The federal government has extended its lease on a downtown Milwaukee property used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to federal lease records and the building’s owner.
The property at 310 E. Knapp St. is owned by the Milwaukee School of Engineering but will remain in use by the federal government through at least April 2026, with options to extend through 2028, said JoEllen Burdue, the college’s senior communications director.
“We do not have immediate plans for the building and will reevaluate next year when we know whether or not the government wants to extend the lease,” Burdue said.
The lease was originally scheduled to expire in April 2025.
With a new ICE facility under construction on the city’s Northwest Side, the downtown lease extension raises the possibility that the federal government is expanding local immigration infrastructure or enforcement. This would be consistent with other forms of expansion in immigration enforcement, statewide and nationally.
“I’m upset and concerned about what this means for my immigrant constituency. For my constituents, period,” said Ald. JoCasta Zamarripa, who represents the 8th District on the South Side.
Immigration infrastructure
The Knapp Street property is used by ICE as a field office for its Enforcement and Removal Operations, according to ICE.
This includes serving as a check‑in location for individuals under ICE supervision who aren’t in custody and a processing center for individuals with pending immigration cases or removal proceedings.
The Vera Institute is a national nonpartisan nonprofit that does research and advocates for policy concerning incarceration and public safety.
The most people held by ICE at a given time at that Knapp Street location during the Biden administration was six. On June 3, 22 people were held there – also exceeding the high of 17 during President Donald Trump’s first administration, according to data from Vera Institute.
The office generally does not detain people overnight but can facilitate transfer to detention centers that do.
The functions carried out at the Knapp Street office mirror those planned for the Northwest Side facility.
A new ICE field office is expected to open at 11925 W. Lake Park Drive in Milwaukee. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
City records show the West Lake Park Drive property will be used to process non-detained people as well as detainees for transport to detention centers.
The records also state that the property will serve as the main southeastern Wisconsin office for immigration officers and staff.
The U.S. General Services Administration, the federal government’s real estate arm, initially projected the new site would open in October. However, a spokesperson said there was no update and did not confirm whether that timeline still stands.
Neither ICE nor the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, responded to NNS’ requests for comment.
Rise in immigration enforcement
As local immigration enforcement grows, so does enforcement throughout the state and the rest of the country.
The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse is a nonprofit at Syracuse University that conducts nonpartisan research.
Not only are more people being detained, but they are being detained for longer, said Jennifer Chacón, the Bruce Tyson Mitchell professor of law at Stanford Law School.
A July 8 internal memo from ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons instructs agents to detain immigrants for the duration of their removal proceedings, effectively eliminating access to bond hearings.
Eighty-four of 181 detention facilities exceeded their contractual capacity on at least one day from October 2024 to mid-April 2025, according to a July report from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
The Dodge County Jail, which ICE uses to detain people apprehended in Milwaukee, is one of the facilities that exceeded its contractual capacity. On its busiest day, it held 139 individuals – four more than its 135-bed limit.
In addition to Dodge County, Brown and Sauk county jails have also entered into agreements with ICE to house detained immigrants, according to records obtained by the ACLU of Wisconsin.
ICE’s unprecedented budget
Noelle Smart, a principal research associate at the Vera Institute, notes that it remains unclear whether increased immigration enforcement drives the need for more detention infrastructure or expands to catch up with more infrastructure.
But, Smart said, with ICE’s unprecedented new budget, the question of which one drives the other becomes less relevant.
Trump’s proposed ICE budget in 2025 was $9.7 billion – a billion more than ICE’s 2024 budget. An additional $29.85 billion was made available through 2029 for enforcement and removal as part of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
“We know this administration intends to vastly increase the number of people subject to arrests and detention, and we expect to see increases in both given this budget,” Smart said.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
(The Center Square) – A Wisconsin lawmaker has introduced a bill to prevent state and local governments from paying for health care services for undocumented individuals in the state.
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Republican legislative leadership is pushing back on Gov. Tony Evers’ attempt to push through rulemaking without legislative oversight.
In 2023, Arian Rice became a private pilot at age 18.
Now 20, he’s working toward his goal of flying commercial planes and encouraging Black children to explore their dreams.
“After getting the news about getting my license, I can look back and say that I didn’t sit and wait for somebody to do it for me,” Rice said.
Currently, Rice is participating in the aeronautics program at Gateway Technical College to fly commercial planes.
While there, he will complete 125 hours of training to receive his Airline Transport rating, the highest level of pilot certification issued by the Federal Aviation Administration.
First time in a cockpit
Rice was 11 when he was first introduced to aviation. His nana, Isha Kinard, took the family to Burlington to experience the Young Eagles flight program, eat breakfast and explore airplanes.
There, Rice was given the opportunity to fly a plane for the first time.
“I wasn’t scared at all, and when we took off, it felt exhilarating,” Rice said.
During the one-on-one flight, the pilot allowed Rice to take control of the plane, teaching him how to steer and turn.
“I remember we were by a pole, and the pilot tells me to turn around it,” Rice said.
Rice’s aviation journey had just begun.
“I saw a sense of purpose in his eyes as he shared his experience,” Kinard said.
Not old enough for flight school
Rice said his biggest challenge was finding additional flight training. He wanted to train at Spring City Aviation at Milwaukee’s Timmerman Airport, but the minimum age to fly an aircraft solo is 16.
“It was hard, but I didn’t let my dream of aviation die out,” he said.
From ages 13 to 14, he participated in free aviation training through the Young Eagles Sporty’s Learn to Fly course. There he learned the fundamentals of aviation.
In addition, he watched videos on YouTube.
Rice’s mom, Dahneisha Gavin, home-schooled Rice and said he’s good at being a self-learner.
“He can see something and adapt to it,” Gavin said.
Rice mowed lawns and sold fireworks during the summer to pay for the training.
“When we were at the breakfast that day, there was a man that spoke life into not only my son, but us as a unit. He said if we wanted him to fly, we would all have to work together,” Gavin said.
Kinard, Gavin and Rice’s dad, James Sims Robinson, searched for scholarships, pitched in financially and provided other support.
Winning a scholarship
In 2023, mentor and former flight instructor Sean O’Donnell encouraged Rice to apply for a $10,000 EAA Ray Aviation Scholarship, which he won.
“Sean understood my limitations with getting training, and in his spare time, he saw an opportunity for me and forwarded the information to me,” Rice said.
Rice said he was the only Black applicant, which motivated him to work harder.
“Most of the applicants already had the experience and come from families with pilots,” Rice said. “They saw I had worked to do the 10 hours of training, and that stood out to them.”
A generational trailblazer
After passing written exams and completing training hours, Rice received his official private pilot license at 18. He is the first pilot in his family.
Gavin said flying with her son for the first time was one of the proudest moments of her life.
“Arian showed me that he belongs to the sky. It’s not just about flying airplanes. It’s about breaking barriers and creating a legacy to show other young people in Milwaukee that anything is possible,” Gavin said.
Rice said he has moments when he thinks about his first experiences leading up to now and thanks his nana for it.
“My nana invested in my future just by bringing me to that breakfast,” Rice said.
Rice said he believes that Black people aren’t exposed to other careers enough.
“Blacks are always being pushed into music or sports. My license gave me a freeing feeling because some families become too complacent when there isn’t a push,” he said.
For more information
For children looking to go into aviation, Rice suggests reading books about planes at a library and researching resources.
“It’s out there, but you just need to read what’s in front of you,” he said.
Kinard encourages parents to start small. “Break the dreams down into smaller achievable steps and support their efforts to learn and grow along the way,” she said.
Wearing his Milwaukee police uniform, Gregory Carson Jr. stepped into the witness stand, raised his right hand and swore to tell the truth.
Two years earlier, a man had been shot in an alley. His girlfriend said police pressured her to allow a search of the duplex as she held her infant. That search had turned up five guns, and now her boyfriend faced a federal charge.
On the stand that afternoon, a public defender asked Carson if he recalled making inappropriate statements to the girlfriend. Commenting on seeing her underwear on the floor? Reaching out to her hours later? Texting her?
Carson’s answer under oath to each question was the same.
No.
A few witnesses later, the girlfriend swore to tell the truth and read screenshots of text messages she had received.
Hey, it’s me. Honestly it was seeing your thong on the floor that had me like damn lol.
The woman replied to ask who was contacting her. She read the response in court: Hey it’s Carson from yesterday and I understand.
The officer had been caught in a lie.
Gregory Carson Jr. (Provided photo)
At the time, Carson already was on the Milwaukee County district attorney’s list of officers with a history of credibility, integrity or bias concerns, commonly referred to as a “Brady/Giglio” list.
He also was under internal investigation for those same text messages. None of that was known to the defense attorney who questioned him.
After that court hearing, Carson remained on the Milwaukee Police Department payroll for more than two years. In that period, he came under internal investigation three more times.
His nine-year career illustrates the risk of keeping such officers on the force and interacting with the public after their credibility and integrity have come under question. At least a dozen officers, including Carson, kept their jobs after landing on the Brady list, then ended up on the list again for another incident, an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 News and Wisconsin Watch found.
Reached in April, Carson declined an interview request.
Police Chief Jeffrey Norman said Carson faced several allegations that overlapped in time and that the officer had due process and collective bargaining rights. Internal investigations can take months or even years to complete, the chief added.
“But we still have to remember, just as a court case, you are innocent until proven guilty,” Norman said in an interview in January.
Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman speaks with reporters at the Milwaukee Police Administration Building in July 2025. (Mike De Sisti / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Officers’ rights are important, but so is protecting public trust, said Justin Nix, associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Nebraska Omaha.
“Officers can arrest us, they can use force on us, and along with that comes a lot of responsibility to uphold certain values and to be honest,” Nix said in June.
“When officers fail to meet those standards, in my mind, it’s unacceptable.”
Officer lands on Brady list after domestic violence arrest but keeps his job
Carson wanted a long career with the Milwaukee Police Department.
He started as a police aide.
He had relatives who were cops and he wanted to make a difference in his community, “busting down drug houses, getting guns off the streets,” he wrote to a supervisor in 2015.
“I am striving for success, and 25 years plus on the job,” he added.
He became a sworn officer in 2018. Two years later, his own department arrested him on a domestic violence allegation.
A woman had called for help, saying she wanted Carson to leave their shared residence. She had confronted him over infidelity suspicions, and then he held her against the couch and bit her cheek, she said.
Police separated the two. Officer Roy Caul asked the woman about domestic violence incidents that had occurred at any time, not just that night in 2020.
“Just because he’s a cop doesn’t mean that he’s free to do this to you,” Caul said, according to transcripts from body camera footage.
The woman said she just wanted Carson out of the house.
The officer asked if anything occurred that night or within the last 28 days to cause her pain or make her fear for her safety. The woman replied no.
Officers arrested Carson, already in uniform for his next shift, and took him to the training academy for further questioning. He denied hurting the woman.
The department referred the case to the district attorney’s office. Assistant District Attorney Nicolas Heitman declined to charge Carson. In a recent email to the Journal Sentinel, Heitman said the office did not feel it could meet the burden of proof with the available evidence.
Three months later, the woman told Internal Affairs she had not feared for her safety. Carson told Internal Affairs nothing physical happened.
“I feel that I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said, according to department records.
Norman, the chief, disagreed and gave Carson a three-day suspension.
The arrest resulted in the district attorney’s office placing Carson on its list of officers with credibility or integrity issues, often called a “Brady/Giglio” list, named after two landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings.
These lists are maintained to help prosecutors fulfill their legal obligations to share information favorable to the defense. Often, criminal cases come down to the word of an officer against a defendant. Judges and juries must weigh the credibility of both.
With Carson’s name added to the list, prosecutors would need to disclose his criminal referral and integrity violation to defense attorneys if he appeared on their witness list.
Then it would be up to a defense attorney, and later a judge, to determine if it was relevant to bring up in court.
Carson kept his job, his badge and his ability to testify.
Wisconsin does not have statewide standards for Brady lists, leaving it to each county to track material
Until recently, the county’s full Brady list was kept secret.
As a result of reporters’ questions, District Attorney Kent Lovern removed officers and added others. His office released a corrected and updated list of nearly 200 officers in February, which was published by the Journal Sentinel and media partners.
Milwaukee County District Attorney Kent Lovern speaks at a news conference on April 8, 2025, in Milwaukee. (Jovanny Hernandez / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Who gets on a list – and whether counties even have a list – varies widely in Wisconsin, where there are no statewide standards. Officers can testify in multiple counties or in federal court, depending on the case and where an investigation leads.
Federal prosecutors, however, have standardized U.S. Department of Justice guidelines. Prosecutors are supposed to ask law enforcement witnesses directly about potential Brady material and check with officers’ home agencies.
“This process is designed to identify information that is even broader in scope than what is legally required and what might trigger being on a list in another jurisdiction,” said Kenneth Gales, a spokesman with the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Milwaukee, in an email.
Gales maintained the office followed all proper procedures prior to Carson’s testimony in the federal hearing.
Even if a formal list is not shared by prosecutors, state and federal public defenders in eastern Wisconsin often exchange information between their offices about the credibility of law enforcement witnesses.
Criminal defense attorneys in Wisconsin say inconsistencies in disclosing Brady material can lead to injustice and wrongful convictions.
Such information is crucial for an effective defense, said Bridget Krause, trial division director for the State Public Defender’s Office.
“Our clients have liberty at stake,” she said.
In shooting case, a witness says officer made inappropriate comments in person and through texts
In late 2021, the Milwaukee Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division received a letter from a prisoner at Kettle Moraine Correctional Institution.
In it, a man accused officers of illegally searching his house during a shooting investigation.
It was the call involving Carson.
Internal Affairs opened an investigation and notified Carson, saying he was accused of taking part in an illegal search and failing to activate his body camera.
A third allegation read that “while on scene, you made inappropriate comments to a female citizen as well as sending her an inappropriate text message,” according to paperwork served on Carson on March 1, 2022.
Seven days later at the court hearing, Carson denied knowing anything about the texts.
A transcript shows Milwaukee police officer Gregory Carson Jr. answering questions about texting a witness during a 2022 federal court hearing. The witness’ name was redacted. (Milwaukee Police Department)
He also defended his decision to turn off his body camera, saying he had switched off the device to speak with other officers, who did the same. No one recorded the conversation detectives had with the woman about searching the home.
“My role in the investigation was over once the detectives were on scene inside the residence,” Carson said, according to a court transcript.
When the man’s girlfriend testified, she said she felt pressured to allow the search after an officer mentioned child welfare. She feared her baby would be taken away. She also said that Carson had flirted with her in the house.
When the prosecutor asked her to elaborate, she quoted Carson as saying: “Oh, you might as well kiss your man goodbye, because you ain’t never going to see him again.”
She also remembered this comment: “I’m going to come back and see you later, okay? You going to let me in? It’s just going to be me and you.”
As the hearing closed, Joshua Uller, a federal public defender, sharpened his argument that officers had acted improperly and their search was not lawful.
Carson and others violated department policy when they didn’t record their interaction with the woman as she signed the consent form. They treated a shooting victim as a suspect without evidence to do so, and Carson had acted completely inappropriately, he said.
“Turning a woman with a newborn child whose boyfriend was just taken away in an ambulance into a romantic objective is really beyond the pale,” Uller said, according to a transcript.
Later that month, Magistrate Judge Stephen C. Dries issued his report and recommendation. Though he chided officers for failing to record the woman signing the form, he concluded they had properly gotten her consent and the search was legal.
Carson’s testimony on the text messages, he said, was not credible.
Officer, already on the Brady list, tries to dissuade a woman from filing a complaint against another officer
Two days after the hearing, an internal investigator questioned Carson about the text messages.
He admitted to sending them, contradicting his testimony.
He said he had a “weakness” and had contacted the woman in “romantic pursuit,” department records say.
“In no way shape or form did I ever intend to be inappropriate or disrespect her in that manner,” he said, according to the records. “It was honestly me trying to shoot my shot and that was it.”
He denied making inappropriate comments to her in person and denied using his position as a police officer as an advantage. He said he regretted it and had learned a lesson.
He never mentioned his false testimony. At this point, federal prosecutors had not notified the police department of any concerns.
A portion of Milwaukee Police Department records detailing the internal investigation into Gregory Carson Jr., who was found to have sent inappropriate text messages to a woman he met at a shooting scene. (Milwaukee Police Department)
About three months after that interview, Carson had another troubling interaction with a woman he met on duty when she and her ex-boyfriend walked into District 7 on the city’s north side.
The former couple had a heated property dispute. The woman also said the man had intentionally hit her head while closing a car door. The man said it was an accident.
Carson was one of four officers dealing with the situation.
The woman grew frustrated with an officer who implied she was lying about the car door injury and refused to write a report about the incident. Police cited the man for battery.
Hours later, the woman received a call from a blocked number.
It was Carson.
He explained who he was and said he was off-duty. He pleaded with her not to file a complaint against his co-worker who had implied she was lying, according to police records. All of the officers involved were “good guys” who could only do so much, she remembered him saying.
She also recalled Carson saying that he hoped she would leave her ex-boyfriend alone because he did not want the ex “popping up at her house” while Carson was there, which she believed to be a flirtatious comment.
The next day, she filed two complaints at District 7: one against the officer who implied she lied and one against Carson.
In a recent interview with the Journal Sentinel, the woman called the actions of the officers that day “extremely disheartening.”
“When you’re going through one of the toughest times of your life, the last thing you should have to deal with is them approaching you in a sexual manner or accusing you of lying when you’re literally crying out for help,” said the woman, who asked not to be named publicly for privacy and safety reasons.
Internal Affairs classified her complaint against Carson as potential misconduct in office and assigned a detective to investigate.
A federal prosecutor tells the Milwaukee Police Department an officer gave false testimony in court
That summer, the federal case involving the shooting victim and Carson’s texts continued.
The defense attorney asked another judge to weigh in on the legality of the search.
As prosecutors prepared for another hearing in July 2022, Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Paulson reached out to Carson about his prior testimony.
She then wrote a memo summarizing their conversation, in which she said Carson admitted to sending the texts and not being truthful in his testimony, adding: “I’m human and I’m attracted to women.”
The Milwaukee Federal Building and Courthouse is shown in Milwaukee on Aug. 5, 2016. (Angela Peterson / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
On July 6, 2022, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Funnell emailed Internal Affairs with concerns about Carson’s credibility. He followed up the next day with a transcript from the March hearing, the earlier judge’s report and the defense motion for a second evidentiary hearing.
Asked about the case and the length of time it took the U.S. Attorney’s Office to contact Milwaukee police, a spokesman for the office said prosecutors acted appropriately.
“The United States also timely satisfied all legal disclosure obligations to the Court and to the defense in the matter you have referenced,” Gales said in an email.
Carson was on the county’s Brady list of officers with credibility issues — he had been since 2021 — but Uller, the federal public defender, said he had never seen the county’s Brady list until the Journal Sentinel and other media partners published it in February.
“While I cannot comment on this particular case, I am not aware of any instance in which, prior to the publication of this list, a lawyer in our office was notified of an officer’s inclusion in this list,” he said.
The Journal Sentinel tried to contact the woman who received the texts but was not successful. Her then-boyfriend charged in the case died in a shooting two years ago.
After hearing from the federal prosecutor in July 2022, Internal Affairs opened an investigation into Carson’s false testimony.
Carson was now the subject of three pending internal investigations, had previously received a three-day suspension and was on the county’s Brady list.
Still, he remained on patrol.
“At the time, it’s an allegation,” Norman, the police chief, said in an interview.
“We have, again, due process,” he added. “And so we need to make sure that there is, you know, the fairness of ensuring that there is credibility to everything, even from a prosecutor.”
A domestic violence victim calls for help, and an officer under internal investigation responds
Bobbie Lou Schoeffling called 911 for help on July 11, 2022.
Over the previous months, Schoeffling or her sister had repeatedly called police to report violence from Schoeffling’s ex-boyfriend, Nicholas Howell. Howell had not been arrested despite the multiple reports, having an open warrant for fleeing and being under the supervision of correctional agents for a past robbery conviction.
Bobbie Lou Schoeffling is seen in an undated family photo. (Courtesy of Tia Schoeffling)
That night, Schoeffling called police twice to report threats from Howell. On the second call, she said he had threatened to burn down her house on Hampton Avenue. She had left the area, fearing for her safety, she added.
Carson and his partner were dispatched to the second call. They did not drive to her house. Instead, Carson spoke to her over the phone and failed to activate his body camera to record their conversation.
Carson and his partner — and the two officers who responded earlier that night — did not file any reports or make any arrests.
Schoeffling was found shot to death two weeks later, on July 26.
On Sept. 4, 2022, police leaders finally pulled Carson from patrol, stripped him of his police powers and assigned him to the stolen vehicle desk in the forensics division.
He did not routinely interact with the public in the role, and the job limited him from having to testify, a department spokesperson said in an email to the Journal Sentinel.
As internal investigations conclude, officer faces a suspension, then termination
As Carson sat at his desk job, his discipline piled up.
In February 2023, Norman suspended him for six days for the inappropriate texts and for failing to activate his body camera at the shooting scene.
Milwaukee police officer Gregory Carson Jr. was one of four officers disciplined for their response to 911 calls from Bobbie Lou Schoeffling reporting domestic violence. Carson and his partner were dispatched to her home in the 9000 block of West Hampton Avenue but called her instead of going to the residence. (Ebony Cox / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
That same month, Internal Affairs interviewed Carson about the complaint filed by the woman at District 7. That investigation had slowed, in part, because it was difficult to reach the woman for follow-up interviews, records show.
The woman told the Journal Sentinel that she recalled speaking to an investigator once after filing her complaint and said she received several letters from the department.
Carson told the investigator, Sgt. Adam Riley, that when he called the woman, he did not say anything suggestive, only that she was worth more than her ex-boyfriend, according to department records. He acknowledged urging her not to make a complaint.
Riley pointed out the officer appeared to have a “pattern.”
Riley asked about Carson’s court testimony in the earlier case, pointing out he knew about the allegation related to the texts before his testimony. Carson said he thought he was truthful on the stand because he did not remember the text at the time.
Carson also said the federal prosecutor who wrote the memo had “misinterpreted” their conversation. Riley asked if Carson would have done anything differently.
No, he said.
Federal and state prosecutors declined to file criminal charges of perjury or misconduct against Carson.
But the district attorney’s office did add him to the Brady list for a second time — and the false testimony cost him his job.
Norman fired him for lying under oath and for discouraging the woman at District 7 from making a complaint.
Carson’s discharge date was Aug. 28, 2024, three years after he was first placed on the Brady list in the aftermath of his domestic violence arrest.
The woman who filed the complaint against Carson and the other officer at District 7 knew Carson had been fired. Still, she has concerns about how the department investigates misconduct allegations.
“I think it’s not handled appropriately or quickly enough,” she said.
Tia Schoeffling, Bobbie Lou Schoeffling’s sister, called it “ridiculous” that an officer arrested in such a case could then respond to domestic violence victims.
She thought of Carson on desk duty for two years, collecting nearly $80,000 in annual wages while he was the subject of several ongoing internal investigations.
She questioned if it would have taken that long to investigate a regular citizen for similar allegations.
“It’s mind-blowing that he was even allowed to respond to her call,” she said.
This story is part of Duty to Disclose, an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 News and Wisconsin Watch. The Fund for Investigative Journalism provided financial support for this project.
President Trump has called for an end to mail-in voting — a practice established in Wisconsin in the 1860s. Two members of the state’s Committee on Campaigns and Elections weigh in.
Homeless outreach workers in Milwaukee County are still looking to connect with a few people they believe may have been displaced due to the flooding from the storm.
A group of 15 young people in Wisconsin is challenging state laws that they say worsen the climate crisis and violate their constitutional rights following a landmark climate ruling in Montana.
A New York Times journalist traveled to Wisconsin to investigate how the health industry’s demand for whey products is changing the dairy business. A Wisconsin master cheesemaker said it is the way of the future.
The threatened funding helps Wisconsin organizations pay for advocacy and therapy costs for victims of sexual assault and child abuse, among other crimes.
Republican lawmakers on the committee proposed a vote on the motion Thursday after Gov. Tony Evers told agencies to skip lawmakers in the final steps of the rulemaking process. Evers delivers his 2025 state budget address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Joint Committee on Legislative Organization voted by paper ballot along party lines Friday afternoon to direct the Legislative Reference Bureau not to publish any rule that hasn’t gone through a review by the Legislature in accordance with Wisconsin law.
Republican lawmakers on the committee proposed a vote on the motion Thursday after Gov. Tony Evers told agencies to skip lawmakers in the final steps of the rulemaking process. There are 27 administrative rules, including one to address the state’s policy on gray wolf management, that Evers submitted to the LRB for publication. Of those, 13 have not been reviewed by a standing legislative committee and are yet to be published.
It’s the latest step the administration has taken in testing the bounds of the recent Evers v. Marklein II ruling by theWisconsin Supreme Court. The majority found in the case that the state laws giving the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules broad powers to block administrative rules indefinitely were unconstitutional.
The statutes cited in the Republicans’ motion Thursday were not included in the Court’s ruling.
“We are following the law and maintaining the fundamental checks and balances of lawmaking,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Irma) said in a joint statement about the motion on Thursday. “The governor is flagrantly disregarding the rule of law and egregiously abusing the power of his office.”
Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said Republicans were defying the law in an email Thursday.
“Republicans are reaching new levels of lawlessness, whether it’s President Trump trying to take over Washington DC, Republicans in Texas trying to rig maps and elections in their favor, or Republicans in Wisconsin who appear poised to disobey decisions made by our state’s highest court,” Cudaback wrote in an email message. “Republicans are not above the law — they should follow the law like everyone else is expected to.”
The measure passed 6-4. Republicans on the committee, including Vos, Felzkowski, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg), Sen. Dan Feyen (R-Fond du Lac), Rep. Tyler August (R-Walworth) and Rep. Scott Krug (R-Rome), voted for the motion. Democrats on the committee, including Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) and Senate Minority Leader Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton), voted against it.
Then-White House National Security Advisor John Bolton (R) listens to President Donald Trump as he and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte talk to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House July 18, 2019. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — FBI agents raided the home and office of former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, a one-time adviser to President Donald Trump who has become a frequent critic of the president, to investigate Bolton’s handling of classified documents, according to multiple media reports.
The raid on a former Trump adviser’s house represents an escalation from the Justice Department in targeting critics of Trump, whom he vowed to go after should he return to the White House for a second term.
Speaking to reporters Friday, Trump said he was not briefed on the raid of Bolton’s house in the wealthy suburb of Bethesda, Maryland, and office in Washington, D.C., according to White House pool reports.
But the president noted his longstanding feud with his former adviser.
“I’m not a fan of John Bolton,” Trump said. “He’s a real sort of a low life. He could be a very unpatriotic guy. We’re going to find out.”
Earlier this year, the president revoked the security detail for Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security advisor from 2018 to 2019 and as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations during the George W. Bush administration in 2005 and 2006.
Following his time in the Trump administration, Bolton, who was an important member of the Bush administration’s national security team that favored active military involvement in the Middle East, emerged as a chief Republican foreign policy critic of Trump, authoring a 2020 book that blasted the president and widened the public rift between the two men.
Bolton has not been charged with a crime and is not in custody, according to The Associated Press, which cited a person familiar with the matter.
The first Trump administration launched an investigation into Bolton to probe if he improperly used sensitive information in his book. The current search involves federal officials investigating Bolton’s actions over the last four years, according to the New York Times, which cited a federal law enforcement official.
Trump documents case
Trump himself was prosecuted for mishandling classified documents after the FBI raided his Florida golf course and main residence of Mar-a-Lago in 2022. A federal judge dismissed the resulting criminal charges against Trump.
FBI Director Kash Patel wrote on social media that “NO ONE is above the law,” and that FBI agents were “on mission.”
The FBI declined to comment.
In 2020, the Department of Justice opened a criminal investigation into Bolton’s book and tried to block its publication, but were stymied in court.
Patel also wrote a 2023 book where he lists Bolton, along with a dozen other people, as members of the “deep state” who are working against Trump, according to the Times.
Wisconsin lawmakers heard testimony Thursday on a bill to make tips for restaurant servers and other workers exempt from Wisconsin's state income tax. (Getty Images)
Wisconsin policymakers approved more than $1.3 billion in tax cuts in the latest state budget but the exclusion of a “no tax on tips” proposal has lawmakers pushing ahead with a bill that would line up state law with a new federal law.
Bill coauthor Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) said during a hearing in the Assembly Ways and Means committee that lawmakers should help working class people who are “trying to get themselves to that middle class” with Assembly Bill 38. A hearing on the bill was held in the Senate in May, though it has yet to come up for vote in either chamber.
“When I was a younger man, I was a waiter at Perkins, and I received tips. I also received tips for a couple years as a valet, and folks that receive tips aren’t just waiters and valets, but also housekeepers, bartenders, delivery drivers, massage therapists, hairdressers, taxi drivers, tour guides,” Tusler said. “Those are the type of people we’re talking about, trying to help with this bill, trying to not tax and as representatives, these are great folks for us to target, and as Christians, we should always be trying to help the poor.”
President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed into law on July 4 includes a federal provision that will allow workers to deduct up to $25,000 in tips annually from their taxable income. Those earning more than $150,000 aren’t eligible for the deduction.
The Wisconsin bill and a recent amendment to it seeks to implement the same policy when it comes to the state income tax, which currently considers tips as taxable income. The deduction would apply to tips whether paid by cash or credit. Similar to the federal law, the provision will go into effect starting tax year 2025 and sunsets after tax year 2028 — around the end of Trump’s second term in office.
“Any time that we can allow people to keep more of their hard-earned money — that’s going to be something that I’m supporting,” Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) told the committee.
Erin Vranas, co-owner of Parthenon Gyros located in downtown Madison and chair of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association’s Board, said many restaurant employees are struggling with semi-unpredictable income.
“Every dollar matters, so this bill really could help provide meaningful relief,” Vranas said, adding that it would also help restaurants trying to recruit and retain employees. “Wisconsin restaurants face ongoing workforce shortages, and I understand this isn’t just a restaurant thing, but we definitely feel it in this industry. AB38 will help us recruit and retain staff, making restaurant jobs more competitive and sustainable. When employees keep more of their hard-earned tips, then they’re more likely to stay and grow and see hospitality as a sustainable career, which strengthens both our businesses and Wisconsin as a state.”
The minimum wage for tipped employees in Wisconsin is currently $2.33 per hour. Employers are required to make up the difference if an employee’s combined wages and tips do not equal the regular minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
Susan Quam, executive vice president of the Wisconsin Restaurant Association, said she only knows of two restaurants that pay the minimum wage. Those restaurants have a $100 per person check average and employees typically make $20 per customer “every single time they work, so we’re talking about folks who are making $100 to $150 dollars an hour in tips.” WRA, a nonprofit trade association that represents thousands of food, beverage and hospitality businesses, supports the bill.
“The vast majority of our members tell us that they’re paying well above that $2.33 to their tipped employees, some of them higher than the $7.25 minimum wage,” Quam said. “The marketplace is dictating what that base wage is, not necessarily the fact that they are getting tips.”
Tusler explained that employees would still need to report tips, both because there is a limit on the tax deduction and because tipped employees need a record of their full income when applying for loans.
“It would make it more difficult for those tip earners to borrow money for their houses or their cars,” Tusler said.
He told the committee the bill would also cut down on confusion between the federal and state policies when people are filing taxes.
The tax break also wouldn’t cost the state much, Tusler said. The Department of Revenue estimates that the state brings in about $33.7 million a year from tips and would lose about that much in each year of the biennium under the proposal.
“That’s it,” Tusler said. “We have a $111 billion budget.”
The recent bipartisan state budget cut taxes by about over $1 billion, but the tips proposal was not included in the budget passed by the Republican-led Legislature and signed by Gov. Tony Evers last month. Evers had included a similar proposal in his budget proposal, but Republican lawmakers threw it out when they started working on the budget.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers, including Jacque, previously introduced the idea of exempting cash tips from taxes in 2019, though it never became law.
The idea picked up steam nationally when President Donald Trump started campaigning on the idea, which led Republican lawmakers to reintroduce the proposal in Wisconsin this year.
The coauthors of the bill expressed frustration that no Democrats have signed onto the bill yet, noting that Evers has supported something similar before.
“This was something where Gov. Evers basically took that previous proposal… cut and pasted that into his budget proposal, so it’s not like there was ever any indication that this wasn’t something that shouldn’t have bipartisan support,” Jacque said. “And I certainly hope that it will going forward.”
Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) said during the hearing that she and her husband, who is a bartender, have discussed the issue extensively since it started gaining popularity around the 2024 election and questioned whether a bigger conversation about helping lower-income workers needs to be had.
“I would say encouraging employers to have better benefits, higher pay, better working conditions are also ways we get people to realize the American dream,” Fitzgerald said. “Cutting taxes might be one small part of that, but there’s a broader array of things that we can do, and if, and if that’s your goal, and it’s my goal, then I say we attack some of those other issues.”
Jacque said he understands that tax relief needs to be multifaceted, but said that if the state starts “mandating things on employers that potentially raise costs…, you aren’t going to have customers and those jobs aren’t going to be supported.”
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin lawmakers are looking at a bill that would exempt tips from state income tax, a measure that would match an end to taxes on tips in a federal reconciliation bill.
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