The Bear River flows out of Flambeau Lake. Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner

Tuesday afternoon, April 8, T.J. Bill, chief of police for the Lac du Flambeau (LDF) Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, said his department and other agencies had spent over 1,000 hours in the search for Melissa Beson, 37, a tribal member who has been missing since March 17.

As the snow melts under rising temperatures, the plan for Saturday, April 12, is to continue an organized ground, air and water search in and around the surrounding vast forest, thousands of acres where one could quickly become lost.

Beson was last seen between 4:30 and 5 p.m. on March 17 on the outskirts of the Town of Lac du Flambeau, by Indian Village Road and Chequamegon Forest Trail, near the Bear River.

Early in the search, the LDF Tribal Police Department flew a drone over the river’s open water and sent a submersible drone under the ice.

A search of the area forest, which covers most of Vilas County, was impeded by  snow cover.

After Beson was last seen on March 17, there was a heavy snowfall of over 6 inches, and then after her family reported her missing on March 23, another 3-inch snowfall covered the area. Some of the snow has melted with rising temperatures, but deeper in the woods snow is still covering downed logs and branches, making it difficult to detect what could be on the forest floor.

“We still have 6 inches of snow in the woods,” said Bill on April 8.

However, Bill anticipated that much of that snow would be melted by Saturday. Once the snow is totally off the ground, he plans to request that the Wisconsin State Patrol search the area by airplane.

On the previous Saturday, April 5, 25 people went out looking for Beson, including those from canine units and others operating drones in the water and air. However, it was difficult with the snow still on the ground.

On Tuesday, Bill was driving on a side road when he came across   LDF Emergency Manager Kat Milton, who was out collecting the GIS coordinates to help organize the Saturday, April 12, search in one of the large sections of woods near where Beson was last seen.

Bill’s concern about covering a large forest is volunteers getting lost while searching for Beson.

On Saturday, he also anticipates needing the drones to look over bogs and swamps scattered around the forest.

“We can’t walk into a bog unless we throw boards down that we can walk over,” he said.

Bill said he has to consider that Beson could have gotten lost in the large forest.

Since joining the department in 2013, he has participated in three searches for lost persons who were found deceased. The missing person is not always found deep in the woods.

“The Newbold Search and Rescue found one individual a half-mile from his residence,” he said.

Surveillance footage

After Benson went missing, the LDF Police Department reviewed recordings from over 360 surveillance cameras located around the reservation but didn’t turn up any footage of Beson.

“We didn’t have any surveillance cameras where Mellisa was last seen,” said Bill.

But the police department has other cameras that record the license plates of vehicles on the roads on March 17.

“We recorded the license plates of hundreds of vehicles,” he said.

Looking at all leads

As Bill’s office prepares for the weekend ground search, it is also coordinating with law enforcement in other areas of the state on leads that Beson might be living with friends off the reservation in larger communities.

“We are following up all the information we have, but we are also searching locally to eliminate the possibility that she might have walked off into the woods and gotten lost,” he said.

Beson’s mother, Winifred Ann Beson, “Winnie,” said her daughter might be with friends, but she also said she is afraid Melissa might have been taken by human trafficking. Native American populations have been targeted by human traffickers who prey on vulnerable populations where there is poverty and high drug use.

Winnie said her daughter likes to travel to other states, but she has always stayed in communication.

“Usually, she calls me if she needs money or is in trouble, but she hasn’t called me,” she said.

The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women/Relatives MMIW/R movement has been raising awareness of the plight of Indigenous women who have a much higher rate of being victims of violence.

The MMIW/R issue has touched the LDF band. On the edge of the Town of Lac du Flambeau, there is a new billboard asking for information on the death of Susan Poupart, a tribal woman who was murdered on May 20, 1990, and her case remains unsolved.

Winnie, who suffers from lung cancer, said it is difficult for her emotionally to not know where her daughter is or if she is safe.

“It’s hard,” Winnie said of her missing daughter. “She is big-hearted, loveable, funny. She is right by me all the time. Me and her are close.”

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A Union Pacific train transports coal through Spanish Fork Canyon in Utah County, Utah. on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. President Donald Trump signed an order on April 8, 2025, aimed at boosting coal production. (Photo by Spenser Heaps/Utah News Dispatch)

An executive order President Donald Trump signed Tuesday to block state-level renewable-energy initiatives set off alarm bells among climate advocates.

But experts and state policy groups said constitutional protections will blunt any effect the order would have on state operations.

The order, one of four Trump signed Tuesday aiming to revitalize the coal industry, directs the U.S. Justice Department to investigate and block enforcement of state laws that restrict fossil fuel production. It specifically targets state and local policies involving climate change, environmental justice and carbon emissions reductions — popular among blue states.

By attempting to strip states of their own authority to make and enforce laws, the order violates basic constitutional principles and would likely be struck down in court, environmental law experts said Wednesday.

Brad Campbell, the president of the New England-based environmental advocacy group Conservation Law Foundation, said in an interview with States Newsroom the order does not cite any federal law or interest the administration is seeking to protect — though the order does mention interstate commerce and an objective to improve national security — revealing it is more about messaging than policymaking.

“This is political theater more than it is law,” Campbell said. “It completely disregards the understanding of federalism that has been in place for centuries and the language of the Constitution itself.”

While the order itself may be unlikely to withstand legal scrutiny, it signals the administration could make demands about climate policy that would have to be obeyed at risk of losing federal cash, advocates said.

Trump officials already have shown an eagerness in their first months for using federal funding as leverage with states, universities and other institutions that are outside the federal government’s control.

In a statement, White House spokesman Taylor Rogers said Wednesday the order would protect against states assuming the power to regulate international issues like climate change.

“The President is right to ensure that Americans in both red and blue states are not beholden to State overreach stifling American energy that are unconstitutional or contradict federal law,” she said.

Climate action ‘irreconcilable’ with Trump agenda

The order includes a lengthy preamble attempting to justify federal involvement in state and local policymaking, while also noting that state policies focusing on emissions reductions and climate protections are at odds with Trump’s goals.

“These State laws and policies try to dictate interstate and international disputes over air, water, and natural resources; unduly discriminate against out-of-State businesses; contravene the equality of States; and retroactively impose arbitrary and excessive fines without legitimate justification,” the order’s opening section reads.

“These State laws and policies are fundamentally irreconcilable with my Administration’s objective to unleash American energy.  They should not stand.”

At the Tuesday signing ceremony for the order and three others on coal production, White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf told the president that states promoting renewable sources of energy were a major part of the coal industry’s decline.

“One of the biggest problems we have in this space is Democrat states, radical leftist states, enacting policies and enacting an agenda that discriminates against coal, against secure sources of energy,” Scharf said.

The order, though, does little to change the market and technological forces that have led to the coal industry’s decline, Erik Schlenker-Goodrich, the executive director of the environmental group Western Environmental Law Center, said Wednesday.

“I just don’t see how the order … is going to do anything but create confusion and uncertainties for communities that are transitioning away from coal right now,” he said.

“In many respects, it does an injustice to those communities by giving them a false sense of hope that somehow coal mines and coal-fired power plants are suddenly going to be resurrected from the dead or be pushed well beyond their economic and technological lifespan.”

States undeterred

Environmental lawyers and climate advocates said the order does not change the constitutional structure of the U.S. government that empowers states to set their own laws.

Casey Katims, the executive director of the U.S. Climate Alliance, a coalition of 24 governors seeking to prioritize state-focused climate policy, said the group’s members would not be moved by the order.

“The reality is that states continue to enjoy broad, independent constitutional authority to advance solutions to meet the needs of communities, businesses and workers,” Katims said in a Wednesday interview. “The president cannot change the Constitution by fiat.”

The group’s co-chairs, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, said in a Tuesday statement the administration had no power to block state authority and the coalition would be undeterred by the order.

“The federal government cannot unilaterally strip states’ independent constitutional authority,” they said. “We are a nation of states — and laws — and we will not be deterred.”

If the Justice Department, under Attorney General Pam Bondi, sues to stop enforcement of state laws, courts would likely reinforce states’ well-understood power to govern themselves, Campbell said.

Even the U.S. Supreme Court, which has a conservative supermajority that includes three members appointed by Trump and has shown deference to even the most controversial actions of his second presidency, would move to restrain that federal power, Campbell predicted.

“I think the notion that the president can stop enforcement of state laws that don’t align with his political program will be too much of an overreach even for this very Trump-friendly Supreme Court majority,” he said.

Further, he said, even Republican governors, whose party has traditionally advocated for increased states’ rights in relation to the federal government, might object to the intrusion of the executive branch into state policymaking. Allowing action under the order would set a precedent for a future Democratic president to meddle in Republican states, he said.

Federal funding

The lack of legal authority to directly block enforcement of state laws may not keep the Trump administration from exercising power in another way: withholding federal funds from uncooperative states.

The order signals the administration, which has been bold in asserting a power to deny congressionally appropriated funding, could target states over climate policy, Schlenker-Goodrich said.

“Do they have a legal basis? Not really,” he said. “Can they use political weapons, in particular relative to funding, against states that are stepping up on climate action? That is very much a possibility. That is the direction you will see the White House going.”

State Rep. Jerry O'Connor gives testimony in favor of a bill that would require state agencies to report on various metrics for training and workforce development programs they supervise. (Screenshot/WisEye)

Republicans in the state Legislature are taking another run at changes to unemployment insurance and workforce programs in Wisconsin that Gov. Tony Evers vetoed in August 2023.

While sponsors of the bills cited a couple of modifications in some measures, they are for the most part unchanged, they said during public hearings Wednesday for four bills in the Assembly’s labor committee.

One, AB 162, would require state agencies to compile a series of metrics on training and workforce development programs under their supervision, including the unemployment rates and median earnings of participants six months after they graduate from a program.

“We want to make certain our money’s being spent in a way that generates a positive beneficial return both for taxpayers and for the individuals participating in the programs,” said state Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond du Lac), testifying in favor of the bill. “We’d look at the percent of individuals enrolled in training programs who obtained a measurable skill gain.”

O’Connor said the bill draws its performance measures from the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), a federal workforce training law updated in 2014.

In vetoing the version of the bill that passed the last session of the Legislature, Evers said that many state programs it covered didn’t fit with WIOA’s reporting structure and “have separate requirements under current state law.”

Three other bills would impose tighter restrictions on the unemployment insurance (UI) system.

AB 167 would expand the definition of employee misconduct that would be grounds for denying an unemployment insurance claim as well as for a worker’s compensation claim. The bill would also require DWD to conduct random audits of 50% of all work searches reported by people claiming UI.

AB 168 would extend the statute of limitations for prosecuting felony fraudulent UI claims to eight years. It would also require the state Department of Workforce Development (DWD) to produce more training materials for employers and UI claimants, operate a call center and expand its hours in times of higher volume, check various state and national databases to verify that UI applicants qualify, and implement “identity-proofing” measures.

AB 169 would penalize UI recipients who do not show up for a job interview they have been granted or a job they’ve been offered — “commonly referred to as ghosting,” said state Rep. Dan Knodl (R-Germantown), the bill’s author.

A UI recipient who fails to respond to an interview request or job offer, fails to report for a scheduled job interview or who is not available to return to work at their previous job would lose unemployment benefits for the week in which that occurred. The bill does not impose the penalty for the first offense.

State Rep. Joan Fitzgerald (D-Fort Atkinson) asked Knodl whether the bill had gone through the state’s Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council. The joint labor-management body revises the state’s UI law every two years. In the past Evers has vetoed UI proposals for not going through the council. 

“This is one of those that they’re not going to visit,” Knodl said. “So that’s why we’re here as a stand-alone bill.”

Nobody testified against the bills Wednesday, but Victor Forberger, a Madison attorney who represents people with UI claims, sent the committee a four-page memo opposing them. He wrote that DWD already does most of what AB 168 would require, and that it would “hamstring” the department “when new practices and resources emerge.”

The measures “will do nothing to make unemployment more useful and efficient for Wisconsin workers and employers,” Forberger wrote.

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The U.S. Capitol, as seen on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson postponed a vote on the budget resolution that was supposed to take place Wednesday, as he tried to get the support of far-right members of the party who object because it won’t go far enough to achieve their goals of slashing government spending.

Johnson, R-La., said he hoped the House would be able to vote on the tax and spending blueprint Thursday, before leaving town for a two-week recess, though he didn’t rule out setting up a conference process with the Senate, or changing the budget resolution and sending it back across the Capitol.

“We are working through some good ideas and solutions to get everybody there,” Johnson said. “It may not happen tonight, but probably by tomorrow morning.”

Johnson’s comments came after he huddled behind closed doors for about an hour with more than a dozen far-right House Republicans who believe the budget resolution doesn’t require the Senate to cut enough spending.

“We want everybody to have a high degree of comfort about what is happening here,” Johnson said. “And we have a small subset of members who weren’t totally satisfied with the product as it stands. So we’re going to talk about maybe going to conference with the Senate, or adding an amendment. But we’re going to make that decision. We are going to continue to move forward. This is all positive.”

The House and Senate are far from agreement on how much to reduce federal spending later this year when they write the reconciliation bill.

The House instructions call on numerous committees to cut spending by at least $1.5 trillion, with more than half of that deficit savings coming from the committee that oversees Medicaid. Those instructions would likely lead to hundreds of billions in federal funding being pulled from the program, though Republicans insisted during floor debate they were only looking to address waste, fraud and abuse.

The Senate has given itself a floor of $4 billion in spending cuts, which could lead to substantial deficit increases. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget released analysis last week, showing the reconciliation package could bolster deficits by up to $5.8 trillion during the next decade.

Trump lobbying, last-minute drama

House debate, which took place before the vote was delayed, followed days of lobbying by House GOP leaders and President Donald Trump, who urged holdouts to adopt the budget resolution during a campaign fundraising dinner Tuesday evening.

“I think we are there,” Trump said. “But just in case there are a couple of Republicans out there, you just got to get there, close your eyes and get there. It’s a phenomenal bill. Stop grandstanding, just stop grandstanding.”

That didn’t sway everyone, however, leading Speaker Johnson to pull about a dozen of the far-right members off the floor Wednesday evening just as the House was supposed to move on to the budget vote.

The rest of the chamber’s lawmakers waited on the floor for more than an hour as the group huddled nearby.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry, South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett and Texas Rep. Chip Roy were among the members to get summoned off the floor by Johnson.

Scalise pleads to ‘get America back on track’

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., called on Republicans to adopt the budget resolution earlier in the day during floor debate, saying it “just opens the door to” using the complex budget reconciliation process to enact their agenda.

“The process where 11 of our committees here in the House will go to work to start making improvements in so many areas to get America back on track,” Scalise said. “And ultimately, that’s why we all come here. We come here to solve big problems. We deal with small issues too. But every now and then — and it’s not often — you deal with a big issue that can actually improve the lives of families all across this country.”

Budget Committee ranking member Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa., said members of his party wouldn’t allow the parts of the 2017 tax law that benefit the middle class to expire at the end of the year, rejecting claims from GOP lawmakers.

“If you’re a middle-class American, if you are in the 99%, you will not see your taxes go up next year,” Boyle said. “There is no question about that. What is at issue is the tax cuts for multimillionaires, billionaires and big corporations.”

Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Lloyd Smucker said he couldn’t vote to approve the budget resolution since the Senate’s instructions for spending cuts were “not acceptable.”

“To me, it’s important we have the guardrails in the initial resolution,” Smucker said, before encouraging House leaders to amend the budget resolution to increase the amount of spending cuts the Senate must implement.

“I can’t vote on this bill as it is, but there’s a path forward here and that is very, very important,” Smucker said.

Roy of Texas also spoke out against the budget resolution, saying the Senate’s instructions didn’t go far enough to reduce deficits.

“The Senate sent over a joke. And we’re going to capitulate to the Senate, knowing full well that the Senate instructions carry the day,” Roy said. “And we’re going to be sitting there in a reconciliation debate, where we’re going to end up on the short end of the stick. But worse, the American people are going to end up on the short end of the stick because it absolutely increases deficits. No one can deny it.”

Roy added that members of Congress should “pass a math test” because the numbers in the budget resolution didn’t add up.

Lengthy struggle

Republican leaders have struggled for months to get the vast majority of their members on board with the outline.

Even if the House finally approves the resolution, Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., have months of work ahead of them as committees begin writing and debating their sections of the reconciliation package.

The budget resolution tasks 11 House committees and 10 Senate panels with meeting vague budget targets. Committees either have a minimum amount of spending to cut or a maximum amount of deficits they can create.

The House and Senate are relatively aligned on some of those targets, though they are far apart on spending cuts and potentially tax policy.

In the House, the Agriculture Committee needs to slice at least $230 billion; Education and Workforce must reduce spending by a minimum of $330 billion; Energy and Commerce needs to cut no less than $880 billion; Financial Services must find at least $1 billion in savings; Natural Resources has a minimum of $1 billion; Oversight and Government Reform has a floor of $50 billion; and the Transportation Committee needs to reduce deficits by $10 billion or more.

The Energy and Commerce Committee’s instructions have been a central issue for Democrats, and many centrist Republicans, who are concerned that Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower-income people, will be a target for hundreds of billions in cuts.

Four Senate committees — Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry; Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs; Energy and Natural Resources; and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP — must each find at least $1 billion in spending cuts over the 10-year budget window.

House committees that can increase the federal deficit include the Armed Services Committee with a cap of $100 billion in new spending, Homeland Security with a $90 billion ceiling for new funding for programs it oversees, Judiciary with a maximum of $110 billion and Ways and Means, which can increase deficits up to $4.5 trillion for tax cuts.

Senate committees also got instructions for increasing the deficit, which will allow them to spend up to the dollar amount outlined in the budget resolution. Those committees include Armed Services at $150 billion; Commerce, Science and Transportation with $20 billion; Environment and Public Works at $1 billion; Finance with $1.5 trillion in new deficits, likely for tax cuts; Homeland Security at $175 billion and Judiciary with $175 billion.

House instructions call for the reconciliation package to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion while the Senate’s plans say lawmakers can raise it by up to $5 trillion.

Slim majority

Assuming the House adopts the budget resolution, GOP leaders will need to keep nearly all of their members supportive during the next couple months as those numbers turn into tangible policy proposals.

House Republican leaders can only lose three members on party-line votes, given their paper-thin 220-lawmaker majority.

The same number of GOP senators can vote against the final reconciliation package as long as Vice President J.D. Vance casts the tie-breaking vote.

Any more Republicans opposing the package would prevent it from becoming law. 

Minister of Justice and Public Security Héctor Villatoro, right, accompanies U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Federal judges in Texas and New York Wednesday temporarily halted the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in parts of those two states where Venezuelans set for deportation are incarcerated.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed cases in the Southern District of New York and the Southern District of Texas, after the U.S. Supreme Court this week deemed challenges to the wartime law must be brought in the location of those subject to President Donald Trump’s proclamation on use of the act. The cases earlier were argued in the District of Columbia.

That Monday decision from the high court lifted a lower court’s order that barred the Trump administration from invoking the wartime law to deport any Venezuelan nationals 14 or older who are suspected gang members — but the justices also said unanimously that the Venezuelans must be allowed court hearings.

Texas Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the deportation of Venezuelans in the entire state of Texas under the Alien Enemies Act, as well as the facility where the three men who brought the case are currently detained, the El Valle Detention Center in Raymondville.

The restraining order from Rodriguez Jr. is in place until April 23. The order also states that the three Venezuelan men cannot be removed from the El Valle Detention Center, which is the same center from which the Trump administration on March 15 transferred those subject to the wartime law and placed them on a plane to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.

New York order

The temporary restraining order from New York Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein that he plans to sign Wednesday would cover Venezuelans in the Southern District of New York, according to The Associated Press. That would include New York City, the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx and Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan and Westchester counties.  

Two Venezuelans brought the suit in the Southern District of New York.

Hellerstein, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, will hold an April 22 hearing to determine if the temporary restraining order should become a preliminary injunction. The ACLU is also pushing for a class certification.

The Supreme Court said this week it will allow, for now, the Trump administration to use the Alien Enemies Act, but those subject to the proclamation must be allowed to bring a challenge in court.

The original suit against the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act came from five men detained in Texas. The justices argued that the proper court venue should be where they were being detained in Texas rather than before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. 

More than 238 Venezuelans have been deported to the brutal prison, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, known as CECOT.

Marylander’s case cited

Judge Rodriguez Jr., whom President Donald Trump appointed in 2017, in placing the temporary restraining order noted that anyone who is erroneously deported under the Alien Enemies Act potentially cannot be returned to the United States.

In his reasoning, he cited the Trump administration’s stance in a high-profile case that led to a Maryland man being sent to a prison in El Salvador by mistake.

The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to strike down a lower court’s order that officials return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, who had a 2019 court order barring his removal to El Salvador. On Monday the Supreme Court temporarily paused the deadline until the high court could make a full decision.

“Furthermore, if the United States erroneously removed an individual to another country based on the Proclamation, a substantial likelihood exists that the individual could not be returned to the United States,” Rodriguez Jr. wrote.

A hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas in the Brownsville division, is set for Friday 1:30 p.m. Central. 

Rodriguez said of the upcoming Friday hearing, “the Court will consider whether to extend the temporary restraining order or issue other forms of emergency relief.”

Jennifer Vasquez Sura, left, and Congressional Hispanic Chair Adriano Espaillat, a New York Democrat, center, talk with Democratic Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, right, after a press conference calling for the return of Vasquez Sura's husband, who was erroneously deported. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Jennifer Vasquez Sura has a message for her husband, who was erroneously deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador by the Trump administration.

“I’m still fighting for you,” she said during a Thursday press conference with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Maryland Democratic lawmakers who are demanding the Trump administration return Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to the United States.

Abrego Garcia, a national of El Salvador with deportation protections, was not charged with any offense but was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement March 12 due to a “change in status.”

Trump officials have admitted his removal on March 15 to the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, was a mistake, but have stood by their decision.

“This so-called administrative error has destroyed my family’s happiness, my children’s innocence,” Vasquez Sura said, her voice shaking as she took small breaks before continuing to read her statement.

Pleas to president of El Salvador

The chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Adriano Espaillat, said he is writing a letter to El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele to ask for Abrego Garcia’s release as well as request for a congressional delegation to visit CECOT.

Bukele is scheduled to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House April 14. Espaillat, a New York Democrat, said if he does not receive a response from Bukele, he will ask for a response from Bukele when he visits the White House.

“We don’t know his condition,” Espaillat said of Abrego Garcia. “The family deserves to know his condition, and if they don’t tell us, we will visit the prison ourselves.”

Democratic Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Democratic Rep. Glenn Ivey, whose district includes the family’s home in Beltsville, criticized the Trump administration for not only accidentally deporting Abrego Garcia, but labeling him as a MS-13 gang member, despite his lack of a criminal record in any country, including the U.S.

“He was whisked off without any due process, and is now in a torturous … jail in El Salvador,” Van Hollen said.

Senators send letter

In 2019 Abrego Garcia was given removal orders to his home country. He was granted protections from removal by an immigration judge because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he were returned, according to court documents.

On Tuesday, two dozen Senate Democrats sent a letter to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, demanding  Abrego Garcia be returned to the U.S.

The Trump administration was ordered by a federal judge to return Abrego Garcia by Monday, and while the order was unanimously held up by a panel of judges on an appeals court, the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily paused the deadline to return Abrego Garcia.

The high court will make a full decision on whether or not the Trump administration will be required to bring Abrego Garcia back to the U.S. 

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Suddenly veering from his declaration a week ago, President Donald Trump on Wednesday paused his sweeping “liberation day” tariffs for 90 days on countries he’s said are willing to negotiate new trade deals.

Stocks surged upon his announcement after days of wrecked markets erased trillions of dollars from investor portfolios. The Nasdaq index saw the biggest single-day hike in five years as of Wednesday afternoon, according to financial media.

The pause will not extend to China, which he announced will see a further hike to 125% on imports to the U.S. “effective immediately,” he said.

“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realize that the days of ripping off the U.S.A., and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” Trump posted on Truth Social just after 1 p.m. Eastern.

The president said more than 75 countries have reached out to negotiate, and that because “these Countries have not, at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States” he is dropping their tariff rates to a universal 10%.

Several rounds of tariffs the president enacted in March will remain in place, including 25% import taxes on foreign steel, aluminum and cars — charges which sparked the European Union to approve retaliatory tariffs Wednesday.

Canada and Mexico, which both face up to 25% tariffs on a sizable chunk of products, will continue to see the levies but will not face an additional 10% stacked on top.

Trump’s 25% tax on imports from any country that buys oil from Venezuela also remains unchanged.

Americans ‘yippy’

The president told the press outside the White House Wednesday afternoon that he saw people getting “queasy” and “yippy” about the market turmoil.

“You have to have flexibility,” Trump said about his decision to pause the levies.

The tariffs, which the administration maintains are “reciprocal,” though under a formula disputed by economists, went into effect just after midnight Wednesday.

When asked by reporters if he’ll consider exempting any large companies that lost big in the market crash from paying the baseline 10% import tax, Trump said he’ll rely on his “instinct” to make the decision.

The announcement came just hours after the president posted on social media “BE COOL!” and “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT.”

Trump’s sudden pause also came just after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer defended the steep tariffs to nervous lawmakers for the second day in a row.

Administration officials quickly claimed the sudden pause was part of Trump’s strategy all along — despite several saying over the last few days that the tariffs were here to stay and that Americans needed to have patience as the market crashed. More than half of Americans are invested in the stock market.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller characterized Trump’s about-face on tariffs as “the greatest economic master strategy from an American President in history,” in a post on X Wednesday afternoon.

A rollercoaster few days

Trump’s tariff plan sent shock waves through the economy after he unveiled import taxes on trading partners and allies, including 46% for Vietnam, a major tech exporter to the U.S.

The administration calculated the steep tariff rates based on each country’s trade deficit with the U.S.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters outside the White House Wednesday that the tariffs were “a successful negotiating strategy.”

“As I told everyone a week ago in this very spot: Do not retaliate, and you will be rewarded,” Bessent said.

The administration met with Vietnamese officials Wednesday, according to Bessent, and meetings with Japan, South Korea and India are expected shortly, though he didn’t provide details.

When asked by reporters if Trump’s tariff policy was mainly now focused on China, Bessent said “it’s about bad actors” but added that China “is the biggest source of the U.S. trade problems.”

The trade war — a term Bessent rejected — between the U.S. and China expanded rapidly overnight Wednesday when Chinese officials raised levies on U.S. goods to 84%.

“The US’s practice of escalating tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake, which seriously infringes on China’s legitimate rights and interests and seriously damages the rules-based multilateral trading system,” according to a translation of a statement Wednesday from the country’s State Council Tariff Commission.

Pressure from lawmakers

A Trump campaign account posted on X a screenshot of the president’s morning message urging people to buy stocks and asked “Did the Panicans listen to @POTUS’s advice this morning?”

“Panicans” is a term Trump used recently to mock lawmakers who openly criticized losses to retirement funds and questioned how the tariffs would affect small businesses in their districts.

Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and James Lankford of Oklahoma grilled Greer Tuesday during a hearing before the Senate Committee on Finance.

“Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves wrong?” Tillis asked.

Greer faced questions Wednesday morning from the House Committee on Ways and Means, where Chair Jason Smith of Missouri cheered on Trump’s choice to unleash tariffs on almost every country at once.

Rep. Richard Neal, the panel’s top Democrat, told Greer that his office has been “inundated” with calls from constituents worried about their 401k funds.

“They don’t know what to expect, trillions of dollars of market value being lost even as we meet,” the Massachusetts Democrat said at the morning hearing before Trump called off the tariffs.   

Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff said Wednesday that he’s asking the White House if any insider trading occurred while Trump was “creating giant market fluctuations with his on-again, off-again tariffs.”

“Who in the administration knew about Trump’s latest tariff flip flop ahead of time? Did anyone buy or sell  stocks, and profit at the public’s expense?” Schiff wrote on X.

Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa introduced a bipartisan bill to claw back Congressional power over trade decisions from the president, who currently has near-unilateral authority.

GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska introduced companion legislation in the House.

While Trump imposed some of his tariffs — including those on foreign steel and aluminum — under a national security provision, he levied the charges on Canadian and Mexican imports as well as his recent worldwide tariffs by declaring a national emergency. 

The Milwaukee County Courthouse. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office of Milwaukee released new information Tuesday regarding the arrests of two undocumented immigrants at the county courthouse. 

A spokesperson wrote in an email statement that Edwin Bustamante-Sierre, 27, and Marco Cruz-Garcia, 24, were arrested by ICE at the courthouse. The statement said that Bustamante-Sierre, a citizen of Nicaragua, was arrested on April 3, and convicted in Fond du Lac County for reckless driving on Dec. 5, 2024. He is currently charged with endangering safety, reckless use of a firearm, use of a dangerous weapon and cocaine possession in Milwaukee County, the email statement read. 

Mexican citizen Cruz-Garcia, the spokesperson wrote, was detained by ICE on March 20. The agency’s statement accuses Cruz-Garcia of being a known member of the “Sureños transnational criminal street gang” and states that he’d been arrested for “multiple criminal charges including breaking and entering, car theft, and assault.” The spokesperson wrote that an immigration judge ordered Cruz-Garcia to be deported to Mexico on Feb. 5, 2020.

Wisconsin Examiner was unable to locate an online court record related to Bustamante-Sierre. For Cruz-Garcia, online court records show a case filed on Jan. 18 involving one count of misdemeanor battery with a domestic abuse modifier. The court record shows that on March 9, Cruz-Garcia was in custody and appeared in court via video, where it was noted that he was indigent. Cruz-Garcia’s case was assigned to another judge and he was turned over for supervison to Justice Point, a non-profit organization which provides a variety of evidence-based criminal justice programs.

All Cruz-Garcia’s prior court orders, including a no-contact order and no possession of firearms, remained in place, as he was required to attend all future court proceedings. On March 20, the day he was detained by ICE, Cruz-Garcia appeared in family court where a domestic violence restraining order was dismissed. 

Days later in early April, there was a courtroom discussion about Cruz-Garcia having been deported to Mexico. Rather than dismissing the case, as defense attorneys asked, Circuit Court Judge Marshall Murray (serving as a reserve for Judge Rebecca Kiefer) granted a prosecutor’s request for a warrant to be issued, according to online court records. An order to review the dismissal of the case against Cruz-Garcia 60 days from April 2 was also issued. 

Courthouses are not immune from the Trump administration’s deportation efforts. On Jan. 21, ICE was directed to conduct “civil immigration enforcement actions in or near courthouses when they have credible information that leads them to believe the targeted alien(s) is or will be present at a specific location, and where such action is not precluded by laws imposed by the jurisdiction in which the civil immigration enforcement action will take place.” 

Agents are instructed to conduct enforcement actions “in non-public areas of the courthouse” in collaboration with court security staff, and to use “non-public entrances and exits.” Wherever possible, ICE agents should operate “discreetly to minimize their impact on court proceedings,” the directive states. The order also says ICE agents and officers should avoid actions in or near non-criminal courthouses, such as family or small claims court. 

Last week, the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) said in a press statement that it did not participate in the arrests. Although MCSO was aware of the first arrest, the office was not given advance notice of the second arrest. The press release did not name the people who were arrested, and noted that it’s “not uncommon” for law enforcement agencies to search available databases for upcoming court hearings to find targeted individuals. 

The courthouse arrests were widely condemned by community members. Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said “an attack on this safe, community-serving space undermines public trust, breeds fear among citizens and staff and disrupts the due process essential to our courts.” Senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin Tim Muth echoed concerns that the arrests would create an atmosphere of fear around the courthouse. “Research by the ACLU has shown that when ICE is known to be active in courthouses, members of the immigrant community are less likely to report crimes, less likely to cooperate with police and prosecutors and less likely to make their court appearances,” said Muth. “Our communities become less safe as a consequence.” 

Activists from the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression also expressed concerns about database sharing between local and federal law enforcement, and called for the courthouse to be a safe space for people to come for legal support, services and to seek justice. Over the weekend, at a rally  protesting policies by the Trump administration and Elon Musk, local immigration activists raised those same concerns. “People will be afraid to come to the courthouse if that is not a protected zone,” said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera during the protest. “And we know that these local fights are our frontline battles.”

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A sign at an SEIU Wisconsin rally for nurses in contract talks at UnityPoint Health-Meriter hospital. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Union nurses at UnityPoint Health-Meriter hospital in Madison rallied Tuesday, warning that they would strike if they can’t reach a satisfactory labor agreement in their current contract talks.

The rally was held in advance of a bargaining session scheduled for Wednesday between the hospital and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents about 800 nurses at the hospital.

The nurses are currently working without a contract after their previous agreement expired March 16 and was extended to March 23.

The union is highlighting its demands for written language addressing safety issues, said Pat Raes, SEIU Wisconsin president and a nurse for 35 years at Meriter.

“We are fighting for the safety of every last person there. And part of that in today’s society when rules are being turned upside down, inside out, and backwards, means that we have to find ways to make sure that our safety is codified,” Raes said at the Tuesday afternoon rally. “And one of those ways to do that is with having a contract that talks about safety.”

Sherry Casali, chief nursing executive and vice president of patient care at the hospital, said in a statement Tuesday that the hospital management is “committed to working with SEIU WI to address their concerns through a fair contract that both parties can support.”

The statement said the hospital has implemented a number of safety and security measures and has competitive salaries for nurses.

 Raes said the hospital has safety plans, but that nurses want those plans to go farther, including being enshrined in the labor agreement. She said the union wants to see guaranteed staffing ratios in the name of patient safety as well.

“We are preparing if needed to move forward to a strike,” Raes said. “These nurses are ready to strike. Let me tell you — they are not afraid. But we do not want to strike if we don’t have to.”

To date, the union has not issued a formal strike notice.

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Bascom Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Ron Cogswell | used by permission of the photographer)

Update: This story has been updated to include the number of students across campuses other than UW-Madison who have had their visas canceled and to include comment from Sen. Kelda Roys.

President Donald Trump’s administration canceled the visas of six current University of Wisconsin-Madison students and seven alumni who had employment extensions, the university announced. Universities of Wisconsin spokesperson Mark Pitsch said in an email that there have also been cancellations at other UW campuses and the system is working on gathering more information.

“We are aware of visa terminations other than those described at UW-Madison. Resources for students are available through our universities,” Pitsch wrote.

As of 4:50 p.m. Tuesday, Pitsch said that the UW knows of at least 14 other cancellations on other campuses. This brings the total to at least 27 students across the UW system. 

The cancellations come as the Trump administration has been cracking down on immigration, including the presence of international students in the country.

UW-Madison said in a press release Monday that it played no role in the cancellations. According to the release, UW learned from the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) that the students’ records were terminated.

According to the Wisconsin State Journal, UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin told the Faculty Senate that it wasn’t contacted directly about the cancellations and only learned about them because staff has been reviewing federal databases every day to see whether students have been affected.

UW-Madison noted that a status termination generally means an affected person should depart the United States immediately. UW-Madison’s office responsible for providing services to international students has contacted the students and alumni whose visas were canceled to advise them about the potential consequences of the cancellations and provide information about legal resources if requested. 

UW-Madison also said that while it’s not uncommon to see terminations for many reasons, it and peer institutions have seen an elevated volume and frequency of terminations over the last week. 

On March 28, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that at least 300 visas for international students have been revoked. Rubio told reporters that every time he finds “one of these lunatics,” referring to students that have participated in protests, he takes away their visa.

The cancellations have taken place at other institutions in the Midwest including University of Michigan, University of Minnesota, Minnesota State University in Mankato as well as other institutions across the country, including at University of California institutions, Colorado State University and Arizona State University. In some cases, the cancellations have been tied to activism related to Palestine, while others have been tied to criminal infractions and in some cases, traffic violations. 

UW-Madison said the “precise rationale” for the termination of the visas is unclear, but that it doesn’t believe they were specific to participation in any “free speech events or political activity.” The university hasn’t responded to an inquiry for more information about the students. 

Some of the students targeted by the Trump administration have been outspoken activists against the war in Gaza. Mahmoud Khalil, a former student at Columbia University who helped lead pro-Palestinian protests on campus, was detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and is being held in a Louisiana detention facility with federal authorities claiming to have revoked his green card. Tufts doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish citizen with an F-1 student visa, was detained by mask-wearing DHS agents as she was leaving her off-campus apartment in Massachusetts. She is also being held in Louisiana.

UW-Madison said it is not aware of federal law enforcement activity on campus as of Monday. 

“International students, faculty, and staff are important members of the UW–Madison community, and the university deeply values their presence,” the university said in the statement. 

Mnookin also told faculty that while she can’t force people to, she is hopeful faculty will use their discretion to offer accommodations to affected students to help them finish their courses and degrees.

UW-Madison also pointed students to resources included in an update from April 2.

In that update to its international community, UW-Madison said it understood that ICE’s detainments of students at other institutions were “highly unsettling — especially for you and our broader international community.” 

“You are a valued and integral part of campus life, not only for the perspectives you bring to our teaching, research, and engagement mission, but also for the many ways you enrich the university’s social and cultural life,” Vice Provost and Dean Frances Vavrus said in a statement earlier this month. “We continue to be deeply grateful for your presence at UW–Madison.”

State Sen. Kelda Roys (D-Madison), who represents the UW-Madison campus, called on people to push back against the actions of the federal government.

“All of us must stand up to the Republican regime’s lawless, unconstitutional and un-American actions to abduct, arrest, and kick out, and intimidate international students, legal permanent residents, and others, without due process of law,” Roys said. “This is unacceptable and we must unite in opposing it.”

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White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt speaks during the daily press briefing in the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House on March 26, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge sided with The Associated Press Tuesday in a case alleging the Trump administration denied the wire service access to restricted spaces in the White House due to its editorial decision to continue using the term “Gulf of Mexico” rather than “Gulf of America.”

District Judge Trevor McFadden for the District of Columbia granted the AP a preliminary injunction on the merits of the case. McFadden wrote that the news outlet is likely to succeed on its First Amendment and retaliation arguments in further court proceedings, and that the White House’s action has caused irreparable harm to the news agency.

The legal battle tests decades of established press access for the AP in the White House, which was curtailed after President Donald Trump declared the term “Gulf of America” should be used rather than “Gulf of Mexico.”

The injunction orders the White House to immediately rescind the denial of AP’s access to the Oval Office, Air Force One and “other limited spaces based on the AP’s viewpoint when such spaces are made open to other members of the White House press pool.”

The order also states the administration’s press team “shall immediately rescind their viewpoint-based denial of the AP’s access to events open to all credentialed White House journalists.”

The mandate will remain in place while the case is carried out at the district court level, though the White House is likely to appeal the case.

In his 41-page order, McFadden, appointed by Trump in his first term in office, stated the analysis of the AP’s arguments is “straightforward” and that ramifications for the organization have “undoubtedly been adverse.”

“The AP made an editorial decision to continue using ‘Gulf of Mexico’ in its Stylebook. The Government responded publicly with displeasure and explicitly announced it was curtailing the AP’s access to the Oval Office, press pool events, and East Room activities. If there is a benign explanation for the Government’s decision, it has not been presented here,” McFadden wrote.

The AP and the Trump administration presented evidence to McFadden during a March 27 hearing.

The judge contends in his order that the AP clearly showed that its print reporters “have been systematically and almost completely excluded from events open to the broader White House press corps since February 13, while its photographers have suffered curtailed access.”

“The Government declined to offer witnesses in rebuttal. The Court credits the detailed timeline that the AP built through testimony and evidence,” he wrote.

The White House did not immediately respond for comment.

Trump and administration officials also did not immediately react on social media.

A group of coal miners watch as President Donald Trump speaks at the White House shortly before signing executive orders on the coal industry on April 8, 2025. (White House livestream)

President Donald Trump signed four executive orders Tuesday aiming to invigorate the U.S. coal industry.

In wide-ranging comments in front of a phalanx of coal miners at the White House, Trump said the orders would revitalize an industry pushed to the brink by Democratic policies that encourage renewable energy.

“This is a very important day to me, because we’re bringing back an industry that was abandoned, despite the fact that it was just about the best, certainly the best in terms of power, real power,” Trump said.

The orders:

• End a moratorium on leasing federal lands for coal mining;
• Remove Biden administration environmental regulations that Trump said slow approvals of new mining projects;
• Prioritize grid security and reliability; and
• Direct the U.S. Justice Department to block states from enforcing their own regulations on coal.

Two of the orders cite increased energy demand for the power-intensive task of artificial intelligence data processing as the rationale for increasing coal production.

Reopening plans for mines in Montana, Wyoming

A press release from the Interior Department, which oversees resource management on public lands, added that one of the orders reopens plans to build mines in Montana and Wyoming, removes regulatory burdens on coal production and lowers royalty rates coal companies owe for production on federal lands.

Environmental groups cautioned against a renewed federal investment in coal and took particular exception to the provision allowing the federal government to undermine state efforts to move away from the sector.

“Reviving or extending coal to power data centers would force working families to subsidize polluting coal on behalf of Big Tech billionaires and despoil our nation’s public lands,” Tyson Slocum, the energy policy director for the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement. “States planning to move to cleaner, cheaper energy sources could be forced to keep old coal plants up and running for years, forcing nearby residents to breathe dirty air and harming the climate.”

In a line that appeared ad-libbed, Trump also promised the orders could not be reversed by a future president.

“We’re going to give a guarantee that the business will not be terminated by the ups and downs of the world of politics,” he said. “We’re going to give a guarantee that it’s not going to happen, so that if somebody comes in, they cannot change it at a whim.”

Trump said he’d thought of the idea “about 15 minutes before” getting on stage at the White House.

‘Beautiful, clean coal’

Trump cast the move as a direct rebuke to his Democratic predecessors, Joe Biden and Barack Obama, and said it was in service of restoring working-class jobs in states like West Virginia.

“We’re ending Joe Biden’s war on beautiful, clean coal once and for all. And it wasn’t just Biden, it was Obama and others, but we’re doing the exact opposite… We’re going to put the miners back to work.”

A 2024 Biden rule to raise emissions standards on coal plants was unworkable, one of the orders, which reversed the Biden rule, said.

“The Rule requires compliance with standards premised on the application of emissions-control technologies that do not yet exist in a commercially viable form,” the order said. “The Rule therefore raises the unacceptable risk of the shutdown of many coal-fired power plants, eliminating thousands of jobs, placing our electrical grid at risk, and threatening broader, harmful economic and energy security effects.”

With both U.S. senators from West Virginia, Republicans Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice, on hand, Trump said the state’s workers rejected Democrats’ vision of transitioning away from their mining identity.

“One thing I learned about the coal miners is that’s what they want to do,” he said. “You could give them a penthouse on Fifth Avenue in a different kind of a job, but they’d be unhappy. They want to mine coal. That’s what they love to do.”

Environmental groups slam orders

Even before the orders were signed, environmental advocacy groups panned them as a giveaway to the industry and a reckless move away from attention to the climate crisis.

“Trump’s coal orders take his worship of dirty fossil fuels to a gross and disturbingly reckless new level,” Jason Rylander, the legal director of the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity’s Climate Law Institute, said in a written statement. “This is yet another assault on efforts to preserve a livable climate.”

Lena Moffitt, the executive director of environmental group Evergreen Action, said true energy reliability would come from renewable sources.

“Coal is toxic and outdated,” Mofitt said in a statement. “It poisons our air and water, jacks up household energy bills, and is deadly for communities living under the shadow of its smokestacks. If Trump actually cared about meeting rising energy demand, he’d invest in affordable, clean power—not drag us backward to prop up a dying industry.”

Immigration and tariffs

Trump spoke for about 45 minutes and touched on issues beyond energy policy, including his recently enacted tariffs that have rocked world financial markets and the case of a Maryland man erroneously swept up in a deportation operation.

Trump promoted his aggressive immigration policy and referenced the case of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a man who the administration has admitted was mistakenly deported from Maryland to his native El Salvador despite being granted legal protection to remain in the United States.

The administration sent planeloads of Venezuelan nationals to an El Salvador mega-prison last month, accusing them of being members of the gang Tren de Aragua.

Without naming Abrego Garcia, Trump referenced a man sent to El Salvador who was not a member of the Venezuelan gang, but said he was a member of a different Latin American gang. The government has produced no evidence to suggest Abrego Garcia is a gang member.

On tariffs, Trump said the taxes on imported goods were already bringing in billions of dollars daily in new federal revenue and were critical to protect U.S. industries.

“We’ve been ripped off and abused by countries for many years with the tariff situation,” he said. “They’ve used tariffs against us. We didn’t use tariffs against them in any way, but we just didn’t use them of any monumental proportion. And so we are doing it now.”

He did not respond to a shouted question about Republican unease with the worldwide tariffs at the close of the White House event.

Kristi Noem, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, speaks during her confirmation hearing before the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill on Jan. 17, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)

This story was updated at 10:16 a.m. EDT on April 9.

WASHINGTON — Two dozen Democratic senators Tuesday demanded the Trump administration return to the United States a Maryland father who was deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador by mistake.

Immigration officials admitted to an “administrative error” in the March 15 deportation of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, despite protections from removal to his home country placed in 2019 by an immigration judge.

“Your unwillingness to immediately rectify this ‘administrative error’ is unacceptable,” according to the letter addressed to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Todd Lyons, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It was led by Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen.

DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

Court battle

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday temporarily paused a lower court order that required the Trump administration to return Abrego Garcia from the prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

A full decision by the high court on whether the Trump administration would be required to return him is expected this week, and it could have implications for the more than 250 men who have been taken to the prison.

The Trump administration has argued that Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody, despite paying El Salvador $6 million to detain him, along with other immigrants deported.

Attorney General Pam Bondi spoke with reporters Tuesday outside the White House, and said she did not agree with the lower or appeals court orders to require the U.S. to return Abrego Garcia.

“We believe he should stay where he is,” she said.

Bondi also placed the DOJ attorney who argued on behalf of the Trump administration, Erez Reuveni, on indefinite administrative leave over the weekend.

‘Need for due process’

An appeals court Monday unanimously upheld an order by U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis that the administration return Abrego Garcia to the U.S. by midnight Monday.

The 24 Democratic senators and one independent argued the Trump administration should comply with the order by Xinis.

“The Administration’s mass deportation agenda does not transcend immigration law or the need for due process,” according to the letter.

“And when the Administration makes a mistake as severe as sending an individual with protected status to a foreign prison, it cannot simply shrug off responsibility and allege that there is nothing it can do to reunite him with his wife and child, who are American citizens,” according to the letter.

The letter also requires Noem and ICE to answer several questions and return answers by April 22.

The senators ask why the agency and ICE are not working to return a wrongly deported individual, as the agencies have done so in the past and why Trump officials like the vice president and White House press secretary continue to label Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, as a gang member without evidence.

The letter also asks for a copy of the contract agreement between El Salvador and the U.S. to detain the immigrants at CECOT.

List of senators

The 24 Senate Democrats on the letter besides Van Hollen included Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed of Rhode Island; Peter Welch of Vermont; Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla of California; Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts; Richard Durbin and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois; Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut; Cory Booker of New Jersey; Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire; Tim Kaine and Mark Warner of Virginia; Christopher Coons of Delaware; Mazie Hirono and Brian Schatz of Hawaii; Ron Wyden and Jeffrey Merkley of Oregon; Martin Heinrich of New Mexico; Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland; Gary Peters of Michigan; and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota.

Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont also signed the letter. 

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gives remarks at the Renaissance Phoenix Downtown Hotel on Aug. 23, 2024 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

The Wisconsin Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections held a public hearing Tuesday morning for Republican-authored bills introduced in response to third-party candidates in last year’s election — one who faced challenges getting on the presidential ballot and the other who wasn’t allowed to get off. 

The first bill, authored by Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) and Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken), would allow third-party presidential candidates to gain access to Wisconsin’s presidential ballot without their party having any members holding elected office in the state. 

Last year, the Democratic National Committee filed a complaint arguing the Green Party was not eligible to be on the presidential ballot because state law requires presidential electors nominated in October to be chosen by state officers and legislative candidates. 

The statute states that presidential electors must be nominated by each political party’s state officers, holdover state senators and candidates for the state Senate and Assembly. The Democrats argued the Green Party doesn’t have anyone who qualifies, so it couldn’t be on the ballot.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court dismissed the DNC’s lawsuit against the Green Party. Jill Stein, the party’s nominee for president, received 12,275 votes, about 0.4% of the statewide total. 

In his remarks introducing the bill, Sortwell said the effort to exclude the Green Party from the ballot was “an attack upon democracy.” 

“No political candidate should be restricted ballot access and discouraged to run because their respective party has not yet won a political office,” Sortwell said. “It’s rather ludicrous on its face, if you consider that a party is not entitled to a monopoly for ballot access and to certain votes. To make the law clear, this legislation protects political third parties from frivolous lawsuits by allowing the chairperson of the party’s state committee to nominate their presidential electors.”

The other bill heard by the committee Tuesday addresses Robert F. Kennedy’s failed effort to get his name off Wisconsin’s presidential ballot after he had dropped out of the race and endorsed President Donald Trump. 

Kennedy had filed nomination papers with the Wisconsin Elections Commission that included the signatures of enough voters for him to qualify and be placed on the ballot. Before the Wisconsin Elections Commission met on Aug. 27 to make its final certification of candidates, Kennedy dropped out of the race and wrote a letter to the commission asking to take his name off the ballot. 

Under state law, however, candidates who file nomination papers and qualify to run cannot withdraw and must remain on the ballot, unless they die. Kennedy unsuccessfully sued to have his name removed, taking the case all the way from Dane County circuit court to the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Once the candidates are certified, county clerks begin printing and mailing absentee ballots, making it much harder to change who is on the ballot. 

Under the bill, authored by Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard), qualified independent candidates for president and vice president, and all qualified candidates for the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, the state Senate and Assembly, governor and lieutenant governor, secretary of state and state treasurer could remove  their name from the ballot if they file a sworn statement withdrawing their candidacy before the WEC deadline for certifying candidates. 

The bill would also make it a felony offense punishable by up to 10 years imprisonment and a $25,000 fine to file a false statement withdrawing someone’s candidacy for office. 

In his testimony, Steffen said California is the only other state that doesn’t allow candidates off the ballot unless they die and that the policy is “unrealistic and somewhat embarrassing.” 

“So having such a law probably made sense in the 1800s when death was more of a reality, a regular occurrence, but in current times, it seems appropriate that we develop a mechanism, like all the other states, to allow individuals who, if between the time that they submit their paperwork and the election, that they have some sort of opportunity on their own to pull themselves off the ballot,” he said. 

The bill would not apply to candidates for local office. In this year’s spring election, a candidate for Madison Common Council won by a slim margin after dropping out of the race and endorsing her opponent. 

Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson testified that her only concern is that Steffen’s proposal could limit clerks’ ability to get ballots out on time. She noted that clerks begin designing, preparing and testing their ballots long before the elections commission certifies the candidates. 

For the clerks, she said, the WEC certification is the go-ahead that ballots can be printed and mailed. She said their work will be slowed down if they need to wait until the last possible moment to begin that preparation work, because a candidate might drop out.

“Those are really tight time frames, and as absentee ballots keep growing in popularity, we have to print more ballots, and printing ballots takes more time, so if we need that extra time, please don’t take any time away from us,” Tollefson said.

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U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer testifies before the Senate Finance Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on April 8, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer defended the Trump administration’s sweeping tariffs Tuesday as he faced senators from both sides of the aisle who relayed their constituents’ economic anxiety.

Democratic and Republican senators alike questioned how the policy will affect their states’ industries in the coming months.

“Whose throat do I get to choke if this proves wrong?” asked GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Greer told members of the Senate Committee on Finance that President Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration to trigger steep worldwide import taxes is “common sense.”

“Our trade deficit, driven by these non-reciprocal conditions, is a manifestation of the loss of the nation’s ability to make, to grow, and to build,” Greer said.

“The president recognizes the urgency of the moment. On the first day of his second term, President Trump issued a comprehensive memorandum setting out his trade policy direction. No other president has done this,” Greer continued in his opening statement.

Responses from around the world range from all-out retaliation to negotiation to capitulation. Chinese officials, who could see tariffs reach 104% after Trump threatened Monday to pile more on, said Tuesday they will “fight to the end.”

Tariffs launch just after midnight

The previously scheduled hearing on Trump’s trade agenda came less than a week after the president used his emergency powers to unveil new import taxes on products from nearly every country around the world.

Trump’s tariffs will begin just after midnight, hitting major exporters to the United States as well as poor and developing nations. They range from a 46% tax on Vietnam, whose major exports to Americans include tech products, to a 50% tax on Lesotho, a small African nation that exports diamonds to U.S. jewelers.

Claims from the administration that dozens of governments have reached out to negotiate buoyed U.S. and world markets Tuesday after three days of turbulence erased trillions of dollars in wealth.

Trump’s baseline 10% tariffs launched Saturday on trading partners, including allies who import more American goods than the amount of their own products they export to the U.S.

The tax on allies with a trade surplus drew the ire of Sen. Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat. “Why did they get whacked in the first place?” he asked Greer, raising his voice.

Trump has exempted pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, critical minerals, and semiconductors from his new levies. Those imports are worth $665 billion, according to an analysis from the Atlantic Council, a think tank focused on U.S. foreign relations.

The levies come on top of Trump’s previously enacted 25% national security levies on foreign steel and aluminum, and foreign cars, as well as emergency tariffs at 20% on Chinese imports and 10% to 25% on products from Canada and Mexico. 

‘Aimless, chaotic tariff spree’

Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the committee, announced at the hearing that he plans to fast-track a resolution “to end the latest crop of global tariffs that are clobbering American families and business members on both sides of the aisle.”

“Donald Trump’s aimless, chaotic tariff spree has proven beyond a doubt that Congress has given far too much of its constitutional power over international trade to the executive branch. It is time to take that power back,” the Oregon Democrat said in opening remarks.

Committee Chair Mike Crapo expressed some optimism that Trump’s tariff agenda would eventually boost American industries.

“Members and the public have questions and concerns about the recent tariff actions. That’s ok. We should think about tariff impacts and ask questions,” said Crapo, an Idaho Republican.

Once people “contextualize” Trump’s tariffs, “the real headline then becomes the fundamental shift in trade policy since President Trump’s inauguration — where the United States actually plans to do trade again,” Crapo said.

Oklahomans worried

But other senators wanted more assurance for small business owners who are contacting them for answers about the sudden economic turmoil.

Sen. James Lankford told Greer he’s heard from a constituent in Oklahoma who switched purchasing from China to Vietnam after Trump’s first administration targeted China with tariffs. Now, the company worries about the 46% tax it will have to pay on imports from Vietnam.

“Is there a timeline you’re dealing with?” the Republican asked Greer.

The trade representative said more than 50 countries, including Vietnam, have reached out to strike new trade agreements.

“We don’t have any particular timeline set on that,” Greer said. “What I can say is I’m moving as quickly as possible.”

“The time piece does matter to them,” Lankford said.

Lankford then asked if any industries, including garment manufacturers in Oklahoma, can apply for an exemption from import taxes on products they can only purchase from abroad.

“I know long term the hope is to have a more diversified (market). In the short term, they don’t have another option. How do you plan to handle that?” Lankford said.

Greer replied: “Senator, the president has been clear with me and with others that he doesn’t intend to have exclusions and exemptions, especially given the nature of the action. If you have Swiss cheese in the action, it can undermine the overall point.”

Warner grew heated during questioning with Greer, saying he’s hearing from Wall Street that business people viewed the U.S. market recovery Tuesday “as a good day in hospice.”

“We have 800,000 small businesses in Virginia. These tariffs are going to wallop them,” Warner said.

EU, other nations react

The European Union is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a list of targeted American imports the bloc of 27 nations plans to tax in response. Trump unveiled a 20% levy on EU products as part of his “Liberation Day” plans.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is staring down a 17% tariff from Trump, promised during an Oval Office meeting Monday that his country will “very quickly” even out trade with the U.S.

Trump wrote on social media Tuesday morning that he held a “great call” with South Korea’s acting president Han Duck-soo. Trump imposed a 25% tariff on South Korean exports into the U.S., which largely include cars, auto parts and electric batteries.

“Their top TEAM is on a plane heading to the U.S., and things are looking good,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

The comments came a day Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he would lead negotiations with Japan, which faces a 24% levy. Americans mainly import cars, auto parts and construction vehicles from Japan.

The prospect of negotiation brought Japan’s stocks up overnight after flagging upon tariff uncertainty. 

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivers remarks to staff at the department's Washington, D.C., headquarters on Jan. 28, 2025. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The IRS and Department of Homeland Security reached an agreement Monday to share tax information of immigrants who have final orders of removal to help immigration agents find and deport the immigrants, according to documents filed in court.

No information between the two agencies has been shared yet, according to the filings in federal court in the District of Columbia, but the partnership would impact more than 1 million immigrants with final removal orders, as the Trump administration carries out mass deportations of immigrants without permanent legal status.

According to a memorandum of understanding signed by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and submitted to the court, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials can ask the IRS to provide information about immigrants with orders of removal or immigrants involved in criminal investigations.

Some of that tax information includes sensitive details such as current addresses and information about child tax dependents.

It would be the first time the IRS shared sensitive tax information to carry out immigration enforcement.

In 2023, immigrants in the country without legal authority paid more than $89 billion in taxes, according to the left-leaning think tank the American Immigration Council.

In order to file taxes without a social security number, someone who is not a U.S. citizen would use an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or an ITIN. As of 2022, there were more than 5.8 million active ITINs, according to a report by the Treasury Department Inspect General.

Groups challenging information sharing

The government filed the document in a case brought by immigration rights groups the Centro de Trabajadores Unidos and Immigrant Solidarity DuPage. The groups are trying to block the IRS from sharing tax records with DHS for immigration enforcement, arguing that such sharing violates IRS disclosure laws.

The Trump administration moved Monday to dismiss the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, arguing that “providing information to assist criminal investigations—is lawful.”

A hearing on a preliminary injunction to block such information sharing between IRS and DHS is set for April 16 before federal Judge Dabney L. Friedrich, whom President Donald Trump appointed in 2017.

Friedrich ruled against the groups last month, when they asked for a temporary restraining order following a story by The Washington Post that the agencies were considering sharing information in order to find immigrants to deport.

“A single news report about future cooperation between the IRS and DHS does not establish that the plaintiffs’ members are facing imminent injury,” according to the March 19 order. 

Pro-Trump protesters gather on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol Police chief testified Tuesday that President Donald Trump’s decision to pardon people convicted of assaulting police officers on Jan. 6, 2021, had negative repercussions on morale within the department and for police across the country.

“I think there was an impact, not only to the Capitol Police, but an impact nationwide when you see folks that are pardoned — and I’m really referring to the ones that were convicted of assaulting police officers,” J. Thomas Manger said during a hearing on the department’s budget request.

“I think that’s what bothered most cops and it did certainly have an impact on the USCP,” Manger added. “We’ve got so much change that officers are experiencing over the last four years, so I’m trying to keep them focused on moving forward. But it certainly did have a negative impact. For cops all over this country, you wonder when you put your life on the line every day, and does it matter?”

On Trump’s first day in office, he pardoned nearly 1,500 people who were convicted of crimes related to attacking the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while members of Congress moved through the process to certify President Joe Biden’s win of the Electoral College vote.

Many of those people went to the Capitol after attending a rally near the White House where Trump repeated false claims about winning the 2020 presidential election, despite numerous failed court cases and no evidence of widespread voter fraud.

Manger testified during the House Appropriations Legislative Branch Subcommittee hearing that the department has made numerous improvements since the attacks, but that its nearly $1 billion budget request is necessary to hire more officers and continue updating equipment.

“I recognize that there are other police departments of a similar size whose budget is not as large as ours. But we’re not an ordinary law enforcement agency,” Manger said. “The USCP is unlike any traditional police department. In fact, our mission incorporates elements similar to the FBI, U.S. Secret Service and the federal protective service.”

Manger said that in the four years since the Jan. 6 attack, USCP has made substantial changes to how it operates and that many of its “mission requirements simply did not exist four years ago.”

U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., speaks to reporters as he leaves a news conference following a House Republican Conference meeting at the U.S. Capitol on April 8, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday he’s still planning to hold a floor vote this week to adopt the budget resolution that senators signed off on last weekend, despite opposition from enough Republican lawmakers to block final approval.

Johnson, R-La., said that he and others, including President Donald Trump, are working to address concerns the blueprint directs the Senate to cut a minimum of $4 billion, while the House instructions task several committees with cutting at least $1.5 trillion in spending. Some House Republicans say they don’t want to move ahead because the Senate number is too low.

Both chambers of Congress must adopt the same version of the budget resolution before they can use the complex reconciliation process to extend the 2017 tax cuts, bolster spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, and reduce government spending.

Johnson said during a press conference that a House vote to adopt the budget resolution, which the Senate approved early Saturday morning, just starts off the process. He also said writing the actual reconciliation bill would be “a collaborative process between the House and Senate.”

“You’re going to see the Republican Party in both chambers working together as one team. I know that’s a rare occasion, and people don’t really know what that looks like, but we’re actually going to do it this time,” Johnson said. “The House is not going to participate in an us-versus-them charade. We won’t do it.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters following a closed-door GOP conference meeting on Tuesday morning that the chamber could stay in session this weekend, if leaders cannot get the votes they need lined up during the next few days.

“We’ve got to get it done,” Scalise said. “Failure is not an option.”

The House is set to leave for a two-week break on Thursday.

‘A joke from the Senate’

House Republicans can only lose three votes and still adopt the budget resolution, given their extremely thin 220-seat majority. As of Tuesday, many more than three GOP lawmakers have expressed reservations or said outright they won’t vote to approve the budget resolution.

Texas Rep. Chip Roy said the $4 billion floor in spending cuts in the Senate’s reconciliation instructions “is clearly not sufficient.”

“It’s, frankly, a joke from the Senate. And it’s more of the same swamp stuff that we’ve been dealing with for years, and so nothing’s changed,” Roy said. “So, you know, we have to draw a line in the sand now on a budget, and the Senate’s budget is not there.”

Roy said he “wouldn’t advise” House leaders to bring the budget resolution to the floor for a vote this week and that he “didn’t come here to make deficits go up.”

The House’s reconciliation instructions allow the Ways and Means Committee to increase deficits by up to $4.5 trillion to extend the 2017 tax cuts that were set to expire at the end of this year.

The House’s budget blueprint also gives the Armed Services Committee a cap of $100 billion in new spending, Homeland Security a $90 billion ceiling for new funding for programs it oversees, and the Judiciary Committee a maximum of $110 billion in new spending.

The House tasks several other committees with cutting at least $1.5 trillion over the same time period, including $880 billion in cuts by the panel that oversees major health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Trump weighs in

Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett said he was undecided, but leaning against voting to approve the budget resolution since it proposed too much spending and not enough cuts.

Burchett said he wasn’t invited to a White House meeting taking place later in the day, but that Trump has his phone number and can call him if he wants to.

South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman said he wanted to amend the budget resolution to require the Senate to cut the same amount as the House. He also said he wanted Trump to weigh in.

Trump posted on social media Monday evening that the Senate-passed budget had his “Complete and Total Endorsement and Support.”

“There is no better time than now to get this Deal DONE! The House, the Senate, and our Great Administration, are going to work tirelessly on creating “THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,” an appropriate name if Congress so likes,” Trump wrote. “Everyone is going to be happy with the result. Passage will make, even the subject of World Trade, far easier and better for the U.S.A. THE HOUSE MUST PASS THIS BUDGET RESOLUTION, AND QUICKLY — MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Senate side

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said later Tuesday he hopes the House will adopt the budget resolution, so both chambers can begin drafting the actual reconciliation package. He also reiterated that GOP lawmakers in his chamber are just as interested in cutting spending as their House colleagues.

“As we get into the reconciliation process, we’re going to be very committed to doing as much as we possibly can on deficit reduction,” Thune said.

Some of the confusion and disagreement, he said, is due to Republicans “speaking slightly different languages because the House and Senate operate in such different ways.”

Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center  or CECOT, on March 26, 2025, in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

This story was updated at 10:24 a.m. EDT, April 8

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Monday said the Trump administration could continue for now to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out rapid deportations of Venezuelans suspected of being gang members — but they must be given a chance to challenge their deportations in court.

The 5-4 decision, which lifted a temporary restraining order by a District of Columbia federal judge, will allow the Trump administration to deport Venezuelans 14 and older who are suspected of Tren de Aragua gang ties, in a victory for the administration of President Donald Trump.

But those immigrants who are subject to the wartime law must have “reasonable notice” in order to challenge their deportation in court “before such removal occurs,” according to the order. The question is which court.

The order argues that the venue of the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia is wrong, and that the challenge, which was originally brought by five men in Texas, should be made in the Lone Star State. The challenge is no longer brought by five men and is now a class action.

“The detainees seek equitable relief against the implementation of the Proclamation and against their removal under the (Alien Enemies Act),” according to the Supreme Court. “They challenge the Government’s interpretation of the Act and assert that they do not fall within the category of removable alien enemies. But we do not reach those arguments.”

The president praised the decision, which did not address the merits of the actual law, on social media.

“The Supreme Court has upheld the Rule of Law in our Nation by allowing a President, whoever that may be, to be able to secure our Borders, and protect our families and our Country, itself,” Trump wrote. “A GREAT DAY FOR JUSTICE IN AMERICA!”

Dissenting justices

The three liberal justices dissented: Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The fourth dissent, in part, came from Amy Coney Barrett, who is considered a member of the court’s six-justice conservative majority.

“The Court’s legal conclusion is suspect,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.

She added that the majority opinion did not note the harm that could come to the Venezuelans who could face deportation under the Alien Enemies Act. Already, 238 men have been subject to the proclamation and are currently in a brutal mega-prison in El Salvador, the Terrorist Confinement Center  or CECOT.

“It does so without mention of the grave harm Plaintiffs will face if they are erroneously removed to El Salvador or regard for the Government’s attempts to subvert the judicial process throughout this litigation,” she said. “Because the Court should not reward the Government’s efforts to erode the rule of law with discretionary equitable relief, I respectfully dissent.”

A preliminary injunction hearing against the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act was set for Tuesday afternoon but U.S. District Court Judge James E. Boasberg canceled the hearing in light of the decision of the high court.

That hearing was set to deal with the administration’s use of the law. Instead, Boasberg is setting a deadline of April 16 for the civil rights group that brought the suit to file a notice  “indicating whether they believe that they still have a basis to proceed on their Motion for Preliminary Injunction in this Court.”

This was the second decision from the high court Monday that sided with the Trump administration.

Earlier, Chief Justice John Roberts decided to temporarily pause a lower court’s order to require the Trump administration to return to the United States a Maryland man wrongly deported to a prison in El Salvador.

Appeal to the high court

The Trump administration March 28 appealed to the Supreme Court after an appeals court declined to do away with the temporary restraining order placed by Boasberg.

Boasberg had extended his temporary restraining order until April 12 to prevent any more deportations of Venezuelan nationals, invoked by Trump with a presidential proclamation on March 14.

The American Civil Liberties Union brought the suit against the Trump administration’s use of the wartime law. The legal organization asked the Supreme Court to keep the temporary restraining order in place because “it is becoming increasingly clear that many (perhaps most) of the men” who were on the March 15 deportation flights to the prison in El Salvador “were not actually members of” the Tren de Aragua and were “erroneously listed” due to their tattoos.

The same day that Boasberg issued his restraining order, on March 15, three deportation flights landed in El Salvador, where 261 men were taken to the mega-prison.

Boasberg has vowed to determine if the Trump administration violated his restraining order by asking for flight details but the Department of Justice has invoked the so-called “state secrets privilege” to block any information.

Gov. Tony Evers and Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes at the Hannover Messe trade show in Germany last week. (Photo courtesy of WEDC)

The sweeping tariffs President Donald Trump put in place last week have left key Wisconsin business leaders as well as the state’s important trading partners confused and uncertain, the state’s top economic development official said Monday.

Missy Hughes, CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., spoke to the Wisconsin Examiner from Germany, where she and Gov. Tony Evers are in the midst of a trade mission. Hughes left March 29 and returns to Wisconsin this week.

“The government officials, economic development officials, the businesses that we’ve been talking to are very confused about how we got here after over 75 years worth of partnering and working together,” Hughes said. “The folks here are really wondering what has happened and where this is going.”

Hughes said she’s hearing regularly from Wisconsin businesses that have integrated themselves into the global economy.

“I’ve been in touch with companies that are directly importing things like coffee [for which] there’s really no way to work around the tariffs,” she said. “And so they’re very concerned about just increased costs on their bottom line.”

Other businesses have connected with the supply chains that run between Canada and Mexico through the United States. They are “sending products back and forth across those borders, and are now very confused and concerned about how to make their supply chains work,” Hughes said.

For businesses that have had a good run for the last several years, “[there] is real frustration around instability and unpredictability,” she said. “They were experiencing growth, they were doing well, and now they’re concerned that that might be endangered.”

A ‘man-made crisis’

Hughes contrasted the crisis brought on by the tariffs and the responses to them with the COVID-19 pandemic’s disruption to the economy five years ago.

“This is a man-made crisis,” whereas the pandemic was “a crisis that was not man-made,” she said.

“For the average Wisconsinite the concern I have is the increased cost in their pocketbook,” Hughes said. “There’s going to be increased grocery prices, there might be inflation. It’s going to cost more to replace your dishwasher or your automobile.”

Those present “an impact [that] is difficult to predict,” she said. “This is really going to be an unfolding crisis as we see immediate impacts and then impacts that will evolve, due to changes that are being made on a daily basis.”

In addition to the volatility from the tariffs, Hughes said, there’s also uncertainty from unexpected and sweeping cuts across federal agencies, resulting in disruptions that range from university research programs cut short to social services delayed or ended.

Markets worldwide take another dive as Trump threatens higher tariffs on China

Farmers are losing grants they have been relying on, she said, but also are faced with losing the counsel they’ve relied on at the U.S. Department of Agriculture to help them manage regulations.

Leaders of a biohealth company have expressed “their concern that the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] is no longer going to be the premier global agency that people rely on,” Hughes said.

“There’s things that are going to be immediately apparent and things that are going to be apparent as we see real expertise and institutional knowledge from our agencies disappear,” she added.

Maintaining relationships 

The trade mission took the Wisconsin delegation to France as well as Germany. It is aimed at encouraging businesses in Europe to buy Wisconsin exports and talking up the Badger State for companies interested in establishing or expanding their operations here.

A highlight of the visit was kicking off the 50th anniversary of Wisconsin’s sister-state relationship with the German state of Hesse (Hessen). The group also attended the Hannover Messe, a major worldwide advanced manufacturing trade show.

In the face of the startling reversal from longstanding relationships between the U.S. and the world, Hughes said, leaders the state delegation met with welcomed Wisconsin’s continued overtures.

“Obviously, things are still very volatile,” Hughes said. Despite that, she added, “people have been so happy that we are here extending a handshake and reminding everyone that there are opportunities for relationships beyond what’s happening in Washington, D.C.”

Joining the trip were four Wisconsin companies and representatives of New North, a Wisconsin regional economic development and business organization. The Wisconsin participants were looking at opportunities such as distribution deals in Europe for their products, Hughes said.

“They were by and large very happy with their visits and the opportunities to create relationships,” Hughes said.

The other principal aim of the trip was to connect with companies in Europe that have Wisconsin operations or are interested in establishing a presence in the state.

“While those conversations were positive, there was certainly also concern expressed about, what if there’s a slowdown, what if there’s a recession,” Hughes said. A recurring theme in those conversations, she added, was the “need to understand what the economy is doing, and we need things to not be as volatile as they are right now.”

The Wisconsin team is working “to remind folks that Wisconsin’s is a strong economy,” she said. “We have strong businesses that are interested in being and already participating in the global market and want that to continue. So I think, you know, we are a steady hand during this volatile time and I think that’s really beneficial.”

Business confidence at stake

In the face of the current economic turmoil, Hughes said she worries about the toll on business confidence.

“When you lose confidence you start to become risk averse, you hold off on making investments,” she said. That’s important in Wisconsin because of the state’s role making large, expensive machinery.

“We make CAT scans and MRIs and tractors and big industrial machinery,” Hughes said. “People need confidence before they make those purchases. And so if we lose confidence, it’s going to be harder to recover even if the tariffs were taken away next week, or next month.”

Confidence is hard to measure and not always easily predicted, she acknowledged. “My fear is that people will really start to become risk-averse, and that hinders the whole growth of the economy.”

Despite that fear, however, she said she’s found reasons to buoy her spirits in the conversations she’s had over the last two weeks.

“The desire for a relationship, the desire for connections, the long-term historic partnerships that we’ve had are still here,” Hughes said. She professed optimism that those connections can still be nurtured and survive the current gyrations of the stock market or the economy itself.

“I’m very confident that we have such strong ties that those will stand strong during these times,” she said. “But it is difficult.”

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