A border patrol agent stands in front of protestors as people gather near the scene of 26th Street West and Nicollet Avenue, where federal agents shot and killed a 37-year-old man Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026, the third shooting in as many weeks. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

A Border Patrol agent warned Nicole Cleland last month that she’d be arrested if she were again discovered following and observing federal officers. 

Three days later, the 56-year-old Richfield resident received an email saying her expedited airport security screening privileges had been revoked.

Cleland is a frequent traveler and had held Global Entry and TSA PreCheck status without incident since 2014. So the timing of the notice seemed curious, she said in a sworn declaration filed in support of the American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit challenging federal law enforcement tactics in Minnesota. The Border Patrol and Transportation Security Administration are both subdivisions of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as is U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Given that only three days had passed from the time that I was stopped, I am concerned that the revocation was the result of me following and observing the agents. This is intimidation and retaliation,” Cleland said in the declaration.  

A year into the second Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, Cleland is one of countless U.S. residents and visitors touched by the federal government’s rapidly changing data collection and surveillance apparatus. Some, like an AI-powered social media analyzer and an error-prone facial recognition tool, evoke dystopian sci-fi. Others, like automatic license plate readers, have been around for decades. 

Elected officials, privacy advocates, and ordinary community members working as constitutional observers are increasingly alarmed that the Trump administration could use these tools to chill constitutionally protected expression, while at the same time pressuring tech companies — many of which have cozied up to Trump in his second term — to make it harder for Americans to keep tabs on their government. 

Senior administration officials haven’t done much to dispel those concerns. Tom Homan, the “border czar” who’s now the face of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota, said on Jan. 15 that he’s pushing to create a “database” of people who “interfere or impede or assault an ICE officer.” 

Such a database wouldn’t outwardly differ much from the numerous information repositories the federal government already maintains. But its purpose — and, in some cases, the tools used to collect and analyze the data — may prove to be a new frontier in the emerging surveillance state.  

Facial recognition software

The Border Patrol agent who warned Cleland told her his unit had “facial recognition,” according to her deposition.

Reporting by 404 Media and other media outlets indicates that ICE and other federal immigration enforcement agencies use multiple AI-powered facial recognition tools, including Mobile Fortify and Clearview AI. Local law enforcement agencies deputized to work with ICE use a different facial recognition app, Mobile Identify, according to NPR.

DHS has used facial recognition software at airports and land border crossings for years, but its use in the field is a more recent development that civil liberties experts say represents a major expansion of government surveillance. 

Using proprietary algorithms, the tools try to match images captured in the field with data already in DHS databases, including names, birthdates, citizenship status and photos taken at U.S. entry points. DHS says it retains “biographic exit data” on U.S. citizens and permanent residents for 15 years, though it’s unclear whether this applies to images collected in the field as well.

Even before Operation Metro Surge began in earnest, lawmakers sounded alarms about the implications.

“This type of on-demand surveillance is harrowing and it should put all of us on guard,” U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, told NPR in November.

Human analytics apps

ICE also uses AI-powered apps to analyze social media activity and other digital data points to create “life profiles” for people of interest.

The agency has spent at least $5 million on Tangles, a sophisticated tool developed by a company with ties to Israel’s cyber-intelligence community, Forbes reported in September. Tangles mines social media posts, event sign-ups, mobile contacts, location data and more to create nuanced individual portraits and tease out patterns of activity — including organizing and protest — in specific places.

“Our powerful web intelligence solution monitors online activity, collecting and analyzing data of endless digital channels – from the open, deep and dark web, to mobile and social,” Tangles’ Microsoft Marketplace listing says.

The Verge reported in October that ICE has spent a similar amount on another digital monitoring tool called Zignal Labs, which uses AI text and video analysis to process billions of social media posts daily into what it calls “curated detection feeds.” The product includes near real-time alerts. “Sample workflows” featured in a Zignal Labs marketing pamphlet shared with The Lever include “an ongoing operation in Gaza” and a 2023 social media post purporting to show U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at the Mall of America.

Cellular snooping

Since September 2024, ICE has paid more than $1.6 million to a Maryland company that integrates a type of cell-site simulator popularly known as a “stingray” into government vehicles. 

TechCrunch first reported the purchases, which are a matter of public record. It’s unclear how often ICE uses vehicles equipped with stingrays in its operations, but a Utah judge reportedly authorized the agency to use one to track down a specific individual last summer. 

Stingrays trick nearby cell phones into connecting with them instead of legitimate transmitters, collecting reams of random users’ data in the process. That, plus past instances of warrantless snooping, makes them controversial even among law enforcement agencies. Ars Technica reported in 2015 that the FBI required local law enforcement agencies to drop cases rather than reveal evidence in court that “would potentially or actually compromise the equipment/technology.”

ICE is also interested in using — and may already be using — another cell-snooping tool that requires no external hardware. 

Last summer, the independent national security journalist Jack Poulson reported that the agency had reactivated a $2 million contract with the Israeli spyware developer Paragon Solutions. Once delivered via text message — no link required — Paragon’s spyware gains broad access to a phone’s contents, including encrypted messages.

“It’s an extremely dangerous surveillance tech that really goes against our Fourth Amendment protections,” Jeramie Scott, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told NPR in November.

“The issue is not whether we remember the past, because we don't have a memory problem, we have a mobilization problem," Pastor Treyvon J. Sinclair of Christ the King Baptist Church said during his keynote address. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin’s Legislative Black Caucus kicked off its annual celebration of Black History Month in the Capitol rotunda Tuesday with a ceremony that included the playing of drums by One City School students, a group rendition of  “Lift Every Voice and Sing” — the Black National Anthem — and Rep. Supreme Moore Omokunde (D-Milwaukee) pouring libations to honor ancestors.

Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee), the chair of the caucus, said the event was a moment to “honor and celebrate the rich tapestry of Black history, a story woven deeply into the fabric of our nation.” 

“Black history is the cornerstone of understanding, empathy and unity. By embracing the full scope of our history, we equip our youth with the knowledge to foster a multicultural, just and informed society,” Drake said. “The words that resonate deeply with me: you don’t truly love America unless she has made you cry. Our love for our nation is not just rooted in its triumphs but also in the lessons learned from its flaws and challenges. It is through acknowledging our past that we pave the way for a more united and equitable future.”

Pastor Treyvon J. Sinclair of Christ the King Baptist Church delivered a keynote address, telling the crowd gathered in the Capitol that Black history did not start in a textbook.

“It started in a courtroom. It started in cotton fields. It started in a jail cell or in church spaces. It started anywhere Black people were told, ‘You don’t belong.’ We said, ‘Well, if you don’t want to make room for us, we’ll build our own.’ We don’t celebrate Black History because life is good. We celebrate it because life was brutal,” Sinclair said. “Memory became our resistance. Education became our rebellion. Faith became our fuel.” 

Sinclair called on Black Wisconsinites to organize to fight for stronger communities and progress.

“Division in our community is intentional… They don’t fear anger, but they fear our agreement. Because history knows that when Black people get organized, systems get nervous. When Black people get united, laws get rewritten. When Black people get strategic, empires get uncomfortable,” Sinclair said. “The issue is not whether we remember the past, because we don’t have a memory problem, we have a mobilization problem. We know the names, we know the dates, we know the quotes, but the question is, can we build something in the future worthy of the blood that was shed in the past?”

“Our ancestors didn’t survive for us to be comfortable. They survived for us to be courageous. They’ve survived for us to be builders. They survived for us to be free enough to fight for somebody else,” Sinclair said.

The Legislative Black Caucus plans to host its “State of Black Wisconsin” later this month in conjunction with its Black advocacy day in the Capitol. The lawmakers plan to unveil their annual policy agenda, which will take into account feedback from a statewide tour the caucus did last year.

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President Donald Trump gives a speech at the World Economic Forum on Jan. 21, 2026 in Davos, Switzerland. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump restated a call Tuesday for federal control over election administration across the country, undermining the structure outlined in the Constitution that empowers states to run elections.

For the second time in as many days, Trump indicated he wanted the federal government more involved in elections. The issue renews concerns over Trump’s expansion of presidential power, which critics of his second presidency have labeled authoritarian.

Speaking after a bill signing ceremony in the Oval Office and surrounded by Republican leaders in Congress, he responded to a question about earlier comments on “nationalizing” election administration by indicating the lawmakers standing behind him should “do something about it.” 

“I want to see elections be honest,” he said. “If you think about it, the state is an agent for the federal government in elections. I don’t know why the federal government doesn’t do them anyway.”

Trump repeated debunked claims that he lost the 2020 presidential election only because of election fraud, especially in large Democrat-leaning cities including Atlanta, Philadelphia and Detroit.

“The federal government should not allow that,” he said. “The federal government should get involved. These are agents of the federal government to count the votes. If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”

The comments marked the second time in as many days that Trump has floated a federal takeover of election infrastructure and came after Republican leaders in Congress and the White House press secretary had downplayed his earlier remarks.

In a podcast interview released Monday, Trump said his party should “nationalize” elections.

“The Republicans should say, ‘We want to take over,’” he said. “We should take over the voting, the voting in at least many — 15 places. The Republicans ought to nationalize the voting.”

Afternoon walkback

Reporters asked U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune at press availabilities Tuesday about Trump’s initial comments. 

Both avoided endorsing the view and sought to tie them to GOP legislation that would create a nationwide requirement that voters show proof of citizenship.

“We have thoughtful debate about our election system every election cycle and sometimes in between,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, said. “We know it’s in our system: The states have been in charge of administering their elections. What you’re hearing from the president is his frustration about the lack of some of the blue states, frankly, of enforcing these things and making sure that they are free and fair elections. We need constant improvement on that front.”

“I think the president has clarified what he meant by that, and that is that he supports the SAVE Act,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said earlier Tuesday. “There are other views, probably, when it comes to nationalizing or federalizing elections, but I think at least on that narrow issue, which is what the SAVE Act gets at, I think that’s what the president was addressing.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also endorsed the GOP elections bill and said states and cities that allow noncitizens to vote in local elections created a system that was rife with fraud. Reports of election fraud are exceedingly rare.

“There are millions of people who have questions about that, as does the president,” she said. “He wants to make it right and the SAVE Act is the solution.”

But Trump on Tuesday evening, with Johnson among those standing behind him, seemed to indicate a broader desire for the federal government to be directly involved with election administration.

2020 election history

Trump has a charged history with claims around election integrity.

His persistent lie that he won the 2020 election, despite dozens of court cases that showed no determinative fraud, sparked the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol as his supporters sought to reverse the election results.

He has continued to make the claim since returning to office and spoke by phone with FBI agents who seized voting machines in Fulton County, Georgia, according to New York Times reporting, raising questions about his use of law enforcement to reinforce his political power.

Trump’s opponents, some of whom have said he is sliding toward authoritarianism in his second term, quickly rebuked his recent comments.

“Donald Trump called for Republican officials to ‘take over’ voting procedures in 15 states,” Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat, wrote on social media. “People of all political parties need to be able to stand up and say this can’t happen.”

Walter Olson, a senior fellow with the libertarian Cato Institute, said in a statement that federalization of elections would be a bad idea on the merits, but Trump’s history raised additional concern and called for Americans to be “vigilant against any repeated such attempt before, during or after the approaching midterms.”

“This trial balloon for a federal takeover is not coming from any ordinary official,” Olson said. “It is coming from a man who already once tried to overturn a free and fair election because it went against him, employing a firehose of lies and meritless legal theories, and who repeatedly pressed his underlings, many of whom in those days were willing to say ‘no’ about schemes such as sending in federal troops to seize voting machines.”

Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly outside the District of Columbia federal courthouse where his lawsuit against the Department of Defense was heard on Feb. 3, 2026. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The federal district court judge overseeing the lawsuit Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly filed against the Department of Defense said during a Tuesday hearing he expects to issue a ruling before Feb. 11. 

Kelly has asked the judge to issue a preliminary injunction blocking the Pentagon from demoting his rank as a retired Navy captain for appearing in a video where he and other members of Congress reminded members of the military they do not need to follow illegal orders. 

Senior Judge Richard J. Leon of the District of Columbia District Court said toward the beginning of the one-hour hearing that he planned to issue his decision “as quickly as possible” and told the lawyers that he didn’t “want to get too lost in the weeds” of the case at this earlier stage. 

Instead, he asked several questions about First Amendment rights in general, what protections a lawmaker holds, and whether the Trump administration was trying to expand previous court decisions regarding the military justice system to retirees. 

Leon was nominated by former President George W. Bush.

Kelly’s lawyers see a ‘First Amendment violation’

Benjamin Mizer, one of the lawyers on Kelly’s team, said “a lot about this case is unprecedented,” and urged the judge to reject the Department of Defense’s assertion that it has the legal right to demote any retired military member if they say something critical of its actions. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s censure letter and efforts to demote Kelly, he said, represented a “clear First Amendment violation.” 

“Secretary Hegseth demonstrated bias and that he is not a decision maker who has kept an open mind,” Mizer said. 

Mizer also said that all of the cases the Trump administration had cited in briefs to the judge addressed active duty service members, not retired members of the military. He contended that the federal district court does have jurisdiction to decide this case since it addresses constitutional claims. 

Trump administration battles back

John Bailey, the Justice Department attorney representing the Defense Department in the case, said that there is “at least a military clause to the First Amendment.”

Leon interjected to ask Bailey if it wasn’t “a bit of a stretch” to ask him to expand previous court rulings about active duty service members to cover retired members, like Kelly. 

“You’re asking me to do something the Supreme Court and D.C. Circuit haven’t done,” Leon said. 

Bailey also contended that Kelly should have exhausted administrative avenues within the Department of Defense to contest Hegeth’s move to add a censure letter to his file and begin the process of demoting his retirement rank and pay. 

Leon also questioned how any retired member of the military who is later elected as a member of Congress, especially one that sits on the Armed Services Committee, like Kelly does, could challenge any actions taken by the Defense Department. 

Bailey said that Congress has determined that certain retired military members are still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. 

Later in the hearing, Bailey conceded that there are “perhaps a few unique First Amendment” aspects to the case, but said one important aspect is that Kelly hasn’t stopped speaking out against Trump administration policies he disagrees with, meaning there hasn’t been any “chill’ of his First Amendment rights. 

Leon said it may not be just Kelly who feels a chilling effect but also other military retirees who decide not to question Defense Department actions over concerns they may experience the same demotion Kelly faces. 

Leon wrapped up the hearing saying he would decide whether to grant Kelly a preliminary injunction in the “very near future … so it can be appealed.”

Kelly cites freedom of speech for military retirees

Kelly, who attended the hearing, said afterward the case is not just about his constitutional rights but the rights of “millions of retired service members.”

“There’s nothing more fundamental to our democracy than the freedom of speech and the freedom to speak out about our government, and that’s what I’m fighting for,” Kelly said. “I appreciate the judge’s quick and careful consideration in this case, given what is at stake here.”

Kelly rebuked Hegseth for trying to punish him for telling members of the military they didn’t need to follow illegal orders. 

“Secretary Hegseth censured me and is now trying to demote me for things that I said and for doing my job as a United States senator,” Kelly said. “And this isn’t happening in isolation. Since taking office, this administration has repeatedly gone after First Amendment rights of many Americans. That’s not how we do things here in the United States.”

Brent Ganger, far left, and Luke Ganger, second from left, brothers of Renee Good, watch a forum on Department of Homeland Security use of force organized by congressional Democrats on Feb. 3, 2026. Good was killed by a federal immigration officer Jan. 7. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Renee Good’s family, distraught and in disbelief over her killing, took some comfort in the past few weeks thinking her death might prompt change in the country, her brother Luke Ganger said Tuesday. 

“It has not,” Ganger told congressional Democrats at a forum on the disproportionate use of force by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents. “The deep distress our family feels because of (Renee’s) loss in such a violent and unnecessary way is complicated by feelings of disbelief, distress and desperation for change.”

Brent Ganger, another brother of Good, also appeared at the forum, saying Good “had a way of showing up in the world that made you believe things were going to be okay.”

Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was fatally shot by a federal agent Jan. 7 in Minneapolis. 

Her death prompted widespread outcry over the immigration enforcement tactics of President Donald Trump’s administration. 

“The completely surreal scenes taking place on the streets of Minneapolis are beyond explanation,” Luke Ganger said. “This is not just a bad day or a rough week or isolated incidents — these encounters with federal agents are changing the community and changing many lives, including ours, forever.” 

Backlash over the administration’s immigration efforts grew even louder after federal agents fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti, also a U.S. citizen, in Minneapolis on Jan. 24. 

Administration officials have defended the immigration crackdown, including the aggressive tactics used in Minneapolis and other cities.

“The president is never going to waver in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws and protecting the public safety of the American people in his ardent support of” Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.

First-hand accounts

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Robert Garcia of California hosted the forum. More than 20 Democrats in the House and Senate joined them. 

The unofficial forum is one of several events put on by congressional Democrats, who are in the minority in both chambers, over the past year to protest a host of actions from the administration. 

Three witnesses across Illinois, Minnesota and California — all U.S. citizens — offered harrowing accounts of their encounters with immigration agents in recent months, detailing the trauma, fear and mental distress as a result. 

Marimar Martinez was shot five times by an immigration agent in Chicago. Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis resident with autism and a traumatic brain injury, was dragged out of her car by agents while on her way to a doctor’s appointment and said she was later refused medical care in DHS detention. And Martin Daniel Rascon was shot at by agents while traveling in a car with family members. 

“Why do we continue to wait for more public executions when we have already seen the evidence in our TVs and computer screens?” Martinez asked the panel. “We have heard the testimonies, we have watched the pain unfold in real time — how many more lives must be lost before meaningful action is taken?”

The meeting came the same day the House passed, and Trump later signed, a funding package that includes a two-week stopgap measure for DHS, as Congress and the administration try to iron out a solution to Democrats’ demands for additional restraints on immigration enforcement following Pretti’s death. 

Many Democrats in Congress have vowed not to support a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that does not include such restraints. Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Investigations Subcommittee of the Senate committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security, made that explicit Tuesday.

“Some day we should have a truth and justice commission to investigate the systematic failing,” he said. “But for right now, I can promise that I will not support another dime for the Department of Homeland Security unless there is this fundamental, far-reaching reform and restraint in effect — a rebuilding of the agency.” 

Report blames DHS tactics for fatalities

Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released a report ahead of the hearing Tuesday on Democrats’ findings regarding the deaths of Good and Pretti.

The report claims that the administration’s “extreme policies, violent tactics, and culture of impunity led to the killings.”

The report also argues that “the available evidence suggests that the Trump Administration is attempting to cover up misconduct” and is also “continuing its cover-up by impeding thorough and impartial investigations into the shootings.” 

“We’re seeing ICE, CBP, other parts of DHS, all across our country, terrorize communities,” Garcia said at the forum, pointing to warrantless searches, arrests and detainments of individuals with no prior criminal history and people being sent to detention centers and released without explanation. 

“Now, American citizens — innocent people — have been brutalized … and to be clear, we’ve seen people dragged from cars, beaten, gassed, attacked with crowd-control weapons, blinded, like back in my home state of California, left with broken ribs, run off the road, beaten, injured, disfigured and shot,” he said.  

State Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) argues in opposition to a bill that would repeal a 2023 partial veto by Gov. Tony Evers that extended an annual $325 per-pupil increase in public school revenue limits by 400 years. (Screenshot/WisEye)

The Legislature’s powerful budget committee voted on party lines Tuesday to endorse a bill repealing Gov. Tony Evers’ 2023 partial veto that enables Wisconsin public school districts to raise their revenue limits by $325 per pupil per  year for the next four centuries.

The measure was the only legislation to get any significant debate during the two-hour session of the Joint Finance Committee, even as its outcome was a foregone conclusion: an 11-4 vote with only Republican support.

The state Senate version of the bill, SB 389, has already passed that chamber on a party-line 18-15 vote. The Assembly version is AB 391.

The finance committee weighed in on the bill — along with the rest of nearly two dozen items it voted on Tuesday — under the Legislature’s rule requiring the panel to consider any legislation that appropriates money, provides for revenue or relates to taxation.

The committee’s action clears the bill for the Assembly floor, where it is likely to pass on a party-line vote before going to Evers to be vetoed.

In the 2023-25 Wisconsin budget, lawmakers agreed to increase schools’ revenue limits for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years by $325 per pupil each year.

In signing the budget Evers used his partial veto power to strike two digits and a dash from the years, extending the annual revenue limit increases through 2425. The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in April 2025 that the maneuver was within Evers’ partial veto powers. The change didn’t funnel more money to schools automatically, but instead raised the annual ceiling in how much revenue they are allowed to collect.

The 2025-27 state budget approved in July 2025 did not include any general aid increase, so property taxes are the only source school districts have to pay for the additional $325 per pupil they were authorized to receive by Evers’ 2023 veto. The  increase is not automatic; school budgets are controlled by individual school boards.

At a media session before Tuesday’s meeting and during the debate, the Joint Finance Committee’s co-chair, state Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam), blamed Evers’ 2023 veto for property tax hikes around the state.

Past state budgets have increased school aid, sometimes with “record levels, massive increases,” Born said shortly before the committee’s vote.

But Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison) said that after adjusting those increases for rising costs, per-pupil funding is $3,400 below what it was in 2009. “We’re actually giving them less money in inflation-adjusted terms,” Roys said.

Democrats pointed to the spate of school funding referendum questions over the last two years in which school district voters have agreed to raise their own property taxes to cover funding gaps.

“Referendums were never meant to fund the core operations of our schools,” said Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee). “Yet we see districts year after year leaning more on referendums.”

Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) told Republican lawmakers that they could have prevented property tax hikes if they had increased general state aid to public schools in the current budget. By not doing so, “you chose to put that pressure on property taxpayers,” he said.

Tax credits after stillbirths

The only other item that produced any debate Tuesday was SB 379/AB 373, creating a state income tax credit for the parents of a stillborn child. As originally created the legislation called for the tax credit — $2,000 for a couple filing jointly or $1,000 for each parent if filing separately or if they are unmarried.

As originally drafted the legislation calls for a refundable tax credit. A taxpayer whose total income tax liability is less than the amount of the credit would get a direct payment for the balance of the credit that exceeds their tax bill.

For example, a person who qualifies for a $1,000 credit but whose state income tax bill is $600 would get a check for the additional $400.

Finance Committee co-chair Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) introduced an amendment Tuesday that would make the tax credit non-refundable. For a person with a tax bill of $600, the $1,000 credit would only be worth $600, while a person with a tax bill of $1,500 would get the full $1000 credit, reducing their tax bill to $500.

“It’s very expensive in this country to go through labor, delivery and postpartum, and when someone has a stillborn baby they still have all these expenses,” Roys said. “When you say you’re not making this credit refundable, you’re hurting the lowest-income people.”

The amendment would save the state $200,000, changing the tax credit’s cost from $600,000 to $400,000, a Legislative Fiscal Bureau analyst told Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay). That would “make it less useful,” Andraca said.

While the amendment passed 11-4, with all the Democrats on the panel voting against it, the amended legislation passed on a unanimous 15-0 vote.

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MyPillow founder Mike Lindell speaks to Steve Bannon during a livestream in front of his new Minnesota governor campaign bus on Dec. 11, 2025. (Photo by Michelle Griffith/Minnesota Reformer)

Mike Lindell’s memoir, “What Are the Odds? From Crack Addict to CEO,” has enjoyed a new surge of sales since he announced a run for governor late last year.

Who’s buying the book, which details his addictions and his rise to fame?

His campaign for Minnesota governor.

Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow, spent more than half the money he raised for his campaign last year buying copies of his book, according to Minnesota Campaign Finance Board data released Tuesday.

Lindell launched his campaign for Minnesota governor on Dec. 11, 2025, and in about two-and-a-half weeks raised $352,000 in individual donations.

In December, the Lindell campaign bought nearly $190,000 worth of Lindell autobiographies from MyPillow. Lindell’s campaign finance report lists the expense as “Advertising – general: Mike Lindell Books.”

Reached by phone Tuesday, Lindell said instead of typical campaign flyers, he’s giving out his book. He said MyPillow owns the books and that MyPillow is “employee-owned.”

“When we’re going around to all the places in Minnesota, other people are giving a flyer,” Lindell said. “I’m giving them the whole book so they know who I am.”

The MyPillow CEO said he isn’t sure how many copies of his book he’s given away so far, but estimated around 20,000 or 25,000. It’s unclear if the campaign paid the full price — $19.97 — or was able to use the promo code for a $10 discount.

Lindell is among 10 candidates who are seeking the Republican nomination for governor, including House Speaker Lisa Demuth; state Rep. Kristin Robbins, 2022 GOP nominee for governor Scott Jensen; and Kendall Qualls, an army veteran and health care executive.

Despite his one-time riches after developing his famous lumpy pillow, Lindell has gone broke. At his December campaign launch, a reporter asked him if he would self-fund his campaign. Lindell said no.

“Absolutely not. I can’t self-fund. I don’t have any money left,” Lindell said.

Lindell says he’s spent millions defending his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen.

In June, a federal jury found that Lindell defamed a former Dominion Voting Systems employee and was ordered to pay $2.3 million, pending appeal.

Then in September, a federal judge ruled that Lindell defamed voting machine company Smartmatic. The company is seeking $1.5 billion in damages, which will be decided by a jury.

During the defamation lawsuit brought by a Dominion Voting Systems employee over the summer, Lindell in court testimony said he was $10 million in debt.

On Tuesday, Lindell said he’s the only GOP candidate who can attract donations from across the country. Lindell said the GOP nominee needs to raise enough money to beat Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who launched her campaign for governor last week.

Lindell said that since the end of the year, his campaign has raised “well over a million,” though that can’t be verified until the next round of campaign finance disclosure. 

In December, Lindell’s campaign spent nearly $26,000 for an “RV Wrap,” according to the Campaign Finance Board. This presumably was to plaster his face, name and campaign website on an RV he premiered at his campaign launch. 

President Donald Trump signs a government funding bill in the Oval Office of the White House on Feb. 3, 2026. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The partial government shutdown that began this weekend ended Tuesday when President Donald Trump signed the funding package that both chambers of Congress approved within the last week. 

“We’ve succeeded in passing a fiscally reasonable package that actually cuts wasteful federal spending while supporting critical programs for the safety, security and prosperity for the American people,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

The House voted 217-214 earlier in the day to clear the package for Trump following a tumultuous couple of weeks on Capitol Hill after it had stalled in the Senate. Democrats demanded additional restraints on immigration enforcement in reaction to the shooting death of a second U.S. citizen in Minneapolis. 

Trump and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., reached agreement last week to pull the full-year appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and replace it with a two-week stopgap measure.

That is supposed to give leaders in Congress and the administration a bit of time to find consensus on changes to how immigration officers operate.

Trump did not say if he agreed with any of the proposed changes to immigration enforcement floated by Democrats. 

“I haven’t even thought about it,” Trump said. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said during a morning press conference he wants negotiations to address local and state governments that don’t cooperate with federal immigration enforcement activities, often called sanctuary cities. 

“What must be a part of that discussion is the participation of blue cities in federal immigration enforcement,” he said. “You can’t go to a sanctuary city and pretend like the law doesn’t apply there. It does and so we are going to be working through all that.” 

Administrative warrants debate

Johnson said GOP lawmakers would not agree to require federal immigration agents to secure judicial warrants in order to detain people, one of several proposals Democrats have put forward.

“We are never going to go along with adding an entirely new layer of judicial warrants because it is unimplementable,” he said. “It cannot be done and it should not be done and it’s not necessary.” 

Johnson, a constitutional lawyer, said those administrative warrants are “sufficient legal authority to go and apprehend someone.”

When pressed if that type of warrant is enough to enter someone’s home without violating the Fourth Amendment, Johnson said that a “controversy has erupted” over what immigration agents should do when someone they’re trying to detain enters a private residence. 

“What is Immigration and Customs Enforcement supposed to do at that point? ‘Oh gee whiz, they locked the door. I guess we’ll just go on.’ So there is some logic and reason that is to be applied here,” Johnson said. “Some have complained that the force has been excessive or what have you. I don’t know. We’re going to figure that out. It’s part of the discussion over the next couple weeks.”

Johnson said GOP negotiators will also make sure Congress maintains “important parameters” on immigration law and enforcement.  

“We can’t go down the road of amnesty, you can’t in any way lighten the enforcement requirement of federal immigration law,” he said. “That’s what the American people demand and deserve.”

Senators ‘ready to work’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said during an afternoon press conference that Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, chairwoman of the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, would lead negotiations for Republicans in that chamber. 

“Katie Britt will lead that on our side, but ultimately, that’s going to be a conversation between the President of the United States and (Senate) Democrats,” Thune, a South Dakota Republican, said. 

During an afternoon press conference, Schumer said that “Thune has to be a part of these negotiations.” 

Schumer said that Democrats are going to detail their proposals to Republicans in the House, Senate and White House.

“If Leader Thune negotiates in good faith, we can get it done,” Schumer said of the Homeland Security funding bill. 

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who serves as ranking member on the Senate Committee on Appropriations, said Senate Democrats are “ready to work.”

“We have a proposal ready. We’re going to start moving no matter who they (pick) at the end of the day, and the White House needs to be involved,” Murray said.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said there are “a whole bunch” of proposals.

“The House had to do what they had to do … which is great. And what we now have to do is figure out what’s this universe of reforms that we can come to consensus on,” said Murkowski, who issued a statement last week declaring her support for “meaningful reforms” for ICE.

‘Most basic duty’ of Congress

Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, said during floor debate on the government spending package that clearing the legislation was the best way to move into negotiations about immigration enforcement.

“We will be in the strongest possible position to fight for and win the drastic changes we all know are needed to protect our communities — judicial warrant requirements, no more detentions or deportations of United States citizens, an enforceable code of conduct, taking off the masks, putting the badges on, requiring the body cameras, real accountability for the egregious abuses we have seen,” she said.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said funding the government “is not an optional exercise, it’s the most basic duty we have in Congress.”

“Shutdowns are never the answer, they don’t work,” he said. “They only hurt the American people. So today lawmakers in this chamber have an opportunity to avoid repeating past mistakes.”

In addition to providing two more weeks of funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the $1.2 trillion spending package holds full-year appropriations bills for the departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, State, Transportation and Treasury. The Senate voted 71-29 on Friday evening to send the package to the House.

Congress had already approved half of the dozen annual appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began back on Oct. 1. 

Rep. Delia Ramirez, D-Ill., a member of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement and of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, speaks outside of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3, 2026. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Dozens of U.S. House Democrats and leaders of several caucuses rallied on a chilly Tuesday morning outside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in the nation’s capital, demanding the resignation, firing or impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

Democrats criticized Noem for the monthslong immigration operation in Minnesota in which federal immigration agents killed two U.S. citizens — 37-year-old Renee Good, a poet and mother of three, on Jan. 7, and 37-year-old Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse, on Jan. 24. 

They blamed Noem for aggressive tactics used by ICE and other federal immigration agents in Customs and Border Protection and criticized the use of warrantless arrests as well as the presence of officers who are masked and unidentifiable. Such practices, as well as the deadly shootings, led to a partial government shutdown as lawmakers negotiate new constraints on immigration enforcement for the Homeland Security funding bill. 

Democratic Rep. Robin Kelly, who represents parts of Chicago where aggressive immigration enforcement occurred late last year, said more than 180 lawmakers have co-sponsored her articles of impeachment against Noem.  

“Kristi Noem brought a reign of terror to cities across the country,” Kelly said. “Everywhere they go, ICE causes death and destruction. She seems to get her kicks and giggles out of tearing families apart.”

Kelly said if Noem does not step down, Democrats will move forward with impeachment proceedings, which will likely only occur if Democrats flip the GOP-controlled House in the November midterm elections. 

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.  Noem is a former Republican member of the House from South Dakota.

Unannounced visits

Democrats also slammed Noem’s attempts to block members of Congress from conducting unannounced oversight visits at detention centers that are permitted under a 2019 appropriations law.

A federal judge earlier this week placed a temporary bar on a second policy from Noem that required a seven-day notice for lawmakers to conduct oversight visits. 

“We’re gonna be able to exercise our oversight responsibilities and duties without any impairment or pushback from ICE or the Secretary (Noem),” said Adriano Espaillat, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Most recent DHS data shows that there are more than 70,000 people in ICE detention custody across the country. It’s nearly double the number of people detained during the last fiscal year of the Biden administration, when nearly 40,000 people were in ICE detention when Biden left office in January 2025.

Other Democratic caucus leaders rallying outside ICE headquarters included the second vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, Lucy McBath of Georgia; the chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, Grace Meng of New York; the chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, Teresa Leger Fernández of New Mexico; and the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Greg Casar of Texas. 

The Progressive Caucus has vowed to oppose any approval of funding for ICE following Pretti’s death.

 

However, even if the Homeland Security bill for fiscal year 2026 is not approved, DHS still has roughly $175 billion in funding for immigration enforcement that was provided from President Donald Trump’s signature tax cuts and spending package signed into law last summer.   

Casar called for an end to Trump’s mass deportation campaign and immigration enforcement across the country.

“We are united as Democrats and united as a country, marching in the cold in Minneapolis, facing tear gas from coast to coast, marching to demand that we impeach Kristi Noem, that we end Donald Trump’s mass deportation machine, and that we focus on the well-being and the constitutional rights of everyday people in the United States,” Casar said.   

Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents parts of Minneapolis, said her district is “currently under occupation” from ICE and CBP. She said students are afraid to go to school and immigrants are terrified to go to hospitals “because our hospitals have occupying paramilitary forces.”

Last week, a man rushed at Omar and used a syringe to squirt apple cider vinegar on her during a town hall where she called for ICE to be abolished and addressed concerns about immigration enforcement in Minneapolis. She was unharmed, but the attack followed an increase in threats to members of Congress, and the president has verbally attacked her multiple times.  

Body cameras

Following the shootings in Minneapolis and sharp criticism from Republicans in Congress, Noem on Monday announced that immigration agents across the country would receive body cameras. 

But California Democratic Rep. Norma Torres said body cameras were not sufficient, and she urged legal observers to keep recording and documenting ICE and CBP officers.

“Body cameras are not going to be enough if they continue to hide the evidence,” she said. 

House Democrats were joined by about 200 protesters calling for Noem to resign. 

Don Powell, 67, of Austin, Texas, said he and his wife have been traveling around to anti-ICE protests.

“It’s just the immorality of how they are treating children and adults. Nobody deserves to be treated that way for the crime, in theory, that they committed of crossing a border,” Powell said.

He also expressed objection to the Trump administration’s policy of deporting immigrants to “some foreign country they’ve never been to.” 

Those removals of an immigrant from the U.S. to another place that is not their home country are known as third-country removals. The Trump administration is currently being sued over the practice by immigrant and civil rights groups. 

Jeanne Ferris, 71, of Bethesda, Maryland, said she’s been to 16 anti-ICE rallies this year and attended 119 anti-Trump rallies in 2025.

“I’m opposed to the felon-in-chief forming his own private army and letting them loose on the American public and everybody else that happens to be there,” Ferris said.

Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

Getty Images

Democratic lawmakers gathered at the Capitol Monday to announce their latest attempt to legalize recreational cannabis in Wisconsin. “Across the country, the cannabis debate is over,” Rep. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee) said during a morning press conference, adding that “40 states and Washington D.C. have legalized cannabis in some form.” That group includes Wisconsin’s neighbors Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota. Yet Wisconsin continues a complete cannabis prohibition.

This is not a reality Wisconsinites have chosen for themselves;  two-thirds of Wisconsin voters who responded to a Marquette Poll in 2025 said that they wanted to see the cannabis plant legalized. “The will of the people is clear on this issue,” said Madison. “And today, we’re acting on it.”

Democrats in the state Legislature are aiming to fully legalize cannabis for responsible adult use, including a medicinal cannabis program. “Legalizing cannabis in Wisconsin is an economic necessity, a public safety strategy and a racial justice imperative,” said Madison. Using the state’s hemp industry as an example, Madison said that entrepreneurs built out a cannabis supply chain with hemp as its bedrock after the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. As a result, Wisconsinites began buying  hemp-derived products including  smokeable flower, beverages, vapes and edibles. 

“That industry now supports 3,500 jobs, and contributes $700 million to Wisconsin’s economy,” said Madison. All of that is at risk of completely vanishing after the federal government changed course by imposing THC limits on hemp products growers and distributors say are biologically impossible to achieve. Currently several bills with differing visions of how to regulate hemp in Wisconsin are circulating among Wisconsin lawmakers, with a deadline set by the federal government for businesses to either adapt or shut down coming up in November. 

Madison stressed that full legalization would both protect a thriving industry and generate revenue. “Wisconsin would raise nearly $300 million annually once the market is fully up and running,” Madison said, citing an analysis by the Legislative Fiscal Bureau. “That’s hundreds of millions of dollars we are currently leaving on the table or worse, exporting to other states, while pretending that prohibition still works. We all know that it doesn’t. And nowhere is that failure clearer than in our criminal legal system.” Madison said, adding that in 2018, four out of every 10 drug arrests nationally were for cannabis. 

While Black and white Americans use cannabis at similar rates, Black people were more than five times as likely to be arrested for cannabis than white people in 2022, Madison said. He pointed to Ozaukee County, where Black residents were 34.9 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis, and Manitowoc County where Black residents were 29.9 times more likely to face cannabis-related arrests. Madison said that both counties rank in the top five nationally for racial disparities in cannabis arrests.

“Let’s be honest,” said Madison. “That is not about public safety,” he said. “That is about policy choices that criminalize Blackness, criminalize poverty, and criminalize entire communities. The idea that we can incarcerate our way to safe communities is a lie. And cannabis has been one of the most effective tools for enforcing that lie.” Madison called on Wisconsin to replace a failed punishment model with evidence-based regulations that would help enrich communities instead of harming them for generations. 

Mike Sickler, co-owner of TerraSol Brands, echoed the call for legalization. “We did not invent the demand, but we are here to respond to it,” said Sickler. The federal hemp ban shook the hemp industry, he said, spreading fear and confusion. “What is frustrating is that the solution is right here in front of us,” said Sickler. “We already have the infrastructure, we already have the best practices in place, we already have the workforce, we already have the market. What does not exist is a clear state law that allows us to continue operating responsibly.” 

Phillip Scott, a hemp farmer and advocate for the industry, said that the federal hemp ban and the lack of a legalized cannabis industry in Wisconsin has removed certainty and stability for family farms and small business owners who saw a light at the end of the tunnel after the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill. “These are not speculative businesses,” said Scott. “These are working farms, these are family farms, and they follow the law. But today, that certainty is gone.” Scott said that cannabis legalization is about jobs, rural economies, and “giving farmers clarity instead of chaos.” 

Scott said that farmers are not asking for special treatment, but rather a fair and stable transition for those who followed the law. “We are asking for reasonable access to a legal market, and we are asking for a system that doesn’t shut family farms out before they even get a chance.” 

“Legalization is about freedom,” said Rep. Andrew Hysell (D-Sun Prairie). “Wisconsin is an outlier in terms of denying people this freedom.” Hysell noted a 1974 decision from the Alaska Supreme Court that found that the state’s privacy rights included an individual’s right to use cannabis. “And here we are over half a century later, and no one has the freedom to buy marijuana in Wisconsin. Standing in the way of the people’s freedom is not good politics, almost 70% of Wisconsinites want full adult use legalization, and even more want medical.”

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The Wisconsin State Capitol. Control of the state Assembly and Senate will be at stake in the 2026 November elections. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

It is still early in a significant election year for Wisconsin, but the story of its state legislative races is “beginning to emerge,” John Johnson, a research fellow in Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center for Public Policy Research and Civic Education, told the Wisconsin Examiner in a recent interview. Among  the developments helping to shape it are recently announced retirements of two Senate Republicans and campaign finance reports that show a Democratic advantage in the Senate and a Republican advantage in the Assembly. 

State Senate retirements and fundraising 

Republicans currently hold an 18-seat majority in the 33-seat state Senate, where the 17 odd-numbered seats will be up for election this year. Democrats need to win two additional seats in the state Senate to flip control of the body.

Lawmakers have slowly started to announce their plans. On Monday, Sen. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), who has served in the Legislature since 1991 and is one of the most conservative lawmakers in the state Senate, announced he will not run for reelection. He said in a statement that the “time has come for a new fighter to take on the mission of preserving life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” for residents of Senate District 11. 

“It has been one of the greatest honors of my life to serve in the Wisconsin State Legislature representing the people of Southern Wisconsin,” Nass said. “I have always been bipartisan in my scorn of fiscal mismanagement and bureaucratic overreach regardless of whether the Republicans or Democrats were in charge, since the affliction of Big Government is a disease that infects both parties in Madison.”

His district leans Republican. The three Assembly districts within his are represented by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) and Rep. Tyler August (R-Walworth). 

Nass is the second Republican legislator to announce his  retirement in recent weeks. 

The State Senate Democratic Committee (SSDC), the fundraising arm of the caucus, said in a statement that his announcement “is yet another proof point that Republicans are expecting to lose control of the Senate in November” and are confronting the “reality of a Democratic majority.”

The SSDC has been laying the groundwork to flip the chamber over the last year, especially over the summer. In its recent campaign finance report, the SSDC reported raising $771,870 — more than two times what its Republican counterpart brought in — between July 1 and Dec. 31. According to the SSDC, that’s the most the committee has ever raised in a non-election year.

“Senate Democrats have the message, the fair maps, and the candidates to win a majority in November, and these fundraising numbers are proof of that,” the SSDC said in a statement. It ended the period with a $446,605 cash balance. 

The Committee to Elect a Republican Senate (CERS) reported raising $306,674 during the fundraising period. It spent $21,249, and ended the period with $728,682 cash-on-hand. 

The first Senate retirement announcement this year came from Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), who represents Senate District 5. The district includes portions of Milwaukee County, encompassing West Allis and Wauwatosa, and Waukesha County, including Pewaukee, Brookfield and Elm Grove. 

Hutton’s exit is significant, Johnson says.

“That’s an essential target for Democrats to win if they want to take a majority of the state Senate,” Johnson said. “The Democrats have also recruited a quite strong challenger there.” 

Hutton said in a statement that the decision was “very difficult” but that “increasing personal and professional obligations have made it clear that stepping aside is the right decision at this time.” 

“I look forward to continuing to work hard in this final year and beyond to push for more needed reforms that streamline government, address affordability for families, support law enforcement and increase access to quality education, healthcare and economic opportunity for all Wisconsinites,” Hutton said. 

Hutton had reported raising $24,325 in his December campaign finance report, which included a $20,000 contribution from himself. 

The Democratic candidate running for Hutton’s seat, State Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa), who has served in the Assembly since 2019, raised $98,913 since her Senate campaign launched in July and had $114,471 cash-on-hand, according to her campaign finance report.

Vining raised $83,403 from individual contributions. The SSDC provided over $30,000 in in-kind contributions, including wages for campaign staff, consulting and printing. She is the only candidate in the race since Democrat Sarah Harrison, a Brookfield businesswoman, dropped her bid due in part to poor fundraising. 

Johnson said Vining is a strong candidate for Democrats because she is an Assembly incumbent, who has represented one-third of the state Senate district and has a proven track record of winning parts of the district.

Johnson tracks races across the state, but said “most of them don’t quite have the clarity of the 5th Senate District in terms of who the candidates will be.”

Incumbents Johnson said, have about a 4-point advantage in reelection races.

“A seat that would otherwise be like 50-50, you’d expect the incumbent to maybe get 52% in the last cycle,” Johnson said – resulting in a 52-48, 4-point win for the incumbent. “In 2024, it was worth a little bit more for Republicans than it was for Democrats.”

There are three other Senate districts considered targets.

Senate District 21 encompasses part of Racine County, including the northern part of the city, and part of Milwaukee County, including Franklin, Hales Corner, Greendale and Greenfield.

The incumbent, Sen. Van Wanggaard (R-Racine), has served in the Senate for the last decade. He hasn’t announced yet whether he’ll run for reelection. 

After the recent retirement announcements of other Republican lawmakers the SSDC began pushing for Wanggaard’s  retirement: “Good news comes in three… C’mon @Vanwanggaard, you can do it!” the SSDC account posted on X. 

Johnson says that of all the Senate districts, SD 21 changed the most — meaning Wanggaard’s incumbency advantage is smaller than that of other incumbent candidates. 

“He has the fewest constituents who were previously represented by him and his district, which means that his incumbency advantage is worth less than it would be under his district as it previously existed,” Johnson said.

In recent campaign finance reports, Wanggaard reported raising $36,461 in the latter half of 2025 and having $46,319 in cash on-hand.

The Democratic challenger in the district is Trevor Jung, who is the city of Racine’s transit director. He reported raising $133,512 and ending the period with $129,265 in cash on-hand.

Another key district is Senate District 17, which encompasses Iowa, Lafayette, Green, Crawford and Grant counties as well as parts of Dane County and where longtime Republican incumbent Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) is outraising his SSDC-endorsed challenger.

Marklein, who is the co-chair of the powerful Joint Finance Committee and has served in the Senate since 2014, reported raising $194,137 during the recent campaign finance filing period, of which $148,549 came from individual contributions. He reported spending $23,441 and having $741,753 in cash on-hand.

Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon), who was first elected to the Assembly in 2022, reported raising $118,243, spending $4,741 and having $113,888 in cash on-hand at the end of the period. 

There are also two other Democratic candidates running: Corrine Hendrickson, who raised $13,081, spent $10,021 and had $3,059 in cash on-hand, and Lisa White, who reported raising $12,202, spending $15,966 and having $2,764 in cash on-hand. 

Senate District 31 is also considered a key district for legislative control. There, Democrats are seeking to protect incumbent Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick), who has served in the Senate since 2018. The district represents the entirety of Eau Claire County and parts of Dunn, Trempealeau and Chippewa counties.

Smith faces a challenge from Sen. Jesse James (R-Thorp), who was elected to the Senate in 2022, moved to stay in his district when legislative maps were redrawn and recently moved back to the area that is now represented by Smith. Smith reported raising $86,123 during the latter part of the year and having $153,493 in cash on-hand. James reported raising $42,817 during the period. He spent $3,355 and has $61,234 in cash on-hand.

“I would say the edge is still to Jeff Smith in that race, but less so than if he were against someone who is a political unknown,” Johnson says. 

Johnson also says he thinks total spending in each contested Senate race this year could easily reach $1 million.

Assembly GOP bring in $4 million haul as Dem challengers start emerging

Republicans currently hold a 54-seat majority in the 99-seat state Assembly. Democratic lawmakers need to hold all of their current seats in the Assembly and pick up five additional seats to flip the Assembly. 

Johnson says Democrats have a path but only if they “run the table” of competitive races. 

“There are demonstrably enough voters in those [key] districts who will vote for a Democrat, so that’s the optimistic case for Assembly Democrats. The optimistic case for Assembly Republicans is that Assembly Republican candidates tend to be more popular than other kinds of Republicans, and so that’s what they’re going to be counting on,” Johnson said. 

The Republican Assembly Campaign Committee (RACC) outraised its Democratic counterpart, bringing in over $4 million during the most recent reporting period, with the majority of the total coming from two GOP megadonors. 

The committee reported raising a total of $4,210,809 and spending $42,351 and ending the year with $5,241,793 in cash on-hand. Billionaire donor Diane Hendricks gave over $1 million to the RACC in the latter half of 2026 and another billionaire, Elizabeth Uihlein, donated $3 million. 

The Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee (ADCC), the fundraising arm of the Assembly Democratic caucus, raised $1.44 million during the reporting period. According to the ADCC, the overall total it raised in 2025 — $1.78 million — is the most the committee has ever raised in an off-election year. 

The ADCC’s top donors included venture capitalist and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Garrett Hoffman, who gave $175,000, David Hall of Pewaukee, who gave $150,000, and Lynde Uihlein, who gave $100,000 (She also gave $100,000 to the SSDC).

Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) said in a statement that the fundraising numbers show that “voters are fed up with the partisan games from Legislative Republicans and ready for change” and a Democratic trifecta is within reach. She said they are working to make investments, hire on-the-ground staff and invest in incumbents’ campaigns to set Democrats up for success this year. 

With all 99 seats up for election in the Assembly, the candidate fields are also still taking shape. 

Democrats are investing early in the districts they need to protect. State Rep. Steve Doyle (D-Onalaska) reported raising $1,007,842 and $1 million of that was contributed by the ADCC.

“Just kind of shocking,” Johnson said of Doyle’s campaign finance report. “But he’s the most vulnerable Democrat.”

Doyle was first elected to the Assembly during a May 2011 special election and has been reelected since. He won another term in office in 2024 by just 223 votes against the Republican candidate.

One key district to watch is Assembly District 51, where incumbent Rep. Todd Novak (R-Dodgeville) recently announced that he will run for reelection.

Johnson said Novak is a candidate who “really, punches above his weight as a Republican in that district.”

“There have been a lot of years that Democrats thought they could win it, and Democrats all across the rest of the ticket won in that district, but Novak keeps on winning there,” Johnson said, adding that Novak is “probably one of the most moderate Republicans in the Assembly.” 

According to his campaign finance reporting, Novak raised $22,475 during the period and had $29,934 in cash on-hand. The majority of the funds — $20,000 — came from a contribution made by the RACC on Dec. 31.

Novak highlighted his work with Democrats in his press release, including with Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, to secure permanent funding for the Office of School Safety and to secure mental health funding for the UW system. He said that in another term in office he would work to address “affordability, budget responsibly and reduce tax burden, improve healthcare access and costs, and continue supporting our schools.” 

“Working across the aisle for common sense solutions is how I’ve always approached governing. We’ve been able to accomplish a lot to help address affordability, reduce the tax burden, support education, and reduce healthcare costs,” Novak said in a statement.

Johnson says the thing that may tip elections in these close seats are candidates’ personal connections to voters.

“There’s not a lot of daylight between members of the same party on any election these days, but these seats are close enough… that even a little bit of daylight — even a little bit of a, well, I’m mad at the Republicans, but I know Todd Novak. Like, we go to the same events. I see him talk. I trust him personally’ — even if that’s just a few 100 people, that can be the difference,” Johnson says.

With the support of the ADCC behind him, Ben Gruber, a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources Conservation Warden and President of AFSCME Local 1215, launched his campaign to challenge Novak last week. 

He criticized Novak and Marklein at his campaign launch, saying that Republican lawmakers’ decisions to not provide adequate funding to schools in the area have hurt the community. 

“I grew up here, and we’re raising our kids here. I want our kids to have the same opportunities we did growing up. The reality is because of incumbents like Todd Novak and Howard Marklein they don’t have those opportunities,” Gruber said when he announced his campaign. “In 2019 when my oldest daughter was ready to go to kindergarten, she was faced with a 90-plus minute bus ride to get to kindergarten twice a day because the incumbents defunded our public education in Wisconsin and our local elementary school closed in 2018.”

Gruber said he would advocate for working class families if elected to the Assembly. 

“We see the same story play out across this district every single day,” Gruber said. “Our communities are hurting. Schools are closing. Our ambulances are often unstaffed and our police departments are closing. We can do better for our communities.”

The ADCC has announced several other Democratic challengers in recent weeks including: 

• Marathon County Board Supervisor John Kroll is running for AD 85. The district is currently represented by Rep. Patrick Snyder (R-Weston) won the district with 53% of the vote in 2024. 
• Oak Creek Mayor Dan Bukiewicz launched a campaign for AD 21. The district is currently represented by Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek), who won the district with 51% of the vote in 2024.
• De Pere School Board Member Brandy Tollefson is running for AD 88. The district is currently represented by Rep. Benjamin Franklin (R-De Pere), who won the district by 220 votes in 2024. 

While Johnson said he thinks incumbency and fundraising will matter in the races, he said one of the biggest factors that will sway state legislative races will be a person who won’t be on the ballot at all.

“The most important thing will be, if the candidate has a D or an R after their name,” Johnson said. While candidates’ relationships with voters in their districts are important, many people don’t have that kind of personal contact and will be “making their mind up about …what they think about Donald Trump, and they’re going to go in and they’re going to vote based on that feeling, I’m confident.”

State legislative races will appear on voters ballots in November alongside an open race for governor, congressional races as well as other statewide and local races.

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The number of people enrolling in health plans through the Affordable Care Act's HealthCare.gov website has fallen in 2026, according to the federal government. (Getty Images)

After a record number of Wisconsin residents signed up for health insurance through the federal health care marketplace in 2025,  enrollment for 2026 is down by 7%, according to the federal government.

Enrollment could fall farther, if people who have signed up decide they can’t afford the cost when the first bill for insurance arrives, an independent analyst warns.

Health insurance — whether purchased through the federal marketplace or elsewhere — is costing people more in 2026. The price of plans purchased through the HealthCare.gov marketplace has gone up. In addition, enhanced federal tax subsidies that became available in 2021 and dramatically lowered the cost for most marketplace customers have expired.

The Affordable Care Act, enacted in 2010, created HealthCare.gov to help reduce the number of Americans without health insurance. The marketplace was designed to make it easier and more affordable for people without health coverage through an employer or through government programs to purchase a health plan for themselves and their families.

After enhanced tax-credit-based subsidies were enacted in 2021, enrollment through the marketplace began setting new records each year, nationally and in Wisconsin. Several efforts by Democrats in Congress last year to extend the subsidies past their Dec. 31, 2025, expiration date failed when the Republican majorities in both houses of Congress declined to take up the proposals.

Legislation that would revive the enhanced subsidies for another three years has now passed the U.S. House, but its future in the U.S. Senate remains uncertain.

“Without the subsidies — that’s what makes it really affordable — many small business owners and others would not have access to health care,” U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) said during a media call in January with Protect Our Care and Main Street Alliance.

Protect Our Care campaigns for preserving and improving the Affordable Care Act and other federal health care programs. Main Street Alliance is a small business organizing group that supports the ACA along with the act’s provision to expand Medicaid by raising the income cap to 138% of the federal poverty guideline.

“We need to keep the Affordable Care Act in place, and the only way you keep it in place so it’s affordable for small business owners and many others is by having those credits,” Pocan said.

Data released last week by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services showed that 291,336 Wisconsin residents had enrolled in plans through HealthCare.gov by Jan. 15, the final open enrollment deadline. That is about 7.1% below 2025 enrollment of 313,579 for the state.

Nationally, 2026 enrollment fell by 1.3 million from 2025, a drop of more than 5%.

Difficult choices for HealthCare.gov customers

For Sydney Badeau, an advocate for people with disabilities, affordable insurance through HealthCare.gov made it possible for her to work part-time for two different Wisconsin advocacy groups. In 2026, that has changed.

Badeau calculated that her 2026 premium would cost her around $450 a month — more than she could afford. She told the Wisconsin Examiner she was able to shift her work arrangement, taking a full-time position with one of her employers, The Arc Wisconsin, which now provides her health benefits, while remaining as a part-timer for her other employer, People First Wisconsin.

Most health plans sold at HealthCare.gov are classified Gold, Silver or Bronze based on a combination of their coverage, premium cost and the out-of-pocket costs that patients incur.

Nancy Peske, a Milwaukee-area freelance writer, editor and consultant, said she has always purchased a bronze plan with a $7,500 deductible. Thanks to the enhanced subsidy, her insurance cost her $370 a month in 2025, she said, instead of about $900 a month.

For 2026, her premium has risen to $1,164 a month — with no subsidy any more.

Peske has stopped contributing to her retirement account. “It will probably push back retirement for a couple of years for me,” she said.

Amanda Sherman, a Mequon real estate broker’s assistant, purchased a mid-level Silver plan in 2025 with a $7,500 deductible. Enhanced subsidies reduced her monthly premium by about $250, to $222 a month.

The health plan also helped cover some expensive medications for her complex autoimmune disorder, Sherman said.  

For 2026 she wound up with a Bronze plan that has a $9,500 deductible. Although she no longer has an enhanced subsidy, she does qualify for a smaller subsidy that still exists, of about $185 dollars — lowering her premium that would have been $538 a month to $353 a month — $120 more than she was paying in 2025.

When she went to enroll for 2026, Sherman’s previous insurer had left the HealthCare.gov marketplace where she lived. In picking a replacement plan, she said, she found herself having to choose between an option with better coverage for her medications — or one that included the same providers and specialists she had grown to trust.

Making that choice was a struggle, but keeping that care team was important, she decided. “I feel like that’s invaluable,” Sherman said.

Enrollment could fall off further

Nationally and in Wisconsin, the total HealthCare.gov enrollment numbers could still shrink further, according to Charles Gaba, an independent researcher who monitors enrollment and coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

In addition to monitoring open enrollment data at his website, acasignups.net, Gaba regularly posts information on a number of other data points. One of those is “effectuated enrollment” — active coverage for which the person enrolling has paid the monthly premium. Effectuated enrollment data lags by several months.

In a post Jan. 29, Gaba wrote that “it’s important to remember that up to 10 MILLION of the [approximately] 19.6M enrollees who re-enrolled did so by passively auto-renewing, which means millions of them received massive sticker shock when they received their January invoice.”

Gaba told the Wisconsin Examiner that for Wisconsin — which uses the federal HealthCare.gov marketplace rather than standing up its own state marketplace — the first batch of effectuated enrollment data might not be available until July at the earliest.

In the Jan. 29 post, however, Gaba wrote that in states with their own marketplaces, “at least a half-dozen of the state-based exchanges have warned that they’re already seeing much higher cancellations than they usually do, and that they expect this trend to continue as people are no longer able to keep up with the dramatically higher premium payments.”

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(The Center Square) – WisconsinEye was back on the air broadcasting legislative hearings at Wisconsin’s capitol Tuesday, starting with a hearing on a bill to send long-term funding assistance to the private nonprofit that broadcasts Wisconsin state government meetings.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction spent $368,885 to hold a four-day standard setting event in June 2024 at a Wisconsin Dells waterpark, according to a new report.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s supreme court candidates continue to spar with each other in the opinion section of local newspapers.

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Wisconsin’s version of C-SPAN is back online after going dark for about seven weeks due to a lack of funding.

In a vote tallied Monday, a state Legislature committee unanimously approved funding to the nonprofit public affairs network. 

WisconsinEye’s website was back up Monday morning, including its archive of old videos of hearings and legislative sessions. The nonprofit also livestreamed a press conference in the Capitol Monday and has plans to broadcast legislative activity Tuesday.

It comes after the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Legislative Organization voted 10-0 to approve $50,000 to WisconsinEye for operations costs to resume broadcasting for the Legislature for February. 

Those costs will be divided equally between the Senate and Assembly. The full Legislature does not need to vote on the funding.

WisEye went offline on Dec. 15. At the time, the network said it needed “consistent annual funding” to ensure the public doesn’t “lose the only reliable and proven source of unfiltered State Capitol news and state government proceedings.” In November, the network said it needed $887,000 in donations to cover its operation budget for one year.

During WisconsinEye’s absence, Republican state lawmakers enforced rules banning members of the public who are not credentialed media from recording legislative hearings inside the State Capitol. 

In late January, leaders from both political parties announced they reached a deal to fund the public affairs network.

WisEye has created a GoFundMe with the goal of raising $250,000, or three months of its operating budget. As of Monday morning, the campaign had raised more than $56,000.

WisconsinEye CEO Jon Henkes did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday. He had previously asked the Legislature and governor to remove a matching provision for roughly $10 million in state funding for the network that was included in the most recent state budget.

While WisEye may still face long-term funding challenges, Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, said it’s good news for Wisconsinites that the network is broadcasting again.

In addition to providing live coverage of legislative meetings for residents who can’t make it to Madison, Lueders said WisEye’s archive of past meetings is important for historical purposes because it provides a record of the debates and discussions that took place in state government.

“WisconsinEye has long been a tremendously important resource for Wisconsin and advances the cause of transparency in government by letting people see the process of laws being made,” he said. “It was a very sad thing that it was forced to go offline for about six weeks or so. I’m glad that they found a way to bring it back.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

WisconsinEye resumes coverage at the State Capitol is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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The headlines are full of stories about the Trump administration’s aggressive new approach to immigration enforcement. We hear about ICE raids and mass deportations. But there’s another, less publicized policy change that’s making it difficult for immigrants to defend themselves from deportation, even when they have a strong claim for immigration relief. 

The Department of Homeland Security has changed how it responds to federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests from immigrants facing deportation, in a way that deprives many immigrants of their only tool for obtaining information they need to prove they deserve to remain in the country.

Immigration court affords immigrants no formal right to discovery, the process by which the parties exchange information to ensure a fair, fact-based process. As a result, immigration attorneys must rely almost exclusively on FOIA requests to obtain a noncitizen’s Alien Registration File (“A-File”) from agencies within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS). 

A-Files typically include prior immigration applications, enforcement records and notes from interviews. But these documents frequently contain falsehoods and inaccuracies, particularly where summaries replace verbatim transcripts and trauma affects the ability of immigrants to tell their stories. Immigration attorneys need access to their clients’ A-Files so they can identify and challenge inaccuracies in the records and hold the government to its burden of proof. 

My friend and fellow attorney Gabriela Parra practices immigration law in Wisconsin. Many of her clients are asylum seekers now living in Wisconsin who fled to the United States because they feared persecution in their home countries. Since April 2025, she has observed a marked change in how immigration agencies respond to the FOIA requests she files on behalf of her clients. 

The agencies are refusing to provide documents, or heavily redacting the documents they provide, thus denying Parra the information she needs to prepare her clients’ cases. In multiple cases, asylum seekers represented by her firm have asserted that they articulated a fear of return during border interviews, while DHS claims the opposite. 

FOIA requests in these cases resulted in partial A-File disclosures, with interview notes withheld entirely. In other words, DHS has withheld the most important information that would help Parra prove her clients’ version of events.

Late last year, I joined Parra in filing a federal lawsuit asking the court to enforce FOIA. Our client in this case is a foreign national who filed an asylum application before he obtained legal assistance. He is now facing removal proceedings in immigration court. 

In response to Parra’s FOIA request, DHS provided some documents, but they contained serious inaccuracies. Moreover, the agency produced only eight pages of unredacted records and 14 pages that were heavily redacted. It fully withheld 31 pages of our client’s file, including records necessary to identify and challenge errors. 

Days after we filed our FOIA lawsuit, DHS provided us with some additional files. But others are still missing, and our client’s removal proceedings are looming. We are in a race against time to get our client’s records so he can make the strongest asylum case.

Immigration lawyers across the country are fighting similar battles against the administration’s FOIA practices. A December 2025 whistleblower report alleges that the government is intentionally blocking FOIA requests. It says this denies immigrants the information they need to avoid “life-altering impacts” including “family separation and prolonged detention.”

Our country’s current fight over immigration enforcement is also a fight over government transparency. Here in Wisconsin, we are doing our part.

Your Right to Know is a monthly column distributed by the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (wisfoic.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan group dedicated to open government. Elisabeth Lambert is the founder and principal of the Wisconsin Education Law and Policy Hub (wisconsinelph.org). Thanks to Gabriela Parra for her help on this column.

Your Right to Know: A FOIA fight over immigration records is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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The limited availability of Black male mentors in Milwaukee is causing youth organizations to rethink their efforts and reveals a deeper challenge within families and communities. 

The lack of mentors forced Andre Lee Ellis to postpone his annual “500 Black Tuxedos” event. 

500 Black Tuxedos typically consists of 250 men stepping up to mentor 250 young men ages 12 to 17 throughout the day with workshops that bring attention to violence, anger management, artificial intelligence, men’s health, incarceration and other topics. 

So far, Ellis has 200 boys but only 78 male mentors registered. 

“It’s always been challenging to get the men to participate, and one of the things we lack in our community is the inclusion of Black men and fathers in the lives of our children,” Ellis said.

Committing to mentorship

Rather than calling it a “shortage of male mentors,” LaNelle Ramey, executive director of Mentor Greater Milwaukee, said it’s about capacity. He said many men are already mentors in informal ways like coaching or helping at a church. 

“We aren’t getting people to sign up for mentoring the way that we want to, but we’re seeing different ways people are trying to tap in and be supportive,” Ramey said. 

The challenge of finding male mentors has also been a challenge for other organizations, including 100 Black Men of Milwaukee Inc., which partners with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Milwaukee to do monthly group mentoring sessions with youths.

According to Christopher Smitherman ll, vice president of 100 Black Men of Milwaukee Inc., the organization recruits male mentors but can only accept a limited number of boys to maintain mentor-to-youth ratios and consistent presence. 

Smitherman and Ramey said that men are backing down from mentoring because of their misconception of it being a huge time commitment. 

“You have to change that narrative on how long it takes to make a difference,” Smitherman said. 

Ramey said Mentor Greater Milwaukee reminds individuals that spending an hour and a half with a young person for six months still impacts a mentee’s life. 

Inactive fathers affecting the recruitment process

Ellis said he believes recruiting men is harder due to a lack of active fathers to serve as mentors. 

“Certain systems make it hard for men to be involved in the lives of children,” Ellis said. “But when you really want to be a dad, nothing can stop you.” 

According to the Wisconsin Family Council, 85% of babies born in Milwaukee are raised by single mothers. 

While men’s experiences with their own fathers can shape how they show up as dads or mentors, Ellis believes that youths can benefit from adults who use their lived experiences to guide them. 

“Some of the men don’t want to be the dad they never had, but they want to be better,” Ellis said. “Our children need to see us fighting for them.”

Retaining male mentors

Ellis, Ramey and Smitherman agreed that better outreach and information about mentoring can help prevent men from overthinking and feel more confident about stepping into the role. 

“We have to make sure that men and fathers have the resources they need,” Ellis said.

Smitherman said other ways to retain male mentors include offering consistent formal training. 

At Big Brothers Big Sisters of Metro Milwaukee, mentors learn how to lead with empathy, being accessible for mentees, understanding a mentee’s situation and other topics, he said.

Feeling hopeful about mentorship

As organizations across Milwaukee continue to actively recruit mentors, the advocates hope that men can give as much as they can toward the youths. 

“Mentorship is about experience, knowledge and what you have that can help elevate someone,” Smitherman said. “It also doesn’t have to be a huge age gap either.”

For men interested in serving as a mentor for the 500 Black Tuxedos event, it’s rescheduled to Saturday, Feb. 21, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 100 Gems Plaza, 6737 N. Teutonia Ave. A registration fee of $125 will cover the tuxedo for the young man you’ll mentor. Click here to register and for more information.

Click here or here to learn more about mentorship opportunities for men in Milwaukee.

‘Our children need to see us fighting for them’: More Black male mentors in Milwaukee sought is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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• Federal immigration officials could gain access to sensitive Medicaid data — but not yet. A judge has temporarily limited what information the Department of Homeland Security can access in states, like Wisconsin, that are suing to block a data-sharing agreement. 

• Advocates warn the data-sharing risks chilling health care access — potentially even discouraging some from enrolling in programs for which they’re eligible. 

• Undocumented immigrants are categorically ineligible for full Medicaid, but two narrower options exist. In Wisconsin, emergency care and prenatal coverage are available regardless of immigration status, covering about 3,200 people as of late 2025.

• State Republicans unsuccessfully sought to ban any public funding for health care for people without legal immigration status, citing rising Medicaid costs. Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the proposal, arguing it would create confusion and solve problems that don’t exist.

Can federal immigration officials access personal data on every Wisconsinite enrolled in Medicaid? 

Not for now, but the question is winding its way through federal courts.  

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services last summer signed an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to give immigration enforcement officers broad access to Medicaid data, which includes names, addresses, claim information and banking details. Trump administration officials claim the agreement is needed “to ensure that Medicaid benefits are reserved for individuals who are lawfully entitled to receive them.”

Wisconsin joined 21 other states in a lawsuit challenging the agreement last year. 

“Millions of individuals’ health information was transferred without their consent,” the lawsuit argues. “In doing so, the Trump administration silently destroyed longstanding guardrails that protected the public’s sensitive health data.” 

In December, a federal judge in California ordered that, in states involved in the lawsuit, DHS can only access the names and contact information of undocumented immigrants in states involved in the lawsuit. 

But patient advocates say it’s unclear how the agency could separate the records of undocumented immigrants from those of immigrants with legal status.

“The sharing of data is dangerous for all of us at the end of the day,” said Esther Reyes, movement-building director with the national advocacy group Protecting Immigrant Families. 

How does immigration status affect eligibility for Medicaid and other health programs? 

Federal law bars undocumented immigrants and many other recent immigrants from receiving full-benefits Medicaid coverage. Most legal permanent residents and new arrivals with legal status become eligible for full Medicaid coverage only after five years in the U.S. A list of exceptions to that rule shrank last year when President Trump signed his trademark “big beautiful bill” into law. 

But the White House claims many undocumented immigrants still access Medicaid benefits, largely citing state-funded health care programs — including a now-shuttered program in Illinois — that provided coverage for undocumented adults. While those programs must operate without federal dollars to avoid running afoul of federal law, the Trump administration argues a tax “loophole”, which it moved to close last week, made them possible.

Medicaid rules make one exception for immigrants ineligible for full coverage: Under federal law, hospitals must provide emergency care for any uninsured patient. Emergency Medicaid coverage can reimburse hospitals for those costs, meaning people of any legal status can receive temporary coverage in dire circumstances — though receiving that emergency coverage is not guaranteed.

“Emergency Medicaid is exclusively available when you go to the emergency room if you don’t qualify for Medicaid because of your immigration status, and it covers services that states by law are required to cover — life or death situations,” Reyes said.

Absent that reimbursement, hospitals may distribute the costs of emergency care for people without insurance across other patients. 

Some states also rely on the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program, which is separate from Medicaid, to cover prenatal care for pregnant patients regardless of immigration status. 

How do those programs work in Wisconsin, and how much do they cost?

In Wisconsin, those two options are called Medicaid Emergency Services and BadgerCare Plus Prenatal, respectively. The prenatal program is open both to immigrants ineligible for other coverage and to pregnant inmates in Wisconsin’s prisons and jails.

Immigrant patients can receive emergency services coverage until their “condition is no longer considered an emergency,” according to state guidelines. Patients enrolled in the prenatal plan remain covered through their pregnancy, though many then become eligible for two months of emergency care coverage.

Roughly 3,200 people were enrolled in the two programs combined in October 2025, according to Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services’ data. That marked the programs’ lowest monthly enrollment since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The state paused reviews of Medicaid recipients’ eligibility during the pandemic, allowing some enrollees in the emergency services and prenatal programs to remain insured beyond the standard cutoff, but enrollment plummeted after Wisconsin DHS resumed reviews in June 2023 in a process often called the “unwinding.”

Not all patients enrolled in the programs are undocumented, and Wisconsin DHS records do not break down enrollment by legal status.

Spending on the two programs dipped from about $60 million in fiscal year 2024 to about $57 million in 2025 — less than 0.4% of the state’s overall medical assistance spending that year.

Why did Wisconsin Republicans try to block state-funded health care for undocumented immigrants last year?

The Republican-controlled Legislature voted last year to bar Wisconsin agencies and local governments from funding any form of health services for undocumented immigrants. 

Rep. Alex Dallman, R-Markesan, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, pointed to Illinois’ expansion of health coverage to some undocumented adults as reason for Wisconsin to preemptively block any similar expansion; the Illinois program’s costs consistently exceeded projections, prompting the state to end the program last year.

“We’re in such a deficit on Medicaid already that it’s hard to keep up as it is,” he told Wisconsin Watch. Wisconsin is on track to overspend its Medicaid budget by $213 million by the end of the current budget cycle, state DHS Secretary-designee Kirsten Johnson wrote in a letter to state lawmakers at the end of December.

Dallman noted that the bill made an exception for health care spending required under federal law. “If they go to the emergency room, they are still going to get emergency care,” he said. As he understood it, Dallman said, that language in the bill would have shielded emergency Medicaid.

But opponents say it isn’t clear that Wisconsin’s emergency services program would have been left untouched. Some also argue that the proposal could also require immigration status checks to access any form of subsidized health care, spanning far beyond hospitals alone.

“If a child is at school and they’re sick… does the school nurse need to figure out how to verify their status before they provide health care?” asked William Parke-Sutherland, government affairs director of Kids Forward, which advocates for low-income and minority families.  

“It would have affected health care services for people if they are in need of emergency services like EMTs,” he added. “We have a primarily county-based crisis mental health system — I think that this would have applied to those as well.”

Gov. Tony Evers vetoed the bill in December, arguing that it sought to solve problems that “do not exist.” 

Could sharing Medicaid data deter patients from seeking health care?

Health outreach workers warn that giving federal immigration officials access to even some Medicaid patient data could discourage people from enrolling in programs for which they are eligible — including U.S. citizens.

The database shared with immigration authorities, called the Transformed Medicaid Statistical Information System, doesn’t clearly distinguish between undocumented immigrants and immigrants with legal status who are ineligible for full-coverage Medicaid for various reasons.

In December, U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria of northern California ruled that immigration authorities may access data only on undocumented immigrants — and only if it can be separated from data on citizens and eligible immigrants. 

It’s still unclear whether officials can do that.

Regardless, the data-sharing agreement alone is enough to make many immigrants — and some citizens with immigrant family members — “think twice about whether they actually access programs like Medicaid,” Reyes said.

But health care navigators say skipping coverage can be far riskier than the potential for their address to land in the hands of immigration enforcement officers.

“You’re protecting the life of your child — and yours” by enrolling in the prenatal program, said Francisco Guerrero, a health coverage navigator with the Wisconsin Institute for Public Policy and Service.

For now, advocates are urging people to be cautious when deciding whether to drop their coverage. If people are already enrolled in the emergency or prenatal programs and haven’t changed their address, leaving the program won’t wipe their information from the database, Reyes said. U.S. citizens don’t have to disclose the immigration status of anyone in their household, she added, and immigrant parents enrolling U.S.-born children do not need to share their own legal status.

“We want people to make informed decisions and understand the risks,” Reyes said. “We understand, though, that it’s really critical to get the care that you need for yourself and for your children.”

Can immigration officials access your Medicaid data? What it means for Wisconsin patients is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Every author, poet and musician has a list of writers who have inspired them. Writer Brian Bartels of Madison has a long list of creatives who have shaped him, but at the top is someone near and dear to his heart.

The post ‘Why write?’: A grandfather’s hobby that became a creative inspiration appeared first on WPR.