Cuban asylum seeker Miguel Jerez Robles returned to family in McFarland on Thursday, a month after ICE agents arrested him following a routine immigration hearing in Miami.
His arrest was one of the first in a wave of courthouse arrests, which appear to be part of a new strategy by President Donald Trump’s administration to send many people who were in legal immigration processes on a fast-track to deportation. Jerez spent the next four weeks at an ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington, uncertain what his future would hold.
Now, he is home.
“I still don’t believe it. I say it’s a miracle from God,” said Jerez, who got word he’d be released on his own recognizance just minutes before he was scheduled to request a bond before a judge.
Jerez still doesn’t know why he was arrested, or why he’s now been released. Andrew Billmann, a family friend, contacted Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin as soon as Jerez was detained. Jerez said he thinks that effort, along with news coverage about his detention, likely helped.
Miguel Jerez Robles hugs his sister Vivianne at Chicago O’Hare International Airport as his mother Celeste Robles Chacón (foreground) and wife Geraldine Cruz Dip look on. Jerez spent the last month at an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Washington. (Courtesy of Geraldine Cruz Dip)
He was released on Wednesday with just one other person, a fellow Cuban asylum seeker, though he says he met many other immigrants who came to the detention center in similar circumstances.
“They’d been living in the U.S. for three years. They had no criminal record. … Their cases were dismissed, and they were detained outside the courtroom,” Jerez said. “And they’re still detained.”
As he collected his clothes to leave the Northwest ICE Processing Center on Wednesday, an official told him just how unusual his situation was.
“He told me, ‘You’re very lucky because right now we’re not releasing anyone. Everyone who leaves here is going back to their country, or they’ve won an asylum case while detained, or they’ve gotten out on bond,’” Jerez said.
He agrees that he’s lucky. “There are a lot of people who don’t have the resources to pay for a lawyer. It’s very sad, what I saw inside there.”
Before his release, Jerez was connected with a local immigrant aid organization that brought him to the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Billmann said.
“We booked a redeye for him, from (Seattle) to (Chicago),” Billmann wrote in a text message to the Cap Times and Wisconsin Watch Friday.
Billmann and his wife, Kathy, joined Jerez’s wife, sister and mother to pick him up at the airport Thursday morning.
Escape from Cuba
When Jerez crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in 2022, he turned himself in to Border Patrol agents and asked for asylum. He’d participated in protests against Cuba’s communist government in 2021 and had been targeted by the police and government ever since, his family said during his detention. Federal and international law requires the United States to allow people to apply for asylum if they fear persecution in their home countries based on their politics or identity.
At the time, Joe Biden was president and border agents routinely allowed asylum seekers to enter the country with temporary legal protections while their cases were pending in immigration court — a process that can take years due to court system backlogs.
Jerez hired a lawyer and followed the steps required by law. Then U.S. voters elected a new president who promised to carry out mass deportations. In January, Trump issued an executive order suspending legal protections for asylum seekers. In May, immigrant advocates say, judges began coordinating with ICE agents to dismiss asylum cases and detain asylum seekers in courthouses.
Jerez was detained in the first few days of that new strategy at courthouses, his attorney said. Jerez had flown to Miami with his wife and mother for the first hearing in his asylum case, usually just a bureaucratic step. Instead, at the request of the federal government’s attorney, the judge tossed his claim without explanation.
During the No Kings protest in McFarland, Andrew Billmann spreads the word about his friend, McFarland resident Miguel Jerez Robles, a Cuban asylum seeker who was detained by immigration officers outside his immigration hearing in Miami. (Ruthie Hauge / The Cap Times)
Plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents met him outside the courtroom, arresting him and placing him in expedited removal proceedings, where immigrants can face immediate deportation unless they can show a “credible fear” of persecution in their home country for their politics or identity.
ICE gives no reason for release
Just like his arrest, Jerez’s release left his lawyers and family with questions.
Billmann said he received an email from Baldwin’s office informing them Jerez would be released Wednesday.
Ismael Labrador with the Miami-based Gallardo Law Firm, said Friday ICE gave the legal team no explanation for Jerez’s release.
“We didn’t get anything from the deportation officer regarding the reason why he got released. We just got the good news,” Labrador said, noting the legal team got the call on Wednesday.
The Department of Homeland Security claimed Jerez was taken into custody because he entered the U.S. “illegally.”
“Most aliens who illegally entered the United States within the past two years are subject to expedited removals,” the DHS wrote in an email Friday. “(Former President Joe) Biden ignored this legal fact and chose to release millions of illegal aliens, including violent criminals, into the country with a notice to appear before an immigration judge. ICE is now following the law and placing these illegal aliens, like Miguel Jerez Robles, in expedited removal.”
“(Homeland Security) Secretary Noem is reversing Biden’s catch and release policy that allowed millions of unvetted illegal aliens to be let loose on American streets,” the DHS wrote in the email.
Jerez arrived in the U.S. more than two years ago and has no criminal record.
The department did not respond to follow up questions on why Jerez was released.
Baldwin played role behind the scenes
Baldwin confirmed Friday her office pushed for Jerez’s release.
“From day one, the Trump Administration has sought to divide our communities by attacking immigrants – from executive orders to new policies,” Baldwin wrote in an emailed statement.
The senator became involved after Billmann contacted her office in May.
U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin pushed for the release of asylum seeker Miguel Jerez Robles, who was arrested in an apparent Trump administration strategy to send many people who were in legal immigration processes on a fast-track to deportation. Baldwin is shown on Sept. 4, 2024, in Milwaukee. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Her office contacted ICE, requesting information on the reason behind Jerez’s detention and the status of his case.
“After that they checked in with us from time to time,” Billmann wrote in a text message to the Cap Times and Wisconsin Watch. “(But) Wednesday was a total surprise.”
The senator’s office said it followed up multiple times with the ICE’s Seattle field office seeking more information on Jerez’s request for release. On June 24, ICE officials told Baldwin’s office they had no record of a request for release, at which point the senator’s office connected with Jerez’s legal team and re-sent the request to the Seattle office.
“I am glad to have been able to help Miguel reunite with his family and stand ready to continue to fight for Wisconsinites facing similar situations,” Baldwin’s statement said.
Billmann said he and his wife, Kathy, postponed a planned vacation this week after hearing Jerez was coming home.
“This was a better way to spend the (days),” Billmann said.
Future remains unclear
Despite the family’s joyous reunion, Jerez’s future remains shrouded in uncertainty.
Geraldine Cruz Dip and husband Miguel Jerez Robles sleep in the car on the drive from Chicago to McFarland Thursday morning after Jerez was released from immigration detention. (Courtesy of Geraldine Cruz Dip)
On June 12, while at the detention center in Tacoma, Jerez completed an interview to assess the validity of his fear of persecution in Cuba.
Jerez’s attorney said the law firm has not yet received the results and does not know when it will receive that information.
“We should have gotten that by now,” Labrador said.
Labrador said Friday he and other lawyers had appealed Jerez’s expedited removal as soon as he was arrested in May. If Jerez wins that appeal, they will file a second asylum request. If he loses that appeal, he may be forced to return to ICE custody.
For now, Jerez said, it looks like he may be back where he was before his month-long imprisonment. When he was released from detention on Wednesday, he was handed the same I-220A form he’d received when he crossed the U.S. border.
He and his wife, Geraldine Cruz Dip, said they’re glad for a fresh chance to make his asylum case “in freedom.”
The liberal-controlled Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to hear challenges brought by Democrats seeking to throw out the battleground state’s current congressional district boundaries before the 2026 midterms.
The decisions, made without explanation from the court, is a setback for Democrats who had hoped for new, friendlier district boundary lines in Wisconsin as they attempt to win back control of the House next year.
Democrats asked the court to redraw the maps, which would have put two of the state’s six congressional seats currently held by Republicans into play. It was the second time in as many years that the court had refused to hear the challenges.
Democrats hoped the court would revisit the congressional lines after it ordered state legislative boundaries redrawn. Democrats then picked up seats in the November election.
“It’s good that Wisconsin has fair maps at the state level, but we deserve them at the federal level as well,” Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan said. “Unfortunately, gerrymandered maps for members of Congress will remain in Wisconsin.”
Attorneys who brought the lawsuits did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
Republicans hold six of the state’s eight U.S. House seats, but only two of those districts are considered competitive.
Two requests to reconsider the congressional boundaries were filed with the court, which is controlled 4-3 by liberal justices. One came from the Elias Law Group, which represents Democratic groups and candidates, and the other came on behalf of voters by Campaign Legal Center.
Democrats argued that the court’s decision to redraw maps for state legislative districts a couple years ago opened the door to revisiting maps for U.S. House districts. They also argued that the current map violates the state constitution’s requirement that all Wisconsin residents be treated equally.
In 2010, the year before Republicans redrew the congressional maps, Democrats held five seats compared with three for Republicans.
The current congressional maps, drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, were approved by the state Supreme Court when it was controlled by conservative judges. The U.S. Supreme Court in March 2022 declined to block them from taking effect. And last year the state Supreme Court rejected a request to reconsider the maps without giving a reason as to why.
One of the seats that Democrats hope to flip is in western Wisconsin. Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden won an open seat in 2022 after longtime Democratic Rep. Ron Kind retired. Von Orden won reelection in the 3rd District in 2024.
The other seat they are eyeing is southeastern Wisconsin’s 1st District. Republican Rep. Bryan Steil has held it since 2019. The latest maps made that district more competitive but still favor Republicans.
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.
The Social Development Commission, or SDC, is asking the federal government to reverse a decision made by the state that could alter the anti-poverty agency’s funding options.
Here’s what we know.
The community action decision
The Wisconsin Department of Children and Families decided in May to remove the SDC’s community action agency status, effective July 3.
Although the department believes SDC has not been operating anti-poverty services since it shut down in April 2024, despite reopening in December, SDC’s leaders have said the state did not follow the proper process to make this decision.
Without this designation, SDC will not be eligible for a Community Services Block Grant, which is a small portion of its budget but significant to its efforts to pay back employees and rebuild its service programs.
How does a federal review work?
When a state decides to rescind community action status or the related block grant funding from a local agency, the agency can request a review from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services within 30 days.
SDC submitted a request for a review of the state’s community action decision to the department on June 9, citing concerns about due process.
The Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, will evaluate if the state’s determination process followed the guidanceon the termination or reduction of funding for entities eligible for the Community Services Block Grant, according to a spokesperson from the department.
The Division of Community Assistance, which is part of the Office of Community Services within the federal department, oversees block grant funding for community action agencies.
“I think that HHS is concerned about the process that was used to de-designate SDC, and so my expectation is that they will be talking to the state about the process,” said William Sulton, SDC’s attorney.
The Department of Children and Families received notification on June 11 from the Office of Community Services that SDC requested a review, but did not receive the request itself, according to Gina Paige, communications director for the department.
The review will be completed within 90 days of receiving all required documentation from the state, according to federal law. If not completed in the 90-day time frame, the state’s decision will be upheld.
As part of the request, SDC is asking the Department of Health and Human Services for direct financial assistance.
According to the CSBG Act, if a state violates the de-designation process – by terminating or reducing funding of an eligible entity before the state hearing and the secretary’s review – the Health and Human Services secretary is authorized to provide financial assistance to the entity affected until the violation is corrected.
SDC’s concerns
SDC raised two main concerns with the state’s determination process in the request, based on state and federal laws.
The first concern is that the public hearing on SDC’s community action status, held by the Department of Children and Families on April 4, did not meet the legal requirements of a “hearing on the record.”
“You’re supposed to be permitted to call witnesses and present evidence,” Sulton said. “… We were given seven minutes to make a speech, and that was it.”
SDC also says that both the Department of Children and Families’ secretary and the legislative bodies of the city of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County would have to sign off on the decision, based on a state statute that requires the legislative body that initially granted the agency community action status to approve rescinding it.
“They didn’t go out and get position statements from the city and the county’s legislative bodies,” Sulton said.
The department did not comment on these claims. (Paige previously said it has worked closely with the Office of Community Services and Milwaukee County to determine the process needed to move forward with de-designating SDC.)
Although Milwaukee County’s Office of Corporation Counsel submitted a letter to say it found no records of the Board of Supervisors taking action on SDC’s status as a community action agency, Sulton said that doesn’t mean there are no records.
He argues that this provision of the law, added in 1983, was put in place to protect SDC from arbitrary state action.
Funding deadline
In May, three state lawmakers asked SDC to consider voluntarily de-designating, which would allow the state and Milwaukee County to more quickly find an interim service provider to use SDC’s allocated funds in Milwaukee County.
The $1.18 million in 2024 block grant funding could be recouped by the federal government if not spent by Sept. 30, 2025, according to the Department of Children and Families.
However, Sulton said when he reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services before filing the review, an employee told him the 2024 funds had to be obligated by 2026.
“To the extent that anybody has the impression that this money has to be obligated by September or it’ll be lost, HHS says it’s not the case,” he said.
States and subrecipients usually have two years to distribute funds, but it depends on state-specific policies, according to HHS.
The state’s Sept. 30 deadline marks two years after the beginning of the 2024 fiscal year in October 2023, according to Paige.
Though Paige said that SDC’s request for review is perpetuating the lack of services in Milwaukee County, she added that the department plans to seek a six-month liquidation extension from the federal government.
“It’s quite possible that we’re gonna be on a really tight timeline to get that money out the door, so that’s why we’re hoping that we can work with the federal government and see if they can allow us an extension to expend it a little bit longer,” Paige said.
Board member changes
The SDC board added two commissioners in May – Milwaukee Public Schools appointed Michael Harris, and the Interfaith Conference of Greater Milwaukee appointed Peter Fetzer, an attorney at Foley & Lardner LLP.
In the last seven months, the SDC board has expanded from three to 10 commissioners, thanks to several appointments to vacant seats. The board is designed to have 18 members at full capacity.
Commissioner Lucero Ayala’s term has ended, according to Sulton. Ayala was nominated and selected last year to fill the remainder of Serina Chavez’s term as an elected commissioner.
Back in May, the federal agency AmeriCorps was hit hard when the Trump administration placed 85% of its staff on administrative leave, terminated nearly $400 million in federal contracts for the National Civilian Community Corps and reneged on over $550 million of congressionally approved funding for 2025.
Actions at the federal level don’t always have immediate local impact, but in this case, organizations across Wisconsin were in shock as funding that they had been counting on suddenly disappeared. We invited people who were affected to get in touch with Wisconsin Watch video journalist Trisha Young. Within a day, she had multiple interviews lined up.
Just as we were getting ready to publish a video with those interviews, a federal judge ruled that funding commitments for this year had to be honored for states – including Wisconsin – that had collectively sued the federal government over the AmeriCorps cuts.
Trisha quickly got in touch with the people she’d interviewed, many of whom were still processing the news. We decided that this roller-coaster experience was a critical part of the story — or in some ways, the main story — and we reshot the interviews.
We learned a lot from reporting this story, and we hope that viewers will consider a few questions as they watch the video: How much did you know about AmeriCorps and the programs it funds in Wisconsin? If you think these programs are doing valuable work, then how should they be funded?
A unanimous Wisconsin Supreme Court handed a victory to the Republican-controlled Legislature on Wednesday in a power struggle with Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, reining in the governor’s expansive veto powers.
The court, in a ruling where the four liberal justices joined with three conservatives, struck down Evers’ partial veto of a Republican bill in a case that tested both the limits of his veto powers and the Legislature’s ability to exert influence by controlling funding.
The court also ruled that the Legislature can put money for certain state programs into an emergency fund under the control of its budget committee. Evers had argued such a move was unconstitutional.
The ruling will likely result in the Legislature crafting the budget and other spending bills in similar ways to get around Evers’ partial vetoes and to have even greater control over spending.
The ruling against Evers comes after the court earlier this year upheld Evers’ partial veto that locked in a school funding increase for 400 years. The court last year issued a ruling that reined in some powers of the Legislature’s budget committee, while this ruling went the other way.
Evers clashes with Legislature
Evers, in his seventh year as governor, has frequently clashed with the Legislature and often used his broad veto powers to kill their proposals. Republican lawmakers have tried to take control away from the governor’s office by placing money to fund certain programs and state agencies in an emergency fund controlled by the Legislature’s budget committee. That gives the Legislature significant influence over that funding and the implementation of certain programs within the executive branch.
Evers argued that the Legislature is trying to limit his partial veto power and illegally control how the executive branch spends money.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday sided with the Legislature.
It ruled that Evers improperly used his partial veto on a bill that detailed the plan for spending on new literacy programs designed to improve K-12 students’ reading performance. The court also sided with the Legislature and said the budget committee can legally put money into an emergency fund to be distributed later. That is what it has done with the $50 million for the literacy program.
Fight over literacy funding
In 2023, Evers signed into law a bill that created an early literacy coaching program within the state Department of Public Instruction. The bill also created grants for schools that adopt approved reading curricula to pay for changing their programs and to train teachers on the new practices.
However, Republicans put the $50 million to pay for the new initiative in a separate emergency fund controlled by the Legislature’s budget committee. That money remains in limbo amid disagreements about how the money would be used and who would decide how to spend it.
Evers argued that the Legislature didn’t have the power to withhold the money and the court should order it to be released to the education department.
The Supreme Court declined to do that, saying the money was appropriated to the Legislature and the court has no authority to order it to be released to the education department to fund the literacy program.
Evers urged the Legislature’s budget committee to release the money.
Republican co-chairs of the committee said Wednesday they looked forward to releasing the money, and they blamed the governor’s veto with delaying it going to schools.
If no action is taken by Monday, the $50 million will go back into the state’s general fund.
The Legislature has been increasing the amount of money it puts in the emergency fund that it can release at its discretion, but it remains a small percentage of the total state budget. In the last budget, about $230 million was in the fund, or about half of a percentage point of the entire budget.
Evers used his partial veto power on another bill that created the mechanism for spending the $50 million for the new program. He argued that his changes would simplify the process and give DPI more flexibility. Evers also eliminated grants for private voucher and charter schools.
Republican legislators sued, contending that the governor illegally used his partial veto power.
State law allows only for a partial veto of bills that spend money. For all other bills, the governor must either sign or veto them in their entirety.
Because the bill Evers partially vetoed was a framework for spending, but didn’t actually allocate any money, his partial vetoes were unconstitutional, the Supreme Court said, agreeing with Republican lawmakers.
“The constitution gives the governor authority to veto in part only appropriation bills — not bills that are closely related to appropriation bills,” Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote.
Republican legislative leaders called the ruling a “rebuke” of Evers.
“While the Governor wanted to play politics with money earmarked for kids’ reading programs, it is encouraging to see the Court put an end to this game,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said in a joint statement.
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.
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Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit news company providing trustworthy reporting that investigates problems, explores solutions and serves the public. Our mission is to strengthen the quality of community life and self-government in Wisconsin by providing people with the knowledge they need to navigate their lives, drive forward solutions and hold those with power accountable. We pursue the truth through accurate, fair, independent, rigorous, nonpartisan reporting. We value transparency, collaboration, innovation and a spirit of public service. These priorities guide our investigations, which expose wrongdoing and deficiencies, explore solutions to problems and bear witness to those in vulnerable circumstances.
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The Wisconsin Supreme Court delivered a victory for environmentalists on Tuesday in the fight over “forever chemicals” known as PFAS, issuing a ruling that advocates said will hold polluters accountable.
The liberal-controlled court ruled that state regulators can force landowners to clean up emerging pollutants such as PFAS before they are officially designated as hazardous substances.
The 5-2 ruling is a defeat for the state’s powerful group representing businesses and manufacturers, which had argued the state couldn’t enforce regulations on substances before they were officially designated as hazardous.
It is the latest development in a yearslong battle in Wisconsin and nationally involving regulators, environmentalists, politicians and businesses over how to deal with PFAS contamination.
PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a group of chemicals that have been around for decades and have now spread into the nation’s air, water and soil.
They were manufactured by companies such as 3M, Chemours and others because they were incredibly useful. They helped eggs slide across nonstick frying pans, ensured that firefighting foam suffocates flames and helped clothes withstand the rain and keep people dry.
The chemicals resist breaking down, however, which means they stay around in the environment and have a hard time breaking down in the body. There is a wide range of health harms now associated with exposure to certain PFAS, including low birth weight, cancer and liver disease.
The Wisconsin case
The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in a case brought by the state’s largest business group, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, which sued the DNR in 2021 on behalf of Leather Rich, a dry cleaning business in Oconomowoc.
Leather Rich became aware of PFAS contamination in 2018 and was working on cleaning it up when the DNR posted a message online in 2019 saying it now considered PFAS chemicals a hazardous substance. The agency ordered the dry cleaner to test its groundwater for PFAS but didn’t tell the business which compounds it needed to test for or what levels would be considered dangerous.
WMC and Leather Rich argued the DNR can’t force businesses to test and clean up contamination from emerging pollutants like PFAS without first designating them as hazardous substances. That process can take years and requires approval from the Legislature. All that time, polluters could harm the environment and put people’s health and safety at risk with no obligation to begin cleanup, the DNR argued.
But Leather Rich argued that businesses have a right to know which substances are subject to regulation before spending time and money on cleanup.
The DNR appealed, saying the lower court’s ruling would neuter the state’s “spills law,” which was designed to confront pollution.
That law, enacted about 50 years ago, requires anyone who causes, possesses or controls a hazardous substance that’s been released into the environment to clean it up.
“Wisconsin’s Spills Law safeguards human health and the environment in real time by directly regulating parties responsible for a hazardous substance discharge,” Justice Janet Protasiewicz wrote for the majority.
No state law required the DNR to implement a rule before requiring Leather Rich to begin cleaning up the site, she wrote.
“The DNR has explicit authority to enforce a threshold for reporting the discharge of hazardous substances,” Protasiewicz wrote.
The court’s four liberal justices were joined by conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn in the majority. Conservative justices Annette Ziegler and Rebecca Bradley dissented.
In the dissent, they said the ruling allows bureaucrats to “impose rules and penalties on the governed without advance notice, oversight, or deliberation. In doing so, the majority violates three first principles fundamental to preserving the rule of law — and liberty.”
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and environmental advocates hailed the decision.
“This is a historic victory for the people of Wisconsin and my administration’s fight against PFAS and other harmful contaminants that are affecting families and communities across our state,” Evers said in a statement.
Rob Lee, attorney for Midwest Environmental Advocates, called the ruling “a victory for the health and wellbeing of the people of Wisconsin” that reinforces “a bedrock environmental and public health protection that has kept Wisconsinites safe from toxic contamination for almost 50 years.”
But Scott Manley, a vice president at WMC, said the ruling leaves it up to businesses and homeowners to guess about what is hazardous, leaving them subject to “crushing fines and endless, costly litigation.”
“This ruling blesses a regulatory approach that is fundamentally unfair, unworkable, and impossible to comply with,” Manley said.
Fight over PFAS regulation
Since the lawsuit was filed, additional state and federal regulations of PFAS have been put in place.
The state has imposed less restrictive limits on PFAS in surface and drinking water, defined as piped water delivered through public systems and noncommunity systems that serve places such as factories, schools and hotels.
But it has not implemented PFAS standards for groundwater, the source of drinking water for about two-thirds of Wisconsin residents. The agency stopped efforts to draft them in 2023 after determining that compliance would be too expensive.
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.
Recent presidents have repeatedly ordered military attacks on other countries despitequestions over whether congressional approval was needed.
The latest was Republican Donald Trump’s June 21 bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities. His administration said he had authority to limit nuclear proliferation.
Trump in 2017 cited national security interests for a missile strike on a Syrian base that was used to launch chemical weapon attacks on Syrian civilians.
In 2021, Democrat Joe Biden ordered an airstrike on Iran-backed militia groups in Syria, citing “self-defense.”
In 2011, Democrat Barack Obama ordered “limited” airstrikes on Libya. He said he was trying to protect pro-democracy protesters targeted by Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
The Constitution saysonly Congress has the power to declare war.
But that provision “has never been interpreted — by either Congress or the executive branch — to require congressional authorization for every military action that the president could initiate,” a Council on Foreign Relations legal expert wrote.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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Last month, a McFarland man who arrived in the U.S. three years ago from Cuba attended what he thought would be the first hearing in his asylum case. Instead, in what appears to be a nationwide trend, a judge dismissed his case and ICE arrested him.
Miguel Jerez Robles was among the first people swept up in a recent wave of arrests inside immigration court buildings, a place considered off limits for such enforcement until the Trump administration loosened restrictions.
His story illustrates the volatility and randomness of the country’s immigration processes. While Jerez is now imprisoned in a Tacoma, Washington, detention center, his sister — who arrived in the U.S. just days later and was given different paperwork — has a green card.
Editor’s note:A day after this story was published Miguel Jerez Robles was released from an ICE detention center in Tacoma, Washington. Read an update here.
When McFarland resident Miguel Jerez Robles boarded a plane to Miami last month, he thought he’d be attending a routine immigration hearing about his asylum application and enjoying a rare vacation with his wife and mother.
The 26-year-old and his family had come to Wisconsin in 2022, fleeing political persecution from the Cuban government. They moved to the village just outside Madison, home to a friend his brother-in-law met while driving a taxi in Santiago de Cuba.
Jerez rented an apartment near the high school and got a job delivering packages all over southern Wisconsin, first for FedEx and later for an Amazon subcontractor. He and his wife started a popular YouTube channel, Cubanitos en la USA, where they shared videos about what it was like to work as a delivery driver, buy a car or shop for groceries in Wisconsin.
The Florida trip was Jerez’s first vacation since arriving. Jerez planned to go to the May 22 preliminary hearing in his asylum case, then take his family to the beach and explore the city.
Instead, immigration authorities arrested Jerez and sent him to a detention center, sweeping him up in what appears to be a coordinated strategy to fast-track deportations.
When Jerez appeared in the Miami courtroom, a federal attorney asked the judge to dismiss his asylum claim. According to Jerez’s family, the judge agreed without explanation, then wished him luck.
Jerez headed to meet his wife, Geraldine Cruz Dip, and his mother, Celeste Robles Chacón, who were waiting just outside the fifth-floor courtroom.
Miguel Jerez Robles and Geraldine Cruz Dip met while working at a Chinese restaurant in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. They came to the United States seeking asylum in 2022 and married in Fitchburg in 2023. (Photo courtesy of the couple)
Plainclothes Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were waiting too. They handcuffed and arrested him before he could reach his family, his mother said.
Three days later, Jerez was shackled and flown to a detention center in Tacoma, Washington, through a process called expedited removal, which allows the government to deport certain immigrants without first hearing their cases in court.
His wife and mother returned home to McFarland alone.
“The vacation turned into a nightmare,” Cruz said. “Everything fell apart in a moment.”
Jerez was among the first people swept up in a recent wave of arrests inside immigration court buildings, a place considered off limits for such enforcement until the Trump administration loosened restrictions earlier this year. Some, like Jerez, report judges unexpectedly dismissing their cases in what some immigrants and attorneys believe is a coordinated effort to quickly detain large numbers of people as soon as they lose legal immigration status — including those who, like Jerez, have no criminal history.
“It’s easier to go to a courthouse and pick up everyone there than go searching for them at home,” Cruz said.
These arrests, which appear to have begun in late May, are part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration crackdown, some of which he promised on the campaign trail. The scale and methods reach far beyond what many expected from an administration that has vowed to prioritize removing people who threaten public safety. Recent ICE raids at schools and other sensitive locations have sparked multi-day protests in Los Angeles and other major cities.
For asylum seekers like Jerez, who followed steps laid out by the previous administration, the policy shift means they’ll now likely have to make their cases from behind bars.
His story illustrates the volatility and randomness of the country’s immigration processes. Had Jerez arrived five years earlier, before President Barack Obama ended the “wet foot/dry foot” policy that applied to Cuban immigrants since the 1960s, he and his family would have immediately qualified for legal status and a pathway to citizenship. And if he’d only been given the same paperwork as his sister — who arrived for the same reasons just days later — he may have a green card today like she does.
Attorneys: Judges and ICE collaborate in courthouse arrests
Jerez’s arrest shocked his attorneys too. For much of the past two decades, officials reserved the expedited removal process for immigrants arrested near the border within two weeks of arriving in the country.
Former President George W. Bush first implemented these guidelines in 2004. However, during his first term, Trump expanded use of expedited removal procedures to include immigrants anywhere in the United States who have spent less than two years in the country. Former President Joe Biden rescinded that expansion, only to see Trump restore it in January through one of the first executive orders of his new term.
People who are convicted of certain felonies can face expedited removal outside of normal parameters.
“But these people, they are clean. They have no crimes, no record, no nothing,” Ismael Labrador, an attorney with Miami-based Gallardo Law Firm who is representing Jerez, said of those affected by Trump’s latest tactics.
Jerez has been in the country longer than two years. But the Trump administration argues expedited removal should apply to similarly situated immigrants, as long as immigration authorities processed them within two years of their arrival.
“He had everything in order, and he was arbitrarily arrested and placed in expedited removal when he doesn’t qualify to be in expedited removal,” Labrador said.
Geraldine Cruz Dip, left, and Vivianne Jerez show a screenshot they took during a video call with their husband and brother Miguel Jerez Robles, who’s been detained at the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma, Washington, since May. They say detention has made him depressed. (Ruthie Hauge / The Cap Times)
The American Civil Liberties Union of New York sued the Trump administration in January, arguing Trump violated the rulemaking process and the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause in expanding the scope of expedited removal.
Now, the administration is further accelerating removals by dispatching ICE agents to courthouses to immediately arrest following the dismissal of immigration cases.
Labrador isn’t surprised immigration judges, government attorneys and ICE agents appear to be collaborating on the plan. While the federal government’s judicial branch houses most judges, immigration judges are part of the executive branch, employed by the Department of Justice.
“They work for the same boss,” he said, referring to Trump.
In light of the new practice, the nonprofit National Immigration Project recommends immigration attorneys consider requesting virtual hearings to protect clients from courthouse arrest.
“Unfortunately, if I remember correctly, he was imprisoned on the second day this new (courthouse arrest) strategy had begun,” Labrador said. “It was a surprise to all of us.”
Some of Labrador’s other clients have been detained in similar ways, prompting him to begin requesting virtual hearings.
He followed the rules. Then the rules changed.
Jerez sought asylum in the United States after mass demonstrations in his homeland in 2021, when people in dozens of Cuban cities took to the streets to protest shortages of food and medicine, as well as their government’s strict response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Jerez had spoken out against Cuba’s communist government and refused to perform his mandatory military service, putting him and his family in the crosshairs of the authorities, Cruz said. She recalled a time when police interrogated him for six hours and broke his cellphone.
“They told him that the same thing would happen to us as to that phone,” Cruz said. Another time, she said, the police chief came to the family’s home ahead of another round of protests and told them that if they wanted to live, they’d stay home.
The couple lost their jobs at a Chinese restaurant, she said, after police threatened to shut it down if they weren’t fired. The pressure wouldn’t let up, Cruz said, so Jerez and three family members flew to Nicaragua in separate trips and then spent two months traveling by land to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Jerez and his family followed all the government’s requirements while pursuing permanent legal status, his immigration attorneys said.
That included presenting themselves to Border Patrol agents and requesting asylum when they arrived in Nogales, Arizona, in 2022. Jerez was handed an immigration form called an I-220A, allowing immigrants to be released into the United States as long as they stay on the government’s radar — following certain rules and appearing at all court hearings.
Vivianne Jerez, sister of Miguel Jerez Robles, holds a letter from the Madison Police Department verifying that her brother has no criminal record in the jurisdiction. (Ruthie Hauge / The Cap Times)
Celeste Robles Chacón, mother of Miguel Jerez Robles, was waiting for him outside his asylum hearing when he was arrested by plainclothes immigration enforcement agents. (Ruthie Hauge / The Cap Times)
After the family settled in McFarland, Jerez drove to Milwaukee every year for a check-in with immigration agents. He never missed an appointment, his wife said. The government issued a work permit that authorized him to work in the U.S. until 2029.
In 2023, Jerez’s sister Vivianne received a green card, making her a permanent U.S. resident. That’s because she received different paperwork upon her release at the border. It placed her on humanitarian parole, which provides temporary legal status to people from certain countries.
The 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act allows Cubans to apply for permanent residency after having lived in the United States for more than a year. But Jerez was not eligible while his asylum case was pending in immigration court. The U.S. Board of Immigration Appeals ruled in 2023 that immigrants with I-220A status could not apply for green cards.
Meanwhile, a Trump executive action ended humanitarian parole for people arriving from a slew of countries, including Cuba.
Border agents’ choice to nudge a brother and sister toward divergent immigration pathways appears to be random, the family said. That fits a trend, said Labrador, as border agents receive little to no guidance — and wide discretion — on what paperwork fits each situation.
Seeking asylum a second time
Once in expedited removal proceedings, immigrants can be immediately deported unless the government determines they have “credible fear” that they would be persecuted in their home country because of their political views or identity.
On June 12, guards at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma told Jerez to get dressed to go to the library, his sister said. When he got there, he learned this would be his official interview about why he’s afraid to return to Cuba — determining whether he’ll get a chance to bring his asylum case.
No one has told Jerez when he’ll learn the result, Cruz said, so she asked ChatGPT.
“It says it takes three to five business days, so I think it would be this week,” Cruz said in a June 17 interview. As of Friday, she was still waiting for news.
Based on Labrador’s experience, it can take up to a month.
If Jerez passes the interview, his lawyers will file a second asylum application. But that wouldn’t prompt Jerez’s release.
“He will have to defend his case in custody, unfortunately,” Labrador said.
Jerez’s mother calls uncertainty “psychological torture” for detainees.
Guards have offered Jerez and other detainees the chance to sign papers consenting to be deported, Cruz said.
“From the time they arrest them, the first thing they say is, ‘Sign this and you’ll go to your home country, or prepare to be detained here for up to two years,’” Cruz said.
Jerez and his family are still trying to understand why the government detained him after he did everything it asked, including attending immigration and court appointments, working and paying taxes.
“He doesn’t have so much as a traffic ticket,” his sister, Vivianne, said.
But they know he’s not alone. On TikTok, they see one woman after another “crying because they took their children or their husbands,” Cruz said.
They know others who voted for Trump, thinking he’d only deport criminals, only to have their loved ones detained too, Cruz added.
“He just wants white Americans who speak English when really Latinos are this country’s main workforce,” she said. “If they said they were going to search for people with criminal records, why are they arresting people who don’t have any kind of criminal record?”
In a recent New York Times interview, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, claimed the administration is prioritizing “the worst first” for deportation but acknowledged other immigrants may get swept up in the fray.
“We’re prioritizing public safety threats, people who have committed crimes in this country or who have committed crimes in their home country and came here to hide,” Homan said. “But I’ve also said from Day One, if you’re in the country illegally, you’re not off the table.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not respond to questions about Jerez’s detention.
‘A total disaster’
To talk to his family from the Tacoma detention center, Jerez waits his turn to make video calls on a tablet shared by around a dozen detainees.
On those calls, he usually looks sad, Cruz said. She thinks detention has made him depressed.
Labrador also tries to speak with Jerez as often as possible. The conditions at the facility, one of the country’s largest, are “a total disaster,” he said.
“They are sleeping on the ground. They are being moved constantly. They are waking up in the middle of the night for (head) counting,” he said, adding that fights occur regularly and detainees get little to no medical treatment.
But Jerez’s mood was better last Saturday. When he called his family that day, his sister had just returned from protesting the Trump administration at the “No Kings” rally in McFarland, where she’d carried a hand-written sign covered with family photos .
“Freedom for Miguel,” it read. “He is not a criminal. He is a husband, a son and brother.”
He smiled as they showed him photos and told him about the people who approached her to express sympathy or outrage. Some hugged her and cried. Some said they would pray for her brother.
Cruz saved screenshots from that call. In the three weeks since his detention began, Vivianne said, it was the first time she’d seen him looking happy.
Andrew Billmann, the friend her husband met in his taxi years before, protested alongside Vivianne Jerez, carrying a sign that included a QR code with more information about the detention.
During the No Kings protest in McFarland, Andrew Billmann spreads the word about his friend, McFarland resident Miguel Jerez Robles, a Cuban asylum seeker who was detained by immigration officers outside his immigration hearing in Miami. (Ruthie Hauge / The Cap Times)
“This is not someone that snuck in. This is not someone who’s trying to conceal their location. He’s been completely forthcoming from the beginning,” Billmann said in an interview.
Billmann and his wife, Kathy, have helped the family settle in McFarland, find housing, set up bank accounts and stay on top of their immigration paperwork.
“They’ve literally done everything right,” Billmann said. “I helped Miguel get his driver’s license. He’s got a Social Security number, a work permit. This is all as it’s supposed to go.”
Instead, the arrest has upended life for the whole family. Vivianne canceled her June 9 wedding ceremony. That cost the couple $1,000, but they couldn’t stomach trying to celebrate. Their loved ones cried as the couple quietly signed their marriage license at the McFarland apartment they share with her mother.
And now? The family waits.
Vivianne, who worked as a doctor in Cuba, recently finished training to become a U.S. registered nurse. Her graduation photo sits in her living room, but she hasn’t celebrated that feat either. On the coffee table sit the now-shriveled roses Jerez gave his mom for Mother’s Day. She can’t bring herself to throw them out.
On the couch, Cruz sorts through the evidence she’s marshaled as proof of her husband’s good character: the letter from the Madison Police Department saying he had no record with the department, the awards he received from his delivery jobs, the letter in which his boss called him “an exemplary employee” and said he was “praying for his eventual return.”
Geraldine Cruz Dip, Vivianne Jerez and Celeste Robles Chacón discuss the status of their family member, Miguel Jerez Robles, a Cuban immigrant and refugee, who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers after a scheduled immigration court hearing in Miami. (Ruthie Hauge / The Cap Times)
Cruz, who drives for the same company, has continued delivering Amazon packages to pay the bills.
Billmann set up a GoFundMe page where community members can donate money to help Cruz cover living expenses while her detained husband can’t work.
If the court gives Jerez another chance at release, she plans to use that money to pay his bond.
“They’re just wonderful, wonderful people,” Billmann said. “It’s just absolutely crazy what they’re putting this family through.”
The story was co-produced by The Cap Times and Wisconsin Watch.
Unauthorized immigrants arenoteligible for traditional, federally funded Medicaid, which helps cover medical costs for low-income people.
They havenever been eligible. A 1996 welfare reform law signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton also requires most authorized immigrants to waitfive years for eligiblity.
President Donald Trump has proposedreducing federal Medicaid funds to those states. That would cause 1.4 million people to lose coverage, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated.
Medicaid costs nearly $900 billion annually, two-thirds from the federal government and one-third from the states.
In Wisconsin, Medicaid serves 1.28 million people, more than a third of them children. Among adults, 45% work full time, 28% part time. The annual cost is $12.1 billion, $4.2 billion of it in state spending.
While unauthorized immigrants can’t get Medicaid in Wisconsin, they can apply to receive emergency care covered by state Medicaid.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Republicans on the Legislature’s budget-writing committee canceled last Thursday’s Joint Finance Committee meeting after two GOP senators voiced discontent and Gov. Tony Evers called a possible $87 million cut to the Universities of Wisconsin system a “nonstarter.”
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and JFC co-chair Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, said they had chosen to return to negotiations with Evers to guarantee tax cuts in the final budget and shared hope that Senate Republicans “will come back to the table to finish fighting for these reforms.”
Sen. Chris Kapenga, R-Delafield, and Sen. Steve Nass, R-Whitewater, indicated they are unlikely to vote for the budget in its current form.
Senate Republicans have an 18-15 majority, so they can only lose one Republican vote without picking up a vote from a Democrat. To pass the budget, both the Assembly and the Senate must vote for it, and Evers must sign off. Evers can use his partial line-item veto or veto the whole budget.
Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, said conversations were heading in an unaffordable direction and Senate Republicans were ready to pass a budget “that cuts taxes and responsibly invests in core priorities.”
Negotiations initially broke down on June 4 when Republicans walked out of conversations with the Evers administration, failing to agree on tax cuts and education spending.
With delays and cancellations in approving the budget, it has become increasingly likely the next biennial budget will not be approved by the July 1 deadline. If it is not approved by the end of the month, the 2023-25 budget would carry over into the next fiscal year.
That’s not entirely unusual, though the latest Evers signed his first three budgets was July 8. In 2017, under former Gov. Scott Walker, the budget was not signed into law until September.
Democrats said if the budget is not approved before July 1, local school districts and municipalities will have to delay hiring because they won’t know how much funding they will receive from the state.
Also, the looming federal budget puts Wisconsin at risk of losing out on federal dollars and programs if a budget is not passed soon.
“We see a horrible budget bill being debated in Washington that could contain really, really significant cuts for services that all Wisconsinites rely on, thinking about, obviously health care, but certainly things like education, transportation, natural resources, agriculture,” Sen. Kelda Roys, D-Madison, said.
Rep. Tip McGuire, D-Kenosha, also criticized Republicans for “allowing extremists within their caucus to hijack this budget and go against the will of the people.”
Vos told reporters Wednesday afternoon the Republican caucus supports an $87 million cut to the UW system budget, yet an Evers spokesperson said any cut to the UW system would be a “nonstarter.”
The UW system requested a record $856 million funding increase, which was scheduled for action on Tuesday and then removed from the agenda. Last budget cycle, Republicans withheld pay raises from the system and approval of UW-Madison’s new engineering building, eventually signing a deal to freeze diversity, equity and inclusion spending in exchange for the release of the funding.
Vos signaled the potential cuts to the UW system are also about leverage over campus culture. The Trump administration has similarly threatened to withhold and ultimately cut federal grants from universities unless they comply with demands aimed at reshaping campus culture and combating antisemitism.
“It’s not about cutting money. What it is, is about getting some kind of reforms to the broken process that we currently have,” Vos said. “There is still too much political correctness on campus. We don’t have enough respect for political diversity.”
Democrats decry prison budget as ‘kicking the can down the road’
The budget committee voted 11-3 along party lines to increase funding for prisons by $148 million over the biennium, though Evers had requested $185 million.
Some of the key differences included the Legislature providing about $20 million less for community reentry programs and 50 fewer contract beds in county jails than Evers proposed.
During the budget committee meeting, Democrats accused their colleagues of “kicking the can down the road” by not funding programs that reduce recidivism in the approved motion.
Republicans said that their budget motion is “realistic” and that it expands on “huge improvements” in prison guard vacancies made by the 2023-25 budget.
Upper middle income earners get bulk of GOP tax cut
The Wisconsin Republican tax cut plan will give middle to upper income earners the largest tax cut, while taxpayers earning under $40,000 will receive less than 1% of the total, according to a report last week from the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau.
Wisconsin taxpayers earning $100,000 to $200,000 would receive 58.5% of the tax decrease, with an average cut of $242 for tax year 2025. In Wisconsin, those making between $100,000 and $200,000 account for a third of tax filers, according to the fiscal bureau.
Some lost federal disaster assistance gets state support
The committee passed a motion to provide additional funding for the Department of Military Affairs for emergency planning — a sign of some bipartisan agreement on alleviating the effects of federal funding cuts.
While the bill included most of Evers’ requests, the approved motion, introduced by Republicans, did not include Emergency Management Programs Sustainment funding, which would have replaced $1.13 million over the biennium in revenue lost as a result of federal cuts.
Previously, FEMA awarded $54 million in grants to Wisconsin to address environmental risks in the state, but federal cuts have canceled $43 million, reducing federal funding for natural disaster prevention by nearly 80%.
The measure adopted Tuesday with bipartisan support would allocate $2 million in 2025-26 for pre-disaster flood resilience grants and $3 million for state disaster assistance programs. The funding would prepare Wisconsin for disasters and provide assistance to mitigate consequences if a natural disaster were to occur.
Republicans add more assistant district attorneys
The budget committee voted 11-3 to add 42 additional assistant district attorneys in counties across the state, including seven positions in Brown, six positions in Waukesha and four positions in Fond du Lac.
Each county would now have staffing levels at approximately 80%, according to a workload analysis from the Wisconsin District Attorneys Association. Currently, 15 counties are below 60% of the staffing level suggested by the WDAA workload analysis, and 33 of 71 counties are below 70%.
The state has been struggling with a shortage of rural attorneys for several years, an issue Larry J. Martin, the executive director for the State Bar of Wisconsin, has called “a crisis that policymakers in our state Capitol must address.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Wisconsin incarcerates more people per capita than the majority of countries in the world, including the United States.
Wisconsin Watch and other newsrooms in recent years have reported on criminal charges against staff following prison deaths, medical errors and delayed health care and lengthy prison lockdowns linked to staffing shortages in Wisconsin prisons.
The state prison population has surged past 23,000 people, with nearly triple that number on probation or parole. Meanwhile, staff vacancies are increasing again across the Department of Corrections.
A reader called this situation a “mess” and asked how we got here and what can be done to fix it.
The road to mass incarceration
The first U.S. prison was founded as a “more humane alternative” to public and capital punishment, prison reform advocate and ex-incarceree Baron Walker told Wisconsin Watch. Two years after Wisconsin built its first prison at Waupun in 1851, the state abolished the death penalty.
For the next century, Wisconsin’s prison population rarely climbed above 3,000, even as the state population grew. But as America declared the “War on Drugs” in the 1970s and set laws cracking down on crime in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Wisconsin’s prison population began to explode.
“In the early 1970s … the rise in incarceration corresponded fairly closely with increases in crime,” said Michael O’Hear, a Marquette University criminal law professor. “The interesting thing that happened in both Wisconsin and the nation as a whole in the ‘90s is that crime rates started to fall, but imprisonment rates kept going up and up.”
According to O’Hear, Wisconsin was late to adopt the “tough-on-crime” laws popular in other states during that era. But by the mid-1990s, the state began to target drug-related crime and reverse leniency policies like parole.
Green Bay Correctional Institution’s front door reads “WISCONSIN STATE REFORMATORY,” a nod to its original name, in Allouez, Wis., on June 23, 2024. Many have pushed for the closure of the prison, constructed in 1898, due to overcrowding, poor conditions and staffing issues. (Julius Shieh / Wisconsin Watch)
“There was a period of time in which Milwaukee was just shipping bazillions of people into prison on … the presumption of being a dealer with the possession of very small amounts of crack cocaine,” UW-Madison sociology Professor Emerita Pamela Oliver said. She cited this practice as one of the reasons Wisconsin’s racial disparities in imprisonment are the worst in the nation.
Starting in the late 1990s and 2000s, Wisconsin’s “truth-in-sentencing” law, which requires people convicted of crimes to serve their full prison sentences with longer paroles, resulted in both a cycle of reincarceration and a large prison population full of aging inmates with low risk of reoffending.
Then in 2011, the anti-public union law known as Act 10 caused a mass exodus of correctional officers as working conditions in the state’s aging prisons continued to deteriorate.
Extended supervision
Along with mandating judges impose fixed prison sentences on people convicted of crimes, truth-in-sentencing requires sentences to include an inflexible period of “extended supervision” after a prison term ends. This is different from parole, which is a flexible, early release for good behavior and rehabilitation.
Judges often give out “extraordinarily long periods of extended supervision,” according to Oliver, at least 25% of the incarceration itself by law and often multiple times that in practice. To her, it is simply a “huge engine in reincarceration.”
According to DOC data, of the 8,000 people admitted to Wisconsin prisons in 2024 more than 60% involved some kind of extended supervision violation, known as a “revocation.” Half of those cases involved only revocation.
Extended periods of supervision after release from prison do little to improve public safety, research suggests. The long terms “may interfere with the ability of those on supervision to sustain work, family life and other pro-social connections to their communities,” Cecelia Klingele, a University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School professor of criminal law, wrote in a 2019 study examining 200 revocation cases.
Substance abuse problems contributed to technical revocations in an “overwhelming majority” of cases, Klingele wrote, because “agents have few options to impose meaningful sanctions other than imprisonment.”
“Fewer, more safety-focused conditions will lead to fewer unnecessary revocations and more consistency in revocation for people whose behavior poses a serious threat to public safety,” Klingele added.
Streamlining the standard supervision rules would require the Legislature to act.
Oliver attributes Wisconsin’s high rates of revocations to parole officers failing to reintegrate people into society in favor of playing “catch-somebody-offending.”
“You get reincarcerated, (and) all that time (in prison) doesn’t count,” Oliver said. “You can stay on a revolving door of incarceration and extended supervision for five times longer than your original sentence.”
People behind the statistics
The factors behind both crime and incarceration are complex, with socioeconomic factors relating to poverty, race, location and more increasing the chances of contact with the judicial system.
According to O’Hear, overall crime rates began increasing in the ‘90s during the War on Drugs in part due to prosecutors “charging cases and plea bargaining more aggressively.”
A study by the Equal Justice Initiative found that plea bargaining perpetuates racial inequality in Wisconsin prisons. White defendants are 25% more likely than Black defendants to have charges dropped or reduced during plea bargaining, and Black defendants are more likely than whites to be convicted of their “highest initial charge(s).”
Prison reform advocate Beverly Walker, whose husband, Baron, was formerly incarcerated and is now a reform advocate, speaks in 2016 at a gathering organized by the faith-based advocacy group WISDOM to raise awareness about poor water quality at Fox Lake Correctional Institution. (Gilman Halsted / WPR)
In the 53206 Milwaukee ZIP code where Baron Walker grew up, nearly two-thirds of Black men are incarcerated before they turn 34. Recalling his youth, Walker said “it seemed like almost all the males in my family were incarcerated at one point in time.”
During his time in the prison system, which included stints at Waupun, Columbia and Fox Lake correctional institutions, Walker struggled with accessing his basic needs.
“Their water came out black, dirty. It had a stench,” Walker said. “It sinks into your clothing, even when you wash them … you consume this water, it’s what they cook the food with.”
Water quality in Wisconsin prisons has been a consistent concern of inmates and activists in the past 15 years. Despite multiple investigations into lead, copper and radium contamination at these maximum- and medium-security prisons, recent reports found unhealthy radium levels in the drinking water — with no free alternatives.
“They would microwave the water (at Fox Lake) and the microwaves would spark up and blow out,” WISDOM advocate Beverly Walker, Baron’s wife, told Wisconsin Watch. “The water at the time was $16 to just get a case of six bottles of water … it so ridiculously high.”
EX-incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO) of Wisconsin peer support specialist Vernell Cauley’s issues within Wisconsin prisons were more personal. His daughter died during his intake into Dodge Correctional Institution, and Cauley wasn’t allowed a temporary release to attend her funeral.
“It had some deep effects on me,” he said. “Some of the things I didn’t realize I had until I was actually released, when you understand that you didn’t get the proper time to grieve.”
Cauley was put in solitary confinement during that time, and for three months total over the course of his prison stay. According to DOC data, the average stay in solitary confinement across Wisconsin prisons is 28 days, though that’s down from 40 days in 2019.
Furthermore, inmates who struggle with mental illness are overrepresented in solitary confinement across U.S. prisons. Multiple inmates have committed suicide due to long stints of solitary, particularly during recent prison lockdowns.
Working conditions
A Wisconsin Department of Corrections advertisement of open prison staffing positions is seen near Green Bay Correctional Institution in Allouez, Wis., on June 23, 2024. Chronic staffing shortages have played a role in lengthy lockdowns and deteriorating conditions within Wisconsin prisons. (Julius Shieh / Wisconsin Watch)
Joe Verdegan, a former Green Bay correctional officer of nearly 27 years, said he and most of his coworkers “conducted (them)selves pretty professionally” and “always had a lot of respect” for inmates. This respect went both ways, he said, because guards built relationships with inmates for decades at their post.
According to Verdegan, being a correctional officer used to be a “career job” where “nobody left.” Despite the dangers and odd work hours of the post, the guards had a strong union and good benefits and could climb up the ladder as they gained seniority.
But it “all went to hell” after Act 10 was passed.
Senior staff left in droves, leaving remaining guards with 16-hour shifts and “bad attitudes” that perpetuated the worsening work culture, Verdegan said. Religious, medical and recreational time was cut for inmates due to staffing shortages, and the respect between correctional officers and prisoners dwindled.
“When you’re not getting out for chapel passes or any of that kind of stuff, it just builds that hostility,” he said.
The changes caused Verdegan to retire from corrections at 51, earlier than planned. He and many of his friends took financial penalties by retiring from the Department of Corrections early and ended up working other jobs at bars, grocery stores and factories.
They also went to funerals. Many former coworkers “drank themselves to death” due to their experiences within corrections, Verdegan said.
Coming home
In 1996, when Walker was sentenced to 60 years in prison for his role in two bank robberies, no one expected him to serve more than a third of his sentence — not even the victims.
But when truth-in-sentencing passed, mandating judges to impose definite, inflexible imprisonment lengths on people convicted of crimes, Walker’s hopes for an early release quickly disintegrated.
Walker was released from prison in 2018 on probation, an alternative to incarceration offered on condition of following specific court orders. He was released after being denied parole six times in the seven years since he first became eligible.
In the aftermath of Walker’s imprisonment, he and Beverly have had their “most beautiful days,” along with some trials. Walker said he has struggled to adjust to independent living, and he would have been at a “complete loss” for adapting to 20 years of technological change if he hadn’t studied it in prison.
“You are programmed and reprogrammed to depend on someone for your anything and everything, whether it be your hygiene products, the time you shower, your mail, your bed, your bedding, your food,” Baron said. “Now, suddenly, you cross out in(to) society … and you’re told now as an adult you’re responsible for your independence, your bills, your clothing, your hygiene, your everything.”
Walker has also struggled with finding employment, despite earning “a litany of certifications and degrees” in food service, plumbing, welding, forklift operating and more while incarcerated. He said the DOC’s reentry programs need “overhaul” and more companies should be encouraged to hire formerly incarcerated people.
As of 2021, Wisconsin spent $1.35 billion per year on corrections, but only $30 million on re-entry programs. Less than a third of the re-entry funding is allocated for helping ex-prisoners find jobs — even though studies show employment significantly decreases the likelihood of reoffending.
Looking ahead
To Oliver, a significant barrier to solving issues within the prison system is changing sociopolitical attitudes.
“People imagine that if you’re punitive enough, you will have no crime,” Oliver said. “It’s really hard to get the general public to realize you ultimately reduce crime more by creating the social conditions that help people live productive lives without committing crime.”
O’Hear believes a key solution to problems within Wisconsin prisons is addressing the “mismatch” between large prison populations and available resources. He argues that “for a couple generations now, there’s been more of a focus on cutting taxes than on adequately funding public agencies” like the DOC.
O’Hear also said that judges should consider shorter prison sentences because “most people age out of their tendency to commit crimes” and that there should be “more robust mechanisms,” such as more compassionate release and parole laws for elderly inmates.
“We have people in prison in their 50s and their 60s and their 70s and even older who are really past the time when they pose a real threat to public safety,” O’Hear said. “Health care costs alone for older prisoners are a tremendous burden on the system, and they’re contributing to overcrowding.”
The Walkers are continuing their advocacy for prison reform by opening up the Integrity Center, which supports incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals with navigation, re-entry, employment assistance and more. They also advocate permanently shutting down aging prisons such as Green Bay and Waupun correctional institutions.
“All of our people who are eligible for release should be released, and people who are eligible to move into minimum facilities should be moved,” Beverly Walker said. “We don’t need any new prisons if we just utilize what we have.”
Verdegan said that he doesn’t believe the Legislature will ever pass a bill closing Green Bay in his lifetime and that “both political parties are to blame for this mess they’ve created with the Wisconsin DOC.” “Throwing money” at corrections officer positions will not fix staffing vacancies, he said, without the guarantee of eight-hour workdays and adequate job training.
He and Cauley both said supporting the mental health of prisoners before and after incarceration is key. Verdegan supports training staff to work with mentally ill prisoners. Cauley would rather see prison abolished altogether.
“Most people who end up in prisons, they have things going on mentally, these issues not getting met,” Cauley said. “Prison only makes people bitter, more angry … you know, it traumatizes them.”
Correction: This story was updated to reflect the average stay in solitary confinement is 28 days. Also 60% of the more than 8,000 people entering prison in 2024 involved a revocation, but half of those cases also involved a new crime.
Wisconsin’s rate for vaccinating 5- and 6-year-olds against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) has continued to slide since the COVID-19 pandemic began, with 74.1% of such children receiving two doses of the shot in 2024 — down from 79.3% in 2019.
Nearly every Wisconsin county last year vaccinated a lower share of kindergarten-aged children for MMR than before the pandemic. Menominee County, home to the Menominee Indian tribe of Wisconsin, was the lone exception, according to Wisconsin Department of Health Services data.
After dipping from nearly 80.7% in 2019 to as low as 74.7% during the height of the pandemic, Menominee County’s MMR vaccination rate for kindergartners grew to nearly 83.6% in 2024, the state’s highest rate.
That success was due to local health officials “being proactive” and conducting outreach that included “looking up kids that were behind, reaching out to parents and encouraging them to bring them in,” said Faye Dodge, director of community health nursing services at the Menominee Tribal Clinic.
Vaccination rates matter because measles is highly contagious and potentially dangerous.
Before the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Americans faced measles infections each year. The advent of vaccination eliminated the disease in the United States by 2000. But outbreaks have returned to some U.S. communities as trust in vaccines wanes in many communities.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control though June 19 confirmed more than 1,200 measles cases this year in 36 states, including every state bordering Wisconsin. About 12% of cases sent patients to the hospital. Three people have died.
Wisconsin’s risk of outbreaks will grow as families with children travel over the summer.
“They’re going to be traveling all over the country,” Hennessy said. “Realistically, it’s likely a matter of time for somebody who’s not vaccinated or doesn’t have immunity to get the disease.”
Wisconsin Watch analyzed statewide vaccination data for 5- and 6-year-olds in the state, conducted other research and spoke to public health officials.
Here are some takeaways:
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted local vaccination programs, leaving children behind in their vaccination schedules. Understaffed, under-resourced counties have struggled to catch up.
Creating relationships with trusted community members and reducing access barriers is the most effective way to inoculate more children against contagious diseases like measles, public health officials say.
No Wisconsin county comes close to reaching the vaccination rate of 95% that is considered the benchmark for herd immunity protection. That was true in 2024 and before the pandemic.
Just three counties — Manitowoc, Marathon and Kewaunee — fully vaccinated at least 80% of kindergarten-aged children in every year from 2019 to 2024.
While vaccination rates are lagging from pre-pandemic levels in most counties, 28 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties reported vaccination gains between 2023 and 2024 — four more than the previous year. Still, the majority of counties saw declines.
Vaccination rates are plunging in Clark County, which consistently ranks lowest statewide for vaccinating 5- and 6-year-olds against measles. Just 42.9% of those children received both MMR doses in 2024, down from 57.9% in 2019.
Brittany Mews, Clark County’s health officer and director, cites a range of challenges in her sprawling county. Those include distances between few clinics in communities with no public transportation, low levels of health insurance access and diverse populations who face language barriers — and may adhere to cultural norms that prioritize traditional remedies over Western medicine.
But the county has found some success in partners ranging from school districts and child care centers to faith communities, Mews said. The health department has asked schools to notify parents when their children need vaccines, for instance, and positive feedback prompted the scheduling of multiple vaccine clinics at the schools and community churches.
Community partnerships in familiar places make people feel more comfortable — particularly in the county’s diverse communities, including those with language and cultural differences.
Clark County is also working to increase vaccine access by partnering with neighboring health departments to offer vaccination clinics six times a year at a church food pantry, creating a “one-stop-shop” system, Mews said.
Forging personal connections can grow trust and spread accurate information at a time when disinformation is running rampant online, Hennessy said. Hearing about positive vaccination experiences from a parent, neighbor or other trusted source can hold more weight than information a physician shares.
“It’s unfortunate that we all can’t be everywhere all the time to fill that,” Hennessy said.
Heather Feest, a Manitowoc County public health nurse manager, said patience and understanding of concerns are also key to increased vaccinations.
“We’re not trying to persuade one way or another, it’s giving that information and answering questions — and allowing them to get factual information and have a conversation without judging,” Feest said. “It’s harder now than what it used to be.”
As Wisconsin’s prison population climbs toward pre-pandemic levels, Senate Bill 153 seeks to expand alternatives to incarceration.
Wisconsin’s Treatment Alternatives and Diversion program was established in 2005 to provide counties with funding to create programs to divert adults with nonviolent criminal charges into community-based treatment for substance abuse.
Senate Bill 153 would formally expand the scope of these programs to explicitly include individuals with mental health issues.
Access to more funding
While some counties, including Milwaukee, already provide some diversion options for individuals with mental health needs, Senate Bill 153 could allow Milwaukee County to access funding not currently available.
“The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office has always supported the expansion of the Treatment Alternatives and Diversion program to include those individuals with severe and persistent mental health issues in addition to those with alcohol and drug dependency issues,” said Jeffrey Altenburg, Milwaukee County’s chief deputy district attorney.
He added that such an expansion would allow the district attorney’s office to focus most of its traditional prosecutorial resources on violent crime.
Bipartisan support
State Sen. André Jacque, R-New Franken, who co-authored the bill, said that the legislation enjoys broad bipartisan support as well as backing from those who work inside the criminal justice system.
“Folks that I’ve talked to – whether it’s probation and parole, law enforcement more generally – these are folks that see that it works because you don’t see repeat involvement in the criminal justice system,” he said.
“It is transformative and uplifting when you see the changes that people are able to make in their lives.”
Marshall Jones, currently incarcerated at Fox Lake Correctional Institution, hopes more lawmakers have that sort of mindset.
“If politicians were more proactive in helping people in the system address the underlying issues they have, then more people will be in a position to experience lasting, genuine change,” Jones said.
Research shows that treating the underlying causes of criminal behavior helps individuals rebuild their lives after incarceration and prevents future offenses.
“Most people who have mental health issues are already running or hiding from a fear they have,” said Aaron Nicgorski, a patient at a Wisconsin Department of Health Services facility.
“Providing treatment says ‘Hey, we understand you have an issue, here are some programs to get you on a path to a better future’ versus ‘Hey, we’re gonna put you in a cage to think about what you’ve done.’”
Diversion vs. incarceration
Over time, the criminal justice system has recognized that many people commit crimes because of economic or psychological factors rather than some sort of character flaw.
Diversion – the process by which people get “diverted” into voluntary programs and away from formal prosecution – has been used to address these factors.
“The whole idea is to divert them from the traditional system and get them placed with, hopefully, programs that can break the cycle of any criminal behavior,” said Nick Sayner, co-founder and chief executive officer of JusticePoint, a Milwaukee-based nonprofit organization that provides diversion-related services among other criminal justice programs.
Breaking that cycle is better for the public’s safety as well as the safety of the person being diverted, said Mark Rice, coordinator for the Wisconsin Transformational Justice Campaign at WISDOM, a statewide faith-based organization.
It’s also much more cost-effective to treat people in communities rather than to incarcerate them, Rice added.
Incarceration is not an experience that lends itself to improving a person’s mental health, he said.
“One man attempted to commit suicide; several other men had to be put on suicide watch; others mutilated themselves,” said Rice, referring to his time in the special needs unit at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility.
What’s next?
On May 8, the Senate Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety unanimously recommended Senate Bill 153 for passage. It is now awaiting scheduling for a vote by the full Senate.
In April, 2,004 residents of Menominee County in northeast Wisconsin received benefits from the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
SNAP, formerly known as food stamps and called FoodShare in Wisconsin, provides food assistance for low-income people.
Other reports show similar rates.
As of March 2024, 51% of residents in the Menominee tribal nation received SNAP, according to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum.
The latest U.S. Census data, for 2022, showed the rate for Menominee County was 49%.
American Indians constitute nearly 80% of the county’s population.
Menominee County’s rate was cited June 14 by U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., at the Wisconsin Democratic Party convention. He commented on President Donald Trump’s tax cut bill pending in Congress. It would remove an estimated 3.2 million people from SNAP, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
But for all its risks, AI also presents opportunities we are just now starting to understand. For example, Wisconsin Watch has been an early user and partner with Gigafact on an AI-powered tool they have built that can help analyze the thousands of hours of podcasts, social media videos and talk radio programs that could be spreading misinformation every day.
The tool, known as Parser, can process an hourlong audio file in a matter of minutes and not only provide a transcript, but also identify specific claims made during the audio segment and even the person making the claim.
A screenshot of the Parser profile for U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin. The AI-powered tool can help analyze audio/video interviews for specific claims that can then be fact-checked. (Courtesy of Gigafact)
Wisconsin Watch fact briefs reporter Tom Kertscher has been using Parser to make it easier to find surprising and dubious claims. Before Parser he would listen to those hourlong podcasts and radio shows himself, trying to pick up on what Wisconsin politicians were saying. In tracking how much time it took to produce a fact brief, we found in some cases almost half the time was spent just searching for a claim.
Parser has sped up that process, making it possible to scan through far more audio recordings of interviews.
“We can cover so much more ground with Parser, checking many more politicians and interviews than we could manually,” Kertscher said.
Gigafact began developing Parser after Wisconsin Watch provided that feedback on how much time it can take to stay on top of every claim that every politician makes. But the problem of misinformation is far bigger than just keeping tabs on politicians.
A screenshot of a Parser transcript of an interview with U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, including on the right-hand side some of the specific claims that Johnson made during the interview. (Courtesy of Gigafact)
Last year the investigative journalism class at UW-Madison worked on a project about talk radio in Wisconsin. One of the key findings was the notable amount of misinformation being spread on the airwaves, especially among conservative pundits.
To do that project, students spent a significant amount of time listening to six radio hosts whose viewpoints spanned the political spectrum. They took four hours for each host from the week after the Super Bowl — 24 hours of audio total — and manually processed the audio into a database of claims. Even with a transcription tool, the process took easily over 100 hours to produce a list of claims to fact-check.
Earlier this year, I worked with Gigafact using Parser to process 24 hours from the same hosts the week after this year’s Super Bowl. We came up with a list of claims in two hours.
Wisconsin Watch and Gigafact presented that case study in using AI at a recent Journalism Educators Institute conference hosted by the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication. We’ll present it again this week at the Investigative Reporters and Editors conference in New Orleans.
And if you haven’t read it yet, add our investigative journalism project Change is on the Air to your summer reading list. Unfortunately, for the students who devoted so many hours to listening and re-listening to those talk radio hosts, it was not produced using AI. But maybe next time.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
For Pepper Roberts, running a successful farm comes down to managing risk and planning for potential challenges.
While other farmers sold their crops last fall, Roberts used grain bins to store half of his corn harvest, betting that he’d get a better price once corn supplies grew scarce.
In January, Roberts sold the corn at an inflated rate, which helped cover bills left over from last year. The funds also provided a financial buffer for the current growing season.
“The Good Lord blessed me,” said Roberts, who grows soybeans, cotton, corn and other grains on a 6,250-acre farm in Belzoni, Mississippi. “There’s opportunities out there for (every farm) — it doesn’t matter what size.”
Like many other farmers, Roberts is now preparing for a year of uncertainty and tight margins. Since returning to the White House, President Donald Trump has enacted sweeping tariffs on imported goods, igniting trade disputes and disrupting global markets. Farmers were already facing high input costs and falling crop prices entering 2025, and many relied on government aid to offset losses last year.
Despite these headwinds, however, Roberts steadfastly supports the tariffs.
“In the long run, it’s going to be the best thing that ever happened,” he said, predicting that the levies will pressure trade partners like China to negotiate new purchasing agreements with the U.S.
Roberts is not alone. Though there’s been plenty of backlash from the agricultural sector, Trump’s tariffs have also drawn support from a subset of farmers, who see them as a means of regaining an edge in an increasingly competitive global economy.
A May survey of 400 U.S. producers found that 70% believe the tariffs will strengthen their industry in the long term. The same poll found that just 43% of respondents think the levies will hurt their earnings this year, down from 56% a month earlier. Respondents were based around the country and ran operations that grossed above $500,000 annually, according to the survey authors.
Much of this support reflects the belief that the tariffs will lead to better trade deals for American farmers. China is a top destination for U.S. agricultural exports like soybeans, and getting it to buy a set amount of crops each year would guarantee a market for producers without the threat of competition, one economist explained. That certainty, in turn, would stabilize commodity crop prices.
A new trade deal with China “locks in a source of demand” for U.S. farm products, said Will Maples, a professor at Mississippi State University’s Department of Agricultural Economics.
That guaranteed demand is essential for the 10 states bordering the Mississippi River, where agriculture exports collectively surpassed $57 billion in 2023. Though some Mississippi farmers worried the tariffs could backfire and worsen market conditions, others said they would be willing to weather a difficult year or two for increased trade opportunities down the road.
“Coming into all of this, we were already facing a downturn in the ag economy,” Maples said. “(If) you think about … Trump’s base, most of these guys probably voted for him. So it seems like they are willing to give him (the) benefit of the doubt in the short term.”
A high-stakes gamble
Trump’s trade war has proven divisive for American farmers — a group that overwhelmingly backed the president during last year’s election, according to a county-level analysis by Investigate Midwest.
When the White House imposed tariffs on most foreign imports earlier this year — including a staggering 145% tax on Chinese goods — many farmers and trade groups sounded the alarm, warning that the levies would raise supply costs domestically and threaten U.S. crop sales overseas. China retaliated with its own tariffs throughout the spring, though both countries have since scaled back their steepest duties.
In May, a federal court declared many of the president’s tariffs illegal. A separate court allowed them to remain in place while the administration appeals the decision.
As of June 11, the U.S. and China have reportedly reached a tentative accord to deescalate their trade dispute without inking a significant deal. According to the New York Times, some tariffs will remain in place on both sides.
As the administration continues to adjust the size and scope of its levies, the agricultural sector has already sustained losses. China has canceled mass shipments of American farm products, and industry groups warn that a lengthy trade dispute could further reduce demand for U.S. exports.
China has been steadily developing agricultural markets in other parts of the world, primarily Brazil, explained Mike McCormick, president of the Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation.
“They’re developing a lot of farmland there, and (China is) buying a lot of their products,” McCormick said.
Of particular concern to McCormick is China’s growing reliance on Brazilian soybeans, which are used as livestock feed. Soybeans remain the United States’ largest agricultural export to China, and they’re mostly grown around the Mississippi River Basin, with Illinois, Iowa and Minnesota accounting for nearly 40% of the nation’s total production in 2022. But Brazil has dominated China’s soybean import market for more than a decade.
Should Chinese demand for soybeans increase amid a prolonged trade standoff with the U.S., experts say Brazil is uniquely positioned to fill that void.
“Brazil could convert an additional 70 million acres of pasture land into crop production without knocking down a single acre of forest,” said Joe Janzen, an agricultural economist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. That’s over 80% of the total soybean acreage grown in the U.S. last year.
Proponents of Trump’s trade policies hope the tariffs will bring China back to the negotiating table, culminating in a trade deal similar to the one announced during the president’s first term.
In January 2020, Trump and China inked an agreement that called for China to purchase $80 billion in U.S. agricultural products through 2022. Crop prices soared in the next two years, though Maples at MSU stressed that market forces beyond the agreement — namely higher global spending in the latter stages of the pandemic — contributed to the increases.
The problem with Trump’s more expansive and erratic tariff strategy this time is that it risks alienating trade partners and further destabilizing markets, which in turn would drive down crop prices, Maples explained. Farmers base yearly planting decisions on what they can reasonably expect to earn for each crop, and the president’s on-again, off-again tariffs have made these projections significantly more tenuous.
“You can’t plan well when there’s so much uncertainty,” said Maples. “As long as we keep dealing with this, it’s going to be hard for prices to recover.”
Planning for pain
Roberts plans on sticking to his usual crop rotation this year despite the tariff-fueled uncertainty. The rotation has “paid for itself” in past years, he said, and he’s hoping to squeeze enough profit out of this year’s cycle to balance out expenses. He also has some savings from past years to fall back on if things go south.
“You can’t hit a grand slam every year,” Roberts said. “We all want the biggest profit we can ever make, but when I cross (the) break-even point, I’m ready to lock something in.”
Other farmers are more bearish about their prospects this season. In Clarksdale, Mississippi, Cliff Heaton has struggled to keep up with ballooning production costs on his 15,000-acre farm, where he grows cotton, corn, soybeans and other grains. Consecutive years of falling crop prices on top of high input costs created a perfect storm for Heaton, who suffered record losses in 2024. “I lost more money last year than I’ve lost in my entire life put together,” he said. “And it looks like this year’s heading in the same direction.”
Heaton said he supports the goal of securing better trade deals for U.S. producers, but he worries farmers may not survive the tariffs and their financial fallout without ample government assistance. He says recent market conditions have forced some of his friends to give up farming, and he’s considering a 40% reduction in operations if conditions don’t improve by harvest time.
“Inflation is taking its toll on us in our industry, and we’re not seeing (improvements) on our sales side,” said Heaton. He says particularly for products without a significant domestic market, like cotton, “as long as we’re dependent on selling into a world market … we need help.”
Pepper Roberts grows soybeans, cotton, corn and other grains on his 6,250-acre farm in Belzoni, Mississippi. He plans to stick to his usual crop rotation this year despite the market headwinds created by the Trump administration’s tariffs. (Nick Judin / Mississippi Free Press)
On March 18, U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced that her agency would distribute up to $10 billion in subsidies to help farmers bounce back from 2024. The funds, authorized by Congress at the end of last year, have helped Mississippi farmers reduce outstanding debts and secure crop loans for the current growing season, according to McCormick.
As Trump fights to preserve his tariffs in court, McCormick said his members may be willing to “stand a little bit of pain” if the trade dispute leads to new markets. “We just gotta hope that we can get better deals and … a quick resolution,” he said.
Maples worries that pain could prove too great for some local producers, especially those who are new to the industry and lack the capital to withstand an extended tariff onslaught. The trade dispute could fast-track retirement plans for some older farmers in the state, he added.
These farm closures would have ripple effects across entire communities, affecting people and companies that rely on their business, Maples concluded.
“A bad farm economy hurts rural America at the end of the day,” he said.
A unanimous Wisconsin Supreme Court sided with the Democratic state attorney general Tuesday in a long-running battle over a law passed by Republicans who wanted to weaken the office in a lame duck legislative session more than six years ago.
The court ruled 7-0 that requiring the attorney general to get permission from a Republican-controlled legislative committee to settle certain civil lawsuits was unconstitutional. The law is a separation of powers violation, the court said.
The Republican-controlled Legislature convened a session in December 2018 after Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul defeated Republican incumbents. The laws signed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker on his way out the door weakened powers of both offices.
At issue in the case decided Tuesday was the attorney general’s power to settle civil lawsuits involving environmental and consumer protection cases as well as cases involving the governor’s office and executive branch. The new law required the Legislature’s budget committee, which is controlled by Republicans, to sign off on those settlements.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2020, when controlled by conservatives, upheld all of the lame duck laws and ruled they did not violate the separation of powers principle. But the ruling left the door open to future challenges on how the laws are applied.
Kaul sued that year, arguing that having to seek approval for those lawsuit settlements violates the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches. The Legislature argued that lawmakers have an interest in overseeing the settlement of lawsuits and that the court’s earlier ruling saying there was no separation of powers violation should stand.
Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford, who won election to the state Supreme Court in April and will be joining the court in August, ruled in favor of Kaul in 2022, saying the law was unconstitutional. A state appeals court overturned her ruling December, saying there was no separation of powers violation because both the executive and legislative branches of government share the powers in question.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Legislature cannot “assume for itself the power to execute a law it wrote.”
There is no constitutional justification for requiring the Legislature’s budget committee to sign off on court settlements at issue in the case, Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote for the court.
Kaul praised the ruling, saying in a statement that the decision “finally puts an end to the legislature’s unconstitutional involvement in the resolution of key categories of cases.”
Republican legislative leaders who defended the law had no immediate comment Tuesday.
The win for Kaul comes as Evers has been unsuccessful in overturning numerous law changes affecting the power of the governor. He’s proposed undoing the laws in all four state budgets he’s proposed, and courts have upheld the laws when challenged.
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.
A Wisconsin dairy farmer alleged in a federal lawsuit filed Monday that the Trump administration is illegally denying financial assistance to white farmers by continuing programs that favor minorities.
The conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty filed the lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Agriculture in federal court in Wisconsin on behalf of a white dairy farmer, Adam Faust.
Faust was among several farmers who successfully sued the Biden administration in 2021 for race discrimination in the USDA’s Farmer Loan Forgiveness Plan.
The new lawsuit alleges the government has continued to implement diversity, equity and inclusion programs that were instituted under former President Joe Biden. The Wisconsin Institute wrote to the USDA in April warning of legal action, and six Republican Wisconsin congressmen called on the USDA to investigate and end the programs.
“The USDA should honor the President’s promise to the American people to end racial discrimination in the federal government,” Faust said in a written statement. “After being ignored by a federal agency that’s meant to support agriculture, I hope my lawsuit brings answers, accountability, and results from USDA.”
A spokesperson for the USDA declined to comment, saying the agency does not comment on pending lawsuits.
John Boyd, president of the National Black Farmers Association, said the lawsuit is “frustrating for me personally and as the leader of this movement.”
“The farmers that are hurting now are clearly the Black farmers out here,” he said. “You can couch it any way you want.”
The lawsuit contends that Faust is one of 2 million white male American farmers who are subject to discriminatory race-based policies at the USDA.
The lawsuit names three USDA programs and policies it says put white men at a disadvantage and violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal treatment by discriminating based on race and sex.
Faust participates in one program designed to offset the gap between milk prices and the cost of feed, but the lawsuit alleges he is charged a $100 administrative fee that minority and female farmers do not have to pay.
Faust also participates in a USDA program that guarantees 90% of the value of loans to white farmers, but 95% to women and racial minorities. That puts Faust at a disadvantage, the lawsuit alleges.
Faust has also begun work on a new manure storage system that could qualify for reimbursement under a USDA environmental conservation program, but 75% of his costs are eligible while 90% of the costs of minority farmers qualify, the lawsuit contends.
A federal court judge ruled in a similar 2021 case that granting loan forgiveness only to “socially disadvantaged farmers” amounts to unconstitutional race discrimination. The Biden administration suspended the program, and Congress repealed it in 2022.
The Wisconsin Institute has filed dozens of such lawsuits in 25 states attacking DEI programs in government. In its April letter to the USDA, the law firm that has a long history of representing Republicans said it didn’t want to sue “but there is no excuse for this continued discrimination.”
Trump has been aggressive in trying to end the government’s DEI efforts to fulfill a campaign promise and bring about a profound cultural shift across the U.S. from promoting diversity to an exclusive focus on merit.
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.
As the Milwaukee Police Department moves to expand its use of facial recognition technology, a June report from the federal government finds this technology continues to disproportionately misidentify people of color.
Elected officials and civil rights groups have been raising this concern as a clear reason why MPD’s plan should be paused or rejected entirely.
MPD says there are ways to address this limitation.
The Milwaukee Equal Rights Commission on Wednesday, June 18, will hold a public meeting to assess potential discrimination-related risks.
The report
In 2019, the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology released a major report evaluating how demographics affect outcomes in facial recognition systems.
The report found skin color and ethnicity often had an effect.
With domestic law enforcement images, for example, the system most often led to false positives – when someone is incorrectly identified – for American Indians. Rates were also elevated for African American and Asian populations.
On June 2, the agency issued a report showing that facial recognition systems were more likely to mistake people from predominantly darker-skinned regions for someone else. This included people from sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and the Caribbean, compared with people from Europe and Central Asia.
Higher rates of misidentifications for people of color raise concerns that facial recognition could lead to more wrongful stops and arrests by police.
MPD’s plan
MPD Chief of Staff Heather Hough, speaking during an April meeting of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission, said the department has used facial recognition technology in the past in coordination with other police departments.
She stressed its crime-fighting benefits.
“Facial recognition technology is a valuable tool in solving crimes and increasing public safety,” Hough said.
Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson supports the use of this technology for the same reason, Jeff Fleming, spokesperson for the mayor’s office, wrote in an email.
“Identifying, apprehending and bringing to justice criminals in our city does reduce crime,” Fleming wrote.
During the commission meeting, Paul Lau, who oversees MPD’s criminal investigations bureau, said the department is considering an official agreement with a company called Biometrica.
“We anticipate this usually being used by our detective bureau in the investigation of major violent felonies,” Lau said.
Community response
Emilio De Torre, executive director of Milwaukee Turners, cited some of the 2019 federal findings in an op-ed, arguing that “entrusting facial recognition to routine policing is not public safety; it is an avoidable risk that history shows will fall hardest on Black Milwaukeeans.”
Milwaukee Turners is one of 19 organizations that sent a letter to the Milwaukee Common Council expressing concerns about surveillance technology. The letter urges the council to adopt an ordinance ensuring community participation in deciding if and how it is used.
Some members of the Common Council have come out in strong opposition to MPD’s plan as well.
“It’s both embarrassing and dangerous for false positives to occur at such a high rate,” Alderman José G. Pérez, Common Council president, told NNS.
Such flaws would likely lead to due process violations, he said.
Addressing flaws
Hough said MPD knows there are people in the community who are “very leery” of police using this technology, adding that their “concerns about civil liberties are important.”
“I want to make it very clear: Facial recognition on its own is never enough. It requires human analysis and additional investigation.”
MPD is committed to a “thoughtful, intentional and mindful” policy that considers community input, Hough said.
Lau said MPD will look into racial bias training provided by Biometrica, and people using the technology will need to have training on best practices.
The company says errors identified in 2019 stemmed from several flaws that can be countered with, for example, anti-bias training for analysts who review facial recognition alerts.
Who gets to decide?
Since Wisconsin Act 12, Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman is free to develop any official policy he chooses. The Common Council has the only formal check that exists.
By a two-thirds vote – or 10 of Milwaukee’s 15 aldermen – the council can block or modify MPD policies. But it must wait for a policy to be officially implemented.
The state Legislature could pass a statewide ban or restrictions, and the Common Council could adopt an ordinance regulating or banning its use.
Alderman Alex Brower told NNS he will be doing everything in his power, as a member of the Common Council, to oppose MPD’s acquisition of facial recognition technology.
What residents can do
People will have an opportunity to share their opinions about MPD’s plan – for and against – at an upcoming meeting of the Milwaukee Equal Rights Commission.
Commission members will use testimony about facial recognition to help determine the discrimination-related risks it may pose, said Tony Snell, chair of the commission.
“We want to listen to as many people as possible,” Snell said.
The commission can make recommendations to the Common Council, the mayor, MPD and the Fire and Police Commission.
The commission meeting will be held at 4 p.m. Wednesday, June 18, at Milwaukee City Hall, 200 E. Wells St.
Those who wish to speak must register by emailing ERC@milwaukee.gov. Each speaker will have up to three minutes. People can also send written testimony to this email address so it can be included in the public record.
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