Madison Reporter

Dane County Jail officials are not tracking whether inmates are illegal aliens, or U.S. Citizens.

The jail confirmed to Madison Reporter on Friday April 26 that it doesn’t record the citizenship of perpetrators housed there, in response to a Freedom of Information Request.

On Wednesday April 24, Madison Reporter asked the jail for a list of illegal alien inmates and the taxpayer cost of housing them. Jail officials say they don’t calculate the cost of illegal aliens awaiting trial at the jail for their crimes, versus the cost for U.S. Citizens.

Dane County Jail had 787 inmates in its general population as of June 4, 2024.

In 2021, the Wisconsin Senate passed a bill to make Wisconsin a Second Amendment Sanctuary State, but Governor Evers vetoed it. As a result, individual counties must now declare their own sanctuary status. Out of Wisconsin's 72 counties, 20 have declared themselves “sanctuary counties” barring police by law from reporting illegal alien crime to federal immigration officials, aiming to prevent deportation to their country of origin.

In March, the sheriff of Butler County, Ohio reported that his jail had housed 999 illegal aliens since July 1, 2021 at a cost of $1,757 per inmate, or $1.8 million to taxpayers.

An Oct. 2020 U.S. Department of Justice report estimated that, at the 2019, there were 51,074 “known or suspected” illegal aliens in U.S. federal jails and that the average cost to house a prisoner was $88.19 per day. The report found that housing illegal aliens in these jails costs U.S. taxpayers $4.5 million per day and $1.64 billion per year.