Council overwhelmingly defeats immigration measure

SHEBOYGAN - The city’s Common Council voted overwhelmingly Monday to defeat a resolution to toughen Sheboygan’s immigration enforcement after hundreds of protesters rallied at City Hall against the measure.

“I think the best decision was made this evening,” Mayor Mike Vandersteen said after council members voted, 14 to 1, to file the contentious document, known as Resolution 200. One of the council’s members, Rosemarie Trester, was absent.

The document had drawn vocal opposition from Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, which led a rally against the resolution Monday night outside City Hall before the council meeting. Protesters crowded into the City Hall’s council chambers to watch discussion on the measure unfold and applauded after the vote. The group was eventually estimated at about 300 people.

Only Ald. Job Hou-seye, the resolution’s author, defended the measure that had come under protest. He told The Sheboygan Press the largely symbolic resolution had aimed at making sure Sheboygan couldn’t be confused for a sanctuary city offering protections to undocumented immigrants.

The rule would have authorized Sheboygan police “to obey and follow federal law in detaining illegal aliens and other undocumented individuals until they can be transferred to the custody of U.S. Homeland Security” when making contact with people who couldn’t provide proof of citizenship.

“It is largely more a statement of intent,” Hou-seye told The Sheboygan Press. “A statement of intent that Sheboygan wants to follow the lead of the president and of (the U.S. Department of) Homeland Security in enforcing immigration laws that are already on the books.

“We just want to make it clear to the rest of Wisconsin that Sheboygan does not want to be in any way a sanctuary city,” he said.

But his measure failed to get any traction — and in fact got a mouthful of opposition — from others on the council.

“It’s not something that we should be doing,” Ald. John Belanger, who’s running for mayor this spring, said during the discussion on the resolution. “We shouldn’t be threatening our citizens with rounding them up and deporting them or turning them over to (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) or the sheriff or whatever.”

“I feel that it is unfair,” said Ald. Scott Lewandoske, who had also run for mayor this year but lost in a primary. “It is aimed at one group of people.”

“I am deeply distressed that this resolution brings our city council into partisan politics,” Common Council President Mary Lynne Donohue said, later adding, “This resolution does not say anything about sanctuary cities. We are not going to become a sanctuary city if we don’t pass this resolution.”

Sheboygan Police Chief Chris Domagalski said the resolution wasn’t necessary, noting his officers already follow federal rules. But he noted following federal immigration law is more complicated than Hou-seye’s document suggested.

“It’s not based in reality the way that it’s printed,” he said in a brief exchange with the resolution’s author during the council meeting.

Well more than 100 protesters had collected near the corner of North Ninth Street and Center Avenue by about 5:30 p.m. Monday, a half hour before the council meeting. Their ranks kept swelling until just before the meeting, when members of the crowd squeezed into the council chambers and spread out through much of the building.

“We are here united against hate,” Nancy Flores, a speaker at the rally, at one point told the crowd that had wrapped around the street corner.

Several people voiced opposition to the measure during the public forum portion of the city council meeting.

Jose Araujo was one of several who spoke against it, calling the resolution “unnecessary” and “irresponsible,” and noting it could open the police department to allegations of racial profiling.

“Alderman Hou-seye asks the police department to detain undocumented individuals who cannot provide proof of citizenship,” Araujo said. “There are hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals living in Sheboygan that contribute to our economy every day that are in this country legally but are not U.S. citizens."

Anna DeSantos gave emotional testimony of her own after Araujo had finished speaking, telling about how the father of her daughter was deported several decades ago.

“The ghost of not having her father has caused her so much trauma, so much emptiness, so much pain,” DeSantos said. “My daughter turned to drugs to soothe herself.

“Just remember,” she added, “it takes two parents to raise a child nowadays. I just ask you, ‘Why?’ Why give that ripple effect more strength to carry on? It will only cause more trauma, more pain, more suffering for another family. Is Resolution 200 really necessary?”

Not everyone who spoke before the council meeting came out against the measure. Local resident Brett Drews urged the council to support the resolution, noting it wouldn’t target undocumented immigrants unless they had committed crimes.

“We need to provide some clarity on this issue,” Drews said.

Bob Heck, who ran for a seat on the Common Council earlier this year but lost in a primary, also spoke in the resolution’s favor.

“We should support federal law,” Heck said, noting the city couldn’t disregard laws it doesn’t like. “We don’t have the option to not support federal voting laws, for example.”

Hou-seye took issue with opposition to the resolution, noting during his remarks to other council members that his family has some Mexican heritage and that he had recited the Pledge of Allegiance in Spanish.

“This resolution is simply a clarifying statement to the police asking them to do what they’re already expected to do,” Hou-seye said, “and that is to follow the law.”

The measure’s author said the resolution wasn’t asking police to go “door to door” looking to round up illegal immigrants.

Voting to defeat the resolution, Hou-seye warned, could endanger the city’s federal funding. That’s because the U.S. government has threatened to withhold dollars from sanctuary cities, Hou-seye noted, though opponents of the resolution said they disagreed.

“Any alderperson that votes ‘yes,’ to just file this resolution rather than passing it, is saying they do not have any respect for the law,” Hou-seye said.

Reach McLean Bennett at 920-453-5133, mbennett2@gannett.com or @Bennett_McLean on Twitter.