Unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for federally or state-funded health coverage in Wisconsin.
That includes Medicaid, Medicare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and coverage purchased through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) marketplaces.
Unauthorized immigrants also are not eligible for Wisconsin Medicaid or BadgerCare Plus.
Fourteen states, including Illinois and Minnesota, use state Medicaid funds to cover unauthorized immigrants, but Wisconsin does not.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Dec. 5 vetoed a Republican-backed bill that would have banned public money from going toward health care coverage for unauthorized immigrants.
Republicans said the bill was meant to be pre-emptive.
On Dec. 10, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor in 2026, incorrectly said Evers’ veto allowed unauthorized immigrants “to continue to get taxpayer-funded health care.”
When Evers vetoed the bill he criticized it for “trying to push polarizing political rhetoric.”
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
For nearly two weeks following Election Day in 2024, former U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde, a Republican, refused to concede, blasting “last-minute absentee ballots that were dropped in Milwaukee at 4 a.m., flipping the outcome.”
Hovde earlier this year told Votebeat that he believes there are issues at Milwaukee’s facility for counting absentee ballots, but he added that he doesn’t blame his loss on that. He didn’t respond to a request for comment in December for this article.
In Wisconsin’s polarized political landscape, Milwaukee has become a flashpoint for election suspicion, much like Philadelphia and Detroit — diverse, Democratic urban centers that draw outsized criticism. The scrutiny reflects the state’s deep rural-urban divide and a handful of election errors in Milwaukee that conspiracy theorists have seized on, leaving the city’s voters and officials under constant political pressure.
That treatment, Milwaukee historian John Gurda says, reflects “the general pattern where you have big cities governed by Democrats” automatically perceived by the right “as centers of depravity (and) insane, radical leftists.”
Charlie Sykes — a longtime conservative commentator no longer aligned with much of GOP politics — said there’s “nothing tremendously mysterious” about Republicans singling out Milwaukee: As long as election conspiracy theories dominate the right, the heavily Democratic city will remain a target.
Milwaukee voters and election officials under constant watch
Milwaukee’s emergence as a target in voter fraud narratives accelerated in 2010, when dozens of billboards in the city’s predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods showed three people, including two Black people, behind bars with the warning: “VOTER FRAUD is a FELONY — 3 YRS & $10,000 FINE.”
Community groups condemned them as racist and misleading, especially for people who had regained their voting rights after felony convictions. Similar billboards returned in 2012, swapping the jail bars for a gavel. All of the advertisements were funded by the Einhorn Family Foundation, associated with GOP donor Stephen Einhorn, who didn’t respond to Votebeat’s email requesting comment.
Criticism of Milwaukee extends well beyond its elections. As Wisconsin’s largest city, it is often cast as an outlier in a largely rural state, making it easier for some to believe the worst about its institutions — including its elections.
“One of the undercurrents of Wisconsin political history is … rural parts versus urban parts,” said University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee political scientist and former Democratic legislator Mordecai Lee. As the state’s biggest city by far, “it becomes the punching bag for outstate legislators” on almost any issue.
“People stay at home and watch the evening news and they think if you come to Milwaukee, you’re going to get shot … or you’re going to get run over by a reckless driver,” said Claire Woodall, who ran the city’s elections from 2020 to 2024.
Election officials acknowledge Milwaukee has made avoidable mistakes in high-stakes elections but describe them as quickly remedied and the kinds of errors any large city can experience when processing tens of thousands of ballots. What sets Milwaukee apart is the scrutiny: Whether it was a briefly forgotten USB stick in 2020 or tabulator doors left open in 2024, each lapse is treated as something more ominous.
Other Wisconsin municipalities have made more consequential errors without attracting comparable attention: In 2011, Waukesha County failed to report votes from Brookfield when tallying a statewide court race — a major oversight that put the wrong candidate in the lead in early unofficial results. In 2024, Summit, a town in Douglas County, disqualified all votes in an Assembly race after officials discovered ballots were printed with the wrong contest listed.
“I don’t believe that there is anywhere in the state that is under a microscope the way the city of Milwaukee is,” said Neil Albrecht, a former executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission.
Black Milwaukeeans say racism behind scrutiny on elections
Milwaukee grew quickly in the 19th century, built by waves of European immigrants who powered its factories and breweries and helped turn it into one of the Midwest’s major industrial cities. A small Black community, searching for employment and fleeing the Jim Crow South, took root early and grew substantially in the mid-20th century.
As industry declined, white residents fled for the suburbs, many of which had racist housing policies that excluded Blacks. That left behind a city marked by segregated schools, shrinking job prospects and sharp economic divides. The split was so stark that the Menomonee River Valley became a shorthand boundary: Black residents to the north, white residents to the south — a divide Milwaukee never fully overcame.
The result is one of the most segregated cities in the country, a place that looks and feels profoundly different from the overwhelmingly white, rural communities that surround it. That contrast has long made Milwaukee an easy target in statewide politics, and it continues to feed some people’s suspicions that something about the city — including its elections — is fundamentally untrustworthy.
The Rev. Greg Lewis, executive director of Wisconsin’s Souls to the Polls, said the reputation is rooted in racism and belied by reality. He said he has a hard enough time getting minorities to vote at all, “let alone vote twice.”
Albrecht agreed.
“If a Souls to the Polls bus would pull up to (a polling site), a bus full of Black people, some Republican observer would mutter, ‘Oh, these are the people being brought up from Chicago,’” he said. “As if we don’t have African Americans in Milwaukee.”
Election workers count votes using a tabulation machine during Election Day on Nov. 5, 2024, at Milwaukee’s central count facility at the Baird Center. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
After former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes — a Black Milwaukeean and a Democrat — lost his 2022 U.S. Senate bid to unseat U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, Bob Spindell, a Republican member of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, emailed constituents saying Republicans “can be especially proud” of Milwaukee casting 37,000 fewer votes than in 2018, “with the major reduction happening in the overwhelming Black and Hispanic areas.”
The message sparked backlash, though Spindell rejected accusations of racism. Asked about it this year, Spindell told Votebeat he meant to praise GOP outreach to Black voters.
Milwaukee organizer Angela Lang said she finds the shifting narratives about Black turnout revealing. “Are we voting (illegally)?” she said. “Or are you all happy that we’re not voting?”
History of real and perceived errors increases pressure on city
The scrutiny directed at Milwaukee falls on voters and the city employees who run its elections.
Milwaukee’s most serious stumble came in 2004, when a last-minute overhaul of the election office contributed to unprocessed voter registrations, delayed absentee counts and discrepancies in the final tally. Multiple investigations found widespread administrative problems but no fraud.
“It was hard coming in at that low point,” said Albrecht, who joined the commission the following year, saying it gave Milwaukee the reputation as an “election fraud capital.”
In 2008, the city created a centralized absentee ballot count facility to reduce errors at polling places and improve consistency. The change worked as intended, but it also meant Milwaukee’s absentee results — representing tens of thousands of votes — were often reported after midnight, sometimes shifting statewide margins.
That timing is largely a product of state law: Wisconsin is one of the few states that prohibit clerks from processing absentee ballots before Election Day. For years, Milwaukee officials have asked lawmakers to change the rule. Instead, opponents argue the city can’t be trusted with extra processing time — even as they criticize the late-night results all but unavoidable under the current rule.
Proposals to allow administrators more time to process ballots — and therefore report results sooner — have repeatedly stalled in the Legislature. The most recent passed the Assembly last session but never received a Senate vote, with some Republicans openly questioning why they should give Milwaukee more time when they don’t trust the city to handle the ballots with the time it already has.
“The late-arriving results of absentee ballots processed in the city of Milwaukee benefits all attempts to discredit the city,” Albrecht said.
Without the change, to keep up with other Wisconsin municipalities, Milwaukee must process tens of thousands of absentee ballots in a single day, a herculean task. “The effect of not passing it means this issue can be kept alive,” said Lee, the UW-Milwaukee political scientist.
Some Republicans acknowledge that dynamic outright. Rep. Scott Krug, a GOP lawmaker praised for his pragmatic approach to election policy, has long supported a policy fix. This session, it doesn’t appear to be going anywhere.
Krug said a small but influential faction on the right has built a kind of social network around election conspiracy theories, many focused on Milwaukee. Because the tight counting window is part of the fuel that keeps that group going, he said, “a fix is a problem for them.”
2020 marked the shift to ‘complete insanity’
Albrecht said that while Milwaukee had long operated under an unusual level of suspicion, the scrutiny that followed 2020 represented a shift he described as “complete insanity.”
That year, in the early hours after Election Day, Milwaukee released its absentee totals, but then-election chief Woodall realized she’d left a USB drive in one tabulator. Woodall called her deputy clerk about it, and the deputy had a police officer take the USB drive to the county building. The mistake didn’t affect results — the audit trail matched — but it was enough to ignite right-wing talk radio and fuel yet more conspiratorial claims about the city’s late-night reporting.
The scrutiny only intensified. A joking email exchange between Woodall and an elections consultant, taken out of context, was perceived by some as proof of fraud after Gateway Pundit and a now-defunct conservative state politics site published it. Threats followed, serious enough that police and the FBI stepped in. Woodall pushed for increased security at the city’s election office, saying that “there was no question” staff safety was at risk.
A similar dynamic played out again in 2024, when workers discovered that doors on absentee tabulators hadn’t been fully closed. With no evidence of tampering but anticipating backlash, officials zeroed out the machines and recounted every ballot. The fix didn’t stop Republicans, including Johnson, from suggesting something “very suspicious” could be happening behind the scenes. Johnson did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, errors in other Wisconsin communities, sometimes far more consequential, rarely draw similar attention. Take Waukesha County’s error in 2011 — a mistake that swung thousands of votes and affected which candidate was in the lead. “But it didn’t stick,” said UW-Madison’s Barry Burden, a political science professor. “People don’t talk about Waukesha as a place with rigged or problematic elections.”
In recent years there was only one substantiated allegation of serious election official wrongdoing: In November 2022, Milwaukee deputy clerk Kimberly Zapata was charged with misconduct in office and fraud for obtaining fake absentee ballots.
A month prior, she had ordered three military absentee ballots using fake names and sent the ballots to a Republican lawmaker, an effort she reportedly described as an attempt to expose flaws in the election system. Zapata said those events stemmed from a “complete emotional breakdown.” She was sentenced to one year of probation for election fraud.
“We didn’t hear as much from the right” about those charges, Woodall said.
More recently, the GOP has raised concerns about privacy screens — a curtain hung last November to block a staging area and, earlier this year, a room with frosted windows. Republicans seized on each, claiming the city was hiding something.
Paulina Gutiérrez, the city’s election director, told Votebeat the ballots temporarily kept behind the curtain “aren’t manipulated. They’re scanned and sent directly onto the floor,” where observers are free to watch the envelopes be opened and the ballots be counted.
But the accusations took off anyway. Even Johnson, the U.S. senator, suggested the city was “making sure NO ONE trusts their election counts.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
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More than a month since an immigration judge agreed to grant a Sheboygan Falls mother a green card, she was still sitting in an ICE jail waiting for a required background check, which Department of Homeland Security officials said staffing issues had delayed.
The predicament illustrates how President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has strained some of the immigration system’s most basic infrastructure. Immigration attorneys say increased pressure from mass arrests has “exponentially inflamed” many of its long-standing flaws.
Defendants in felony cases have been deported before a judge can issue a verdict, fast-changing asylum rules have led to inconsistent outcomes, and inefficiencies like the mother’s background check delay have dramatically affected residents’ lives.
Update, Dec. 19, 2025, 12:50 p.m.:
Cleveland immigration court Judge Richard Drucker cancelled Elvira Benitez’s removal from the country on Friday, her attorney Marc Christopher told Wisconsin Watch. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security reserved the right to appeal his ruling within the next 30 days, but Christopher expects she will be able to return to Wisconsin before the end of the year.
Original story:
Elvira Benitez of Sheboygan Falls is just one step away from receiving her green card.
But more than a month since an immigration judge agreed to grant her permanent residence pending a biometric background check, she’s still sitting in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Ohio, where she has spent half of 2025.
The reason? The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, told an immigration court judge that a staffing shortage delayed the background check, which requires running her fingerprints through a national registry.
The ongoing immigration crackdown has strained some of the immigration system’s most basic infrastructure, and Benitez is one of many stuck as a result. Many immigration attorneys, including Benitez’s, say increased pressure on the system from mounting arrest numbers and rapidly shifting policies has “exponentially inflamed” many of its long-standing flaws, even as the Trump administration spends billions trying to keep up with its own demands.
Those flaws have appeared in many forms: defendants in felony cases deported before a judge can issue a verdict, inconsistent application of ever-changing asylum rules and inefficiencies that cost the administration little while dramatically affecting the lives of people like Benitez.
How has that played out in Wisconsin? Wisconsin Watch has documented the shifting landscape in a range of stories during a chaotic year for immigration policy.
Accidental Canadian trip triggers arrest
Benitez, 50, fled an abusive home in Michoacán, Mexico, as a teenager, crossing the border with her 8-year-old sister and making her way to the Midwest, said Crystal Aguilar, Benitez’s eldest daughter. She lived without legal status for more than three decades, entering the immigration court system only after her arrest this year.
She landed in ICE custody in July after accidentally crossing the Canadian border due to a GPS mixup during a family road trip in Michigan. In her absence, her two adult daughters – both U.S. citizens – took charge of their school-age siblings and the family’s painting and cleaning business.
“I have four kids of my own,” Aguilar said. “So we’re kind of just all over the place, taking turns.”
Elvira Benitez, a Sheboygan Falls resident, waited over a month in custody for federal immigration authorities to complete a biometric background check, extending her time in detention as she awaits a possible green card. She is shown at a birthday party. (Courtesy of Crystal Aguilar)
Benitez was among more than 25,000 people ICE arrested in July alone, a Wisconsin Watch analysis found. Monthly arrests eclipsed 30,000 by September, including at least 143 in Wisconsin. Relatively few of those detainees have remained in the U.S. More than 65% of those arrested from January through mid-October have already left the U.S., either through deportation or, less frequently, voluntary departure.
The Dodge County jail in Juneau, for instance, held an average of more than 100 ICE detainees per day in September – the most recent complete month of detention data.
Other county sheriffs have supported ICE enforcement efforts by honoring agency detainer requests by holding inmates suspected of immigration violations past their scheduled release dates, buying time for ICE agents to take them into custody. The Wisconsin Supreme Court this month agreed to hear a lawsuit challenging the legality of such practices.
While Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, has claimed the administration is prioritizing “the worst first” for deportation, just over 40% of immigrants arrested by ICE nationwide between January and mid-October had prior criminal convictions, and nearly a third had no prior criminal history or pending charges.
In Wisconsin, however, nearly 60% of immigrants arrested by ICE during that period had at least one prior criminal conviction, while less than 20% had no prior criminal history or pending charges.
Most immigrants with prior convictions or pending charges arrested by ICE in Wisconsin this year have been deported. Roughly half of arrested immigrants with no criminal record — such as Benitez — have not.
But even the quicker deportations of immigrants facing pending criminal charges pose challenges. When defendants land in ICE custody, their criminal cases generally go on without them, often with no explanation of their absence.
The immigration crackdown has left Wisconsin courts with loose ends: missing defendants, victims without a chance to testify and thousands of dollars in forfeited bail. For some defendants facing serious prison time, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne argued that deportation can serve as a “get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Asylum seekers face legal whiplash
Immigrants with no criminal history have often landed in drawn-out legal proceedings complicated by sudden rule changes.
Reversing decades of precedent, DHS announced in July that most immigrants in ICE custody would be ineligible for bond and instead subject to “mandatory detention.” Benitez, whose arrest nearly coincided with the rollout of the policy, was among the detainees unable to leave custody as a result.
In November, DHS prosecutors moved to deport the Nicaraguan asylum seeker arrested in Manitowoc to Honduras. His attorney said he ultimately chose to return to Nicaragua, where he risks retaliation for his involvement in protests against authoritarian President Daniel Ortega, to avoid landing in Honduras, where he spent only a few days on his trek north to the U.S.
But DHS did not suggest third-country deportation when a fellow ICE detainee in Dodge County appeared in court just over a week later.
Diego Ugarte-Arenas, a 31-year-old asylum seeker from Venezuela, was arrested alongside his wife during a routine check-in at a DHS office in Milwaukee in late October. An immigration court judge in Chicago granted the couple asylum last week, though Ugarte-Arenas will remain in ICE custody while DHS appeals the judge’s ruling. Meanwhile, his wife, Dailin Pacheco-Acosta, just returned to Madison, where the couple has lived since 2021. Pacheco-Acosta spent the past two months in an ICE detention facility in Kentucky, but a federal judge approved her release earlier this month.
“When you move this quickly and have this volume of cases, not every case gets treated the same,” said Ben Crouse, an attorney representing the Venezuelan couple. The inconsistency, Crouse added, reflects the “crazy arbitrariness of the system.”
Arrest brings opportunity
The peculiarities of federal immigration law turned Benitez’s arrest into an opportunity to secure permanent residency. She had few pathways to legal status as an undocumented immigrant, her attorney Marc Christopher said, but her placement in deportation proceedings brought her before a judge who could cancel her removal and issue her a green card.
Judge Richard Drucker of the immigration court in Cleveland signaled his intent to do just that on Nov. 6, citing the hardships Benitez’s absence would impose on her U.S.-born children.
But the long-delayed background check stood in the way.
DHS notified the court on Wednesday that it was finally complete, setting the stage for what may be Benitez’s last hearing by the end of this week.
The agency did not respond to Wisconsin Watch’s questions about whether staffing shortages were delaying background checks systemwide.
Aguilar says the step forward in her mother’s case does not resolve the systemic problems that have kept her jailed.
“The disorganization surrounding my mom’s detention underscores a broader failure,” she wrote to Wisconsin Watch. “When families cannot get basic information or timelines, it reflects a system that has lost its ability to function responsibly.”
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Wisconsin utility ratepayers owe nearly $1 billion on coal power plants that have been or soon will be shut down. That includes debt taken on to build and upgrade the plants, plus a guaranteed rate of return of nearly 10% for the utility companies that own the plants.
Other states have found ways to limit the effect on ratepayers, such as allowing debt to be securitized at a lower rate than the guaranteed investment return and having comprehensive planning processes that reduce the likelihood of overbuilding.
Wisconsin utility groups have pushed back on bipartisan proposals, and Republicans have blocked efforts by Gov. Tony Evers to reduce costs for ratepayers.
By some measures, the Pleasant Prairie Power Plant, once regarded locally as an “iconic industrial landmark,” had a good run.
Opened in 1980 near Lake Michigan in Kenosha County, it became Wisconsin’s largest generating plant, burning enough Wyoming coal, some 13,000 tons a day, to provide electricity for up to 1 million homes.
But over time, the plant became too expensive to operate. The owner, We Energies, shut it down after 38 years, in 2018.
We Energies customers, however, are still on the hook.
A portion of their monthly bills will continue to pay for Pleasant Prairie until 2039 — 21 years after the plant stopped producing electricity.
In fact, residential and business utility customers throughout Wisconsin owe nearly $1 billion on “stranded assets” — power plants like Pleasant Prairie that have been or will soon be shut down, a Wisconsin Watch investigation found.
That total will likely grow over the next five years with additional coal plants scheduled to cease operations.
Customers must pay not only for the debt taken on to build and upgrade the plants themselves, but also an essentially guaranteed rate of return for their utility company owners, long after the plants stop generating revenue themselves.
“We really have a hard time with utilities profiting off of dead power plants for decades,” said Todd Stuart, executive director of the Wisconsin Industrial Energy Group.
The $1 billion tab looms as Wisconsin utility companies aim to generate unprecedented amounts of electricity for at least seven major high-tech data centers that are proposed, approved or under construction. By one estimate, just two of the data centers, which are being built to support the growth of artificial intelligence, would use more electricity than all Wisconsin homes combined.
All of which raises an important question in Wisconsin, where electricity rates have exceeded the Midwest average for 20 years.
What happens to residents and other ratepayers if AI and data centers don’t pan out as planned, creating a new generation of stranded assets?
How much do Wisconsin ratepayers owe on stranded assets?
Of the five major investor-owned utilities operating in Wisconsin, two — We Energies and Wisconsin Public Service Corp. — have stranded assets on the books. Both companies are subsidiaries of Milwaukee-based WEC Energy Group.
As of December 2024, when the company released its most recent annual report, We Energies estimated a remaining value of more than $700 million across three power plants with recently retired units: Pleasant Prairie, Oak Creek and Presque Isle, a plant on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Wisconsin Public Service Corp.’s December 2024 report listed roughly $30 million in remaining value on recently retired units at two power plants.
In total, utilities owned by WEC Energy Group will likely have over $1 billion in recently retired assets by the end of 2026.
The company also noted a remaining value of just under $250 million for its share of units at Columbia Generating Station slated to retire in 2029, alongside a remaining value of roughly $650 million for units at Oak Creek scheduled to retire next year.
Its customers will pay off that total, plus a rate of return, for years to come.
The company estimates that closing the Pleasant Prairie plant alone saved $2.5 billion, largely by avoiding future operating and maintenance costs and additional capital investments.
Both Wisconsin Power and Light and Madison Gas and Electric also own portions of the Columbia Energy Center, and Wisconsin Power and Light also operates a unit at the Edgewater Generating Station scheduled for retirement before the end of the decade. Neither company provided estimates of the values of those facilities at time of retirement. Andrew Stoddard, a spokesman for Alliant Energy, Wisconsin Power and Light’s parent company, argued against treating plants scheduled for retirement with value on the books as future stranded assets.
How stranded assets occurred: overcommitting to coal
In 1907, Wisconsin became one of the first states to regulate public utilities. The idea was that having competing companies installing separate gas or electric lines was inefficient, but giving companies regional monopolies would require regulation.
Utility companies get permission to build or expand power plants and to raise rates from the three-member state Public Service Commission. The commissioners, appointed by the governor, are charged with protecting ratepayers as well as utility company investors.
A demolition sign is posted at the former site of the We Energies Power Plant on Nov. 13, 2025, in Pleasant Prairie, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Stranded assets have occurred across the nation, partly because of the cost of complying with pollution control regulations. But another factor is that, while other utilities around the country moved to alternative sources of energy, Wisconsin utilities and, in turn, the PSC overbet on how long coal-fired plants would operate efficiently:
In the years before We Energies pulled the plug on Pleasant Prairie, the plant had mostly gone dark in spring and fall. Not only had coal become more expensive than natural gas and renewables, but energy consumption stayed flat. By 2016, two years before Pleasant Prairie’s closure, natural gas eclipsed coal for electricity generation nationally.
In 2011, We Energies invested nearly $1 billion into its coal-fired Oak Creek plant south of Milwaukee to keep it running for 30 more years. The plant, which began operating in 1965 and later became one of the largest in the country, is now scheduled to completely retire in 2026 — with $650 million on the books still owed. That will cost individual ratepayers nearly $30 per year for the next 17 years, according to RMI, a think tank specializing in clean energy policy. The majority of the debt tied to those units stems from “environmental controls we were required to install to meet federal and state rules,” WEC Energy Group spokesperson Brendan Conway said.
In 2013, to settle pollution violations, Alliant Energy announced an investment of more than $800 million in the Columbia Energy Center plant in Portage, north of Madison. But by 2021, Alliant announced plans to begin closing the plant, though now it is expected to operate until at least 2029.
Various factors encourage construction and upgrades of power plants.
Building a plant can create upwards of 1,000 construction jobs, popular with politicians. Moreover, the Public Service Commission, being a quasi-judicial body, is governed by precedent. For example, if the PSC determined it was prudent to allow construction of a utility plant, that finding would argue in favor of approving a later expansion of that plant.
The PSC allowed utility companies “to overbuild the system,” said Tom Content, executive director of the Wisconsin Citizens Utility Board, a nonprofit advocate for utility customers. “I think the mistake was that we allowed so much investment, and continuing to double down on coal when it was becoming less economic.”
Utilities “profit off of everything they build or acquire,” Stuart said, “and so there is a strong motivation to put steel in the ground and perhaps to even overbuild.”
Conway, the WEC Energy Group spokesperson, argued that the utilities’ plans to retire plants amount to a net positive for customers.
“We began our power generation reshaping plan about a decade ago,” he wrote in an email. “That includes closing older, less-efficient power plants and building new renewable energy facilities and clean, efficient natural gas plants. This plan reduces emissions and is expected to provide customers significant savings — hundreds of millions of dollars — over the life of the plan.”
Guaranteed profits add to ratepayer burden
The built-in profits that utility companies enjoy, typically 9.8%, add to the stranded assets tab.
When the Public Service Commission approves construction of a new power plant, it allows the utility company to levy electricity rates high enough to recover its investment plus the specified rate of return — even after a plant becomes a stranded asset.
The former site of the We Energies Power Plant on Nov. 13, 2025, in Pleasant Prairie, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
“We give them this license to have a monopoly, but the challenge is there’s no incentive for them to do the least-cost option,” Content said. “So, in terms of building new plants, there’s an incentive to build more … and there’s incentive to build too much.”
When the Pleasant Prairie plant was shut down in 2018, the PSC ruled that ratepayers would continue to pay We Energies to cover the cost of the plant itself, plus the nearly 10% profit. The plant’s remaining value, initially pegged at nearly $1 billion, remained at roughly $500 million as of December 2024.
Eliminating profits on closed plants would save ratepayers $300 million on debt payments due to be made into the early 2040s, according to Content’s group.
New ‘stranded assets’ threat: data centers
As artificial intelligence pervades society, it’s hard to fathom how much more electricity will have to be generated to power all of the data centers under construction or being proposed in Wisconsin.
We Energies alone wants to add enough energy to power more than 2 million homes. That effort is largely to serve one Microsoft data center under construction in Mount Pleasant, between Milwaukee and Racine, and a data center approved north of Milwaukee in Port Washington to serve OpenAI and Oracle AI programs. Microsoft calls the Mount Pleasant facility “the world’s most powerful data center.”
Data centers are also proposed for Beaver Dam, Dane County, Janesville, Kenosha and Menomonie.
The energy demand raises the risk of more stranded assets, should the data centers turn out to be a bubble rather than boom.
“The great fear is, you build all these power plants and transmission lines and then one of these data centers only is there for a couple years, or isn’t as big as promised, and then everybody’s left holding the bag,” Stuart said.
The sun sets as construction continues at Microsoft’s data center project on Nov. 13, 2025, in Mount Pleasant, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
In an October Marquette Law School poll, 55% of those surveyed said the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits. Environmental groups have called for a pause on all data center approvals. Democratic and Republican leaders are calling for data centers to pay their own way and not rely on utility ratepayers or taxpayers to pay for their electricity needs.
Opposition in one community led nearly 10,000 people to become members of the Stop the Menomonie Data Center group on Facebook. In Janesville, voters are trying to require referendums for data centers. In Port Washington, opposition to the data center there led to three arrests during a city council meeting.
Utilities are scheduled in early 2026 to request permission from the Public Service Commission to build new power plants or expand existing plants to accommodate data centers.
Some states, such as Minnesota, have adopted laws prohibiting the costs of stranded assets from data centers being passed onto ratepayers.
Wisconsin has no such laws.
Shifting cost burden to utility companies
Currently, ratepayers are on the hook for paying off the full debt of stranded assets — unless a financial tool called securitization reduces the burden on ratepayers.
Securitization is similar to refinancing a mortgage. With the state’s permission, utilities can convert a stranded asset — which isn’t typically a tradeable financial product — into a specialized bond.
Utility customers must still pay back the bond. But the interest rate on the bond is lower than the utility’s standard profit margin, meaning customers save money.
A 2024 National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners report noted that utilities’ shareholders may prefer a “status quo” scenario in which customers pay stranded asset debts and the standard rate of return. Persuading utilities to agree to securitization can require incentives from regulators or lawmakers, the report added.
In some states, utilities can securitize the remaining value of an entire power plant. Michigan utility Consumers Energy, for instance, securitized two coal generating units retired in 2023, saving its customers more than $120 million.
In Wisconsin, however, utilities can securitize only the cost of pollution control equipment on power plants — added to older coal plants during the Obama administration, when utilities opted to retrofit existing plants rather than switching to new power sources.
The Oak Creek Power Plant and Elm Road Generating Station, seen here on April 25, 2019, in Oak Creek, Wis., near Milwaukee, are coal-fired electrical power stations. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
In 2023, two Republican state senators, Robert Cowles of Green Bay and Duey Stroebel of Saukville, introduced legislation to allow the Public Service Commission to order securitization and allow securitization to be used to refinance all debt on stranded assets. The bill attracted some Democratic cosponsors, but was opposed by the Wisconsin Utilities Association and did not get a hearing.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers proposed additional securitization in his 2025-27 budget, but the Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee later scrapped the provision.
Even Wisconsin’s narrow approach to securitization is optional, however, and most utilities have chosen not to use it.
We Energies was the first Wisconsin utility to do so, opting in 2020 to securitize the costs of pollution control equipment at the Pleasant Prairie plant. Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission approved the request, saving an estimated $40 million. “We will continue to explore that option in the future,” Conway said.
But the PSC expressed “disappointment” in 2024 when We Energies “was not willing to pursue securitization” to save customers $117.5 million on its soon-to-retire Oak Creek coal plant. The utility noted state law doesn’t require securitization.
Stuart said that if utilities won’t agree to more securitization, they should accept a lower profit rate once an asset becomes stranded.
“It would be nice to ease that burden,” he said. “Just to say, hey, consumers got to suck it up and deal with it, that doesn’t sound right. The issue of stranded assets, like cost overruns, is certainly ripe for investigation.”
Comprehensive planning required elsewhere — but not Wisconsin
Avoiding future stranded assets could require a level of planning impossible under Wisconsin’s current regulatory structure.
When the state’s utilities propose new power plants, PSC rules require the commission to consider each new plant alone, rather than in the context of other proposed new plants and the state’s future energy needs. Operating without what is known as an integrated resource plan, or IRP, opened the PSC to overbuilding and creating more stranded assets. IRPs are touted as an orderly way to plan for future energy needs.
“There’s no real comprehensive look in Wisconsin,” Stuart said. “We’re one of the few regulated states that really doesn’t have a comprehensive plan for our utilities.
”We’ve been doing some of these projects kind of piecemeal, without looking at the bigger picture.”
Protesters speak against a proposed natural gas power plant in Oak Creek, Wis., on March 25, 2025. (Julius Shieh / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
Structured planning tools like IRPs date back to the 1980s, when concerns about cost overruns, fuel price volatility and overbuilding prompted regulators to step in. Minnesota and Michigan require utilities to file IRPs, as do a majority of states nationwide.
Evers proposed IRPs in his 2025-27 state budget, but Republican lawmakers removed that provision because it was a nonfiscal policy issue.
Northern States Power Company, which operates in Wisconsin and four other Midwestern states, is required by both Michigan and Minnesota to develop IRPs. “Because of these rules, we create a multi-state IRP every few years,” said Chris Ouellette, a spokesperson for Xcel Energy, the utility’s parent company.
Madison Gas and Electric, which only operates in Wisconsin, argued that its current planning process is superior to the IRP requirements in neighboring states. “A formal IRP mandate would add process without improving outcomes,” spokesperson Steve Schultz said. “Wisconsin’s current framework allows us to move quickly, maintain industry-leading reliability and protect customer costs during a period of rapid change.”
How to influence decisions relating to stranded assets
The devil will be in the details on whether the Public Service Commission adopts strong policies to prevent the expected wave of new power plant capacity from becoming stranded assets, consumer advocates say.
The current members, all appointed by Evers, are: chairperson Summer Strand, Kristy Nieto and Marcus Hawkins.
The public can comment on pending cases before the PSC via its website, by mail or at a public hearing. The commission posts notices of its public hearings, which can be streamed via YouTube.
Barbed wire fence surrounds the former site of the We Energies Power Plant on Nov. 13, 2025, in Pleasant Prairie, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Among the upcoming hearings on requests by utilities to generate more electricity for data centers:
Feb. 12: We Energies’ request to service data centers in Mount Pleasant and Port Washington. We Energies says the fees it proposes, known as tariffs, will prevent costs from being shifted from the data centers to other customers. The “party” hearing is not for public comment, but for interaction between PSC staff and parties in the case, such as We Energies and public interest groups.
Feb. 26: Another party hearing for a case in which Alliant Energy also said its proposed tariffs won’t benefit the data center in Beaver Dam at the expense of other customers.
To keep abreast of case developments, the PSC offers email notifications for document filings and meetings of the commission.
The PSC would not provide an official to be interviewed for this article. It issued a statement noting that utilities can opt to do securitization to ease the financial burden on ratepayers, adding:
“Beyond that, the commission has a limited set of tools provided under state law to protect customers from costs that arise from early power plant retirements. It would be up to the state Legislature to make changes to state law that would provide the commission with additional tools.”
On Nov. 6, state Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin, D-Whitefish Bay, and Rep. Angela Stroud, D-Ashland, announced wide-ranging data center legislation. One provision of their proposal aims to ensure that data centers don’t push electricity costs onto other ratepayers.
But there is no provision on stranded assets.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Larry Sandler sits down with Wisconsin Watch video journalist Trisha Young to break down why Wisconsin is an outlier in Supreme Court spending and what’s next for the state. (Video by Trisha Young / Wisconsin Watch)
As journalism continues to evolve, we’re experimenting with alternative storytelling formats to help the public access important information they might not find anywhere else.
Earlier this month Wisconsin Watch published Supreme Costs, a three-part series by freelancer Larry Sandler explaining why our state’s Supreme Court elections are so expensive and what can be done about it. The series included graphics from data reporter Hongyu Liu highlighting how astronomical the $144.5 million spent on the 2025 race was compared with past elections.
Last week we published a condensed version of the nearly 11,000-word series for those who are into the whole brevity thing. The short version clocked in at about 2,600 words.
Today we’re condensing the story even further with a short video of Larry explaining the key points of his series. The video was created by Wisconsin Watch video producer Trisha Young.
Whether you want to dive deep into a subject, peruse the highlights or only have five minutes to spare, Wisconsin Watch has a story for you.
A deputy known for making a large number of arrests, but who had a history of unreliability in his reports and court testimony, resigned from the Waushara County Sheriff’s Office in early December.
Scott Schaut had worked for the sheriff’s office since 2018 and was making about $34 per hour, according to county administration.
After The Badger Project requested records of his disciplinary record in September, Scott Schaut resigned a few days later from his leadership position as the night shift sergeant, dropping himself down to a patrol deputy. In November, The Badger Project published a story about Schaut’s work history, including a performance improvement plan he had been under, and at least two documented instances of the officer’s changing testimony led to a dismissal of criminal charges.
“After careful consideration, I have decided that it is best for me to move on,” he wrote in his resignation letter, which The Badger Project obtained from the county via a records request. “The current direction and internal environment of the department no longer align with what I believe is necessary for me to be successful in my role. For that reason, I feel it is in everyone’s best interest for me to step away at this time.”
The Waushara County Sheriff’s Office has been under great scrutiny in recent months, as an investigation from The Badger Project found that Sheriff Wally Zuehlke had collected more than $20,000 in stipends for his K9 after quitting the law enforcement trainings with the dog. The county board voted to force Zuehkle to repay that sum plus interest.
And the sheriff’s office’s second-in-command, Chief Deputy Jim Lietz, resigned in October after pressure from citizen journalist Sam Wood, who makes online videos watched by thousands in the county and beyond, regarding his handling of the lewd photo investigation and other accusations.
Schaut had previously been on a performance improvement plan with the department, during which he conducted what may have been an illegal search, documents from the plan note.
Wood had also been criticizing Schaut in his recent videos, derisively calling him “Schnauzer” due to his aggressive and frequent searches for drugs.
But documents show that, on at least a couple occasions, Schaut failed to follow department policy, and the law, when executing searches.
Before conducting a house check in the village of Coloma in April, Schaut and other deputies received verbal permission from a caller to ensure no person was in the home. But body camera video showed Schaut looking in boxes, the refrigerator and a washing machine, areas too small for a person to hide, according to a sheriff’s office report.
For his breaking of department policy, the top administration of the sheriff’s office decided Schaut would be penalized with two unpaid days off, Lietz wrote in the report.
Upon Schaut’s resignation from the sergeant’s position, Lt. Stacy Vaccaro ended the improvement plan.
“Overall, Sgt. Schaut’s performance has been mediocre without much change,” Vaccaro wrote in the final report. “After speaking with Schaut about concerns or issues, he would acknowledge his understanding, improve for a short period of time, and then regress back.”
Schaut, Vaccaro and Zuehlke did not respond to messages seeking comment.
Schaut also had trouble with reliability in his police work in other documented instances.
In a case from 2024, Schaut reported receiving consent to enter a man’s home, in which he found drug paraphernalia. However, when a judge asked Schaut to note on an audio recording where he had received that consent, the officer said he could not, according to the court transcript. That led to the judge dismissing the paraphernalia charge because Schaut had not obtained consent and had no warrant.
In another case involving underage drinking in 2023, Waushara County District Attorney Matthew Leusink and Assistant District Attorney Joshua Zamzow alerted the court that Schaut had misremembered facts during his testimony, leading to the dismissal of a citation.
The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.
In the national war for affordable housing, a familiar battle is raging in Richland Center, a little city in the Driftless Area that’s surrounded by wilderness and farm fields.
A move to put duplexes on a six-acre village green has pitted some residents against their city government.
“It’s the soccer field, it’s the picnic field, it’s the place where everybody goes,” said Jeri Rust, who grew up in town and now splits time between Richland Center and Arizona.
But “the city needs housing, and we have before us a proposal that would be the envy of any other community,” Richland County Board Chair David Turk said at a September city council meeting.
Since 2017, the average home price in Richland Center has increased from about $102,000 to $180,000, a 76% change, according to Zillow, the real estate marketplace.
Stori Field is the “crown jewel” of the neighborhood, said Greg Dettmann, a resident who grew up in the city and lives across the street.
The field is named for teacher and coach Dave Stori, who revived the high school’s track team in the 1940s. For decades, Stori Field hosted athletic practices and P.E. classes.
“I threw up more than once on that field,” Dettmann, 74, joked about his own time exercising on the field as a kid. “You can’t get green spaces back once they’re gone.”
Stori Park in Richland Center, Wis., is shown. (Courtesy of Google Maps)
But Richland Center has between three and six times more parkland than what the National Recreation and Park Association recommends for the city’s population, city attorney Michael Windle estimated. And there are other venues for recreation around the city, he said.
It’s a common fight across the country as residents resist new housing to keep their neighborhoods from changing.
“When you say it’s easy to find places to build, no, it isn’t,” Mayor Todd Coppernoll said at a September city council meeting. “We don’t have adequate housing stock at any income level, in my opinion.”
Richland Center, like many communities, is struggling to provide affordable housing, especially for older people, as its population ages and the number of small home builders declines, according to a Richland County analysis.
The community’s median income is lagging behind its median home value, and “there is not enough affordable housing,” according to a Richland Center study from 2024.
The city has struggled to find companies to build. When one developer, Enke Properties, zeroed in on Stori Field and agreed to cover the costs for major expenses like utilities, sidewalks and street lights, the city jumped at the offer. On top of the additional housing, the 16-unit development would also generate about $100,000 in annual tax revenue to be split among the city, county and school district, Richland Center city officials estimate.
The city greenlit the sale of Stori Field on Oct. 7. In response, but before the transfer officially went through, residents submitted a petition with nearly 700 resident signatures asking the city to prohibit any sale without the voters’ consent. Richland Center has a population of about 5,000 people.
On Nov. 13, the same day the clerk certified most of the signatures, the city rejected the petition, saying it omitted necessary language. The city officially sold the land for $1 to the developer the same day.
“PR-wise, I think they fell on their face,” Mary Collins, a resident of Richland Center and the chair of the Richland County Democratic Party, said of city officials.
But “from a legal perspective, I’m not sure that there’s anything stopping the city in this instance,” said Derek Clinger, a senior staff attorney for the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
On Nov. 21 residents submitted a second petition, which the city acknowledged but says conflicts with the Oct. 7 ordinance it passed authorizing the sale.
In Wisconsin, Clinger said, a direct legislation attempt, in this case the residents’ petition, can’t be used to pass a city ordinance that clearly conflicts with an existing city ordinance. But the city’s actions could certainly have political consequences in future local elections, he noted.
Shelly Dobbs, another leader in the push to protect Stori Field who has also taken the issue to the Wisconsin Elections Commission, said her citizen group is considering legal action.
But the city’s focus on Stori Field has angered some who feel there are opportunities for development elsewhere. The city says it is considering more options in addition to Stori Field.
Ellen Kellar Evans owns two rental properties near Stori Field with her husband and had been working to build 19 single-family homes in the city. She said Richland Center even offered them a $1.5 million federal grant for the project. But she said the city’s unrealistic deadlines and the ire she feels about the Stori Field project have changed things.
“We don’t think we can trust them anymore to make good decisions,” she said.
The city has since pulled the grant.
Residents have repeatedly pointed to the decommissioned University of Wisconsin campus owned by the county as an alternative to Stori Field. In response, the mayor asked Turk, the county board chair, to give an update on the campus at a special meeting Sept. 24.
“The campus is a big chunk of land,” Turk said. “Is it ready to be developed? No.”
But in his emails to The Badger Project, Windle referenced a Nov. 19 presentation the city gave at a county meeting about a proposed subdivision on the campus.
“We feel like we were fooled by thinking that couldn’t be available for years,” Kellar Evans said. “I’m very confused, myself, and I think everyone else is. We just don’t understand.”
The campus project, Windle said, would be in addition to Stori Field.
“At this time,” Windle said, “Stori Field is the sole and exclusive property of Enke Properties, LLC.”
The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.
Toxic heavy metals in solar panels are locked in stable compounds and sealed behind tough glass, preventing escape into air, water, or soil at harmful levels.
Most concern focuses on cadmium and lead. 40% of new U.S. panels use cadmium telluride, which does not dissolve in water, easily turn to gas, or approach the toxicity of pure cadmium.
Like many electronics, panels contain small amounts of lead. These parts are locked behind tempered glass that resists hail, heat, and breakage. Even in high-temperature fires, the glass melts and binds to the metals, trapping 99.9% of them.
During manufacturing and disposal, heavy metals are handled under safety and waste rules. Per unit of electricity, solar releases far less heavy metals than fossil fuels.
Studies and safety reviews find that heavy metals pose no qualifiable danger to health during the regular manufacture, use, or regulated disposal of solar panels.
This fact brief was originally published by Skeptical Science on December 14, 2025, and was authored by Sue Bin Park. Skeptical Science is a member of the Gigafact network.
A Wisconsin judge ruled Monday there is enough evidence to proceed to trial in a felony forgery case against an attorney and an aide to President Donald Trump for their role in the 2020 fake elector scheme.
Dane County Circuit Judge John Hyland ruled that there was probable cause to proceed with the 11 felony forgery charges against Jim Troupis, who was Trump’s campaign attorney in Wisconsin, and Mike Roman, Trump’s director of Election Day operations in 2020.
The preliminary hearing of a third person charged, former Trump attorney Ken Chesebro, was postponed amid questions about what statements the man made to prosecutors that could be admitted in court.
— Scott Bauer, The Associated Press
Original story:
Five years after the 2020 presidential election, state-led cases against individuals involved in “fake elector” plans to overturn that year’s election results in favor of President Donald Trump have hit roadblocks.
Just this fall, a judge in Michigan dismissed the state’s case against 15 people accused of falsely acting as electors to certify the presidential election for Trump in 2020. A Georgia prosecutor, who took over that state’s case in November after the district attorney was removed, dropped the charges against Trump and other people who were accused of 2020 election interference in the state.
But unlike Michigan and Georgia, Wisconsin’s criminal case has not faced such legal stumbles so far. A preliminary hearing in the criminal case against former Trump campaign attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Jim Troupis and former campaign aide Michael Roman was held Monday morning in Dane County Circuit Court.
Legal experts said Wisconsin’s case at this point differs from those in Michigan and Georgia in key ways. There have been no major scandals so far, no changes have been made to people overseeing the case, and Wisconsin’s prosecution has a narrower focus than those in other states, said Lori Ringhand, a constitutional and election law professor at the University of Georgia School of Law.
“The prosecution isn’t of the electors,” Ringhand said. “It’s of the actual people, the very high-level Trump campaign people, attorneys who are accused of facilitating the entire scheme.”
Democratic Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul in June 2024 charged Chesebro, Troupis and Roman with 11 felony forgery counts each for generating documents that falsely claimed Trump won Wisconsin in 2020. The three men allegedly originated the fake electors plan in Wisconsin that spread to other swing states across the country with close vote margins between Trump and former President Joe Biden.
Wisconsin’s focus on Chesebro, Troupis and Roman could be a stronger case than if the state focused on the slate of false electors, Ringhand said. That’s because it’s hard to prove intent in the cases targeting just electors.
In the Michigan case, the Associated Press reported the judge in September said that the state failed to prove the electors had intended to commit fraud. A majority of the Wisconsin false electors said they did not believe their signatures certifying a Trump election in the state would be sent to Washington, D.C., according to an amended criminal complaint filed in December 2024.
“Against the electors themselves, I think it was going to be difficult to prove that they were intending to do something false or fraudulent, as opposed to just creating backup slates,” Ringhand said. “That evidence may look different with these people who are the very high-level organizers of the kind of nationwide effort to create these slates in order to perpetuate this narrative or create challenges or confusion on the House floor.”
The case in Georgia, which included Trump as a defendant, was marred by scandal as Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis was ultimately disqualified after news surfaced that she had a romantic relationship with a member of her prosecution team. That slowed the legal process, Ringhand said, and the new prosecutor saw challenges in the time delays and potentially prosecuting a sitting president.
While Wisconsin’s case hasn’t faced these obstacles, some could surface in the future, said Jeff Mandell, general counsel and co-founder of Law Forward. The organization filed a civil case against the state’s false electors, which was settled in 2023.
Assistant Attorney General Adrienne Blais, left, and Assistant Attorney General Jacob Corr, right, represent the state of Wisconsin as Jim Troupis, a GOP attorney and former judge, makes his initial appearance in court Dec. 12, 2024, at the Dane County Courthouse in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Mandell pointed out that it’s already taken the state a year and a half to just reach a preliminary hearing. The defendants this year have sought multiple times to dismiss the charges. Troupis, a former Dane County judge, last week requested all Dane County judges be prohibited from overseeing the case “to avoid the appearance of bias or impropriety.” Additionally, the Associated Press reported Friday that Wisconsin U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate allegations from Troupis that the judge overseeing his case is guilty of misconduct.
More efforts to delay and “throw sand in the gears” could show up as the Wisconsin case advances, Mandell said.
“It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if one of the things the defendants have in mind is trying to make sure they don’t go to trial until after the 2026 election,” Mandell said. “Maybe they think there’s going to be a new attorney general who will drop the charge.”
Kaul is seeking reelection as attorney general next year. Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney, a Republican who ran against Kaul in 2022, announced in October his plan to challenge Kaul again in 2026.
Trump in November pardoned those involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, including the three from Wisconsin still facing prosecution, but that action only protects those people from federal prosecutions.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
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Prisoners say there aren’t nearly enough work release jobs to go around, and officials at the Department of Corrections say they’re not keeping count.
Several neighboring states routinely track how many people have work release jobs or are eligible for them.
One prisoner told Wisconsin Watch he believes less than a third of those eligible at his facility have work release jobs.
Officials at the Wisconsin Department of Corrections say not everyone who is eligible for work release wants to work. Some are in education, therapy or substance use treatment programs that don’t allow them to work full time.
Most of the jobs available to Wisconsin prisoners are paid not in dollars, but cents. Minimum wage laws don’t apply behind bars, so some people scrub toilets for less than a quarter an hour.
But one type of job lets people leave prison for the day to earn the same wages as anyone else.
Wisconsin was the first state to offer this opportunity, known as work release. The century-old program matches the lowest-risk prisoners with approved employers, who are required by law to pay them as much as any other worker. In some cases, that’s more than $15 an hour.
Through those jobs, prisoners boost their resumes, pay court costs and save up for their release. Employers find needed workers. And taxpayers save money, since work release participants must pay room and board.
Ten of the state’s 16 minimum-security correctional centers are dedicated to work release. But prisoners at those facilities say there aren’t nearly enough of those jobs to go around, and officials at the Department of Corrections say they’re not keeping count.
Sturtevant Transitional Facility is shown Oct. 2, 2025, in Sturtevant, Wis. It includes a minimum-security unit focused on work/study release, which includes matching lowest-risk prisoners with approved employers. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
One prisoner told Wisconsin Watch he believes less than a third of those eligible at his facility have such work release jobs. Prisoners routinely wait many months for the opportunity, he said, and many never get it at all.
“Having that money saved up to, say, get an apartment or get furniture, or even money for transportation?” said Ben Kingsley, 47, who wrote to Wisconsin Watch in August from Winnebago Correctional Center, a work release center in Oshkosh. “These guys know what’s at stake … They want to go out to work.”
Only prison officials can add more positions, and he questions whether they’re trying. This summer, he began lobbying prison officials and lawmakers to expand the opportunity.
“The DOC/State employees are doing the bare minimum in trying to put more people out to work,” he wrote to legislators in October.
Work release jobs are scarce, prisoners say
To qualify for work release in Wisconsin, a prisoner must be classified in the lowest custody level (“community custody”) and have permission from prison officials. In some states, eligible prisoners search for jobs on their own and can work in any role that meets Department of Corrections standards. In Iowa, for example, work release participants are barred from bartending or working in massage parlors.
In Wisconsin, prison officials hold the cards. Here, people approved for work release can work only for one of the Department of Corrections’ partner employers.
“Placements cannot be guaranteed for all eligible inmates,” reads Winnebago Correctional Center’s official webpage. “Work release and offsite opportunities are a privilege, not a right, and are provided at the discretion of the center superintendent and warden.”
About 70% of eligible people incarcerated at Winnebago don’t have work release jobs, Kingsley estimates.
Kingsley, who hopes to qualify for work release after his custody status is reevaluated next year, said he began advocating for more jobs after hearing from eligible prisoners waiting to be “put out to work.”
To find out how many people were working, he asked prisoners who work as drivers, shuttling work release participants to and from their jobs.
Of the 295 people incarcerated at Winnebago at the end of October, 224 had the lowest custody status, which is required for work release, according to the Department of Corrections. By Kingsley’s calculations, just 67 have work release jobs. That’s less than one in three.
“Oh gosh, it’s a huge concern,” Kingsley said.
Officials offer explanations. Not everyone who’s eligible wants a work release job, said Department of Corrections spokesperson Beth Hardtke. Some are in education, therapy or substance use treatment programs that don’t allow them to work full time. And those who seek work release must first work at least 90 days in a prison job, followed by a stint on a “project crew” supervised by Corrections staff, before getting permission from the warden or superintendent.
“The capacity of the work release program is not just about the number of jobs available,” Hardtke said when asked whether the department is looking to add more jobs. “The program must be limited to the number of individuals that DOC staff can safely support and in settings where we can safely support them.” As Wisconsin Watch has previously reported, the Department of Corrections has been plagued by crippling staff shortages in recent years.
Additionally, Hardtke said, some can’t do manual labor. “Some individuals may not meet the employer requirements or standards, and some individuals may not have the level of training or skills necessary to complete certain tasks or jobs … As the prison population ages, some individuals may not be able to succeed in those types of work or have an interest in doing work that can have a physical toll.”
Officials and prisoners tout benefits
Progressive Republican lawmaker Henry Allen Huber as shown in the Wisconsin Blue Book. His “Huber Law” created work release opportunities at county jails.
Work release got its start in 1913 when the Huber Law, named for Progressive Republican lawmaker Henry Allen Huber, created the opportunity at Wisconsin’s county jails. It later spread to state prisons and to nearly every state in the country.
More than a century later, Wisconsin prison leaders continue to extol the virtues of letting people leave prison and return at the end of their shifts.
“Work release gives the men and women in our care the opportunity to feel like they belong to something, to feel like they’re part of a positive contribution to the community, to feel like they belong in the workplace,” said Sarah Cooper, then-administrator of the Division of Adult Institutions, at a virtual presentation for prospective employers in 2022.
Research suggests people who participate in work release programs are less likely to return to prison. A study of former prisoners in Illinois from 2016 to 2021 found those who had held work release jobs were about 15% less likely to be rearrested and 37% less likely to be reincarcerated.
“Work release really is a significant part of keeping our community safe,” Cooper said.
Work release also offsets some of the taxpayer costs of imprisonment. Each participating prisoner must pay $750 a month for room and board, about 20% of the roughly $3,650 a month the state pays to incarcerate each prisoner in the minimum-security system. They must also use their wages to make any legally mandated payments, including child support and victim restitution.
In 2010, for example, 1,726 work release prisoners collectively paid more than $2 million in room, board and travel costs; more than $320,000 in child support and more than $350,000 in court-ordered payments, according to a department report.
Work release jobs aren’t without controversy. In Alabama, a 2024 investigation by the Associated Press revealed prisoners were being pressured to work and faced retribution if they refused. Some were denied parole, despite working for years in fast-food restaurants and other jobs in the community. Critics argue the program is a modern version of the post-Civil War practice of convict leasing, in which prisons rented incarcerated people out for forced labor.
In many states, including Wisconsin, work release participants aren’t classified as employees and don’t have all the same workplace rights. But advocates for incarcerated workers told the AP that many people behind bars want to work and that eliminating the program would only hurt them.
For men in Wisconsin prisons, work release jobs are usually in manufacturing. For women, there are jobs in food service or cosmetology too. They’re “low-level, intensive labor jobs,” Kingsley said, but people are eager for the chance to start saving, especially since a criminal record and gaps in work history could make it tough to find work when they get out.
“When you get locked up, you lose everything,” Kingsley said. “You lose all your possessions, your … credit score goes down, all your bills go unpaid … The benefit (of working) far outweighs the negatives.”
No statewide data available
How many prisoners participate in work release statewide? Corrections officials don’t consistently keep track, Hardtke said.
An Oct. 7, 1965, Green Bay Press-Gazette story, written shortly before the Wisconsin Senate ultimately approved legislation to allow prisoners to work in a delayed apple harvest.
The department’s public data dashboards show prisoner demographics, recidivism rates and enrollment in educational or treatment programs, among other things. Employment numbers are not included.
Prison staff record each prisoner’s jobs and privileges in the person’s individual file but don’t routinely gather that data across the system, Hardtke said.
“What’s important from a correctional standpoint is that you know where everybody is,” Hardtke said, adding that such jobs data “would need to be compiled from multiple sources.”
The latest numbers Wisconsin Watch could find are from 2024. Responding to a Legislative Fiscal Bureau request for a report on state prisons, the department’s research team manually calculated that 781 people had work release jobs in July 2024, Hardtke said.
Asked for a current figure, Hardtke said “that number is not something we have readily available nor is it something you could accurately pull from a single source or document.”
Officials also don’t track how many people are eligible for work release. As of Oct. 31, 2,778 Wisconsin prisoners were at the department’s lowest custody level.
Several neighboring states routinely track how many people have work release jobs or are eligible for them. Of the 11 other Midwestern states Wisconsin Watch asked, seven responded.
Four said they track the number of participants but not the number of people eligible: Minnesota (186), Missouri (202), North Dakota (13) and South Dakota (183).
Iowa officials said they track eligibility (418) but don’t track how many people have work release jobs.
Nebraska officials said they track both: 378 were eligible, and 374 were working.
Officials in Michigan said they don’t offer work release.
Prisoner pushes for more jobs
In July, Kingsley wrote to Warden Clinton Bryant, who oversees the men’s minimum-security centers, asking him to add 100 more work release jobs.
“By writing you first, I hope that changes can be made. Changes that not only benefit the guys here or at other centers, but also the DOC and the state as a whole,” Kingsley wrote. Adding those jobs would generate $75,000 a month in room and board payments, along with state taxes, he wrote.
Bryant responded that Winnebago Correctional Center “collaborates with community employers on a daily basis” and that prison officials can’t require employers to hire anyone.
Jobs aren’t particularly hard to find near Winnebago Correctional Center. Like the rest of the state, Winnebago County faces a growing worker shortage as baby boomers retire. Prisoners aside, the share of the county’s population that’s working or actively looking for work has fallen 7.4% since 2000, according to the Department of Workforce Development.
Winnebago County’s unemployment rate — which excludes people in prison — was among the lowest in the state in 2024, according to DWD data.
Wisconsin’s labor market has softened since last year but remains strong, said Dave Shaw, a regional director of the Department of Workforce Development’s Bureau of Job Service, which manages the state website that matches employers and job seekers.
“It’s still fairly easy to find work, and there are a lot of jobs out there,” Shaw said.
It can be harder to find a job with a criminal record, but Shaw said his team works with a variety of companies that are “interested in giving individuals a second chance” to get back in the workforce.
“There are employers all around the state who are willing to do that,” Shaw said, noting that the state offers tax credits and free insurance to employers who hire people with criminal records.
When Kingsley contacted Bryant again, urging the department to establish minimum job placement rates for work release centers, the warden ended the conversation.
“My office addressed these matters and provided you a response,” Bryant wrote. “No further correspondence on these matters will be addressed by my office.”
So Kingsley took the issue to the State Capitol. In May, Republican lawmakers introduced legislation that would give bonuses to probation and parole officers who increase the employment rate among the people they supervise. Kingsley asked them to do the same for work release centers.
All of the bill’s authors and cosponsors either declined Wisconsin Watch’s request for comment or did not respond.
As of publication of this story, Kingsley has yet to receive a reply.
Help Wisconsin Watch report on work release
Have you served time and qualified for work release? Or do you know someone who has? We’d like to hear about your time working or waiting for work. We’re also looking for any other story ideas about jobs and education behind bars. And we’d like to hear perspectives from those who have hired people with criminal records. Click here to fill out a short form. Your answers will not be published without your permission.
Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success statewide for Wisconsin Watch, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday declined to send the state’s unredacted voter rolls to the federal government, joining more than a dozen states pushing back against disclosing sensitive voter information.
The commission’s move comes as the U.S. Department of Justice has asked all 50 states for their voter files — massive lists containing significant personal information on every voter in the country — claiming they are central to its mission of enforcing election law.
“The U.S. DOJ is simply asking the commission to do something that the commission is explicitly forbidden by Wisconsin law to do,” said Don Millis, a Republican appointee on the Wisconsin Elections Commission. “There’s a clear consensus that personally identifiable information is to be protected.”
While pieces of these lists are public, election officials typically redact voters’ Social Security numbers, driver’s license information and dates of birth before issuing them in response to records requests. The DOJ, in many cases, has asked for information not traditionally made public. That was also the case in Wisconsin: The DOJ requested voters’ partial Social Security numbers, license numbers and dates of birth.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission — which is made up of three Democrats and three Republicans — ultimately voted in closed session to send the DOJ a letter declining the request for unredacted voter information. Republican commissioner Bob Spindell appeared to be the only member in favor of cooperating with the federal government and said Wisconsin will likely face a lawsuit as a result of the commission’s choice.
The letter, signed by every commissioner except Spindell, says state law “explicitly prohibits” sending the unredacted voter list.
Officials in both Democratic and Republican states have pushed back on disclosing their voter rolls in response to these requests. On a podcast with conservative talk radio host Joe Pags, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said these states were refusing to cooperate because they were embarrassed that their voter rolls were not sufficiently cleared of inactive or unlawful registrants.
Rather, many states, like Colorado, have said the federal government isn’t entitled to unredacted voter information that could put voters at risk. The DOJ, they say, has not provided sufficient explanation for how the data will be used.
In early December, after receiving a memorandum of understanding similar to the one sent to Wisconsin, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold told the DOJ to “take a hike,” adding that she “will not help Donald Trump undermine our elections.” The DOJ sued Griswold just over a week later.
All 50 states were asked to turn over their voting rolls, Dhillon said on the podcast: Four states have voluntarily cooperated, 12 are in negotiations, and 14 have been sued by the DOJ over their refusal.
Wisconsin election officials have repeatedly said that federal officials can obtain the publicly available, and therefore redacted, voter roll the same way anybody else can: by purchasing it online for $12,500.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
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Since its debut in March, the “Plaster + Patina” podcast has inspired excitement in Green Bay’s Astor neighborhood.
Residents have pitched stories about their historic homes to the podcast team and opened their homes to them.
The first season focused on homes between Monroe Avenue and the Fox River.
The team does extensive research and searches for interesting stories about the properties they feature.
Inside Skip Heverly’s modified Dutch Colonial home, five people thaw from the near-freezing November evening by a green-tiled fireplace. Between them, a coffee table is littered with loose-leaf newspaper clippings, notepads and snacks.
The group members, all residents of Green Bay’s Astor neighborhood, are preparing to spend the evening trading bits of local lore and hatching ideas that could make for an interesting deep dive.
The neighbors run “Plaster + Patina,” a podcast series that digs up long-buried — and sometimes spooky — tales tied to the historic homes in Astor, one of Green Bay’s oldest neighborhoods. Through the project, they hope to create a shared sense of wonder and community among neighbors while memorializing the area’s history.
“Slowly but surely, I think we’re kind of seeing how this is really helping to bring the community together,” said Morgan Fisher, podcast chief editor and treasurer of the Astor Neighborhood Association. Each person on the podcast team is also a volunteer member of the association, which advocates for the area to local government and organizes events.
From left, Jim Gucwa, Paul Jacobson, Al Valentin, Skip Heverly and Morgan Fisher discuss ideas for an upcoming episode of the “Plaster and Patina” podcast team on Nov. 16, 2025, in Green Bay. (Mike Roemer for Wisconsin Watch)
After debuting in March, the series has inspired excitement around the neighborhood, with residents pitching their own houses to be featured and opening their homes to the team. At the mid-November brainstorm, the group invited longtime local civic leader Jim Gucwa to share stories he’s collected and spark inspiration for a future episode.
The first season of “Plaster + Patina” uncovered a forgotten spring water bottling business; examined architectural changes that speak to larger societal shifts; and told tales of ghosts, among other topics.
Each person has a unique role in the process, from digging through yellowed archives to splicing audio. Several enrolled in nearby community college to learn the skills they use. The project doesn’t currently have sponsors or advertisers to generate revenue, or plans to do so. The team pools resources, leveraging each others’ connections, interests and skills.
“That’s what a neighborhood’s about,” said Paul Jacobson, the podcast’s historian.
Bringing people out of their homes — and into others’
Between the 1830s and 1920s, a high, dry slope running parallel to the Fox River — colloquially known as “The Hill” — was an attractive place for doctors, lawyers and other businessmen to build their homes.
Today, the houses in the affluent neighborhood still reflect the period in which they were constructed. A 1980 historic district designation, championed with Gucwa’s help, preserves the homes’ exteriors from being substantially altered, among other protections.
A postcard of Salvator Springs is pictured. The “Plaster and Patina” podcast featured the mineral spring on episode 6.
Astor’s design encourages social connection. Homes with large front porches sit close to the sidewalks lining each street. Parks host an ice rink, a wading pool and a shell where local bands regularly perform.
“People have kind of gone into their (homes),” Fisher said. “They’re not on their porches anymore. They’re not out meeting their neighbors as much.”
When the Astor Neighborhood Association coalesced in 1974, it started as a way to improve the area and combat crime. It now focuses on maintaining a sense of community among residents, Fisher said.
The “Plaster and Patina” podcast created an episode about how this Italianate home in Green Bay’s Astor neighborhood is marked by tragedy and connected to prominent Green Bay figures. (Miranda Dunlap / Wisconsin Watch)
This home on Lawe Street in Green Bay’s Astor neighborhood served as the subject for the sixth “Plaster and Patina” podcast episode. (Miranda Dunlap / Wisconsin Watch)
The corner of Spring Street and Madison Street in Green Bay’s Astor neighborhood. (Miranda Dunlap / Wisconsin Watch)
Attendees gather for a free concert at St. James Park in Green Bay’s Astor neighborhood in July 2025. (Miranda Dunlap / Wisconsin Watch)
To do that, last summer several neighborhood association members discussed creating something where people could walk around the area, learn the stories behind the architecture they see and feel more connected to its past and present.
“What better way to do that than a podcast?” Jacobson said.
Tales of ghosts, lost springs and … alligators?
At first, the group was nervous about how the endeavor would turn out. But once they started chatting about history and architecture, old stories of folks from the area, “everyone just lit up,” said Heverly, the producer of “Plaster + Patina.”
The first season focused on homes nestled between Monroe Avenue and the Fox River.
Al Valentin, right, and Paul Jacobson look through documents on Nov. 16, 2025, in Green Bay as the “Plaster and Patina” podcast team works on ideas for an upcoming episode. (Mike Roemer for Wisconsin Watch)
“It’s nice to stay within an area, just to kind of really lay out that area,” host Al Valentin said. “We want to create a visual while you’re listening to it of what the neighborhood looked like at that time.”
Once they choose a home, Jacobson digs up the stories behind it. He dives into a slew of online resources, including newspaper archives, historical atlases and — his favorite — fire insurance maps, which include detailed hand drawings of buildings in the area dating back to the 1880s.
After Jacobson goes “down a rabbit hole,” they zoom out and choose the most interesting event or detail he found. “Otherwise, you could spend five hours on one particular home,” Valentin said.
The team then drafts a rough script, a bullet-point list of topics they want to hit during the show. Finally, they record the episode for free in a studio at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. They invite homeowners or people connected to the stories to appear as guests for a live interview.
“We kind of shoot from the hip,” Valentin said. “When you hear us converse on the podcast, it’s pretty real, with our knowledge and expertise.”
An example of the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps the podcast team uses to learn more about homes in the Astor neighborhood. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
Lastly, Heverly edits out “ums,” “uhs” and any mistakes made during recording. He learned the skill at NWTC, where he studied audio editing, video editing, social media marketing and how to use Adobe applications.
Since March, the team has created eight episodes.
In one, Jacobson shared the story of a forgotten mineral spring he unearthed when scouring old hand-drawn maps. Residents bottled and sold the water, marketing it as a natural health remedy, he discovered.
In another, they explored how the neighborhood’s first backyard pool signaled the shift of leisure from front porches to more private backyards — and was once home to an alligator.
An excerpt from the eighth episode of “Plaster + Patina.” (Miranda Dunlap / Wisconsin Watch)
For a Halloween edition, Valentin interviewed a paranormal investigator who shared supernatural experiences at Astor’s Hazelwood House — including an apparition descending stairs, a baby cradle rocking on its own and echoes of drums played by the Native Americans who first called the area home.
Throughout the season, local support for the project has grown.
Lawn signs advertising the show sprouted up in front yards across the neighborhood. People asked for their home to be featured. Residents opened up their homes to the crew, giving them tours to aid the podcast.
Green Bay’s historic Hazelwood house, pictured from the Fox River Trail, was featured in a “Plaster and Patina” podcast episode about ghost stories and rumored hauntings. (Miranda Dunlap / Wisconsin Watch)
“Especially in today’s world, we’re all looking for that connection. We want to be a part of something that’s bigger than ourselves,” marketing and writing director Maddy Szymanski explained in the podcast’s first episode. “When you live in an old neighborhood — or a new neighborhood, really anywhere — you’re a part of something that is bigger than you. You’re a part of a community and you can build that connection.”
The team is currently producing a final episode before moving onto the podcast’s second season. Find the episodes here.
Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
The Senate on Thursday rejected legislation to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits, essentially guaranteeing that millions of Americans will see a steep rise in costs at the beginning of the year.
Senators rejected a Democratic bill to extend the subsidies for three years and a Republican alternative that would have created new health savings accounts — an unceremonious end to a monthslong effort by Democrats to prevent the COVID-19-era subsidies from expiring on Jan. 1.
Ahead of the votes, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned Republicans that if they did not vote to extend the tax credits, “there won’t be another chance to act,” before premiums rise for many people who buy insurance off the ACA marketplaces.
“Let’s avert a disaster,” Schumer said. “The American people are watching.”
Republicans have argued that Affordable Care Act plans are too expensive and need to be overhauled. The health savings accounts in the GOP bill would give money directly to consumers instead of to insurance companies, an idea that has been echoed by President Donald Trump.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said ahead of the vote that a simple extension of the subsidies is “an attempt to disguise the real impact of Obamacare’s spiraling health care costs.”
But Democrats immediately rejected the GOP plan, saying that the accounts wouldn’t be enough to cover costs for most consumers.
The dueling Senate votes are the latest political messaging exercise in a Congress that has operated almost entirely on partisan terms, as Republicans pushed through a massive tax and spending cuts bill this summer using budget maneuvers that eliminated the need for Democratic votes. In September, Republicans tweaked Senate rules to push past a Democratic blockade of all of Trump’s nominees.
The Senate voted 51-48 not to move forward on the Democratic bill, with four Republicans — Maine Sen. Susan Collins, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley and Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan — voting with Democrats. The legislation needed 60 votes to proceed, as did the Republican bill, which was also blocked on a 51-48 vote.
No interest in compromise
Some Republicans have pushed their colleagues to extend the credits, including Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who said they should vote for a short-term extension so they can find agreement on the issue next year. “It’s too complicated and too difficult to get done in the limited time that we have left,” Tillis said Wednesday.
But there appeared to be little interest in compromise. Despite the potential for bipartisan agreement, Republicans and Democrats have never engaged in meaningful or high-level negotiations on a solution, even after a small group of centrist Democrats struck a deal with Republicans last month to end the 43-day government shutdown in exchange for a vote on extending the ACA subsidies. Most Democratic lawmakers opposed the move as many Republicans made clear that they wanted the tax credits to expire.
Still, the deal raised hopes for bipartisan compromise on health care. But that quickly faded with a lack of any real bipartisan talks.
An intractable issue
The votes were also the latest failed salvo in the debate over the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature law that Democrats passed along party lines in 2010 to expand access to insurance coverage.
Republicans have tried unsuccessfully since then to repeal or overhaul the law, arguing that health care is still too expensive. But they have struggled to find an alternative. In the meantime, Democrats have made the policy a central political issue in several elections, betting that the millions of people who buy health care on the government marketplaces want to keep their coverage.
“When people’s monthly payments spike next year, they’ll know it was Republicans that made it happen,” Schumer said in November, while making clear that Democrats would not seek compromise.
Even if they view it as a political win, the failed votes are a loss for Democrats who demanded an extension of the benefits as they forced a government shutdown for six weeks in October and November — and for the millions of people facing premium increases on Jan. 1.
Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said the group tried to negotiate with Republicans after the shutdown ended. But, he said, the talks became unproductive when Republicans demanded language adding new limits for abortion coverage that were a “red line” for Democrats. He said Republicans were going to “own these increases.”
A plethora of plans, but little agreement
Republicans have used the looming expiration of the subsidies to renew their longstanding criticisms of the ACA, also called Obamacare, and to try, once more, to agree on what should be done.
Thune announced earlier this week that the GOP conference had decided to vote on the bill led by Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee, and Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, even as several Republican senators proposed alternate ideas.
In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has promised a vote next week. Republicans weighed different options in a conference meeting on Wednesday, with no apparent consensus.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, R-Calif., has pushed for a temporary extension, which he said could be an opening to take further steps on health care.
If they fail to act and health care costs go up, the approval rating for Congress “will get even lower,” Kiley said.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Joel Brennan, former top Cabinet official for Gov. Tony Evers, has joined the Democratic primary for governor, vowing to “stand up to Trump’s dysfunction” and be “laser-focused” on improving people’s lives if elected.
In a campaign launch video released Thursday, Brennan discussed growing up with 10 siblings in Wisconsin in a family that was “long on potential, although sometimes a little short on resources.” Brennan talks about working a variety of jobs to get through college and boasts that his first car didn’t even have working taillights.
Brennan described getting a call from Evers in 2018, asking him to lead the Department of Administration “as his top Cabinet official.” Brennan served in that role from 2019 through 2021. During that time, he said the administration put the state on firmer financial footing and generated a state budget surplus of nearly $4 billion. He also said the administration “stood up to the extremists” and offered assistance to thousands of small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“But today, thanks to Donald Trump’s chaos and incompetence, the numbers just aren’t adding up for Wisconsin families,” Brennan says in the video. “Costs, like everything else, are out of control. And coming from a family that had to make every dollar count, I know what that feels like.”
Brennan’s video ends with a nod to the race for the Legislature, where Democrats are hoping to flip Republican majorities for the first time in more than a decade. He said with “fair maps” and a Democratic governor, “we can stay true to our values and deliver change.”
Brennan is currently the president of the Greater Milwaukee Committee. Prior to joining Evers’ administration, he was CEO of the Discovery World museum for 11 years. He also worked previously for the Redevelopment Authority of Milwaukee and the Greater Milwaukee Convention and Visitors Bureau. He was a legislative assistant to Democrat Tom Barrett when Barrett served in Congress.
Brennan joins an already crowded field of Democrats vying for the party’s nomination. Other candidates to announce include Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Madison state Sen. Kelda Roys, Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong, former Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. CEO Missy Hughes and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes.
Only two Republicans — U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Minocqua, and Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann — are running for the GOP nomination at this point. It’s been reported that former Republican gubernatorial candidate Tim Michels, who lost to Evers in 2022, and former Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde, who lost to Tammy Baldwin in 2024, are also considering entering the 2026 race for governor.
Reading Time: 6minutesClick here to read highlights from the story
Free clinics like Bread of Healing in Milwaukee and Open Arms Free Clinic in Walworth County serve as a final safety net for community members who can’t afford health care.
They are bracing for higher demand as more residents are expected to forgo insurance as a crucial tax credit is set to expire and premiums spike.
Clinic staff say they may need more resources to meet demand.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday rejected dueling plans related to helping people pay for plans on the federal marketplace.
Listen to Addie Costello’s story from WPR.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to note the U.S. Senate’s rejection on Thursday of legislation to address the expected rise in health care premiums.
Cars filled the small parking lot outside of Milwaukee’s Cross Lutheran Church on a recent Monday afternoon. The church’s pews sat empty, but downstairs visitors waited around folding tables. Not to hear a sermon, but to see a volunteer physician.
Staff and volunteers walked patients past a row of dividers used to separate the “waiting room” from the folding tables where doctors and counselors filled out paperwork.
In front of the free health clinic’s four exam rooms, two phones rang.
“This is the Bread of Healing Clinic. Can you hold for a moment?” asked Diane Hill Horton, the free health clinic’s assistant.
Across from Hill Horton, another staff member scheduled an appointment in Spanish.
On a typical Monday, the clinic sees up to 30 patients. Bread of Healing treated 2,400 patients in 2024 across three clinics it runs in Milwaukee. Patients typically lack any health coverage and aren’t asked to pay for their visits.
“We don’t turn anyone away,” Hill Horton said.
Diane Hill Horton talks with a patient at the Bread of Healing Clinic, Nov. 24, 2025, in Milwaukee. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Dr. Greg Von Roenn talks with Dr. Barbara Horner-Ibler at the Bread of Healing Clinic, Nov. 24, 2025, in Milwaukee. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
But without action from lawmakers in Washington, clinic staff worry that it will become harder to answer every call.
Free clinics like Bread of Healing serve as a final safety net for community members who can’t afford health care. They are bracing for higher demand as more residents are expected to forgo insurance as a crucial tax credit is set to expire and premiums spike.
Affordable Care Act premiums in Wisconsin will increase on average by 17.4% next year, a previous Wisconsin Watch analysis showed, with wide variation depending on age, income, family status and geography. Meanwhile, experts estimate more than 270,000 Wisconsinites rely on the enhanced premium tax credit to make insurance more affordable. It will expire at the end of the month without intervention.
People without insurance are less likely to get preventative care. Bread of Healing focuses on treating chronic conditions to prevent people from overwhelming emergency rooms, said Executive Director Erica Wright.
“If we don’t try our best to move with that demand, we’re not going to be able to see as many people, and there’s going to be a lot of folks falling through the cracks,” she said.
Wright oversees all three Bread of Healing locations. While the clinics have some room to take on more patients right now, she wants to significantly increase their capacity over the next year — adding money and volunteers to serve a possible “monsoon” of demand.
“We’re never going to be able to serve everybody, we know that,” Wright said. “But I don’t want it to be where our phones are ringing off the hook and we just can’t meet at least a good chunk of the demand.”
Executive Director Erica Wright is shown at the Bread of Healing Clinic in Milwaukee, Nov. 24, 2025. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Higher premiums and shrinking options
Ashley Bratz paid about $545 a month for a low-deductible marketplace plan this year. That same plan cost over $700 when she went to sign up for 2026.
Even with her job at Open Arms Free Clinic in Walworth County covering a portion of her health care costs, the only option in Bratz’s price range had deductibles higher than what she expects to spend.
“It’s supposed to be reasonable, and this is not reasonable,” Bratz said.
The names of clinic volunteers are shown on a board at Open Arms Free Clinic in Elkhorn, Wis., Dec. 2, 2025. (Addie Costello / WPR and Wisconsin Watch)
Bratz, who works as the nurse clinic coordinator, said she did not receive enhanced marketplace subsidies this year. Those who did will face a particular shock as the tax credit expires — while also confronting rising prices and shrinking options.
The income-based tax credits have lowered some marketplace enrollees’ monthly premium payments since they became available in 2014.
In 2021, the federal government expanded those subsidies, further bringing costs down for lower-income enrollees and extending smaller subsidies to people making over four times the federal poverty level — $62,600 a year for one person in 2025.
Without an extension, monthly premiums are expected to more than double on average nationally for subsidized enrollees, according to KFF, an independent source for health policy research.
A quarter of enrollees surveyed by KFF said they were “very likely” to go without insurance if their premiums doubled.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday rejected a Democratic plan to extend marketplace subsidies. Republicans, who have long criticized the Affordable Care Act (ACA), have instead called for a broader overhaul. The Senate also rejected a Republican plan that would have expanded access to high-deductible insurance plans and deposit $1,000 to $1,500 in enrollees’ health savings accounts — without renewing enhanced subsidies.
Sara Nichols, Open Arms Free Clinic executive director, is shown Dec. 2, 2025, in Elkhorn, Wis. (Addie Costello / WPR and Wisconsin Watch)
Sara Nichols, Open Arms Clinic executive director, is forging ahead regardless. When Bratz told her about her shrinking affordable coverage options, Nichols started working with an insurance broker to find a new plan for the clinic’s small team of paid staff.
“We cannot have health care workers not have health insurance,” Nichols said.
The move left Bratz relieved. Now she’s preparing to help more clients who can’t afford coverage or just need help navigating the complicated system.
They face challenges beyond lost subsidies and premium hikes. President Donald Trump’s “big” bill-turned law included additional changes to Medicaid funding and the ACA that are expected to increase the number of people without insurance by 10 million over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“We always take what is thrown at us and we figure out how to handle it,” Bratz said. “Do I think we could also use more help? Yes.”
Resources needed to meet demand
Open Arms Free Clinic is already seeing higher demand, Nichols said.
It operates a dental clinic five days a week, and she’s considering whether further demand would require opening its medical clinic for an additional day.
That would take more volunteers and money.
While the Legislature sent state dollars to free clinics in its latest budget, private grants and donations have been harder to secure this year, Nichols said. She expects the clinic will have to get even leaner next year.
But she won’t start turning patients away.
The clinic provides dental, medical and behavioral health to low-income people who live and work in Walworth County. Its 250 volunteers help with things like translating, nursing, greeting patients and connecting people to the clinic. They also provide vision and pharmacy services.
“I know that we have enough smart people and kind people that we’re going to come up with a solution to anything that comes up,” Nichols said.
Steven Thompson counts out a patient’s medication at the Bread of Healing Clinic, Nov. 24, 2025, in Milwaukee. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
This is far from the first time Wisconsin’s free clinics have faced big changes, said Dennis Skrajewski, the executive director of the Wisconsin Association of Free and Charitable Clinics.
Free clinics adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic, operating with fewer volunteers and switching to telehealth services and opening vaccine programs, Skrajewski said. Then clinics prepped for increased demand in 2023 after Medicaid unwinding.
“We’re used to waking up and the world changed yesterday, so we’ll adjust,” Skrajewski said.
Wisconsin’s free and charitable clinic association is collaborating with other safety net health providers as part of the Wisconsin Owns Wellbeing initiative, which will host statewide planning meetings to strengthen the state’s safety net services.
Clinic co-founder: ‘I just wish it weren’t needed’
Rick Cesar started working as a parish nurse at Cross Lutheran Church in the 1990s. He took people’s blood pressure at a weekly food pantry and ran an HIV testing site and needle exchange out of the church’s basement.
He helped co-found the Bread of Healing Clinic in 2000, a decade before the ACA passed.
“There were so many people that had no coverage,” Cesar said.
An exam room is shown at the Bread of Healing Clinic in Milwaukee, Nov. 24, 2025. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Brochures sit on shelves at the Bread of Healing Clinic in Milwaukee, Nov. 24, 2025. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Demand for free services persisted even after more people enrolled in marketplace plans. The clinic expanded to two other locations and hired paid staff. Cesar retired from nursing in 2019 but still regularly volunteers. He feels proud watching the clinic grow.
“I just wish it weren’t needed,” he said.
The clinic is adaptable, Cesar said, whether it’s responding to a pandemic with vaccine drives or helping clients navigate ACA changes.
“We’re going to be here and do as much as we can,” Cesar said. “But those resources, you never know how long they are going to last when the demand is so great.”
Looking for a free clinic?
Find a map of free or charitable clinics near you at wafcclinics.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Homosexual acts are illegal in 65 countries, according to several reports.
U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan, a Madison-area Democrat, alluded to the number Dec. 3.
Human Dignity Trust, which uses litigation to challenge laws that target people based on sexual orientation or gender identity, says all or parts of 65 countries criminalize same-sex, consensual sexual activity. All criminalize men; 41 criminalize women.
The continent with the most bans is Africa, with 32 countries.
In North America, the maximum punishment in Jamaica, Grenada and Saint Vincent is 10 years imprisonment.
The ILGA World advocacy group also counts 65 countries, including seven that impose the death penalty: Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, parts of Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Uganda and Yemen. 76crimes.com, which tracks anti-LGBTI laws, says 65 is down from 92 in 2006. The latest to criminalize homosexuality was Burkina Faso in West Africa on Sept. 1, 2025.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Wisconsin clerks say two decisions on legislation this week — a new law expanding towns’ ability to hire clerks and a veto that blocks broader standing to sue election officials — will help ease mounting pressure on local election offices, which have faced record turnover and increasing legal threats.
The new law allows small towns to more easily hire clerks who live outside of municipal limits, a change clerks say is urgently needed as finding small-town clerks has become harder in recent years amid increased scrutiny, new laws and ever-evolving rules. As the new law moved through the Legislature, some small towns ran elections with no clerks at all.
“There are lots of townships that will benefit from this,” said Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood, a Republican. “It’s going to help tremendously.”
In the past, towns with fewer than 2,500 residents had to hold a referendum to authorize appointing clerks instead of electing them. That took time, and the election requirement restricted who could serve, since elected clerks — unlike appointed clerks — must live within municipal boundaries.
The new law allows towns to switch to appointing clerks after a vote at a town meeting.
It also eliminates another hurdle: In the past, even if a town approved the switch, it couldn’t take effect until the end of a term. The law lets towns make the change immediately if the clerk position is vacant or becomes vacant.
That could be critical: Between 2020 and 2024, more than 700 of Wisconsin’s municipal clerks left their posts, the highest churn in the nation, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. Trueblood said this proposal won’t be a complete fix to the clerk shortage but will go a long way toward easing it by allowing municipalities to recruit more broadly.
Likely beneficiaries of the new law include the town of Wausau, whose longtime clerk retired late last year. Town supervisors then appointed a town resident, who quit after two weeks, forcing supervisors to collectively assume the clerk’s duties for the April election.
In that election, the town put forth a referendum to permanently switch to appointing clerks, but voters rejected it by a narrow margin — something that Town Supervisor Sharon Hunter said was a matter of people not understanding why the measure was critical. The town also elected a clerk, but that same clerk quit in September and the town is once again without a clerk.
“There’s just a lot of different responsibilities,” Hunter said. “And I don’t think people realize that it’s not like in the olden days.”
Hunter added that she’s “very excited” about the new law.
“Elections are coming,” she said, “so we really need to find someone very quickly.”
Veto maintains high bar to appealing complaints
Clerks also welcomed Evers’ Friday veto of a bill that would have made it easier to sue election officials by expanding who has standing to appeal Wisconsin Elections Commission decisions in court.
The Democratic governor’s veto preserves a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision issued earlier this year that limits who can appeal WEC decisions to those who “suffer an injury to a legally recognized interest.” Republicans wrote the bill to expand standing to any eligible voters who file a complaint, regardless of whether they suffered harm — a change clerks warned would overwhelm election offices and the courts.
In his veto message, Evers echoed clerks’ concerns, saying the proposal would “open the floodgates to frivolous lawsuits that not only burden our courts, but our election systems as well.”
But Republicans said that despite clerks’ objections, the veto will make it difficult or even impossible to hold election officials accountable for breaking the law.
State Sen. Van Wanggaard, the Republican who wrote the bill, said it could stop a variety of complaints from going to court.
“The little guy gets screwed again,” he said in a statement. “This veto makes WEC an unanswerable body whose judgment can never be questioned by anyone.”
In the past, many lawsuits against clerks and other election officials began as administrative complaints filed with WEC before being appealed to court. Filing a complaint with the agency is the legally required first step for most election-related challenges, unless they are brought by district attorneys or the attorney general.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court decision that prompted the bill halted a lawsuit that challenged the legality of a mobile voting van in Racine. The court did not settle the underlying issue, instead dismissing the case because the liberals who hold a majority on the court determined the plaintiff had no standing.
Given the veto, that situation could recur, with legal questions about elections being left open because cases seeking to resolve them are ultimately dismissed over standing.
At the federal level, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year heard oral arguments in an Illinois case over the legal standard political candidates must meet to challenge state election laws. A decision is pending.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
It’s hard to believe how much Wisconsin Watch has evolved since I joined in 2019, initially as investigations editor. We had just seven full-time staff members and a cycle of fellows and interns who powered most of our journalism. Weeks and even months would pass between publication of our investigative and explanatory stories as we pursued our mission of increasing the quality and quantity of investigative reporting in Wisconsin.
Six years later, we’re a far different, much bigger organization. We have about 30 editorial and business staff across multiple newsrooms, and we’re responding to community needs in real time through a more frequent mix of stories. Although investigative journalism remains our strength, our broadened mission is to use journalism to make Wisconsin communities strong, informed and connected.
So it’s worth a reminder of all the places where you can find our free reporting every day:
On the air, whether it’s through our partnerships with WPR, Civic Media or other broadcasters.
In print! We still share our work for free with newspapers across the state and country. If you’re in Madison this month, check out the latest issue of Isthmus to see the first in our three-part series on how spending on Supreme Court elections shattered national records.
What’s your favorite way to interact with us? And where else would you like to see us? We’d love to hear from you as we consider where to grow next. You can reach me at jmalewitz@wisconsinwatch.org.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
A new vision for passenger rail is on track in southeastern Wisconsin. The MARK Rail project — short for Milwaukee Area-Racine-Kenosha Passenger Rail — has officially launched, replacing the long-discussed KRM commuter rail proposal with a faster, more focused intercity rail plan connecting Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha and Chicago.
The MARK Passenger Rail Commission held its inaugural meeting on Dec. 5, 2025, at Racine City Hall, where members adopted bylaws, elected officers and approved the next step in seeking federal funding. This marks a fairly significant milestone in a decades-long effort to restore passenger rail to the Lake Michigan shoreline.
“We believe this is a really transformative option for this region,” one project consultant said during the meeting. “It connects Racine, Kenosha and Milwaukee to a world-class economic region and cultural center to jobs, education, redevelopment and attracting new businesses.”
New name, new approach
This is not just a rebranding of the KRM proposal. Instead, MARK Rail is a strategic shift from a commuter model to intercity passenger rail, in line with new federal funding opportunities.
Unlike KRM, which envisioned multiple local stops, MARK Rail will prioritize speed and direct service between urban hubs. This change not only improves travel time but also positions the project for funding through the Federal Railroad Administration’s Corridor Identification and Development Program, which supports intercity rail.
Federal funding pathway chosen
After reviewing options, the commission chose to pursue funding through the FRA’s Corridor ID program, rather than the Federal Transit Administration’s New Starts program, which had been used in past KRM planning. The Corridor ID program offers a higher federal match, more technical support and a phased development structure.
“The Corridor ID program has a lower local match and allows us to build capacity over time,” said Wendy Messenger of DB Engineering & Consulting. “It’s a better fit for this project and gives us more flexibility with service design and coordination.”
According to documents shared at the meeting, the federal share under the FRA program can reach 90% during early phases, compared to 60% under FTA’s New Starts.
The newly formed MARK Passenger Rail Commission replaces earlier planning bodies such as the Southeastern Regional Transit Authority and the KRM Steering Committee. Its structure and purpose are outlined in the proposed bylaws, which were adopted at the Dec. 5 meeting.
“The purpose of the Commission is to advance the public interest by pursuing the development, implementation, and provision of passenger rail service,” the bylaws state.
The commission is governed by representatives from the cities of Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha, with Racine Mayor Cory Mason as chair, former Revenue Secretary Peter Barca as vice chair, and Milwaukee Ald. Bob Bauman as secretary/treasurer. Each seat will be elected annually.
The bylaws allow for both regular and special meetings and permit in-person, virtual or hybrid formats to improve public access.
Partnership with Metra moves forward
Since the proposed rail line would share the Union Pacific corridor currently used by Metra’s UP-North line, coordination with Metra is essential. A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the MARK Commission and Metra was introduced at the meeting, laying the groundwork for collaboration on scheduling, fares, equipment and infrastructure planning.
“Metra and the MARK Commission will work together to develop the Operations Plan that is mutually agreeable,” the MOU states. It also specifies that Metra’s support beyond standard duties may require a reimbursement agreement.
The MOU confirms that Metra will not be the operator, but will be a key stakeholder because of its current presence along the corridor and its expertise in rail operations.
Next steps and timeline
The commission voted to authorize preparation of an application for the next Corridor ID grant cycle, expected in early 2026. If selected, the project would then move into the Service Development Plan phase, followed by preliminary engineering, environmental review and, eventually, construction.
“We’re already doing a lot of the work now,” said Clayton Johanson of DB. “There will need to be refinements, but we’re in a really great position to continue to advance.”
The full timeline could stretch over several years, with local match funding becoming necessary starting in Step 2 of the Corridor ID process. Officials have discussed using remaining funds from Racine’s federal planning grant to help meet those needs.
A regional vision focused on cities
One strategic decision behind the project’s current direction is its urban focus. By centering the effort in Milwaukee, Racine and Kenosha, the commission is avoiding the jurisdictional and political complications that kept KRM from becoming a reality.
This includes sidestepping debates over governance authority — particularly since regional transit authorities are no longer permitted under Wisconsin law. The MARK Commission, on the other hand, is legal under state statutes and modeled after similar rail commissions elsewhere in Wisconsin.
This story was originally published by Racine County Eye and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release Dailin Pacheco-Acosta from custody on Wednesday, less than a day after an immigration court judge in Chicago granted asylum to Pacheco-Acosta and her husband, Diego Ugarte-Arenas.
Pacheco-Acosta did not immediately leave Campbell County Detention Center in Kentucky, which contracts with ICE to hold detainees facing immigration charges. The couple’s attorney, Ben Crouse, told Wisconsin Watch he filed a new bond motion for Pacheco-Acosta on Wednesday afternoon, and she will return to Madison once the immigration court approves her bond.
But her husband will remain in custody in the Dodge County Jail while awaiting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s potential appeal of the couple’s asylum claim.
If DHS appeals and Ugarte-Arenas remains in custody, their next legal phase could take another 6 months. But Crouse noted another lawsuit winding through federal courts could reopen the more straightforward path for immigrants in ICE custody to be released on bond. That case sits in the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Wisconsin.
If ICE releases Ugarte-Arenas from the Dodge County Jail, the couple’s case would shift to the immigration court system’s “non-detained docket,” Crouse said, where cases move far slower than those of immigrants in custody.
Judge Eva Saltzman sided with Dailin Pacheco-Acosta and Diego Ugarte-Arenas on Tuesday afternoon, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – ICE’s parent agency – reserved the right to appeal.
The ruling does not automatically free the couple from ICE custody.
“It’s not over,” said Ben Crouse, the couple’s Milwaukee-based attorney.
Ugarte-Arenas remains in the Dodge County jail, which contracts with ICE to hold immigrants facing deportation, and Pacheco-Acosta sits in a county jail in northern Kentucky. A recent Trump administration policy has prevented them from posting bond and continuing their asylum case from Madison, where they settled in 2021 after fleeing Venezuela.
The couple crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without a visa, but because of a clerical error by Customs and Border Patrol officers they encountered near Eagle Pass, Texas, they did not initially land before an immigration court and were instead able to file for asylum with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services upon reaching Wisconsin. The couple refiled for asylum with the immigration court in Chicago after their arrests in October. Neither has a past criminal conviction nor a pending criminal charge.
As they await the next step in their legal battle, the Trump administration is defending the policy that has kept the couple in custody for more than a month, even after a federal judge in California challenged its legality. How higher courts rule will determine whether thousands of immigrants in ICE custody can post bond for the first time in months.
A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office at 310 E. Knapp St. in Milwaukee. (Jonathan Aguilar / Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service / CatchLight Local)
Trump officials seek ‘mandatory detention’
Reversing decades of precedent, DHS announced in July that most immigrants in ICE custody would be ineligible for bond and are instead subject to “mandatory detention.” The Board of Immigration Appeals, a body within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that sets rules for immigration courts, sided with DHS in September.
But a Nov. 20 ruling by U.S. Judge Sunshine Sykes of the Central District of California gave the Madison couple and ICE detainees nationwide a moment of optimism.
Sykes partially ruled on the side of four undocumented immigrants ICE picked up during a June immigration raid in Los Angeles. The four immigrants, represented by attorneys from multiple immigrant rights organizations, had filed a class action lawsuit challenging the rule after they were denied bond.
But both DHS and DOJ, which oversees immigration court judges, argue Sykes’ decision doesn’t apply to all immigrants in similar positions nationwide. Many immigration court judges, including in Chicago, the court with jurisdiction over most immigrants detained in Wisconsin, have continued to deny bond hearings for immigrants in custody, citing the administration’s reasoning.
DOJ spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly said department leaders are not instructing immigration judges to specifically reject bond motions.
“Immigration judges are independent adjudicators and decide all matters before them on a case-by-case basis,” Mattingly wrote in a statement to Wisconsin Watch.
Next steps for Madison couple
Crouse, the couple’s attorney, filed motions seeking the Madison couple’s bond before the California ruling. Their motions, even if futile, could help clarify the scope of Sykes’ ruling, he said.
Crouse and other attorneys are separately testing the last remaining pathway to release: filing “habeas petitions” asking judges to rule on the lawfulness of their clients’ detention. A district court judge in Milwaukee denied a petition for Ugarte-Arenas on Monday, and Pacheco-Acosta is still awaiting a decision from a judge in Kentucky. If Pacheco-Acosta’s petition is successful, she will receive a bond hearing.
Back in Chicago, Judge Saltzman is preparing a written order outlining her reasoning for granting the couple asylum. DHS signaled plans to challenge her decision before the Board of Immigration appeals. It has 30 days to do so after Saltzman releases her written order.
Though Crouse called the couple’s case strong — not least because of mounting U.S. military actions in Venezuela — he noted that recent board decisions siding with DHS mean nothing is assured.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
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