This article is the latest in a series of case studies of SPN award finalists. You can also read case studies of wins in Minnesota, Illinois, Alabama, Arizona, Louisiana, and Ohio.
When Americans think about the immigration crisis, they usually think about the southern border. But some of the clearest consequences show up far from it, in communities that had little warning and even less support.
One of those places is Whitewater, Wisconsin, a college town of about 15,000 residents. Over roughly two years, about 1,000 migrants from Central America, primarily Nicaragua and Venezuela, settled there. Local police, schools, and city officials were left to absorb the strain with little outside support.
What happened next is what made Whitewater more than a local story. The SPN affiliate Institute for Reforming Government (IRG) built a public record of what city officials, police, and schools were dealing with and brought those findings into statewide and national debate.
In June 2024, IRG released The Immigration Crisis in Wisconsin: A Case Study in Whitewater, a report built on public records, local documents, and firsthand evidence from a small city under growing strain. The report documented the local effects of federal immigration failures and pushed the issue into statewide and national debate.
That work earned IRG recognition as a finalist for the 2025 SPN Bob Williams Award for Most Influential Research.
A Crisis No One Planned For
Whitewater did not set out to become a destination for large-scale migrant resettlement. The situation grew out of a mix of post-COVID housing vacancies, labor demand, and the mechanics of the federal asylum process.
When the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater moved classes online during COVID-19, students left off-campus housing behind. That created a supply of affordable vacancies. At the same time, local farms and manufacturers needed workers. A small number of immigrant families arrived, and as more families established themselves in Whitewater, the number of available sponsors grew.
The result was a compounding effect. More migrants arrived, and local government had no clear warning, no meaningful coordination from higher levels of government, and no real plan for how to handle the strain.
What IRG’s Investigation Revealed
To get beyond anecdote, IRG went to the public record. In March 2024, its Center for Investigative Oversight filed public records requests with the Whitewater Police Department. The department turned over more than 400 documents, including emails, police reports, budget data, and internal communications. Those records became the basis for IRG’s report. It was the first investigation of its kind in the state.
The report documented practical burdens across city life. Police dealt with more unlicensed drivers, growing demands on officer time, and increasingly difficult investigations. Housing conditions deteriorated. School officials faced rising pressure as more students required English Learner services and additional support. The records also showed local leaders repeatedly asking for assistance that never meaningfully arrived. Police reported families with children living in unheated sheds during sub-zero temperatures, overcrowded apartment units, and poor living conditions.
Just as notably, the records showed that state officials wanted the issue kept “low profile” and out of the press. That detail helped explain why the report mattered so much. IRG was not surfacing a problem that government had not seen. It was surfacing a problem government had not seriously addressed.
The Report Reached Congress
The report immediately produced a ripple effect both in Wisconsin and Washington, D.C.
Jake Curtis, IRG’s general counsel and director of the Center for Investigative Oversight, testified before a U.S. House Judiciary Committee field hearing in Milwaukee in October 2024. His testimony drew directly on IRG’s Whitewater findings. Members of Congress used Whitewater as an example of how federal immigration failures were affecting communities far from the border.
Congressman Scott Fitzgerald’s office highlighted Whitewater in its release after the hearing, noting that the city had absorbed an estimated 800 to 1,000 foreign nationals since 2022 and naming Curtis as one of the witnesses.
Curtis also published a Wall Street Journal op-ed based on the report. Whitewater then became a reference point in Wisconsin media coverage and policy discussions.
The report also fed into state legislative debate. As lawmakers weighed proposals including Assembly Bill 24 and Senate Bill 57, Whitewater became part of the broader argument for stronger cooperation with federal immigration authorities and greater accountability around unlawful presence in Wisconsin jails.
Why This Matters For SPN Affiliates
The strongest takeaway from Whitewater is not only that IRG published an influential report. It is how the organization did it.
IRG used public records requests, built a factual record from primary documents, and translated local evidence into a story that lawmakers, media outlets, and the public could not easily dismiss. That is what strong affiliate research capacity looks like in practice. It is not commentary after the fact. It is original work that uncovers facts, clarifies responsibility, and helps communities understand what government decisions are costing them.
For SPN affiliates, this is an important model. Serious research capacity allows state-based organizations to do more than react to a public controversy. It allows them to discover what is happening, prove it, and move the issue from rumor or anecdote into documented reality.
That is especially valuable when local impacts are easy for national leaders to ignore. In Whitewater, IRG showed how a small city was left to manage the consequences of a broken federal system with little support and even less transparency. The organization did not wait for someone else to tell that story. It built the record itself.
