Normal view

There are new articles available, click to refresh the page.
Today — 13 October 2025Regional

A portal into underwater, prehistoric Wisconsin found in the heart of Waukesha County

13 October 2025 at 10:00

In 1984, paleontologists found and saved a portal to prehistoric Wisconsin right in Waukesha County. Scientists are still discovering new fossils from it — most recently a leech that has pushed back the origins of the species by millions of years.

The post A portal into underwater, prehistoric Wisconsin found in the heart of Waukesha County appeared first on WPR.

Farmers caught in Trump’s trade war wait for bailout. But many call it a temporary fix.

13 October 2025 at 10:00

This harvest season, the trade war with China has added to the farm economy’s woes, as producers deal with lower crop prices and high costs.

The post Farmers caught in Trump’s trade war wait for bailout. But many call it a temporary fix. appeared first on WPR.

Milwaukee Brewers knock out Cubs, earn NLCS matchup against LA Dodgers

12 October 2025 at 11:45

The Brewers earned their first postseason series win since 2018, advancing to face the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers in the best-of-seven National League Championship Series.

The post Milwaukee Brewers knock out Cubs, earn NLCS matchup against LA Dodgers appeared first on WPR.

Yesterday — 12 October 2025Regional

Social Development Commission buildings in Milwaukee face foreclosure

A brick building with a sign reading "sdc Social Development Commission" above the entrance and a poster in a window
Reading Time: 3 minutes

A Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge has ruled that the Social Development Commission’s property corporation defaulted on mortgage payments for its North Avenue buildings and faces foreclosure in the coming months.

This judgment, which was issued Monday, Oct. 6, is the latest development for the Social Development Commission as the anti-poverty agency attempts to reconcile its budget and secure funding amid lawsuits, board tensions and government reviews.  

The properties will now enter a redemption period for three months before the court can take further action, including selling the properties at auction. 

“I can tell you that (SDC) is working tirelessly to be able to secure and redeem the properties,” said Evan P. Schmit, an attorney with Kerkman & Dunn representing SDC and SD Properties. 

Millions owed

Forward Community Investments, a community development financial institution, filed a foreclosure lawsuit in March against SD Properties Inc., the tax-exempt corporation that owns SDC’s buildings. The lawsuit claimed SD Properties defaulted on mortgage payments in 2024 and lists SDC as a guarantor.

On Monday, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge J.D. Watts granted a summary judgment for Forward Community Investments, which included a judgment of foreclosure against SD Properties and SDC and declared that Forward Community Investments is entitled to a money judgment. 

This judgment allows the foreclosure process to advance, according to Ryan Zerwer, the president and CEO of Forward Community Investments.

The total judgment amount owed by SD Properties was just over $3.1 million, as of June 16, according to court records

The lender’s complaint outlines that this includes $2.42 million in principal, interest and other costs for a construction mortgage SD Properties entered into in 2020 and $687,000 for an additional mortgage started in 2023. 

Additional accrued interest and other costs may be added to the tally before the properties are redeemed or sold. 

SDC moves out

A tan brick building with a flat roof next to an empty parking lot and sidewalk under a cloudy sky
The warehouse located at 1810 W. North Ave. is one of the Social Development Commission’s buildings facing a judgment of foreclosure. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)

SDC voluntarily vacated the 1730 W. North Ave. office and removed personal property, said Laura Callan, an attorney with Stafford Rosenbaum LLP, which is representing Forward Community Investments. William Sulton, SDC’s attorney, confirmed the agency moved out of both the office and the warehouse building at 1810 W. North Ave. 

SD Properties still owns a property on Teutonia Avenue that is not included in the lawsuit. 

Watts said that both parties have been cooperative. 

“This is, of course, a major event in the community, so I’m aware of the importance of this case,” Watts said.  

What’s next?

Wisconsin foreclosure laws require a redemption period, which will be for three months in this case. 

During this period, SD Properties has the chance to redeem the mortgaged premises by paying the total amount of the judgment and other attorney fees, costs and interest

“The board is gonna have to decide whether they want to try and redeem the building or not,” Sulton said.  

SDC is awaiting responses from the federal government on its status as a community action agency and Wisconsin departments on their audits. This is preventing the board from making decisions on the agency’s future direction and services, Sulton said. 

If the properties are not redeemed after three months, the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office will arrange a public auction or sale.

Schmit said a hearing to confirm the sale will be held after the redemption period, which would be the final opportunity for SD Properties to maintain the buildings.

“We will wait for the procedure for the confirmation of the sheriff’s sale, just to be clear,” Watts said.


Meredith Melland is the neighborhoods reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.


Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

Social Development Commission buildings in Milwaukee face foreclosure 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.

Shutdown forces Medicare patients off popular telehealth and hospital-at-home programs

11 October 2025 at 15:00
Robert Thornton received personalized hospital care for COVID-19 and pneumonia in his Belvidere, Ill., home in 2024 as part of a Medicare in-home care program that expired October 1. (Photo courtesy of OSF Healthcare)

Robert Thornton received personalized hospital care for COVID-19 and pneumonia in his Belvidere, Ill., home in 2024 as part of a Medicare in-home care program that expired October 1. (Photo courtesy of OSF Healthcare)

The federal government shutdown is forcing a reckoning for two remote health care programs because they automatically expired Oct. 1.

The telehealth and in-home hospital care programs were both temporary — but increasingly popular — options for Medicare recipients. They allowed doctors and hospitals to bill Medicare for telehealth appointments and in-home visits from nurses to provide care that is generally only available in hospitals.

The shutdown has prevented Congress from extending them.

More than 4 million Medicare beneficiaries used telehealth services in the first half of the year, according to Brown University’s Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research.

As of last fall, 366 hospitals had participated in the hospital-at-home program, serving 31,000 patients, according to a federal report. The program, officially called Acute Hospital Care at Home, allows patients who would otherwise be hospitalized to get inpatient care at home with a combination of nurse visits, monitoring equipment and remote doctor visits.

The programs have their roots in the pandemic, when doctors and hospitals wanted to keep patients safe from the risks of travel and hospital stays. Both are for Medicare recipients, generally people over 65 or who are disabled. But since many private insurers follow federal guidelines, some physicians have stopped booking telemedicine appointments for non-Medicare patients, rather than risk a change in insurance coverage.

Alexis Wynn, who is in her mid-30s and covered by private insurance through her employer, tried to switch an in-person doctor appointment in Pennsylvania to a video visit last week. The office told her that “all telemedicine is uncovered by insurance as of Oct. 1” — so she had to cancel the routine appointment.

“It was just a follow-up appointment  to make sure the dosing of my medication was still accurate, nothing that was pertinent to being face-to-face,” Wynn said. Her health insurance company later told her it still covered telehealth visits.

There have been other reports of insurers turning down non-Medicare telehealth appointments, said Alexis Apple, director of federal affairs for the American Telemedicine Association, a trade group.

“It’s a misunderstanding,” Apple said. “I’m not really sure what’s happening, but it’s unfortunate and very scary. There’s so much uncertainty out there now, and we see insurance payers start to pull back.”

Both telehealth and home hospital services can be a lifeline for older people, especially in rural areas, where residents may struggle to travel long distances for health care in person.

“In rural America, it’s often telemedicine or no medicine at all,” said Dr. David Newman, chief medical officer of virtual care at Sanford Health in South Dakota, in a September statement supporting congressional action to make Medicare telehealth permanent. Bipartisan bills that would have allowed telehealth to continue stalled in committee earlier this year in the Senate and House.

There’s an exception for telehealth rural residents — but only if they travel to a brick-and-mortar health care facility to get the remote health care service.

“The patients have to go to a clinic to receive that telehealth visit from a provider in a different location,” Apple said. “It kind of defeats the purpose.”

According to the Brown University report, California had the highest rate of Medicare telehealth usage in the first six months of this year, with 26% of beneficiaries using at least one telehealth appointment, followed by 23% in Massachusetts and 21% in Hawaii.

There’s no reason for non-Medicare insurers to stop covering any telehealth visits during the shutdown, and even most Medicare Advantage programs will continue to cover telehealth, according to Tina Stow, a spokesperson for AHIP, a health industry trade association.

Nevertheless, at least some health care centers are refusing to take new telehealth appointments or are converting existing ones to office visits.

“This is causing a lot of confusion. We are still working with our members who are insurers and providers to get a gauge on what folks are doing — because at this point reports we’ve seen seem to suggest it is company by company, provider by provider,” said Sean Brown, a spokesperson for the Health Leadership Council, representing CEOs of health care firms and insurers.

The hospital-at-home program serves a smaller number of patients but its pause has caused more disruption: The federal government required patients to be discharged from the program or transferred to a brick-and-mortar hospital by Oct.1.

The Minnesota-based Mayo Clinic had 30 patients in the program in Arizona, Florida and Wisconsin — all of whom either had to be released from the program or sent to brick-and-mortar hospitals. One of Mayo’s hospitals in Florida was already over capacity and had no room for transfers, according to reporting by Becker’s Hospital Review.

In Massachusetts, which requires commercial insurers to follow Medicare guidelines, all insured patients had to leave the program. Mass General Brigham, which operates many hospitals in the state, has rejiggered its plans to create more home care without relying on the hospital-at-home program, according to the Becker’s report.

Congress was unable to avert a shutdown by late September, and some individual providers and patients were caught unawares.

Nurses on social media discussed losing home-care jobs or being reassigned overnight when the hospital-at-home program closed Oct. 1. They worried about patients being taken away from children at home, or placed in hallway beds at overcrowded emergency rooms because of the abrupt change.

“Management scheduled a random call this morning with a super vague title. Then drop the bomb on us,” wrote one poster in Texas. “So no job. Perfect!”

In a direct message, the poster, who didn’t want their name used for fear of getting in trouble at their hospital, told Stateline, “This obviously wasn’t ideal for the patients. One of them had four children and now could no longer be home with them. Some didn’t even get to have a bed in the hospital because there were none available and had to stay in the ER in a hallway bed.”

Parkland Health System in Dallas started tapering off its hospital-at-home program in September because of the impending shutdown, and the last patients were discharged from the program by Sept. 30 without returning to the hospital, spokesperson Wendi Hawthorne said.

“We are hopeful that Congress will renew this innovative model of care in the future,” Hawthorne said.

Likewise, OSF Healthcare in Peoria, Illinois, had started to wind down its hospital-at-home program “to avoid needing to return multiple patients to a very crowded facility,” said Jennifer Junis, president of OSF OnCall, which handles home hospital care.

There were only three patients in the program Sept. 30, all of whom were ready to be discharged without returning to the hospital, Junis said. Since the program’s start in 2020, it has helped 980 patients with home care through OSF’s Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria.

“It is unfortunate that we will not be able to benefit by treating qualifying patients at home, where they are most comfortable and recover faster,” Junis said. “Our digital hospital program has allowed us to free up beds for our sickest patients who need them most.”

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

Before yesterdayRegional

Here’s how Trump’s new tax law affects people with low incomes

A person holds a Wisconsin Homestead Credit 2024 instruction form labeled "H & H-EZ" with "Wis Tax" and "MY tax ACCOUNT" logos visible near the top.
Reading Time: 3 minutes

Although President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” offers new tax deductions and credits across different income levels, low-income households – the bottom 20% of income earners – are largely excluded from any significant tax benefits. 

“It’s particularly shocking because the law is so big,” said Elaine Maag, a senior fellow at The Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. “Typically, when trillions of dollars are spent, you see it really spread across the income distribution.”

The bill was signed into law over the summer.

Benefits that people with low incomes do receive may be outweighed when considered alongside other provisions in the bill, said Andrew Reschovsky, professor emeritus of public affairs and applied economics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This is especially true of cuts to safety net programs such as Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, Reschovsky said.

“This is the dilemma – if you count those things in with the tax side, the net will be that a lot of people are going to be worse off.”

Credits and deductions

A credit is an amount subtracted directly from the tax you owe while a deduction reduces the amount of income that can be taxed. Both can help keep more money in taxpayers’ pockets. 

The bill establishes new credits and deductions. 

The bill increases the: 

  • Child Tax Credit from $2,000 per qualifying child to $2,200.  
  • Child and Dependent Care Credit, which allows taxpayers to subtract certain costs associated with caring for children under 13 or dependents incapable of self-care. 

The bill introduces new deductions for:

  • Workers in jobs where tips are common, allowing them to deduct up to $25,000 of tip income. 
  • Individuals who work overtime, allowing them to deduct up to $12,500 of overtime pay. 
  • People 65 and older, allowing them to deduct $6,000. 

Limitations

These changes may appear to help people who are financially struggling. But the bill affects federal taxes, so its new deductions and credits apply only to income taxable by the federal government. 

People with low income generally owe little or no federal income tax. 

Older low-income adults, for example, often rely primarily or entirely on Social Security benefits and are generally not subject to federal taxes. This means that a new $6,000 deduction would not benefit them, Rechovsky said.   

Rechovsky noted other reasons the new deductions are misleading or extremely narrow. 

“Yes, you’re a waiter and you benefit from not paying taxes on your tips,” he said. “But take someone in the same income range who works as a home health care worker – they don’t benefit at all.” 

Reschovsky also questions how those with low incomes would benefit from reducing the amount owed on overtime pay. 

“One of the reasons some people are low-income is that they’re lucky to get a 40-hour workweek,” he said. 

The same limitation applies to the new credits. 

An analysis by Maag estimates that in 2025 about 17 million children under 17 – or one in four – will receive less than the full value of the Child Tax Credit because their parents earn too little.

The bill also changes which families qualify based on citizenship status.  

The Child Tax Credit will be limited to children who are U.S. citizens and have at least one parent with a valid Social Security number. 

About 2 million U.S. citizen children will lose their Child Tax Credit because of this new requirement, Maag wrote, citing an analysis from the Joint Committee on Taxation. 

Safety nets

One benefit to people with low incomes from the bill is that it makes permanent many provisions from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including lower income tax rates and larger standard deductions. 

“It’s true across the board that if taxes go down, your income after taxes goes up,” Reschovsky said. 

But for those with low incomes, the increase is minimal and will likely be outweighed by changes to Medicaid, premium subsidies provided by the Affordable Care Act and changes to SNAP. 

For example, the lowest 10% of earners may see a $1,600 reduction in annual income and benefits, mainly due to cuts in Medicaid and SNAP, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office

“It’s just that classic view … that, ‘Well, these people are just sucking on the teat of the federal government, so we’re going to just make it as hard as possible for them to do that, because they’re just freeloaders,’” said Anthony Myers, program director of the Riverworks Financial Clinic.

Where to get help

For people with incomes under $67,000, free tax assistance is available through programs such as the IRS’ Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, or VITA. 

VITA sites can be found using the IRS Free Tax Prep Help website

Maag and Myers recommend making appointments as soon as possible. 

In addition to serving as a VITA site, Riverworks Financial Clinic operates year-round as the City of Milwaukee Financial Empowerment Center. 

Residents of the city who are 18 years and older can get free one-on-one financial counseling there. 

“Anyone that’s struggling with any of these (One Big Beautiful Bill Act) provisions, we can assist them with navigating through this,” Myers said. 

Here’s how Trump’s new tax law affects people with low incomes 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.

Liberal firms urge Wisconsin Supreme Court to move forward with House map lawsuits

10 October 2025 at 23:53

Attorneys from liberal firms are urging the Wisconsin Supreme Court to quickly appoint a three-judge panel to hear lawsuits claiming the state's congressional districts are gerrymandered and should be redrawn before the 2026 election.

The post Liberal firms urge Wisconsin Supreme Court to move forward with House map lawsuits appeared first on WPR.

Wake boats in shallow areas harm shoreline and bottom of Lake Beulah, study finds

10 October 2025 at 20:40

A new study on Lake Beulah in southeastern Wisconsin indicates that wake boats should operate in deeper waters and farther from the shore to reduce impacts to the lake bottom and shoreline.

The post Wake boats in shallow areas harm shoreline and bottom of Lake Beulah, study finds appeared first on WPR.

What caregivers should know about online gaming safety after a Wisconsin family’s lawsuit against Roblox

10 October 2025 at 20:22

On Wednesday, a family in Wisconsin filed a lawsuit against the video game giant Roblox, alleging that it failed to protect their child from abuse. A researcher focusing on adolescent internet use gives advice for parents on how to navigate platforms like these.

The post What caregivers should know about online gaming safety after a Wisconsin family’s lawsuit against Roblox appeared first on WPR.

Wisconsin poet reflects on aftermath of COVID-19 in new, more personal collection

10 October 2025 at 15:58

UW-Whitewater professor emeritus DeWitt Clinton’s sixth poetry book is about coping with personal feelings — a departure from his earlier works.

The post Wisconsin poet reflects on aftermath of COVID-19 in new, more personal collection appeared first on WPR.

Trump pledges additional 100% tariffs on China by Nov. 1

10 October 2025 at 23:16
In an aerial view, a container ship arrives at the Port of Oakland on Aug. 1, 2025 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

In an aerial view, a container ship arrives at the Port of Oakland on Aug. 1, 2025 in Oakland, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump threatened to add a 100% tariff rate on Chinese goods Friday, saying in a social media post he was responding to export controls from the world’s second-largest economy.

“China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the World, stating that they were going to, effective November 1st, 2025, impose large scale Export Control on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

The United States would respond with the 100% tariff on Chinese goods, also starting Nov. 1, he said. The tariffs would be stacked onto existing tariffs his administration has imposed on the country, he said.

Trump added that he would impose his own export controls “on any and all critical software.”

“It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History,” he wrote.

Trump left open the possibility of scrapping or adjusting the additional tariffs before November, saying in the Oval Office late Friday that “We’re gonna have to see what happens.”

“That’s why I made it Nov. 1,” he said. “We’ll see what happens.”

He told reporters he has not canceled a planned meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, at an international economic conference in South Korea this week, but raised some doubt that the meeting would take place.

“I don’t know that we’re going to have it,” he said. “But I’m going to be there regardless, so I would assume we might have it.”

Tariffs a main part of Trump policy

Trump has used tariffs, taxes paid by the importer of foreign goods, as the central tool of his trade policy, applying broad tariffs on U.S. allies and adversaries alike, with a particular focus on China.

The two countries imposed escalating trade barriers on one another since Trump announced wide-ranging tariffs in early April. The U.S. tariff rate for Chinese goods peaked at 145% before the two sides negotiated an end to the trade war. 

Chinese goods still see a base tariff rate of 30%.

Trump invoked emergency authority to raise tariffs on China, arguing that the tariffs were a putative measure for China’s inability to control fentanyl supplies flowing into the U.S., but federal courts are still deciding the legality of that move.

Judge weighs Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s release from immigration detention

10 October 2025 at 23:14
Rallygoers hold a sign that reads “Free Kilmar” during a rally Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

Rallygoers hold a sign that reads “Free Kilmar” during a rally Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge in Maryland seemed inclined to order the release of  Kilmar Abrego Garcia from immigration detention after oral arguments in court Friday, a potentially major development in the high-profile case.

After a more than six-hour hearing, District Judge Paula Xinis said a witness provided by the Justice Department showed little evidence that the Trump administration made an effort to remove Abrego Garcia to the southern African nation of Eswatini, and knew nothing about Abrego Garcia agreeing to be removed to Costa Rica. 

The witness tapped by the Department of Justice was John Schultz, a deputy assistant director who oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement removal operations.

After hearing from him, Xinis said keeping Abrego Garcia detained indefinitely would likely be unconstitutional. She said she would issue an order soon.

Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran immigrant whose wrongful deportation from Maryland put a spotlight on the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown, is currently detained in Pennsylvania. 

His attorneys have argued the Trump administration is using detention to punish Abrego Garcia because officials are not trying to remove him, even after Abrego Garcia agreed to be deported to Costa Rica.

‘Three strikes, you’re out’

Xinis expressed her frustration with Department of Justice attorneys for not providing a witness who would give clear answers on how immigration officials were handling the removal of Abrego Garcia. 

“We’re getting to the three strikes, you’re out,” Xinis said. 

Andrew J. Rossman, an attorney for Abrego Garcia, argued that if Immigration and Customs Enforcement is making no plans to immediately remove him, he should be released from detention. 

He also argued that since March, when the Trump administration erroneously deported Abrego Garcia to a mega-prison in El Salvador, to the present, Abrego Garcia has been “in continuous containment” way past the six-month limit set by the Supreme Court regarding the detention of immigrants.

“The real aim of the government… is punitive, which is just to keep him incarcerated,” Rossman said. “It’s an overtly political purpose.”

The Rev. Robert Turner, right, leads an opening prayer on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, in support of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had a hearing in court. Standing next to Turner is Ama Frimpong, an attorney with the immigrant advocacy group CASA. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
The Rev. Robert Turner, right, leads an opening prayer on Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland, in support of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had a hearing in court. Standing next to Turner is Ama Frimpong, an attorney with the immigrant advocacy group CASA. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

Rossman told Xinis that he has not received an answer from the federal government as to why they will not remove Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica, after he agreed to that proposal in August.

Xinis asked DOJ attorney Drew Ensign why Abrego Garcia hasn’t been removed to Costa Rica.

Ensign said that it was not clear to the government until Friday that Abrego Garcia had agreed to be removed to Costa Rica, because Abrego Garcia had previously expressed fear of being sent there. 

Abrego Garcia changed his position after Costa Rica assured him he would be given refugee status.

“That is a new development that I will report back to people,” Ensign said.

Supreme Court ruling

A 2001 Supreme Court ruling does not allow for immigrants to be detained longer than six months if the federal government is making no efforts to remove them. 

After 90 days without efforts to deport an immigrant, a challenge can be made because detaining that person any longer than a maximum of 180 days, or six months, would likely be unconstitutional, the high court found in Zadvydas v. Davis. 

Earlier this week, Xinis seemed likely to order Abrego Garcia’s release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, where he has remained since late August. 

Xinis, who also ordered the Trump administration to return Abrego Garica to the United States after she found his removal to El Salvador unlawful, is overseeing his habeas corpus petition, which challenges his detention.

Protesters rally outside the courthouse

Ahead of the hearing, dozens of supporters from the immigrant advocacy group CASA gathered in front of the District Court for the District of Maryland, chanting, “Somos todos Kilmar,” or, “We are all Kilmar.” 

Rallygoers also chanted “What do we want? Justice!” “When do we want it? Now!” 

Some also held signs urging the Trump administration to free Abrego Garcia.

Maryland Del. Nicole Williams, right, speaks in support of the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia during a rally Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland. Next to Williams is Maryland Del. Bernice Mireku-North. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
Maryland Del. Nicole Williams, right, speaks in support of the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia during a rally Friday, Oct. 10, 2025, outside the U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Maryland. Next to Williams is Maryland Del. Bernice Mireku-North. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)

Two Maryland state legislators, Dels. Nicole Williams and Bernice Mireku-North, both Democrats, joined the rally.

Williams sponsored legislation during this year’s General Assembly session to prohibit local police from entering into certain agreements with ICE. On the last day of the legislative session in April, lawmakers passed a watered-down version of a bill that does not include the ban, the biggest loss for Maryland immigration advocates this year.

“We are going to be working on legislation with regards to masking by law enforcement officers,” Williams said. “We need to start treating everyone, I don’t care where you’re from, in a humane and decent way. And that’s what we’re going to be fighting for every single day until Kilmar is free and Kilmar comes home. So stop using Kilmar for your own political gain. Bring Kilmar home.”

White House involvement

Schultz, the DOJ witness, revealed that the White House had direct involvement in picking Uganda as a potential third country of removal for ICE’s deportation of Abrego Garcia. 

The move was unusual because the State Department typically coordinates third-country removals for the Department of Homeland Security.

Schultz said the Homeland Security Council, which operates within the White House, notified ICE of Uganda as a third country of removal. The Homeland Security Council works with the National Security Council of the White House. 

While Uganda is no longer a third country of removal for Abrego Garcia, ICE is trying to now remove him to Eswatini. 

Schultz said Eswatini has not agreed to take Abrego Garcia, but discussions, which he said started on Wednesday, are underway. 

“The discussions are continuing,” Schultz said. 

Schultz said he is not aware if ICE has not made any efforts to determine if Abrego Garcia would face persecution or be tortured or confined in Eswatini, or be removed a second time to El Salvador.  

Eswatini has previously agreed to accept third-country removals from the U.S. and the two countries have a memorandum of understanding, he added.

Ghana another potential destination

Schultz said that ICE has also identified the west African country of Ghana as a potential nation for Abrego Garica’s removal. Schultz said once a third country has agreed to accept Abrego Garica, he could be removed by ICE within 72 hours.

However, Ghana’s Foreign Minister, Sam Okudzeto Ablakwa, wrote on social media that the country will not accept Abrego Garcia. 

“This has been directly and unambiguously conveyed to US authorities,” he wrote. “In my interactions with US officials, I made clear that our understanding to accept a limited number of non-criminal West Africans, purely on the grounds of African solidarity and humanitarian principles would not be expanded.”

Schultz said that ICE “prematurely” sent a notice of removal to Abrego Garcia with Ghana as the designation.

The Costa Rica alternative

One of Abrego Garcia’s attorneys, Sascha Rand, grilled Schultz about why DHS would not remove him to Costa Rica, despite Abrego Garcia agreeing to go.

Schultz said he was unaware of the letter from Costa Rica’s government saying it would accept Abrego Garcia.

Another attorney for Abrego Garcia, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, said that the Trump administration offered to remove Abrego Garcia to Costa Rica in August if he were to plead guilty to criminal charges in a federal case in Tennessee. 

Abrego Garcia’s attorneys in his criminal case in Nashville said in court filings that the Trump administration is trying to get him to plead guilty to human smuggling charges by promising to remove him to Costa Rica if he does so, and threatening to deport him to Uganda if he refuses. 

Rand asked Schultz if anyone from DHS was in contact with Costa Rica.

Schultz said he was unaware if there were conversations between the federal government and Costa Rica about removing him there. 

Rossman said based on Schultz’s testimony, it was clear the Trump administration was “holding hostage passage to Costa Rica.”

“They aren’t presently intending to remove him,” he said. “They have spun the globe and picked various (African) countries… to fail on purpose.”

William J. Ford of Maryland Matters contributed to this report.

❌
❌