Republican Controlled Legislature Under AB450 Wants To Penalize Local Governments For Non-immigration Enforcement Compliance With Feds

The Wisconsin Republican controlled legislature Committee on Urban and Local Affairs is holding a hearing about Assembly Bill 450 that would penalized local cities, municipalities, counties, townships and villages for not complying with federal immigration enforcement.

By H. Nelson Goodson

Hispanic News Network U.S.A.

December 14, 2015

Madison, WI - The Republican controlled legislature Committee on Urban and Local Affairs (CULA) is working to pass Assembly Bill 450 allowing the state to reduce shared revenues including financial aid for not allowing law enforcement officials during their daily duties from enquiring the legal status of those individuals arrested for a certain violation or detained and even when becoming witnesses of a crime. AB450, if approved by the State GOP legislature and signed into law by Governor Scott Walker (R) would prohibit any local Political Subdivision to pass any ordinance banning their public employees, police officers and sheriff deputies from enquiring the legal status of individuals they come into contact on a daily basis and prohibiting feds to go into local public buildings and courts to seek legal status enquiry of individuals, including reporting the illegal status of individuals to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

For townships, villages, municipalities and cities with a population of 10,000, the penalty would be $500 per-day, for a population of 22,000, penalty would be $1,000, for a population of less than 250,000, the penalty is $2,000 and for a population of more than 250,000, the penalty would be $5,000 per-day, according to AB450.

The bill would also allow for the State Attorney General, County District Attorneys and local County Sheriffs to file a writ of mandamus with a circuit court against any political subdivision to determine non-compliance and penalty issuance.

A public hearing on AB450 was canceled on Monday afternoon by CULA Chair Edward Brooks (R-Reedsburg), State Representative from the 50th Assembly District. Brooks decided to pull the bill from the committee hearing on Tuesday to avoid a major public controversy and condemnation by Democrats. CULA is still scheduled to meet for a hearing on other bills and business at 9:30 a.m. on Tuesday, December 15, at the Assembly: Committee on Urban and Local Affairs, Wisconsin State Capitol building, 400 Northeast in Madison, Wisconsin.
JoCasta Zamarripa (D-Milwaukee) declared a small victory on Monday for the immigrant community in the state. At around 5:26 p.m., Zamarripa confirmed in her Facebook account that the bill was pulled from the CULA scheduled meeting and posted "CANCELLED! Tomorrow's public hearing on anti-immigrant bill, AB 450, has been cancelled! A small victory today, but it may come back in 2016! We must be vigilant!"

WI State Assembly Bill 450, requiring immigration enforce enquiry by local police, sheriffs and ICE http://1.usa.gov/1QHstW5