Photos: Thousands Flood Milwaukee Streets In 'Day Without Latinos' Protest

By Stephen Gossett in News on Feb 13, 2017 10:25PM

Thousands of demonstrators poured through the streets of Milwaukee on Monday in protest of Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke’s plan to allow deputies to enroll in a federal program that would allow them to act as immigration law-enforcement agents.

The massive march—organized immigration-advocacy group Voces de la Frontera, among others—stretched from the predominantly Hispanic south side of the city up to the downtown courthouse.

Protesters reportedly came from at least a dozen cities from across the state, arriving by the busload, to demonstrate in the “Day Without Latinos,” as it was dubbed. The protest doubled as a mass strike, intended to also illustrate the key economic contribution immigrants make to Wisconsin. More than 150 businesses closed their doors in support of the march, organizers said.

“Trump wants to paint immigrants as something we should be afraid of; that it is something bad," Christine Neumann-Ortiz, Director of Voces de la Frontera, told NBC News. "When people do this general, wide strike what they show is that on the contrary immigrants are lifting up this economy and when they withhold their contributions we see a decline."

As the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel points out, Clark—no stranger to controversy—threw some sarcastic shade at the protest just last week. "Please accept my regrets," he posted on Facebook. "I will be working with agents from immigration and customs enforcement helping them identify criminal illegal aliens and therefore cannot attend your rally being held for me." The County Sheriff's Office did not comment about the protest on Monday.

The action occurred the same day that Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed more than 680 arrests in the first full week of February. Some 170 of those arrested in that total did not have criminal convictions, according to ICE. Two hundred of the arrests made occurred in Midwest states, including Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri and Wisconsin.