Last year before the election, Lake Effect explored the impact of immigration in Milwaukee. The special was called, Fear is the point. Today, as the Trump administration continues its campaign aimed at mass deportation, we’re checking in with one of the guests who we talked to last year.
Davorin Odrcic is an immigration lawyer in Milwaukee. He joins Lake Effect’s Joy Powers to talk about what’s changed since they last spoke.
"I’m not surprised by the significant changes that have happened during the past six months, but I will admit I’ve been caught flat-footed," he says. "And part of that was that my only frame of reference was Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 is completely different."
One change involves a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 that was not typically used by previous administrations, he says. The section in question allows U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to issue orders for the "expedited removal" of undocumented immigrants who would otherwise go through immigration court proceedings.
"This part of the law has been around since 1997," he says. "It just hasn't ever really been utilized for almost 30 years now."
The Laken Riley Act marks an additional departure from precedent, Odrcic says. The bill, passed in January, introduced mandatory detention requirements for undocumented immigrants who are arrested for theft or violent crimes.
"Anyone who has just simply been arrested, for example, of retail theft — not convicted — they could be subject to mandatory immigration detention, and that was sort of the basis for ICE to basically take them in."
He says these and other measures have had a chilling effect for immigrants who might otherwise come forward to file an adjustment of status after overstaying their visa, for example. And overall, he says the possibility of detention, deportation or denaturalization provokes uncertainty in immigrant communities, even among naturalized citizens.
"What I'm seeing is that really the off the charts, hateful rhetoric towards immigrants — the policies and actions have finally matched that," he says.
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