By Kim McDarison

Whitewater Police Chief Dan Meyer, addressing the Whitewater Common Council Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2023, shared a letter which, he said, he drafted for the purpose of informing political representatives and elected officials about “challenges we are facing relating to immigration, and to request assistance in order to properly address those challenges.”

During a presentation about the letter made to council members during their final regularly scheduled meeting of 2023, Meyer said that the item was returning “at the request of council,” noting that his draft of the letter was included in their meeting packet.

Meyer asked council for guidance regarding to whom the letter should be sent.

Councilman Neil Hicks offered a list, including U.S. President Joe Biden, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Nicholas Mayorkas, U.S. Sens. Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin, and U.S. Reps. Bryan Steil and Scott Fitzgerald.

Councilwoman Brienne Brown suggested that State Rep. Ellen Schutt be added to the list.

Councilman David Stone suggested that Gov. Tony Evers also be added to the list.

Additionally, Brown offered language, which, she said, she believed was “worthwhile to mention,” in support of asking U.S. officials to consider changing language within the federal Real ID Act of 2005. She cited the act as one in which changes affecting immigration provisions, including identification document provisions, establishing regulations regarding state driver’s licenses, are enacted.

Information found online defines the act of Congress as one that “establishes requirements that driver licenses and identification cards issued by U.S. states and territories must satisfy to be accepted for accessing federal government facilities and nuclear power plants and boarding airline flights in the United States. The requirements include verification of the personal information presented when applying for the identification document, security features on the document, and electronic sharing of databases between states. The act also made various modifications to U.S. immigration law regarding asylum, border security, deportation, and certain work visas.”

Additional information about the act is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_ID_Act.

Brown said that, given that the issuance of driver’s licenses for asylum seekers was legal prior to the act, and that she believed law enforcement agencies were looking for a way to “ease the problem of having to pull up people,” when seeking to identify them, she asked the body to consider language in the letter to ask for provisions regarding driver’s licenses to be reconsidered.

“You may want to put something in there about considering making driver’s licenses legal again. Or at least mention the fact that that’s a problem,” she said. 

Additionally, she said, she thought it worth mentioning that a number of people, even those without a driver’s license, can legally register a vehicle. 

“You can register a vehicle, but you can’t necessarily have a driver’s license, which is why people are getting pulled over,” she said. 

She suggested statistics from the city, showing the number of people without driver’s licenses who are driving registered vehicles and coming through the city’s municipal court system, could be added to the letter.

“People with no driver’s license, but a registered vehicle. That’s a problem in Wisconsin,” she said. 

City Manager John Weidl, addressing Brown, said he would be “happy to write a letter that espouses the  beliefs of the council, and send that,” adding, “I gotta let Dan  (Meyer) write his letter.”

In response to Brown’s comments, Meyer said: “The only issue I’ll say, especially with your second point, is we have no way of tracking who, you know, this is about immigration, and the numbers you’re talking about, we don’t have a way to track, necessarily, how many of those are related to immigration.”

Responding to the letter’s content provided within the meeting packet, Councilwoman Jill Gerber said: I like the letter. I just didn’t feel it hit home in the part where we’re struggling, and I get we are struggling, but, just a thought: maybe we put our police budget in there, which is quite small for the number of the department, to know what we are working with. The deal with the number was just one thought. The other thought was it didn’t mention we are a college community, which makes it seem, we do have a population of 15,000, but we are dealing with less in tax dollars.”

Meyer asked about process, seeking clarification from council, he said, as to whether the letter needed to return again before council with any adjustments. 

Council member Neil Hicks said he trusted Meyer’s judgement.

He added: “Ultimately it’s your department that gets the help, so I’d rather have you put it how you expect.” 

Weidl reiterated his earlier suggestion offering the body an opportunity to write its own letter.

“I’m happy to put together all the points you would like to make and send that out on behalf of the elected body, which can be a totally different message, if that makes sense; you guys can say things that Dan probably would not say because of just the capacity he must exist in.”

Addressing Weidl, Hicks asked: “Would it make this letter more powerful if the entire council signs it or if you sign it?”

Meyer said he believed the additional signatures would be valuable. 

“I’d be open to that if everyone else is too. At least show that you have the backing of everybody that this is a major issue,” Hicks said. 

Council approved a process through which Meyer would finalize his letter, making it available upon its completion for the council members to sign.

Weidl said the city clerk would contact members of the body for signatures.

Council discussed signing Meyer’s letter without penning a second letter of its own.

Weidl, responding to his suggestion that council create a second letter, said: “At some point, Dan will be unwilling to cross a line and say things that elected officials might be willing to say. If you want to draft that letter, or have me, I’m happy to draft your own thing, otherwise, feel free, we can publish this as an elected body, city manager and department head.”

He called both options “acceptable routes.” 

Said Brown of Meyer: “He’s dealing with law enforcement issues. I think we have other things that we can easily address in our letter as well that is less law enforcement.”

She noted that there “were other things going on,” beside budgetary constraints within the police department.

The council agreed that a second letter could come before it as a future agenda item.

Council members agreed they wanted to sign Meyer’s letter and write one of their own.

The clerk was directed to include a second letter written by council as a future agenda item.

Said Gerber: “I just want to say that I think it’s good we are doing two letters, because I think this really originated from people asking the question, being short three police officers, in case there would be a need for referendum in the future, that they wanted to know that we’ve done everything we’ve done, so I think if the city manager sends one and the chief, I think for the public it shows that we’ve done our good faith for applying for federal aid if we can get it.”

In response to WhitewaterWise’s request, the Whitewater Police Department provided a copy of a letter, dated Dec. 28, in preparation to be sent to the White House.

The letter, in its entirety, follows: