Sen. Larson letter to Sen. Wanggaard in response to his 9-19-25 press release

On Friday, September 19, Sen. Wanggaard issued a press release attacking me for comments made in committee the day before during testimony on SB 311. This morning, I sent a letter to Sen Wanggaard in response.

This letter is linked below.

Sen. Larson Letter to Sen. Wanggaard 9-22-25

Sincerely,
Chris Larson – State Senator
September 22, 2025

Sen. Wanggaard –

I read your press release dated Friday, September 19, and felt a response was in order. I am heartened that you have decided that the truth does in fact matter. Perhaps you’d be willing to share that with your President and his entire Administration, for whom facts seem to be nothing more than obstacles that get in the way of a good story.

It is a fact that my comments in committee about an MPS teacher’s aide dying after deportation turned out to be inaccurate. However, it was never my intent to deceive. On Thursday, immediately after a reporter brought to my attention the inaccuracy of my remarks, I issued a public statement taking responsibility for sharing inaccurate information and vowing to do a better job going forward of verifying facts that are relayed to me before sharing. Your statement was not released until Friday. Perhaps you did not see my apology. If you had, I would have to question the purpose of your release.

The truth is something I take very seriously. I have no problem being called out when I fall short, as I did on Thursday, but here are some facts that perhaps you may find useful if you continue to promote your bill – SB 311.

Yessenia Ruano – the teacher’s aide in question – made every reasonable effort to remain in the United States. She only “self-deported” with her U.S. citizen children because she was advised that if she did not, she would be deported by the U.S. Government. It is not a lie to say she was deported. You are also correct that I misspoke when I stated she was here legally. However, she was following all the legal processes required of her to attempt to remain here, and had no criminal record. By all accounts, she was a beloved member of her community.

Estela Ramos Baten, a Guatemalan immigrant who was deported by the Trump Administration with her daughter earlier this year, died two months later on September 8th at age 45 in part due to the tremendous stress of her deportation and fear for her own life. It was this fear which precipitated her emigration to the United States in 2015 in the first place.

Finally, in April of this year, a 4-year-old U.S. citizen with Stage 4 cancer was deported to Honduras without their medication because their mother lacked legal status, and was forced to choose between being separated from her child or taking her child with her with little warning.

With so many atrocities being committed by the Trump regime in the name of immigration enforcement, it can be hard to keep them all straight. I regret that I failed to do that in committee on Thursday, and for that I do apologize.

However, I will not apologize for standing up on behalf of vulnerable people, including our immigrant neighbors, and against bills like SB 311, which do nothing to make us healthier, do nothing to make us safer, and which are capable of inflicting great harm on human beings in our communities.

Words do matter, but it was not words which killed Charlie Kirk, which you seemed to imply in your press release, it was a lone individual with a gun. This is something that happens all too often in our country, where we average over 45,000 gun deaths each year. Sadly, the gun lobby – which has consistently supported your candidacy for public office – has made reasonable gun legislation supported by the vast majority of Americans and most gun owners almost impossible to achieve.

In closing, I take full responsibility for sharing information in committee I later learned to be inaccurate, but I do not accept your premise that I would intentionally deceive anyone, or that my rhetoric is anywhere close to as dangerous as Republicans’ efforts to scapegoat immigrants, spread hatred and intolerance, and do worse than nothing to stop the scourge of gun violence in America.

Sincerely,
Chris Larson

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.