June 12, 2017
Dear Governor Walker:

Our organizations call on you to stop AB190/SB275, which would have local law enforcement and public employees act as agents of Trump’s mass deportation program. AB190/SB275 would increase discrimination and racial profiling, separate families, hurt Wisconsin’s economy, and harm public safety by making community members afraid to report crimes.

If signed into law, AB190/SB275 would require Wisconsin police to enforce federal immigration law – meaning that anyone in Wisconsin could be racially profiled and asked to show their “papers.”

Furthermore, AB190/SB275 would make makes victims and witnesses of crime, including domestic violence survivors, afraid to come forward, making the state of Wisconsin less safe for everyone.

This bill – a copycat of Texas SB 4 – was written by private prison corporations to profit from the separation of families and criminalize immigrants. The same legislators introduced this bill last year in Wisconsin, but the immigrant community and supporters defeated it through the Day without Latinos and Immigrants general strike of February 18, 2016.

In Wisconsin, 1 in 10 jobs depend on our signature dairy industry. Immigrants harvest 60% of the milk produced in our state. If you allow this law to pass and create an environment hostile to immigrants and their families, workers will leave and our state’s signature industry will collapse.

Immigrants enrich Wisconsin in many different ways, but our economy depends on the contributions of immigrants as workers, business owners, homeowners, and taxpayers. If we make Wisconsin an unwelcoming state, it will be devastating for our economy and society.

We urge you to block this bill.

Sincerely,
The Undersigned