The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday declined to send the state’s unredacted voter rolls to the federal government, joining more than a dozen states pushing back against disclosing sensitive voter information.
The commission’s move comes as the U.S. Department of Justice has asked all 50 states for their voter files — massive lists containing significant personal information on every voter in the country — claiming they are central to its mission of enforcing election law.
“The U.S. DOJ is simply asking the commission to do something that the commission is explicitly forbidden by Wisconsin law to do,” said Don Millis, a Republican appointee on the Wisconsin Elections Commission. “There’s a clear consensus that personally identifiable information is to be protected.”
While pieces of these lists are public, election officials typically redact voters’ Social Security numbers, driver’s license information and dates of birth before issuing them in response to records requests. The DOJ, in many cases, has asked for information not traditionally made public. That was also the case in Wisconsin: The DOJ requested voters’ partial Social Security numbers, license numbers and dates of birth.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission — which is made up of three Democrats and three Republicans — ultimately voted in closed session to send the DOJ a letter declining the request for unredacted voter information. Republican commissioner Bob Spindell appeared to be the only member in favor of cooperating with the federal government and said Wisconsin will likely face a lawsuit as a result of the commission’s choice.
The letter, signed by every commissioner except Spindell, says state law “explicitly prohibits” sending the unredacted voter list.
Officials in both Democratic and Republican states have pushed back on disclosing their voter rolls in response to these requests. On a podcast with conservative talk radio host Joe Pags, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said these states were refusing to cooperate because they were embarrassed that their voter rolls were not sufficiently cleared of inactive or unlawful registrants.
Rather, many states, like Colorado, have said the federal government isn’t entitled to unredacted voter information that could put voters at risk. The DOJ, they say, has not provided sufficient explanation for how the data will be used.
In early December, after receiving a memorandum of understanding similar to the one sent to Wisconsin, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold told the DOJ to “take a hike,” adding that she “will not help Donald Trump undermine our elections.” The DOJ sued Griswold just over a week later.
All 50 states were asked to turn over their voting rolls, Dhillon said on the podcast: Four states have voluntarily cooperated, 12 are in negotiations, and 14 have been sued by the DOJ over their refusal.
Wisconsin election officials have repeatedly said that federal officials can obtain the publicly available, and therefore redacted, voter roll the same way anybody else can: by purchasing it online for $12,500.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.
Wisconsin Elections Commission refuses to send Justice Department unredacted voter list is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Inside Skip Heverly’s modified Dutch Colonial home, five people thaw from the near-freezing November evening by a green-tiled fireplace. Between them, a coffee table is littered with loose-leaf newspaper clippings, notepads and snacks.
The group members, all residents of Green Bay’s Astor neighborhood, are preparing to spend the evening trading bits of local lore and hatching ideas that could make for an interesting deep dive.
The neighbors run “Plaster + Patina,” a podcast series that digs up long-buried — and sometimes spooky — tales tied to the historic homes in Astor, one of Green Bay’s oldest neighborhoods. Through the project, they hope to create a shared sense of wonder and community among neighbors while memorializing the area’s history.
“Slowly but surely, I think we’re kind of seeing how this is really helping to bring the community together,” said Morgan Fisher, podcast chief editor and treasurer of the Astor Neighborhood Association. Each person on the podcast team is also a volunteer member of the association, which advocates for the area to local government and organizes events.
After debuting in March, the series has inspired excitement around the neighborhood, with residents pitching their own houses to be featured and opening their homes to the team. At the mid-November brainstorm, the group invited longtime local civic leader Jim Gucwa to share stories he’s collected and spark inspiration for a future episode.
The first season of “Plaster + Patina” uncovered a forgotten spring water bottling business; examined architectural changes that speak to larger societal shifts; and told tales of ghosts, among other topics.
Each person has a unique role in the process, from digging through yellowed archives to splicing audio. Several enrolled in nearby community college to learn the skills they use. The project doesn’t currently have sponsors or advertisers to generate revenue, or plans to do so. The team pools resources, leveraging each others’ connections, interests and skills.
“That’s what a neighborhood’s about,” said Paul Jacobson, the podcast’s historian.
Between the 1830s and 1920s, a high, dry slope running parallel to the Fox River — colloquially known as “The Hill” — was an attractive place for doctors, lawyers and other businessmen to build their homes.
Today, the houses in the affluent neighborhood still reflect the period in which they were constructed. A 1980 historic district designation, championed with Gucwa’s help, preserves the homes’ exteriors from being substantially altered, among other protections.
Astor’s design encourages social connection. Homes with large front porches sit close to the sidewalks lining each street. Parks host an ice rink, a wading pool and a shell where local bands regularly perform.
Despite this, the area hasn’t been immune to the social isolation that’s swept across the country in recent years.
“People have kind of gone into their (homes),” Fisher said. “They’re not on their porches anymore. They’re not out meeting their neighbors as much.”
When the Astor Neighborhood Association coalesced in 1974, it started as a way to improve the area and combat crime. It now focuses on maintaining a sense of community among residents, Fisher said.
To do that, last summer several neighborhood association members discussed creating something where people could walk around the area, learn the stories behind the architecture they see and feel more connected to its past and present.
“What better way to do that than a podcast?” Jacobson said.
At first, the group was nervous about how the endeavor would turn out. But once they started chatting about history and architecture, old stories of folks from the area, “everyone just lit up,” said Heverly, the producer of “Plaster + Patina.”
The first season focused on homes nestled between Monroe Avenue and the Fox River.
“It’s nice to stay within an area, just to kind of really lay out that area,” host Al Valentin said. “We want to create a visual while you’re listening to it of what the neighborhood looked like at that time.”
Once they choose a home, Jacobson digs up the stories behind it. He dives into a slew of online resources, including newspaper archives, historical atlases and — his favorite — fire insurance maps, which include detailed hand drawings of buildings in the area dating back to the 1880s.
After Jacobson goes “down a rabbit hole,” they zoom out and choose the most interesting event or detail he found. “Otherwise, you could spend five hours on one particular home,” Valentin said.
The team then drafts a rough script, a bullet-point list of topics they want to hit during the show. Finally, they record the episode for free in a studio at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. They invite homeowners or people connected to the stories to appear as guests for a live interview.
“We kind of shoot from the hip,” Valentin said. “When you hear us converse on the podcast, it’s pretty real, with our knowledge and expertise.”
Lastly, Heverly edits out “ums,” “uhs” and any mistakes made during recording. He learned the skill at NWTC, where he studied audio editing, video editing, social media marketing and how to use Adobe applications.
Since March, the team has created eight episodes.
In one, Jacobson shared the story of a forgotten mineral spring he unearthed when scouring old hand-drawn maps. Residents bottled and sold the water, marketing it as a natural health remedy, he discovered.
In another, they explored how the neighborhood’s first backyard pool signaled the shift of leisure from front porches to more private backyards — and was once home to an alligator.
For a Halloween edition, Valentin interviewed a paranormal investigator who shared supernatural experiences at Astor’s Hazelwood House — including an apparition descending stairs, a baby cradle rocking on its own and echoes of drums played by the Native Americans who first called the area home.
Throughout the season, local support for the project has grown.
Lawn signs advertising the show sprouted up in front yards across the neighborhood. People asked for their home to be featured. Residents opened up their homes to the crew, giving them tours to aid the podcast.
“Especially in today’s world, we’re all looking for that connection. We want to be a part of something that’s bigger than ourselves,” marketing and writing director Maddy Szymanski explained in the podcast’s first episode. “When you live in an old neighborhood — or a new neighborhood, really anywhere — you’re a part of something that is bigger than you. You’re a part of a community and you can build that connection.”
The team is currently producing a final episode before moving onto the podcast’s second season. Find the episodes here.
Miranda Dunlap reports on pathways to success in northeast Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Email her at mdunlap@wisconsinwatch.org.
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Green Bay podcasters dig up long-buried tales in their own neighborhood is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
Two state judicial panels held their first hearings Friday on lawsuits claiming Wisconsin's eight U.S. House districts are unconstitutional, but they sent signals that the cases may not be resolved by the 2026 midterms.
The post Judges hold hearings on Wisconsin map lawsuits, but signal decisions will take time appeared first on WPR.
A hearing in the felony case against a key figure in Wisconsin's false electors scheme will proceed Monday — even as allies of President Donald Trump have ramped up pressure to stall the proceeding.
The post Ron Johnson asks US DOJ to intervene in Wisconsin false electors case appeared first on WPR.
A trans Middleton person has used the nonbinary X on IDs to better reflect their identity and appearance. The Trump administration is now requiring people to use the gender they were originally assigned on their birth certificates on passports.
The post Wisconsinite shares why nonbinary ‘X’ on IDs matters amid Trump rule changes appeared first on WPR.
The state of Texas in a new lawsuit claims Verona-based Epic Systems is running an illegal monopoly and restricting parents’ access to their children’s medical records.
The post Texas sues Wisconsin-based Epic Systems, accusing it of running a monopoly appeared first on WPR.
There are more than 57,000 jobs posted on the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development’s Job Center website.
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Nearly all artificial Christmas trees in the world today are made in China. And with that comes an up to 30 percent tariff rate on imported Christmas products — including artificial trees. Here's how tariffs are affecting Wisconsin’s real and artificial Christmas trees.
The post How tariffs are affecting Wisconsin’s real and artificial Christmas trees appeared first on WPR.
Confusion reigns in the wake of a late November announcing how the U.S. Department of Education (ED) could be dismantled, including the impact of the decision on school transportation.
Tim Ammon, owner of Ammon Consulting Group, noted two initial impacts focus on longer decision times and less clarity regarding resolving special needs services concerns.
Staffing reductions and the reorientation of the organization would make it more difficult to obtain guidance on what services are required, having the potential to create longer term uncertainty related to the stability of decisions and policy that can potentially create future exposure for services not provided, he said.
The third item Ammon suggested is uppermost in many minds: The reduction and likely elimination of some funding streams to transportation departments.
“While some perhaps most of these will be felt at the district level, they will filter their way down to transportation as districts begin to make very difficult choices about how to pare back services across all programs due to budget deficits,” he said.
During a Nov. 20 press conference, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt noted President Donald Trump “took a significant step toward delivering on a core campaign promise to finally close the Department of Education to shrink the bloated federal bureaucracy.”
A coalition of educators, school districts, unions and The Arc of the U.S. — an advocacy group for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities — sued the Trump administration in federal court, arguing the government’s latest attempt to dismantle the ED is unlawful, according to The New York Times.
The ED has entered into new interagency agreements with the Departments of Health and Human Services, Interior, Labor, Interior and State.
The agreements do not address school transportation impacts.
The ED announcement noted “these agreements follow a workforce development partnership signed with the Department of Labor earlier this year which created an integrated federal education and workforce system and reduced the need for states to consult multiple federal agencies to effectively manage their program.”
The interagency agreements are “a key step in our efforts to shift educational authority from Washington D.C. to your state education agency, local superintendent, local school board, entities that are accountable to you,” Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said at the press conference.
“As we partner with these agencies to improve federal programs, we will continue to gather best practices in each state through our 50-state tour, empower local leaders in K-12 education, restore excellence to higher education, and work with Congress to codify these reforms.”
Leavitt added the agencies will “now ensure the delivery of legally required programs while also refocusing them to better serve students.”
She claimed the 43-day federal government shutdown had “no impacted whatsoever” on the U.S. education system despite ED furloughing 90 percent of its staff. She noted schools nationwide stayed fully open, students attended class and received normal in-person instruction, and teachers received their paychecks uninterrupted.
“Since its creation in 1979 during the Carter administration, the Department of Education has spent over $3 trillion taxpayer dollars without improving student achievement, despite per-pupil spending having increased by more than 245 percent,” said Leavitt, adding math and reading scores are down.
The ED is a pass-through entity, McMahon said, adding “it doesn’t educate a single student. The money it sends to states for education can be sent directly without waste. Education is local. It should be overseen locally by those who best know local needs.”
Jeanne Allen, Center for Education Reform CEO and founder, ED hasn’t worked for students in decades but dismantling it remains complicated.
“It won’t be seamless, and it won’t succeed unless the new agencies clearly communicate with states, communities and parents about their new flexibility, how funds can be better spent, and how to avoid getting snared in fresh compliance traps,” she continued. “But shifting power closer to communities is the right direction.”
In contrast, Denise Forte, president and CEO of left-leaning educational think tank and racial and economic equity advocate EdTrust, released a statement indicating “the Trump administration began the process of selling off the Department of Education for parts. The administration has let down teachers, families and students, those currently in classrooms and the generations to come.
“Further diminishing these offices that protect student rights and stop discrimination and sending them off to be run by agencies that work on public health and short-term training, which lack the skills, expertise, or capacity in education, isn’t about improving student outcomes. It’s about implementing a business model that transforms students into widgets instead of human beings who need support.”
Forte has called on Congress to “stand up for the rights of America’s students and ensure education programs stay where they belong, with the Department of Education. The law is clear. Only Congress can dismantle the Department of Education.”
She also noted students and schools were indeed hurt by the federal government shutdown, noting calls and emails from families desperate to learn about their cases with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) went unanswered. Information requests from schools and districts were left unresolved.
These new directives only serve to further distance students — particularly students of color, those from low-income backgrounds, students with disabilities, and multilingual learners — from educational opportunities, Forte said, adding the other agencies now charged with protecting students’ educational civil rights do not have the relationships, expertise, or staff capacity to do so.
Multiple media reports, such as one from K12Dive that featured a timeline of the legal and political back-and-forth on shutting down the ED, indicates the ED has asked some OCR employees placed on administrative leave since March 21 to return to work by the end of December to address the current caseload of discrimination complaints.
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Transportation Focus Amid Uncertainty
Ammon said the most important factor transportation officials should be preparing for “is a lack of certainty about anything we thought was certain. As programs get dispersed across the bureaucracy and funds get commingled into block grants, there will be a shift in the available expertise, guidance and support, meaning departments are more likely to have to go on their own without formal or informal guidance previously provided by ED.
“Until we have a bit more certainty about whether this recent inter-agency transfer of responsibilities and funding levels will hold, districts are better off not making too many changes that would need to be undone if the winds and whims of policy and guidance change again,” he added.
While school transportation is primarily funded at the local and state level, it is indirectly supported by Title 1, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, and the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
Ammon noted confusion will reign for a period of time, with inevitable funding shifts.
“The shifts may not necessarily be direct cuts, but the bundling of programs into something like broader block grants that make funding more fungible and more likely to be reallocated within a district is inevitable,” he added.
Ammon reiterated that guidance on required services is likely to be even more chaotic.
“Worse still is if you think about how long these things take to play out, it is possible that by the time there is some clarity on requirements the administration could change and we are back to uncertainty,” he said.
While the IDEA law would remain intact, it is unclear in the short term which federal agency would enforce it and while states would likely comply, consistency and oversight could weaken with families facing uneven support depending on state laws or budgets, Ammon said.
As the ED collaborates with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on school bus safety recommendations, the EPA on clean fleet initiatives, and Homeland Security on emergency preparedness, its dismantling could slow coordination of national safety policies and potential inconsistencies in federal guidance for bus manufacturing standards, driver qualifications, student safety training, and emergency planning.
“Because much of this is in statute, it would theoretically require Congress to do something which it has seemed incapable of recently so those things feel like they won’t change much,” said Ammon.
“The regulatory issues are likely to be more impacted because of the scope of authority over them,” he continued. “My sense is that theme of uncertainty will be the thing most felt. I suspect that the key agencies transportation operations work with will still want and maybe be even more desirous of providing guidance in order to push the revised thinking down, but the reductions in staffing will make this more difficult because there will be so many fewer people to do the work. As a result, the changes may not be as fast or significant as expected.”
With the OCR and the National Center for Education Statistics playing a key role in tracking transportation access, identifying inequities, monitoring discipline and restraint/seclusion policies on buses, and conducting research on school travel behavior, national visibility regarding data collection and research could be fragmented under the states.
The ED’s data systems track everything from student ride times to transportation spending. With no single entity responsible for collecting nationwide data, the gap would make it more difficult for policymakers and researchers to identify trends or create informed solutions.
“This is one of the areas I am most troubled by,” Ammon said. “As an industry, we already have challenges on gathering and reporting data from at least 50 different state systems and thousands of operations.
“Losing the one source where even if the data isn’t perfect – it was pretty consistent – is a real degradation of the ability to do the trend analysis and comparisons vital to identifying best, emerging, and worst practices out there,” he added.
Ammon noted while he has no idea of the impact, it’s “interesting” to contemplate that without the ED, states may develop different rules affecting interstate collaboration, emergency evacuations, rural and tribal transportation funding, and charter, magnet, and school choice program compliance.
While the ED sets guidance on whether transportation is required or optional, transportation for choice programs becomes a state decision, with a potential increase in inequities.
“With the increased push for school choice at the federal and state level, this may become a bigger issue sooner than a lot of other issues,” Ammon said.
With respect to school bus fleets, drivers and operations, the ED dismantling would interfere with how fleets qualify for federal grants; access to low-emission/green fleet initiatives, and transportation tied to federal programs such as IDEA and Title I with rural districts – which are highly dependent on federal dollars – hit the hardest.
Ammon said this will be a massive and disproportionate influence.
“While federal funding is only about 10 percent of overall funding, for certain districts it is a much higher percentage,” he said, adding that it often affects poorer and more diverse districts.
While the funding reduction will be felt as more of a top-line, district-level resource reduction, it won’t take long to trickle down to transportation, Ammon noted.
“We will see notable reductions in services and the elimination of services in many districts,” Ammon said. “We will also see program reductions because service providers who may offer services for special needs, OT/PT or homeless end up closing due to lack of funding.”
That places the burden of service provision back on districts that are neither staffed nor equipped to provide it, he added.
“It doesn’t take long to get into a doom loop here where it becomes impossible to figure out how to maintain any semblance of what has seemed like normal for a generation,” Ammon said.
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While buses would still meet safety standards through NHTSA, the ED coordinates student evacuation, emergency planning, bullying, restraint and seclusion, and disability access, with such guidance slated to become patchwork on a state-by-state basis.
Ammon said statutory concerns won’t change as much as the regulatory piece, which will likely change due to changes in regulatory scope and a lack of regulators.
“Anything that appears like ‘soft side’ enforcement of things like bullying will be completely gone as that will be perceived to be an enforcement and definition function that should be made at the local level,” he added.
While the move to dismantle the ED is major, “We have to recognize it will be experienced by different populations very differently,” said Ammon. “The groups that have had to rely on federal legislation or support — especially special needs, homeless and socio-economically challenged — will feel this right away.
“It also is important to recognize that concerns such as school desegregation required federal intervention,” he added. “It is difficult to know with a great degree of certainty how this will ultimately be resolved or predict the next area that would require broad federal input in education.”
Whether that is good or bad will be for policy makers and the public to decide.
“We can be reasonably certain that in the current moment, it is going to require a very high bar or severe crisis to get that support,” Ammon added.
The post Funding Among Potential Impacts of U.S. Education Department Dismantling on School Transportation appeared first on School Transportation News.
The National Association of State Directors of Pupil Transportation Services (NASDPTS) sent an email to members providing an update on the 17th National Congress on School Transportation’s (NCST) National School Transportation Specifications and Procedures Manual (NSTSP), which was already updated over the summer to fix the inadvertent omission of the new alternative transportation section.
The online version was removed from the National Congress on School Transportation website as of Sept. 19, pending the update. On Sept. 29, the updated NCST was republished to include the alternative transportation section.
However, on Tuesday, NASDPTS said two other updates were made to the book, including pages 61-78 and page 377. Details on the specific updates were not provided. NASDPTS said the NSTSP “is designed to be a living document, meaning it can be updated at any time if necessary.”
Ronna Weber, executive director of NASDPTS, clarified that changes include “grammatical, formatting or inconsistency related to the Congress approved items … .”
“Proposed changes [are] often reviewed and updates are issued from the various committees as needed. However, the NSTSP itself is not officially revised until each Congress votes on the proposed changes,” she added. “Additionally, there is an interim process, which could be employed, should it be necessary between congresses. This process is very rarely used, but it exists should action be needed prior to the next Congress.”
Related: NASDPTS Weber Provides EXPO Attendees with Updates from NCST
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The decision on whether to hold the NCST every five or three years has yet to be made, but following last May’s NCST, delegates provided input on suggestions.
The electronic version has been updated to reflect the two updates, and the electronic version of the book is now dated December 2025. Each updated section is also saved as a separate link, should readers want to print the updated sections only.
“Future updates, should they be necessary, will also be handled in this manner, but communications will not necessarily be sent so please check the page periodically and refresh your link as needed,” NASDPTS said in a statement.
The post NCST Book Updated Again appeared first on School Transportation News.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., talks with reporters during a press conference on Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. Also pictured are, from left, Republican Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain of Michigan, Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota and Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans released a health care bill Friday evening they hope will help curb rising costs, though the measure doesn’t have the level of Democratic support needed to get through the Senate.
The 111-page bill will likely move to the House floor next week, where Speaker Mike Johnson will need nearly every one of his members to vote to pass the legislation, an uphill battle given the vastly different views among centrists and far-right members of the party on health care issues.
The Louisiana Republican said in a statement the bill offers “clear, responsible alternatives that will lower premium costs and increase access and health care options for all Americans.”
Democrats have been pressing for a three-year extension of the enhanced tax credits for people who purchase their insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
So far, House and Senate Republican leadership hasn’t gotten on board with any extension of those subsidies, arguing they have led to a sharp rise in the cost of health insurance.
GOP lawmakers have instead pursued their own legislation, but without at least some backing from Democrats, no bill will make it through the Senate’s 60-vote procedural hurdles.
Senate Republicans tried to advance a bill earlier this week from Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy and Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo but fell short of the votes needed.
Democrats were also unsuccessful trying to move their bill to extend the ACA marketplace tax credits for three years.
The House Republican bill, sponsored by Iowa Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks, is unlikely to break the logjam in Congress over the rising cost of health insurance and health care, potentially leaving the issue as one the parties can debate leading up to next year’s midterm elections.
Johnson rebuked Democrats in his statement for enacting the Affordable Care Act during President Barack Obama’s first term, saying the law hasn’t made health care cost less.
House Republicans’ new legislation, Johnson said, will address “the real drivers of health care costs to provide affordable care, increase access and choice, and restore integrity to our nation’s health care system for all Americans.”
The bill would require Pharmacy Benefit Managers “to provide employers with detailed data on prescription drug spending, rebates, spread pricing, and formulary decisions—empowering plans and workers with the transparency they deserve,” according to a summary in Johnson’s release.
Starting in 2027, the legislation would appropriate funding for cost sharing reduction payments that the summary said would reduce health insurance premiums and stabilize the individual market.
The House Rules Committee is scheduled to prepare the bill for floor debate on Tuesday by considering whether to allow any amendments to be considered on the floor.
The full House will then debate the legislation later in the week before departing for the two-week holiday break.
President Donald Trump, speaking from the Oval Office shortly after the bill was released, reiterated his preference that the federal government send payments directly to Americans.
“We want to give the money to the people and let the people buy their own great health care, and they’ll save a lot of money, and it’ll be great,” he said.
But Trump also appeared to signal he is going to stay out of negotiations in Congress, saying, “I leave it to them and hopefully they’re going to put great legislation on this desk right here.”
Kilmar Abrego Garcia speaks before dozens of supporters Friday outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Baltimore. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
Kilmar Abrego Garcia is a free man, at least temporarily.
Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran immigrant and Maryland resident, appeared early Friday for a check-in at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in Baltimore, less than day after a federal district judge ordered him released from ICE detention in Pennsylvania.
At his last ICE check-in, in August, Abrego Garcia walked in but didn’t walk out: Authorities detained him and held him until Thursday. But Friday, Abrego Garcia walked out of the building to cheers and chants, led by members of the immigrant rights group CASA to a black car that took him to rejoin his family in Prince George’s County.
Before Abrego-Garcia walked inside the building Friday, he thanked his supporters who rallied there, talked about spending the holidays with his family and offered advice for others suffering similar legal battles against the Trump administration.
“I stand before you as a free man, and I want you to remember me this way with my head held up high,” Abrego Garica said in Spanish, through a CASA translator.
“I stand here today with my head held up high, and I will continue to fight and stand firm against all of the injustices this government has done upon me,” Abrego Garcia said. “Regardless of this administration, I believe this is a country of laws, and I believe that this injustice will come to its end. Keep fighting. Do not give up. I wish all of you love and justice. Keep going.”
One of his attorneys, Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, told reporters and a few dozen protesters outside the field office that the federal judge who ordered Abrego Garcia freed Thursday said Friday that he could not be detained by ICE at his latest check-in.
Based on a temporary restraining order filed by his attorneys, Sandoval-Moshenberg said the judge will schedule a hearing at U.S. District Court in Greenbelt that Abrego Garcia will be able to attend.
“The legal fight is far from over,” Sandoval-Moshenberg said. “I wish I could say that with this, the government is going to leave well enough alone. This man has suffered enough.”
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin called the judge’s decision to let Abrego Garcia free “naked judicial activism.”
“This order lacks any valid legal basis and we will continue to fight this tooth and nail in the courts,” McLaughlin said in an email Friday morning that repeated her statement from the day before.
Abrego Garcia’s return to the Baltimore ICE office came one day after U.S. District Court of Maryland Judge Paul Xinis ordered the Trump administration to release him from the Moshannon Valley Processing Center in Pennsylvania, where he had been held since September. He was released Thursday evening and spent the night at his home in Beltsville.
Since he was first detained by immigration officials in March and wrongly deported to his home county of El Salvador, Abrego Garcia’s case has shone a spotlight on the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown.
Abrego Garcia was originally deported to a brutal prison in El Salvador, despite a previous court ruling that prohibited his transfer there because of fear of violence by Salvadoran gangs.
Months later — and months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s April order that the Trump administration “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return –he was brought back to the U.S. on June 6, only to face charges of human smuggling in Tennessee. The judge in that case eventually ordered Abrego Garcia released to home detention while his claim of vindictive prosecution in the Tennessee case proceeded.
Xinis, who got involved in the case when Abrego Garcia was first deported, issued a ruling Thurday that was highly critical of the administration’s actions in the case. She found that Abrego Garcia’s latest detention, since his August ICE check-in, was “again without lawful authority,” because the Trump administration has been holding him for deportation but has not made an effort to remove him to a third country.
The government’s “conduct over the past months belie that his detention has been for the basic purpose of effectuating removal, lending further support that Abrego Garcia should be held no longer,” Xinis wrote in her opinion.
Costa Rica has agreed to accept Abrego Garcia as a refugee, but Justice Department lawyers could not give Xinis a clear explanation of why the Trump administration would not send him there. Instead, the administration has proposed deporting Abrego Garcia to several countries in Africa.
Back in Baltimore on Friday morning, dozens of supporters braved the cold to hold up signs, chant and then clap and cheer when Abrego Garcia walked back outside the ICE building a free man, chanting “todos somos Kilmar,” or “we are all Kilmar.”
“It’s definitely a good day, but it is a good day to know that he’ll be able to spend the holidays with his family, “said Baltimore City Councilmember Odette Ramos, who attended the rally.
“He and his family have been so brave to go through all of this and to have their story really symbolize, frankly, what so many others are going through,” she said. “The fight’s not over.”
Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.
Wisconsin's health department is sticking with a recommendation that children receive the hepatitis B vaccine at birth. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Wisconsin’s health department is reaffirming longstanding recommendations that all newborns get a vaccination for hepatitis B.
The Department of Health Services announced Thursday it has sent a memo to Wisconsin vaccination providers about the vaccine.
“DHS continues to recommend that all newborns receive the hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours of birth, and then go on to complete the standard three-dose series within the first 18 months of life,” said Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer in the DHS bureau of communicable diseases, at a media briefing Thursday.
Hepatitis B, a viral infection, can lead to lifelong liver disease, Westergaard said, including cirrhosis and liver cancer.
“Infants and young children are particularly at high risk,” he said. A baby infected with the virus has up to a 90% chance of developing chronic liver disease, he said.
Infants can be exposed during birth or through close contact with adults and caregivers “who may not even know that they carry the virus,” Westergaard added. “That’s why vaccination early in life is so important.”
DHS issued the announcement following a federal shift in vaccine policy, eliminating a recommendation in place since 1991 for newborns to receive the hepatitis B shot. The recommendation was eliminated Dec. 5 in a vote by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In June, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. replaced all 17 members of the advisory committee with a new group of appointees, many of whom are seen as vaccine skeptics.
CDC vaccine committee overturns decades-old hepatitis B recommendation for newborns
The decision to end the recommendation for all newborns to get the hepatitis B shot dismayed the leaders of medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.
“For more than 30 years, the hepatitis B vaccine has been used safely and effectively in newborns,” Westergaard said Thursday. Since the 1991 recommendation was put in place, hepatitis B infections in children have declined by 99%, he said.
“This recommendation is grounded in decades of research showing that the vaccine is safe and effective, and it aligns with guidance of the American Academy of Pediatrics and other leading medical groups,” Westergaard said. “So, our message today is straightforward, hepatitis B and its long-term health consequences are preventable. And routine childhood vaccination remains one of our most effective tools we have to protect children’s health and prevent lifelong disease.”
Westergaard said there has been no change in insurance coverage for the vaccine and that the hepatitis B shot remains among the vaccines available through the Vaccine for Children’s program for patients without health insurance.
ACIP also recommended blood testing for antibodies before giving the rest of the hepatitis B series shots for infants and young children, but Westergaard said that recommendation is not supported by scientific evidence.
The presence of hepatitis B antibodies in adults is a good indicator that they are protected against an infection, he said. “There’s no science suggesting that that same strategy works for newborns and children,” he added.
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