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Thursday, March 20, 2025
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LET’S DANCE IN MARCH
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The Badgers play the Montana Grizzlies on Thursday to kick off the round of 64.
Molly Fish brings a quirky twist to her downtown book store Lake City Books.
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+ LIFE & STYLE, PAGE 8
GOP passes bill to detain undocumented immigrants By Julia Walkowicz STAFF WRITER
The Assembly passed a bill along party lines Tuesday that would require Wisconsin sheriffs to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and detain undocumented immigrants who commit crimes or risk losing state aid. Gov. Tony Evers has pledged to veto the bill, which is now on its way to the Senate. The bill, authored by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and Sen. Julian Bradley, R-New Berlin, would require incarcerated people to provide proof of
residency. If they are unable to provide documentation, sheriffs would be required to report them to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Additionally, sheriffs in Wisconsin are required to comply with detainers and administrative warrants from the federal government regarding individuals in their custody and seek reimbursement for related costs. The bill also makes sheriff’s offices responsible for verifying residency and holding people in jail facilities for ICE. To ensure their compliance with this bill, sheriffs must certify their adherence
to these requirements annually to the Department of Revenue. If they fail to do so, this will result in a 15% reduction in the county’s shared revenue payments for the following year. The proposed bill also requires sheriffs to maintain records of individuals verified as unlawfully present and their reported crimes, reporting this data to the Department of Justice and the state Legislature. Furthermore, the bill provides immunity from criminal or civil liability for law enforcement actions taken under these provisions.
Khalil arrest sparks fear for future of campus protests By Wanwa Omot
ICE can’t enter non-public spaces on campus, UW-Madison says Secretary of State Marco Rubio has claimed Khalil’s deportation is lawful under section 237(a)(4)(c) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which grants the secretary the authority to deport individuals whose presence “would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” Hundreds of University of WisconsinMadison students participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations over the past year, including a 12-day encampment in May and a walkout for Khalil on March 11. UW-Madison spokesperson John Lucas told The Daily Cardinal a search warrant would be required for federal agents seeking to enter non-public areas, which include private offices and laboratories, residential rooms, classrooms and lecture halls in use and other secured or restricted-access areas. When asked if UW-Madison would expel students taking place in a protest, Lucas referred to the university’s expressive activity policy, which outlines activities not covered by the First Amendment including interfering with university property, interfering with invited speakers or disrupting the teaching of classes and functioning of the university. Lucas said infractions could lead to conse-
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College Democrats, GOP campaign on abortion, safety By Clara Strecker
SENIOR STAFF WRITER
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) detainment and arrest of Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil at his university-owned apartment in New York on March 8 sent shockwaves throughout the nation. The legal justification for the arrest of Khalil, a permanent legal resident who is not officially charged with a crime, has been heavily criticized, though President Donald Trump has doubled down, threatening to cut all federal funding to universities “that allow illegal protests” and promising further expulsions of participating students. It’s a consequential step in the Trump administration’s push to have “every one of America’s colleges and universities” execute its ideological agenda in immigration and education, and one that has sparked fear among international students for their future.
At a pre-session news conference Tuesday, Assembly Republicans defended the bill. Vos called it a way to emulate immigration practices happening in other parts of the country. “It shouldn’t be controversial,” Vos said during the news conference. “If someone commits a crime who is already here illegally, the simplest thing is for the sheriff’s department to run their names to ensure that they are here legally, if not to cooperate with ICE.”
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quences through campus conduct processes or law enforcement. ICE’s arrest of Mahmoud has sent another chilling effect to universities, already on the brink of losing billions of dollars in federal research funding. Part of that effect brewed before Trump’s second term. Many universities, including UW-Madison, updated their protest policies before the start of the fall semester with increased restrictions on speech following pro-Palestine protests last spring, including a mandate that UW-Madison leaders maintain neutral viewpoints in matters that do not affect the university’s operations and mission. Lucas referred to that policy when he told the Cardinal UW-Madison does not have a position on the situation at Columbia University. ‘Legal and constitutional hardball’ International students comprise a significant part of UW-Madison’s research and academic enterprise. They make up 15% of UW-Madison’s student body and have contributed approximately $44 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2023-24 academic year, according to NAFSA data. Cornell University international graduate student Momodou Taal, along with another doctoral student and professor, sued the Trump administration Sunday arguing its executive orders suppress protected speech that may be “critical of U.S. foreign policy and supportive of Palestinian human rights.” During the walkout on March 11, attendees warned of the implications of Khalil’s arrest on student protesters and demanded respect for freedom of speech and protest. “This is a bellwether for what is acceptable in this country. Do we live in a country where
it is acceptable to kidnap a man in the middle of the night because he protested in support of Palestine or not? Because I think that if we live in the former, which we do apparently, then we do not have rights in this country,” protester Dahlia Saba told the Cardinal during the walkout. UW-Madison political science professor emeritus Howard Schweber told the Cardinal the Trump administration’s actions constitute a “war on higher education,” with Trump’s targeting of international students the “point of the spear.” Schweber said Trump’s novel actions are raising broad questions that will have to be answered by the judiciary. “The Trump administration is pushing the bounds of these definitions as far as they will go,” Schweber said, calling Trump’s strategy “legal and constitutional hardball.” On Friday, the Trump administration canceled $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University after a Department of Education investigation found “widespread antisemitic harassment has been reported.” The Department of Education has been investigating 60 universities, including UW-Madison, over antisemitic discrimination and harassment since January 29, 2024. In a statement on March 11, 2025 after the Department of Education sent out letters to schools, UW-Madison condemned antisemitism and reaffirmed their commitment to promoting “a welcome campus environment for all members of the campus community.” Lucas declined to comment when asked whether the university was worried that similar cuts from the Trump administration — in addition to pending caps in NIH funding — could occur at UW-Madison if DOE’s investigation yields similar findings to Columbia University’s.
Ahead of last November’s election, the University of Wisconsin-Madison College Democrats and College Republicans campaigned on abortion rights and public safety, respectively. Now, with the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election weeks away, both organizations told The Daily Cardinal their campaigning tactics have largely stayed the same. College students play a major role in statewide elections in Wisconsin, with elections often decided by two or three votes per ward. In the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, record-setting liberal campus turnout propelled the liberal candidate to victory. Abortion rights and fair maps key issue for Democrats, while Republicans stress public safety The main issue the College Democrats are highlighting for students is abortion rights, while the College Republicans are pushing safety. College Republicans have pointed to Jerome Windslow, a Madison man who brutally assaulted a student on Langdon in 2019, claiming Crawford gave him a “very lenient sentence.” “The prosecutor recommended that Winslow be sentenced for 17 years, but Crawford gave him only seven,” College Republicans co-president Ben Rothove told The Daily Cardinal. “We’re really emphasizing that it is a matter of public safety that we support Brad Schimel.” Winslow pled guilty to two accounts of recklessly endangering safety and a battery charge, but as a part of his plea deal, the charges of false imprisonment and second-degree sexual assault with use of force were dropped. Crawford sentenced Winslow to seven years in prison plus five years of extended supervision on a count of first-degree recklessly endangering safety, both to be served concurrently. Winslow was also sentenced on a count of substantial battery intending to cause bodily harm to 1.5 years in prison and two years of extended supervision, also to be served concurrently.
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“…the great state University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”