Overview

The Dodge Detention Facility in Juneau (Dodge County) is Wisconsin’s only ICE detention facility. It is operated by the Dodge County Sheriff’s Office under an intergovernmental service agreement (IGSA) with ICE — a partnership more than 20 years old. Despite common assumptions, it is NOT a GEO Group facility, and Dodge County does not have a 287(g) agreement; it holds federal detainees purely under contract. Detainee cases are administered through ICE’s Chicago Field Office (chi-ero-detained@ice.dhs.gov).

Key Details

• Location: 216 W. Center St., Juneau, WI 53039; main line (920) 386-3743
• Operator: Dodge County Sheriff’s Office; current sheriff Dale Schmidt
• Contract: long-running ICE IGSA (20+ years); holds adult men, adult women, asylum seekers, and ICE/DHS detainees alongside county inmates
• ICE average daily population: ~109 (as of April 28, 2026)
• Status: operational as of 2026
• Transport role: Dodge deputies transport detainees to and from the Broadview ICE Processing Center, Illinois, integrating the jail into the Chicago-metro pipeline

Legal and Political Exposure

• Voces de la Frontera v. WI sheriffs (Wisconsin Supreme Court original action): A ruling that Wisconsin sheriffs cannot honor civil ICE detainers without a judicial warrant would undercut the legal basis for Dodge’s hold/transport role. Federal court sent the case back to the state Supreme Court May 18-19, 2026; ruling expected mid-to-late 2026. See dodge-county-wi-ice-detainer-supreme-court.
• Naqvi defamation suit (April 2026): Sheriff Schmidt filed a federal defamation suit seeking $1M each from Sundas Naqvi, Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison, and ~10 others over a claim — which Schmidt and DHS dispute — that Naqvi, a U.S. citizen, was transferred from Broadview to Dodge and released pre-dawn. Schmidt says surveillance video and text records show she was never at the facility; DHS says she was released from O’Hare secondary inspection within ~90 minutes.
• A separate March 2026 report of a U.S. citizen held at Dodge was denied by the sheriff, who said there was no record of the visit.

Sources

• Dodge Detention Facility — ICE.gov
• Dodge Detention Facility — Global Detention Project
• Dodge County Detention Facility — Center for Immigration Assistance
• Dodge County Sheriff denies reports of U.S. citizen being held in detention center — WMTV15 (Mar 10 2026)
• Dodge County sheriff files federal lawsuit against woman who claimed ICE detained her — Wisconsin Examiner (Apr 13 2026)
• Three more Wisconsin county sheriffs agree to work with ICE (notes Dodge has no 287(g)) — Wisconsin Examiner (Feb 28 2026)