Dane County Sheriff Kalvin Barrett announced in an interview that his office is ending its participation in the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program — a Federal Program that reimburses the Sheriff’s Office for records on immigrant inmates.
Barrett told The Badger Herald that Dane County participated in the SCAAP grant years before he became the current Sheriff. In 2022, the Dane County Board of Supervisors, which approves all of the contracts and money that comes into the sheriff’s office, voted to continue participating in the SCAAP grant, according to Barrett.
The Supervisors did not decide to continue participation in the SCAAP grant lightly, Barrett said. The decision was supported by a two-thirds majority vote — mostly because the grant did not focus on providing current jail data information, which could be used to help immigration enforcement, Barrett said.
Previously, the information the federal government got in return for their grant to the Sheriff’s Office was all historical data, which would be shared with a third party who would disseminate the information to federal agencies, according to Barrett.
It is currently difficult to see the effects of the recent withdrawal from the grant, according to Community Immigration Law Expert Aissa Olivarez, but the withdrawal serves as a message to the Madison community.
“A lot of people were advocating for a long time, including the ACLU of Wisconsin,” Olivarez said. “So we are grateful to our sheriff and their decision to send this message that they will no longer receive funding for sharing that information.”
Even though the Dane County Sheriff’s office is ending its participation in SCAAP, there is still a possibility of local Madison law enforcement being involved in immigration enforcement, Olivarez said.
Republican state lawmakers want to require Dane and other Counties in Wisconsin to verify whether people in custody are U.S. citizens or not, threatening to reduce state funding for those who don’t comply, according to the Cap Times.
Democratic Governor Tony Evers announced immediately that he would veto any bill introduced by GOP lawmakers requiring Wisconsin Sheriffs to verify whether or not people in their custody are U.S. citizens coupled with the threat of reduced funding, Barrett said.
“The bill would mandate sheriffs in the state of Wisconsin to cooperate with ICE, and basically do immigration enforcement on behalf of the federal government,” Barrett said.
The resources provided by local law enforcement are already stretched thin, so requiring these agencies to enforce broader immigration policy could come at the cost of the community, according to Olivarez.
Federal agencies will need the cooperation of people on the ground, like local sheriffs, to enforce President Trump’s mass deportation plans, Olivarez said. The impact of withdrawing from the SCAAP, in terms of deportation numbers and funding remains to be seen.
In the past, the SCAAP grant enabled a jail-to-deportation pipeline, especially in Dane County which received the most money from SCAAP out of all Wisconsin counties, according to a 2022 report from the ACLU Wisconsin. The withdrawal from SCAAP is important in the presumption of innocence that immigrants have when they are in criminal proceedings, Olivarez said.
Currently, The Dane County Sheriff’s Office is labeled as “non-cooperative,” by ICE, according to the Cap Times.
“I know my Dane County community,” Barrett said. “I know our Dane County citizens and I know what’s best for us.”
The Sheriff’s Office’s goal is to continue providing service to all Dane county members, and reject any legislation mandating their involvement in immigration enforcement, as well as unfunded mandates for the Sheriff’s Office to comply with federal agencies, Barret said.
“We want our immigration community here in Dane County to know that we support them, that we’re here for them and will continue to provide them with high-quality services,” Barrett said.
