MILWAUKEE – Ramona Tenorio keeps a go-bag with important documents. She carries a copy of her U.S. passport on her.
It’s not a perfect plan: “People are being attacked before they are even allowed to get that stuff,” she said.
Tenorio is a Jewish Wisconsinite, a fourth-generation American of Mexican heritage. In theory, she should have nothing to fear from ICE. And yet she is frightened, not just for herself, but for all of us.
Why would she be? If your social media algorithms aren’t showing you, here’s a taste of the news:
Slammed to the ground. NBC News reported in August that Andrea Velez, a U.S. citizen, was detained by ICE officers in downtown Los Angeles on June 24 after an agent accused her of obstructing the arrest of another individual. She said an agent in plainclothes grabbed her, slammed her to the ground, and ignored her repeated statements that she was a citizen. Despite providing her driver’s license and insurance card, she was booked into jail. A federal complaint alleged she blocked the agent’s path and struck him with her arm, but the Justice Department later dismissed the case without prejudice. Velez said she spent two days in detention and went 24 hours without anything to drink. She described the experience as traumatizing and said at the time she could not return to work.
Couldn’t show documents. Last month, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Martin, an 18‑year‑old U.S. citizen and aspiring pro soccer player from Lake Geneva, invited his mother, Irma, to Minnesota to watch him compete after years of her supporting his soccer dreams. After his first game, federal immigration agents suddenly boxed in their car outside a Bloomington Walmart; they let Martin go after confirming his citizenship but arrested Irma, who has a work permit and Social Security card, according to the newspaper. Irma, who fled violence in Mexico, was taken without being allowed to show her documents and was in a federal detention center in Texas, the Journal Sentinel reported. Martin, left alone and devastated, played his second game fueled by anger and determination, even as he worried about his mother possibly being deported.
Tenorio puts it this way: “I mean, it’s the anxiety, the fear, the disbelief, disbelief that my family can just be stopped, pulled over, and they’re not just like stopping, pulling over gently, right? They are ripping people apart.”
A coalition of U.S. citizens and immigrant‑rights groups sued federal immigration agencies in Los Angeles after roving ICE patrols began stopping and detaining people based on factors such as appearing Latino, speaking Spanish, being in areas where undocumented workers gather, or working certain jobs, according to reports. A federal judge issued a restraining order blocking those practices, and the Ninth Circuit kept that order in place during appeal. But in September 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed the injunction, allowing the challenged enforcement tactics to resume while the broader legal battle continues — a process expected to take many months.
Advocates and dissenting justices warned that the ruling “effectively legalized racial profiling,” since it permits agents, at least for now, to detain and question people based solely on race, language, location, or type of job.
“We all as people of color. We’ve always known racial profiling existed. We know that atrocities and violence by policing forces have always existed in our country, but the fact that it’s been given the green light by the Supreme Court and others that we thought were there to protect us …” Tenorio said.
“You know, I think for many years, I really, I really bought the American idea, bought into the American safety net of the checks and balances, I really believed it, and we’re seeing those checks and balances break down. We’re seeing freedoms disappear.”
She sees these issues though multiple windows at once, as a Jew and as an American of Hispanic heritage. She said she appreciates that local Jewish community members have “come to me, have called me, have reached out, have checked on me.”
But she’d like to see more attention paid to these issues by larger players in the national Jewish political landscape, she said. Sometimes, it can be painful when some in the Jewish community don’t seem to recognize parallels between the Hispanic and Jewish experiences, she said. Jews and Hispanics can both yearn for freedom.
“I just got off a call with Jews of color nationally. Sometimes we feel alone,” she said. “With all the things that are happening in the country right now, sometimes we feel alone.”
But she quickly added: “You know, this isn’t a Jews of color thing. This is a Jewish thing. This is a people thing. This is an American issue.”
In a private spot, she keeps a go bag with all her important documents, passport and a birth certificate. She makes sure to carry her “Real ID.” She’s installed security cameras, to give some peace of mind.
She asks us to all remember that people of varying ethnicities are the people you sit down and eat with, your neighbors and friends, the person who’s working down the street, helping you out, babysitting.
“I really believed what I was taught through grade school, saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and being taught about the checks and balances and our Constitution and those are the conversations that I’m not hearing enough,” she said. “It feels like a ‘Black Mirror’ episode.”
“I’m an American, and this affects me as an American,” Tenorio said, “not the fact that my great grandparents crossed the border during the Mexican Revolution.”
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About Ramona Tenorio
Ramona C. Tenorio, MS, PhD, is the president of Broader Impact, a professional consulting firm that assists clients through professional consultation, research and grant services, strategic planning and assessment, systems management and data analysis services. She lives in southeast Wisconsin.
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