WASHINGTON — Large crowds were gathering Saturday morning in the nation’s capital for the third No Kings protest, rallying with others across the United States against what organizers say is an unprecedented expansion of power by President Donald Trump.

Thousands of people carrying signs and playing music began the day at Memorial Circle below Arlington National Cemetery. Crowds exiting the cemetery Metro stop clogged exit gates as they flowed toward Arlington Memorial Bridge into the district, where an afternoon rally on the Mall was scheduled.

A dense crowd already was packed around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool by late Saturday morning.

No Kings day national organizers anticipate more than 3,000 demonstrations across the United States, in every congressional district, and worldwide marches are organized on six continents, according to Logan Keith, a No Kings day organizer and national communications coordinator for the advocacy group 50501.

The previous national No Kings demonstration in October drew millions of Americans to the streets, and Saturday’s protests were expected to as well. States Newsroom’s live blog included reports and photos from across the nation.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, site of the nation’s flagship event, tens of thousands were gathering around the state Capitol, the Minnesota Reformer reported. Streets were clogged, buses packed and parking scarce well more than a mile away as throngs — dressed in layers and carrying homemade signs with messages like “No War” and “1776” — streamed toward the Capitol.

Headliners and speakers were expected, such as Bruce Springsteen — who will sing his new song “Streets of Minneapolis” — as well as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Joan Baez, Maggie Rogers, Jane Fonda, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and more.

In the months since the previous No Kings rallies, the Trump administration sent thousands of federal agents into Minneapolis, Minnesota, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen, on Jan. 7. 

Just over two weeks later, Customs and Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti, also 37 and a U.S. citizen. 

Many high-profile violent encounters between federal law enforcement and the public circulated widely on social media and in news reports. One notable video captured ICE agents violently pulling Bangladeshi American Aliyah Rahman from her vehicle as she told the officers she was disabled, according to her testimony before lawmakers on Capitol Hill in February. 

Other high-profile arrests have occurred across the country, including in Nashville, Tennessee, where ICE agents arrested the 35-year-old journalist, Estefany Rodriguez Florez, despite her pending asylum application. Florez and her husband, a U.S. citizen, had just dropped their 7-year-old child at school before the arrest. 

Bigger crowds 

Crowds at the Washington, D.C., No Kings march noticeably were larger compared to October’s march. Rallygoers carried signs protesting Trump’s mass deportation campaign, increases in health care costs and the administration’s heavy redactions of the Epstein files.

A speaker rallying the crowd at the Virginia side of the Arlington Memroial Bridge urged participants to vote in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

“Let’s get our march on, let’s fight,” he said.

Across the country, messages against Trump’s monthlong war in Iran also featured prominently. The president launched joint operations with Israel on Feb. 28 that has since spread across the Middle East and caused an oil shortage crisis worldwide. 

So far 13 American service members have died, and more than 300 have been injured, including 15 wounded Friday after an attack on a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia.

In the Washington, D.C. march, Robyn Abshire Sims, 52, of Virginia, carried a sign reading “Impeach. Remove. Convict. 25th Amendment Now.”

“I am here to be in solidarity with the masses. They have no idea how many of us there are,” she said. “Donald Trump needs to be removed, right now.”

Ezra Bermudaz, who is in his 40s and lives in northern Virginia, said the administration is “unprofessional” and that it is alienating Americans from their government.

“A real good politician, make us feel like we’re part of it. Right now, it feels like we’re not part of it,” he said. “…  I don’t activate, I’m not a protester, but it really does suck.”

David Landolfi attended the D.C. march dressed in his U.S. Marine fatigues bearing his name. The retired veteran of 26 years deployed with the 2nd Marine Division to Vietnam at the end of the war, and later to Lebanon.

“I wanted all the other people here to know that I was in the military, and the military do support a lot of things that I’m supporting today,” said Landolfi, 72, of Annapolis, Maryland.

“Most military men and women are not in support of war. And that was a promise that (Trump) made, that we wouldn’t be in any more wars. And, well, that’s not happening,” he said.

 

The White House released a statement ahead of Saturday’s rally criticizing the event and the media. President Donald Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday.

“The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in the written statement to media Friday.

WASHINGTON — A host of celebrities outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday kicked off a weekend of protest against President Donald Trump’s expansion of executive power and his administration’s pressure on freedom of expression — from theater programming in the nation’s capital, to late-night television.

More than a dozen activist performers and creators rallied for Artists United for Our Freedoms, an event organized by the advocacy group Committee for the First Amendment. 

Anti-Vietnam War movement icons Jane Fonda and Joan Baez, actors Billy Porter and Sam Waterson, musicians Maggie Rogers, Crys Matthews and Kristy Lee, and authors Ann Patchett and Bess Kalb were among the lineup who delivered performances and speeches. 

The speakers focused on what they called Trump’s hostility to First Amendment principles, including his Federal Communications Commission pressuring stations to take late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show off the air. The speakers also said the administration pressured CBS to take Stephen Colbert’s show off the air as a condition for approving a merger related to Paramount, CBS’ parent company. 

Under Trump, the Defense Department also booted reporters it considered unfriendly out of the Pentagon’s media workspace. And the administration is fighting The Associated Press in court over  White House access after the news organization declined to use Trump’s preferred Gulf of America name for the Gulf of Mexico. 

No Kings preview

The event came one day ahead of the third No Kings day, a nationwide protest movement that last drew millions of Americans to the streets in October to rally against a lengthy list of Trump’s actions since beginning his second term.

Fonda, one of the leading members of the Committee for the First Amendment, encouraged the crowd to attend Saturday’s demonstrations.

“Tomorrow we’re gonna see a great example of community building — the No Kings protests. Don’t just go, bring five people,” Fonda said.

The actor and activist revived the committee in late 2025 along with hundreds of artists. Her actor father, Henry Fonda, created the organization during the notorious “Red Scare” in the U.S. during the late 1940s and into 1950s. 

At the time, Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy led a campaign to smear actors, musicians and other public figures based on their political leanings, launching numerous false allegations of Communism.

At Thursday’s event, notable moments included Baez and Rogers performing Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and Porter delivering a dramatic reading of artist and athlete Paul Roberson’s 1956 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

“It’s time to break your silence and stand tall against authoritarianism that is taking a hold and consolidating very fast. We know that when fear strikes, silence spreads, and we cannot let that happen,” Fonda said.

“While the war in Iran is not a focus of the Committee for the First Amendment, I want to say that the First Amendment suffers greatly in times of war as the government works to crush internal dissent,” Fonda added, alluding to the war Trump launched in conjunction with Israel just over one month ago.

Kennedy Center cuts

The two-time Academy Award winner also called out to Kennedy Center employees in the crowd who learned Friday of layoffs. The Washington Post first reported the cultural center shedding employees ahead of its two-year closure for renovations.

The legendary performing arts center, now bearing the name of Trump on its facade, will close for renovations on July 4, the president announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, in February. 

Trump installed himself as chair of the Kennedy Center board shortly after taking office again in 2025.

Country musician and Alabama native Kristy Lee told the crowd she withdrew from performing at the Kennedy Center.

“I’m not gonna lie, I was looking forward to the opportunity. But playing at that center after what happened would cost me my integrity, and that’s worth more than any paycheck,” Lee said.

Media mergers

Several speakers decried the administration’s support for massive media mergers, including between Paramount Global and Skydance Media, owned by David Ellison, son of billionaire Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO and a major Republican Party donor who worked with Trump to gain a large stake in TikTok.

Paramount-Skydance is now on track to take over Warner Bros. Discovery, which currently owns CNN and HBO.

“The Trump regime has sought to quash dissent and demonize the vulnerable, to consolidate the media into the hands of friendly oligarchs. These moves are right out of the authoritarian playbook,” said Jessica Gonzalez, co-CEO of Free Press, a media watchdog advocacy group.

Logan Keith, a No Kings day organizer and national communications coordinator for the advocacy group 50501, told the crowd “We show up, we speak out, we refuse to be silent.”

“We will gather in the millions in cities, towns large and small. … We will declare in one unified voice ‘America has no kings.’”

In response to the rally, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said, “President Trump is in the process of making the Trump-Kennedy Center the finest performing arts facility in the world for all Americans to enjoy. No one cares what Jane Fonda has to say. Her awful acting has traumatized people enough.”

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Small businesses that paid President Donald Trump’s tariffs have been largely left to fend for themselves as they navigate the administration’s refund system.

In Washington, the lawmakers calling for small businesses to be first in line to receive their share of the $166 billion paid in tariffs say that, for the most part, their hands are tied.

“I’m fighting for that to happen, but most of it’s going to end up playing out in court, but it really matters to our small businesses in particular,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.

Baldwin said she met with the owners of a local textile company that laid off staff to afford tariffs on imported fabric — and now they wonder if they’ll get their money back.

In Wisconsin, importers paid $3.5 billion in tariffs from March to December 2025, according to the small business coalition We Pay The Tariffs. More than a dozen Wisconsin companies, including Milwaukee Tool and Kohl’s, have sued the Trump administration for tariff refunds.

U.S. Customs and Border Patrol is currently updating its duty payment processing system to issue refunds at scale. Officials must review more than 53 million entries filed by importers that include emergency tariff payments.

The development of the CBP system’s new functions to receive, process and refund these duties was mostly complete as of last week, according to court filings.

Once the process is set, it becomes a question of who has the resources and know-how to navigate CBP’s refund system. The Trump administration is requiring business owners to file their own claims.

CBP’s updated system will require importers to file a declaration detailing their payments of tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, according to an affidavit filed in trade court earlier this month.

“It’s incumbent on smaller importers to do what they need to do to get their money,” said Chris Duncan, a former CBP attorney who currently works as a tariffs and customs lawyer.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., the ranking member of the Small Business Committee, said that puts small businesses at a disadvantage.

“Small businesses do not have teams of legal and financial experts to submit their forms. Small businesses do not have the time to navigate this convoluted system,” Markey said in a call with business owners last week. “Small businesses need their refunds, and they need them now.”

Markey and 19 other Democratic senators sent a letter to CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott on Friday demanding the agency automatically refund IEEPA tariffs through its existing system rather than the updated one.

“There is no principled reason for the Trump administration to conduct the refund process this way,” reads the letter, reviewed by NOTUS. “CBP already has the payment records it needs to issue refunds.”

Markey — along with Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeanne Shaheen — also introduced a bill that would require CBP to issue full tariff refunds with interest and prioritize returning money to small businesses.

Without buy-in from Republicans, however, Democratic senators say it will be up to the local communities to pressure the federal government.

“What is going to be most helpful is to create enough pressure in communities, particularly small communities,” Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said.

Rep. Mark Pocan, a Democrat who represents the Madison area, expressed concern about the “dysfunction” that could arise from companies trying to navigate the intricacies of the CBP’s refund system and answer to consumers who shouldered price increases.

“Bottom line is, we never should have done illegal tariffs to begin with. Congress should have stood up, as Democrats had asked for, for our constitutional authority around tariffs, and now we’re going to wind up creating all kinds of dysfunction for businesses and individuals,” Pocan said.

Following the Supreme Court’s 6-3 ruling striking down his emergency tariffs in February, Trump said he would continue his tariff agenda using alternative legal authorities and imposed a 15% global tariff, which Congress must vote to extend later this year.

Trump allies in Congress say the president’s tariffs, which are unpopular among voters, are short-term pain for the long-term gain of balancing the U.S.’s trade relationships and attracting foreign investment.

Nevertheless, when asked if tariff refunds should be passed on to consumers, Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican who represents suburban and rural areas west of Milwaukee, expressed openness to the idea.

“If it’s something that they could actually draw, like a clear line or a bright line. You know, we had a lot of companies where the tariffs had a direct effect on aluminum out of Canada or textiles out of Vietnam, or — you know, it was all part of the manufacturing process,” Fitzgerald said.

“So I’m not sure how that would shake out either, if it was one element of a larger manufacturing versus, like, a straight retailer who was selling some type of consumer goods.”

This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.

Lawmakers are worried small businesses will get left behind in Trump’s tariff refund system 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: 5 minutes

A northeast Wisconsin anti-poverty nonprofit plans to close later this year amid serious financial challenges and the loss of a government contract.

For more than 50 years, Newcap has operated in 10 counties. It serves low-income residents and is funded primarily through state and federal grants.

The agency served more than 25,000 people in 2022. Its programs range from employment and job training to educational support, financial coaching, health and food assistance, housing services, home repair and case management, according to an annual report.

Housing advocates say Newcap’s closure could lead to northeast Wisconsin losing more than $2.7 million in federal funding and leave more than 100 households at risk of losing housing.

In a statement, Newcap interim Executive Director Deb Barlament said the organization has faced “significant financial challenges” in recent months and has implemented staffing reductions and other cost-saving measures in response.

“At this time, the organization anticipates closing its doors sometime this year,” Barlament stated. “A more specific timeline will be determined as we work through existing grant obligations and funder requirements.”

Barlament’s statement says the organization hopes to “responsibly wind down operations” and is “actively collaborating with other organizations and funders to help ensure that services continue to be available to the communities we serve.”

It comes after a 2025 financial audit by accounting firm Baker Tilly found the organization had a more than $2 million deficit in 2024. The audit raised “substantial doubt about the Organization’s ability to continue operating,” citing recurring deficits, negative cash flow and reduced liquidity.

The state is conducting “enhanced financial monitoring” of the nonprofit, which includes comprehensive financial and program reviews, as well as reviews of financial documentation.

In a statement, the Wisconsin Department of Administration said the state has been working with Newcap to address its use and repayment of Weatherization Assistance Program funds for the 2025-26 program year. The program provides home weatherization assistance to low-income individuals.

The audit shows that in 2024 Newcap spent about $5.1 million for weatherization programs.

“Approximately 28% and 26% of the Organization’s grants revenue and grants receivable, respectively, were generated by weatherization and emergency furnace programs funded by the Wisconsin Department of Administration,” the audit states.

On March 13, the DOA informed Newcap that it “could not in good faith” renew the nonprofit’s weatherization contract for the next program year “given the current financial situation at Newcap and outstanding funds the agency must repay,” according to the statement.

The statement does not specify why the agency needs to repay the funds, or the specific dollar amount of that repayment.

“Working with our federal partners to administer grant programs requires DOA to assess potential risks of grantees,” the statement read. “Though Newcap has recently taken steps to address overhead costs and operating cash flow, Newcap’s financial viability remains uncertain.”

The Department of Administration says it is working with Wiscap, a statewide network of anti-poverty nonprofits, and other agencies to ensure services continue to be provided in northeast Wisconsin.

Wiscap did not respond to requests for comment about what happens when a Community Action Program, or CAP, agency — like Newcap — closes.

Millions in funding at risk if federal contracts can’t be transferred

Carrie Poser is executive director of the Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care, a nonprofit that coordinates housing and supportive services for individuals and families experiencing homelessness across 69 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.

She said Newcap administers four U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grants, which provide support services to 134 households across its 10-county service area, with 84 of those in Brown County.

Poser said local service groups want to take over those federal housing grants. But she said HUD officials in Milwaukee and Washington, D.C., have told her they are not processing grant transfers.

That puts the 134 households currently using those programs at risk of losing their housing and becoming homeless, she said.

“We have humans that, for no fault of their own, look at returning to homelessness that we can prevent,” she said. “It’s not because we don’t have agencies. It’s not because we don’t have the ability to do the work.”

If those grants aren’t transferred, she said more than $2.7 million — including more than $1.6 million in federal funding to Brown County — could be permanently lost from the 10 counties Newcap serves.

“It will be harder for those communities to ever get new money in this way again,” Poser said. “It’s just harder to get a grant once you’ve lost one by HUD.”

She said Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care plans to move forward with filing paperwork with the federal government necessary to transfer the grants, but she isn’t sure if the effort will be successful.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development did not respond to questions about the potential loss of federal funding to northeast Wisconsin.

Laurie Styron is executive director of CharityWatch, a Chicago-based independent charity watchdog. She said Newcap serves a large geographic area, so its closure is likely to put more strain on other area nonprofits and agencies that provide similar services.

“Help that someone in need may have received from Newcap could become fragmented and require people who are already struggling to seek out services from different agencies, rather than just one,” she said. “The remaining providers in the area could see longer wait lists and reduced quality of care.”

Newcap is also closing three year-round homeless shelters, two in Green Bay and one in Shawano, by March 31, Barlament said via email.

Tara Prahl is chair of the Brown County Homeless and Housing Coalition and director of social services for the nonprofit Ecumenical Partnership for Housing. She said Newcap’s closure, including the loss of two homeless shelters in Green Bay, could have “a significant impact to our community,” especially if the government funding Newcap was receiving doesn’t remain in the area.

“All of our homeless service providers are at capacity,” she said. “This is only going to hit a little bit harder for those that are already feeling this.”

Prahl also said Newcap’s closure makes it more important for the Brown County community to take steps to address homelessness and its housing shortage.

In Shawano, Newcap provided one of only two homeless shelters in the community. Shawano Area Matthew 25, or Sam25, provided the other.

Kendra Brusewitz, executive director of Sam25, said her shelter is only open from mid-October to mid-May as an overnight emergency shelter. She also said Sam25 has often partnered with Newcap.

“They help service the homeless families in our community year-round, so if we were full we could connect with them and get (people) services over there, or vice versa,” Brusewitz said. “Not having that partnership is a concern.”

CEO placed on leave no longer employed by Newcap

Newcap’s announced closure also comes after the organization placed its former CEO Cheryl Detrick on administrative leave in February. 

A Newcap official confirmed via email that Detrick is no longer employed by the organization. Of the 15 CAP agencies in Wisconsin with executive salaries listed in tax filings, Detrick had the highest compensation at $239,641 in 2024.

Detrick was placed on leave amid reports from WLUK-TV alleging the organization misused taxpayer dollars.

Two Democratic Green Bay-area state lawmakers issued statements last month calling for an investigation into the organization’s use of taxpayer funds.

In Barlament’s statement, she said Newcap is aware of “questions regarding accountability for what has occurred” at the nonprofit. She said the organization is “committed to doing everything we can to address the situation and move forward responsibly.”

U.S. Reps. Tony Wied, R-De Pere, and Bryan Steil, R-Janesville, sent a letter on March 12 to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development calling for a federal investigation into Newcap.

“Money that should have gone towards helping Wisconsinites find safe and stable housing may have instead padded executive salaries and funded staff outings,” the federal lawmakers wrote. 

Poser said she’s contacted Wied and Steil’s offices for help getting HUD funding transferred from Newcap to different nonprofits but has not received a response. 

She said she’s reached out to the rest of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation for assistance in persuading HUD to allow for the transfers.

“We absolutely need a nonpartisan show of support around this issue,” she said. “Folks in need are in need regardless of what political party they belong to.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

Nonprofit closure could cost northeast Wisconsin $2.7M, put 134 households at risk 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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Changes from the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” are forcing states to expand work requirements for those who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. 

The law did not rewrite the core work requirements for SNAP, formerly known as food stamps. Instead, it changed who must meet them. In Wisconsin, the changes could put around 36,000 people at risk of losing their food assistance benefits. 

Policy consultant David Rubel said federal law allows a third option that could make assistance more accessible for those who are at risk of losing benefits.

Work requirements

The age range for adults required to meet work requirements will increase from 18-54 to 18-64. Parents of children age 14 and older will now also need to meet work requirements.

Federal law allows three primary ways for some adults without dependents to continue receiving FoodShare. 

The primary way is employment. People must work at least 20 hours a week or 80 hours a month to keep benefits. 

Another way is training or workforce programs. People can participate in state-approved job training programs for 20 hours a week and keep benefits. 

The third option, Rubel said, can require significantly fewer hours. 

Workfare allows people to work or volunteer in a state-approved program for a number of hours based on the value of that person’s SNAP benefits. 

According to federal law, the number of hours required is calculated by dividing a person’s monthly SNAP benefits by the state minimum wage. So, if someone in Wisconsin, where the minimum wage is $7.25, receives $180 in food stamps, they’d have to work or volunteer only about 25 hours monthly to continue receiving benefits. 

Rubel said SNAP recipients may not realize that option exists.

“If someone thinks they must volunteer 80 hours a month, they may assume they can’t comply,” he said. “But six hours a week is very different.”

Why you should know

While not directly promoted on the Wisconsin Department of Health Services website, Elizabeth Goodsitt, a DHS spokesperson, said workfare is available in Wisconsin under the FoodShare Employment and Training (FSET) program.

According to Goodsitt, once a FoodShare member chooses to participate in FSET, a case manager will discuss the situation and background to see if workfare is a good approach for that person. 

“Sites that accept FSET participants for workfare are set up by the FSET vendor and structured to offer members the chance to build their work experience, record and references,” she wrote in an email. “If a member does workfare, their case manager works with them to calculate the number of hours that will meet their work requirement, specifically, based on the amount of FoodShare they receive each month.” 

Wisconsin is one of four states, including Texas, Vermont and South Dakota, that signed a pledge committing to work opportunities for people at risk of losing SNAP benefits. 

Because enforcement has just resumed in many places, states are beginning to notify recipients through recertification letters. Recertification letters are routine notices SNAP participants receive every six months to confirm their eligibility.

But in many states, the public messaging around SNAP work requirements focuses primarily on the 80-hour employment threshold. 

“If people only hear about the 80 hours, they may assume they have no choice,” Rubel said. “People should have all the information so they can make an informed decision.”

SNAP work requirements have changed. Here is a look at options to keep benefits, including volunteering 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.

How do you think about the future when you have no clear path to citizenship in the country you call home? Hear from a young undocumented woman who has lived in the U.S. since she was a child.

The post Life without a clear path to citizenship: An undocumented student’s story appeared first on WPR.

Washington County is dropping a proposal that would have renamed a local highway in honor of the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The post Washington County drops plans for Charlie J. Kirk Way appeared first on WPR.

Is it illegal to wager on a Wisconsin election you also vote in? The chair of the state's elections commission says you bet it is.

The post ‘You cannot bet on an election in Wisconsin!’ warns WEC chair appeared first on WPR.

The kangaroo was in his outdoor enclosure Wednesday morning when he was spooked by an unfamiliar dog and escaped.

The post Search for missing kangaroo in central Wisconsin captures online attention appeared first on WPR.

The protests this weekend will be the third major action from the national “No Kings” protest movement against the Trump administration.

The post Around 100 ‘No Kings’ protests planned across Wisconsin Saturday  appeared first on WPR.

As state lawmakers across the U.S. engage in a kind of redistricting arms race, Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers says he wants a disarmament in his swing state.

The post As other states rush to gerrymander, Evers wants to ban it in Wisconsin appeared first on WPR.

With the third national group of No Kings rallies scheduled for Saturday to call out the policies of President Donald Trump, participants and organizers are hoping for a larger-than-ever response.

Organizers have crafted a succinct message for the event, found on virtually every announcement and flyer.

“NO KINGS is a nonviolent national day of action and mass mobilization in response to the increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption of the Trump administration,” the message states.

“President Trump is governing through fear, intimidation and hoarding power that isn’t his — the opposite of democracy,” it continues. “While families are crushed by the rising costs of groceries, housing and healthcare, the administration has supercharged funding for ICE to terrorize our communities.”

Organizers emphasize the goal of nonviolence for the day: “When communities stand together in nonviolent action, fear loses its power. History is clear: people-led movements, not force, is how we end repression.”

The first “No Kings” event took place June 14, 2025 — scheduled as counterprogramming to a military parade that Trump commandeered for his birthday. Organizers reported events in some 1,500 communities around the country.

The second, Oct. 18, 2025, drew millions across the country and tens of thousands throughout Wisconsin, dwarfing the June protests.

On Saturday cloudy skies and temperatures — mostly in the 40s and low 50s — that are cooler than those that prevailed over the October rally will greet participants. Weather Channel forecasts around the state don’t call for rain, however.

The mobilize.us website used by national coordinators lists 97 Wisconsin communities with events, including start times and details, ranging from Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay to Ladysmith, River Falls and Prairie du Chien.

Milwaukee alone has two — one at a West Side bandshell and the other on the city’s East Side — although that one is scheduled to last for just half an hour. Others are planned in four adjoining suburbs. 

In Madison marchers will gather at Brittingham Park at 12:30 and proceed to  the state Capitol, where Everett Mitchell — who is both a Dane County circuit court judge and a Baptist preacher — will deliver the keynote address. Several suburban groups are planning events of their own.

Elsewhere, local supporters are directing interested participants to nearby events. A network of political progressives in Oregon, 10 miles south of Madison, sent out advisories encouraging like-minded community members to join the Madison event.

Organizers are putting their own spin on things.

In Kenosha, the Hands Off Kenosha team has planned “a democracy procession honoring figures and movements that defended democracy” as well as  a sing-along and a theatrical performance. They’re also holding a food drive; organizers say that such mutual aid events are a central part of their agenda.

In Dodgeville, former police-chief-turned-Episcopal-priest David Couper will address a crowd after a march from the Iowa County courthouse to a green patch three blocks away. Participants will also hear from a teenage speaker.

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Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a handful of Republican education bills Friday including one that would have put limits on school districts’ ability to seek property tax increases at the ballot box by requiring that the districts submit financial documents on time before going to referendum. 

As Wisconsin school districts continue to rely on property tax increases sought through referendum to keep up with costs, Republican lawmakers have been seeking ways to put up roadblocks to those efforts.

AB 457 would have required the Department of Public Instruction to certify that schools are in compliance with requirements to submit financial information to DPI before they could seek a referendum. If a district is not in compliance, the school board would be prohibited from adopting a resolution to hold a referendum and any resolutions adopted or referendum passed without the certification would be void.

Republican lawmakers introduced the bill in reaction to the passage of Milwaukee Public Schools $252 million recurring operating referendum in April 2024 and the news that broke afterward, in May 2024, that the district was months late in submitting required financial reports. 

Evers said in his veto message that he objected to lawmakers encroaching on local decision-making and trying to limit referendum requests. He noted that Wisconsin has limits on the books already including restrictions on the dates and frequency with which districts can seek a referendum and blocking districts with a failed referendum from accessing increases to the per-pupil “revenue ceiling” provided by the state for three years.

In April, 74 referendum requests, which, combined, come to more than $1 billion for operational costs, will be on ballots across the state. The requests come as Wisconsinites have become increasingly concerned about rising property taxes with the most recent Marquette Law School poll finding that 58% of Wisconsinites say they are more concerned about property taxes, while 41% are more concerned about funding for K-12 public schools.

Evers noted in his message that he has sought billions in state funding to help with general school aid, special education, mental health supports and other education issues with lawmakers often rejecting his proposals. Evers and lawmakers have also been discussing providing additional funding to schools as well as property tax relief, though they have not yet come to an agreement.

“Funding our schools is a responsibility that the state and local partners share; local property taxes go up when the state fails to do its part to meet its obligation. If the Legislature is purportedly concerned about the rate at which communities across our state are going to referendum and families are being forced to raise their own property taxes to keep their school doors open, it should start by approving the investments in our schools that our kids need and deserve.” 

Disruptive students

Funding also came up in Evers’ veto of AB 614, which would have created expanded definitions in statute for the types of behavior that would have allowed for the removal of students from class due to disruption or violence. The bill would have also required that all parents in a classroom be notified if a student was removed and that the situation that cut into classroom time be described to them. 

GOP lawmakers said the bill would have helped teachers by giving them clarity on what they could do when there are serious disruptions happening in the classroom, though Democratic lawmakers and disability rights advocates criticized the bill, saying the definitions in the bill were too broad and the provisions included could stigmatize and ostracize students.

Evers said lawmakers should have invested additional resources in behavioral and mental health supports to ensure that students and teachers have the help they need in school. 

“Our kids are struggling perhaps now more than ever — the solution is not to micromanage schools with unfunded mandates from Madison, it is to invest in ensuring schools across our state have the resources they need to support our kids,” he said in his veto statement. 

Evers also vetoed AB 518, which would have created a carve-out for private choice schools to allow them to hire someone with a short-term substitute teaching permit issued by the Department of Public Instruction even if the employees do not hold at least a bachelor’s degree. Employees at private choice schools do not need a DPI license, but they are required to have at least a bachelor’s degree.

Evers said he was vetoing the bill because he objects to “further lowering educator credential requirements, especially in private choice schools, where professional requirements for the individuals charged with educating our kids are already much lower than their public school district counterparts.” 

Authors of the legislation had said the bill would help with hiring challenges that the schools face.

“Our state’s challenges recruiting, training and retaining talented educators cannot be solved by lowering state standards for the individuals entrusted with educating, empowering and inspiring our kids,” Evers said.

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Gov. Tony Evers signed legislation Friday defining antisemitism under Wisconsin law, a bill that was endorsed by Republicans, opposed by a number of Democratic-aligned organizations and divided Democratic lawmakers as well as Jewish advocates in Wisconsin.

A supporter of the measure expressed confidence a week ago that the bill would be signed following negotiations with lawmakers during its movement through the Legislature.

Opponents argued that the legislation could lead to the punishment of speech critical of Israel that is not antisemitic — a claim that advocates rejected.

The bill, AB 446, now 2025 Act 143, codifies in Wisconsin law a definition of antisemitism that was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016.

The definition is to be applied when agencies investigate allegations of discrimination. It also would be applied in assessing enhanced criminal penalties for people accused of targeting victims due to their perceived race, religion, color or national origin.

The definition states: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The Milwaukee Jewish Federation, which helped organize advocates for the bill, praised Evers for signing it. There are 37 other states and the District of Columbia that have adopted the definition in their laws, the federation said in a statement.

“By signing this legislation, Governor Evers has ensured Wisconsin has a clear, non-binding state definition of antisemitism to serve as a critical tool for fighting Jew hatred. With antisemitism at historic levels, we needed a historic effort to try to combat it,” the federation statement said.

Opponents of the measure argued that some of the examples used by the IHRA in support of the definition conflated political criticism of Israeli government actions with antisemitism — exposing people to being accused of antisemitism, or possibly facing criminal penalties, for criticizing Israel’s response to the Palestinian population or advocating on their behalf.

Supporters of the legislation have described it as a necessary response to an upsurge in antisemitic attacks on Jews in the U.S. and elsewhere, and argued that language in the bill specifying that the bill must not be construed to infringe on constitutional rights under the First Amendment protects free speech.

On the day the bill passed the Assembly, its author, Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) successfully amended it to include an additional disclaimer — that the legislation could not be construed “to create any additional civil or criminal penalty” on activities, including those protected by the First Amendment at “any public school in this state or at any University of Wisconsin System institution or technical college.”

Critics of the bill have argued that neither disclaimer would be enough to prevent the new law from being used to target a person for speech that wasn’t antisemitic.

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The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed in court Thursday that it is sharing sensitive voter data with the Department of Homeland Security in a search for noncitizen voters. But a DOJ lawyer denied the department is building a national voter database.

The Justice Department has demanded states provide full copies of their voter lists, including sensitive personal information, such as driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. It has sued 29 states and the District of Columbia for refusing to turn over the data. At least a dozen other states have provided their lists.

During a hearing in the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking Rhode Island’s voter data, DOJ attorney Eric Neff said the information would be shared with Homeland Security. U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy had asked whether the Justice Department could send the list to Homeland Security with instructions to search for noncitizens.

“Yes, and we intend to do so,” Neff said.

He added that the Justice Department and Homeland Security already have a “use agreement” in place for such sharing.

Three federal judges have so far rejected the Justice Department’s demands for state voter data, and no judge has sided with the department. DOJ has appealed those decisions and oral arguments are scheduled for later this spring after the Trump administration pushed for quick decisions ahead of the midterm elections.

The Justice Department has said it needs the voter data to determine whether states are complying with federal voting rights laws that require states to regularly update and clean their lists. The department has voiced particular determination to root out non-citizen voting, which is extremely rare.

In September, Homeland Security told Stateline in an unsigned statement that the Justice Department was sharing voter data with the agency in a collaborative effort.

But Neff’s courtroom statement on Thursday appeared to mark the first on-record acknowledgment of the data sharing. CBS News also reported on Thursday that the two agencies were nearing a final agreement on sharing voter data for immigration and criminal investigations.

The Justice Department and Homeland Security didn’t respond to requests for comment from Stateline.

In recent weeks, a Justice Department lawyer sidestepped a question about whether voter data would be used for immigration purposes. On March 3 during a hearing in a lawsuit over Minnesota’s voter roll, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Menendez asked DOJ lawyer James Tucker whether there was intention to use the data for immigration enforcement.

“Not to my knowledge, no, your honor, not with the data we are getting,” Tucker said, according to a transcript. But he added that some federal prosecutors were working with Homeland Security.

During a federal court hearing in Maine on Thursday, Tucker said the Justice Department was not creating a national voter database. At the same time, he didn’t rule out voter data being checked against federal databases.

“Again, that’s something that’s been routine the United States has done in the past,” Tucker said.

Since President Donald Trump took office last year, Homeland Security has refashioned an online program previously used to verify whether immigrants qualified for government benefits into a tool that can verify U.S. citizenship. Called SAVE, the program is capable of checking millions of voters against federal databases for citizenship information.

DHS has encouraged states to run their voter lists through the program. Some Democratic state election officials have expressed concerns about the program and point to instances where SAVE has wrongly flagged a voter as a potential noncitizen.

“They are initiating litigation in states all around the country, seeking the same information in sort of this cookie-cutter way,” Jonathan Bolton, an attorney in the Maine Attorney General’s Office, said during Thursday’s federal court hearing in Maine.

“Which suggests that the purpose is not to investigate specific concerns about specific states, but it is to compile this sort of national voter registration database,” Bolton said.

Bolton was representing Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows in the Justice Department’s lawsuit for Maine’s voter roll.

Rhode Island Current reporter Alexander Castro contributed reporting. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

New U.S. Environmental Protection Agency goals call for an all-time high volume of biofuels to be blended into gasoline and diesel, the agency said in a Friday news release following President Donald Trump’s announcement at the White House.

The EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard for 2026 and 2027 will set the volume of biofuels at the highest level in the program’s 20 years, the agency said in a statement released shortly after Trump touted the move in a speech to farmers gathered at the White House South Lawn.

The president framed the new standards as a move away from regulations based on radical environmentalism.

“What they’ve done to you — and the country, what they’ve done to the country — is just incredible,” he told the farmers. “The environmentalists, I mean, they are terrorists. They were terrorists.”

Trump added that the standards will generate over $10 billion of rural economic benefit in rural areas and create an estimated 100,000 jobs. Biofuels are primarily produced from corn and soybean crops, with corn-derived ethanol by far the most common biofuel in the country.

Trump and top administration officials said the new standards would help provide more domestic energy sources. The standards would reduce the demand for foreign oil by approximately 300,000 barrels per day, the EPA release said.

“For 20 years, this program has diversified our nation’s energy supply and advanced American energy independence,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in the release. “EPA is proud to deliver on this mission and to do so at historic levels.”

The standards will require a roughly 60% increase in biofuel and renewable diesel production over 2025 levels, the EPA estimated. That production would translate directly to a major economic boost for farmers, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.

“With President Trump and Administrator Zeldin’s leadership, these historically high volumes are expected to create a $3 to $4 billion dollar increase in net farm income,” she said in the EPA release. 

While biofuels groups commended the new standards, the Fueling American Jobs Coalition, an advocacy group that represents independent oil refiners, said the goals were “too aggressive” and did not reflect what could realistically be blended into transportation fuels.

“Unfortunately, with today’s announcement, it’s clear that our efforts to advocate for achievable volumes were ignored, and this will now likely result in even higher prices at the pump for consumers,” the group said.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education is moving out of its Lyndon B. Johnson headquarters building, the department announced Thursday, in another step toward dismantling the agency. 

The Education Department said its “chronically underutilized” building is roughly 70% vacant and estimated the relocation — slated for August — would save taxpayers approximately $4.8 million a year in operating costs. 

The move marks the latest action from President Donald Trump’s administration to do away with the 46-year-old department as part of the president’s quest to send education “back to the states.” Much of the oversight and funding of schools already occurs at the state and local levels. 

The Education Department will move roughly one block away to a building the U.S. Agency for International Development previously occupied.

The Department of Energy will move out of its James V. Forrestal building nearby and take over Education’s headquarters building. 

“Thanks to the hard work of so many, we have made unprecedented progress in reducing the federal education footprint, and now we are pleased to give this building to an agency that will benefit far more from its space than the Department of Education,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. 

‘Next on the chopping block’

Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, rebuked the relocation efforts as “one of the most overt actions by Secretary McMahon to dismantle the Department of Education (ED) and disregard the law, federal courts, and Congress.”

“Leaving the Lyndon B. Johnson headquarters building does not cut bureaucracy — it rearranges it,” the Virginia Democrat added. “This decision to close the Department’s physical building is not just a symbolic move — it reflects a broader effort to reduce the federal government’s role in ensuring people have equal access to a quality education.”

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, blasted the announcement in a Thursday statement. 

“The message the Secretary’s announcement sends to our staff and the American public is clear — education is next on the chopping block,” Gittleman said. 

“But after more than a year of fighting back against this unlawful and unprecedented gutting of a Congressionally created agency, we know that the will of the people, congressional intent, and the law is on our side,” she added. 

Interagency agreements 

The announcement came just days after the administration said the Treasury Department would take over Education’s responsibility for collecting on defaulted federal student loan debt — the first step in a multiphase process toward Treasury taking on Education’s entire, roughly $1.7 trillion federal student loan portfolio.

Prior to the agreement with Treasury, Education had announced nine other interagency agreements with the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Interior and State that transfer several of its responsibilities to those agencies. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court in July 2025 temporarily greenlit mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department ordered earlier that year. 

That plan was outlined in a March 2025 executive order, where Trump called on McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of her own department.

WASHINGTON — The two chambers of Congress, both controlled by Republicans, were at odds Friday over how to fund the Department of Homeland Security, prolonging the shutdown that began in mid-February. 

The Senate voted before dawn to approve a funding bill that would have reopened every agency within the department impacted by the funding lapse. But that legislation didn’t include additional money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol.

House GOP leaders, infuriated by their colleagues’ decision to leave out that money, didn’t put it on the floor for a vote. They chose instead to take up an eight-week stopgap spending bill for the department, which has little chance of moving through the Senate.

The House bill passed on a 213-203 mostly party-line vote. Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, North Carolina Rep. Donald Davis and Washington Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, all Democrats, voted with all Republicans present. The Senate bill passed by voice vote, with Democratic support. Both chambers are now out of session for a two-week spring break. 

The development reduces hope for the tens of thousands of federal workers within DHS who have gone without a full paycheck since the stalemate began when Senate Democrats demanded new constraints on immigration enforcement after federal officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection have been largely exempt from the impacts of a shutdown since Republicans approved tens of billions for their operations in their “big, beautiful” law. But federal workers throughout other DHS agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration, haven’t been in the same situation. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced in the afternoon the House would not even consider the Senate-passed funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, and would instead vote on a temporary measure that would run through May 22.

“We’re going to send that over to the Senate and we hope that they’ll accept that,” Johnson said.

President Donald Trump hasn’t weighed in publicly on whether he would sign either of the bills, if they ever reach his desk, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment. But Johnson said Trump backs House Republicans over the Senate. 

“I spoke to the president a few moments ago,” he said. “He understands exactly what we’re doing and why, and he supports it.”

Trump signed an order Friday that would provide pay for TSA workers, which a senior administration official said would come from Republicans’ signature tax and spending bill. A DHS spokesperson, in an email, said that TSA workers should see paychecks as early as Monday.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a social media post that any stopgap bill to fund DHS “that locks in the status quo is dead on arrival in the Senate, and Republicans know it.”

“We’ve been clear from day one: Democrats will fund critical Homeland Security functions—but we will not give a blank check to Trump’s lawless and deadly immigration militia without reforms,” Schumer wrote. 

Overnight Senate vote

The Senate approved a modified DHS spending bill by voice vote around 2:30 a.m. Eastern after a week of mounting pressure on lawmakers to end the stalemate that has led to hourslong wait times in airport security lines.

The Senate-passed DHS bill didn’t include funding for ICE or Border Patrol. GOP lawmakers signaled ahead of the vote they’ll try to pass another boost in funding for immigration enforcement and deportation in a second party-line package later this year.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during brief floor debate that funding DHS through a “piecemeal” approach wouldn’t have happened if Democrats handled negotiations differently.  

“They wanted reforms to Immigration and Custom Enforcement, and Republicans offered to give that to them,” he said. “The White House made offer after offer putting forward a robust list of additional reforms. And Democrats just kept moving the goal posts, and today they just walked away.”

Democrats, he said, “might think twice before” before they tried to use this as a campaign issue during November’s midterm elections, when voters throughout the country will decide whether Republicans keep both chambers of Congress.

“We could be standing here right now passing a funding bill with a list of reforms, if Democrats had made the smallest effort to actually reach an agreement, but they didn’t, because it’s now clear to everyone, Democrats didn’t actually want a solution,” he said. “They wanted an issue, politics over policy, self-interest over reform, pandering to their base over actually solving a problem.” 

Schumer said the bill to fund most of DHS “could have been accomplished weeks ago if Republicans hadn’t stood in the way.” 

“Democrats held firm in our opposition that Donald Trump’s rogue and deadly militia should not get more funding without serious reforms, and we will continue to fight for those reforms,” he said. 

More money for immigration deportations pledged

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt said he and other Republican lawmakers would seek to bolster funding for immigration and deportations through budget reconciliation, the complex process the party used last year to approve its “big, beautiful” law.

That, he said, would allow Republicans to move funding through the Senate with just a simple majority vote, skipping the procedural steps that would otherwise require 60 senators to end debate on a bill. 

“To my Democrat colleagues, this bill is the moderate option. What’s coming next is going to supercharge deportations,” he said. “To my Republican colleagues, let this be a rallying cry every time the Democrats obstruct the safety of American families, the wall gets 10 feet higher and ICE gets another $100 billion.”

New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim said Democrats have been clear for months they would “not support providing more funding for ICE without also including common sense reforms to rein in the abuses we have seen in Minnesota and elsewhere, particularly after two Americans were shot and killed.” 

“All we’ve been demanding here is what the American people are demanding — body-worn cameras; no masks; keeping ICE agents out of our hospitals, schools and churches; and ensuring ICE follows the same practices and procedures as local law enforcement,” he added. 

‘Republicans have relented’

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, wrote in a statement that earlier negotiations included “proposals to expand the use of body-worn cameras; limit civil immigration enforcement in sensitive areas such as schools and hospitals; increase oversight of detention facilities; and implement visible officer identification.”

“While Republicans worked in good faith to try to reach agreement, Democrats remained intransigent and unreasonable with their list of demands,” she wrote. 

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement that since “Republicans have relented” lawmakers were “on track to fund the areas we agree on and get TSA agents paid, get our airports moving again, and fund important disaster relief and cybersecurity work.”

“But it is a shame that instead of working with Democrats to land the plane on several common-sense reforms to ICE and Border Patrol that the White House had already agreed to, Republicans walked away from constructive conversations and ultimately rejected some basic steps to reform these agencies,” she wrote. “I will keep fighting to secure real, meaningful steps to help rein in these rogue agencies—we just need Republicans to join us.”

On this Sunday, March 29 — Palm Sunday on the Christian calendar — the Rev. Rachel Kirk will be among a procession of Christians gathering at the state Capitol building in Madison to assert their spiritual resistance to the actions of the administration of President Donald Trump.

Kirk, associate pastor for Community and Faith Formation at Middleton Community United Church of Christ, is one of the organizers for the Palm Sunday Path in Madison, an initiative promoted by the Wisconsin Council of Churches that will have variations across the state. 

It will take place the day after Saturday’s No Kings rallies across the country protesting Trump, and Kirk says the two events share similar objectives: “to challenge unjust power structures and the deterioration of democracy.” But she expects the Palm Sunday Path to offer a different experience — “a celebratory, but also a serious thing, more prayer than protest,” she says.

“The story of Palm Sunday is of Jesus processing into Jerusalem in what would become the final week of his life, and it’s a story told in all four of our gospels,” says Kirk. Some religious scholars have suggested that the Palm Sunday procession in the Bible purposefully echoed another parade: a triumphal march through the city by the Roman leaders whose army occupied the land of Israel.

In that light, for Christians such as Kirk, Jesus’ ride on a donkey has a pointed, anti-imperial meaning.

“Palm Sunday is his journey into that center of power to assert a different kind of power — one that doesn’t dominate and doesn’t exclude,” Kirk says. “We are trying to echo that original message of Palm Sunday — that it is Jesus’ legacy of confronting power that oppresses and excludes and is violent, and we’re trying to assert what we believe is the message of Christ, which is love and inclusion and belonging and peace.”

‘I cannot turn aside…’

The first year of Trump’s second administration has generated  recurring protests of increasing size, channeling public opposition to the administration’s sweeping attacks on immigrants, the reversal of policies that promote diversity and inclusion, the promotion of discrimination against LGBTQ and transgender people and cuts to health care and social supports for poor people. 

Among those resisting the Trump administration’s policies, faith groups and faith leaders have taken an increasingly high profile — across the country and in Wisconsin.

“My baptismal promises include following the works and words of Jesus and to resist evil. The ordination promises by which I became a minister echo that,” says the Rev. Kerri Parker, executive director of the Wisconsin Council of Churches, an ecumenical organization representing churches from more than 20 distinct Christian traditions.

“It means I cannot turn aside when I see evil being perpetrated, when I see vulnerable people being actively victimized by power, by what I would at this point call Capital E Empire,” adds Parker. “I have a duty to engage the tools of my faith, what platform I have, the skills I have been given, to say this is not right.”

At the height of the occupation in Minneapolis this winter by federal immigration agents, hundreds of faith leaders gathered in the city  to join the community’s resistance to the federal incursion. Among them was the Rev. Zayna Thomley, the lead pastor at the Middleton Community UCC church.

She attended a mass gathering of clergy in a large Minneapolis church and joined a protest in the lobby of the Target corporate headquarters the next day criticizing the store chain’s cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. 

“It felt really powerful to know that everybody who was in the room and who was on the street had the understanding to be a part of a bigger vision of what it means to be part of community, what it means to be held by God and what it means to show up for justice,” she says. “It was a deeply holy experience.

Religion and social justice

Religious groups have long taken part in social justice movements. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister who invoked his faith in his commitment to nonviolence as essential to the struggle for civil rights for Black Americans.

In Milwaukee, the interfaith organization MICAH — Milwaukee Inner-city Congregations Allied for Hope — has operated for nearly four decades, working to address the issues of justice in “a city afflicted with radicalized and concentrated poverty,” in the words of the organization’s website.

MICAH’s president, Rev. Richard Shaw, says he has seen more faith leaders and organizations getting involved in pushing back on federal policies in the current administration, as they are “looking at the families being broken up, looking at innocent people being arrested and put in detention without due process.”

He welcomes newcomers to the work. “I do believe that there’s power in numbers,” says Shaw, pastor of St. Matthew C.M.E. Church in Milwaukee. “If we truly follow the Jesus of scripture, to not get involved is to deny the earthly ministry of Christ.”

Christian groups are part of a broader coalition of faith groups standing up to the Trump administration. In January the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee, which represents 22 faith organizations — Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu and more — issued a statement in defense of immigrants and of peaceful protest after the fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis by a federal agent. 

“We consider the exploitation of human beings, the separation of families, and the use of violence and intimidation, to offend the human dignity not only of the oppressed but the oppressor,” the Interfaith Conference statement declared. “The rights of all people, including neighbors, immigrants and asylum-seekers, to humanitarian treatment is explicit in our national foundation, and our international treaty obligations.”

“There is a deep respect for human dignity in all of our religious traditions, and what has been happening on our streets is something that is observable to all people of faith who care about human rights and respect dignity,” says Ahmed J. Quereshi, the Interfaith Conference executive director.

At a vigil in Minneapolis for Renee Good after she was killed, Imam Mowlid Ali told Good’s neighbors, “Today is the day that we send a message to everyone in this nation. That we are united. We reject any dehumanization of any person in this city, in this state, or anywhere in our nation.”

“We Jews know from history what happens when people are kidnapped, deported, detained, and given no human dignity or rights,” Rabbi Sharon Kleinbaum said at a flash mob protest at a Minneapolis Target store. “We know what God demands of us. God demands that we be with the worker, with the vulnerable, with the immigrant … We are all created in God’s image, without exception.”

The morning after inauguration

Religious individuals, groups and leaders were among those who stood up to the policies and practices of the first Trump administration. Their role in response to Trump’s second term has been even more prominent.

“It arguably began the first day of Trump’s second term,” said Jack Jenkins, a Washington, D.C.-based reporter for Religion News Service, during an online round table discussion RNS conducted March 24.

At a prayer service the morning after Trump was inaugurated, Bishop Mariann Budde spoke directly to the president from the pulpit, urging him to “have mercy” on frightened gay, lesbian and transgender children as well as on “the vast majority” of immigrants, regardless of documentation, who are not criminals.

“That sermon that was given to him at the Washington National Cathedral by Bishop Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, made clear very quickly that there was going to be religious pushback to several parts of his agenda,” Jenkins said.

Trump was elected in 2024 with the support of more than 80% of white evangelical Protestant Christians, 60% of white Catholics and 57% of white non-evangelical Protestants, according to data compiled by the Public Religion Research Institute. And Trump has garnered favor among Christian groups that oppose abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.

But Christians cover a much broader spectrum of ideologies and perspectives on social issues.

“The loudest voice of Christianity in the United States is what we’re starting to really understand as white Christian nationalism,” says the Rev. Julie Burkey, senior pastor at Orchard Ridge United Church of Christ on the west side of Madison.

Burkey sees a religious revival emerging among Christian traditions that emphasize “the beloved community that we’re working towards, which includes all people,” regardless of gender, sexual orientation or other dividing categories.

When the immigrant advocacy group Voces de la Frontera and U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) decided to hold a news conference in late January to announce their intentions for a peaceful but firm resistance to a possible federal immigration enforcement surge in Wisconsin, they chose the Orchard Ridge church for the event.

Burkey says engagement with social justice has been a core part of her ministry and faith since her seminary years in New York City.

“So it doesn’t feel new to me necessarily,” Burkey says — but, she adds, people may be noticing it more now.

“I just think it’s so important that we’re speaking up for human dignity and for just very basic things that are tenets of our religious faith, like loving one another,” Burkey says. “That golden rule of treating each other like we would like to be treated is a very deeply agreed upon value in the world and all faith traditions, and it’s being violated right now.”

Protests, lawsuits, immigrant support, nonviolence training

The faith-based resistance to the Trump administration has taken many forms.

During the Minneapolis gathering, nearly 100 faith leaders were arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport on Jan. 23 after going there to protest the ICE detention of workers and commuters as well as the involvement of airlines in transporting people taken into ICE custody.

After Trump reversed a 30-year policy that put schools and houses of worship largely off-limits for immigration raids, the Greater Milwaukee Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America joined the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and other church groups in a lawsuit to block the change.

A federal court ruling in February that granted the groups a preliminary injunction against the administration’s change is currently under appeal.

The Milwaukee synod joined the suit because church officials could see the impact of the administration’s aggressive stance towards immigrants on their congregations, says Bishop Paul Erickson.

“People were not coming to church because they’re afraid of ICE. People were not going to the food pantry at the church because they’re afraid of ICE,” Erickson says. “We felt a strong belief that the behavior of our federal government was interfering with the free expression of religion.”

At Christ Presbyterian Church in Madison, church members were among people in the community who years ago identified the need for an immigration legal aid service and helped raise the funds for it to operate, says the Rev. Will Massey, an associate pastor at the church. The church went on to host the service, the Community Immigration Law Center.

That relationship has gone back more than a decade. In the last year, however,  CILC has been ramping up its operations significantly in response to the Trump administration’s policies to remove immigrants. 

“Right now one of the church’s highest priorities is providing for the work of the law center — making sure that we are acting and we are managing our building in ways that allow their work to continue,” Massey says.

The Rev. Jennifer Nordstrom, senior minister at the First Unitarian Society in Milwaukee, helped lead a training in non-violent civil resistance for faith leaders in January.

“We have a long tradition as people of faith of being the moral voice in society against unjust laws and being willing to take a moral stand, a non-violent moral stand, against injustice in the world — even when it’s our government promoting that injustice, which is what we’re seeing today,” Nordstrom says.

“I see faith leaders who have always been siding with love, faith leaders who have always understood God and the Holy as a loving God that believes that all human beings are made in the image of God,” Nordstrom observes. “And in this moment, because the assault on human dignity is so pointed and aggressive, those folks are bringing that Imago Dei — the image of God, the holiness and sacredness of every human being — theology out into the community and even out into the streets.”

‘Loving our neighbor’

Other forms of support are less visible, but participants say, no less important. Some of it grows out of a longer history of assistance to refugees and immigrants in less fraught times.

“There’s been work that has happened quietly in an everyday manner that people have been proud of and comfortable participating in,” says Parker of the Wisconsin Council of Churches. “The everyday work of resettling refugees, feeding hungry people, helping folks learn the language of the place where they’re living now.”

In the current political climate, “folks who have been doing this quietly are being more direct and public about the need,” Parker adds. “And folks who may not have been engaged in it before are diving in.”

Much of that work now has also become much more discreet, to protect families and individuals who those involved fear could be targeted indiscriminately  by immigration authorities.

“I see so much organizing happening locally,” says the Rev. Kendra Grams, a Presbyterian pastor in Hudson. “It just doesn’t get as much visibility for various reasons. But it is happening and from my perspective that’s been wonderful to see.”

Erickson says friends, colleagues and family members in the Twin Cities, where he previously lived and worked for 13 years, have told him that protests and other public actions are only a fraction of the work people are undertaking to help the most vulnerable people in the community. 

“It’s the networking of providing mutual aid and food and money and support,” Erickson says. “Helping people get rides to the doctor’s office because they’re afraid to go out by themselves, and showing up in restaurants and committing to eat in the same restaurant every day and spend two hours there just in case ICE shows up in an immigrant-owned restaurant or a restaurant that employs significant numbers of migrants.”

Those are not “a centralized, coordinated, highly orchestrated effort,” Erickson says. “It’s simply baked into the fabric of how do I love my neighbor?”

That underlying tenet is found in “any religion that I’m aware of, whether it be Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish,” he says.  “And so I think that’s really what we’re trying to lean into and recognize, that the actions of the federal government are getting in the way of us loving our neighbor. And we’re not going to sit back quietly and let that continue.”

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(The Center Square) - The Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association will not be subject to open meetings and public records requirements after Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a bill that would have added that requirement.