Ho-Chunk Nation Offers Free Tribal IDs Amid ICE Fears

Frederica Freyberg:
Despite promises from President Trump to target undocumented immigrants with a criminal record, pressure on Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to make arrests expands that scope. Fears remain high as stories spread on social media that members of tribes in Wisconsin have been stopped by ICE officials. To ease concerns, Ho-Chunk Nation President Jon Greendeer has promised his people free tribal IDs, as well as reimbursement for the cost to obtain a U.S. passport.

Jon Greendeer:
The United States passport is probably what I feel is the most legitimate form of a universally accepted form of identification. And so the scrutiny for securing your passport is, is pretty significant. … I tried to do my best to articulate that the passport will be available to tribal members and their children, whether or not they are enrolled, enrollable or not enrolled. … You have to be strong for a family, but you send your brown kids out the door and you don’t have control over, you know, their environment. You know, we — and this is something that is endemic to a lot of tribal communities that we worry about our kids every day before ICE. You know, we didn’t need ICE to scare us and make us feel uneasy as parents.