Wisconsin: Banner drops across the Fox Valley demand end to police complicity with ICE
Appleton WI – On July 26, in a protest against ICE and the Trump administration, simultaneous banner drops took place across northeast Wisconsin, including several locations in Appleton, as well as Green Bay, Neenah, Oshkosh and Fond du Lac.
The coalition organizing the event included, Hate Free Outagamie, the Appleton Area chapter of the National Organization for Women, Fond du Lac Indivisible, Indivisible Winnebago, Indivisible Brown County, Forward Fox Valley, Peaceful Patriots and many community members.
In Appleton, activists pushed plastic drinking cups into the chain link fence on a pedestrian bridge over Highway 41 near Fox Valley Technical College, spelling out “Deport ICE”. Within minutes of the cups going up, local police arrived to take the cups down. Subsequent action that day in Appleton involved a number of people holding banners displaying anti-ICE and pro-immigrant rights slogans on a different pedestrian walkway, gaining a strong positive response from drivers on the highway below.
Action organizer Brent Lantagne stated, “This past Saturday we teamed up with local organizers to sprawl out and cover the highway overpasses in our communities. We all gathered with a common goal: to show the most vulnerable members of our community that we stand with them and are committed to the true American Dream. An America where we all are equal and protected under the law, not just the lucky few.”
“From all the honking, It makes me feel very hopeful for the Valley. It was worth all the noise!” said organizer Nicole Kappell.
ICE activity has heightened in the Fox Valley in recent months. In May the sheriff departments of Outagamie, Brown, Fond du Lac and Winnebago counties signed memorandums of agreement with immigration enforcement. As of July, 13 counties in Wisconsin have such agreements between their sheriff’s departments and ICE.
However, as events in the Fox Valley this past week show, there is a widening gap between official support for ICE and the public’s opposition to its presence in their communities – a gap which is a measure of the discontent of the people with the current ruling class.