Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett And Police Chief Edward Flynn Become Anti-immigrant

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Police Chief Edward Flynn conspired in closed doors for several months to revise the Milwaukee Police Standard Operating Procedures that will include federal immigration enforcement without actually partnering with ICE's 287g program.

By H. Nelson Goodson

Hispanic News Network U.S.A.

July 4, 2017

Milwaukee, WI - On Monday, it was learned that the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) would engage in enforcing federal immigration laws with the approval of Mayor Tom Barrett and Police Chief Edward Flynn. Both Barrett and Flynn met in closed doors and decided to betray the Latino community after vowing that the MPD wouldn't engage in federal immigration enforcement and profiling. Why a sudden change of the MPD Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) policy, simply because MPD is hoping to get a U.S. Department of Justice grant for the department, but in order to get it, the department would have to enforce federal immigration laws in a partnership with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). MPD officers will be allowed to call ICE and turn over suspected undocumented immigrants they encounter during traffic stops, crime and domestic investigations under Trump's Executive Order and if they fail to do so, federal funding would be cut. 

The State of California has challenged Trump's order and his threat to cut federal funding in a federal court, which the case is now pending. A U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco has blocked any withholding of federal funds to sanctuary cities until the case is heard in a federal court.

Voces de la Frontera (VDLF), an immigrant and workers rights organization sent out an email on late Sunday informing members of the community about the lack of transparency in the decision making by Mayor Barrett that resulted in a new federal immigration enforcement initiative that MPD will undertake. What VDLF didn't inform the Latino community was that it had the information for about a week before releasing it because MPD had invited certain members of the Latino community to discuss the change of SOP in the MPD. 

As usual, VDLF and those involved decided to provide the actual information about the change of the SOP to the main stream media (this time to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) first rather than the Latino media outlets in Milwaukee and the community it is actually going to effect. Most of the Latino and Spanish speaking community doesn't get its information from JSonline, but from the local Latino newsprint media, El Conquistador Newspaper, the Spanish Journal, El Periodico Mañanero including Hispanic News Network U.S.A. online.

VDLF relies on the Latino community for people numbers to generate mass demonstrations and protests including marches. Now, VDLF once again is seeking the support from the community to challenge MPD and Mayor Barrett's change of the SOP that will include immigration enforcement.

A united community can make a difference rather than a few individuals attempting to take on the status quo and its political machine that had excluded Latinos from participating for decades. The Latino community in the Southside is part of the City of Milwaukee and it generates a huge tax generated base in the millions than any other aldermanic district, which the City has lacked to reinvest into the area and as taxpayers, Latinos should be included than excluded in the well being and development of the City as a whole. Latinos in Milwaukee are stakeholders as well just in case Mayor Barrett has missed their large tax contributions to the City, which helps pay for his salary and the salary for Chief Flynn including his police force.

Here's the 3-page Milwaukee Police Department Standard Operating Procedure on immigration enforcement released by Mayor Barrett's office and will take effect on July 6, 2017.

Update: http://bit.ly/2szNElt Facebook video link for the July 7, German Sánchez interview with Christine Neumann-Ortiz, the executive director from Voces de la Frontera (VDLF). Neumann-Ortiz told Sánchez during interview in minute 13:31 that Alderman José Pérez first learned about the MPD Standard Operating Procedure (MPDSOP) policy that authorized Milwaukee police officers to act as ICE agents 9 days before Wednesday's (July 5) press conference at City Hall and Ald. Pérez contacted Neumann-Ortiz and Darryl Morin from LULAC who began to negotiate with Mayor Tom Barrett a Democrat to withdraw the MPDSOP policy. They knew about the MPDSOP policy change the Monday before the Madison Rally against AB190/SB275 on June 28.