The Madison Social Security Administration field office. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Wisconsinites are holding rallies  across the state Wednesday to call on Congress and the Trump administration to increase funding for operations at the Social Security Administration.

Staff reductions and office closures in the last year have created bottlenecks in service for members of the public who need help from the agency, according to Jessica LaPointe, the Wisconsin-based president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 220. The union represents field operations employees for the Social Security Administration across the country.

“We’re struggling to meet the needs of the public,” LaPointe said, with more than 10,000 people a day becoming eligible for the federal retirement program.

Along with AFGE, the Wisconsin Alliance for Retired Americans will be rallying outside Social Security offices in eight Wisconsin communities Wednesday.

“When they start closing offices, that hinders our senior citizens,” said Ross Winklbauer, president of WARA. “They call into Social Security if they have a question or to file a claim, and they’re sitting on the phone for hours because of short staffing and not getting their questions answered.”

WARA will take part in a rally starting at 12 noon outside the Social Security offices in the Milwaukee suburb of Greenfield along with AFGE. Rallies are also planned in Eau Claire, Madison, Racine, Rhinelander, Stevens Point, Wausau and Wisconsin Rapids. Winklbauer said WARA has about 100,000 members in the state, mostly union retirees, and about 1,000 active participants.

The rallies are part of a national day of action in anticipation of the possibility that the government will shut down at the end of January if Congress can’t agree on a budget for the rest of the year, LaPointe said.

Talks are underway between congressional Republicans and Democrats to enact the rest of the government’s spending plan for the current year by the upcoming deadline.

Nevertheless, LaPointe said the most recent shutdown that started Oct. 1 and ran for a record 43 days brought home to many field office workers in the Social Service Admin. the limits of their compensation, especially if they are furloughed.

In a report released Wednesday, the Strategic Organizing Center said its review of 36,000 Social Security workers’ pay rates showed that 54% — just over half — were paid less than what the MIT Living Wage Calculator has set as a living wage for the regions of the U.S. where they live. The developers of the calculator at the MIT Living Wage Institute define a living wage as “the rate that a full-time worker requires to cover the costs of their family’s basic needs where they live.”

“We don’t get paid enough to save for a rainy day,” LaPointe said. “We’re understaffed, we’re underpaid and we’re struggling to meet the needs of the public who are coming to us for their earned benefits.”

In January 2025, when President Donald Trump took office, the agency’s staff was at its lowest in 50 years, LaPointe said, and “the public was waiting too long for benefits and services.”

Since then, the agency instituted a buyout program, offering workers up to $25,000 to quit, and the staff dropped from 58,000 a year ago to about 50,000 now — “the largest single staffing cut in Social Security history,” LaPointe said. 

About 2,000 field staff were lost in the last year — 10% of the field operations, she said, with the number of employees at some offices falling to single digits. 

LaPointe said the agency has moved to “digital first” operations that favor online or telephone contacts instead of in-person visits. In addition, the agency has shifted to processing inquiries from the public nationally rather than at the local office she said — “where a customer out in California would be served by someone in Wisconsin, or a customer in Madison might be served by someone in New Jersey.”

In an email message, a Social Security Administration spokesperson depicted the digital shift as part of a modernization program so that “more Americans are choosing to resolve their needs online or over the phone.” The statement cited a recent audit by the Social Security Administration inspector general that found average hold times for callers had dropped to seven minutes by September 2025 from a high of 30 minutes in January.

Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano “has pledged to have the right level of staffing to operate at peak efficiency and deliver best-in-class customer service to the American people,” the spokesperson said.

The Social Security Administration “is taking action to improve workplace satisfaction, support professional development, and enhance communication across all levels of the organization,” the spokesperson added.

LaPointe, however, said there’s been “a breakdown in community based service” with the new system, and Social Security staffers are no longer the face of government in the local community.

“You now have to have an appointment to do anything with Social Security,” LaPointe said. “It’s created a bottleneck of service to where people cannot get access to apply for benefits in a timely fashion.”

Frontline workers are concerned that a move toward using artificial intelligence technology to review benefit applications will increase errors — either benefit approvals that are mistaken or unwarranted denials, she said.

“It still takes a human being to adjudicate claims — every claim, whether on the phone, online or in person,” LaPointe said.

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The William L. Guy Federal Building in Bismarck. A North Dakota-based Christian employers group filed a lawsuit against the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission a year ago over Biden-era regulations related to abortion and gender identity. (Photo by Michael Achterling/North Dakota Monitor)

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reached an agreement this month with a Christian business group to ignore regulations that allowed employees to receive abortion-related accommodations and barred workplace discrimination based on gender identity. 

Christian Employers Alliance President Margaret Iuculano, whose organization sued the EEOC over the two provisions in January 2025, said in a statement Monday that the deal was a “major win” for businesses looking to operate in accordance with their religion. The CEOs of Hobby Lobby, Regent Bank and AllBetter Health are on the board of the North Dakota-based nonprofit, which has more than 22,000 members across the country. 

The regulations, issued under former President Joe Biden’s administration, were already invalidated last year by federal courts, but the deal struck by the EEOC could foreshadow a move to rescind or rewrite rules for enforcing a landmark pregnant workers law. A spokesperson for the EEOC did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. 

“As attacks on women’s reproductive choice continue to escalate, we are disappointed, but not surprised, that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sided with the Christian Employers Alliance in federal court, relieving many large Christian employers of their obligation to protect employees seeking an abortion,” Inimai Chettiar, president of A Better Balance, said in a statement provided to States Newsroom. 

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which took effect in 2023, requires employers with 15 or more staff to provide reasonable accommodations — additional restroom breaks, a stool to sit on and time off for doctors’ appointments, for example — as long as the requests don’t place “undue hardship” on the company. 

According to a Jan. 9 court order signed by a North Dakota district judge, the EEOC agreed that current and future members of the alliance will not be penalized for declining to accommodate abortion, making employees follow gender-specific dress codes or directing staff to use private spaces that don’t align with their gender identity. 

Under the stipulations, the agreement will expire if the EEOC issues new regulations for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act and revises or rescinds gender identity-related guidance for complying with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1965, which bars workplace discrimination. 

“The agreement does not prevent the EEOC from investigating allegations of unlawful conduct not specifically covered by this agreement, even if they are alleged within the same charge that alleges non-enforcement conduct against CEA or its members,” the order states. 

Andrea Lucas, the chair of the EEOC, has said she supports the pregnant workers law overall but disagrees that abortion should be included in the definition of “pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions” when interpreting the measure. 

She has also said the agency will reconsider regulations for the law once there was a Republican quorum reestablished on the commission. The Senate approved the confirmation of Brittany Bull Panuccio, the newest commissioner, in October during the federal government shutdown. 

Lucas also opposed harassment guidance issued by Biden administration officials that said employers should respect workers’ pronouns and allow staff to use bathrooms that align with their gender identity. 

Chettiar, A Better Balance’s president, said the laws’ regulations “clearly cover workers’ ability to receive reasonable accommodations for ‘pregnancy-related conditions,’ which has long been interpreted to include abortion as well as other essential reproductive healthcare like IVF. We will continue to fight to keep the regulations for the PWFA intact and as strong as possible as the EEOC appears poised to reopen them and potentially narrow the scope of the law.”  

Planned Parenthood and other providers got word in March that millions they anticipated in Title X funding would be withheld. The money was eventually released last year, though some providers say damage was still done. (Getty Images)

Planned Parenthood clinics in Utah resumed family planning services after the Trump administration unfroze millions in federal funds.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday submitted a brief to dismiss a lawsuit filed on behalf of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association after the federal government notified nine Planned Parenthood affiliates and other family planning providers in March it would withhold annual Title X funding. 

Shireen Ghorbani, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, said in a statement Monday that the restored funding does not erase all of the damage caused by nine months without it. Title X funds are meant to provide affordable family planning services, such as birth control, cancer screening, and STI tests and treatment. 

Ghorbani noted that the Utah affiliate has been the only Title X grant recipient in the state since 1985. 

“We are thrilled that Title X funding is restored to Utah for now, allowing more Utahns to get critical family planning services,” Ghorbani said. “But we cannot ignore the fact that too many Utahns have already felt the devastating effects of the Trump administration’s unwarranted decision to withhold this funding for the last nine months. Many of the 26,000 Utahns who rely on the program were forced to pay more for their health care or go without care altogether.”

Crucially, she said, the affiliate closed two health centers, in St. George and Logan, among dozens that have closed because of the withheld Title X funding and are unlikely to reopen, according to Planned Parenthood. 

Some grantees had their funding restored over the summer, Politico reported, while others remained under investigation for possibly violating the Trump administration’s new rules around so-called diversity, equity and inclusion practices until December. That’s when the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services informed Planned Parenthood affiliates that they would receive their promised funds dating back to last April, with no explanation beyond unspecified “clarifications made by, and actions taken by, the grantees.” 

Planned Parenthood’s Utah affiliate said that on Jan. 9 it received $2 million in Title X funding for the current grant year that had been withheld since April.

In the lawsuit over the Title X funding, plaintiffs argued that the federal government withholding 22 federal Title X grants from Planned Parenthood and other family planning organizations was illegal and unjustified. 

“Our lawsuit succeeded in holding the administration accountable for its unlawful acts, and today, NFPRHA members’ grants have been restored. We are relieved all of our members now have access to their promised funds, but we know the fight for contraceptive access in this country goes on,” said Clare Coleman, president & CEO of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, in a statement Tuesday. 

She estimated that 865 family planning service sites were unable to provide Title X-funded services to an estimated 842,000 patients across nearly two dozen states.

While some states have fought to restore Title X family planning funding, Idaho last year declined its annual $1.5 million federal Title X funding, leaving patients statewide without free and low-cost contraception and reproductive health care services.

At least 20 more Planned Parenthood clinics have also closed because of last year’s budget reconciliation bill, which effectively blocked Planned Parenthood and other nonprofit reproductive health care providers from being able to participate in Medicaid, reducing low-income health care options throughout the country. Litigation remains ongoing in several cases over that Medicaid rule.

A screenshot of the HealthCare.gov marketplace. Enrollment for 2026 fell in Wisconsin and nationwide as premium costs rose and enhanced subsidies ended at the end of 2025.

With premium costs sharply increased and enhanced subsidies to reduce them no longer available, the number of people signing up for health care in the federal marketplace is behind last year by more than 5%, according to a preliminary report.

The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid, which manages the HealthCare.gov enrollment, reported this week that Wisconsin enrollment fell by more than 17,000 below 2025’s record enrollment, which topped 310,000. As of Jan. 3, 289,213 Wisconsin residents had enrolled in plans for 2026.

HealthCare.gov is the marketplace created as part of the Affordable Care Act. It is a platform for people to purchase health insurance who aren’t covered by an employer or by some other health plan, such as Medicare or Medicaid.

Nationwide, enrollment for 2026 is 22.77 million, CMS reported — a decline of about 1.5 million from 2025.

The loss of enhanced premium tax credits, which cut the cost of health insurance purchased at HealthCare.gov, has been predicted to lead many to drop out of the marketplace. The enhanced subsidies expired at the end of 2025. Smaller subsidies remain in place, but premiums have also risen in cost, for several reasons.

According to insurance analysts, one factor in that increase was that insurance companies expected the higher prices to drive some people out of the marketplace — particularly those with fewer health concerns who are willing to take the chance that they won’t need coverage.

The remaining population is expected to have more serious health needs, making their care more expensive but also raising the cost for insuring the entire remaining pool of customers.

The U.S. House has passed a bill that would extend the enhanced subsidies another three years. Its future in the U.S. Senate isn’t clear.

Open enrollment through HealthCare.gov is still available until Thursday, Jan. 15, with coverage starting Feb. 1. For consumers who enrolled by Dec. 15, 2025, coverage began Jan. 1.

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Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat, speaks at a press conference with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Jan. 13, 2026. At left is a photo of Renee Good, 37, who was killed by an immigration officer in Minneapolis.(Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus announced Tuesday they will oppose any federal funding for immigration enforcement following the deadly shooting of a woman by an immigration officer in Minneapolis. 

“Our caucus will oppose all funding for immigration enforcement in any appropriations bills until meaningful reforms are enacted to end militarized policing practices,” Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, who represents Minneapolis, said during a press conference.

Last week, federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis, which has seen a drastic increase in immigration enforcement for weeks following allegations of fraud. After the shooting, massive protests against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement occurred in Minnesota and across the country.

The U.S. Senate is moving forward with the remaining appropriations bills for Congress to avoid a partial shutdown by a Jan. 30 deadline, and negotiations continue over funding for the Department of Homeland Security. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday that  funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “one of the major issues that the appropriators are confronting right now.” 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said the appropriations bill for “Homeland is obviously the hardest one,” and that flat funding, or a continuing resolution, for the agency is the likely outcome.

Members of the Progressive Caucus are pushing for reforms including a ban on federal immigration officers wearing face coverings, the requirement of a warrant for an arrest and greater oversight of private detention facilities that hold immigrants. 

Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal said Congress also needs to pass legislation to roll back the billions allocated to the Department of Homeland Security last summer in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. The massive GOP spending and tax cuts package provided a huge budget increase to DHS for immigration enforcement of roughly $175 billion. 

“We have to urgently pass legislation to roll back the excessive funding for immigration enforcement” in the spending and tax cuts package, Jayapal said. “We cannot support additional funding for the Department of Homeland Security without seriously meaningful and significant reforms to the way that federal authorities conduct activity in our cities, our communities and our neighborhoods.”

Progressives press Jeffries

The Progressive Caucus has nearly 100 Democratic House members. Those members joining the press conference included Omar, Jayapal, Maxwell Frost of Florida, Chuy Garcia of Illinois, Delia Ramirez of Illinois and Maxine Dexter of Oregon. 

Garcia, who is the whip of the Progressive Caucus, said the group has informed House Leader Hakeem Jeffries of their position, but did not say if Jeffries supported slashing DHS funds. 

“They are very concerned, and they also share our sentiment that we need to do something to bring reform, to bring change to stop the lawlessness, the cruelty and the abuse of power that’s taking place within ICE and (Customs and Border Patrol) and DHS,” he said of Democratic leadership. 

While Democrats do not control either chamber, one tool lawmakers have used amid the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration campaign is the power of congressional oversight of federal facilities that house immigrants and are funded by Congress. 

But following the shooting in Minnesota, several lawmakers were denied an oversight visit to a federal ICE facility, a move that Democrats argue violates a court order. 

There will be an emergency hearing in the District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday on a new Trump administration policy that argues those facilities are funded through the spending and tax cuts package and therefore exempt from unannounced oversight visits. 

Jayapal called the reasoning “a B.S. argument, and hopefully the court is going to see that.” 

Investigations urged

Jayapal added that there also needs to be “independent investigations of lawlessness and violence by immigration agents and border patrol agents, and meaningful consequences for those who commit these acts of violence, not a slap on the wrist.”

Dexter, who represents part of Portland, Oregon, where two people were shot by CBP the same week Good was shot and killed, agreed.

“One thing is absolutely clear, when any law enforcement officer fires a weapon in any community, the public must have answers to questions,” Dexter said.

Ramirez said there needs to be greater accountability beyond appropriations, and said Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem should be impeached. 

Illinois Democratic Rep. Robin Kelly is planning to introduce articles of impeachment for Noem on three counts: obstructing Congress, violating public trust and self-dealing. While such a move likely would be uphill in the House, Republicans at the moment control the chamber by a very narrow margin.

“DHS and ICE have been empowered through a lack of oversight and too much latitude to violate our rights under the pretense of security and safety,” Ramirez said.

Frost said that Congress needs to assert its control over appropriations as a check against the Trump administration.  

“We cannot depend on this administration to police themselves and an end to the enforcement practices that are terrorizing our communities,” Frost said. 

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report. 

Demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, as justices heard two cases on state bans of trans athletes. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared likely Tuesday to keep in place laws in Idaho and West Virginia banning transgender athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams.

The outcomes from the nation’s highest court expected later this year could have sweeping implications for transgender rights more broadly as President Donald Trump’s administration’s efforts to roll back those rights have extended far beyond athletics. 

In lengthy, back-to-back oral arguments, justices heard two cases — Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. — which both deal with whether those states’ bans violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.  

The West Virginia case also calls into question whether its prohibition on transgender athletes participating in women’s and girls’ sports violates the  federal civil rights law barring sex-based discrimination in education programs known as Title IX. 

Rulings in lower courts have halted the two states from implementing the bans, to varying extents, leading GOP attorneys general in Idaho and West Virginia to ask the Supreme Court to step in. 

Idaho and West Virginia represent just two of the nearly 30 states with laws banning transgender students’ participation in sports consistent with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an independent think tank. 

During oral arguments in the Idaho case, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said he sees the growth of women’s and girls’ sports as one of the country’s great successes over the past half-century. 

He noted that some states, the federal government, the NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee “think that allowing transgender women and girls to participate will undermine or reverse that amazing success and will create unfairness.” 

He added that “for the individual girl who does not make the team, or doesn’t get on the stand for the medal, or doesn’t make all league, there’s a harm there, and I think we can’t sweep that aside.” 

Kavanaugh is part of the court’s conservative wing, whose members outnumber liberals 6-3.

Title IX debated

Kavanaugh’s comment seemingly endorsed West Virginia Solicitor General Michael Williams’ framing of the issue, as a protection of women and girl athletes. 

Williams told the justices that “maintaining separate boys’ and girls’ sports teams ensures that girls can safely and fairly compete in school sports.” 

He argued that Title IX “permits sex-separated teams,” and “it does so because biological sex matters in athletics in ways both obvious and undeniable.” 

Joshua Block, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, argued on behalf of Becky Pepper-Jackson, a transgender athlete at the forefront of the West Virginia case.

Block said that though West Virginia “argues that to protect these opportunities for cisgender girls, it has to deny them” to Pepper-Jackson, “Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause protect everyone, and if the evidence shows there are no relevant physiological differences between B.P.J. and other girls, then there’s no basis to exclude her.”

Idaho case

Idaho’s solicitor general, Alan Hurst, argued that “gender identity does not matter in sports, and that’s why Idaho’s law does not classify on the basis of gender identity.” 

Hurst said the law “treats all males equally and all females equally, regardless of identity.” 

Kathleen Hartnett, an attorney with Cooley LLP, represented Lindsay Hecox, a transgender student in Idaho who wanted to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University but would have been barred from doing so under the Idaho law because she is transgender.

A federal court in Idaho halted the law from taking effect in 2020. A federal appeals court initially upheld the ruling in 2023 but adjusted the scope of it in 2024 to only apply to Hecox, not other athletes.

Hartnett said the law ignored that trans girls who take medication to block testosterone do not have an inherent physical advantage in sports.

“Circulating testosterone after puberty is the main determinant of sex-based biological advantage that (the Idaho law) sought to address,” she said.

Hecox “has mitigated that advantage because she has suppressed her testosterone for over a year and taken estrogen,” Hartnett said.

The Idaho law, Hartnett said, “thus fails heightened scrutiny as applied to Lindsay and transgender women like her who have no sex-based biological advantage as compared to birth sex females.” 

Hecox has asked both an Idaho federal court and the Supreme Court to drop the case. Though a federal judge in Idaho rejected that attempt in October, the Supreme Court deferred the request until after oral arguments and could ultimately dismiss her case in the coming months. 

Issue actively debated

Earlier landmark rulings involving transgender rights came up before the court Tuesday — including United States v. Skrmetti in 2025 and Bostock v. Clayton County in 2020. 

In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s prohibition on gender-affirming care for minors.

The court held in Bostock v. Clayton County that LGBTQ+ employees are protected from employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

Kavanaugh suggested the wide-ranging landscape of laws on the issue throughout the country meant the court should tread carefully in meddling in state laws.

“Given that half the states are allowing transgender girls and women to participate, about half are not, why would we at this point — just the role of this court — jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country while there’s still, as you say, uncertainty and debate?” he asked Hartnett.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has taken steps at the federal level to prohibit trans athletes’ participation in women’s sports teams aligning with their gender identity, including the president signing an executive order in February 2025 that banned such participation. 

He also signed executive orders regarding transgender people including orders that make it the “policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” restrict access to gender-affirming care for kids and aim to bar openly transgender service members from the U.S. military.

Three cars filled with federal agents stop in front of Elle Neubauer and another observer, surrounding the car and threatening arrest during an early morning watch observing ICE in South Minneapolis Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

As Elle Neubauer drove before dawn past the darkened windows of the immigrant-owned businesses on Lake Street in Minneapolis, her co-pilot and friend Patty O’Keefe scanned the passing vehicles with binoculars, searching for signs of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

As the sun rose, more community patrollers arrived on Lake Street, keeping eyes on the Ecuadorean grocery stores, Somali restaurants and Mexican taco shops that line the street. With such a high concentration of patrollers and relatively few federal agents in the area that morning, Neubauer and O’Keefe decided to head south to the suburb of Bloomington, where O’Keefe said she had encountered ICE the day prior.

The goal is to “distract them, to occupy their time,” O’Keefe said. “The more time they’re trying to get away from us, the less time they’re spending searching for people to abduct.”

The pair quickly located and started following a white Ford Explorer they suspected belonged to ICE. The driver began weaving through suburban parking lots with Neubauer close behind, seemingly trying to confirm he was being followed.

“They do and will say anything to try to intimidate and scare people,” Neubauer said that morning. “One of their favorite lines recently is, ‘This is your one and only warning.’”

The Explorer came to a stop in a hotel parking lot, and Neubauer parked nearby. The driver of the Explorer then pulled his vehicle behind Neubauer’s car, blocking the exit.

A man with a black face covering and a tactical vest peeking through his flannel shirt exited his car and approached the passenger door, gesturing for O’Keefe to roll down the window.

“No, thank you,” Neubauer said, smiling and waving at the man.

“Stop following us,” he said, his voice muffled through the closed car window and the gaiter. “This is your first warning.”

Neubauer and O’Keefe started patrolling their south Minneapolis neighborhood recently as the Trump administration has ramped up its mass deportation campaign in Minnesota, sending in thousands of ICE and Border Patrol agents, with more on the way. They are some of the many thousands of Twin Cities residents who have come together over the past year to protest ICE and divert the agents from their mission, often resulting in tense confrontations.

Minnesota has been the focus of President Donald Trump’s deportation efforts since December, when a right-wing media outlet published unsubstantiated allegations that Somali Minnesotans were funding terrorism with money stolen from government programs. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced “Operation Metro Surge” in December, which purported to target Somali immigrants, the vast majority of whom are citizens or legal permanent residents. 

The effort to disrupt ICE operations has only grown in the days after ICE agent Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good in her car in south Minneapolis, as Minnesotans look for ways to push back against what many view as an occupation of the city by unwelcome federal forces. There are now at least four times more immigration agents in the state than there are Minneapolis police officers. 

Citizen observers are gathering on street corners and posting on social media to connect with each other, and immigrant rights organizations are quickly reaching capacity at training sessions for people who want to learn how to support and defend immigrants.

ICE did not respond to the Reformer’s emails for comment for this story.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Good was attempting to run over a federal agent in an act of “domestic terrorism.” Appearing on a Sunday morning Fox News show, Noem said her agency is investigating the funding behind anti-ICE operations, and claimed nonprofit organizations are training people to “distract them, assault them and do exactly what we’ve seen with these vehicle rammings.”

After the man finished talking to the patrollers and got back in the white Explorer, a second vehicle — a black GMC Yukon SUV— pulled in behind him, blocking in Neubauer’s car while the Explorer drove away. 

Neubauer and O’Keefe followed the black SUV out of the parking lot.

“I wonder how many first warnings we can get today,” O’Keefe said, half-jokingly.

She evidently ran out of warnings two days later, when federal agents smashed in her car window, dragged her and her co-pilot out of the car, and held them for eight hours in the belly of the Whipple Federal Building.

Neighbors join forces to track ICE, warn potential targets

When Trump assumed the presidency for the second time, immigrant rights activists landed on a strategy to respond to the coming increase in immigrant arrests: rapid response networks. Grouped by geographic proximity, they would quickly arrive at the scene of an ICE raid to protest, warn nearby neighbors, tell detainees about their rights and convince agents to leave. A common tactic is pointing out that agents can’t enter private property without permission or a judicial warrant.

Around the country, as ICE deployments escalated in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, anti-ICE protesters have adopted and spread the tactics of honking horns and blowing whistles to alert entire city blocks to agents’ presence. The practice has become common in the Twin Cities, especially since “Operation Metro Surge” began in December.

Over the past year, immigrant rights groups have hosted “know your rights” trainings for immigrants and rapid responders, outlining the laws governing ICE and the protocols observers should follow to avoid arrest. At these trainings, neighbors meet each other and plug into their local rapid response networks. 

Following cars, making noise and filming law enforcement operations is legal, according to Tracy Roy of the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota. Physically blocking ICE agents from making an arrest is not. (And getting arrested, Neubauer said, takes resources away from the movement, in addition to the high personal cost.)

Rapid responders have gathered en masse at protracted federal raids in Minneapolis and St. Paul in the past year, resulting in standoffs between protesters and ICE, in which ICE agents used physical force, pepper spray and tear gas on the demonstrators. 

But with the explosion in new agents arriving to the state, federal tactics seem to have shifted: ICE agents are conducting arrests quickly, in smaller groups than those that have provoked mass protest. By the time rapid responders arrive at the scene of a reported immigration raid or arrest — even if it only takes a few minutes — the ICE agents are often long gone. 

So, the rapid responders have gotten more proactive, setting off on neighborhood patrols, finding and following ICE agents to try to discourage them from making arrests. They also film the agents in action to document potential violations of the law.

“If they know that somebody is watching, they’re significantly less likely to stop somebody,” Neubauer said. “Often when they pull over and people hop on a whistle or on their horn, they’ll just leave.”

In group chats, neighbors using anonymous nicknames volunteer to assist with various aspects of the operation. No one assigns shifts or jobs; group members take on a needed role when they’re available, alert the group to their activities and let everyone know when they’re done.

The system is both highly organized and decentralized, with no clear leaders — just longer-time members of the network helping newcomers learn the communication style and security practices of the group.

As Neubauer drove on Friday morning’s patrol, O’Keefe monitored their local chat and listened to a group call. Both looked for what they’d learned were the hallmarks of ICE vehicles: out-of-state license plates, tinted windows, at least two people in the car — usually male, almost always masked.

When they spotted a suspicious vehicle in Bloomington, Neubauer maneuvered into position to follow it. An immediate giveaway that the vehicle belongs to federal agents, the patrollers said, is that the drivers quickly realize they’re being followed and start driving erratically. Early Friday morning, O’Keefe and Neubauer suspected a vehicle carried ICE officers; it aggressively accelerated towards Neubauer’s car while she made a U-turn at an intersection. Another vehicle they were following ran a red light, leaving the patrollers’ car behind.

“Well, if my plate wasn’t in their database, it is now,” Neubauer said Friday as she and O’Keefe followed the black SUV that had just boxed them in.

O’Keefe shared a description of the car and its license plate number so it could be added to the observers’ crowdsourced list.

As a countermeasure to the activists’ license plate tracking, ICE agents have been frequently switching license plates, drawing a warning from state regulators. 

Even after they lost the SUV — the driver cut abruptly across several lanes of traffic — the encounter was a successful waste of ICE resources, in the patrollers’ eyes. ICE had dedicated an entire vehicle to impeding the observers for several minutes, rather than conducting arrests.

“Deep breaths,” Neubauer said, reaching over to pat O’Keefe on the leg.

Managing one’s own emotions and staying calm is key to patrolling, because ICE agents are “emotional and not well-trained,” Neubauer said. 

‘I feel changed’

Neubauer and a different observer were following three apparent federal vehicles Monday when the convoy pulled onto a side street and came to a stop. Five agents hopped out of their vehicles, and one wearing a face covering and ICE vest approached the drivers’ side window as the others surrounded the car. 

As he approached the window, he greeted the driver with Neubauer’s wife’s legal name — the name on the car’s registration.

“If you keep following us…we’ll have to pull you out and arrest you,” the agent said. Neubauer and her co-pilot decided to keep following them — after all, they figured, they weren’t doing anything illegal. 

The convoy took them straight to Neubauer’s house, where they stopped and idled for a few minutes before moving on. 

According to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, ICE agents have routinely identified the drivers following them, then led them to the observers’ home — apparently using a law enforcement database to connect license plate numbers to drivers’ home addresses in an effort to intimidate observers.

On Monday, they took the intimidation tactics one step further. 

Two cars split off from the group, and Neubauer and her partner for the day decided to follow the third vehicle, a grey pickup truck. They stayed close behind for several minutes until they realized the truck was leading them towards the Whipple Federal Building. 

As Neubauer and her co-pilot followed the truck, agents returned to Neubauer’s house and banged on the front door. Her wife, who asked the Reformer not to publish her name out of fear of ICE, pretended she wasn’t home. The agents left after several neighbors stepped out of their houses and started blowing whistles.

When Neubauer realized what had happened, she called off the patrol and headed home.

“I feel changed, and afraid,” Neubauer’s wife said, looking at Neubauer. “I was very fearful — not for me, but for what could have happened to you.”

They set out on another patrol that afternoon, together.

Killed in the act

Since Ross shot and killed Good, immigrant rights activists and elected officials have referred to her as an “observer.”

When Neubauer saw video of the shooting, however, she noticed something that suggested Good may not have been trained, or experienced, in interacting with ICE: Her window was rolled down, and she was speaking to the agents, against the advice of many immigrant rights activists.

“The shooting on Wednesday was 1000% not Renee’s fault. It was an ICE officer panicking and shooting into her car,” Neubauer said. “If we can manage the emotions of ICE officers so they’re not panicking … they’re less likely to f*ck up and make a mistake and hurt someone.”

Several leaders of immigrant rights groups and members of Good’s local neighborhood rapid response network told the Reformer they did not know Good.

Even if Good were in the group chat, the people interviewed by the Reformer may not have known, because they use code names and generally do not know each other’s real identities.

Friday morning, one patroller spoke up in the group call to say their car had been boxed in and ICE agents were approaching.

Another group member repeated the collective mantra: Lock your doors, roll up the windows, do not engage.

Broken glass

Sunday morning, O’Keefe was patrolling south Minneapolis with her friend Brandon Sigüenza when they heard ICE agents had surrounded another patroller’s car and were deploying pepper spray. When they arrived at the scene, they saw two federal vehicles surrounded by people blowing whistles and honking horns, O’Keefe said.

The agents got back in their cars and drove away. O’Keefe and Sigüenza followed them down a residential street until the vehicles stopped in the middle of the road and agents came up to the car — again giving them a “final warning” to stop following the officers, O’Keefe said.

O’Keefe shouted through the closed windows that she wasn’t obstructing them and that they could move forward if they wanted to, she said.

Sigüenza, for his part, said he kept repeating Renee Good’s name.

As the agents were walking back to their cars, one turned around and sprayed pepper spray into the car’s intake vent, Sigüenza said. 

The pair continued following the convoy, O’Keefe honking her horn, until the agents stopped and got out of their cars again.

This time, they shattered both front windows and dragged Sigüenza and O’Keefe from the car, according to video captured by observers. Sigüenza said both of their phones flew from his hands, his landing in the frozen street. Agents handcuffed both activists and placed them in separate unmarked vehicles bound for the Whipple Federal Building, they said.

O’Keefe said the agents ridiculed her while she was in the backseat of the car. 

“You guys gotta stop obstructing us,” O’Keefe recalls one agent saying. Then, referring to Renee Good: “That’s why that lesbian b*tch is dead.”

O’Keefe became enraged, calling the agent a “f*cking bigot.” She committed his comment to memory and quoted it to everyone she could inside the Whipple Building, she said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment Monday.

O’Keefe’s partner, Mitch Ditlefsen, called her as he was leaving his job as a prep cook at around 9:45 a.m. 

“Someone picked up and said, ‘The owner of this phone has been abducted by ICE,’” Ditlefsen said. 

“I showed up, and there was just shattered windows and pepper spray, and no indication of where Patty and Brandon were,” Ditlefsen said. 

The pair said they spent eight hours in custody, mostly in holding cells with other U.S. citizens who said they were also arrested while protesting ICE. O’Keefe said she was never provided a phone call; Sigüenza was able to call his wife. 

While in custody, Sigüenza said, agents suggested they would pay him or expedite immigration proceedings for his relatives if he provided the agents with names of undocumented immigrants or protest organizers. Both were released without charges. 

Sigüenza said he’ll take a short break from patrolling for his wife’s sake — she feared for his safety long before his arrest — but he’s ready to get back out there. 

O’Keefe said the experience has strengthened her resolve, but also ratcheted up her fear. 

“They don’t realize this is coming from a deep place of love and empathy and care for my community,” O’Keefe said. “And that is a stronger feeling that I have in me than fear.”

Feeling besieged, a neighborhood fights back

When thousands of people showed up to mourn Good at a vigil the night she was killed, organizers urged attendees to get connected to their local immigrant defense networks in whatever role they are comfortable with.

Everyone has different skills and risk tolerances, Neubauer said, so there’s a role for everyone. For example, going door to door to meet one’s neighbors is one important way to increase safety and support people who may be staying home for fear of ICE, Neubauer said. 

“But honestly, I have too much social anxiety,” she said. “It was just too much for me to do that. And for whatever reason, my brain works in such a way where (patrolling) is less anxiety-inducing than talking to my neighbors door-to-door.”

She wouldn’t be able to deal with the emotional toll of patrolling without support from her wife, she said. The movement needs all kinds of help; whistles and volunteers to distribute them; plate checkers and people to coordinate among different networks in various languages; food delivery for immigrants sheltering in place.

And, more people in more neighborhoods who are ready to jump into action when ICE shows up next door.

Interior of a modern data center. (Stock photo by Imaginima/Getty Images)

Dozens of data centers have been built in communities across Wisconsin, with more planned or in process. In many of these communities, the proposed data centers have sparked significant local opposition. 

Both Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature have proposed bills to regulate the growth of data centers as community leaders across the state have asked for more direction from the state government on the approval of what are often massive facilities. 

So far, the state has had little input on data center construction outside of a provision in the 2023-25 state budget which exempted data center construction projects from paying sales taxes. 

The Democratic bill, introduced last year by Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) and Rep. Angela Stroud (D-Ashland), would require data centers to report the level of energy and water they’re using, fund the development of renewable energy projects and ensure the cost of increased energy demands aren’t passed on to regular consumers.

The Republican bill, introduced this month, also requires the Public Service Commission to prevent energy use and infrastructure costs from being passed on to consumers, requires the data center to use a closed-loop water cooling system to limit the amount of water needed and includes provisions that would require the data center company to cover the cost of restoring the land it’s built on if the data center is closed or unfinished. The bill also includes a provision that requires any renewable energy created to power the data center be sourced on site. 

Last year, the issue of data centers was a common theme on the campaign trail in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, as voters respond to the effects of hosting more of the centers than any other state. 

Here in Wisconsin, communities are grappling with how to make agreements with the big tech companies hoping to build the data centers, how to avoid the broken promises at the top of mind of many Wisconsinites after the Foxconn development in Mount Pleasant failed to live up to its lofty initial projections and how to manage the often huge demands the data centers make on local water supplies and energy. 

Despite those challenges, the construction of a data center can offer benefits to local governments — mostly by boosting property tax revenue from a development that won’t consume many local government services. 

Unlike many other issues, the question of data center development has not become politically polarized, with a range of positions among candidates of both parties. 

“Data centers are a new issue that has not taken on a partisan edge in the public mind,” Barry Burden, a political science professor at UW-Madison, said. “This is likely to change because among politicians Democrats are more skeptical about data centers and Republicans are more enthusiastic about them. If this partisan divide continues or even becomes sharper, the public is likely to begin mimicking the positions taken by party leaders. But at least for a while the issue is likely to cut across party lines.”

In Wisconsin’s crowded open race for governor, most of the candidates told the Wisconsin Examiner they were supportive of some level of statewide regulation on data centers. 

Democrat Missy Hughes’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment for this article. Her public comments on the issue are included below. 

Mandela Barnes 

The former lieutenant governor said in a statement to the Examiner that it’s important that data center construction not increase utility rates, not damage the environment and use Wisconsin union labor. He also said the companies developing the centers need to meaningfully work with the communities they’re trying to build in. 

“A lot of communities feel left out of conversations about what is going on in their own backyard and that is not fair,” Barnes said. “Any development of this scale must meaningfully engage local communities and address their concerns and input throughout their proposal. We must also ensure that data center projects do not drive up utility rates for Wisconsinites or contribute to harmful pollution, and that they invest in training and hiring Wisconsin workers to staff these facilities.”

Joel Brennan 

The former secretary of the Department of Administration said in a statement from his campaign that the desire of tech companies to move fast is in opposition to the government’s need to engage the public transparently. 

“Wisconsinites shouldn’t have to foot the bill for AI or data center projects, period. At a time when affordability is a challenge in every community, taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for construction, operations, or higher utility costs. No one should have to worry about affording their heating bill because a data center has driven up energy prices,” he said. “It’s reasonable for people to have concerns about AI, and I share those concerns. The technology is moving fast, and companies often prioritize speed. Government’s responsibility is different: transparency, accountability, community engagement, and coordination with local communities who stand to be impacted by these projects. Data centers can create jobs and support local economies, but only if they’re done right — protecting taxpayers and our natural resources, and ensuring that the benefits truly serve Wisconsin communities.”

David Crowley 

At a gubernatorial candidate forum in November, Crowley was mostly supportive of data center development, saying the government shouldn’t be picking “winners and losers” and instead “make sure that this is fertile ground for entrepreneurs and businesses to either stay or move right here to the state of Wisconsin.”

In a statement to the Examiner, a campaign spokesperson said Crowley wants to encourage investment in Wisconsin’s economy while enforcing stringent environmental regulations, making sure companies pay the cost of increased energy use and giving local governments the power to say no to a data center project. 

“Growth that drives up rates or drains local resources is not innovation. It’s a bad deal,” the spokesperson said. “Communities will have clear authority to condition or deny projects based on energy and water use, demand transparency, and community benefit agreements, because the people who live with these projects deserve the final say. Crowley’s approach is simple: Wisconsin will lead in technology and economic growth without raising utility bills, without sacrificing our natural resources, and without letting Big Tech write the rules. Development will be transparent, accountable, and judged by whether or not it delivers real benefits to the people who live in Wisconsin.”

Francesca Hong

In a policy framework released last week, the Madison-area representative  to the state Assembly called for a moratorium on the construction of new data centers while the state works out how to responsibly manage their effects. Hong also wants to end sales tax and use tax exemptions for data centers, require the construction of more renewable energy sources and increase environmental protections on data centers. She is also a co-sponsor on the Democrats’ data center bill in the Legislature. 

In an interview with the Examiner, Hong said Wisconsin’s political leaders have a responsibility to listen to local opposition to data centers. 

“Our communities deserve long-term investments and contributions to their local communities,” she said. “The bipartisan opposition that is building coalitions against AI data centers means that elected officials have a responsibility to get more data on data centers, which is what informed our decision to support a moratorium on the construction of new data centers.” 

Hong said that on the campaign trail she has heard from voters who want Wisconsin to be “a hostile environment for AI data centers.” She added that it’s a bipartisan issue, which presents an opportunity to her as a Democratic socialist running for governor.

“I think there’s an opportunity here, not only for us to engage the left and bring them into electoral politics here in Wisconsin, but actually build that coalition amongst voters who are across the political spectrum and recognizing that as working class people, they’re getting screwed and they’re stressed, and they’re right to demand that their government do more to hold corporate power accountable,” she said. 

Missy Hughes 

At the November forum hosted by the Wisconsin Technology Council, Hughes, who as the former head of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation was involved in efforts to build the Microsoft data center at the former Foxconn site, promoted their positive potential for the state. 

“To have some of these data centers land here in Wisconsin, provide incredible property tax and revenue for the communities that are really determining how to pay their bills, how to build new schools, how to build new fire departments, it’s an opportunity for those communities to access some of that investment and to benefit from it,” she said, adding that a data center isn’t right for every community and local pushback should be considered. 

Sara Rodriguez 

A spokesperson for the current lieutenant governor said that she would issue an executive order to freeze utility rates while state officials develop a long-term data center plan. 

That long-term plan would include ways to prevent energy costs from increasing while making sure local residents get a say. 

“Sara strongly believes data center projects should be developed collaboratively with local communities. That means early community input, clear communication, and transparent planning to reduce misinformation and ensure projects make sense locally,” the spokesperson said. “Data centers aren’t the right fit for every community, but when done right they can bring real benefits — including jobs, redevelopment of otherwise unusable land, and new revenue that can help local governments lower taxes for residents, as we’ve seen in places like Janesville.” 

The campaign added that agreements with local governments must include provisions to prevent developers from bailing out and abandoning communities. 

“Sara also believes all details must be negotiated up front in binding agreements. If utilities make grid investments or communities commit resources, developers must be on the hook if a project is delayed or canceled,” the spokesperson said. “Families and local governments shouldn’t be left holding the bag. Wisconsin can support growth and innovation, but only if it’s fair, transparent, and doesn’t raise costs for working families.” 

Kelda Roys 

The Madison-area state senator is a co-sponsor of the Democrats’ data center bill and in an interview with the Examiner, said that as governor she’d support regulation that follows a similar framework to the legislation. 

“I think there needs to be a statewide strategy with guardrails that protect our workers, our environment and our consumers from massive price increases,” she said. “I’m very skeptical of this idea that the biggest and richest and most powerful companies in the world should get to just come in and pick off local communities and local elected leaders one by one and make these sweetheart deals in the dark that screw over the public. And I think in the absence of statewide standards and transparency, that is what is happening.” 

She said the state should use its sway to insert itself as a negotiating party in agreements with data center developers in an effort to keep energy costs low, reduce environmental impact and protect Wisconsin workers. 

She also said that the state government doing something to ease the budget crunch facing local governments will put those local officials in a better position when deciding whether or not to allow a data center to be constructed. 

“Part of the reason that we’re having this problem is that we have put local governments in an impossible situation because of the fiscal mismanagement and the harm of Republican politicians,” she said. “Communities will have more bargaining power when they don’t feel like, ‘Gosh, we’re desperate for more revenue, and our hands are really tied by the state. This is the only option,’ right? They will be in a stronger negotiating position if this is a nice to have, but not a necessary to have. And that’s the position that we want communities to be in. I want Wisconsinites to be able to have a say in our communities’ future, to be able to have an open and transparent process where we can say, ‘actually, we don’t think that this site is an appropriate one for a data center.’”

Josh Schoemann

The Washington County executive said at the November candidate forum there is an “abundance of opportunity” with data centers but that the state needs to be “very, very strategic and smart about where” data centers are built. In a statement from his campaign, he said the state needs to prioritize developing nuclear power to provide enough energy for data centers and everyday Wisconsinites. 

“I have great optimism about the potential for data centers and AI for Wisconsin, but it must be people focused,” he said. “Our lack of sufficient energy supply and distribution is a real threat to strategic growth and personal property rights. Growing up in Kewaunee, we had clean and efficient nuclear power right in our community. We need to get back to nuclear energy as a large part of a diverse energy portfolio — not just for data centers, but for the multitude of new homes we need for people, as well as more innovation and industry.”

Tom Tiffany 

The Republican congressman and frontrunner in the party’s primary has often opposed the development of large solar farms in and around his northern Wisconsin district, arguing they’ve taken too much of the region’s farmland out of commission. 

In a statement from his campaign, Tiffany said the development of data centers should be handled “responsibly.” 

“As demand for internet infrastructure continues to grow, data centers present new opportunities for economic development, but like any innovation, they must be developed responsibly,” he said. “Wisconsin families and small businesses should not be left footing the bill for increased electricity demand, local residents deserve a seat at the table when decisions are made about these projects, and taxpayer subsidies should not be used to build data centers on productive farmland. Growth should be responsible and transparent, without shifting costs onto existing ratepayers.”

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Gov. Tony Evers said he is focusing on what can be accomplished in the final year of his term rather than what he and his wife may do once he retires from office. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Gov. Tony Evers, who is entering his final year in office, is calling on lawmakers to help him accomplish some of his priorities in 2026 including providing property tax relief and taking action to blunt the effect of cost-shifting from the federal government to states by the Trump administration.

Evers decided to not run for a third term last year, leading to the first open race for governor since 2010. During a press briefing Monday, he told reporters “nope” when asked if he had thoughts on who in the crowded Democratic primary field could best build on his work.

While he wouldn’t comment on the field, Evers said that working on affordability in Wisconsin would be one of his top priorities — and likely one of the top issues in the 2026 campaign cycle. 

Evers said he is focusing on what can be accomplished in the final year of his term rather than what he and his wife may do once he retires from office. 

“We’ve worked hard for seven years and… we have a year left and it’s not all about me. All of the things that need to be addressed, many of them can be. I feel very strongly that legacy is just doing the right thing for the people of Wisconsin,” Evers said, adding he wants to leave Wisconsin in “a better place.” 

The Wisconsin Legislature has work days scheduled through March, though Evers said work may need to go into April to get the state’s business accomplished. He said lawmakers could run for office and work at the same time. 

“I think it will help no matter who is running for reelection, both the Republicans and Democrats, actually spending some time not getting out of town as early as possible and let’s do some things for the people of Wisconsin,” Evers said. “It’s bad politics to say we’re done in February, we’re done in March and we’ll see you at the polls.” 

Evers said 2026 is starting after a year of “historic and bipartisan wins” for Wisconsinites. He highlighted actions taken in the state budget including providing state funding directly to child care centers, increasing school funding and investing in the University of Wisconsin system, and said he wants to build on that work in the rest of his term. “Our budget was a win for Wisconsin kids, families and our state’s future, but there’s no denying the final budget looked different from what I proposed,” he said. 

Evers noted that the state ended the fiscal year with nearly $4 billion in reserves and $2 billion in a rainy day fund. He said projections from the Department of Revenue that will be released soon show that the state could also bring in as much as $1 billion more than this year. 

Tax relief, school funding

Evers said one of his top priorities is taking action to soften the impact of property tax increases. He called on lawmakers, again, to pass a slate of policies he has proposed that could result in $1.3 billion in tax relief. 

Wisconsin taxpayers’ December bills included the highest increase since 2018 — the result, in part, of Evers’ controversial 400-year line-item veto, which extended a two-year increase in the amount of money districts can raise from local property taxpayers for centuries into the future, as well as lawmakers’ decision to not provide additional state aid to schools, pushing many districts to use their additional taxing authority and others to go to referendum, asking local residents to pay more.

“Look, I get it: Republicans love to blame my 400-year veto for property taxes going up,” Evers said. “The problem with that is Wiscosinites were going to referendum before increasing the number of years — long before. The question would be why? Because of a decade of Republicans consistently failing to meaningfully invest in our kids and K-12 schools. That has consequences including forcing Wisconsinites to raise their own property taxes.” 

Evers said that he wasn’t saying relief needs to be accomplished in one particular way, but that the state will be in a “world of hurt” if nothing is done about property taxes.

Proposals on the issue that he has suggested include a state program to encourage local governments to freeze property taxes, increasing state aid to public schools to help reduce tax levies and increasing the school levy tax credit. 

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) has also named lowering property taxes as one of his top priorities for the year, though he and other Republicans have focused on the school revenue limit increases that are in place due to the partial veto Evers issued on the 2023 state budget. Evers brushed off the criticism, saying school districts were seeking property tax increases through referendum way before his veto.

“Before that 400-year veto, we were going to referendum all the time, so they can use that as an excuse if they want but let’s just get this done,” Evers said. 

Vos rejected the suggestion in a statement Tuesday morning, saying  that Evers was asking lawmakers to “backfill his mistake.”

“We will pass a repeal of his 400-year veto and we ask him to urge Democrats in the legislature to join that effort,” Vos said. “Recent property tax increases fall primarily on his shoulders and unless he’s willing to fix that, taxpayers in Wisconsin will be driven out of their homes due to these unaffordable increases.”

Evers also called on lawmakers to provide additional funding for special education. He and lawmakers put funding in the budget they calculated would bring the state’s share of special ed costs to 42% of districts’ expenses in the first year of the budget and 45% in the second year, but the Department of Public Instruction has issued revised numbers showing that the funding allocated in the budget likely won’t be enough to meet those rates.

“This has to be fixed before the Legislature goes home this year. I’m calling on the Legislature to invest the necessary funding to ensure the agreed upon percentages… are met — or better yet, make the appropriation sum sufficient,” Evers said. Sum-sufficient appropriations are not fixed amounts of money but cover costs for programs even if they fluctuate.

Evers also said lawmakers should take action to exclude certain items including diapers, toothpaste and over-the-counter medications from the state’s sales tax. 

Evers said he is also open to looking at Republican proposals to eliminate taxes on overtime and tips but wants to consider more “universal” forms of tax relief. Republican lawmakers have been working to advance proposals that would align state tax policies with the new federal policies that were adopted last year.

Dealing with the Trump administration  

In his letter to lawmakers, Evers told them they may need to take action to blunt the effects of Trump administration policies. 

“With more chaos being created every day in Washington, new challenges continue to emerge and evolve that deserve our immediate focus and attention,” Evers wrote to lawmakers. “This includes responding to President Donald Trump’s and Republicans in Congress’ ongoing efforts to shift hundreds of millions of dollars in federal program costs to Wisconsin taxpayers and our state’s future budgets.” 

A recent change to federal law means that the state could be at risk of losing more than $200 million annually in federal funds for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program if the benefit payment error rate climbs above a certain level.

Evers told reporters that he is in conversations with lawmakers about a potential investment to ensure that the error rate for the state’s Foodshare program remains low. The state Department of Health Services has said that $69 million would help implement quality-control measures and cover the cuts the federal government has made to administrative costs.

The Trump administration has also recently frozen funds to five Democratic-run states, including Minnesota, due to child care fraud while also increasing reporting requirements for states receiving child care funds to cover services for low-income kids. 

Evers said Wisconsin, not one of the five, is in a good position to ensure accountability in the system as the state already made significant changes after a fraud scandal like Minnesota’s was uncovered in Wisconsin more than 15 years ago.

A 2009 Pulitzer prize-winning investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel uncovered significant fraud within the state’s WisconsinShares program that led to criminal indictments and prompted the state to implement protections. 

“We’re making sure we’re doing everything and we are in a good place,” Evers said. “There’s lots of auditing going on… so I think we’re in a great place.”

ICE shooting in Minneapolis

Evers told reporters that it is a “huge mistake” by President Donald Trump to exclude Minnesota from the investigation into the death of Renee Good at the hands of an ICE agent last week.

“Should the people of Minnesota or Minneapolis be a part of that investigation? Hell yes,” Evers said. “When the federal government comes in and talks about things in terms of you’re going to do this or that… you want to be part of the conversation and there’s none of that going on.” 

Evers said in response to a question about whether ICE was welcome in Wisconsin, “We can handle ourselves, frankly. I don’t see the need for the federal government to be coming into our state and making decisions that we can make at the state level.” 

However, Evers stopped short of endorsing a proposal from Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez that would bar ICE from certain areas.

Rodriguez, who is running in the Democratic primary for governor, proposed on Monday that the state ban ICE from courthouses, hospitals and health clinics, licensed child-care centers and daycares, schools and institutions of higher education, domestic violence shelters and places of worship unless there is a warrant or an imminent threat to public safety.

Evers said when asked about the proposal that he would look at it, but that “banning things will absolutely ramp up the actions of the folks in Washington D.C.”

Evers on what else might get accomplished in 2026

Evers said he is “confident” there will soon be a proposal to release $125 million in state funds to fight PFAS contamination that members from both sides of the aisle can support. He said his administration has spent the last several months in conversation with Republican lawmakers on the issue to try to reach a compromise.

Evers said that he hopes they will be able to do the same for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program, which is set to expire this year. 

Evers said he is open to exploring options for getting WisconsinEye, the nonprofit that provided livestream coverage of state government similar to C-Span until it went dark last month, back online, but said he isn’t supportive of just giving the nonprofit state funds without a match requirement.

WisEye  went offline  Dec. 15 due to financial difficulties. There is $10 million in state funding for the organization that was set aside by lawmakers and Evers for an endowment, but the organization has to raise matching funds to access it.

“I think there has to be some skin in the game,” Evers said of WisEye. 

The organization launched a GoFundMe on Monday to help raise $250,000, which would cover its expenses for three months. By the end of the day, the organization had raised more than  $4,000.

Evers also called on lawmakers to pass legislation that would extend Medicaid coverage for new mothers from 60 days to a year. Vos has opposed the bill and stopped it from receiving a vote in the Assembly, even as it passed the Senate with only one opposing vote and has more than 70 Assembly cosponsors.

“I’m hoping 2026 will be the year that the Speaker finally decides that bill will make it to my desk,” Evers said.

Evers also outlined his hopes that lawmakers will take action to help lower the cost of health care and prescription drug prices including by capping the price of insulin at $35, passing legislation to audit insurance companies when their denial rates are high and creating new standards to increase the number of services health insurance companies must cover. 

Evers also called on lawmakers to provide funding for two sites that closed last year, one in Green Bay and the other in Chippewa Falls, that housed homeless veterans. He said ideally the Veterans Housing and Recovery Program would receive the nearly $2 million  as he proposed last year.  

Evers said he hadn’t seen the GOP-authored bills that passed the Assembly unanimously that would create a new state grant program that would go to organizations that serve homeless veterans. 

“Whatever we can do to solve that issue,” Evers said. “Any of the things I’ve talked about today, if something happens individually, great. We have to get that done, so if they come up with a plan that I feel confident it’s going to work… then I’d sign it.”

Update: This story was updated Tuesday Jan. 13 to include a statement from Assembly Speaker Robin Vos. 

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The Republican Party of Wisconsin mixed up former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes (left) and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley (right) in a post to X on Monday. (Wisconsin Examiner photos)

The Republican Party of Wisconsin mixed up the two Black Democratic candidates for governor in a social media post on Monday before deleting and reposting it.

Wisconsin’s open race for governor has led to a crowded Democratic field in the primary, and the state’s Republican party sought on Monday to call out two of those candidates by name in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

“[State Rep.] Francesca Hong, [former Lt. Gov.] Mandela Barnes, and other radical progressives are trying to destroy our state. From wanting to defund police, raise property taxes, and bring socialism to Wisconsin, it is clear that they are out of touch with the needs of Wisconsin families,” the post states. 

However, the initial post made by the party included a graphic of Hong and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, not Barnes. A screenshot of the original post was posted by Civic Media Political Editor Dan Shafer on X.

Crowley is the first Black person to serve as Milwaukee County executive and Barnes, a former candidate for the U.S. Senate, served as the first Black lieutenant governor in the state of Wisconsin. The two Democrats are the only Black candidates in Wisconsin’s race for governor. There are no Black candidates in the Republican field, which includes U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and Washington County Exec. Josh Schoemann. 

That’s not Mandela Barnes… pic.twitter.com/Rqxj1NBvZE

— Dan Shafer (@DanRShafer) January 12, 2026

The post was pulled down and reposted with a photo of Barnes in the graphic alongside Hong, who is the only Asian American in the race. 

The Wisconsin GOP and Crowley campaign did not respond to a request for comment from the Examiner. The Barnes campaign declined to comment at the time of publication. 

A Barnes spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday that Barnes “is beating Trump’s lapdog Tom Tiffany in the polls, so it would be a good idea for Tiffany’s allies to Google who they’d lose to in the general.”

Update: This story was updated Tuesday Jan. 13 to include comment from the Barnes campaign. 

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Two Wisconsin hospital systems have paused gender-affirming medication and hormone care for minors. (Getty Creative)

Two Wisconsin hospital systems have paused providing gender-affirming health care for minors, according to a published report, prompting state lawmakers to urge them to reconsider.

“Wisconsin values include fairness, compassion and looking out for one another,” said state Sen. Melissa Ratcliff (D-Cottage Grove) and state Reps. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), Margaret Arney (D-Wauwatosa) and Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) in a joint statement Monday afternoon.

“This decision moves us away from those values by placing additional burdens on families who are already navigating complex medical health needs. Parents should be able to make informed decisions in consultation with qualified health care providers without political interference or fear,” the lawmakers said.  

The statement was issued under the umbrella of the Legislature’s Transgender Parent and Nonbinary Advocacy Caucus.

The group responded to reporting Monday in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that Children’s Wisconsin, a children’s hospital and health system in suburban Milwaukee, and UW Health, in Madison had both paused prescribing gender-affirming medication such as puberty blockers and hormones for minors.

The news story initially attributed word of the changes to anonymous sources. Representatives of both hospital systems subsequently confirmed the facilities had taken action to stop providing care, except in the area of behavioral health.

On Dec. 18, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department announced that the federal government would stop all Medicaid and Medicare payments to hospitals and clinics that provide gender-affirming care for patients under the age of 18.

“At Children’s Wisconsin, we strongly believe everyone, including LGBTQ+ kids, should be treated with the support, respect, dignity and compassion they deserve,” a Children’s spokesperson told the Journal Sentinel. “We are communicating to patients that due to escalating legal and federal regulatory risk facing systems and providers across the nation, we are currently unable to provide gender affirming pharmacologic care.” Children’s Wisconsin will continue mental health and behavioral health services, the spokesperson said.

A UW Health spokesperson told the newspaper in a statement that the system “is committed to providing high-quality, compassionate and patient-centered care to our patients and families, including LGBTQ+ patients.”

The statement acknowledged that because of federal actions, “UW Health is pausing prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapy as part of gender-affirming care for patients under 18 years of age.”

The lawmakers’ caucus statement, which did not name the medical systems, said that halting care could harm the mental health of young people receiving that care.

“Removing access to this care increases the risk of anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts among young people who already are facing disproportionate mental health challenges,” the caucus statement said. It urged the health systems “to reconsider their decision.”

Abigail Swetz, executive director of the LGBTQ+ advocacy organization Fair Wisconsin, said in a statement that the Trump administration has been engaged in “disgusting” attacks on trans people since before taking office.

In pausing care the hospital systems made “an awful decision, and I believe it is the wrong decision — it’s a decision that is putting young patients, their families, and even their own providers in a very tough place,” Swetz said. “And at the same time, these clinics should never have been bullied by this federal administration into making any kind of decision in the first place, especially one that reduces access to this life-affirming care.”

Swetz said Fair Wisconsin was organizing public comment opposing the federal proposed rule and urged Wisconsinites to join the effort.

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Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly speaks with reporters in the Mansfield Room of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Dec. 1, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the department on Monday for trying to demote Kelly’s retirement rank and pay after he appeared in a video where he and other lawmakers told service members they didn’t need to follow illegal orders. 

Kelly’s suit, filed in the federal district court for the District of Columbia, says attempts by the Trump administration to punish him violate the First Amendment, the separation of powers, due process protections and the Speech and Debate clause of the Constitution.

“Pete Hegseth is coming after what I earned through my twenty-five years of military service, in violation of my rights as an American, as a retired veteran, and as a United States Senator whose job is to hold him—and this or any administration—accountable,” Kelly wrote in a statement. “His unconstitutional crusade against me sends a chilling message to every retired member of the military: if you speak out and say something that the President or Secretary of Defense doesn’t like, you will be censured, threatened with demotion, or even prosecuted.”

Kelly appeared in the video alongside Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Colorado Rep. Jason Crow, Pennsylvania Reps. Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan and New Hampshire Rep. Maggie Goodlander — all of whom are former members of the military or intelligence agencies, though none of the others are still subject to the military’s legal system.

President Donald Trump was irate after seeing the video, posting on social media that he believed it represented “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”

DOD investigation

The Defense Department announced in late November that it was looking into “serious allegations of misconduct” against Kelly, a retired Navy captain, for participating in the video. 

Kelly said during a press conference on Capitol Hill in December the Defense Department investigation into him, along with one by the FBI into all of the lawmakers in the video, marked “a dangerous moment for the United States of America when the president and his loyalists use every lever of power to silence United States senators for speaking up.”

Hegseth, who originally threatened to court-martial Kelly, said in early January the Defense Department would instead downgrade his retirement rank and pay. 

“Captain Kelly has been provided notice of the basis for this action and has thirty days to submit a response,” Hegseth wrote in a social media post. “The retirement grade determination process directed by Secretary Hegseth will be completed within forty five days.”

Kelly said at the time he would challenge Hegseth’s course of action. 

First Amendment cited

The 46-page lawsuit marks the next step in the months-long saga, with Kelly asking a federal judge to declare the effort to demote him “unlawful and unconstitutional.”

“The First Amendment forbids the government and its officials from punishing disfavored expression or retaliating against protected speech,” the lawsuit states. “That prohibition applies with particular force to legislators speaking on matters of public policy. As the Supreme Court held 60 years ago, the Constitution ‘requires that legislators be given the widest latitude to express their views on issues of policy,’ and the government may not recharacterize protected speech as supposed incitement in order to punish it.”

The lawsuit alleges that the Pentagon’s actions against Kelly “also trample on protections the Constitution singles out as essential to legislative independence.” 

“It appears that never in our nation’s history has the Executive Branch imposed military sanctions on a Member of Congress for engaging in disfavored political speech,” the lawsuit states. ”Allowing that unprecedented step here would invert the constitutional structure by subordinating the Legislative Branch to executive discipline and chilling congressional oversight of the armed forces.”

Kelly’s legal team asked the judge to grant “emergency relief” in their favor by Friday, Jan. 16.

The case was assigned to Senior Judge Richard J. Leon, who was nominated to the bench by President George W. Bush.

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., left, and Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., arrive at the regional ICE headquarters at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building on Jan. 10, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The lawmakers attempted to access the facility where the Department of Homeland Security has been headquartering operations in the state. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A dozen Democratic members of Congress Monday asked a federal judge for an emergency hearing, arguing the Department of Homeland Security violated a court order when Minnesota lawmakers were denied access to conduct oversight into facilities that hold immigrants.

The oversight visits to Minneapolis ICE facilities followed the deadly shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross. Federal immigration officers have intensified immigration enforcement in the Twin Cities following the shooting, leading to massive protests there and across the country. 

“On Saturday, January 9—three days after U.S. citizen Renee Good was shot dead by an ICE agent in Minneapolis—three members of Congress from the Minnesota delegation, with this Court’s order in hand, attempted to conduct an oversight visit of an ICE facility near Minneapolis,” according to Monday’s filing in the District Court for the District of Columbia. 

Democratic U.S. Reps. Ilhan Omar, Angie Craig and Kelly Morrison of Minnesota said they were denied entry to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building shortly after arriving for their visit on Saturday morning.

Lawmakers said in the filing the Minnesotans were denied access due to a new policy from Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The new Noem policy, similar to one temporarily blocked by U.S. Judge Jia Cobb last month, requires seven days notice for lawmakers to conduct oversight visits.

“The duplicate notice policy is a transparent attempt by DHS to again subvert Congress’s will … and this Court’s stay of DHS’s oversight visit policy,” according to the new filing by lawyers representing the 12 Democrats.

DHS cites reconciliation bill

Noem in filings argued the funds for immigration enforcement are not subject to a 2019 appropriations law, referred to as Section 527, that allows for unannounced oversight visits at facilities that hold immigrants.

She said that because the facilities are funded through the “One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act” passed and signed into law last year, the department does not need to comply with Section 527.

The OBBBA, passed through a congressional process called reconciliation, is allowed to adjust federal spending even though it is not an appropriations law.

“This policy is consistent with and effectuates the clear intent of Congress to not subject OBBBA funding to Section 527’s limitations,” according to the Noem memo.  

Congress is currently working on the next funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. The lawmakers in their filing argue “members of Congress must be able to conduct oversight at ICE detention facilities, without notice, to obtain urgent and essential information for ongoing funding negotiations.”

“Members of Congress are actively negotiating over the funding of DHS and ICE, including consideration of the scope of and limitations on DHS’s funding for the next fiscal year,” according to the filing.

The 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.

Neguse, the lead plaintiff in the case, said in a statement that the “law is crystal clear.”

“Instead of complying with the law, DHS is abrogating the court’s order by re-imposing the same unlawful policy,” he said. “Their actions are outrageous and subverting the law, which is why we are going back to court to challenge it — immediately.”

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a press conference following the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting at the Federal Reserve on Dec. 10, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s feud with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has escalated into a Department of Justice investigation, raising alarm bells among some Republicans in the Senate, where Trump will need broad backing from GOP lawmakers to get his choice for the next Fed chairman approved after Powell’s term ends in May. 

Retiring North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who sits on the narrowly divided Banking Committee that will hold hearings on the next nominee, wrote in a statement he won’t approve anyone to fill Powell’s seat if Trump or administration officials try to further erode its independence. 

“If there were any remaining doubt whether advisers within the Trump Administration are actively pushing to end the independence of the Federal Reserve, there should now be none,” Tillis wrote. “It is now the independence and credibility of the Department of Justice that are in question.”

Tillis added he plans to “oppose the confirmation of any nominee for the Fed—including the upcoming Fed Chair vacancy—until this legal matter is fully resolved.”

Powell fights back in a video

Trump has criticized Powell repeatedly since retaking the Oval Office in January, pressing him to reduce interest rates faster and signaling he wanted to fire him. 

Powell said in a video released this weekend that Justice Department officials on Friday “served the Federal Reserve with grand jury subpoenas, threatening a criminal indictment related to my testimony before the Senate Banking Committee last June.”

Powell alleged the DOJ investigation is not purely about oversight of the multi-year renovation project at the Fed’s offices in Washington, D.C., but “a consequence of the Federal Reserve setting interest rates based on our best assessment of what will serve the public, rather than following the preferences of the president.”

“This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions—or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation,” Powell said.

Trump first nominated Powell to be chairman of the Federal Reserve in November 2017 for a four-year term that began in February 2018, writing in a statement that Powell had “demonstrated steady leadership, sound judgment, and policy expertise.”

“Mr. Powell will bring to the Federal Reserve a unique background of Government service and business experience,” Trump wrote. “He previously served as Under Secretary at the Department of Treasury in the administration of President George H.W. Bush. Mr. Powell also has nearly three decades of business experience.”

The Senate voted 84-13 in January 2018 to confirm Powell to the role. 

President Joe Biden re-nominated Powell in November 2021 for another four-year term that began in May 2022 after the Senate voted 80-19 to confirm him for a second time. 

Tillis leverage on committee

Trump hasn’t said publicly whom he will nominate to succeed Powell as Fed chairman, but whoever he picks will need to move past the Senate Banking Committee in order to receive a confirmation vote on the floor and actually take on the role. 

The Banking Committee holds 13 Republicans and 11 Democrats, giving Tillis considerable leverage to block any Trump nominee from advancing if all of the Democrats on the panel also vote against reporting that person to the floor.

Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, ranking member on the committee, wrote in a statement that “Trump is abusing the authorities of the Department of Justice like a wannabe dictator so the Fed serves his interests, along with his billionaire friends.”

“As Donald Trump prepares to nominate a new Fed Chair, he wants to push Jerome Powell off the Fed Board for good and install another sock puppet to complete his corrupt takeover of America’s central bank,” Warren wrote. “This Committee and the Senate should not move forward with any Trump nominee for the Fed, including Fed Chair.”

Chairman Tim Scott, R-S.C., had not released any public statements about the Department of Justice investigation into Powell as of Monday morning. 

Murkowski sees ‘attempt at coercion’

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who isn’t on the committee, released a written statement after speaking with Powell on Monday morning, saying “it’s clear the administration’s investigation is nothing more than an attempt at coercion.” 

“If the Department of Justice believes an investigation into Chair Powell is warranted based on project cost overruns—which are not unusual—then Congress needs to investigate the Department of Justice,” Murkowski wrote. “The stakes are too high to look the other way: if the Federal Reserve loses its independence, the stability of our markets and the broader economy will suffer. My colleague, Senator Tillis, is right in blocking any Federal Reserve nominees until this is resolved.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement the Justice Department’s actions represent “the kind of bullying that we’ve all come to expect from Donald Trump and his cronies.” 

“Anyone who is independent and doesn’t just fall in line behind Trump gets investigated,” Schumer wrote. “Jay Powell and the Fed aren’t the reason Trump’s economy and his poll numbers are in the toilet. If he’s looking for the person who caused that he should look in the mirror.”

Former Federal Reserve chairmen, Treasury secretaries and White House economic advisers released a written statement that the Fed’s “independence and the public’s perception of that independence are critical for economic performance, including achieving the goals Congress has set for the Federal Reserve of stable prices, maximum employment, and moderate long-term interest rates.”

“The reported criminal inquiry into Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell is an unprecedented attempt to use prosecutorial attacks to undermine that independence,” they wrote. “This is how monetary policy is made in emerging markets with weak institutions, with highly negative consequences for inflation and the functioning of their economies more broadly. It has no place in the United States whose greatest strength is the rule of law, which is at the foundation of our economic success.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters in the afternoon she didn’t know if Trump had seen Powell’s video but defended the president’s right to denounce the Fed’s actions under his leadership. 

“Look, the president has every right to criticize the Fed chair. He has a First Amendment right, just like all of you do,” Leavitt said. “And one thing for sure, the president has made it quite clear that Jerome Powell is bad at his job. As for whether or not Jerome Powell is a criminal, that’s an answer the Department of Justice is going to have to find out and it looks like they intend to find that out.” 

Julia Coelho leads a song at a vigil outside the Wisconsin State Capitol after the killing of Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross in Minneapolis, MN. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

At a vigil outside the Wisconsin State Capitol Friday evening, a few days after a federal agent shot and killed Minneapolis mother Renee Nicole Good, hundreds of people held candles and raised their voices in a call and response song led by Madison Community Singing leader Julia Coelho: “This is way too big for you to carry it on your own …  you do not carry this all alone.”

Tiny lights flickered in the darkness. “This is not a rally centered on chants or speeches,” an organizer from the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera told the crowd. Instead, it was a moment to acknowledge our collective shock and grief, to support each other as we face the sickening and disorienting shift in the world around us, and to try to hold onto a protective sense of community. 

It was a needed respite from watching the video, obtained by the Minnesota Reformer, of the shooting of Good in broad daylight as she sat at the wheel of her minivan on a Midwestern residential street, apparently trying to move away from the agent who shot her. The horror of that scene was compounded by the propaganda from the Trump administration that followed, immediately blaming Good for her own death and calling her a “domestic terrorist,” while claiming that the real victim was the ICE agent who, after he shot her, walked away unhurt. 

Stoking political division and hate, justifying murder, treating people’s real lives like a video game — our poisonous political atmosphere is overwhelming. We need to put down the screens and restore our sense of human connection if we are going to overcome it.

Dane County Judge and Pastor Everett Mitchell, speaking at the vigil, quoted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s eulogy for the three little girls killed in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Their deaths, King said, “have something to say to every minister of the gospel who has remained silent behind the safe security of stained-glass windows. They have something to say to every politician who has fed his constituents with the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism,” as well as to those who “stood on the sidelines in a mighty struggle for justice.”

“Madison,” Mitchell said, “we can no longer stand on the sideline and feel like we are protected. We must substitute courage for caution.”

Here in Wisconsin, the Minneapolis shooting hits close to home. Minnesota is our near neighbor. My daughter, who lives in the Twin Cities, was driving past the area of the ICE surge when Good was shot. She texted us about the unfolding chaos in real time, as ICE vehicles sped past her — putting our whole family on edge. 

Maybe we have had the false sense, as Mitchell said, that we were protected. 

The “Midwest nice” culture of Minnesota and Wisconsin — whether that describes taciturn conflict avoidance or genuine warmth — doesn’t fit with political violence. 

It’s impossible to see ourselves in Trump’s heated rhetoric about the “Radical Left Movement of Violence and Hate.” Nicole Good, whose last words were, “I’m not mad at you,” certainly doesn’t fit that profile. 

The killing of a U.S. citizen by federal agents, justified after the fact by the president, vice president, and secretary of Homeland Security, is a turning point for all of us. As investigative reporter Ken Klippenstein points out, Trump’s national security order targeting so-called leftwing domestic terrorist groups, and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s tag-along directive, “Ending Political Violence Against ICE” broadly justify the targeting of Americans who protest Trump’s immigration crackdown or attempt to help their immigrant neighbors who are being terrorized.

In a video filmed by the agent who shot Renee Good, released by a right-wing news outlet that tried to spin it as exonerating him, you can hear a man’s voice, immediately after the shooting, cursing Good, calling her a “f-ing bitch.” 

A Customs and Border Patrol Agent who shot Chicago resident Marimar Martinez five times and bragged about it in text messages, also allegedly used the word “bitch” as he rammed into her car, according to Martinez’s attorney. The Justice Department initially claimed Martinez, who survived. was the aggressor, saying she used her car to try to harm the agents — the same dubious claim made against Good — but then dropped all charges after Martinez challenged the government’s evidence.

Turning hyped-up, poorly trained agents onto the streets to pursue civilians is, contrary to Trump administration propaganda, making America much less safe. And pouring fuel on the fire with hateful rhetoric about “the radical Left” and the need to round up immigrant “criminals” —  a majority of whom have committed no crimes — is exacerbating this disaster.

The Trace puts the number of ICE shootings at 16, four of them fatal, since the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown began — including Silverio Villegas González, a father from Mexico who worked as a cook, killed just after he dropped off his children at school, while reportedly trying to flee from ICE officers during the Midway Blitz in Chicago. At the vigil Friday night, Mitchell connected those killings to racist violence from the Civil Rights era to the 2020 murder of George Floyd. “And now carved into the same, sorrowful stone is the name of Renee Nicole Good,” Mitchell said.

People are struggling to figure out what to make of our frightening new reality. At the Madison vigil, one activist declared that the escalating ICE crackdown “is not because they are inevitably powerful. It is because we are powerful.” But the escalation, which is targeting people who are decidedly not powerful, is coming directly out of the more than $170 billion allocated to immigration enforcement in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — more than the yearly budget for all local and state law enforcement agencies in the U.S. combined, according to the Brennan Center. The Trump administration is using this newly empowered militarized police force to target civilians the administration characterizes as enemies. 

Most of the people I know are aghast at this scary turn of events. But one Wisconsinite I spoke with waved away the shooting, saying, “Minneapolis has a lot of problems.” There’s that false sense of being protected Mitchell called out. It’s really just denial — a powerful wish to believe that bad things only happen to other people, that violence is far away and somehow the fault of people who are different from us and who bring it on themselves.

But this touches all of us. And it won’t go away unless we get to the root of the problem — the unAmerican national security directives, the insane ICE budget, the lack of accountability — what Vice President JD Vance, astoundingly, asserted was “total immunity” for the rogue, masked agents targeting people in a political crackdown that has nothing to do with keeping us safe.

We have to see this for what it is. We need members of Congress to demand a rollback of the massive funding for Trump’s unaccountable police force. We need leaders who will state clearly, as Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have done, that political violence against civilians waged by the Trump administration is immoral, illegal and has to stop. 

Most of all, we need each other. This is too heavy for one person to carry. We need to connect, to combine all of our efforts and to build a massive popular movement to take care of each other and reject the hateful forces that are trying to tear us apart.

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The Milwaukee Police Administration Building downtown. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Milwaukee Police Department says it doesn’t have a plan in place if federal immigration authorities mobilize into the city at a scale similar to operations in nearby Chicago and Minneapolis. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched one of the largest operations in its history last week, sending about 2,000 agents into the Twin Cities. That mobilization resulted in an ICE agent shooting and killing 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good Wednesday morning in Minneapolis. Minneapolis schools were closed Thursday because, in a separate incident, ICE agents deployed tear gas at a high school as students were being dismissed.

Late last year, ICE’s “Operation Midway Blitz” similarly sent a large number of federal agents into the Chicago area. While the operation was underway, ICE and other federal agents killed a 38-year-old Mexican man during a traffic stop and in another incident rammed into the car of a woman who was warning neighbors about ICE presence before shooting her five times. 

The Chicago operation included at least another dozen incidents in which federal agents pointed their guns or fired less-lethal weapons at residents, according to data compiled by The Trace. 

In both cities, the massive presence of immigration authorities has caused significant ripple effects through local communities, straining the ability of local law enforcement to control crowds of observers and protesters and respond to the disruptions in traffic caused by caravans of federal SUVs traveling over city streets. 

“Local police departments and many state governors have been very firm in their communication to federal law enforcement that federal law enforcement is not welcome in their cities conducting these sorts of major operations because of the fact that it is so disruptive,” says Ingrid Eagly, a law professor at UCLA who focuses on immigration enforcement. “Because people you know can be injured and harmed, and communities are living in fear. It’s causing a great amount of disruption in communities to have this kind of strong law enforcement presence.” 

In cities across the country where ICE agents have been deployed in large numbers, local officials have had to decide how local cops engage with the operations and what that engagement communicates to local residents. Eagly says that operating as “a backup service for unprepared ICE agents” would be using local resources to legitimize ICE’s presence. 

“To send in local law enforcement, as backup, as sort of part of the enforcement team, would be essentially being part of the of the federal police force conducting ICE operations,” she says.

The operations in Chicago and Minneapolis, two largely Democratic Midwestern cities  that are frequent targets of rhetorical attacks by Republicans, are prominent displays of force in communities similar to Milwaukee. Even though Wisconsin has so far avoided the brunt of the Trump administration’s stepped-up immigration enforcement efforts, that could change. 

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel that the city had to be prepared for the “eventuality” that an ICE surge is coming.

“Given what happened [Wednesday] and the young woman who was killed by a federal agent in Minneapolis, we got to prepare on the ground,” Johnson said.

But when asked if the Milwaukee Police had a plan for managing a potential ICE operation in the city, a spokesperson for the department only pointed to the department’s existing immigration policy. 

The department’s immigration policy states that Milwaukee Police officers are not allowed to cooperate with ICE’s civil immigration enforcement actions. 

“Proactive immigration enforcement by local police can be detrimental to our mission and policing philosophy when doing so deters some individuals from participating in their civic obligation to assist the police,” the policy states. 

But the written policy does not include any provisions for how police personnel should respond in the event of massive ICE presence in the community. Having a noncooperation or “sanctuary” policy could make Milwaukee a target for Trump’s mass deportation program. Despite that, when pressed for clarification because the policy does not state now the department would manage the fallout of an ICE surge, the spokesperson refused to answer.

“It states what our policy [is] in regards to immigration enforcement,” a Milwaukee police spokesperson said in an unsigned email on Tuesday, before the Minneapolis incident. “We do not have an operation like Chicago therefore cannot provide information about a policy of something that we do not have in our city.” 

Pressed again for an answer to the specific question about managing the traffic and crowd control implications of a massive ICE operation in Milwaukee, the spokesperson again refused to answer. 

“We have an immigration enforcement policy just because you do not like the answer does not mean we are going to answer different to you,” the spokesperson wrote. 

After the shooting in Minneapolis, in answer to a follow-up question from the Examiner, the MPD spokesperson again cited the department’s existing policy preventing cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

Update: After publication of this story, the Milwaukee Police Department provided further comment asserting its sanctuary policy serves as its plan to handle a large ICE presence in the city.

“We saw your article and assert that your title is misleading. Our policy reflects MPD’s course of action in working with immigration enforcement officials. To be clear, US Bureau of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has been present in Milwaukee for many years, even prior to the current presidential administration. You asked what our plan was if immigration authorities mobilize into the city at a scale similar to operations in other jurisdictions — our response is that we have a policy in place and we will continue to abide by our policy. That does not change regardless of the number of agents who are present in our City.”

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Wisconsin lawmakers, journalists and members of the public returned to the Capitol last week for a packed slate of committee hearings and executive sessions but for the first time in nearly 20 years, WisconsinEye was not broadcasting daily legislative proceedings. Wisconsin State Capitol on a snowy day. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

After WisconsinEye, the state’s version of C-Span, went off the air in December, Republican lawmakers rediscovered rules that bar members of the public from making video and audio recordings of committee hearings and decided to start enforcing them.

Wisconsin lawmakers, journalists and members of the public returned to the Capitol last week for a packed slate of committee hearings and executive sessions but for the first time in nearly 20 years, WisconsinEye was not broadcasting daily legislative proceedings.

A notice passed around Assembly committees listed two rules. Assembly rule 11, related to committee procedures, states that “insofar as applicable, the rules of the Assembly apply to the procedures of standing committees and special committees.”

Assembly rule 26, which relates to members of the public observing from visitor galleries in the Assembly chambers, states that they “may not use any audio or video device to record, photograph, film, videotape, or in any way depict the proceedings on or about the Assembly floor.” 

Senate rule 11 also states that “no persons other than members of the chief clerk’s staff, members of the staff of the sergeant at arms, members of a senator’s staff, and accredited correspondents of the news media may engage in any audio or video recording of the proceedings of the Senate or any committee without permission of the committee on Senate organization.” According to the Senate Chief Clerk Cyrus Anderson, the rule was first adopted in 2005. 

Wisconsin’s open meetings law expressly states that governmental bodies “shall make a reasonable effort to accommodate any person desiring to record, film or photograph the meeting,” but the law includes a provision that says that “no provision of this subchapter which conflicts with a rule of the senate or assembly or joint rule of the legislature shall apply to a meeting conducted in compliance with such rule.”

Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond Du Lac) told the Wisconsin Examiner that the rules were reviewed in caucus at the start of the year.

“Many of [the members], like me, I didn’t know there was a rule,” O’Connor said. “So it was a reminder.” 

Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard), who has served in the Assembly since 2015, said he couldn’t remember looking at the rule in the last decade. 

“How many times have I just kind of breezed past it? I guess I never really thought of it, primarily because I’ve always had WisconsinEye to rely on to assist with that coverage, as well as present media and in-person public,” Steffen said. 

Steffen said lawmakers, seeking to understand their options in the absences of WisconsinEye, looked over the Assembly rules.

“One of the things that immediately became apparent is that under our Assembly rules, we already have some things that are readily available — for example, credentialed media — but we also have things that have always been prohibited,” Steffen said. “It remains the rule of the day, so this isn’t a new rule… In terms of the enforcement, I think it’s more of an awareness campaign than anything.”

The rule enforcement caused some confusion throughout last week.

Notices related to the rules were passed around and posted outside committee rooms. Committee chairs issued directions at the start of meetings. Reporters in committees were asked to show their credentials as they set up cameras and stood to take photos, and others, including staff members and members of the public without credentials, were stopped from doing so.

Rep. Clinton Anderson (D-Beloit), seeking to help fill the gap left by the absence of WisconsinEye, livestreamed on Facebook the meeting of the Assembly Local Government Committee on Wednesday, writing that “we have to step up and do what we can.” Anderson said on Thursday that he sought to do the same in the Assembly Agriculture Committee but was stopped from doing so as Rep. Travis Tranel (R-Cuba City) reminded the room of the rules related to recording.

“We’re now hearing that this will become standard practice across committees. If that’s the direction Republican leadership is heading, it represents a clear move to restrict public access,” Anderson said in a statement. “After WisconsinEye went dark, the response should have been to expand transparency, not quietly close another door on the public. I am disappointed to see the Assembly GOP go after the public’s First Amendment rights.”

Testimony from two Republican lawmakers on a bill to exempt overtime from income taxes was interrupted during an Assembly Ways and Means committee meeting on Thursday afternoon by  a point of order relating to video recording.

“I don’t have a problem, video all you want,” said Rep. Mike Bare (D-Verona), the committee’s ranking member, to someone who was holding up a cellphone “You’ve got nothing to hide. These guys have nothing to hide, but if we’re going to have a rule…”

“I know that there was staff taking a photo, yes, and I gotta challenge that if you’re videoing… if you’re doing a video that you’re not allowed in the committee area,” O’Connor said. 

O’Connor told the Examiner after the meeting that he is fine with photos being taken in his committee and he believes committee chairs can use their discretion on whether to allow photos. He said video is different because of  its potential use for political purposes.

“If it’s staff taking photos of their rep, I don’t have a big problem of it,” O’Connor said. “You could have somebody, an outsider, come and testify, and their best friend is sitting in this seat and wants to take a picture, that’s not the issue.”

“Trying to capture video, quite frankly, it gets down to it can be used politically,” he added. “So WisconsinEye tapes this, you cannot use a WisconsinEye clip in political campaigns. That’s why the rules originated, and I get that… I don’t want either side to violate that or benefit from it adversely.”

Bare said he wanted to ensure that the rules were being applied evenly if they were going to be enforced. 

“We have a long, rich tradition in Wisconsin of open government, open access to government, and we shouldn’t have be limiting that access to members of the public to staff to members and to the media in any way,” Bare said, adding that the enforcement of the rules is “clearly a response to WisconsinEye being offline, being dark, which seems like a preventable problem.”

“There’s plenty of states in the country who provide funding for broadcasting… We shouldn’t be in the situation where we members or our staff have to livestream onto social media,” Bare said. “We’ve got decades now of precedent of these things being broadcast out to the public.”

WisconsinEye halted its coverage in December due to a lack of funding after failing to raise sufficient funds to meet a matching requirement for the release of $10 million in state funds.  WisconsinEye leadership has been in discussions with lawmakers about a potential solution, including releasing part of the  $10 million that is intended to build an endowment.

“We’re only going to be in session for maybe eight to 10 more weeks, and if we’re unable to get WisconsinEye back up and running in that timeframe, I’m hopeful the public isn’t going to be impacted any more than they already have been,” Steffen said. 

Bill Lueders, president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, told the Examiner that the enforcement of the rule is a bad idea.

“Regardless of the law, denying the public the ability to record and film legislative meetings, especially in the absence of a functioning WisconsinEye, is deeply undemocratic and, in my opinion, foolhardy. Nothing that goes on in these meetings is anywhere near as insidious as what people will assume is happening if the ability to film and record it is being curtailed,” Lueders said.

Lueders said the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (WFIC) doesn’t support anything that treats the media differently from ordinary citizens.

“Although they may legally be able to pass their own rule and enforce their own rule to deny people an opportunity, it doesn’t make it any less of a good idea,” Lueders said.  

Steffen said he would be open to having options for the public to record and photograph meetings as long as they are not obstructing the activity of a committee. “I think that this situation, this hopefully short-term downtime, has created an opportunity to discuss some of those rules that have been on the books for some time, and perhaps there’s some that need to be modified.”

In the meantime, Steffen said lawmakers are focused on finding a solution to make up for the loss of  WisconsinEye and options for the public are limited to attending in person and consuming coverage by journalists in the Capitol.

Steffen called on local reporters to “fill the gap” in a press release on Friday.

“All of them have the ability to record, maybe sometimes just audio, but they all have the ability to record a proceeding and put that on their website,” Steffen said. “That at least would provide some opportunity for transparency during this interim.”

Lueders said local media “absolutely does not have the resources to film as many legislative hearings and sessions as WisconsinEye was doing; it just doesn’t have that capacity. Cameras can come and show up for part of a hearing, but they’re not there filming entire meetings on a daily basis, and that’s not a function that can be replicated… It’s more important than ever that ordinary citizens who attend these meetings are able to film and record it.”

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Becky Pepper-Jackson attends the Lambda Legal Liberty Awards on June 8, 2023 in New York City. Her mother sued on her behalf over West Virginia's law barring trans athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams in public schools and colleges. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Lambda Legal )

WASHINGTON — A pair of blockbuster cases to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court could carry far-reaching implications for transgender rights, even as the Trump administration during the past year has rolled out a broad anti-trans agenda targeting everything from sports to military service.

The court on Jan. 13 will hear challenges to laws in Idaho and West Virginia banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. Both cases center on whether the laws violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The West Virginia case before the Supreme Court also questions whether the state’s law violates Title IX — a landmark federal civil rights law that bars schools that receive federal funding from practicing sex-based discrimination. 

Lower court rulings have temporarily blocked the states from implementing the bans, to varying extents, and Republican attorneys general in Idaho and West Virginia have asked the Supreme Court to intervene. 

“We know we have an uphill fight, and our hope is certainly that we prevail,” Joshua Block, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT & HIV Project, who will be presenting oral arguments in the West Virginia case, said at a Jan. 8 ACLU press briefing. 

“But we also hope that regardless of what happens, this case isn’t successfully used as a tool to undermine the rights of transgender folks more generally in areas far beyond just athletics.” 

The outcome of the oral arguments before a court dominated 6-3 by conservative justices will be closely watched. Nearly 30 states have laws that ban trans students’ participation in sports consistent with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an independent think tank.

Idaho case  

The justices are taking up both cases in one day. First will be Little v. Hecox, which contests a 2020 Idaho law that categorically bans trans athletes from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams. 

Lindsay Hecox sued over the ban in 2020, just months before the law was set to take effect. 

Though Hecox wanted to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University, the Idaho law — the first of its kind in the nation — would have prevented her from doing so because she is transgender. 

A federal court in Idaho halted the law from taking effect later that year. A federal appeals court initially upheld the ruling in 2023 but later adjusted the scope of it in 2024 to only apply to Hecox, not other athletes. 

Idaho appealed to the Supreme Court in July 2024.

Since that time, Hecox has asked both an Idaho federal court and the Supreme Court to drop the case. 

An Idaho federal judge in October rejected that attempt, but the Supreme Court deferred the request until after oral argument — meaning justices could still dismiss the case.

“The Supreme Court is trying to decide whether Idaho can preserve women’s sports based on biological sex, or must female be redefined based on gender identity,” Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said at a Jan. 8 press briefing ahead of the oral arguments.

“I think Idaho is just trying to protect fairness, safety and equal protection for girls and women in sports,” Labrador said at the briefing alongside West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey, hosted by the conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom.  

West Virginia case

After the Idaho case, the justices will hear arguments in West Virginia v. B.P.J., which centers on a 2021 Mountain State law that also bans trans athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams. 

McCuskey argued that his state’s law “supports and bolsters the original intent and the continuing intent and purpose of Title IX.” 

McCuskey said the law complies with the Equal Protection Clause because it “treats all biological males and all biological females identically” and “doesn’t ban anyone from playing sports.” 

Becky Pepper-Jackson, who was 11 at the time, wanted to try out for the girls’ cross-country team when starting middle school, but would have been prevented from doing so under the West Virginia law because she is transgender. 

Her mother sued on her behalf in 2021.

A federal appeals court in 2024 barred West Virginia from enforcing the ban, prompting the state to ask the nation’s highest court to intervene.  

White House, Congress zero in on trans athletes

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has taken steps at the federal level to prohibit trans athletes’ participation in women’s sports teams aligning with their gender identity. 

Trump signed an executive order in February 2025 that banned such participation and made it the policy of the United States to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

The NCAA promptly changed its policy to comply with the order, limiting “competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only.” 

In late 2024, prior to the policy shift, NCAA President Charlie Baker told Congress that of the more than half-million total athletes in NCAA schools, he knew of fewer than 10 who were transgender. 

The GOP-led House passed a measure in January 2025 that would bar transgender students from participating on women’s school sports teams consistent with their gender identity. 

But Senate Democrats in March blocked an attempt at imposing such a ban and codifying Trump’s executive order. 

Forty-eight GOP members of Congress argued in a September amicus brief supporting Idaho and West Virginia that “if allowed to stand, the interpretation of the lower courts will unsettle the very promises that Congress made to generations of young women and men through Title IX.” 

On the flip side, 130 congressional Democrats stood behind the two transgender athletes in a November amicus brief, noting that “categorical bans preventing transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity impose significant harm on all children — especially girls.” 

The group argued that such bans “do not meet the standards this Court has put in place to assess discrimination based on sex — whether as a matter of Title IX or under the Equal Protection Clause.” 

Trump’s broader anti-trans agenda has extended beyond athletic participation in the nearly one year since he took office. 

He signed executive orders that: make it the “policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female;” restrict access to gender-affirming care for kids; and aim to bar openly transgender service members from the U.S. military. 

‘Textbook discrimination’ 

The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, has noted that there has been “considerable disinformation and misinformation about what the inclusion of transgender youth in sports entails” and that trans students’ sports participation “has been a non-issue.”

In a statement ahead of oral arguments, HRC’s senior director of legal policy Cathryn Oakley said “every child, no matter their background, race, or gender, should have access to a quality education where they can feel safe to learn and grow — and for many kids that involves being a part of a school sports team.”

Oakley added that “to deny transgender kids the chance to participate in school sports alongside their peers simply because of who they are is textbook discrimination — and it’s unconstitutional.” 

A police officer uses the Flock Safety license plate reader system. Many left-leaning states and cities are trying to protect their residents’ personal information amid the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, but a growing number of conservative lawmakers also want to curb the use of surveillance technologies. (Photo courtesy of Flock Safety)

As part of its deportation efforts, the Trump administration has ordered states to hand over personal data from voter rolls, driver’s license records and programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.

At the same time, the administration is trying to consolidate the bits of personal data held across federal agencies, creating a single trove of information on people who live in the United States.

Many left-leaning states and cities are trying to protect their residents’ personal information amid the immigration crackdown. But a growing number of conservative lawmakers also want to curb the use of surveillance technologies, such as automated license plate readers, that can be used to identify and track people.

Conservative-led states such as Arkansas, Idaho and Montana enacted laws last year designed to protect the personal data collected through license plate readers and other means. They joined at least five left-leaning states — Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York and Washington — that specifically blocked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from accessing their driver’s license records.

In addition, Democratic-led cities in Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Washington last year terminated their contracts with Flock Safety, the largest provider of license plate readers in the U.S.

The Trump administration’s goal is to create a “surveillance dragnet across the country,” said William Owen, communications director at the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, a nonprofit that advocates for stronger privacy laws.

“We’re entering an increasingly dystopian era of high-tech surveillance,” Owen said. Intelligence sharing between various levels of government, he said, has “allowed ICE to sidestep sanctuary laws and co-opt local police databases and surveillance tools, including license plate readers, facial recognition and other technologies.”

A new Montana law bars government entities from accessing electronic communications and related material without a warrant. Republican state Sen. Daniel Emrich, the law’s author, said “the most important thing that our entire justice system is based on is the principle against unlawful search and seizure” — the right enshrined in the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

“It’s tough to find individuals who are constitutionally grounded and understand the necessity of keeping the Fourth Amendment rights intact at all times for all reasons — with minimal or zero exceptions,” Emrich said in an interview.

ICE did not respond to Stateline’s requests for comment.

Automated license plate readers

Recently, cities and states have grown particularly concerned over the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), which are high-speed camera and computer systems that capture license plate information on vehicles that drive by. These readers sit on top of police cars and streetlights or can be hidden within construction barrels and utility poles.

Some cameras collect data that gets stored in databases for years, raising concerns among privacy advocates. One report from the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive think tank at New York University, found the data can be susceptible to hacking. Different agencies have varying policies on how long they keep the data, according to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, a law enforcement advocacy group.

Supporters of the technology, including many in law enforcement, say the technology is a powerful tool for tracking down criminal suspects.

Flock Safety says it has cameras in more than 5,000 communities and is connected to more than 4,800 law enforcement agencies across 49 states. The company claims its cameras conduct more than 20 billion license plate reads a month. It collects the data and gives it to police departments, which use the information to locate people.

Holly Beilin, a spokesperson for Flock Safety, told Stateline that while there are local police agencies that may be working with ICE, the company does not have a contractual relationship with the agency. Beilin also said that many liberal and even sanctuary cities continue to sign contracts with Flock Safety. She noted that the cameras have been used to solve some high-profile crimes, including identifying and leading police to the man who committed the Brown University shooting and killed an MIT professor at the end of last year.

“Agencies and cities are very much able to use this technology in a way that complies with their values. So they do not have to share data out of state,” Beilin said.

Pushback over data’s use

But critics, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, say that Flock Safety’s cameras are not only “giving even the smallest-town police chief access to an enormously powerful driver-surveillance tool,” but also that the data is being used by ICE. One news outlet, 404 Media, obtained records of these searches and found many were being carried out by local officers on behalf of ICE.

Last spring, the Denver City Council unanimously voted to terminate its contract with Flock Safety, but Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston unilaterally extended the contract in October, arguing that the technology was a useful crime-fighting tool.

The ACLU of Colorado has vehemently opposed the cameras, saying last August that audit logs from the Denver Police Department show more than 1,400 searches had been conducted for ICE since June 2024.

“The conversation has really gotten bigger because of the federal landscape and the focus, not only on immigrants and the functionality of ICE right now, but also on the side of really trying to reduce and or eliminate protections in regards to access to reproductive care and gender affirming care,” Anaya Robinson, public policy director at the ACLU of Colorado.

“When we erode rights and access for a particular community, it’s just a matter of time before that erosion starts to touch other communities.”

Jimmy Monto, a Democratic city councilor in Syracuse, New York, led the charge to eliminate Flock Safety’s contract in his city.

“Syracuse has a very large immigrant population, a very large new American population, refugees that have resettled and been resettled here. So it’s a very sensitive issue,” Monto said, adding that license plate readers allow anyone reviewing the data to determine someone’s immigration status without a warrant.

“When we sign a contract with someone who is collecting data on the citizens who live in a city, we have to be hyper-focused on exactly what they are doing while we’re also giving police departments the tools that they need to also solve homicides, right?” Monto said.

“Certainly, if license plate readers are helpful in that way, I think the scope is right. But we have to make sure that that’s what we’re using it for, and that the companies that we are contracting with are acting in good faith.”

Emrich, the Montana lawmaker, said everyone should be concerned about protecting constitutional privacy rights, regardless of their political views.

“If the government is obtaining data in violation of constitutional rights, they could be violating a whole slew of individuals’ constitutional rights in pursuit of the individuals who may or may not be protected under those same constitutional rights,” he said.

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

Kathy Briggs is assisted by case manager Kim Immel, left, and nursery program manager Kim Perkins as she puts on a front-loading baby carrier with her daughter Melody inside at the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Vandalia, Mo. Prison nursery programs allow babies to live behind walls with their mothers — a rare and controversial approach. (Photo by Amanda Watford/Stateline)

VANDALIA, Mo. — Kathy Briggs slipped her arms through the thick straps of a brand-new baby carrier, tugging it over her beige shirt as two other women stood beside her, tightening buckles and adjusting the padded waistband.

The carrier was still stiff from its packaging, and Briggs shifted her feet as one of the women gently lifted then-6-month-old Melody into the front pouch.

Melody’s gray-blue eyes tracked the women’s hands, and her wispy blond hair — gathered into a tiny pink bow — bobbed slightly with the movement. She blinked up at the adults.

“Put your foot in there,” one of the women said, guiding Melody’s leg through the opening.

“She’s just a little chunk,” the other woman said.

Briggs’ eyes widened, and she squealed, half laughing, as Melody settled against her chest. Across the room, a few women looked up from boxes of newly arrived donations — tiny onesies and hip carriers still wrapped in plastic.

Someone let out a soft “aww.” Briggs, 29, bounced on her heels, testing the weight, her palms hovering protectively near Melody’s back.

For a moment, the room felt like any early childhood nursery: adult chatter and baby babbles, women comparing baby gear and swapping soothing techniques.

Yet the jangling of keys and the watchful eyes of uniformed officers were a reminder that this colorful corner of the world existed not in a day care, but inside a women’s prison in rural Missouri.

Programs like this one allow babies inside prisons — a rare and controversial approach that forces states to confront how punishment, public safety and early childhood development collide. As more women enter state prisons while pregnant, lawmakers and corrections officials are expanding prison nursery programs, betting that keeping mothers and infants together can reduce trauma and recidivism — even as critics question whether any prison can ever be an appropriate place for a child.

Missouri’s program, which opened last February at the Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center, is the ninth nursery program currently operating inside of a prison in the country. The program was adopted into state law in 2022.

Each year, thousands of pregnant offenders are admitted to local jails and state prisons — most for nonviolent crimes. In 2023, the latest year with data available, about 2% of women who were admitted to state prisons were pregnant, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics.

The number of incarcerated women has climbed sharply over the past several decades, making them one of the fastest-growing segments of the prison population. Some experts say the trend has forced states to confront a basic reality: Most correctional facilities were never designed to accommodate new mothers.

“Routine aspects of prison operations just really don’t consider the distinct needs of women, and particularly not of pregnant women,” said Alycia Welch, the associate director of the Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. Welch researches carceral conditions and oversight with a focus on women’s experiences.

Federal reports and research have found that pregnant inmates face systemic barriers to timely care — from guards controlling access to medical treatment to logistical delays and medical fees. Shackling during pregnancy and childbirth persists despite restrictions in at least 42 states.

Prison nursery programs benefit relatively few women, and some criminal justice advocates say they reinforce the notion that incarceration — rather than community-based drug treatment or diversion — should remain the default response for pregnant women in the criminal legal system.

Some research suggests that prison nurseries can strengthen early bonding, improve maternal mental health and support the transition from incarceration back into the community after new mothers have time to parent their infants in a structured, supportive environment.

“This community just lifts us up,” Briggs said.

Inside Missouri’s nursery program

The room Kaley McDowell shares with her infant daughter, Kimber, is arranged for two mothers and two babies — twin beds on each wall, a pair of cribs nearby and space left open for feeding, rocking and play.

McDowell’s rocking chair sits in the corner, draped with a warm, butter yellow blanket. She settled into the rocker with Kimber in her arms just as a soft, classical melody drifted from one of the crib-soother toys. Kimber curled tightly against her chest; her cheek pressed into her mother’s shirt.

“She thinks she’s gonna eat now,” McDowell joked, shifting her baby upright on her thighs as the two rocked slowly back and forth. She then set Kimber down so the child could try standing.

Kimber steadied herself, then reached down toward her tiny toes as if surprised to find them there.

McDowell, 34, is a girl mom through and through. All four of her daughters — ages 13, 9, 2 and now-7-month-old Kimber — have “K” names, a small bit of continuity she’s proud of.

Inside the nursery unit, she’s the experienced mom, the one other women seek out for advice.

McDowell isn’t set for release until August, which means Kimber will leave the nursery around 15 months old. In the meantime, McDowell is taking classes to get her GED diploma and hopes to earn her license as a certified nurse assistant.

Missouri’s prison nursery program allows eligible women to live with their newborns for up to 18 months. Women must have no more than 18 months remaining on their sentence at the time of delivery, and those who have committed violent sexual offenses or crimes against children cannot participate.

Prison officials also review disciplinary history, physical and mental health, and engagement in programming before approving someone for one of the unit’s seven bedrooms, which collectively can house up to 14 babies at a time.

About two dozen infants are expected to cycle through the nursery each year, and staff anticipate that number will climb — a sign of growing demand for the program.

“I have watched moms transform their lives,” said Kim Perkins, the nursery’s program manager.

Across the day, the nursery fills with the kinds of small, steady interactions that shape early childhood: Mothers reading baby books, caregivers rocking fussy infants, babies sprawled across play mats surrounded by stuffed animals. Correctional officers and nursery staff also often help, whether by holding a wiggly baby or fetching supplies.

“They like to come and steal the babies when they can,” McDowell said. “They’re like our in-house grandmas.”

The unit’s officers also are trained to expect round-the-clock movement, and the team includes male officers, so infants grow accustomed to hearing different voices.

“It’s going to be a good thing for these women,” said Lisa Unger, one of the unit’s correctional officers. While she was initially apprehensive about the program, she said she has watched women genuinely change over time with the support they receive.

When mothers cook group meals — something that happens at least once a week — the unit feels briefly like a crowded family kitchen, with women passing plates, joking and handing off infants so someone else can finish stirring a pot.

Movement across the unit is tightly restricted, though. Babies are not allowed upstairs to the sleeping and living quarters of caregivers — incarcerated women trained for the role — and mothers go there only to “shop” in the storage room stocked with donated clothing. When the weather is nice and staffing allows, the mothers can take their babies outside to the play area. The babies do not enter other parts of the prison.

Turning point

For much of her life, Kathy Briggs did not imagine a future that included her. She was first incarcerated at 15, and has now been in and out of incarceration three times.

Addiction shaped nearly every corner of her adulthood — where she slept and whom she trusted. Some nights were spent in drug houses, others on the street. She lost two pregnancies.

At her lowest point, Briggs tattooed “DNR” — which stands for “do not resuscitate” — above her left eye.

When Briggs learned she was expecting again — this time while in county jail awaiting adjudication — she doubted her ability to stay sober, to find housing, to understand motherhood at all. When she learned she was carrying twins, her panic deepened and she considered placing them up for adoption.

Who would take them? Who would trust her with them?

The turning point came with a sentence delivered calmly from the bench. Facing drug possession and firearm-related charges, Briggs expected another familiar outcome and that she’d be released shortly. Instead, the judge told her she would go to prison — and have her babies there.

Briggs protested — babies did not belong in prison. But the judge insisted. More importantly, he told her he believed in her. It was the first time, she said, anyone in a position of authority had made her feel like she could overcome her past.

She arrived at the prison nursery unit seven months pregnant. When her daughters were born, she nicknamed them “Little Lyric” and “Mighty Melody,” inspired by the music that always made her feel free.

The infants’ play space is awash in color: Rugs patterned with swirling motifs and florals; shelves crammed with books, dolls and stacking toys; rocking chairs with tufted pillows. A baby swing clicks rhythmically in one corner. Near a window overlooking an outdoor play area, a potted plant soaks up the morning sun.

Inside the nursery, Briggs’ daughters, whom she calls her “best friends,” thrive. Their father also is incarcerated, and the nursery staff are working to make sure he can receive regular updates and photos of the girls.

“Some of us didn’t grow up with good families or a lot of love,” Briggs said. “Here, they’re teaching us how to grow with our babies, and that is such a beautiful thing.”

Some of the program’s caregivers say the strength of the unit comes from the fact that no one is raising a baby in isolation — and that some caregivers bring their own lived experience as mothers to guide the others.

One morning, caregiver Tara Carroll sat on the floor, sorting a pile of donated baby clothes while several women gathered around her — some seated at a nearby table, others standing and talking among themselves.

She organized the outfits by size, slipping the clothes onto tiny colorful hangers. As she logged each item, a few of the women began matching tops and bottoms, holding them up for one another to weigh in.

“This one will fit her, and it’s got cute little pants and a snowflake,” Carroll told one mother.

“That’s cuuuuuute,” another mom chimed in.

Carroll, 34, has been incarcerated for several years on property-related charges, and she remembers what it was like before the nursery existed.

In 2022, she delivered her now-3-year-old daughter, Dillon Rayee, at a nearby hospital and spent 48 hours with her before her husband took their newborn home.

“It was heart-wrenching, and I promised my daughter that I would do everything that I could to come home to her,” Carroll said. She hopes to use her experience in the prison to become a doula.

Until the nursery opened, her birth experience was the norm: a day or two with a newborn, then the baby went into foster care or with family and the mother returned to her cell. For Carroll, helping the women in the unit now — guiding them through feedings, showing them how to swaddle, offering advice during long nights — feels like a way of honoring her promise to her daughter.

Policies across the states

Across the country, fewer than a dozen states operate nursery programs that allow incarcerated mothers to live with their newborns.

New York operates the nation’s oldest prison nursery, which opened in the early 1900s at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. The program allows up to 25 incarcerated mothers to live with their infants — typically until age 1 — under a system governed by state law and administered by a nonprofit provider, Hour Children.

Newer programs — in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, Ohio, Washington state and West Virginia — vary widely in size, eligibility and funding. Many rely heavily on nonprofit partners or donations to cover essentials such as diapers, cribs and parenting classes.

Nebraska’s program, which launched in 1994, allows mothers to participate if their parole eligibility date or release date falls within 18 months of their child’s birth.

Rosita Vizcarra, 29, said the program has been a “blessing,” giving her the chance to bond with her now-9-month-old son, Liam, while also learning how to be a better parent to her two older daughters.

“He’s crawling and starting to stand,” Vizcarra wrote in a message to Stateline through the facility’s messaging platform. “He’s such a happy baby.”

Miranda Messenger, 37, told Stateline in a message that the program has given her what she and her now 4-month-old son, Kyle, need to succeed and stay connected to her support system while separated from her three older children.

“It’s gonna help Miranda tenfold,” said Shannon Fune, Kyle’s father, who has been able to visit the pair a few times. “I was a little bit jealous or disappointed that I wasn’t gonna be there.”

A 2018 study of Nebraska’s program found participation was associated with a 28% reduction in recidivism within three years of the initial offense and a 39% reduction in returns to prison custody within 20 years over the 20-year period of the study. The author, Joseph R. Carlson, a former professor at the University of Nebraska, also estimated that the program saved the state more than $6 million between 1994 and 2012.

A handful of states — Kansas, North Dakota, Virginia and Wisconsin — are considering or expanding nursery programs. Idaho and Wyoming explored nursery plans in recent years, but abandoned them due to space, budget and staffing issues, according to state corrections officials.

Many other states offer other programs they say benefit incarcerated mothers, such as doula programs during pregnancy or during labor and delivery, extended visitation for young children or mother-child facilities based in communities rather than a prison.

Although interest in programs for pregnant and postpartum women in the criminal legal system has grown, experts across the country say there is still not enough research to know how well these programs work — and even basic data on the number and experiences or outcomes of incarcerated pregnant people remains limited.

“It’s, for me, really unfortunate that we are doing this without evidence to inform the policies we’re putting in place,” said Rebecca Shlafer, a child psychologist and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Minnesota. Shlafer also evaluated the implementation of Minnesota’s 2021 Healthy Start Act, which allows pregnant and postpartum women to participate in community-based alternatives.

‘A real patchwork’

It’s hard to know exactly how many pregnant people enter jails and prisons each year. The federal government does not require correctional systems to track pregnancy data, and reporting varies widely by state.

By the end of 2023, 305 pregnant women were housed in state prisons, according to the latest federal data, which was released by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in April. At least 75 women lived in prison nurseries or residential programs with their infants in 2023.

A 2019 study of incarcerated pregnant women — drawing from both state and federal facilities — estimated roughly 58,000 admissions to prisons and jails between 2016 and 2017. The study, conducted by the Advocacy and Research on Reproductive Wellness of Incarcerated People group and published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Public Health, is considered the first national investigation into pregnancy frequency and outcomes in prisons.

There are no federal standards for prison nursery programs, and each state sets its own rules — who qualifies, how long mothers can stay, what staffing and safety protocols look like and what reentry support is offered.

Studies of long-running programs in Nebraska and New York found that mothers who participated were less likely to return to prison than similar women who weren’t admitted. But those results, some experts say, may be shaped by the programs’ strict eligibility rules: Nurseries typically accept people with lower-level offenses and short sentences.

A study published in April in the peer-reviewed Women & Criminal Justice journal found that the existence of prison nursery programs caused stress and anxiety for those who weren’t eligible after giving birth, leaving them feeling like unfit mothers, and diverted resources from other ways to help incarcerated moms maintain bonds with their babies.

“We can think outside the prison walls for how to keep moms and babies together in ways that still maintain safety and accountability,” said Dr. Carolyn Sufrin, a medical anthropologist and an obstetrician-gynecologist at Johns Hopkins University. Sufrin also leads the Advocacy and Research on Reproductive Wellness of Incarcerated People group.

Critics of prison nurseries argue that the correctional environment is fundamentally ill-suited to meet the health, developmental and emotional needs of pregnant or postpartum women and their infants.

Prisons are usually not staffed with maternal health experts or pediatricians, and medical care is often inconsistent. The environment itself limits babies’ movement and ability to form relationships with other family members. The children can’t go outdoors every day.

Financial stability also is a major concern. Some of the existing prison nursery programs nationwide primarily depend on donations or nonprofit support instead of consistent state funding. Critics argue that this makes nurseries a fragile, resource-heavy solution that helps only a small number of women while reinforcing the broader system of incarceration rather than providing a reliable, scalable alternative.

“It’s a real patchwork out there, and every state is different, but again, just not ideal to have women and babies in these settings,” said Erin McClain, a research associate and the assistant director of the University of North Carolina Collaborative for Maternal and Infant Health, a research center focusing on high-risk pregnancies and infants.

A path forward

Briggs is set to leave Missouri’s Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center for a halfway house, again with her babies, later this month. She has thought extensively about what she’ll one day tell her daughters about their first few months of life — and about how far she has come from the days when her “DNR” tattoo reflected a very different outlook.

“I want to live life, and I want to show them that they can live a good life,” Briggs said. “I want to be the light that makes them feel warm.”

Inside the program, she learned how to care for her daughters and, just as critically, how to care for herself, she said. For someone who had grown up without much love or guidance, the nursery became a place where both were taught, deliberately and daily.

She hopes to return someday to help others navigate the early months of parenthood behind bars.

“More mothers in this situation deserve an opportunity to learn to be a better mother.”

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.