ARCADIA, Wis. — Three people were arrested during Trump deportation operation Thursday in Arcadia. The arrests were confirmed by the Immigration and Enforcement agency only when pressed by news media queries. The Arcadia arrests were part of an ICE surge in Wisconsin that, according to scattered reports, netted 57 immigrant arrests. The Arcadia arrests came to the public only after Facebook posting by the citizen group Ice Out Coulee. Video showed ICE agents in the city. Their vests bore the letters HSI, short for Homeland Security investigator, which is the parent federal organization of ICE. The Trump administration has shifted away from references to ICE after early 2026 operations that discedited the organization for brutality and murders in Minneapolis, St. Paul and other cities with anti-Trump leanings. The new lower profile doesn’t mean a retreat from Trump’s goal of 1 million deportations of dark-skin immigrants this year.
South Milwaukee protest. Immigrant sympathizers marched over the weekend to protest to ICE incursions into Wisconsin. It’s known there were at least 57 arrests statewide Last week. Image: Isiah Holmes
Arcadia: What we know and don’t know
About the Arcadia operation, the ICE shift into low profile left many unanswered questions:
> Is three the accurate number of Arcadia arrests? ICE has nada credibility because of patten of self-serving deceptions and lies. Local grapevines in Arcadia a suggest more than three.
> From which country did the Arcadia detainees originate? In the past ICE has used false pretenses of criminality to make arrests.
> Did ICE have judicial warrants to make arrests? Most of the thousands of ICE nationwide in early 2026 operations were without proper warrants.
> Where were the Arcadia detainees taken? Were families informed? ICE has a cruel pattern of speeding detainees through sham process to expedite shipping detainees out of the country without judicial review.