Wisconsin 287(g) & ICE Detainer Dashboard

A static, public-interest dashboard tracking county-level ICE cooperation across Wisconsin — including 287(g) Memoranda of Agreement, detainer compliance, and federal SCAAP reimbursement payments.

Live site: https://wi287g.github.io/dashboard/

Data status: All values are currently placeholders. The pipeline scripts need to be run (or the GH Actions workflow triggered) to populate real data. See Running the pipeline below.

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What is 287(g)?

Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act allows ICE to deputize local law enforcement to perform immigration enforcement functions through a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA). Participating sheriffs can check immigration status from jails, issue civil detainer requests, and begin deportation paperwork.

A detainer is a civil request — not a judicial warrant — asking a jail to hold someone beyond their lawful release date for ICE. Counties can honor detainers without a formal 287(g) MOA.

SCAAP (State Criminal Alien Assistance Program) provides federal reimbursements to localities that incarcerated people with certain immigration statuses.

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Cooperation statuses

Status	Meaning
287g	Active 287(g) Memorandum of Agreement with ICE
detainers	Honors ICE civil detainers / informal cooperation, no formal MOA
none	No documented cooperation with ICE
unknown	Insufficient data; open-records requests may be pending

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Data sources

Source	URL	Notes
ICE 287(g) participant list	https://www.ice.gov/identify-and-arrest/287g	Scraped by scripts/fetch_287g.py
ACLU-WI reports	https://www.aclu-wi.org	PDFs/CSVs parsed by scripts/parse_aclu_reports.py
BJS SCAAP award data	https://bjs.ojp.gov/programs/scaap	Download county-level CSV annually
Census TIGER county shapefiles	https://www.census.gov/geographies/mapping-files/time-series/geo/tiger-line-file.html	Replace placeholder docs/data/counties.geojson

Known limitations

• ICE can change page structure, URLs, or move data to PDFs without notice, causing pipeline fetch failures. The workflow falls back to cached data.
• SCAAP data is published annually with 12–18 month lag.
• Detainer counts from ACLU or open-records responses may have coverage gaps — not all counties report, and practices change between sheriffs.
• Manual annotations (notes, sources) in 287g_status.json are preserved across automated pipeline runs.

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Project structure

dashboard/
  docs/                   # GitHub Pages root (static site)
    index.html
    css/styles.css
    js/
      config.js           # Constants and color palette
      dataLoader.js       # fetch() wrappers for JSON files
      map.js              # Leaflet map, county styling, filter, search
      charts.js           # Chart.js bar charts
      main.js             # Entry point, toolbar wiring, county-click handler
    data/
      counties.geojson    # WI county polygons (replace with TIGER data)
      287g_status.json    # Cooperation status keyed by FIPS
      detainers_by_county_year.json
      scaap_by_county_year.json
      raw/                # Gitignored pipeline intermediates
  scripts/
    wi_fips.py            # Shared county-name → FIPS lookup
    fetch_287g.py         # Scrape ICE 287(g) list → raw CSV
    parse_aclu_reports.py # Parse ACLU/watchdog PDFs or CSVs → raw CSVs
    merge_datasets.py     # Join all sources → docs/data/ JSONs
  .github/workflows/
    update-data.yml       # Scheduled weekly automation
  requirements.txt
  README.md

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Running the pipeline locally

# 1. Clone and set up
git clone https://github.com/wi287g/dashboard.git
cd dashboard
pip install -r requirements.txt

# 2. Fetch 287(g) list
python scripts/fetch_287g.py

# 3. Parse ACLU/watchdog reports (place PDFs or CSVs in reports/)
python scripts/parse_aclu_reports.py --input-dir reports/

# 4. Merge → update dashboard JSONs
python scripts/merge_datasets.py

# 5. Preview locally (any static server)
cd docs && python -m http.server 8000
# Then open http://localhost:8000

Getting real county geometry

Download Wisconsin county shapefiles from Census TIGER and convert to GeoJSON:

# Using ogr2ogr (GDAL)
wget "https://www2.census.gov/geo/tiger/TIGER2023/COUNTY/tl_2023_55_county.zip"
unzip tl_2023_55_county.zip
ogr2ogr \
  -f GeoJSON \
  -t_srs EPSG:4326 \
  -where "STATEFP='55'" \
  docs/data/counties.geojson \
  tl_2023_55_county.shp

Or use the Census Cartographic Boundary Files for a pre-simplified version that loads faster.

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GitHub Actions automation

The workflow in .github/workflows/update-data.yml runs weekly and:

1. Fetches the current ICE 287(g) participant list.
2. Parses any new reports in reports/.
3. Merges and writes updated JSONs.
4. Commits and pushes if files changed.

Required: The default GITHUB_TOKEN with contents: write permission (already configured in the workflow). No additional secrets are needed unless you add failure notifications.

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Contributing

• Data corrections: Open an issue with the county name, the incorrect value, and a source URL or document reference.
• New report files: Open a PR adding PDFs/CSVs to reports/ and running the pipeline locally to verify output.
• Code changes: PRs welcome. Keep docs/ as vanilla JS with no build step required.

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Licenses

• Code (docs/js/, scripts/, workflow): Mozilla Public License 2.0 (see LICENSE).
• Data (docs/data/): Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Attribute as: Wisconsin 287(g) & ICE Detainer Dashboard, wi287g, [year].
• Source documents (ICE, ACLU-WI, BJS) retain their own licenses/terms.