More than 400 people spent time in ICE detention in Wisconsin in September 2025

ICE holds contracts with a growing number of sheriffs' offices around the state to house detainees in county jails. Some detainees spend weeks or months in custody, while others are quickly transferred to larger detention facilities elsewhere or deported within days of their arrest.

Markers scaled to number of unique detainees who passed through a given detention facility at any point in September 2025. Facilities with low average daily populations that see a high number of unique individuals in a month are generally used for short-term detention and transfer points. DHS' downtown Milwaukee office, for instance, is generally used to hold detainees for processing before they are transferred to larger facilities.
Chart: Paul Kiefer / Wisconsin WatchSource: Deportation Data ProjectGet the dataCreated with Datawrapper