(Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Gracias, Minnesota.

Gracias, America.

While Minnesota is where much of the resistance has been happening, my gratitude spills beyond its borders because the resistance has been virtually everywhere ICE brutality occurs.

Even before two citizens were killed by immigration authorities in Minneapolis recently, the country responded with a collective “ugh” to federal agents’  tactics.

It hasn’t escaped notice that this purge’s purpose, according to abundant evidence from the Trump administration, is to prevent the “civilizational erasure” white supremacists believe will be triggered by non-white immigrants. 

The deportations have gone far beyond the stated mandate of removing undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes. Undocumented immigrants with no criminal records, legal immigrants and citizens have been routinely ensnared as if relentless quotas are at work.

The U.S. Supreme Court gave immigration authorities permission for their campaign of terror against all immigrants, whether they are in the country legally or not. Justice Brett Kavanaugh undid an order by a lower court that barred immigration authorities from using ethnicity as cause to arrest and detain. This is now appropriately called the Kavanaugh Stop.

Americans, even those who believe immigration really is a problem, are saying, enough.

Protests and polling tell us as much. 

Trump supporters are turning on key architects of the purge, advocating a purge of their own. They are urging throwing Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem under the bus to appease voters as the congressional midterm election begins in earnest. The administration sent the guy who led the crackdown in Minneapolis, Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, packing and replaced him with Border Czar Tom Homan.

This is progress.

Gracias, America, but the work won’t be done until Trump and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller are effectively neutralized. They created and cheered on pedal-to-metal deportations that feature traumatizing children to deport them.

Other features of this purge:

• Harsh mass detention used as a cudgel to get immigrants to stop their claims for lawful stays.
• Inviting undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens and who are pursuing legal status to come in for interviews where they  are then arrested and detained for deportation.
• And the jack-booted tactics generally of masked immigration agents who trample rights and deny due process.

The protests grew after immigration agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, white U.S. citizens who  had empathy for the scores of non-white victims of this purge.

They didn’t have to step up. And they haven’t been alone. 

Minnesota doesn’t have a large undocumented immigrant population relative to other states such as California, Texas, New York and Florida, but its citizens, armed only with whistles and cellphone cameras, have put themselves on the frontlines.

Empathy lives.

Enter hope.

U.S. history’s lesson: When injustices have been overcome, it is because people who don’t directly bear the brunt of the injustice have risen up. Good and Pretti were two of them.

More than 77 million people voted to reelect Trump in 2024. They knew exactly who and what they were getting.

It’s difficult to not give in to despair when your fellow Americans reelect venality and cruelty, Trump’s trademarks.

No, despair doesn’t quite capture the feeling. It is a gnawing pain in the soul that makes one feel so desolately alone. Cynicism and hopelessness beckon.

Gracias, America, for giving me and others hope that MAGA may not ultimately speak for America.

But, for now, it is a hope that requires nurturing. We’ve been disappointed before.

The midterm election and then the 2028 election will tell the tale. The first could make Congress a truly co-equal branch of government with the power to check this imperial presidency. The second will send an even stronger message if candidates who follow Trump’s playbook of nativist division are trounced at the polls.

It will take both those events to signal course correction.

Undocumented immigrants live in the crosshairs. It is part of their existence. They’ve always known that arrest, detention and deportation could happen. They’ve always known the risk but brave it to escape persecution and poverty in their native countries and to secure brighter futures for their children.

What’s different now is the brutality.

The broadening pushback is a signal that America may be at yet another turning point – that the direct targets of injustice are not alone, that others stand and fight with them because humanity counts and citizens feel called to stand up when they see American values betrayed.

From the son of people who were once undocumented, a heartfelt gracias.

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Pedestrians walk through the streets of the Little Haiti neighborhood on June 06, 2025 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Monday blocked the termination of temporary protections for roughly 350,000 Haitians from taking effect, a move that prevents the Trump administration from acting to deport them as litigation continues. 

In a searing 83-page order, District of Columbia federal Judge Ana C. Reyes found that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem does not have “unbounded discretion” to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haiti and rejected the Trump administration’s arguments that ending the status is  in the public interest. 

“Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight,” Reyes wrote. “She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable. This approach is many things—in the public interest is not one of them.”

The decision came the day before hundreds of thousands of Haitians were at risk of losing their work permits and deportation protections, opening them up to removal. 

The Trump administration has moved to strip the legal status of immigrants, as many as 1.5 million, by ending the TPS designation and revoking humanitarian protections initially granted under the Biden administration. So far, Noem has ended TPS for 12 countries.  

Other judges found Noem overreached

Reyes said the Trump administration would face no harm by allowing TPS recipients from Haiti to keep their legal status while they challenge Noem’s move to end their status. 

Last year, Noem initially tried to remove extended protections for TPS holders from Haiti granted under the Biden administration, which meant protections would end by August. But several judges found that move from Noem an overreach of her authority. 

TPS is usually granted for 18 months to nationals who hail from a country deemed too dangerous to return to due to violence and instability. 

In her order, Reyes cited contradictions by the Trump administration in its attempts to end TPS for Haiti. She pointed to Noem’s argument that conditions in Haiti have improved, but at the same time the State Department has a “do not travel” advisory for Haiti because of violence. 

There has been escalating gang violence in Haiti since the assassination of the country’s president in 2021. 

“There is an old adage among lawyers. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table,” Reyes wrote. “Secretary Noem, the record to-date shows, does not have the facts on her side—or at least has ignored them. Does not have the law on her side—or at least has ignored it. Having neither and bringing the adage into the 21st century, she pounds X (f/k/a Twitter).”

Reyes was nominated by former President Joe Biden.

‘Hostility to nonwhite immigrants’

Reyes added that one of the arguments from the plaintiffs – Haitian TPS recipients – that Noem “preordained her termination decision and did so

because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants,” is likely substantial.   

Reyes also pointed to the 2024 presidential campaign, where President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance spread false rumors claiming Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, ate residents’ pets. 

In her order, she said Trump referred to those Haitians with TPS as being in the country without legal authorization, despite their legal status, and recalled how the president vowed to revoke “Haiti’s TPS designation and send ‘them back to their country.’”

There are five Haitian TPS recipients who are plaintiffs in the case. They argued that Noem violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the process of how agencies issue regulations, by ending TPS for Haiti. 

Those recipients include Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, who is a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer’s disease who has had TPS since 2011; Rudolph Civil, a software engineer at a national bank who was granted TPS in 2010; Marlene Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology department who’s been a TPS recipient since 2024; Marica Merline Laguerre, an economics major at Hunter College and a TPS holder since 2010; and Vilbrun Dorsainvil, a full-time registered nurse and TPS holder since 2021.

A reprieve

This is not the first time the Trump administration has tried to end the TPS designation for Haiti, but the courts blocked those attempts in 2018.

Monday’s decision came as a brief relief for immigrants and advocates in Springfield, Ohio. 

“This 11th hour reprieve is, of course, welcome,” Ohio Immigrant Alliance Executive Director Lynn Tramonte said in a statement. “But people can’t live their lives like this, pegging their families’ futures to a court case. The least this country can do is honor their strength and contributions by giving them a permanent home.” 

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem at a roundtable discussion with local ranchers and employees from U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Jan. 7, 2026 in Brownsville, Texas. (Photo by Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Monday that body cameras would be given to federal immigration agents across the country, starting in Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by agents in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

“As funding is available, the body camera program will be expanded nationwide,” she wrote on social media. “We will rapidly acquire and deploy body cameras to DHS law enforcement across the country.”

Noem did not specifically say agents would be required to wear the cameras.

President Donald Trump said he was supportive of the move, according to White House pool reports.

“It wasn’t my decision,” he said. “I leave it to her. It tends to be good for law enforcement, because people can’t lie about what happened.”

The announcement comes amid a partial government shutdown by congressional Democrats who are pushing to change immigration enforcement operations across the country. One of those proposed policy changes is a requirement for federal immigration officers to wear body cameras. 

Democrats have also called for Noem to resign or be impeached after a second Minneapolis resident was shot and killed on Jan. 24 by federal immigration agents, 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse Alex Pretti. On Jan. 7, Renee Good, a poet and mother of three, was killed by federal immigration agent Jonathan Ross. 

Even without approved funding in the Homeland Security appropriations bill, the agency still has roughly $175 billion in funding for immigration enforcement from the massive tax cuts and spending package passed last year. 

In the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill for Homeland Security, $20 million was set aside for body cameras for immigration agents. That measure would be the subject of two weeks of negotiations under the spending package under consideration in the House.

A Planned Parenthood clinic in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (Photo by McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday closed the lawsuit Planned Parenthood filed last summer after Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law blocked Medicaid patients from visiting its clinics for any health care appointments for one year. 

Planned Parenthood filed notice with the court Friday that it had dismissed “without prejudice all claims against” the Trump administration in the case. Massachusetts District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued an electronic order Monday closing the case “Pursuant to Plaintiffs’ Notice of Voluntary Dismissal without Prejudice.”

The law prevents people on Medicaid from being seen at Planned Parenthood facilities through early July, when the one-year period would expire.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson wrote in a statement released last week that President Donald Trump “and his allies in Congress have weaponized the federal government to target Planned Parenthood at the expense of patients —  stripping people of the care they rely on. 

“Through every attack, Planned Parenthood has never lost sight of its focus: ensuring patients can get the care they need from the provider they trust. That will never change. Care continues, as does our commitment to fighting for everyone’s freedom to make their own decisions about their bodies, lives, and futures.”

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment from States Newsroom. 

Talwani originally ruled for Planned Parenthood in the case, temporarily blocking the defunding provision from taking effect. But an appeals court later overturned that decision, allowing the Trump administration to legally withhold Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood. 

Talwani was nominated by former President Barack Obama.

The provision in Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law that blocks all Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood was originally slated to last for a decade, but the final version covered one year. 

Federal law for decades has barred spending from covering abortions with limited exceptions for rape, incest, or the woman’s life. 

So the new language prevented Medicaid patients from scheduling appointments at Planned Parenthood for other types of health care, like annual physicals, cancer screenings, or birth control appointments. 

Shireen Ghorbani, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, which filed the lawsuit along with Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, wrote in a statement that its health care providers would “continue to see patients and deliver on our mission to provide high-quality care and education to everyone who needs it, no matter where they live or how much money they make.” 

A Planned Parenthood spokesperson, who did not want to comment on the record, said that certain clinics may choose to cover the cost of treating Medicaid patients, even though the clinic will not receive reimbursement from the federal government under the law. 

Angela Vasquez-Giroux, vice president of communications at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, wrote in a statement that the organization’s “health centers initially shielded the overwhelming majority of patients who rely on Medicaid from the harm of this cruel law. Unfortunately, the consequences for patients will worsen considerably over time as health centers close, costs rise, and access to their trusted provider is pushed further out of reach.”

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education exhausted millions in taxpayer dollars trying to eliminate a chunk of its Office for Civil Rights, a government watchdog found in a report released Monday.  

The department spent between roughly $28.5 million and $38 million on the salaries and benefits of the hundreds of Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, employees who were not working between March and December 2025, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

OCR employees — tasked with investigating civil rights complaints from students and families — were targeted in March as part of a larger Reduction in Force, or RIF, effort at the department and placed on paid administrative leave while legal challenges against President Donald Trump’s administration unfolded.

Amid a mounting backlog of discrimination complaints, the department said in December it would be bringing back the affected employees. The agency moved to rescind the RIFs against the OCR employees in early January while legal challenges proceeded.   

Complaints resolved

The department resolved more than 7,000 of the over 9,000 discrimination complaints it received between March and September, GAO, an independent, nonpartisan body that reports to Congress, said.

However, roughly 90% of the resolved complaints were due to the department dismissing the complaint, the watchdog found. The dismissal rate ranged from 49% to 81% during academic years in the 2010s, GAO found in a 2021 report.

The department “has not made complete information publicly available about potential costs and has not made any information available about potential savings associated with its OCR RIF actions,” GAO said, calling on the agency to provide those estimates and document its analysis. 

Trump has taken significant steps to try to dismantle the 46-year-old department as part of his quest to move education “back to the states.”

In response to a draft of the report, Kimberly Richey, the assistant secretary for OCR, said the matter is rendered “moot” because the agency brought OCR employees back to work in December and rescinded the RIFs. 

“We do not concur with the recommendation,” Richey wrote. 

‘Unacceptable’

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who requested the GAO report, blasted the millions of dollars the department spent as “unacceptable” in a Monday statement. 

“Every child in America should be able to get a good education no matter where they live, what their religious beliefs are or whether or not they have a disability,” said the Vermont independent, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 

“Instead, the Trump administration fired half of the Education Department employees working to protect the civil rights of students and wasted as much as $38 million in taxpayer dollars by preventing investigators from doing their jobs,” he added. 

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, said that “instead of following court orders and federal law, the Trump Administration chose to keep these civil rights professionals on paid administrative leave rather than letting them do their jobs, while students, families, and schools paid the price.” 

Gittleman added that Education Secretary Linda McMahon “has made clear that she would rather play politics than uphold her responsibility to protect students’ rights,” and “her actions have undermined the Department’s mission, harmed families, and subjected dedicated federal employees to needless uncertainty, abuse, and harassment.” 

The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., answers reporters’ questions after holding a press conference on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House is expected to vote as soon as Tuesday on the government funding package that will end the ongoing partial government shutdown once it becomes law. 

The Senate voted Friday evening to approve the legislation after President Donald Trump and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., brokered a deal to remove the full-year appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and replace it with a two-week stopgap. But the partial shutdown began early Saturday morning because the House had not yet acted on the same measure.

The additional time is supposed to give Republicans and Democrats more leeway to broker a deal on constraints to immigration enforcement after federal officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota within the last month. 

Trump wrote in a social media post that lawmakers in the House need to accept the package cannot change further. 

“I am working hard with Speaker Johnson to get the current funding deal, which passed in the Senate last week, through the House and to my desk, where I will sign it into Law, IMMEDIATELY!” Trump wrote. “We need to get the Government open, and I hope all Republicans and Democrats will join me in supporting this Bill, and send it to my desk WITHOUT DELAY. There can be NO CHANGES at this time. We will work together in good faith to address the issues that have been raised, but we cannot have another long, pointless, and destructive Shutdown that will hurt our Country so badly — One that will not benefit Republicans or Democrats. I hope everyone will vote, YES!”

House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a Sunday interview on the Fox News show “Fox and Friends” that he was confident lawmakers would approve the funding package Tuesday. 

“I don’t understand why anybody would have a problem with this, though. Remember, these are the bills that have already been passed, we’re going to do it again,” the Louisiana Republican said. 

The House voted in January to approve two separate bundles of appropriations bills and to pass the full-year Homeland Security bill before sending all six government funding bills to the Senate as one package. 

The other six annual government spending bills have already become law. 

Johnson added during the interview that negotiations between the president and Senate Democrats were an important step. 

“I think there’s some healthy conversations in good faith that’ll be had over the next couple of days, and I look forward to that,” he said. 

Some of those policy negotiations that Senate Democrats are unified on include the banning of unidentified and masked federal immigration agents, requiring the use of body cameras and the end of roving patrols, among other things. 

But House Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee on Sunday issued a letter, urging their caucus to reject funding for DHS.

“Democrats must act now to demand real changes that protect our communities before Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) receive another dollar in funding,” they wrote. “This is what our constituents elected us to do – to hold ICE and this administration accountable when they fail to adhere to the Constitution or follow the law.”

In the letter, House Democrats are pushing for the Trump administration to end the months-long immigration operation in Minneapolis and requiring immigration agents to get judicial warrants, among other things.

U.S. House Democrats, from left, Kelly Morrison, Ilhan Omar and Rep. Angie Craig, all of Minnesota, arrive outside of the regional Immigration and Customs Enfrocement headquarters at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis on Jan. 10, 2026. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a Trump administration policy that prevented members of Congress from making unannounced oversight visits at facilities that hold immigrants.

The temporary restraining order from U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb of District of Columbia federal court blocked a seven-day notice requirement that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem established earlier this month. The order allows congressional Democrats to access facilities that are central to the national debate over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“The Court’s decision today to grant a temporary restraining order against ICE’s unlawful effort to obstruct congressional oversight is a victory for the American people,” Colorado Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse, who is the lead plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “We will keep fighting to ensure the rule of law prevails.”

Noem issued the policy Jan. 8, one day after federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis, the site of an aggressive immigration operation for nearly two months. 

A second Minneapolis resident, 37-year-old Alex Pretti, was shot and killed by a Customs and Border Protection officer and Border Patrol agent on Jan. 24. 

Following the Jan. 7 shooting, U.S. House Democrats from Minnesota tried to conduct unannounced oversight visits at a Department of Homeland Security facility that held immigrants, as allowed under a 2019 appropriations law. Democrats have argued the notice policies issued by Noem violate that appropriations law. 

Noem argued the notice policy was acceptable, despite the spending law, because the facilities were funded through the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” not an appropriations law, and were therefore exempt from the unannounced oversight visit policy.

Cobb rejected that argument, for now, while the case continues, saying the administration had not shown how the department could effectively separate the funds from each law. Cobb said the argument raised “practical challenges.”

“Perhaps reflecting that difficulty, Defendants have not seriously attempted to argue that DHS and ICE ensured that only OBBBA-funded resources were used before promulgating and first implementing the January 8 policy,” she wrote. 

A dozen Democratic lawmakers brought the suit in July, after DHS created a seven-day notice policy to visit a facility where immigrants are detained. In the filing, lawmakers argued that DHS overreached its authority in creating the policy and that it violated a 2019 appropriations law.

Cobb in December also issued a temporary block on that policy.

The House Democrats who sued include Neguse, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California, J. Luis Correa of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Dan Goldman of New York, Jimmy Gomez of California, Raul Ruiz of California, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Norma Torres of California.

WisconsinEye livestreamed a press conference on Monday morning. (Screenshot via WisEye)

WisconsinEye, the state’s nonprofit that livestreams and archives government meetings and legislative sessions, restarted its coverage Monday after lawmakers approved a $50,000 cash infusion for the short term and as they continue to work on a longer term deal. 

The organization, which has been providing streaming services in the Capitol for nearly two decades, halted its coverage about seven weeks ago due to financial and fundraising difficulties. Its leaders turned to state lawmakers for help. The Legislature and Gov. Tony Evers had already set aside $10 million for WisconsinEye, but with a fundraising match requirements the service was unable to meet.

WisconsinEye is now back online, broadcasting a Monday morning press conference and with plans to stream Tuesday legislative activity after the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization (JCLO) voted unanimously via paper ballot to provide $50,000 to the organization to resume its February coverage. According to a memo on the vote results, the costs will be divided equally between the Senate and the Assembly.

“WisconsinEye Public Affairs Network is operational for the month of February. We invite you to enjoy the benefits of State Capitol coverage and the program archive,” a message on the website states.

An Assembly committee is also preparing to consider a bill Tuesday that would provide a longer term solution for the organization. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) announced that they had found a bipartisan legislative solution, which had yet to be considered by the Senate, about two weeks ago.

Under the Assembly proposal, the match requirements for the $10 million would be eliminated and would go to establishing an endowment fund for WisconsinEye. The interest from the endowment would help pay for the organization’s operational costs. Lawmakers said that since the interest won’t cover all of its costs, WisconsinEye will still be responsible for raising some money for its operational costs.

According to the bill draft, WisconsinEye would need to add four additional members to its board of directors who would be appointed by each legislative caucus leader, focus its coverage primarily on official state government meetings and business, provide free online public access to its live broadcasts and digital archives as well as submit an annual financial report to the Legislature and the Joint Finance Committee. The board appointees would not be allowed to be current legislators.

The bill also states that if WisconsinEye ceases operations and divests its assets, then it must pay back the grants and transfer its archives to the Wisconsin Historical Society.

The Assembly State Affairs Committee plans to consider the bill during a public hearing Tuesday afternoon and is scheduled to vote on it immediately following the hearing.

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A Flock camera on the Lac Courte Orielles Reservation in SawYer County. (Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner)

On Wednesday, work to remove a set of AI-powered, license plate reading Flock cameras from the City of Verona is expected to begin. Until then, local officials have chosen to physically cover the cameras, blocking their ability to monitor passing traffic. 

A lack of public trust not in the police department, but in the company Flock Safety, fueled the decision. Despite the Verona Common Council vote last fall not to renew the city’s contract with Flock, and the contract lapsing in December, the cameras have remained in place. 

Mayor Luke Diaz said the police department had made several requests to Flock for the cameras to be removed. “They weren’t removing them,” Diaz told the Wisconsin Examiner. “We kind of looked at the contract, talked it over amongst staff, and the thing we felt most comfortable with was just covering them so they could stop spying on people.”

“I’m 100% certain that they were still working,” Diaz said, adding that some other communities have had similar experiences with Flock refusing to remove unwanted cameras. “It could have been an accident, it could have been an oversight on their part, but I think it was deliberate,” Diaz told the Examiner.“Because I think that they want to keep the cameras up, whether they have permission or not.” 

Concerns about Flock cameras, which are equipped with AI-powered automatic license plate reader technology, are on the rise nationwide. The cameras take pictures of passing vehicles, storing them for up to 30 days in a database which organizes the images based on identifiable license plates and vehicle descriptions. Law enforcement agencies are able to search Flock’s network of images, including those captured in other parts of the country. 

Any Flock network could contain thousands or even millions of compiled law enforcement searches. Exactly why those searches are being done, however, isn’t always clear. An analysis of Flock audit data by the Wisconsin Examiner found that from January to May of 2025, Flock’s network was searched by 221 unique local and state law enforcement agencies. The most common search term turned out to be “investigation” without other context to determine the reason for  the search.

Some agencies used even vaguer terms such as “cooch,” “hunt,” or just “.”  After the Examiner’s first report on Flock, a Waukesha police officer who repeatedly used only a period to label Flock searches underwent re-training on proper use of the system. By contrast the West Allis Police Department, which used “.” to search Flock more than any other Wisconsin law enforcement agency from January to May 2025, admitted no wrongdoing and asserted that its officers are properly trained on the Flock system. Recently, 404 Media reported that law enforcement officers in some parts of the country have been advised to be as “vague as permissible” when entering reasons for using Flock’s network.

Other cases have also emerged involving officers outright misusing the Flock system. A Menasha police officer is currently facing charges of felony misconduct in public office for using Flock’s network to track a vehicle belonging to a private person while off duty. In Kenosha County, a sheriff’s deputy was accused of using Flock and a squad car tracking system called Polaris to stalk one of his co-workers. Similar cases of officers using Flock to stalk love interests or others have also surfaced, as well as at least one use of Flock by a Texas sheriff’s office in an abortion-related case. 

There are also fears about how the cameras can be used by the federal government to monitor local communities, especially for immigration enforcement. Those sorts of questions led Verona city officials to take a closer look at what their own police department’s Flock data revealed. In Minneapolis, immigration and border patrol agents have been involved in numerous clashes with local residents, raising concerns about monitoring of protesters and legal observers.

Just before Verona voted not to renew its contract with Flock, Verona Police Chief Dave Dresser tried to ease some of the public’s concerns. “The data’s only stored for 30 days, which is actually very restrictive,” said Dresser. “After 30 days, the data is purged. I believe there is misinformation that the data’s held for months and months or years, it’s not. It’s purged.” Dresser added, “we’ve opted out of sharing data with federal agencies, we understand the concerns there. We have revoked automatic access to our data from out of state agencies to address some of the privacy concerns.”

In a document outlining her own review of Verona’s Flock data, Ald. Beth Tucker Long stressed that “I am not against participation in the Flock network because I think our officers are doing anything inappropriate.” In fact, Tucker Long wrote, “I am very proud of our police force and I know that our officers conduct themselves with honor and integrity.” Tucker Long said that “Flock is not operating with integrity,” and focused on the federal government’s level of access. 

Within Verona’s Flock network there were 974 searches tagged as “federal” in October 2025, Tucker Long said, despite federal access to Flock having allegedly been cut off months before. Another 1,628 searches were done by organizations “self-identifying as ICE,” according to Tucker Long. “This does not include organizations that did not disclose that the searches were for ICE.” Over 5,700 Flock searches were done for “other image search,” which means that law enforcement did not search for a license plate, but rather used AI to search the full contents of an image. Tucker Long also pointed to nearly 1,100 searches which were logged as “Outside Assist,” implying that information was shared with another organization whose identity was not recorded in the system. 

When Flock first came to Verona, Diaz explained, there wasn’t much debate. Although Diaz couldn’t remember everything, he believes it was handled administratively as the sort of equipment request from the police department which wouldn’t necessarily come before the common council for approval. “I don’t think there was the awareness of the abuses the company Flock has made, and I think there’s a lot of stuff happening at the national level where it’s clear and obvious that we have a federal government that doesn’t believe in the Fourth Amendment, or the First Amendment, or the Fourteenth, and the Fifth. And that this Supreme Court isn’t going to stand up for the Constitution either, and so I think that’s created a lot of angst and awareness. And that people are looking around at these Flock things and saying these aren’t benign. They aren’t just like a helpful tool for the local police department. They’re a way for the feds to spy on our communities.” 

A Verona police spokesperson told the Examiner that the department is “committed to exploring other alternative tools and strategies” which will maintain the high standards city residents have come to expect. The spokesperson added that the department was encouraged that the decision to remove Flock was due to a lack of confidence in the multi-billion dollar company, and not the police department. 

This article has been edited to correct the name of Ald. Beth Tucker Long.

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(The Center Square) - Another Wisconsin Senator announced that he will not seek reelection on Monday as Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, announced his retirement from the Wisconsin Senate.

(The Center Square) - A bipartisan Assembly bill that would re-start live stream operations of Wisconsin government from WisconsinEye is expected to receive its first committee discussion during a public hearing at noon Tuesday in the Committee on State Affairs.

(The Center Square) - A Wisconsin Assembly committee is expected to vote Tuesday on a bill that will cap tuition increases in the University of Wisconsin system at the rate of inflation.

(The Center Square) – Milwaukee’s fire chief says it is long past time the state requires sprinklers in every apartment building in Wisconsin.

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As media outlets that regularly report on newsworthy events, we, the undersigned, vigorously condemn the recent arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort. 

Lemon and Fort were arrested after covering a January 18 protest at a church in Minneapolis. They were conducting the constitutionally protected activities of a working journalist: observing, recording and documenting a newsworthy event and attempting to obtain quotes from participants. 

Their arrest on charges of allegedly obstructing a place of worship, and even worse, under federal conspiracy law, alarms all of us who believe in the First Amendment and seek to do our jobs without fear of obstruction by law enforcement or retaliation by agents of the government. 

The principle of a free press animated the founding of the United States of America 250 years ago, and countless Americans have fought valiantly for it. We cannot allow colleagues to be subjected to spurious and unwarranted arrest for committing acts of journalism.

We call on federal authorities to drop all charges against Lemon and Fort and to publicly affirm their unqualified support for the work of professional journalists in this critical time.

SIGNATORIES:

Wisconsin Watch

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Wisconsin Watch joins media outlets in condemning arrests of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort 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.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

In 2022, a student-led voting advocacy organization sued in Dane County to clarify which parts of a witness’ address must appear on an absentee ballot envelope. What was accepted differed from city to city. 

The 4th District Court of Appeals, in an opinion written by Judge Chris Taylor, affirmed a lower court ruling that a witness only needs to provide an address where that person can “be communicated with.” The Legislature, which had appealed, argued a precise, multipart address is necessary to prevent election fraud. 

“The legislature could have required such specificity for the absentee ballot witness address requirement when it initially adopted the witness address requirement in 1966 or in subsequent modifications of the absentee voting statutes,” wrote Taylor, a liberal candidate running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April.

Taylor’s campaign shared that decision as a prime example of the kind of justice she would be on the high court. The campaign for her opponent, conservative appeals court Judge Maria Lazar, shared that exact same decision as a prime example of why Taylor shouldn’t be on the high court.

As Wisconsinites head to the polls in just two months to elect another state Supreme Court justice, Wisconsin Watch asked the Lazar and Taylor campaigns separately to provide examples of rulings in past cases that show how they might serve as a justice and decisions from their opponents that warrant criticism. 

That both campaigns shared the otherwise mundane witness address case speaks to the deep ideological divide that persists in the state judiciary. Campaigns can point to the outcomes of politically charged cases, such as those related to voting rights, gun rights or abortion, as a way to point voters to what their views are, legal experts said.

“To me, those are very subtle signals as to their constituency that the impact of this decision, one way or another, is consistent with your views,” said Janine Geske, who served on the Wisconsin Supreme Court from 1993 to 1998. 

A spokesperson for Taylor’s campaign said the case demonstrates how Taylor protected Democratic rights and “fairly” and “impartially” applies the law. 

“This decision balanced protecting each Wisconsinite’s right to vote with establishing a fair, uniform procedure for our local clerks,” Taylor campaign spokesman Sam Roecker said. “As indicative of the strength of this decision, no party involved in the case appealed Judge Taylor’s decision.” 

Lazar’s campaign said Taylor failed to consider the intent of the Legislature. 

“Judge Taylor’s opinion, on the merits, indicates how far an activist judge who legislates from the bench will go to alter procedures for election integrity,” Lazar campaign spokesman Nathan Conrad said of the witness address case. “Every common sense citizen in Wisconsin knows that an address consists of a street name, number and municipality.” 

Other significant cases from the judges

The other judicial rulings the candidates’ campaigns shared with Wisconsin Watch also showcase the candidates’ contrasting judicial philosophies.

Lazar’s campaign pointed to her opinions that show her being tough on crime and supportive of Second Amendment rights. One was a Waukesha County case where she ruled that a man who pleaded guilty to child enticement and mental harm could not withdraw his guilty plea. In the other case she ruled that the city of Delafield could not deny an operating permit for a shooting range. 

In addition to the voting rights case, Taylor’s campaign highlighted rulings that favored utility consumers and reproductive health. In one decision the court determined the Public Service Commission did not follow proper rulemaking procedures when it prohibited activities companies use to incentivize lower energy use. In the other opinion Taylor wrote that a woman could continue seeking legal action against a physician she claimed did not inform her of a recommendation to another doctor to remove her ovaries during a colon surgery. The Wisconsin Supreme Court last May affirmed that decision with Justice Brian Hagedorn joining the liberal justices in the majority.

The different political focuses between the candidates is no surprise given their different professional and political paths prior to their time on the bench. Lazar, a conservative, was an assistant attorney general under Republican Attorney General JB Van Hollen before her election to the Waukesha County Circuit Court in 2015. Taylor worked as a policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and served five terms as a Democrat in the Assembly before Gov. Tony Evers appointed her to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020.

The judicial rulings they highlighted as reflecting poorly on their opponent are nothing like those featured in the multimillion-dollar Supreme Court campaigns of recent years, when both sides sought to paint the other as lax on crime and public safety. 

While there are still two months to go, it’s possible the race will stay muted because the stakes are different with no Supreme Court majority on the line, said Howard Schweber, a professor emeritus of political science and legal studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Neither outcome will change liberal control of the court, though because the winner will replace retiring conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley, it could extend guaranteed liberal control until at least 2030.

The quiet nature of the race is “bizarre” given the increasingly political direction Wisconsin Supreme Court elections have gone in the past, Schweber said.

“There is not invective. There is not screaming accusations,” Schweber said. “This may all change over the course of the election, but at least at the moment, we’re not seeing over-the-top ads making hysterical accusations, and it appears that at least part of the reason for that might be that neither campaign can find anything particularly embarrassing that the opposing candidate has done.” 

Some criticisms from each campaign are still there and could grow stronger as Election Day nears. In a recent social media post seeking campaign contributions, Lazar’s campaign described Taylor not as a judge, but a “radical left-wing legislator.” Taylor’s campaign in a post following the release of January campaign finance reports described Lazar as “our extreme opponent.” 

Lazar and Taylor will face each other in a March 25 debate hosted by WISN-TV at the Lubar Center at Marquette University’s Law School. 

Which cases did the campaigns share?

Taylor’s campaign shared the following cases with Wisconsin Watch as examples of how Taylor would serve as a justice: 

• Midwest Renewable Energy Association v. Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (the utility case). (Read the opinion here.) 
• Rise Inc. v. Wisconsin Elections Commission (the absentee ballot case). (Read the opinion here.)
• Melissa A. Hubbard v. Carol J. Neuman, M.D. (the ovary removal case). (Read the opinion here.)

The campaign criticized a 2024 appellate opinion written by Lazar that contradicted a ruling from another appeals court branch on whether a conservative group questioning the 2020 election results could access health information about individuals who were judged incapable of voting. Lazar and another judge on the 2nd District Court of Appeals released an opinion that said the group had a right to the information after the 4th District’s opposite ruling was published as precedent.

The opinion shows Lazar “is an extremist who uses our courts to protect special interests and push her right-wing agenda,” Roecker said. 

“Lazar completely ignored recent precedent that private voter data could not be released to the public,” Roecker said. “That should alarm anyone who believes in protecting our democracy and fair elections.” 

Lazar’s campaign in response to that criticism said the dual appeals court opinions were about “issues of procedure” when two districts disagree. The 2nd District revised the opinion at the request of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which then accepted the case, Conrad said. It is scheduled for oral arguments before the high court in April. 

Lazar’s campaign shared the following cases as examples of how Lazar would serve as a justice: 

• Saybrook Tax Exemptors, LLC. v. Lac Du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, et. al.: Lazar concluded that certain agreements and documents between a financial company and the Lake Superior Chippewa tribe about plans for a casino were void. (Read the decision here.)
• State v. Scherer: Lazar ruled that law enforcement’s seizure of a man’s cellphone that possessed child pornography was too broad and violated his privacy rights, despite the “egregious” potential crime. (Read the decision here.)
• State v. Flores (the child enticement case). (Read the decision here.)
• State v. Heinz: Lazar denied a request to modify the sentence of a woman who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder after she was charged with first-degree reckless homicide. (Read the decision here.)
• Hartland Sportsman Club v. City of Delafield (the gun range case). (Read the decision here.)
• Pewaukee Land County, LLC. v. Soo Line Railroad: Lazar ruled that a company could not claim ownership of property in Pewaukee that belonged to the Canadian Pacific railroad, but did not block the company’s current use of the property. (Read the decision here.)
• Craig, et. al. v. Village of West Bend: Lazar dismissed a case about the transfer of cemetery property that already had been decided in an earlier case. (Read the decision here.) 

Lazar’s campaign shared two cases as criticism of Taylor’s judicial opinions:

• Rise Inc. v. Wisconsin Elections Commission (the absentee ballot case). (Read the opinion here.)
• State v. Kruckenberg Anderson: In an opinion written by Taylor, the 4th District Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court ruling that suppressed certain statements a teenager made to law enforcement prior to being charged with killing his newborn child. The Wisconsin Supreme Court denied a petition to review the case in 2024. (Read the Court of Appeals opinion here.)

Judicial philosophies clash as both Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates point to same case to highlight their fitness for the high court 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.

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Minimum-wage workers in 19 states saw their paychecks increase this year. But Wisconsin hasn’t changed its minimum wage — just $7.25 per hour — for 17 years, shrinking the buying power of the lowest-earning workers.

Wisconsin ties its minimum wage to the federal level, which hasn’t budged for its longest stretch in history. Had Congress indexed the wage to inflation in 2009, it would have risen to $10.88 in 2025. That’s a difference of $145.20 over a 40-hour workweek. 

Elsewhere, 34 states, territories and districts have set minimum wages above $7.25.

Neighboring Minnesota raised its minimum wage from $11.13 to $11.41 this year, while Michigan’s leaped from $12.48 to $13.73. Illinois kept its threshold at $15, the highest level among noncoastal states.

In 2024, about 1% of the Wisconsin workforce earned at or below the state’s minimum wage. Those people generally worked as salespeople, automotive service technicians or food preparation workers, U.S. Census data show.

Wisconsin’s tipped workers have an even lower minimum wage of $2.33 per hour, slightly higher than the $2.13 federal minimum, which has not changed since 1991.

Meanwhile, the average living wage for a single adult with no children in Wisconsin in 2025 is $20.96, according to MIT’s living wage calculator, with higher costs in metropolitan areas — including $22.18 in Madison and $21.07 in Milwaukee and Waukesha. The living wage is significantly higher for adults who raise children and lower for people living with a working partner. 

New York campaign sparked ‘Fight for $15’

Campaigns to raise the minimum wage have regularly drawn national headlines. In 2012, fast-food workers and their supporters began calling for a $15-per-hour minimum wage in New York City. Their victory inspired a broader ‘Fight for $15’ movement, including in Wisconsin, as Wisconsin Watch previously reported.

This year, The Living Wage Coalition — a group of labor and progressive organizations — launched a campaign to raise Wisconsin’s minimum wage to $20 per hour, calling the status quo far below a reasonable standard of living for the lowest-wage workers. 

An increase to $15 per hour would be politically popular and directly or indirectly raise the wages of 231,800 (18%) women workers, 36,200 (25.6%) Black workers and 50,200 (26.6%) Hispanic workers in Wisconsin — narrowing gender and racial wealth and income gaps that are some of the largest in the nation, according to a 2025 High Road Strategy Center report. The University of Wisconsin-Madison-based “think-and-do tank” focuses on solutions to social problems — including those related to the environment, opportunity and democratic institutions. 

Still, multiple bills to raise Wisconsin’s minimum wage — largely proposed by Democrats — have stalled in the Legislature. Republican lawmakers have cited concerns about burdening small businesses.

Higher wage ‘has to come from somewhere’ 

Minimum-wage hikes — depending on the size — can bring a mix of positive and negative economic consequences, according to Callie Freitag, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Social Work. 

“The good thing is that earnings would go up for workers. Employers would raise wages and be able to pay workers more,” Freitag said. “But the money to pay workers more has to come from somewhere.”

Economists worry that dramatic minimum-wage hikes could lead to higher consumer costs  — or prompt businesses to cut worker hours or eliminate their jobs entirely, Freitag added.

The key would be an increase that benefits the lowest-paid workers without significantly affecting the broader economy. But it’s unclear what that sweet spot is.

Conditions of the labor market — the supply and demand for workers — shape wages across most of the economy. Wages typically increase when there are more openings than workers, and they decrease when there are few openings for available workers. 

Setting the minimum wage close to or below an equilibrium wage — where the demand for labor matches the supply — only minimally affects wages across the market, economists suggest. 

States that hiked minimum wages saw slightly higher gains across the lowest-tier wages (the bottom 10%) between 2019 and 2024, but not enough to claim a correlation, an analysis by the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute (EPI) found. A range of factors could have shaped the wage increases, which also played out in the Midwest.

Wisconsin has seen slightly faster growth in bottom-tier wages than its neighbors — even without increasing the minimum wage. The state’s bottom-tier wages increased from $10.92 hourly in 2009 to $14.58, Wisconsin Watch found by analyzing EPI’s data.

Bigger hikes strain employers 

While basic economic principles suggest that a 10% increase in the minimum wage would decrease the hiring of unskilled workers by 1 to 2%, recent studies suggest an even smaller shift, or no effect at all. 

Most minimum-wage studies published between 2004 and 2024 have shown little or no job loss, Ben Zipperer, an EPI senior economist, found. 

Researchers tend to focus most on cities and states that have significantly increased their minimum wage. Seattle, Washington, which has hiked its threshold annually since 2015, has among the highest in the country at $21.30 this year. 

In a 2022 study, University of Washington researchers found that Seattle’s minimum wage increase to $11 hourly in 2015 “had an insignificant effect on employment,” but a spike to $13 in 2016 “resulted in a large drop in employment.” 

But the findings might not directly apply to other places, the researchers found, because industries and the makeup of the labor force might look and act differently elsewhere. 

A separate University of Washington study found that a minimum-wage increase to $15 hourly affected most child care businesses, which commonly responded by raising tuition and reducing staff hours or total number of staff — potentially harming staff and lower-wage customers.

What work is worth

“Minimum wage legislation commonly has two stated objectives: the reduction of employer control of wages; and the abolition of poverty,” George Stiegler, a leader of the Chicago school of economics, wrote in 1946 — an era when Congress was debating bigger increases to the minimum wage in the policy’s early years. 

But Stiegler was pessimistic about the prospect that minimum-wage hikes were the best way to eliminate poverty. He instead called for lawmakers to grant lower-income families other forms of relief, including tax cuts and credits. 

That spirit was reflected in the “no tax on tips” bill, which the Wisconsin Assembly passed this month to benefit tipped workers. 

Still, Laura Dresser, associate director of the High Road Strategy Center, views the minimum wage as an important floor to benefit workers at the margins and signal “work is worth this.” 

“People who are working full time should be able to afford life,” she said. “At $7.25 per hour, there’s almost nothing you can afford, and it feels far below what a wage floor really should function as.”

DataWatch: Wisconsin hasn’t raised its minimum wage for 17 years. What does that mean for workers and the economy? 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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