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PaperclipPerfector  21d ago (text post)   31147 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 21, 2025

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From a practical perspective, ICE fucked up by attempting to detain the guy before his case was resolved. Typically, when a Mexican national commits a violent crime in the United States and then flees to Mexico, we don't leave it at that; we specifically request that the Mexican government extradite him for prosecution here. If he gets deported this is just the administration facilitating his escape. It may not be what he wants, personally, but even for minor crimes, the normal course of business for a criminal defendant in custody awaiting deportation is for the attorneys to request he be released from ICE custody pending the resolution of the case. This is true even for minor offenses like drunk driving, where the defendant is typically out on bail.

This isn't how this usually works. ICE will go through the rigamarole of bringing someone back for some very serious felonies like murder and other Class X (or A, or 1 depending on what state we are talking about) violent felonies. They aren't bringing someone back for a DV unless someone was at least seriously permanently disfigured. In this specific case the case number is 2025CM000814. Although I am not a Wisconsin criminal attorney, I have >90% confidence that stands for "Criminal Misdemeanor" as it does in dozens of jurisdictions I am more familiar with.

In fact, the bail issue is why ICE probably detained him instead of letting the case go to pendency. If he was a murderer, ICE could be fairly confident Wisconsin's courts and law enforcement would detain him, or put him on EM+home confinement or something similar. Instead, his paltry DV charge means he will be walking around Wisconsin for months, if not years only for the victim to probably recant and/or for him to be sentenced to something like 12 months of court supervision. All that time he will have freedom to flee from ICE. ICE also simply doesn't have the space and manpower to detain him themselves and bring him to all his court appearances. Of course defendant's attorneys request that ICE let the case be resolved prior to detention. 1, that is how they get paid, and 2, its ultimately a lot better for their client, PARTICULARLY with misdemeanors. One of the worst things for an illegal alien is to miss court because you got deported because then the next time you get a traffic ticket (and lets be honest you will, that's probably how you got caught in the first place for whatever case you are in court for) there will be a warrant for your arrest. Then you get sent back to that courtroom and ICE can find you all over again. If you clear up the DUI, then get deported, you can sneak right back in and local law enforcement won't run you through the list of deported persons, while the would have run you through the list of nationwide warrants.

So even if this guy is out on bail on domestic battery charges, deporting him to Mexico makes his case impossible to prosecute, and even if ICE is willing to allow him to return for court appearances, it's impossible for the court to monitor his compliance with bail conditions, and he has little incentive to return to the US for criminal prosecution. The ideal situation, from a criminal justice perspective, is to allow him to stay in Wisconsin until his case is either dismissed or his sentence complete, and then begin deportation proceedings. By deporting him now, you only get half a loaf.

There really is no loaf for criminal justice in these charges. He's certain to get minimal to no punishment. The only purpose not deporting him serves is to enable his escape. And again, his failure to appear is kind of a hidden benefit because a more reasonable judge (obviously this one would not) would put out a warrant for his arrest and if he ever came back he'd be right back in that courtroom.

Wisconsin has open court records, so you can view the case details here: https://wcca.wicourts.gov/caseDetail.html?caseNo=2025CM000814&countyNo=40&index=0&mode=details#summary. It does indeed appear to be three charges of misdemeanor battery.

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