A debate playing out in Wisconsin underscores just how challenging it is for U.S. states to set policies governing data centers, even as tech giants speed ahead with plans to build the energy-gobbling computing facilities.

Wisconsin’s state legislators are eager to pass a law that prevents the data center boom from spiking households’ energy bills. The problem is, Democrats and Republicans have starkly different visions for what that measure should look like — especially when it comes to rules around hyperscalers’ renewable energy use.

Republican state legislators this month introduced a bill that orders utility regulators to ensure that regular customers do not pay any costs of constructing the electric infrastructure needed to serve data centers. It also requires data centers to recycle the water used to cool servers and to restore the site if construction isn’t completed.

Those are key protections sought by decision-makers across the political spectrum as opposition to data centers in Wisconsin and beyond reaches a fever pitch.

But the bill will likely be doomed by a ​“poison pill,” as consumer advocates and manufacturing industry sources describe it, that says all renewable energy used to power data centers must be built on-site.

Republican lawmakers argue this provision is necessary to prevent new solar farms and transmission lines from sprawling across the state.

“Sometimes these data centers attempt to say that they are environmentally friendly by saying we’re going to have all renewable electricity, but that requires lots of transmission from other places, either around the state or around the region,” said state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican, at a press conference. ​“So this bill actually says that if you are going to do renewable energy, and we would encourage them to do that, it has to be done on-site.”

This effectively means that data centers would have to rely largely on fossil fuels, given the limited size of their sites and the relative paucity of renewable energy in the state thus far.

Gov. Tony Evers and his fellow Democrats in the state Legislature are unlikely to agree to this scenario, Wisconsin consumer and clean energy advocates say.

Democrats introduced their own data center bill late last year, some of which aligns closely with the Republican measure: The Democratic bill would similarly block utilities from shifting data center costs onto residents, by creating a separate billing class for very large energy customers. It would require that data centers pay an annual fee to fund public benefits such as energy upgrades for low-income households and to support the state’s green bank.

But that proposal may also prove impossible to pass, advocates say, because of its mandate that data centers get 70% of their energy from renewables in order to qualify for state tax breaks and a requirement that workers constructing and overhauling data centers be paid a prevailing wage for the area. This labor provision is deeply polarizing in Wisconsin. Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker and lawmakers in his party famously repealed the state’s prevailing wage law for public construction projects in 2017, and multiple Democratic efforts to reinstate it have failed.

The result of the political division around renewables and other issues is that Wisconsin may accomplish little around data center regulation in the near term.

“If we could combine the two and make it a better bill, that would be ideal,” said Beata Wierzba, government affairs director for the nonprofit clean energy advocacy group Renew Wisconsin. ​“It’s hard to see where this will go ultimately. I don’t foresee the Democratic bill passing, and I also don’t know how the governor can sign the Republican bill.”

Urgent need

Wisconsin’s consumer and clean energy advocates are frustrated about the absence of promising legislation at a time when they say regulation of data centers is badly needed. The environmental advocacy group Clean Wisconsin has received thousands of signatures on a petition calling for a moratorium on data center approvals until a comprehensive state plan is in place.

At least five new major data centers are planned in the state, which is considered attractive for the industry because of its ample fresh water and open land, skilled workers, robust electric grid, and generous tax breaks. The Wisconsin Policy Forum estimated that data centers will drive the state’s peak electricity demand to 17.1 gigawatts by 2030, up from 14.6 gigawatts in 2024.

Absent special treatment for data centers, utilities will pass the costs on to customers for the new power needed to meet the rising demand.

Two Wisconsin utilities — We Energies and Alliant Energy — are proposing special tariffs that would determine the rates they charge data centers. Allowing utilities in the same state to have different policies for serving data centers could lead to these projects being located wherever utilities offer them the cheapest rates and result in a patchwork of regulations and protections, consumer advocates argue. They say legislation should be passed soon, to standardize the process and enshrine protections statewide before utilities move forward on their own.

Some of Wisconsin’s neighbors have already taken that step, said Tom Content, executive director of Wisconsin’s Citizens Utility Board, a consumer advocacy group.

He pointed to Minnesota, where a law passed in June mandates that data centers and other customers be placed in separate categories for utility billing, eliminating the risk of data center costs being passed on to residents. The Minnesota law also protects customers from paying for ​“stranded costs” if a data center doesn’t end up needing the infrastructure that was built to serve it.

Ohio, by contrast, provides a cautionary tale, Content said. After state regulators enshrined provisions that protected customers of the utility AEP Ohio from data center costs, developers simply looked elsewhere in the state.

“Much of the data center demand in Ohio shifted to a different utility where no such protections were in place,” Content said. ​“We’re in a race to the bottom. Wisconsin needs a statewide framework to help guide data center development and ensure customers who aren’t tech companies don’t pick up the tab for these massive projects.”

Clean energy quandary

Limiting clean energy construction to data center sites could be especially problematic as data center developers often demand renewable energy to meet their own sustainability goals.

For example, the Lighthouse data center — being developed by OpenAI, Oracle and Vantage near Milwaukee — will subsidize 179 megawatts of new wind generation, 1,266 megawatts of new solar generation and 505 megawatts of new battery storage capacity, according to testimony from one of the developers in the We Energies tariff proceeding.

But Lighthouse covers 672 acres. It takes about 5 to 7 acres of land to generate 1 megawatt of solar energy, meaning the whole campus would have room for only about a tenth of the solar the developers promise.

We Energies is already developing the renewable generation intended to serve that data center, a utility spokesperson said, but the numbers show how future clean energy could be stymied by the on-site requirement.

“It’s unclear why lawmakers would want to discriminate against the two cheapest ways to produce energy in our state at a time when energy bills are already on the rise,” said Chelsea Chandler, the climate, energy and air program director at Clean Wisconsin.

Renew Wisconsin’s Wierzba said the Democrats’ 70% renewable energy mandate for receiving tax breaks could likewise be problematic for tech firms.

“We want data centers to use renewable energy, and companies I’m aware of prefer that,” she said. ​“The way the Republican bill addresses that is negative and would deter that possibility. But the Democratic bill almost goes too far — 70%. That’s a prescribed amount, too much of a hook and not enough carrot.”

Alex Beld, Renew Wisconsin’s communications director, said the Republican bill might have a hope of passing if the poison pill about on-site renewable energy were removed.

“I don’t know if there’s a will on the Republican side to remove that piece,” he said. ​“One thing is obvious: No matter what side of the political aisle you’re on, there are concerns about the rapid development of these data centers. Some kind of legislation should be put forward that will pass.”

Bryan Rogers, environmental director of the Milwaukee community organization Walnut Way Conservation Corp, said elected officials shouldn’t be afraid to demand more of data centers, including more public benefit payments.

“We know what the data centers want and how fast they want it,” he said. ​“We can extract more concessions from data centers. They should be paying not just their full way — bringing their own energy, covering transmission, generation. We also know there are going to be social impacts, public health, environmental impacts. Someone has to be responsible for that.”

Utility representatives expressed less urgency around legislation.

William Skewes, executive director of the Wisconsin Utilities Association, said the trade group ​“appreciates and agrees with the desire by policymakers and customers to make sure they’re not paying for costs that they did not cause.”

But, he said, the state’s utility regulators already do ​“a very thorough job reviewing cases and making sure that doesn’t happen. Wisconsin utilities are aligned in the view that data centers must pay their full share of costs.”

If Wisconsin legislators do manage to pass data center legislation this session, it will head to the desk of Evers. The governor is a longtime advocate for renewables, creating the state’s first clean energy plan in 2022, and he has expressed support for attracting more data centers to Wisconsin.

“I personally believe that we need to make sure that we’re creating jobs for the future in the state of Wisconsin,” Evers said at a press conference, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. ​“But we have to balance that with my belief that we have to keep climate change in check. I think that can happen.”

A version of this article was first published by Canary Media.

Disputes over clean energy may doom Wisconsin data center bills is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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The sun sets over a playground across the street from a group of apartments where many Somali people live in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Our church stands one short block from where an ICE agent took the life of Renee Good. A few days later, the violence ICE is perpetrating in our city arrived, literally, on our doorstep: Armed masked men raided our neighbors’ homes, remaining at our corner for two long hours. As we prayed and cared for those around us, several of our pastors and staff were among those who were pepper-bombed.

Our city is under siege, and when we asked the children in our congregation how they are feeling, they told us, unsurprisingly, that they feel scared. One youth, the child of an immigrant, texted his grandmother in the middle of the night: “I’m scared every day i live in fear and I don’t know what to do if your awake please call me.”

How can we comfort our children? We feel scared too.

And so, in this climate of fear, we turn to that life-affirming work. Immigrant families are afraid to venture outside. We’ve had to cancel our children’s choir practice until we can confidently gather the children safely.

Yet a few children and their moms still rallied to go grocery shopping for immigrant families, delivering boxes to a local McDonald’s where many immigrants work. In distributing Happy Meals to the appreciative children, the assistant manager offered a lesson in how mutual care strengthens the bonds of community. “When you share,” he explained in his accented English, “we share.”

We wish that feeding one another during these terrible times would be enough. But our young people tell us it is not. As one of our youth said, “I want to make sure my friends are not stolen from their families.” Another child asked, “Could you make ICE disappear? They hurt people.”

Jesus understood what it meant to live under an occupying force — in his case, the Roman Empire. He understood the helplessness. He understood the stakes, and yet he persisted in showing us, before ultimately dying from the violence, that another way — a way of love — is possible.

So we will continue to deliver groceries. We will make arrangements so that, if the unfathomable happens, the children can stay with other families. And from the epicenter of this occupation, we send out the children’s plea: Please. Make the people who are hurting people disappear.

State Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), shown here at a September 2025 press conference, said on the Assembly floor Tuesday that the UI bill would "take away benefits from the people who need them the most." (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

On a party-line vote, a bill changing Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance laws, which Gov. Tony Evers’ office said he will veto, passed the Assembly  Tuesday.

The bill would allow people collecting federal disability payments to remain eligible for unemployment insurance if they lose a job. But it would cut their jobless pay by half the value of their disability pay.

The bill was sent to the Legislature from the joint labor-management Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council, which negotiates on a proposed “agreed-upon bill” every two years.

Historically the council’s bills have enjoyed broad support and easy passage, but the current measure, AB 652, includes changes that prompted opposition from Democrats. Evers’ spokesperson told the Wisconsin Examiner on Jan. 7 that the governor will veto the bill if it reaches his desk.

The bill is the first jobless pay measure in more than a decade to raise the maximum benefit, increasing it by $25 a week to $395. Critics argue that is inadequate.

The critics also object to reducing jobless pay for people who receive Social Security Disability Income, and to the measure’s proposed new strictures on the unemployment insurance system that Evers has previously vetoed.

A federal judge in July 2025 ordered the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development to stop enforcing a ban on unemployment compensation for SSDI recipients that was enacted in 2013. The judge ruled a year earlier that the ban violated federal laws protecting people with disabilities.

Before voting on the advisory council’s unemployment insurance bill Tuesday, Assembly Republicans voted 53-44 to block Democrats from passing a substitute amendment removing provisions they opposed and increasing the value of jobless pay. They went on to pass the unamended bill by the same 53-44 margin.

The Democratic amendment would have repealed the state’s ban on unemployment compensation for SSDI recipients, but without the financial penalty. The amendment also included a $127 increase in the maximum benefit through Jan. 2, 2027, followed by annual increases in line with the consumer price index. In addition, it increased the cap on how much income a laid-off person could make in a week while continuing to qualify for jobless pay.

“Wisconsinites deserve adequate unemployment benefits. This amendment is a step towards being able to do just that,” said Rep. Maureen McCarville (D-DeForest).

At a state Senate hearing Jan. 7, Scott Manley, a lobbyist for Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce and chair of the advisory council’s management caucus, defended the council bill’s jobless pay penalty for SSDI recipients, arguing that it would treat disability pay like other sources of income people get while they collect unemployment insurance.

“If you have additional income … that income is going to offset your unemployment benefits,” Manley said. “Unemployment is supposed to provide a temporary safety net of additional income for people who lose their job through no fault of their own.”

On the Assembly floor Tuesday, Rep. Chris Sinicki (D-Milwaukee) — who in the past has supported advisory council bills but came out against the council’s legislation in this session — reiterated her opposition. She said a constituent on the autism spectrum qualifies for SSDI and works part-time at a local library, allowing her to live independently.

“Without that part-time job, she could not afford to be independent,” Sinicki said. “I sure as heck do not want to be one to vote to take away benefits from the people who need them the most.”

A voter casts a paper ballot in Virginia. Despite two recent legal setbacks, the Trump administration has sued the Virginia elections commissioner in its quest to obtain sensitive voter data. (Photo by Markus Schmidt/Virginia Mercury)

The Trump administration has sued another state — Virginia — in its quest to obtain sensitive voter data, despite two recent legal setbacks in suits against other states.

The Justice Department on Friday sued Susan Beals, the elections commissioner in Virginia, after months of seeking a copy of the state’s voter registration lists, including individual names, addresses, dates of birth and Social Security numbers.

“Virginia becomes the next state sued for ignoring federal law!” U.S. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon wrote on the social media platform X.

The Trump administration has sued more than 20 states, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, in what the administration frames as a quest to ensure that states are properly maintaining voter rolls, that ineligible people are kept off rolls and that only citizens are voting.

The U.S. Department of Justice is sharing state voter roll information with the Department of Homeland Security in a search for noncitizens, the Trump administration confirmed in September.

While election officials stress that well-maintained voter rolls are important, President Donald Trump and some of his Republican allies have long promoted baseless claims of widespread voter fraud.

In the Virginia case, the Justice Department claims it was reassured by the administration of former Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin that it would hand over voter rolls. But that did not occur and Youngkin was term-limited. On Saturday, Democrat Abigail Spanberger was sworn in as Virginia’s 75th governor.

Beals, the elections commissioner, was appointed by Youngkin in 2022. The state election department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week, similar federal lawsuits hit roadblocks in California and Oregon.

U.S. District Court Judge David Carter dismissed a lawsuit by the Department of Justice against California seeking voter information, calling the request “unprecedented and illegal.” Just a day earlier, a separate federal judge said from the bench he planned to dismiss a similar lawsuit against Oregon.

Democratic secretaries of state have criticized the federal government’s data requests, calling them an unwarranted attempt by the Trump administration to exercise federal power over elections. Under the U.S. Constitution, states administer elections, though Congress can regulate them.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org. 

Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey speaks at a press conference addressing reports that the Trump administration is sending around 100 federal immigration agents to Minnesota, specifically targeting the Somali community Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Days after news leaked of a criminal investigation of Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey over their handling of immigration enforcement in Minnesota, the U.S. Department of Justice has delivered subpoenas to the offices of Walz and Frey, as well as St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty.

The New York Times first reported the delivery of the subpoenas, and other national outlets also confirmed that reporting.

The subpoenas are an extraordinary escalation of the ongoing conflict between the Trump administration and Minnesota, where heavily-armed, masked federal agents now outnumber all the metro police departments combined, frequently using tactics a federal judge has called unconstitutional.

When the investigation became public last week, Walz replied in a statement: “Two days ago it was Elissa Slotkin. Last week it was Jerome Powell. Before that, Mark Kelly,” he said, referring to the U.S. senators who made a video telling U.S. servicemembers that they can and must refuse illegal orders, as well as the chairman of the Federal Reserve, who has refused to lower interest rates as quickly as Trump desires. “Weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents is a dangerous, authoritarian tactic,” Walz said.

Ellison, who’s sued the Trump administration more than 30 times in the past year, said the investigation is being used to distract: “Instead of seriously investigating the killing of Renee Good, Trump is weaponizing the justice system against any leader who dares stand up to him,” referring to the Minneapolis woman shot by federal officer Jonathan Ross earlier this month. “Donald Trump is coming after the people of Minnesota and I’m standing in his way. I will not be intimidated and I will not stop working to protect Minnesotans from Trump’s campaign of retaliation and revenge,” Ellison said.

Frey called the investigation “an obvious attempt to intimidate me for standing up for Minneapolis, our local law enforcement and our residents against the chaos and danger this administration has brought to our streets.”

He added: “I will not be intimidated.”

Her, whose tenure as St. Paul mayor began earlier this month, said in a statement that Trump “promised retribution, and consistent with that promise, we received a subpoena today from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. I am unfazed by these tactics, and I stand firm in my commitment to protect our residents, neighbors and community.”

The Washington Post reported that “the subpoenas suggest that the Justice Department is examining whether Walz’s and Frey’s public statements disparaging the surge of officers and federal actions have amounted to criminal interference in law enforcement work.”

Walz, who announced earlier this month he won’t seek a third term, also used his statement last week to criticize the federal government for not properly investigating the killing of Renee Good by federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross. “The only person not being investigated for the shooting of Renee Good is the federal agent who shot her,” he said.

Six prosecutors in the Minnesota Office of U.S. Attorney quit last week, The New York Times reported, because they objected to their bosses’ push to investigate the widow of Good and their ties to anti-ICE groups.

The ICE surge, which has put as many as 3,000 federal agents in the state — or nearly five times the number of sworn officers with the Minneapolis Police Department — is just the latest round of an ongoing conflict between Minnesota and the federal government. Fraud in Minnesota’s social programs — often funded in whole or part by the federal government — has caught the attention of right-wing media and activists, and the Trump administration has followed with a wide array of investigations of Minnesota programs across a range of agencies.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is auditing Hennepin Healthcare — Minnesota’s largest safety net hospital — for compliance with immigrant employment eligibility laws.

The Trump administration has frozen child care payments and halted small business grants. The administration also says it’s investigating possible housing assistance fraud and looking into Minnesota’s unemployment insurance program. The federal government has also attempted to withhold funds to Minnesota for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, but a federal court issued a preliminary injunction.

Earlier this week, Trump said he would cut all federal funding to Minnesota and other states that have sanctuary cities beginning Feb. 1, but it’s unclear what that means and few details have been released.

A masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent knocks on a car window in Minnesota on Jan. 12. A new court ruling allows ICE to use Medicaid data, alarming some states and advocates who warn it could have a chilling effect on immigrant families accessing health care. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

In a win for President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, a recent court ruling has cleared the way for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to resume using states’ Medicaid data to find people who are in the country illegally.

The case is ongoing. But for now, immigrants — including those who are in the country legally — will have to weigh the benefits of gaining health coverage against the risk that enrolling in Medicaid could make them or their family members easier for ICE to find.

Last summer, 22 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration to block information sharing between ICE and Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program that primarily covers people with low incomes. But at the end of December, a federal judge ruled that ICE can pull some basic Medicaid data to use in its deportation proceedings, including addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and citizenship or immigration status.

The court ruled that in the states that sued, ICE is not allowed to collect information about lawful permanent residents or citizens, nor records about sensitive health information. In the 28 states that didn’t sue, however, the court did not place any limits on the Medicaid information ICE can access.

The U.S. District Court in San Francisco essentially said that government agencies can share some data, including basic identifying information. “That kind of data sharing is clearly authorized by statute,” the decision states.

But the court also ruled that agencies can’t share more sensitive data without adequately explaining why they need it. In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria wrote that ICE and federal Medicaid information-sharing policies were “totally unclear and do not appear to be the product of a coherent decisionmaking process.” He said the states had shown they would “suffer irreparable harm from these vague and likely overbroad” policies.

By law, federal Medicaid money cannot be used to cover people who are in the country illegally.

But in recent years, nearly half of states, including some led by Republicans, have chosen to use their own Medicaid money to extend coverage to certain groups of people, such as children and pregnant women, regardless of immigration status.

Advocates for immigrants and some state officials worry that ICE’s use of Medicaid data will cause widespread fear among immigrant families, keeping them from seeking the health care that states have said they’re eligible to receive. California’s health department recently called the administration’s actions “a grave breach of public trust.”

“States have constantly reassured people that their health care information won’t be used against them, and that’s changed,” said Tanya Broder, senior counsel for health and economic justice policy at the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy organization focused on immigrant rights.

Court filings in the lawsuit illustrate the potential impact of the ruling.

In Chicago, for example, a patient at an Esperanza Health Center delayed her first prenatal visit until her third trimester because she worried enrolling in Medicaid could put her husband at risk of deportation, the clinic reported in a December court filing. By the time she received care, she had complications that could have been addressed with earlier health visits. Another patient refused to apply for Medicaid for her child, a U.S. citizen, because she worried that seeking benefits would allow ICE to locate her.

“The expectation of privacy that we all have when we seek to enroll in a health care program has been compromised,” said Broder.

“Not only undocumented immigrants but people who live in families with immigrants and the broader community are going to feel less comfortable in applying for these health programs, over concerns their information is going to be weaponized against them or their family members.”

An about-face

Several months into Trump’s second term, ICE gained access to the personal data of 79 million Medicaid enrollees as part of its efforts to find people who may be living illegally in the United States.

Data on Medicaid enrollees is routinely exchanged between states and the feds, including to verify eligibility to receive federal funding. But the new agreement marked an about-face from past federal policies of not using such information for immigration enforcement.

The effort is unprecedented at the national level, said Medha Makhlouf, a law professor at Penn State Dickinson Law who specializes in health and immigration.

“Previously the federal government has balanced immigration enforcement interests with the protection of health-related interests,” she said. “Now they’re weighing much more heavily the interests of immigration enforcement.”

That puts the federal government at odds with states that have expanded health coverage as a matter of public health and economic policy, she said. Many states have extended coverage to a wider swath of people on the premise that broader coverage helps prevent the spread of disease, prioritizes preventive care over more costly emergency treatment and reduces economic losses when employees miss work because of illness.

The judge’s order will stand until the case is resolved, as the judge considers what kinds of data can be released for use in immigration enforcement.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said in a July statement that the Trump administration’s data-sharing move was illegal and “created a culture of fear that will lead to fewer people seeking vital emergency medical care.”

Federal officials say they’re allowed to use lawfully collected information for immigration enforcement purposes.

The Department of Homeland Security and ICE did not respond to requests for comment.

Broder, of the National Immigration Law Center, said it isn’t clear whether the limited information the court has allowed the Department of Homeland Security to use can be cleanly separated from data belonging to citizens and lawful permanent residents. The ruling says that if that basic data can’t be separated from data that’s still protected, Medicaid can’t share it with ICE.

California’s Department of Health Care Services, which administers the state’s Medicaid program, emphasized that concern in a statement updated earlier this month. The department said the feds haven’t provided any information about how they plan to implement the court’s order.

Meanwhile, some states are looking at their options for protecting their Medicaid data. Oregon Health Authority Director Dr. Sejal Hathi called the move to use Medicaid data for immigration enforcement “disappointing, to say the least” in a public board meeting earlier this month.

She said her agency is “committed to doing all that we can within our authority to protect the health privacy of our members” and is working with health providers to “ensure that Oregonians, no matter their background, can continue to seek and receive quick and responsive health care without worrying about the safety of their health information.”

States step up

In recent years, an increasing number of states have used their own money to extend health insurance coverage under their Medicaid programs to some noncitizens, such as people with green cards, refugees and those with temporary protected status.

For example, 14 states and the District of Columbia cover income-eligible children regardless of immigration status, while seven states and the district offer state-funded coverage to some adults with low incomes, regardless of immigration status. Nearly half of states — including a handful of red states — cover income-eligible pregnant women, regardless of their immigration status.

Makhlouf, of Penn State, directs a legal clinic at her law school where law students assist people who face legal barriers to getting health care and other public benefits. The students have fielded questions from parents — even those who are in the country legally — who have asked if applying for Medicaid for their children, who are U.S. citizens, jeopardizes their own legal status or exposes household members to scrutiny from ICE.

“We see the chilling effects directly,” Makhlouf said. “Folks have many more questions about the risks versus the benefits of applying for government programs. It should be an easy decision for families to accept help, but it’s not easy anymore.”

In the past year, the Trump administration also has ordered states to hand over personal data from sources including voter rolls and food stamps, even as it consolidates information held across federal agencies into a trove of information on people who live in the United States.

In November, a federal judge blocked the IRS from sharing taxpayer information for immigration purposes.

Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org.

People hold Greenlandic flags as they gather to march in protest against U.S. President Donald Trump and his announced intent to acquire Greenland on Jan. 17, 2026 in Nuuk, Greenland. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump showed no signs Tuesday of backing off his goal to acquire Greenland, after saying over the weekend he would place a 10% tariff on eight European countries that object to his plans and posting several times on social media.

Trump’s insistence that the United States gain control of the Arctic island from Denmark came just hours before he was set to travel to Davos, Switzerland, to meet with other world leaders at the World Economic Forum.

Trump said during an afternoon press conference that threatening tariffs on allied countries that oppose his plans is “the best, the strongest, the fastest, the easiest, the least complicated” way to obtain Greenland. 

Trump said he has “other alternatives” and that people will “find out” how far he’s willing to go to make Greenland part of the United States, though he seemed somewhat optimistic he can reach a deal. 

“I think that we will work something out where NATO is going to be very happy and where we’re going to be very happy,” Trump said, referring to the military alliance founded after World War II. “But we need it for security purposes, we need it for national security and even world security. It’s very important.”

Trump said he plans to talk with people living in Greenland when asked about residents not wanting to become part of the United States.

“I haven’t spoken to them,” Trump said. “When I speak to them, I’m sure they’ll be thrilled.”

Trump posts about Greenland repeatedly

Trump posted on social media numerous times earlier Tuesday and throughout the weekend, pressing other leaders to help him secure Greenland, despite ongoing opposition. 

“I had a very good telephone call with Mark Rutte, the Secretary General of NATO, concerning Greenland,” Trump posted at 12:26 a.m. “I agreed to a meeting of the various parties in Davos, Switzerland. As I expressed to everyone, very plainly, Greenland is imperative for National and World Security. There can be no going back — On that, everyone agrees!” 

Trump posted an altered image of him showing a map to European leaders that had a version of the U.S. flag covering Canada, Greenland and Venezuela. He also posted a fabricated image of him planting the U.S. flag in Greenland and declaring it a territory with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio standing behind him. Both were published around 1 a.m.

Trump posted screenshots of text message conversations with Rutte, who pledged to find “a way forward on Greenland” as well as French President Emmanuel Macron, who told Trump that he does “not understand what you are doing on Greenland,” and asked to set up a dinner in Paris with other world leaders to discuss the issue this week. 

Trump said during his press conference that he didn’t intend to accept Macron’s invitation. 

“No, I wouldn’t do that,” Trump said. “Because, you know, Emmanuel is not going to be there very long and, you know, there’s no longevity there. He’s a friend of mine. He’s a nice guy. I like Macron. But he’s not going to be there very much longer as you know. And I think I have meetings with the people that are directly involved.”

Island of Diego Garcia

Trump posted to social media again around 1:38 a.m., this time criticizing the United Kingdom over its plans “to give away the Island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital U.S. Military Base, to Mauritius, and to do so FOR NO REASON WHATSOEVER.”

“There is no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness. These are International Powers who only recognize STRENGTH, which is why the United States of America, under my leadership, is now, after only one year, respected like never before,” Trump added. “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of GREAT STUPIDITY, and is another in a very long line of National Security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired. Denmark and its European Allies have to DO THE RIGHT THING.”

A BBC news article from September 2024, where one of its reporters was granted access to the island, notes that “Diego Garcia is one of about 60 islands that make up the Chagos Archipelago or British Indian Ocean Territory (Biot) – the last colony established by the UK by separating it from Mauritius in 1965. It is located about halfway between East Africa and Indonesia.”

The U.K. and U.S. originally signed a 50-year lease in 1966 that was later extended for 20 years and is set to end in 2036, according to the BBC article. 

A U.S. military website states that access to “Diego Garcia is restricted, requiring area clearance by U.S. Navy Support Facility Diego Garcia.”

Tariffs, text messages, Nobel Peace Prize

Trump posted on social media Saturday that he would place a 10% tariff on goods coming into the United States from Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom before increasing that to 25% in June if the countries continue to oppose his attempts to acquire Greenland. 

Trump wrote the tariffs would stay in place “until such time as a Deal is reached for the Complete and Total purchase of Greenland.”

Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre released a statement Monday that he and Finland’s President Alexander Stubb sent a text message to Trump to express their opposition to his tariff announcement. 

“We pointed to the need to de-escalate and proposed a telephone conversation between Trump, Stubb and myself on the same day,” Støre wrote. “The response from Trump came shortly after the message was sent. It was his decision to share his message with other NATO leaders.”

Several news organizations, including PBS News reported that Trump sent a message to Støre stating that because he didn’t receive the Nobel Peace Prize he no longer feels “an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.”

Støre wrote in his statement that he could confirm the text message conversation and reinforced that European leaders don’t believe the United States needs to acquire Greenland. 

“Norway’s position on Greenland is clear. Greenland is a part of the Kingdom of Denmark, and Norway fully supports the Kingdom of Denmark on this matter,” Støre wrote. “We also support that NATO in a responsible way is taking steps to strengthen security and stability in the Arctic. As regards the Nobel Peace Prize, I have clearly explained, including to president Trump what is well known, the prize is awarded by an independent Nobel Committee and not the Norwegian Government.”

Minnesota Democratic U.S. Reps. Kelly Morrison, Ilhan Omar and Rep. Angie Craig arrive outside the regional Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis on Jan. 10, 2026. The lawmakers were denied entry to  the facility where the Department of Homeland Security has been headquartering operations in the state. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A Department of Homeland Security policy that barred unannounced visits for lawmakers seeking to conduct oversight at facilities that hold immigrants will remain in place, as ordered by a federal judge Monday.

District of Columbia federal Judge Jia Cobb issued an order that denied a request from a dozen Democratic lawmakers, on the technical grounds that an amended complaint or a supplemental brief must be made to challenge a seven-day notice policy instituted by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem this month for oversight visits.

“The Court emphasizes that it denies Plaintiffs’ motion only because it is not the proper avenue to challenge Defendants’ January 8, 2026 memorandum and the policy stated therein, rather than based on any kind of finding that the policy is lawful,” according to Cobb’s order.

Earlier this month, Democrats brought an emergency request to Cobb after a handful of Minnesota lawmakers were denied an unannounced oversight visit to a federal facility that holds immigrants following the deadly shooting of a woman in Minneapolis by a federal immigration officer.

Under a 2019 appropriations law, any member of Congress can carry out an unannounced visit at a federal facility that holds immigrants, but in June, multiple Democrats were denied visits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. 

Those 12 Democrats sued over the policy that required a week’s notice, and in December, Cobb granted the request to stay Noem’s policy, finding it violated the 2019 law. 

Noem has now argued that the January incident does not violate Cobb’s stay from December, because the ICE facilities are using funds through the Republican spending and tax cuts law, known as the “One, Big Beautiful Bill,” and not the DHS appropriations bill. Noem argued that those facilities are therefore exempt from unannounced oversight visits by members of Congress. 

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