WI Supreme Court Stays Case Challenging Sheriffs Working With ICE

The interior of the Wisconsin State Capitol on Monday, July 14, 2025, in Madison, Wis. Angela Major/WPR

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has stayed a case challenging the authority of county sheriffs to work with federal immigration authorities.

The move by the state’s highest court gives an appeal time to play out in federal court first.

The case was filed last year by the ACLU of Wisconsin on behalf of the immigrants’ rights group Voces de la Frontera. It challenges what are known as immigration detainers, where U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement asks local jails to hold someone for up to 48 hours.

Detainers give immigration agents more time to pick someone up if that person is suspected of being in the country illegally. But the ACLU argues they don’t give jails the legal authority to keep holding someone after that person was supposed to be let out.

The ACLU filed its case as an original action petition with the Wisconsin Supreme Court, an expedited process that bypasses lower courts. The Wisconsin Supreme Court granted the petition in December.

Attorneys for sheriffs in Walworth, Brown, Marathon, Kenosha and Sauk counties tried to get the case moved to federal court, initiating that process in late December. In May, a federal district judge ruled against them, saying they had waited too long to start the process.

Attorneys for the county sheriffs have since appealed that ruling and asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to stay the case while that process unfolds.

The state Supreme Court’s Monday order granted that request. That paused the legal case in state court but will not pause the use of immigration detainers.

Wisconsin Supreme Court stays case challenging ICE detainers was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.