As federal immigration officers made more “at-large” arrests in communities across the country in the first year of the current Trump administration — including at homes, places of worship and workplaces — more than 1,100 Nebraska families developed family safety plans in the event a parent or breadwinner faced detention or deportation.

These plans help families decide who will take care of the children, handle school and medical decisions, and manage finances if a parent suddenly cannot be there.

Families are encouraged to choose a trusted adult — such as a relative or family friend — who could temporarily care for the children. They’re making sure children have passports, updating school emergency contacts, and letting family members know how to locate a parent if they are detained.

“This is not unique to immigrant families, but it’s of course more nuanced for immigrant families in the sense that their family can be separated at any time,” said Lina Traslaviña Stover, a sociologist who also is executive director of the Heartland Workers Center, a Nebraska nonprofit that advocates on behalf of workers in the meatpacking, restaurant, construction and cleaning industries.

“There are a lot of ripple effects when families prepare for the possibility of separation. In some cases, older siblings are being asked to step into the role of head of household if a parent is detained or deported. Imagine a high school senior suddenly carrying the responsibility for the family’s finances and stability. Even if it’s just a ‘what if’ scenario, that kind of pressure can change a young person’s plans for the future.”

The effort in Nebraska, and similar ones around the country, points to the social and economic fallout from the immigration crackdown. The deportation of a breadwinner, the potential exposure of tenants’ personal data and stricter federal housing policies can all stress families, advocates say, even as some policymakers are trying to help.

Demand for rental housing is driven primarily by U.S. citizens, but immigrants have long been a key subset of renters: They headed 9.6 million renter households (21%) in 2024, according to the recently published America’s Rental Housing report by the Harvard University Joint Center for Housing Studies. Researchers also note that immigrants contribute to the economy and pay taxes, supporting the communities they live and work in.

“For households living paycheck to paycheck, losing just a few days of wages can mean losing housing,” said Meesha Moulton, a Las Vegas-based immigration attorney. “Housing insecurity in these communities doesn’t start with an eviction notice, it starts with the empty chair at a job site.”

Fear can also affect how or whether immigrant families — with or without legal status — apply for food, housing or health programs they qualify for because they worry it could put them on the government’s radar. Both Americans and immigrants with legal status have been arrested during the past year’s enforcement crackdown. And nearly three-fourths of the people in immigration detention in late January had no criminal record.

Jacob Rugh, a sociologist and associate professor at Brigham Young University who studies immigration enforcement and housing, said high-profile incidents of aggressive and fatal encounters between federal agents and U.S. citizens and noncitizens have shifted public opinion in ways that could help affected immigrants.

In a Quinnipiac University poll conducted shortly after a federal immigration officer fatally shot 37-year-old Renee Good, roughly 80% of respondents said they had seen video of the shooting.

“People are seeing videos everywhere and there’s more visibility in the non-immigrant community,” Rugh said. “It makes the issue much more salient in ways that didn’t exist before. People donate, help on the ground and become part of the solution.”

‘We cannot GoFundMe our way out of a crisis’

Policymakers in many affected places are looking for ways to help.

In Los Angeles County, officials declared a state of emergency in 2025 after federal immigration raids, allowing the county to provide rent relief, legal aid and other services to residents affected by immigration enforcement in Southern California last year.

In Clark County, Washington, a $50,000 rental assistance program was launched to help families who have a family or household member — and are missing a primary wage-earner — detained or deported by immigration officers. Officials say the demand for assistance is already exceeding available funds.

In Santa Ana, California, a $100,000 emergency assistance program is aimed at helping renters affected by federal immigration raids. It offers up to one month of rent or utility assistance for a household that lost income as a result of a member’s detention or deportation.

Few places better illustrate the direct relationship between immigration enforcement and housing insecurity than Minnesota, where the Trump administration in December sent thousands of federal agents. Operation Metro Surge closed streets and businesses amid protests and shelter-in-place orders, and agents detained more than 4,000 people, according to the White House.

The Minneapolis City Council approved extending the time frame for eviction notices, but Mayor Jacob Frey vetoed the measure and instead proposed $1 million in city funding in rental assistance.

Landlords across Minneapolis and St. Paul have filed 2,585 eviction notices so far this year, 25% above the same time period in 2023 and 2024, according to the Eviction Lab at Princeton University.

Many residents have reported losing jobs, said Tara Raghuveer, director of the Tenant Union Federation, a national union of tenant unions involved in a new tenant campaign in the Twin Cities. Some fell behind on rent, and with income-earners detained, some families have attempted to fill the void by raising money on GoFundMe.

“We cannot GoFundMe our way out of a crisis of this scale,” Raghuveer said in an interview. “Many people have not been able to work, and as a result many people have not been able to pay rent, and the economic pain created by this invasion will still be with everyday people long after ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents are gone.”

Minneapolis and St. Paul have each allocated about $1 million in emergency rental assistance.

Last week, Minnesota’s Democratic-led Senate approved $40 million in rental assistance, but the legislation isn’t expected to pass the evenly split House. Republicans argued that residents living in the country illegally shouldn’t receive aid, the Minnesota Reformer reported.

Trust between landlords and immigrant tenants

Immigration enforcement has also caused a ripple in the relationship between landlords and their tenants who lack legal status. In Tennessee, a law enacted in 2025 criminalizes harboring such immigrants for financial gain, which some critics argue could pressure landlords to evict tenants or refuse rentals out of fear of legal consequences.

In Oregon, lawmakers passed legislation that would restrict landlords from disclosing a tenant’s immigration status and sensitive personal information without clear legal requirements. The measure would protect information such as immigration status, Social Security numbers and financial records. It’s awaiting action by the governor.

A New Jersey bill that would bar landlords from using a tenant’s immigration status is advancing in the legislature.

California, Colorado and Illinois have enacted so-called immigrant tenant protection acts, with provisions to prevent landlords from harassing, intimidating or evicting tenants based on their citizenship or immigration status.

Democratic Oregon state Rep. Pam Marsh, who sponsored the Oregon legislation, told Stateline that the idea emerged after reviewing tenant records from her own experience as a small landlord.

“I realized I had file drawers full of very sensitive data,” she said. “It made me start asking what the law actually requires about confidentiality.”

The measure ultimately passed with bipartisan support after negotiations with landlord groups.

Immigration authorities have taken a new legal position that civil administrative warrants may allow agents to enter residences without a judge-signed warrant, according to guidance compiled by the National Apartment Association’s legal team. Many legal experts dispute the directive, and at least one court has found it unconstitutional.

A proposed U.S. Housing and Urban Development rule would prohibit “mixed-status” families — households with both U.S. citizens and people without legal immigration status — from living in public or other subsidized housing.

HUD estimates that about 25,000 mixed-status households currently receive agency-assisted housing, less than 1% of all federally aided renters. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates about 80,000 people could lose housing assistance, including roughly 37,000 children, nearly all U.S. citizens.

Some landlords are concerned their tenants may end a lease early or not renew based on rumors or threats of immigration agent sightings, according to Alexandra Alvarado, director of marketing and education for the trade group American Apartment Owners Association.

María Monclova, a Mexican-born immigration lawyer, says that landlord compliance with requests from federal agents is in part due to ignorance of obligations to cooperate with federal matters.

“There have been credible reports of immigration authorities requesting leases, rental applications and identification documents from landlords or property managers,” she said.

“Many landlords don’t fully understand the difference between an administrative request and a court-issued subpoena or warrant,” she said. “When that distinction isn’t clear, some property owners may overcomply out of fear of liability.”

Given the current administration’s attempt to determine immigration status through public housing data, Moulton, the immigration attorney, thinks some immigrant and mixed-status families may be avoiding formal leases altogether.

“They’d rather live in a crowded basement with no paperwork than sign a legal contract that has their name on it. This is all bad for everyone,” Moulton said. “It leads to ‘shadow housing’ where buildings aren’t inspected, safety rules are ignored and slumlords can take advantage of people. When we push people into the shadows, we lose the data we need to keep our neighborhoods safe.”

Some neighborhoods — and the groups of people who live and call them home — have been reshaped by immigration preceding the current Trump administration and dating through the George W. Bush, Obama, first Trump and Biden administrations.

A 2025 study from Rugh and other researchers in the journal Demography found that when local police helped enforce immigration laws, Latino and white residents were less likely to live in the same neighborhoods over time. Researchers say tougher enforcement can make immigrant families feel less secure financially and more likely to move.

“When large numbers of men are detained or deported — and most deportees are men — they’re suddenly no longer contributing to household income,” Rugh said in an interview.

“When you detain and deport large numbers of people, it affects entire communities,” he said. “Landlords lose renters, property values can fall, local businesses suffer, and people who aren’t immigrants feel the economic effects.”

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

A federal judge in Massachusetts has halted enforcement of several key vaccine policies imposed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., ruling that the Trump administration illegally overhauled a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee dedicated to issuing immunization recommendations.

The decision, which comes in response to a lawsuit filed by the American Academy of Pediatrics last July, temporarily blocks the enforcement of all recommendations voted on by the panel. That includes the overhaul of a decades-old recommendation that all newborn babies receive a vaccine against hepatitis B, a push to emphasize the risks of COVID-19 vaccines and a ban on vaccine preservatives like thimerosal. 

The ruling also temporarily halts participation from 13 of the panel’s 15 members, complicating a meeting that was scheduled to begin later this week.

The CDC’s committee, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, is charged with setting national guidelines around which people should be vaccinated against a wide range of preventable diseases and when those vaccines should be administered. The recommendations play a key role in determining which vaccines insurance companies are willing to cover and how accessible those immunizations are to the public.

Last June, Kennedy abruptly dismissed all 17 members of the committee and replaced them with a slate of hand-picked appointees, many of whom are seen as vaccine skeptics. In his Monday decision, District Court Judge Brian E. Murphy ruled that the Trump administration likely violated the Administrative Procedure Act by failing to appoint qualified, nonpartisan experts, as the panel’s charter requires.

By ignoring those requirements, “the Government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions,” Murphy’s ruling reads.

Dr. Andrew Racine, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, celebrated the ruling, calling it “a historic and welcome outcome for children, communities, and pediatricians everywhere.”

“For decades, the AAP partnered closely with the federal government to advance our mission of attaining the optimal health and well-being of children and youth,” Racine added. “We would much prefer to return to that partnership and collaborate with federal healthcare agencies instead of litigating against them.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia are challenging guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development that plaintiffs allege imposes new rules and funding conditions they say could weaken state protections against housing discrimination — and their ability to investigate them. 

The lawsuit focuses two HUD memos in September detailing how it will prioritize resources for cases with clear evidence of intentional discrimination.

HUD withdrew several fair housing documents including guidance policies on disparate impact — a theory of discrimination where neutral-seeming policies disproportionately exclude or harm certain groups — along with procedures for referring discrimination cases to the Department of Justice, and credit programs aimed at expanding access to housing. 

On April 11, it will be 58 years since President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act into law in an effort to combat housing discrimination and partner HUD with state and local agencies to enforce those laws. Through the Fair Housing Assistance Program, HUD refers complaints to state agencies, which use HUD funding to investigate cases, train staff and conduct outreach.

The September memos stipulated that state agencies receiving HUD dollars to enforce fair housing laws won’t be reimbursed for cases regarding discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, criminal record, source of income or English-language proficiency.

Attorneys general filing the lawsuit say HUD has significantly reduced staffing and the number of discrimination cases it pursues, while dismissing whistleblowers who raised concerns about the agency’s ability to enforce fair housing laws or look into acts of housing discrimination.

If the HUD changes go through, many state laws could be in conflict with this guidance. 

Several states, including some represented in the lawsuit, have fair housing laws that extend protections beyond those covered by federal law and could be impacted by HUD’s guidance.

Included in the lawsuit alongside are attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia. It was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

Among state laws that offer protections cited in the HUD memos, California state law protects tenants based on sexual orientation, gender identity and lawful source of income, including housing vouchers. 

Other states such as Illinois and Washington extend protections based on immigration status. Colorado, Massachusetts and Rhode Island also provide protection against discrimination on the basis of identities such as gender identity, sexual orientation and source of income.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court Monday said it will hear oral arguments in April in two cases brought by immigrants hailing from Syria and Haiti after the Trump administration tried to end their temporary protections, initially granted because their countries had been deemed too dangerous for return. 

Monday’s order consolidates two cases, one brought on behalf of 6,000 Syrians with Temporary Protected Status and another from 350,000 Haitians. 

The justices also declined to grant the Trump administration’s request to stay a lower court order that prevented the end of TPS for those two countries, meaning that protections from deportation will remain for now for those immigrants. 

The justices will hear arguments for the cases in the last week of April, with final briefs due by April 20. A specific date has not yet been set.

Congress created TPS to allow immigrants from countries dealing with war, natural disasters, political violence or other instabilities to remain and work in the United States on a temporary basis, ranging from six months to 18 months. 

The TPS holders who sued the Trump administration have argued that their countries’ conditions were not considered when the Department of Homeland Security determined their protections should end. 

The Trump administration has sought to cancel legal protections for immigrants, so far revoking TPS status for 13 of the 17 countries that were designated at the start of President Donald Trump’s second term. 

Those 13 countries are Afghanistan, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.  

The four remaining countries with TPS expiring this year without an extension are El Salvador, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine.

Gov. Tony Evers has vetoed legislation that would have broadened a tax credit for businesses that invested in child care services.

A “catch-all” provision in the bill would have awarded the tax credit for “any other cost or expense incurred due to a benefit provided by an employer to facilitate the provision or utilization by employees of child care services.”

The provision “invites the possibility of a business claiming various expenses only tangentially related to child care services,” Evers wrote in his veto message, signed Friday. He added that it “significantly increases the risk of fraud” and didn’t including funding to cover the increased costs for the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. to ensure against employers scamming the system.

Republican lawmakers introduced the legislation, SB 291 / AB 283, in 2025 as the Evers administration and child care advocates were seeking up to $480 million in the Wisconsin 2025-27 state budget to support child care workers’ wages and avert increased child care tuition for families. The final budget included about $110 million for direct payments that expire this summer. 

The GOP measure proposed expanding the state’s Business Development Tax Credit, which since 2023 has allowed employers to get a tax credit for 15% of the capital expenditures they make for child care facilities for their employees. The original tax credit had no takers.

Child care providers were critical of the expansion proposal and argued that that it wasn’t adequate to address increased costs and reduced capacity for child care in Wisconsin.

The measure passed the Senate in November 2025 on a 19-14 vote with all but one Democrat voting against it. The Assembly concurred with the Senate bill on a 63-31 vote in February, with nine Democrats joining the GOP in favor of the bill.

In his veto message, Evers noted that he signed a bill in December, permitting employers to take the tax credit if they invest in a third party that establishes a child care program or in a revolving loan fund for that purpose. That measure, 2025 Act 78, was an example of “making smart and strategic modifications” Evers wrote.

“Unfortunately , this bill fails to do the same,” he wrote. “I am vetoing this bill in its entirety because I object to the Legislature making drastic and vague expansions to tax incentive programs without providing the necessary funding for proper implementation and the clarity necessary to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar, the conservative candidate in the race for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, has built her campaign around the idea that she will be an independent justice while her opponent, Appeals Court Judge and former Democratic legislator Chris Taylor, will be a partisan actor on the bench. 

Lazar has frequently said on the campaign trail that she’s “never been a member of a political party” — a claim aided by the fact that Lazar has never served in partisan office and Wisconsin voters don’t register their party affiliation — while at a recent event Taylor, who served in the state Assembly for nine years, affirmed that she’s a Democrat. 

The argument of the Lazar campaign closely mirrors the arguments made by the last two conservative candidates for the Court. 

Last year, former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel frequently said that as a justice he’d be like a baseball umpire, simply calling balls and strikes about the law. During the 2023 race, former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly said that if he was elected Wisconsin would have “the rule of law” while if his opponent Janet Protasiewicz were elected Wisconsin would have the “rule of Janet.” 

Schimel and Kelly both brought long histories of work on behalf of the Republican party, its allies and its causes to their races. Both rode the argument that they would be impartial arbiters of the law to double digit losses. 

But in both of the last two Wisconsin Supreme Court campaigns, the ideological balance of the Court was at stake after years in which Republicans had held control of most of the state’s political levers. Those races broke fundraising records and drew national attention.

Lazar is making her argument this year in a much sleepier race as part of an effort to prevent the Court’s liberals from securing a 5-2 majority. Lazar says it’s important to protect ideological diversity on the Court. 

“You don’t want a court that has a point of view, one point of view,” Lazar said at an event in Brown County earlier this month. “You might as well have one judge, one justice. You need people there to be that diversity of thought.”

But like Kelly and Schimel, Lazar’s opponents have argued she’s not as non-partisan as she claims. 

Lazar has been endorsed by some of the state’s leading anti-abortion groups, prominent 2020 election deniers and all six of Wisconsin’s Republican members of the House of Representatives. She’s received financial support from major GOP donors including Richard and Liz Uihlein. She has also regularly appeared with far right national political figures and has spoken to right-wing groups across the state. 

Her campaign staff includes consultants with deep ties to Wisconsin Republican politics. 

“I don’t really care if you’re a member of the Green Party, the Constitution Party, or any party,” Lazar told the Wisconsin Examiner. “You cannot be a member of a party at any point in time and be a judge, because everyone will rightly say, ‘Where are your interests? Are you ruling for the law, or are you ruling for your party?’”

As an attorney for the state Department of Justice, she defended Republican lawmakers in a lawsuit alleging they violated the state’s open meetings laws while passing the controversial anti-union measure that became Act 10. She also defended the gerrymandered 2011 electoral maps that locked in Republican control of the Legislature for more than a decade. 

At an event earlier this month, Chief Justice Jill Karofsky said that as a Department of Justice attorney, Lazar carried “the flag of the right-wing interests.” 

Opponents have also pointed to appeals court decisions in which Lazar has sided with 2020 election conspiracy theorists trying to gain access to private voter information and with corporate interests trying to weaken the state’s toxic spills law. The District 2 Court of Appeals on which Lazar sits is considered the most reliably conservative appeals court in the state. 

After the 2020 presidential election, the state Supreme Court, then controlled by a conservative majority, ruled in a 4-3 decision not to hear a lawsuit from the campaign of President Donald Trump challenging Wisconsin’s election results. 

With the Trump White House signaling a willingness to interfere in the conduct of state election systems, Democrats and left-leaning organizations have argued the Supreme Court race this year will build an important barrier against Republicans copying the 2020 playbook in the 2028 presidential election. 

Earlier this month, Lazar told PBS Wisconsin she wouldn’t weigh in on the merits of that Trump 2020 case, but that she believes “every legal, valid vote should be counted.” 

But in the election disputes that have simmered in Wisconsin during the six years since Trump’s Stop the Steal effort culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the debate has often centered exactly on the question of what counts as a legal, valid vote — a question that the Supreme Court may be called on to answer. 

Lazar said it would be shortsighted for a judge or justice to decide an election case “because it helps the side that you most personally align with.”

“A vote is a vote, and I’m not going to get into all the ins and outs of what judges have to look at when they’re determining what’s a legal, valid vote,” she told the Examiner. “But my concern is — and I’m seeing it not just in Wisconsin, I’m seeing it nationally — I’m seeing that this is being treated like a game. It’s a very serious right, and I think it’s an obligation that people vote, and I don’t like seeing anyone disenfranchised for any reason whatsoever.” 

The effort to cast doubt on election results was sparked by Trump and led in Wisconsin by Republicans and former conservative Supreme Court justices Currently, Republican members of Congress are debating a bill that could drastically restrict access to the ballot to people unable to produce a certified copy of a birth certificate or other documents proving U.S. citizenship. But Lazar said she sees judges on both sides trying to help their side win. 

“I don’t like the fact that courts and justices and judicial candidates are making these arguments and winking and nudging on both sides and saying, ‘Oh, if you elect me, I’m going to make sure that your party is going to win,’ or ‘if you elect me, I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen, or this does.’ That’s inappropriate,” she said.

Observers representing a range of political views have lamented the massive amount of money that has flowed into Wisconsin’s Supreme Court races, which has accelerated the perception that the body is more partisan than it used to be.                                                

Under Wisconsin’s divided government, the Supreme Court has been regularly tasked with deciding disputes over the separation of power between the governor and Legislature. With an open race for governor and competitive legislative races across the state, November’s elections could result in one party trifecta control of the lawmaking branches or give state government a big shakeup that results in a still-divided government under a different layout. 

Lazar said a justice deciding these separation of power cases shouldn’t try to game out which party will be helped because in Wisconsin’s swing state politics, the shoe could just as quickly be on the other foot. 

“Be careful what you wish for,” she said. “You have to have a long view, and the courts really have the longest view. And we should be looking not to what helps someone today, but we should be saying, ‘how do we affect the appropriate law for generations?’”

In recent years, and especially since the start of Trump’s second term, conservative leaning candidates have not fared well in non-major elections. Democrats and left-leaning judges have performed far better when turnout is lower through a combination of higher motivation against a liberal base eager to cast a protest vote against the unpopular president’s party and the lower engagement in state and local politics among a Republican base that only turns out en masse when Trump is on the ballot. 

Lazar said she understands that’s a barrier she has to overcome. 

“It does seem to be non-major election years that the April elections seem to be a little sleepier, or they possibly even trend a little bit away from the more conservative candidate, or the more independent, in this case, candidate, and we recognize that,” she said. “Everyone in this state should be looking at this race and looking at what rights they have, and to making sure that they take steps so that they have someone that they can have faith in.” 

A Marquette Law School poll released in February found that a large swathe of Wisconsin voters still had very little information about the Supreme Court race. With six weeks before Election Day, 66% of voters said they were still undecided. Among those polled who had decided, Taylor had a slight edge. 

But despite Taylor’s slight lead in the poll, Lazar said her takeaway was that the Taylor campaign’s TV ads in the state’s largest metro areas had done little to move the public.

“My opponent has spent a lot of money, run a lot of ads and not gaining any traction,” Lazar said. “And I think it shows that the state of Wisconsin is saying we want to take a step back, maybe a little bit of election fatigue from last year, and we want to take a step back to really make a good, wise decision on who we want to give a 10-year term on this Court.”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Former Waupun Correctional Institution officer Jamall Russell pled no contest to misdemeanor charges on Wednesday in a Dodge County Circuit Court case. The criminal complaint in the case charged Russell and others in the death of Donald Maier, the Examiner reported in June 2024. 

Maier, 62, was incarcerated at the Waupun prison and was reportedly found dead in February 2024. Authorities said Maier’s death was due to dehydration and malnutrition.

Russell, 41, was originally charged with misconduct in public office and with neglecting a person confined in a correctional institution, which are both Class I felonies that carry a penalty of imprisonment of up to three and a half years, a fine of up to $10,000 or both.

The criminal complaint charged Russell with neglect through a failure to act that caused unreasonable suffering, misery or physical harm. It also accused him of misconduct by reporting false information. 

The complaint stated that Maier had severe mental health issues and medical problems, and that multiple staff had noted he could not effectively communicate his needs. Maier’s inability to speak coherently to communicate his medical needs was likely a factor in why he didn’t receive needed medical and psychological intervention, the complaint said. 

According to camera footage, on four consecutive days, Russell “does not feed a meal (breakfast or lunch)” to Maier, according to the complaint, causing eight out of 12 meals to not be fed to Maier. During six of eight deliveries, he didn’t ask Maier if he would like to eat. 

Maier refused or wasn’t provided medication for his known medical and psychological conditions during his approximately nine days in the restricted housing unit, with the exception of one possible distribution where it’s unclear if he ingested the medication given to him, the complaint said. 

Russell said that an incarcerated person’s refusal of medication is when they don’t respond or say no when a medication pass is conducted, the complaint stated. In the case of Maier, Russell said that “he would either yell obscenities or ignore him completely, so he did not distribute medications to him.” 

Russell also said he wouldn’t give medications to an incarcerated person if  he couldn’t verify the person was taking them, because of the possibility that the person would hoard the medications and abuse them later. 

Russell said he had written incident reports involving self-harm or suicidal actions. He said that writing an incident report about an inmate losing weight and getting thinner or flooding his cell, which Maier reportedly did, was not in line with his training. Russell claimed that he told a nurse he was worried about Maier because he was not eating, not responding, his movements were getting slower and his skin appeared to be paler, the complaint stated. Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt said the water in Maier’s cell  “appears to have been shut off for a significant amount of time”; based on the criminal complaint, this appeared to be in response to Maier flooding his cell. 

Russell said he told a sergeant about unusual observations of Maier’s activities and reported his meal refusal to a sergeant and hospital unit staff. 

Schmidt said that the required number of cell checks was not conducted and supervisors knew cell checks were commonly skipped.   

Camera footage showed that 14 times over two days, Russell did not complete  rounds in the restrictive housing unit  that he reported he had completed, the complaint stated. 

A nurse was present during Maier’s intake into restricted housing and didn’t proceed with an evaluation because he was verbally abusive, according to the criminal complaint. Maier was placed in a cell and never again removed or seen in person, other than through a window, to determine if he needed medical attention.  

Correctional officer and sergeant vacancies at the Waupun prison have decreased after a peak of about 56% in February 2024, around the time of Donald Maier’s death. The latest rate reported online by the DOC is about 25%.

The Examiner reported in June 2024 on criminal charges against nine Waupun staff members, including Russell, with abuse of prisoners and misconduct, after the deaths of Maier and Cameron Williams, 24, who were both incarcerated at the prison. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Russell is no longer a correctional officer. 

Russell pleaded no contest to three counts of violating the law governing a state or county institution. This misdemeanor carries up to a $500 fine, up to 30 days of imprisonment or both. 

However, the plea agreement, signed by Russell and Dodge County District Attorney Andrea Will on Wednesday, would impose different requirements: probation, community service hours, honest testimony and the inability to work as a correctional officer.

Former Waupun warden Randall Hepp was convicted last year and fined $500 and court costs, the Examiner reported. He also pleaded no contest. Maier’s mother filed a lawsuit against Hepp, Wisconsin Department of Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy and others, seeking compensatory and punitive damages. 

According to an article in the Appleton Post-Crescent last year on the conviction of a different Waupun staff member, Dodge County Assistant District Attorney Shawn Woller read a letter from Maier’s mother during the prosecution’s sentencing argument. He said she requested for the letter to be read at each of the sentencings for those convicted of crimes relating to her son’s death. 

“I feel that each and every person who ignored my son and therefore had a hand in his death should spend some time in jail so that they learn firsthand what it is like to be dependent on other guards for food and water and medical care and protection,” her letter states, according to the Post-Crescent. “Nothing can bring my son back, but I’d like to think that we as a society would at least learn something from this tragedy, so this never happens to anyone else’s son.”

Plea agreement does not include jail time

The plea agreement states that in exchange for truthful testimony in any trial surrounding the death of Donald Maier, the state will recommend a withheld sentence on each count for two years of probation.

This comes with the condition that Russell can’t be employed as a correctional officer, as well as 100 hours of community service and following “all other conditions deemed appropriate by the agent.” Russell would also be responsible for all applicable court costs and fees. 

If the state believes that Russell does not provide truthful testimony or refuses to testify, the state will be free to argue at sentencing for whatever sentence it prefers, the agreement states. 

The plea offer depends upon truthful testimony against any co-actors who go to trial. 

Next in Russell’s case is a May 11 scheduling conference, to pick a date for his sentencing. 

Where do the other prosecutions stand?

In June 2024, charges were brought against Hepp and eight members of his staff: Russell, Lt. Brandon Fisher, Sgt. Alexander Hollfelder, nurse Jessica Hosfelt, correctional officer Sarah Ransbottom, Sgt. Jeramie Chalker, nurse Gwendolyn Vick and Sgt. Tanner Leopold. 

Ransbotton, Hepp, Fisher and Russell each pleaded no contest to one or more charges of violating the law governing a state or county institution after each originally was charged with one or more felonies. 

In the time leading up to Maier’s death, Ransbottom reported in the log that she completed rounds that surveillance footage showed she did not complete, according to a criminal complaint. 

Fisher pled no contest to two counts of violating the law governing a state or county institution, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. He has a sentencing hearing scheduled for May 29. The complaint said Fisher did not act on information he received to further investigate Maier’s condition or well-being.

In an incident report, Fisher wrote that the night before Williams’ death was reported, Leopold said he could see Williams breathing and slight movement of his head, but could not get a verbal response from him, the complaint said. 

Leopold reported that he told Fisher about the situation and was told that he had to contact the health services unit, so that they could determine whether it was necessary to assemble a team to remove Williams from his cell. 

According to the complaint, Fisher told detectives that “because (Williams) had a history of faking things, (Fisher) advised that a nurse should be contacted to visually look at him and see if there was a medical reason to pull him out of the cell, but if they don’t have a reason, he didn’t want to play games with (Williams) because he was attention seeking.”

Nurse Megan Leberak came to Williams’ cell front and noted that he was breathing but would not respond. Leberak indicated that usually, when a cell entry is done, she would be called to come over after staff entered the cell, if there was a medical issue, the complaint said. 

Leberak said she gave the go ahead for a cell entry to be conducted, but video footage showed Leopold, Fisher and nurse Gwendolyn Vick didn’t check on Williams, the complaint said. Leberak was at the end of her shift, and reportedly gave an update to Vick, who was later criminally charged.

Leopold said he received a call from Vick, telling him that entry wasn’t necessary at that time and that they would wait, according to the complaint. 

The case against Chalker was dismissed on a motion from the prosecution. Camera footage did not show Chalker completing 2:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. rounds on one day, contrary to what Chalker had logged, according to the criminal complaint. The Journal Sentinel reported that prosecutors said the investigation determined Chalker’s superior officer had instructed Chalker to fill out the rounds sheets.

The case against Hollfelder was also dismissed on a motion from the prosecution. The Journal Sentinel reported that they determined Hollfelder properly communicated concerns to his supervisor and a member of the health services unit, and had limited contact with Maier because of time he spent off work on family and medical leave. 

Cases against Leopold, Vick and Hosfelt are still active. Each is charged with neglecting someone confined in a correctional institution, which is a felony. Vick has a trial scheduled for May, while Hosfelt has a scheduling conference on March 27 and Leopold has a scheduling conference on March 23.

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

As telehealth access to abortion medication has grown in the years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, anti-abortion groups and attorneys general from states with abortion bans are accelerating efforts to ban access to the medication, including by attempting to revoke the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval.

Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill sued the FDA in October and asked the district court to strike down a 2023 provision allowing telehealth prescriptions for mifepristone, one part of a two-drug regimen commonly used to terminate a pregnancy before 10 weeks. Included in the lawsuit is Louisiana resident Rosalie Markezich, who said her boyfriend pressured her into taking the pills. 

Louisiana officials argue doctors in states without abortion bans should not be allowed to prescribe and mail the medication into a state where it is illegal, and say Markezich would not have been harmed if the 2023 provision hadn’t made it possible for the medication to be mailed to her boyfriend. Murrill asked the court to block the 2023 rule with a preliminary injunction, and if granted, it could limit access for people nationwide.

A ruling in that case is pending, along with another abortion pill lawsuit in Missouri about the FDA’s approval of a generic brand of mifepristone last year.

Aside from court cases, legislatures around the country are also considering legislation restricting or banning mifepristone, which is also used to treat miscarriage and high blood sugar for some patients. Louisiana designated the drug a controlled substance in the same category as Xanax and Valium, and South Carolina’s House of Representatives passed a similar bill in February.

Whether in court briefings or before state policymakers, plenty of talking points about abortion medication are repeated that are not based on scientific fact or evidence, according to experts. Here are some of the most common:

1. The rate of serious adverse events associated with mifepristone is less than 0.5%, according to extensive scientific study.

Republican lawmakers and anti-abortion interest groups have cited an April 2025 paper to argue that mifepristone is dangerous and results in a much higher rate of serious adverse events than the FDA reported. That paper, which was not peer reviewed, was published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative advocacy group that partners with groups like Alliance Defending Freedom, the conservative legal firm that has led many anti-abortion lawsuits, including the Dobbs case.

The policy center’s report finds a nearly 11% rate of “serious adverse events” based on commercially available health claims data. Experts dispute that the center defined a serious adverse event the same way the FDA does, as a condition that requires hospitalization, is life-threatening, or causes disability and permanent damage or death.

Dr. Mitchell Creinin, an OB-GYN at the University of California Davis Health who has researched the safety of mifepristone since studies first began in 1992, said there is overwhelming evidence that the medication is safe and the rate of serious adverse events is extremely low. In a report published by the Society of Family Planning, Creinin identified errors in the way the policy center’s analysis calculated events, saying there was double counting of issues associated with the same patient, and found that the report was counting serious adverse events that don’t meet the FDA’s criteria, including going to the emergency room.  

“It’s all about playing with science to make it say what you want it to say,” Creinin said.

One of Creinin’s studies from 2015 combined all relevant published studies on mifepristone and misoprostol between 2005 and 2015, a total of 20 studies with 33,846 women through 70 days of gestation, and found severe outcomes requiring blood transfusion and hospitalization occurred in less than 1% of cases.

2. Testing for Rh blood status is unnecessary in early pregnancy.

A common argument from anti-abortion groups like Students for Life of America, including in its amicus brief to the Louisiana court, is that telehealth abortion care cuts off the opportunity for doctors to test a pregnant patient’s Rh status before an abortion, which they argue can threaten the health of future pregnancies. 

A doctor will test a pregnant patient’s blood at some point during pregnancy to determine if they are Rh-positive or negative. If a patient knows their blood type, such as A or O, the positive or negative sign associated with the type is the Rh factor. Sometimes the pregnant patient’s marker is positive and the fetus is negative, which can result in the patient’s body identifying the blood cells of the pregnancy as foreign. That can cause the pregnant patient to develop antibodies against the blood cells. There needs to be enough of these cells to create a reaction, which doesn’t occur until after the first trimester, around 12 weeks. A treatment can be given in those cases to prevent antibodies from forming. 

Those antibodies can also form after miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy and abortion, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and it could affect future pregnancies.

But the organization said in its amicus brief to the court in Louisiana that the risk of serious outcomes related to Rh issues before 12 weeks’ gestation is low, and it affects a small minority of the population, so limiting access based on that rare outcome would be a “disproportionate response.”

Creinin said research shows there aren’t enough fetal cells in early pregnancy to mount an immune response, such as a 2023 study of 506 first-trimester abortion patients in which all but one of them were below the threshold for an immune response. Most countries worldwide do not recommend treatment in a patient with the condition in early pregnancy, and that is the recommendation in the U.S. as well.

“There’s all this really good evidence that says you don’t need to do it,” Creinin said.

3. A patient doesn’t need an ultrasound before taking mifepristone.

A pregnant person is not required to have an ultrasound or be seen by a provider in person in order to obtain mifepristone, according to the FDA. Ultrasounds weren’t required even before the FDA stopped requiring in-person visits, and most pregnant patients aren’t given an ultrasound for an early pregnancy until at least eight weeks’ gestation, even if they intend to keep it. Symptoms of ectopic pregnancy, when an embryo implants in a fallopian tube instead of the uterus, usually begin by seven to eight weeks of pregnancy, and mifepristone is only approved for use up to 10 weeks.

The mortality rate of ectopic pregnancy is extremely low, at less than 50 deaths per year, and if someone has significant risk factors for ectopic pregnancy, Creinin said, they should be evaluated earlier. That’s part of the counseling involved in a telehealth appointment.

4. Taking mifepristone at home does not disproportionately result in traumatic experiences.

Anti-abortion groups such as the Justice Foundation have submitted amicus briefs to the Louisiana court about people who said taking abortion medication and managing the treatment at home led to traumatic outcomes because they weren’t prepared for what they would see.

That can happen, said Jessie Losch, director of government affairs for the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, but most doctors will counsel a patient first on what to expect and what they might see after the pills are taken, including passing fetal tissue.

Losch acknowledged that there can be a gap between hearing about what to expect and seeing it in person, but that isn’t a reason to take the option away from those who benefit from being able to choose when and where the treatment occurs. That can be especially important for victims of abuse, Losch said.

“I understand why somebody might be taken by surprise at the reality of it, but we can’t control for that with legislation,” she said.

Although there are few recent scientific studies that specifically examine at-home abortion management, one Society of Family Planning study from 2022 with more than 3,100 participants found 98.4% were satisfied with the experience and about 95% thought self-managing was the right choice for them.

5. There is no evidence to support the idea that taking mifepristone is harmful for the environment.

This argument has largely come from the anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, which says mifepristone pollutes the water supply and contends the FDA should have done an environmental review including effects on endangered species before easing restrictions on the drug. Multiple states have considered legislation to create environmental restrictions around the drug or bills requiring providers to instruct patients to collect fetal tissue in medical waste kits and return it to the provider rather than flush it.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may also conduct a review that could be used to restrict access in the future, States Newsroom reported.

Losch said she hasn’t found any evidence that mifepristone is either detectable in the water supply or that it has a detrimental effect on wildlife, including the hormonal structure of fish or other aquatic animals.

In 1996, the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research issued a finding of no significant impact on the water supply from mifepristone.

“The Center … has concluded that the product can be manufactured, used and disposed of without expected adverse environmental effects,” the finding stated. That included endangered or threatened species.

In an extraordinary break from the federal government, the public health departments of at least three states and New York City are joining the global alert network of the World Health Organization, spurred by President Donald Trump’s decision to remove the United States from the United Nations agency responsible for coordinating international public health.

So far, the state public health departments in California, Illinois, New York, as well as the public health agency in New York City, have joined the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), which is part of the World Health Organization (WHO). The U.S. officially left the WHO this past January.

California joined GOARN in January, while Illinois, New York state and New York City joined last month.

GOARN, which includes more than 310 national public health agencies, United Nations agencies, academic institutions, and nongovernmental groups, helps identify and manage infectious disease outbreaks worldwide. Since it was established in 2000, GOARN says it has helped manage more than 175 global health emergencies across 114 countries.

GOARN maintains relationships with some medical and research institutions in the U.S., including the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in New Orleans and university medical centers in Nebraska and Texas. Until now, however, state public health agencies have not been members, because they relied on the U.S. government’s participation in GOARN for information on global outbreaks.

Dr. Ali Khan, a medical epidemiologist who is the dean of the College of Public Health at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and a former member of the GOARN steering committee, said the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how “disease has no borders” and the importance of sharing information globally to quash the spread of contagious diseases.

Khan said the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the WHO “throttles the information from WHO to the U.S. government, specifically the [federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], and which then flows to states. Those states are now left in a position where they’re joining the GOARN.”

“Let’s be clear, it doesn’t substitute for the U.S. withdrawal from the WHO, but it does allow states to directly get information about what’s going on globally that may impact their own citizens. So it allows them to sort of keep their own radar on when the U.S. has decided to no longer participate in this global information sharing.”

In explaining its decision to withdraw from WHO, the Trump administration said the U.S. had “for decades carried a disproportionate share of the organization’s financial burden.” It insisted the country would “continue to ensure detection and response to infectious disease outbreaks” without being a member of the organization.

“These are the same democrat-led states and cities that imposed unscientific school closures, toddler mask mandates, and vaccine passports during the COVID era,” Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, wrote in an email.

“They are the ones who destroyed public trust in public health that we are now restoring. We are working with the White House in a deliberative, interagency process on the path forward for global health and foreign assistance that first and foremost protects Americans.”

Dr. James McDonald, commissioner of the New York State Department of Health, told Stateline that the department’s decision to partner with GOARN was apolitical, and that it makes sense for New York because the state is “the world’s gateway to the country.”

“Everybody comes to the United States. Many come through JFK [John F. Kennedy International Airport], but an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo does matter to me, so learning about it sooner helps protect New Yorkers and also helps protect the United States,” McDonald said.

McDonald added that New York is a part of a new public health consortium of Northeast states — the Northeast Public Health Collaborative — and plans to share any information it gathers from GOARN with fellow members Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont. New York City also is a member of the consortium.

“One of the things about scientists and health care providers is we’re used to just sharing information with each other, sharing knowledge. It’s not political,” McDonald said.

Doua Yang, a spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health, said that even before officially joining GOARN in January, the agency had been attending weekly operational calls for several months, and even made a presentation on how it has handled bird flu outbreaks.

“As the fourth-largest economy in the world, California cannot afford to let down its guard, or its people,” Yang wrote in an email. “Participating with GOARN is one step California is taking to maintain uninterrupted communication with WHO and protect the state from potential health threats.”

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

The U.S. Department of Justice has begun connecting its push to obtain sensitive personal data on millions of voters to whether the upcoming midterm elections will be fair and secure, laying the groundwork for the Trump administration to potentially cast doubt on the results.

The Justice Department has sued 29 states and the District of Columbia over their refusal to provide unredacted voter rolls that include the driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers of voters. The department has lost three of those lawsuits so far this year.

But as the Justice Department begins appealing the losses, it has filed emergency motions warning the “security and sanctity of elections” would be questioned in those states — California, Michigan and Oregon — without immediate rulings.

Election experts told Stateline that federal appellate courts are unlikely to move quickly for the Justice Department. Instead, the department’s court filings suggest that without the data, the Trump administration may question the validity of the midterm elections in November.

“Absent a final Court determination on this matter there is no other process to ensure a fair election in 2026,” the Trump administration’s motions say.

President Donald Trump has made identifying noncitizen voting, an extremely rare occurrence, a priority of his administration, and the Justice Department has said the detailed personal data is necessary to ensure states are properly maintaining their voter rolls. At least a dozen Republican-led states have provided the information.

Democratic election officials, and some Republicans, have condemned the demands as an invasion of voters’ privacy and have voiced concerns the Trump administration plans to use the information to target political opponents or create a national voter list. Other Republican election officials and the Trump administration and have downplayed privacy concerns and said the data will help ensure only eligible voters cast ballots.

The DOJ’s sense of urgency comes after the department spent months sending letters to state officials demanding voter data, followed by successive rounds of lawsuits against states that refused to comply — all in what department officials said was the pursuit of noncitizen voters.

“We know this isn’t a big problem nationwide,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former senior trial attorney in the Justice Department’s Voting Section during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.

“We know the states have adequate safeguards,” Becker said. “We see Republicans — Republicans — coming out and saying this repeatedly. So there is no problem that urgently needs to be solved in advance of the election.”

But the Trump administration has increased its attention on elections in recent weeks. In early February, Trump voiced a desire to “nationalize” elections. He demanded Congress pass a proof of citizenship voter registration requirement and strict voter ID rules. The U.S. Senate is expected to debate the bill next week, but it is unlikely to have enough votes to advance.

The FBI has also seized ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia, and the Arizona Senate complied with a federal grand jury subpoena for records related to its 2020 audit of that year’s election results in Maricopa County, Arizona.

Michigan responded to the Justice Department in a March 6 court filing by asserting that its case involves no emergency. Lawyers representing Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, wrote that the appeal doesn’t challenge any state election law or rule and that the outcome of the case would have little to no effect on the 2026 election.

In response to an interview request, Benson’s office referred Stateline to a news release that quoted the secretary as urging election officials across the country “to stand up to the federal government’s overreach and to safeguard citizens’ private voting information we’ve been entrusted to protect.”

Oregon Democratic Secretary of State Tobias Read said in an emailed statement to Stateline that he’s “confident in our case, and trust the courts will continue to uphold the Constitution and the privacy rights of all Oregonians.”

California Democratic Secretary of State Shirley Weber didn’t respond to an interview request.

Race against time

Federal judges have so far ruled that even though states must perform maintenance on their voter rolls, federal law doesn’t give the Justice Department authority to obtain full voter lists.

While the Justice Department now claims the security and sanctity of upcoming elections necessitates the need for speed, the department hasn’t alleged any states are violating federal voter list maintenance requirements, said Derek Clinger, senior counsel and director of partnerships at the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

“This is the first time in all the litigation that DOJ has claimed that there’s an urgent need to resolve the cases,” said Clinger, who is tracking the voter data lawsuits.

Even if courts ultimately determine that states must provide the voter data, it’s not clear that the Justice Department could make effective use of it before the midterms.

Federal law generally prohibits states from conducting significant purges of registered voters less than 90 days before primary and general elections. For example, that period will begin in Michigan on May 6 ahead of the state’s Aug. 4 primary election.

The Justice Department has asked for all court documents in its Michigan appeal to be filed by April 1. Even if the appellate court immediately ruled in the department’s favor, only 35 days would be left until the pre-primary blackout period.

Lawyers for Michigan wrote in its court filing that it is “dubious” that any serious assessment of the state’s 7.3 million voters could occur in that time frame.

Still, Rosario Palacios, a naturalized U.S. citizen who leads the good-government group Common Cause Georgia, said she’s worried the federal government could wrongly flag her or others like her as noncitizens if the Justice Department eventually obtains her state’s unredacted voter roll.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security operates a powerful online program called SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) that it uses to verify citizenship. It has previously invited states to run their voter rolls through the program, and the Trump administration in September confirmed the Justice Department is sharing state voter roll data with Homeland Security. But SAVE has faced criticism from some election officials for mistakenly flagging U.S. citizens for review.

After the department sued Georgia for refusing to turn over its data, Palacios and Common Cause intervened in the lawsuit to oppose the demand.

Palacios said in an interview she’s worried some may choose not to participate in the election. “The fear alone of this is going to make people withdraw.”

Some GOP states share voter data

The Justice Department has offered few details about how it intends to analyze the voter data it obtains. The agency didn’t answer questions from Stateline and declined to comment.

Idaho Republican Secretary of State Phil McGrane last month said he wouldn’t turn over voter data. McGrane declined an interview request, but in a Feb. 26 letter to the Justice Department he raised concerns about data security.

“While I appreciate the Department’s representations that Idaho’s data will be safeguarded, I cannot take that now-apparent risk in the absence of clear legal duty to do so,” McGrane wrote.

Some Republican election officials have decided to share their state’s data, however.

Eric Neff, the acting chief of the Justice Department’s Voting Section, wrote in a March 2 court filing that 18 states had either shared voter data or planned to do so soon. He didn’t name those states.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which tracks the voter data requests, has identified at least a dozen states that have provided the data: Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming.

Two of those states — Alaska and Texas — provided their voter rolls after signing a memorandum of understanding, or MOU, with the Justice Department.

The document, marked confidential, says that after the state provides its voter roll, the department agrees to test, analyze and assess the information. Each state agrees to “clean” its voter roll within 45 days by removing any ineligible voters. States would then resubmit their list.

Tennessee Elections Coordinator Mark Goins, who works under Tennessee Republican Secretary of State Tre Hargett, said in an interview that the state had shared its voter data after concluding that DOJ was entitled to it as part of its authority to enforce federal voting law. But Goins said Tennessee had decided against signing the memorandum of understanding because of concerns that the agreement conflicted with the National Voter Registration Act, which sets rules on when election officials can remove voters from their lists.

“When you’re dealing with this much data, and we have 4 million registered voters here, there could be a false flag and you certainly don’t remove anyone improperly,” Goins said.

In Texas, it’s unclear when the Justice Department will provide feedback on the state’s voter list. The state is currently in the preelection blackout period on sweeping changes to its voter registration list ahead of a May 26 primary runoff election, a spokesperson for Texas Republican Secretary of State Jane Nelson told Stateline.

Texas already ran its voter roll of more than 18 million voters through Homeland Security’s SAVE program last year, identifying 2,724 potential noncitizens registered to vote. County election officials were then left to investigate the flagged voters.

Christopher McGinn, executive director of the Texas Association of County Election Officials, said he’s unsure what would happen now, given that the state’s voter roll was recently examined by SAVE.

“Especially since those noncitizens were, in theory, cleaned up,” McGinn said.

In Alaska, the decision to share voter data has produced blowback from some state lawmakers. The state constitution guarantees a right to privacy that “shall not be infringed.”

Alaska Director of Elections Carol Beecher faced skeptical lawmakers during hearings last week that probed her refusal to waive attorney-client privilege to divulge the legal advice she received before providing the voter roll. In response to questions from Stateline, Beecher’s office referred back to her remarks to lawmakers.

“At this point, I am not willing to waive that privilege,” Beecher said at an Alaska Senate hearing.

Alaska state Sen. Bill Wielechowski, a Democrat who was among those who questioned Beecher, in an interview predicted the state will soon face lawsuits challenging the data sharing. He also said lawmakers are looking into pursuing legislation that would direct state officials to seek the return of the information from the Justice Department.

“I just think there’s a total lack of trust in what the federal government will do with this information,” Wielechowski said.

Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

Investor-owned utility profits have soared as consumer utility bills have skyrocketed in recent years, according to a new analysis of dozens of electricity providers.

The Energy and Policy Institute, a watchdog group tracking fossil fuel and utility industries, analyzed financial disclosures from 110 investor-owned electric utilities between 2021 and 2024, as well as available 2025 filings. The report, published on Thursday, does not include nonprofit electric providers such as municipal utilities or rural electric cooperatives. 

Last year, state-regulated, investor-owned electric utilities kept about 15 cents of every dollar they collected as profit, the report concluded. (For a customer paying a $200 monthly electric bill, that means about $30 went to corporate profits.) The 2025 figure is up from around 13 cents on average between 2021 and 2024, it said.

The utilities examined in the analysis reported almost $186 billion in profits between 2021 and 2024, the study concluded.

“These patterns suggest that a substantial share of what customers pay for electricity is consistently flowing to investors as profit,” the report said, “a finding that is especially significant as consumers face persistently high energy costs and financial stress.” 

The analysis found regional variation in utility profits. 

Utilities in the Southeast operating outside of organized wholesale electricity markets, where electricity is sold and bought in bulk, earned higher profits. Across Alabama, Florida, Georgia and other Southeastern states, utilities retained nearly 16% of their revenue as profit between 2021 and 2024, the report said.

By contrast, utilities in the PJM Interconnection regional market serving the mid-Atlantic averaged about 11.8%, while utilities in New York and New England reported similar or lower levels. 

The report found the utilities with the highest average margin between 2021 and 2024 were MidAmerican Energy (27.22%), Florida Power & Light (23.51%), Nantucket Electric (23.24%), Empire District Electric (22.45%) and Florida Public Utilities (20.35%). 

The analysis comes as consumer utility bills continue to outpace the rate of inflation and state lawmakers of both parties increasingly scrutinize utility prices.

A February report from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association found about 1 in 6 U.S. households were behind on utility bills. That organization, which represents state employees administering federal energy assistance programs, said American households were collectively behind $25 billion on electric and gas bills at the end of 2025 — up from about $23 billion the year before.

The association said home heating costs were projected to rise by 11% this winter — more than four times the rate of inflation — reaching their highest level in at least four years amid higher electricity and natural gas prices and colder-than-average weather.

Most consumers get their electricity from utilities that must seek state approval for rate changes, with appointed or elected state boards approving price structures.

While state lawmakers, governors and regulators are increasingly questioning utility prices, the Energy and Policy Institute says states can take more action to control profits.

Thursday’s report calls for states to set lower profit rates for investor-owned utilities, scrutinize the financing of new capital investments, link utility earnings to customer results and strengthen the role of consumer advocates in rate decisions.

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

Cities and states are filing lawsuits and scrambling for alternative sources of money as the Trump administration seeks to shut off the federal funding spigot for biking and walking trails.

Since the early 1990s, there has been fairly consistent — and largely bipartisan — federal support for bicycle and pedestrian projects. Federal funding for such projects reached new heights during the Biden administration, as major spending measures in 2021 and 2022 included billions in new money for them.

But in his efforts to eliminate what he perceives as diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — and to roll back anything associated with his predecessor — President Donald Trump has targeted hundreds of millions in federal grants for biking and pedestrian projects. And further cuts could be coming.

The broad tax and spending measure Trump signed last summer rescinded $2.4 billion from the Biden administration’s Neighborhood Access and Equity Program, money included in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to address long-standing safety issues stemming from past infrastructure projects, including interstate highways that split minority communities.

Of that total, at least $750 million was specifically earmarked for trails, walking paths and bike lane projects, according to data on grant recipients collected by Rails to Trails Conservancy, a nonprofit that advocates for trails and the construction of multiuse paths in abandoned railroad corridors.

Mark Treskon, a principal research associate at the nonprofit Urban Institute, said the administration seems to view bike and pedestrian trails as “a policy thing that people on the left like,” and is cutting funding as a “knee-jerk reaction” to former President Joe Biden’s policy priorities.

But Nate Sizemore, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Transportation, said the Trump administration is simply “getting back to basics” by “building the essential infrastructure needed to safely move people and commerce.”

“As grant programs become available for applicants, we will ensure that every taxpayer dollar is reinvested into rebuilding the roads and bridges our economy demands. … This decision reflects a significant shift away from the previous administration’s costly social and climate initiatives that deprioritized the needs of American drivers and increased congestion risks,” Sizemore wrote in an email.

Already reeling from the $750 million in cuts included in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, cities and states that are counting on federal money for biking and pedestrian projects are worried about further cuts when Congress reauthorizes a broad transportation funding law that expires on Sept. 30. Biden’s 2021 infrastructure measure boosted the amount of money available for bike and pedestrian projects under that law.

“Everything is on the table, and there’s lots of risks to not only some of these grants that have been given under the last transportation bill … but it also implicates programs that are like the bread and butter of building trails, walking and biking infrastructure that have been around for many decades,” said Kevin Mills, vice president of policy at Rails to Trails Conservancy.

“We’ve heard warning signs from the administration, from leaders in Congress and from the heads of state transportation departments that they are looking to focus more on cars and less on active transportation, and sometimes less on transit as well.”

Seeking alternatives

In the aftermath of last year’s cuts and uncertainty over the future of federal funding, some states and cities have seen their projects completely stall, while others have found ways to move forward while decreasing their reliance on federal support.

In Connecticut, Rick Dunne, the executive director of the Naugatuck Valley Council of Governments, the federal metropolitan planning organization in that area of Connecticut, said the Trump administration pulled $5.7 million in funding to build around 9 miles on a 42-mile trail project known as the Naugatuck River Greenway Trail last September.

“It would have leveraged a whole bunch of state money and local dollars to build these sections,” Dunne said, noting that the council was hoping to use the federal funds to get matching dollars locally. “It would have advanced all of the activities on the trail and built major sections using other state, federal and local funding for construction.”

Dunne said Connecticut is limited in how it raises transportation funds because it doesn’t have counties.

“It’s either paid for by those small local towns, 10,000 to 20,000 people, or it’s paid for by the state,” Dunne said. “But once we lose the federal funding, then we start losing some of the state funding and local funding that would have matched it.”

Dunne said the council has not received any further communication from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

In Albuquerque, New Mexico, Terry Brunner, director of the city’s Metropolitan Redevelopment Agency, said the Trump administration last September pulled an $11.5 million grant to build part of a 7.5-mile pedestrian and bike lane around the city’s downtown.

The city decided to sue the administration in November to get those funds back, and the case is still wrapped up in court.

“We’re hoping we get a positive outcome on the lawsuit,” Brunner said. “We’ve also got a backup plan to ask for another federal funding source, or try to get funding from the state of New Mexico to the city of Albuquerque to complete the section, because we were about 90% done with the design of this trail.”

Brunner said Albuquerque has one of the highest pedestrian and cyclist death rates in the country, so getting people off the streets onto a safe trail is a priority for the city.

“I don’t think they’re going to stop us, but they’ll delay us,” he said, noting that the city is lucky because the state is offering funding and that the city budget may have some flexibility.

“Historically, we’ve always had a good partnership in Albuquerque with the federal government, and this is taking away a little bit of that shine and making us feel as if the federal government just really doesn’t care about Albuquerque.”

Projects in Republican-led states

The Trump administration also rescinded a $147 million grant for Jacksonville, Florida, to complete the 30-mile urban Emerald Trail.

Kay Ehas, CEO of Groundwork Jacksonville, the city’s nonprofit partner in building the Emerald Trail and restoring Hogans and McCoys creeks, says the group is continuing to work with the city “to identify funding to replace the federal grant that was rescinded last year.”

“We are enlisting the support of corporate and private donors to fund design, which keeps the project moving while we seek government dollars for construction,” Ehas told Stateline.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, the Atlanta Regional Commission is continuing to plan and develop Flint River Gateway Trails, said Josh Phillipson, principal program specialist at ARC. The 31-mile network of bike and pedestrian paths would connect communities along the Flint River in the southern portion of the metro Atlanta area. The commission tapped into the area’s annual allocation of federal transportation funding to cover the cost of the $1.5 million master planning effort, which includes a 20% local match from ARC, despite losing a $65 million federal grant.

“We are not doing anything on the construction because we don’t have those dollars at this point,” Phillipson said. “We’re stepping back a little bit more into our traditional role of doing the long-range planning, but we’re going to be sticking with this project, committed for the next few years.”

Mills, of Rails to Trails Conservancy, lamented the loss of the Neighborhood Access and Equity grants, which would have helped areas “where historic transportation investments had split communities in two,” cutting off residents from economic opportunities and their neighbors.

In Atlanta, for example, Phillipson said the trails project was meant to “bridge over core infrastructure decisions of the last century that were overwhelmingly impacting more diverse communities,” making it “difficult now to walk or ride a bike between two adjacent communities.”

Treskon, of the Urban Institute, said cities and states will be hard-pressed to replace all the federal money they lost.

“It’s a pretty big hit across the board for the places that had built that into their financial plans,” he said.

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

WASHINGTON — A federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s subpoenas to probe the Federal Reserve and Chair Jerome Powell, pointing to “a mountain of evidence” that President Donald Trump is using the investigation to force lower interest rates, according to an order unsealed Friday.

In a scathing 27-page order issued Wednesday, Chief Judge James Boasberg for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote there is “abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign and make way for a Fed Chair.”

In explaining his rationale for granting the Federal Reserve Board of Governors’ motion to quash the subpoenas, Boasberg added, “For years, the President has publicly targeted Powell because the Fed is not delivering the low rates that Trump demands.”

On more than 100 occasions, Boasberg wrote, Trump or “his deputies” made statements attacking Powell. The judge detailed more than a dozen of Trump’s posts on his platform, Truth Social, in which he namecalls Powell and demands his resignation.

Boasberg also invoked the Trump administration’s attempts to criminally prosecute former FBI Director James Comey and New York State Attorney General Letitia James.

“Being perceived as the President’s adversary has become risky in recent years,” Boasberg wrote.

Boasberg wrote later in the order that he would also unseal the Fed Board’s motion to quash the subpoenas and the government’s opposition, as Department of Justice officials had already revealed details about the probe.

The government “has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual. The Court therefore finds that the subpoenas were issued for an improper purpose and will quash them,” Boasberg concluded.

Prosecutor blasts ruling

In a brief press conference Friday afternoon during which she became combative with journalists, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro slammed Boasberg’s decision as “outrageous” and said the administration plans to appeal.

“One of the age-old tools that all prosecutors have to investigate any crime, including cost overruns, is a grand jury subpoena. Today, however, in Washington, an activist judge has taken that tool away from us by inserting himself and preventing the grand jury from even obtaining, let alone hearing, evidence,” Pirro said. 

“He has neutered the grand jury’s ability to investigate crime. As a result, Jerome Powell today is now bathed in immunity, preventing my office from investigating the Federal Reserve. This is wrong, and it is without legal authority,” she said.

Investigation launched in January

Department of Justice officials served the central bank with grand jury subpoenas in mid-January as part of a probe into multi-year renovation costs at the Fed’s offices in Washington, D.C., and whether Powell lied about it to Congress in June.

The subpoenas prompted a rare video statement from Powell, who alleged the subpoenas were not about construction cost oversight, but about the Fed’s independence to set interest rates.

Powell’s term as chair expires in May. 

To replace him, Trump has nominated bank executive and former Fed Board Governor Kevin Warsh, who will need the support of all Republicans on the tightly divided Senate Banking Committee to reach a full Senate floor vote.

Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who sits on the committee, has said he’ll refuse to back Warsh until the administration drops its criminal probe of Powell.

“This ruling confirms just how weak and frivolous the criminal investigation of Chairman Powell is and it is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence,” Tillis said in a statement Friday. 

“We all know how this is going to end,” he continued. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office should save itself further embarrassment and move on. Appealing the ruling will only delay the confirmation of Kevin Warsh as the next Fed Chair.”

Trump nominated Powell for the role during his first term, and President Joe Biden re-nominated him in 2021.The Senate overwhelmingly confirmed his appointment on both occasions. 

WASHINGTON — A group of food stamp recipients sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture this week over its efforts to prohibit the benefits from being used to purchase certain non-nutritious items.

Five consumers enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, brought the lawsuit March 11 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The recipients hail from Colorado, Iowa, Nebraska, Tennessee and West Virginia and are challenging the waivers in those states. 

President Donald Trump’s administration has so far approved waivers in 22 states — part of its Make America Healthy Again agenda — that restrict which items recipients of the federal food assistance program that helps 42 million people can buy with their benefits. 

The restrictions, which range from candy to sugar-sweetened beverages and other processed foods, differ throughout states. 

The agency has described the waivers as a “key step in ensuring that taxpayer dollars provide nutritious options that improve health outcomes within SNAP.” 

But the lawsuit claims that the “practical effect” of the waivers is “to destabilize food access for every SNAP participant in the affected states.” 

The lawsuit argues that the waivers “impose ambiguous and scientifically untethered product restrictions that vary not only by state but, in some instances, by store location.” 

The lawsuit also claims that people with chronic illnesses are “losing access to products they need to manage blood sugar or sustain diets they need to maintain baseline health care needs.” 

“The challenged waivers also create confusion and conflict at the point of sale by depriving SNAP recipients of clear notice about which products remain eligible for purchase,” the lawsuit notes. 

The SNAP recipients are represented by the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of low-income families, individuals and communities, along with the law firm Shinder Cantor Lerner. 

A spokesperson for USDA said Friday the agency would not comment on pending litigation.  

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested a Sheboygan Falls woman during a routine check-in this week, taking her back into custody just months after an immigration court judge canceled her deportation order and began the process of securing her a green card.

Elvira Benitez, 51, spent six months in ICE custody last year after accidentally crossing the Canadian border during a family road trip in Michigan. Benitez fled an abusive home in Michoacán, Mexico, as a teenager and lived without legal status for 35 years, her family said. She first entered the immigration court system after last year’s arrest.

She was among more than 25,000 people arrested by ICE in July 2025 alone. Roughly a third of immigrants arrested by the agency nationally between January and mid-October 2025Wi had neither a prior criminal history nor pending criminal charges, including Benitez.

In her absence, her two adult daughters — both U.S. citizens — took in their school-age siblings. Judge Richard Drucker of the Cleveland immigration court cited her younger children’s struggles during Benitez’s initial detention as a reason to cancel her deportation and set her on the path to legal residency.

Drucker initially signaled a willingness to grant Benitez relief in early November, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) delayed her background check — necessary for her path to a green card — for over a month, eventually releasing her in mid-December.

The agency soon appealed Drucker’s order, stalling Benitez’s green card process. She continued attending mandatory check-ins at the Milwaukee DHS office, where ICE agents arrested her Tuesday morning before transferring her to a holding facility outside Chicago.

ICE arrested at least 107 people at the DHS office in downtown Milwaukee between January and mid-October 2025 — more than at any other Wisconsin site named in ICE arrest records. Three-quarters of those immigrants  had no pending criminal charges or past convictions, compared with just 17% of all immigrants arrested by ICE in Wisconsin during the same period.

Benitez had no other run-ins with law enforcement that could have triggered her recent arrest, said Crystal Aguilar, her eldest daughter. In Aguilar’s view, the arrest calls into question “whether families who follow the rules can rely on the decisions made in immigration court,” she added.

She complied with all requirements following her initial release, including attending every ICE supervision appointment, according to her attorney, Marc Christopher. DHS was not legally required to arrest her while its appeal is pending, he added.

Benitez’s detention serves “no legitimate public safety purpose,” Christopher wrote in a Tuesday press release. “It separates a mother from her vulnerable U.S. citizen children despite a federal immigration judge already recognizing the extreme hardship her removal would cause them.”

An ICE spokesperson told Wisconsin Watch that Benitez will remain in custody “pending further immigration proceedings.”

“Being in detention is a choice,” they added, suggesting that undocumented immigrants should self-deport or face arrest and a permanent ban on re-entering the U.S.

This article first appeared on Wisconsin Watch and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

A coalition of mostly Democratic-led states is suing the Trump administration over a new federal requirement that would force colleges to report detailed admissions data, including race, gender, test scores and financial aid for individual students. 

The mandate is an expansion of a 40-year-old system known as IPEDS and follows the 2023 Supreme Court decision banning race-based admissions. The lawsuit argues the new requirement could threaten student privacy and overburdens universities.

The Trump administration’s requirement comes as data suggests the Supreme Court ruling has already shifted campus demographics: Black enrollment has dropped at several elite universities, while Asian American enrollment has increased at some schools. Researchers say it may take years to fully understand how admissions patterns are changing.

For roughly 40 years, the federal government’s primary way of collecting data and information about colleges and universities across the U.S. has been a database called Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, or IPEDS.

Included in IPEDS data is information on enrollments, graduation rates and financial aid, and some of this data has informed higher-ed policies and research. 

In August, President Donald Trump issued a memorandum directing the Department of Education to use IPEDS data as a way to track whether colleges are considering race in admissions decisions.

Trump’s directive was preceded by the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which banned colleges from considering race directly in admissions decisions. 

The Trump administration isn’t just looking for demographic data from IPEDS, but also is rolling out a new reporting mandate for four-year colleges — the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS) — to report detailed admissions data such as race, gender, test scores and financial aid levels.

Colleges were expected to begin complying with the new reporting requirement this year, with responses due March 18, according to the suit.

A coalition of 17 states led by Massachusetts has filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeking to block the new mandate.  The states argue the ACTS survey imposes onerous reporting demands on universities and requires institutions to collect data they have not historically collected and may not be compelled to expose due to student safety. 

The lawsuit says the administration seeks “to fundamentally change IPEDS, converting it from a reliable tool for methodical statistical reporting to a mechanism for law enforcement and the furthering of partisan policy aims.” 

The states also argue that the new requirement is rushed, forces colleges to compile data in months that normally would take years, and risks reporting errors.

Other states listed as plaintiffs include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin. It names U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon and Management and Budget Director Russell Vought as defendants.

Federal officials argue the additional reporting in the new survey is necessary to ensure transparency and confirm that colleges are complying with the Supreme Court’s ruling. 

Since the 2023 Supreme Court ruling, declines among Black college enrollment have been strongest at highly selective private universities.

An Associated Press analysis of 20 selective colleges found that nearly all saw a drop in Black freshman enrollment compared with 2023. At Harvard, Black enrollment fell from 18% in 2023 to less than 12% in the next incoming class. Princeton’s drop was from about 9% to roughly 5% Black freshmen in the following admissions cycle.

Several universities reported higher Asian American enrollment in the years immediately after the ruling. At Harvard, the share of Asian American freshmen rose from 37% to about 41%. Some institutions saw even larger changes — one analysis reported Asian enrollment jumping from 26% to 45% between 2023 and 2025 at a selective university.

Researchers suggest a cascading effect of higher enrollment numbers of Black and Hispanic students at public universities, as selective school admissions drop and students enroll at less selective colleges. Data from fall 2024 admissions cycles show Black and Hispanic enrollment rising about 8% at public flagship universities overall.

Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at rsequeira@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — If Oklahoma GOP Sen. Markwayne Mullin is confirmed by the Senate to lead the Department of Homeland Security, he will take over an agency that has faced a weeks-long funding lapse, public blowback to its immigration enforcement strategy and a bottleneck of disaster relief awards left by his predecessor that drew bipartisan ire. 

Additionally, if the United States remains at war with Iran, he’d oversee monitoring for security threats. That is a task some lawmakers are skeptical the department can undertake during its shutdown. 

Mullin, who does not need any Democratic support to be confirmed to lead DHS, will have his nomination hearing March 18 before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The committee will vote to move his nomination to the Senate floor the following day, committee Chair Rand Paul of Kentucky told reporters.

The Oklahoman would take over from Kristi Noem, whom President Donald Trump ousted after a disastrous two days of testimony on Capitol Hill that capped a controversial 14-month tenure as DHS secretary.

“She was tasked to do a very difficult job … and I think she has performed the best she can do under the circumstances,” Mullin said of Noem, shortly after the president announced his intention to nominate him. “Is there always lessons that can be learned? Every day there’s something you can do better.”

But Mullin would face the same challenges, if not more, once he takes over. 

In addition to heading Trump’s aggressive immigration push, which is at a low point in popular support after the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January, Mullin would also be tasked with restoring faith in the department’s spending decisions and repairing the pipeline for sending relief to disaster-stricken areas. 

Noem faced bipartisan scrutiny during hearings this month for her record on those issues, including awarding a $220 million no-bid contract for an ad campaign to a firm owned by a subordinate’s spouse and requiring that she personally approve almost all Federal Emergency Management Agency expenditures.

Noem often clashed with critics, especially Democrats. Mullin indicated he’d try to find more common ground.

“Yes, I’m a Republican. Yes, I’m conservative. But (the) Department of Homeland Security is to keep everybody (safe), regardless if you support me or not,” he told reporters. “My focus is to keep the homeland secure.” 

His time in Congress has not given Mullin a strong background in the subject matter. He’s never sat on any committees dealing with DHS policy. He is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which writes funding bills for the entire federal government, but is not a member of the subcommittee that oversees the DHS funding bill.

If the Senate confirms Mullin, he would be the first Native American to lead DHS. He is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation. 

Mullin’s office referred questions for this story to the White House. In an email to States Newsroom, the White House said the Trump administration has “no DHS related policy announcements to make at this time.”

DHS funding

Mullin is a staunch Trump defender and supporter and will be tasked with carrying out his campaign promise of mass deportations of immigrants. To do that, DHS is flush with more than $175 billion for immigration enforcement and detention, through Republicans’ “One, Big Beautiful” law that Mullin voted for. 

“I look forward to earning the support of my colleagues in the Senate and carrying out President Trump’s mission alongside the department’s many capable agencies and the thousands of patriots who keep us safe every day,” Mullin wrote in a social media post shortly after the president’s announcement.  

Polling has found many Americans have soured on the campaign platform that won Trump a second term in the White House as DHS has deployed officers to conduct aggressive immigration enforcement in the interior of the country. Majorities of Democrats and independents said the Minneapolis shootings were a sign of broader problems in immigration enforcement, though most Republicans remained supportive of the administration.

The approach has led to massive protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, especially after the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37-year-old residents of Minneapolis. Another U.S. citizen, Ruben Martinez, was also killed by immigration agents in Texas last year.

Since Good and Pretti’s deaths last month, Democrats have blocked an appropriations bill for the department without significant changes in enforcement tactics. 

Mullin has argued that the appropriations bill provides an accountability measure in funding body cameras for immigration agents. He has pushed back on any restrictions on officers, such as barring them from covering their faces.

“We’re not going to handcuff law enforcement for a useless political exercise,” he wrote in a social media post.

Mullin’s reaction to Pretti video resembled Noem’s

One of the biggest criticisms from Noem was that she referred to Pretti and Good as domestic terrorists. Multiple videos contradicted those claims, and Noem refused to admit she made a mistake or apologize to their families when she was questioned by lawmakers.

While Mullin didn’t use that label, he made a similar claim, implying that Pretti’s actions were a felony. Mullin stressed his support for law enforcement.

“Obstructing federal law enforcement is a felony. Most Americans follow ICE instructions without thinking twice,” Mullin wrote on social media hours after the shooting. “These patriots are doing a difficult job under an 8,000% rise in death threats.”

Mullin was not the only Senate Republican to take that position, but some did take a different view.

Paul joined the top Democrat on the committee that oversees DHS, Gary Peters of Michigan, in grilling the heads of two immigration enforcement agencies within the department about Pretti’s death.

“He is retreating at every moment,” Paul said of Pretti. “He’s trying to get away, and he’s being sprayed in the face. I don’t think that’s de-escalatory. That’s an escalatory thing.”

Senators will get a chance to question where Mullin will lead the agency and whether he will continue some of Noem’s hardline immigration policies, such as the revocation of legal status for millions of immigrants who hail from countries initially granted protections because their home country is deemed too dangerous to return to. 

Mullin has often criticized local governments that have policies to not cooperate with or assist the federal government in immigration enforcement. 

In an interview with States Newsroom, Peters said he had not spoken with Mullin about leading DHS and looked forward to questioning him before the committee.

In addition to immigration-related agencies and FEMA, the department includes the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Secret Service and the Coast Guard. 

Additionally, the department will manage security for major events: the World Cup and the celebration for the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding that will occur blocks from the White House. 

FEMA bottleneck

Another Noem policy that drew bipartisan criticism was her requirement she give personal approval of any FEMA contracts or grants worth more than $100,000.

It effectively created a bottleneck of relief to disaster-stricken places, and lawmakers expressed their frustration to Noem that the policy meant delayed payments.

North Carolina GOP Sen. Thom Tillis berated Noem for his full 10 minutes of questioning when she appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee about how her policy has slowed down recovery efforts in North Carolina, which was hit by the devastating Hurricane Helene in 2024. 

It’s unclear if Mullin will keep that policy in place.

“The Department of Homeland Security has a very broad jurisdiction and I think there’s a lot of work that we need to do,” Mullin told reporters. 

FEMA’s disaster relief fund is somewhat unique among federal programs since Congress has granted it the authority to deficit spend; it cannot run out of money, even during a shutdown. 

Trump has sought to downsize FEMA, firing part of its workforce and directing his officials to restructure the agency. There is currently no permanent FEMA administrator.

No DHS assignments in Congress

Mullin spent a decade in the House before being elected to the Senate in a special election in 2022.

In his time in the House from 2013 to 2023, Mullin sat on the Energy and Commerce, Transportation and Infrastructure and Natural Resources committees.

In the Senate, besides Appropriations, he sits on the Armed Services, Indian Affairs and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions committees.

He chairs an appropriations subcommittee that handles funding for the legislative branch, and on the HELP Committee, he chairs the panel on Employment and Workplace Safety.  

Mullin, whose congressional staff totals nearly 40, based on records from the Legistorm data service, would oversee an agency with more than 272,000 employees and an annual budget of approximately $64 billion. 

Former pro fighter’s Senate confrontations

During a 2023 HELP Committee hearing, Mullin challenged International Brotherhood of Teamsters President Sean O’Brien to a physical fight, after heated testimony. 

“You know where to find me,” Mullin, who is a former professional MMA fighter, said to O’Brien.

Mullin will also have to appear before Paul, who he’s referred to as a “freaking snake,” for his confirmation hearing. Mullin also expressed sympathy for a neighbor of Paul’s, who was charged with assaulting the senator on his front lawn, breaking several ribs.

When pressed by reporters, Paul did not address Mullin’s comments.

“We’ll see how the hearing goes,” he said. 

WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense announced Friday that six more American troops have died as a result of the war in Iran, bringing the total to 13 since the conflict began in late February. 

U.S. Central Command wrote in an early-morning social media post that a “KC-135 refueling aircraft went down in western Iraq” on Thursday and that four of the six crew members aboard had been confirmed dead, but posted later that no one survived. 

“The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” Central Command said.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine said during a press conference at the Pentagon the “incident occurred over friendly territory in western Iraq while the crew was on a combat mission.”

He reiterated there was no “hostile or friendly fire” that led to the crash. 

“We’re also aware of a fire on board the USS Gerald R. Ford. We’re thinking about the crew there who were injured in the fire,” Caine said. “We believe and hope that everyone will be okay.”

U.S. Naval Forces Central Command posted on social media late Thursday the fire began “in the ship’s main laundry spaces” and that it “was not combat-related and is contained.”

The post said the ship was in the Red Sea in support of the Iran war, which the administration has dubbed Operation Epic Fury. 

“There is no damage to the ship’s propulsion plant, and the aircraft carrier remains fully operational,” the post said. “Two Sailors are currently receiving medical treatment for non-life-threatening injuries and are in stable condition.” 

Before Friday, there had been seven U.S. deaths reported in the conflict.

‘Heaviest day’ underway

Caine said during the briefing that military officials expect Friday will be the “heaviest day of kinetic fires” in the Iran war since it began on Feb. 28. 

“They’re continuing to destroy the Iranian Navy to ensure freedom of navigation. And this means going after Iran’s minelaying capability and destroying their ability to attack commercial vessels,” he said. “And we’re targeting their defense industrial base so they cannot rebuild the capabilities that can harm America’s interests or our partners in the future.”

Caine said while the U.S. military has made “progress” since it began bombing nearly two weeks ago, “Iran still has the capability to harm friendly forces and commercial shipping.”

The Pentagon’s efforts, he said, remain “complex, dangerous and difficult.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who was also at the briefing, said he believes Iran’s new supreme leader has been “wounded and likely disfigured.”

Hegseth also criticized journalists for not providing the government with more favorable coverage of the war in Iran, before moving on to recognize the troops killed during the airplane crash in Iraq.

“War is hell. War is chaos. And as we saw yesterday with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen,” he said, later adding that “war, in this context and in pursuit of peace, is necessary.”

Air strike on girls’ school

Hegseth did not provide any updates about the military’s investigation into whether it bombed a girls’ school in Iran in the first days of the war, killing at least 168 people.  

“I can report that CENTCOM has designated an investigating officer to complete a command investigation,” he said. “The command investigation will take as long as necessary to address all the matters surrounding this incident. And the investigating officer is from outside CENTCOM and is a general officer.”

Nearly every Democrat in the Senate sent a letter to Hegseth earlier in the week demanding military officials conduct “a swift investigation into the strikes on this school and any other potential U.S. military actions causing civilian harm, and the findings must be released to the public as soon as possible, along with any measures to pursue accountability.”

The New York Times reported the same day that an “ongoing military investigation has determined that the United States is responsible for a deadly Tomahawk missile strike on an Iranian elementary school.”

Hegseth declined to say exactly what additional objectives President Donald Trump believes the military must accomplish before ending the bombing campaign he began alongside the Israeli government. 

“The president has his hand on the throttle and will decide, ultimately, when they’ve been reached that serve the purposes of the United States of America,” he said.

Four Milwaukee aldermen are expressing concern about “the lack of adequate guardrails, auditing, supervision, and transparency” surrounding the use of Flock Safety license plate reader cameras. In a three-page letter sent Wednesday to the city’s Fire and Police Commission (FPC), Common Council President José Pérez and Alders Marina Dimitrijevic, Alex Brower and Sharlen Moore said that recent cases like one involving a Milwaukee police officer who used Flock to stalk a romantic partner “are alarming and underscore the systemic oversight gap rather than an isolated failure.” 

The letter is the latest ripple in a wave of community pushback against the use of Flock Safety cameras, which are equipped with license plate reading technology and can be accessed by law enforcement agencies across the country using search terms and filters. Critics also express concern that the cameras can be used for backdoor surveillance by the federal government, particularly as the Trump administration pursues an aggressive immigration crackdown. 

Audit data reviewed by Wisconsin Examiner shows that officers often use vague terms like “investigation,” “suspicious,” “cooch,” or just “.” to search the network. Some Wisconsin communities have canceled their contracts with the multi-billion dollar Flock Safety company due to concerns about its technology.

 

 

Just a day before the Milwaukee council members sent their letter to the FPC, TMJ4 reported that the Milwaukee Police Department cut off access to its license plate reader database. The police department said officers have been blocked from using the system while the department re-evaluates who needs access to the technology. Currently, TMJ4 reported, only officers in “sensitive portions” of MPD’s Criminal Investigations Bureau can access Flock for emergency cases. The department, headed by Chief Jeffrey Norman, has also banned facial recognition technology after months of community pushback.

In their letter, the four Milwaukee alders warned that a system like Flock — capable of “tracking movement patterns, identifying vehicles, and storing sensitive location data” — can be “weaponized against residents, including survivors of domestic violence, journalists, advocates, and everyday community members.” 

The alders were especially alarmed about a recent case involving Josue Ayala, a Milwaukee police officer facing one misdemeanor count of misconduct in public office for allegedly using Flock to track two people, one of whom was Ayala’s a romantic partner, 179 times. When he used Flock, Ayala entered the search term “investigation,” the most common search used by Wisconsin law enforcement agencies during the first half of 2025, according to the Examiner’s analysis of audit data.

In their letter, Milwaukee council members ask the FPC what specific training officers must receive to access Flock; how use is supervised real time, who’s responsible for reviewing searches, how frequently audits are conducted, and what “independent body oversees compliance and investigates misuse?” The alders are demanding that the city support reforms including: 

• Independent auditing of Flock cameras and other license plate reading technology;
• Limiting the purpose for using these technologies to “documented casework,” 
• Establishing a system of real-time flagging and increasing approval to use the system by supervisors,
• What the letter calls “a clear firewall for immigration enforcement,” preventing the police department’s Flock network from being used by federal agencies in ways that go against the department’s own policies restricting cooperation with immigration enforcement, 
• Transparent reporting including query volume trends, high-level categories of uses, who the data is shared with, and discipline/misuse outcomes, 
• Oversight hearings built into normal governance routines, such as the council’s Public Safety and Health Committee, which the letter notes “is a natural forum for recurring surveillance oversight hearings and for receiving transparency reports,” 
• Treating surveillance technology contracts as public interest infrastructure agreements “requiring clarity on retention and disclosure, clear rules on secondary use, and enforceable audit access for the city and designated independent reviewers,”
• And reforms to local legislation such as adopting a Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) policy, which local activists and community members have been calling for in recent years. 

Just a day after the alders issued their letter, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin also sent its own communication to the Public Safety and Health Committee regarding Flock and other police surveillance technology. 

“It is critical that our community has a say in if and how invasive surveillance technologies are used, how they are deployed against residents, if and how their data is stored and shared with third parties, and whether spending our limited tax dollars on surveillance technologies is the best way to promote public safety,” the ACLU letter stated.

Abuse of surveillance tech cases across Wisconsin

The ACLU’s letter also noted “a disturbing trend in Wisconsin and across the country regarding law enforcement abuse of Flock [Automatic License Plate Reader] technology to stalk and harass people, in most cases women.” 

If convicted, Ayala could face up to nine months in prison and up to $10,000 in fines. However, a criminal complaint issued for Ayala mentions that negotiations have been underway for a settlement that would include his resignation. 

Departments are also inconsistent in how they respond to the use of vague or overly common search terms. After the Examiner approached the Waukesha Police Department about why hundreds of Flock searches had been labeled with only “.” in the field indicating the reason for the search, a spokesperson said that a single officer was responsible for the searches and had been counseled and retrained. By contrast the West Allis Police Department — the state’s most frequent user of the “.” Flock search term during the first half of 2025 — only asserted that its officers are properly trained, and that it investigates misuse cases “when warranted.” 

In addition to Ayala, another officer accused of misusing surveillance technology is Jay Johnson, the chief of the Greenfield Police Department. Johnson is facing felony misconduct in public office charges for installing a department-owned pole camera on his property during a messy divorce. Johnson is also accused of destroying data by deleting text messages after a meeting where he learned about the accusations and was offered a chance to retire. 

In Menasha, Wisconsin, Cristian Morales is facing felony misconduct in public office charges for allegedly using Flock to track someone while he was off duty. If convicted, the Menasha Police Department officer could be imprisoned for up to three and a half years and be fined up to $10,000. As with Ayala, Morales’ alleged misuse of Flock was discovered only after a complaint was made to another police department, and not through oversight by Menasha, Auto Wire reported. 

A new case of Flock abuse in Kenosha

In Kenosha County, a sheriff’s deputy was reportedly offered a severance package to resign, and has yet to face charges for inappropriate use of surveillance technology. 

Internal investigation documents obtained by the Examiner through an open records request show that, in late September, Frank McGrath, at that time a Kenosha County Sheriff Department deputy, logged into an app on his phone to access his agency’s Flock network. McGrath wanted to search for a specific vehicle, entering “suspicious” as the reason for using the AI-powered cameras. But McGrath was off duty, and his searches — lacking any case numbers — weren’t intended to find a murder suspect, stolen car, or kidnapped child. Instead, McGrath was apparently stalking another Kenosha County deputy whom he was dating. 

McGrath’s 16 Flock searches were first noticed by Kenosha County Sheriff Capt. Erik Klinkhammer, during an audit in October 2025. After checking the license plate which McGrath repeatedly searched in the TIME system — a consolidated information database used by law enforcement — Klinkhammer confirmed that the targeted vehicle belonged to a Kenosha County Sheriff’s deputy, whose name is redacted in the documents obtained by the Examiner through records requests. 

“There was no indication that [REDACTED] or her vehicle were connected to any investigation, and informal internal speculation suggested a possible romantic relationship between McGrath and [REDACTED],” the internal investigation report states. “These factors raised concerns regarding McGrath’s motive for conducting off-duty searches of her vehicle.” 

None of McGrath’s other Flock searches were like those that raised Klinkhammer’s suspicions. McGrath was placed on administrative leave and ordered to report to the sheriff’s office for questioning. The vice president of the Kenosha Sheriff Offices union was also notified of the situation.

McGrath initially denied having misused Flock stating that, “he performed the searches through the FLOCK app on his phone and dismissed the relevance of questions about a relationship with [REDACTED],” the investigation report states. McGrath surrendered his badge and firearm before leaving the room. “Within moments,” the reports continued, McGrath returned with the union vice president saying he didn’t want to leave the situation unresolved, and admitting that he was having romantic relationship problems with the deputy whose license he searched in Flock. Klinkhammer then called the deputy in question, who confirmed that she already knew about McGrath monitoring her vehicle through Flock. “[REDACTED] said she was not afraid of McGrath and is not in fear of her safety,” the investigation report states. 

In a separate interview, the deputy McGrath was monitoring also appeared with a union representative. She said that McGrath had told her about the Flock searches a week or two before Klinkhammer contacted her. “[REDACTED] stated she did believe his actions were in violation of policy and found it ‘weird,’ but she did not report the information to a supervisor,” the investigation report states. She elaborated on a close friendship she had with another male coworker who, after learning about her relationship with McGrath, had been giving her the “cold shoulder.” 

“She was extremely upset by this change, and while speaking with McGrath on the day of the FLOCK searches, she became emotional and cried,” the investigation report states. “She explained that she and this coworker communicated daily, both on and off duty, and the sudden distance was upsetting. She stated that McGrath told her her reaction was not normal and questioned whether she had romantic feelings for the coworker. [REDACTED] told him she did not, explaining she was simply hurt by the loss of the friendship.”

Later, McGrath questioned her about who had access to her vehicle. “Because she lives with her parents, she explained that either her mother or father can take her car at any time,” the investigation report states. “She noted it was unusual that McGrath repeatedly asked this question.” The two eventually had “a significant argument related to her having male friends,” which led to her distancing herself from her male friends, after which things with McGrath improved, according to the report. 

Surveillance motivated by jealousy

“[REDACTED] denied any physical altercations, domestic violence, or concerning behavior of that nature during the relationship,” the investigation report states. “She stated McGrath did not like her having male friends, wanted to go through her phone at times, and had expressed jealousy issues, but she denied any physical incidents. She also denied believing she was being stalked, stating that she and McGrath shared their iPhone locations with each other.”

The two talked about the situation again after McGrath was placed on leave, devolving into another argument. “[REDACTED] stated McGrath never asked her to lie for him and instructed her to tell the truth,” the investigation report states. “She confirmed they are still currently in a relationship, though McGrath has made only limited comments about discussing the situation with his union representative.” The investigation report notes that, “when asked why she did not initially report McGrath’s FLOCK use after he told her, [REDACTED] said she did not know what to do and felt the situation was strange.”

When he spoke with investigators, McGrath said he’d undergone Flock training and understood police databases can only be used for “legitimate investigative purposes,” and agreed that his own use was “unauthorized.” However, McGrath told investigators that his understanding of Flock and license plate reader policies “was vague” and he said that “although he signs off on policy updates, he often does not read them.”

McGrath said that his own insecurity and the way the female deputy reacted to her friend cutting her off contributed to his misuse of Flock. “He explained that he first ran a partial plate using the digits he knew, then used an Antioch, Illinois, camera hit from a prior visit to his residence to identify her full plate number,” the investigation reads. “He then continued searching her movements through the system. His stated goal was to determine whether [REDACTED] was at home or possibly visiting the male coworker he was suspicious of.” 

McGrath said he “knew [he] probably shouldn’t have” used Flock for personal reasons “but believed FLOCK was not as tightly regulated as TIME.” He also said that he didn’t use other police databases such as LEADS or New Work for personal reasons “and could not explain why he treated FLOCK differently.” McGrath also admitted to initially lying to Capt. Klinkhammer “claiming he was embarrassed and ashamed,” the investigation report notes. 

Besides Flock, McGrath also used a squad car tracking system called Polaris to monitor his partner. “He admitted these searches were motivated by jealousy, stating he checked to see where she was, who she might be sitting near, or which deputies she was working alongside,” the report states. “He agreed this behavior was inappropriate and understood how it could be viewed as stalking-type conduct.” McGrath entered the reason for the searches as “suspicious” as “likely an attempt to legitimize the searches, and stated that although he knew in the back of his mind that what he was doing was wrong, he was not in the right frame of mind at the time.”

‘Knowingly and repeatedly’ misusing Flock

The internal investigation found that McGrath “knowingly and repeatedly” misused Flock and Polaris, and was not truthful when confronted by a supervisor about his actions. “His actions constitute an abuse of his authority and a serious breach of trust regarding confidential law enforcement information,” the investigation report states. “His pattern of personal surveillance using restricted law enforcement systems, coupled with his initial dishonesty, represents serious misconduct. The misuse was repeated, knowing, and extended over multiple months. It occurred off duty, and it was directed at a fellow member of this agency in the context of a romantic relationship.” 

Kenosha County Sheriff Lt. Chase Forster concluded in the investigation that “this level of misconduct significantly undermines the integrity and credibility expected of a Kenosha County Sheriff’s Deputy, and formal discipline is warranted.” Yet that discipline never came. 

According to a John Doe petition filed by Kevin Mathewson, a controversial local figure who runs the Kenosha County Eye, McGrath resigned and avoided having his case referred to the district attorney’s office. Mathewson also wrote on Kenosha County Eye that McGrath received a severance agreement when he resigned. Mathewson points out in his John Doe petition that other Wisconsin officers — including in Milwaukee, Menasha and Greenfield — have faced misconduct in public office charges for abusing Flock. By filing a John Doe petition, Mathewson is asking a judge to consider whether probable cause exists to charge McGrath. If a judge decides that probable cause exists, he or she may appoint special prosecutors to explore options to convict.

The Examiner reached out to the Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office for comment. Acting as a spokesperson, Forster declined to comment, saying that the criminal investigation is being carried out by the neighboring Racine County Sheriff’s Office. While a spokesperson from Racine County confirmed that the department is  “working on it,” referring to the investigation against McGrath, they declined to comment further, stating that Kenosha is in charge of releasing information and statements. The Racine County Sheriff spokesperson assured the Examiner that they weren’t “trying to play ‘hide the ball.’”

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE

Zabi Sahibzada, refugee resettlement director for Jewish Social Services (JSS) in Madison, Wisconsin, has lived through war, displacement, the collapse of Afghanistan and the cataclysmic consequences of shifting U.S. policies abroad and at home.

Today, even as our country plunges into a new war in the Middle East, the Trump administration has pulled back from its commitments to people who helped the U.S. during the long, brutal war in Afghanistan. 

Sahibzada talks to his family every day as they cope with the hardships of living under Taliban rule. He had hoped to bring his family to the U.S. as part of a family reunification program for people who helped our country in Afghanistan. But that program was suspended by President Donald Trump. Now his family is in limbo. He is particularly concerned about his two daughters, ages 18 and 11, who can no longer go to school because of the ban on education for girls. 

Meanwhile, Sahibzada is managing a program that has been severely disrupted by the Trump administration, which set a record-low refugee admissions ceiling of only 7,500 people for Fiscal Year 2026 — down from 125,000 the previous year — with most slots reserved for white South Africans. JSS is no longer resettling hundreds of refugees from around the world in South Central Wisconsin. Instead, the group is focused on continuing to serve the people it has already resettled here. Part of that work involves fielding panicked calls from people who are losing their status as the Trump administration strips protections from those who fled to the U.S. seeking a safe haven from persecution.

Because of funding cuts, JSS, which traces its roots to the Madison Welfare Fund, created in 1940 to help resettle Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, has had to let go of most of its staff. “Currently we have three full-time case managers that are working with a huge population that’s already here, and we cannot afford more,” Sahibzada said.

JSS works with about 450 people, most of them in Dane County. Among the services the group provides are help with finding employment, health care, housing, language instruction and financial assistance for up to five years. The organization is scrambling to raise money privately to make up for the loss of federal funds. 

Sahibzada estimates that staff salaries cost JSS about $300,000 per year, with another $250,000 going to cover direct assistance for clients — but that amount rises and falls depending on need. This year, he expects need to rise significantly because of Trump administration policies, including the cancellation of Temporary Protected Status for people from Afghanistan and Haiti. 

“Those people, they’re not having documents anymore to work,” he said. “They’re losing their job, they’re losing their driving license, they cannot renew it. And then those will be knocking on our doors that they may need a lot of help … they’ll not be able to pay their rents, they’ll not be able to receive any other benefits from the government. And by the next few months, there will be cuts to health insurance. They’ll be cut from the food assistance or the cash assistance that a lot of people were depending on. So they will be coming and knocking on our doors, and that’s the gap that we may need to fill with the help from the communities.”

The gap, he estimates, will likely be between $300,000 and $400,000.

“I would say it’s a very chaotic moment for all the refugees and immigrants in the country,” Sahibzada said during a recent interview in his office on the west side of Madison.

Confronting chaos is, unfortunately, a familiar experience for Sahibzada.

A perilous escape from Afghanistan

Before he came to the United States from Afghanistan in 2022 on a special immigrant visa, Sahibzada worked for USAID in Afghanistan for more than a decade. As a software engineer, he helped create a text-messaging system that allowed farmers to get timely information about agricultural markets, and he was the main point of contact for people in rural areas in his region who wanted to get in touch with USAID-funded projects. “My name was the contact person on billboards and brochures and reference cards,” he said. “Everyone in the community knew my name. They knew my face.” 

That was a dangerous position to be in as the Taliban came back into power. Even before the U.S. withdrawal and the Taliban’s resurgence, Sahibzada began receiving threatening calls and social media warnings. He was approved for a special immigrant visa for Afghans who worked with the U.S. government — a program President Donald Trump suspended this year — but he had no idea how he would get out of the country, he said. The U.S. government offered to help him relocate to Doha, Qatar. 

“That was a time where it was not easy to go through the custom borders in Afghanistan, like, through the airport,” he said.  “I was afraid, like … how can I just go and will they allow me, or will they just keep me in prison, or will they just, I don’t know what will happen to me.”

“Thankfully, I made it to the airplane,” he said. He attributes his escape in part to the fact that he used an unfamiliar, formal name on his passport. “When I was working with USAID, my name was Sunny, which is like my nickname,” he explained. But on his passport, “I just put my last name as Sahibzada, which is our family name. So that helped me. When I was going to the airport, I was like, OK, whatever they’re having on their list will be not similar as what I have on my passport.” As a result, he thinks, he was able to slip past the Taliban and fly to Doha and from there, after a month-long process of vetting and background checks, to Wisconsin, where he has been living and working since December 2022. 

After resettling in Madison, Sahibzada got a job with the Milwaukee transit system, and commuted to work for a couple of months. He started at JSS in 2023 as a program manager and was promoted this year to direct the resettlement program.

During the time he has worked at JSS, much has changed.

A lot of clients call JSS with legal questions, worried that they might be deported. “We are connecting them with legal service providers,” Sahibzada said, “because we cannot answer.”

The group is planning “know your rights” and emergency preparedness training sessions for April, and working on creating a hotline for ICE sightings, staffed by volunteers speaking multiple languages, coordinated statewide with Wisconsin’s eight refugee services agencies.

Meanwhile, Sahibzada calls home every morning and evening to talk with his family, including his parents, his wife and his two daughters and three sons. “It’s really hard just staying home, not going out, and not going to school,” he said of his daughters. When he talks to them, “They’re always asking me, ‘What’s gonna happen?’ And I’m just giving them sometimes, like some false hopes that it will get better, which I don’t think it will in the very near future, but this is the hope that I’m giving.”

His family, seeking to join him in the U.S., traveled to Pakistan during the Biden administration and waited for months to have their papers processed by the U.S. embassy there. But their visas expired and they were forced to return to Afghanistan. Now, with the new U.S. immigration restrictions, things have gotten even more difficult. Sahibzada continues to hold out hope that things will eventually improve.

 “I’m hopeful that it gets changed, either with this administration or any other administration in the future,” he said. “I’m hopeful that this will change and people will be turning back to their normal life.”

More information about making a donation or volunteering is available on the JSS website

GET THE MORNING HEADLINES.

SUBSCRIBE