The Milwaukee Common Council’s Steering and Rules Committee passed a measure banning ICE agents from city-owned property, which is thoroughly unconstitutional.
In a direct challenge to federal authority, a Milwaukee Common Council committee unanimously advanced legislation Monday that would bar U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from using city-owned property as a staging ground for arrests and deportations.
The measure, part of the council’s “ICE Out Milwaukee” package, prohibits non-public city facilities — including parking lots, ramps, vacant lots, parks and garages — from serving as “staging area, processing location, or operations base for civil immigration enforcement actions.” It would allow access only with a judicial warrant or when required by law. The full council is expected to vote later this month.
The push follows the council’s recent resolution opposing federal immigration enforcement and calling for the abolition of ICE — a stance Mayor Cavalier Johnson endorsed. Similar steps in Milwaukee County have included fines for unauthorized law enforcement activity in county parks.
Critics, including former council member and Republican state Rep. Bob Donovan, warned the ordinance will accomplish little beyond “antagonizing Washington” at a time when the Trump administration is fulfilling campaign promises to secure the border and remove those in the country illegally.
Yet such local defiance runs headlong into the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause, which declares federal law “the supreme Law of the Land.” Courts have long held that no state or local government may enact rules that obstruct or impede the execution of federal immigration statutes. By attempting to restrict where and how federal officers may lawfully operate on publicly owned land, Milwaukee’s proposal creates precisely the kind of conflict the Founders sought to prevent.
The Supremacy Clause ensures that when federal officers are carrying out duties authorized by Congress — including civil immigration enforcement — local ordinances cannot lawfully burden, delay or selectively exclude them. Precedent from the Supreme Court and lower federal courts makes clear that municipalities lack authority to designate “ICE-free zones” on their property if doing so interferes with federal operations. What Milwaukee calls property management is, in practice, an impermissible obstacle to the full purposes of federal immigration law.
Legal experts and prior Trump-era litigation against similar sanctuary measures in California, New York and New Jersey underscore the vulnerability: such policies are routinely challenged as preempted, often successfully. Milwaukee officials may claim their ordinance is narrowly tailored, but history shows federal courts will not permit local governments to nullify national immigration policy through the back door of land-use rules.
The committee’s action comes amid heightened enforcement under President Trump and follows high-profile incidents, including the 2025 arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge Hannah Dugan for obstructing federal agents. Whether the full council approves the measure or it survives inevitable legal review remains to be seen, but the Supremacy Clause stands as an unmistakable barrier to any city’s attempt to place itself above federal law.
