries throughout the state.
Organizer Jennifer Estrada, whose husband was deported, said of the protest, “Immigrants are the backbone to the dairy industry in my area and without them, the economy would get worse for all of us. People should not be afraid of law enforcement, they should not live under the threat of their families being torn apart.” News of the march comes days after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested more than 600 people across at least 11 states in a week.
The organizers of the protest included the Coalition for an Inclusive Wisconsin and Muslim community organizations. Sheriff Clarke has yet to speak out about the mayhem, which comes on the heels of Trump’s legally struck down executive order that blocked Syrian refugees from traveling to America indefinitely, barred individuals from seven countries temporarily, suspended all refugee settlement for 120 days, and prioritized refugee entrance into America based on religion.
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