Between June 29 and July 1, federal immigration agents arrested 57 people in Wisconsin during a surge of arrests. Those arrests sent a wave of unease through the state, as people recounted their experiences being detained in violent scenes and tried to find their loved ones who were seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Law enforcement and immigration rights advocates, called the arrests “targeted.” The Department of Homeland Secuirty said that the detainees had criminal histories such as sexual assault, intoxicated driving, obstruction, drug trafficking, domestic abuse, larceny and fraud. Advocates from the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera said that the vast majority of the people targeted had no criminal histories.
Galo Suárez , 25, who is in the country on a work permit along with his fiance Reyna Elizabeth Garcia, was arrested during the surge with Garcia’s brother. Suárez said the couple was followed from a food market and violently arrested by masked agents in unmarked vehicles who broke out their windows, refused to answer their questions, and repeatedly called them “dogs” in Spanish. Suárez was released and told to “run and not look back” or else he’d regret it. The agents kept Garcia and her brother. Jacqueline Eckstrom, a resident of the suburban city of Greenfield, witnessed another arrest where agents broke out windows and arrested a woman, leaving her young children behind screaming in the glass-strewn car…