When an elderly relative arrives looking for a particular book, young library William Garrett is confronted by a mysterious figure; the encounter pulls William into a decades-old family feud with […]
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's latest maternal mortality report found that in 2023, Black women nationally were more than three times more likely than white women to die during or after childbirth. (FatCamera/Getty Images)
Brandie Bishop-Stacker was absent from school the day her little sister was born 24 years ago. Instead, the then-10-year-old went to a Georgia hospital with her mom, rubbing her feet, getting her water, and comforting her during labor pains. She recalled her mother screaming when she initially couldn’t feel her legs after receiving an epidural. And she remembered the nurses and medical staff not offering much in the way of support.
“Nobody gave any extra support seeing that my mom was a single mom, that I was there out of school helping her that day,” said Bishop-Stacker, now a professional doula in Atlanta. “…If she needed something … that was kind of a me thing, even though, of course, there’s nursing staff and I was 10 years old.”
In the two decades since, Bishop-Stacker said she has attended the birth of hundreds of Black babies and has often seen mothers’ needs and concerns be dismissed or ignored, sometimes to the detriment of their maternal care. She was unsurprised by the latest statistics showing rising maternal deaths among U.S. Black women while rates of maternal deaths of other populations have fallen. Research shows these disparities cannot only be explained by education and income levels. And Bishop-Stacker’s experience has taught her that economic advantage does not cancel out racist attitudes in the medical care setting.
“Here in Atlanta, I have a unique vantage point of being where there are probably the most successful Black women in the United States,” said Bishop-Stacker, who is the CEO of the National Black Doulas Association. But she said Georgia is often among the top states with the worst maternal health outcomes. “Oftentimes, when we’re looking at the money part to it, we’re not taking into consideration the fact that racism is the true issue.”
Doulas are non-medical professionals trained to support people through significant health-related experiences, such as childbirth, miscarriage, abortion and death. Bishop-Stacker said her organization has around 4,000 members and trains doulas around the country on how best to advocate for parents of color.
Increased access to community-based doulas and midwives is one of several potentially effective strategies identified by medical groups and health advocates in recent years to improve Black maternal outcomes and potentially stem a persistently high and rising national Black maternal mortality rate. But in the first three months of President Donald Trump’s administration, some state lawmakers and reproductive health advocates say they’re already seeing a rollback to emerging state and federal measures designed to better understand and improve Black maternal health outcomes.
In conjunction with the annual Black Maternal Health Week campaign founded by the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, which began Friday and ends April 18, lawmakers in dozens of states are calling on their colleagues to address what they say are alarming levels of pregnancy- and childbirth-related deaths and adverse outcomes among Black women.
“When we talk about maternal health, it’s imperative that we center Black women in that conversation, and that we also respond to this maternal health crisis in a way that brings some equity in our policymaking process,” said Democratic Mississippi Rep. Zakiya Summers, who is participating in this year’s campaign coordinated by the State Innovation Exchange (SiX), Black Mamas Matter Alliance, and the National Organization of Black Elected Legislative Women. According to SiX — a progressive nonprofit that provides policy support to state legislators — participating state lawmakers are releasing resolutions or proclamations in Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.
Summers, whose District 68 includes West Jackson, Pearl and Richland, said the Trump administration’s categorical opposition to discussions of race and identity in policy is also reflected in the Mississippi legislature, which recently banned diversity, equity and inclusion policies from public schools.
Brandie Bishop-Stacker is CEO of the National Black Doulas Association, which has 4,000 members and trains doulas around the country on how best to advocate for parents of color. (Courtesy of Brandie Bishop-Stacker)
During the past legislative session, which ended this month, Summers sponsored bills to mandate cultural competency training for certain physicians, including OB-GYNs; to establish a legal framework for licensing and regulating professional midwifery and requiring insurance companies to cover midwifery services at the same rate as physician services; and to address postpartum depression that would have required screening birth mothers for depression at the time of birth. Those bills died in committees, as did her resolution for the legislature to recognize Black Maternal Health Week and to commit to policies focused on reducing Black maternal mortality and morbidity.
“Our committee was very reluctant to bring anything that had to do with African Americans, and I think that’s due to this national conversation around DEI and Republicans being unwilling to do anything that appears to have something to do with diversity, equity or inclusion,” said Summers, adding she will issue a proclamation instead.
Bishop-Stacker said the National Black Doulas Association has had to walk away from certain partnerships “due to the companies’ change in stance on DEI and the lack of funding available for states to continue with efforts to expand Medicaid to cover doula care.”
Efforts to remove race from federal and state policy are consequential to maternal health, says Jennifer Driver, senior director of reproductive rights at SiX. She said Trump’s policies broadly — mass federal job cuts, restrictions to a national family planning program, and significant cuts to reproductive health research teams within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — will disproportionately affect people of color who have already been disproportionately impacted by abortion bans.
“If you don’t record our contributions, if you deny our inherent rights … you also absolve yourself and the responsibility from addressing the significant health disparities that exist for Blacks in this country,” Driver said, noting that this year’s initiative will spotlight Black-led community efforts to improve maternal outcomes in the face of what she describes as an “erasure.”
“Black communities have done what we have always done; we have turned to one another,” she said. “We’ve turned to community practices. That’s why you see this emphasis on doulas and midwives, because we know the historical practices and how we have taken care of each other when this country continues or has failed us in the past.”
Driver herself might not be here were it not for the midwife whom she said helped deliver her mother in Alabama in the 1950s. She said her grandmother was barred from giving birth in the white hospital in Birmingham because of segregation and had all 14 of her kids with a midwife.
Vast Black maternal health disparities
The U.S. has one of the highest maternal mortality rates of any developed nation, but that is partly due to high rates among Black women and people who are nonbinary. Earlier this year the CDC released its latest maternal mortality report showing that between 2022 and 2023, maternal mortality rates went down for white women (from 19 to 14.5 deaths per 100,000 live births), Hispanic women (from 16.9 to 12.4) and Asian women (from 13.2 to 10.7) but rose for Black women (from 49.5 to 50.3), who were nationally more than three times more likely than white women to die during or after childbirth. A brand-new study from the Journal of the American Medical Association analyzing pregnancy-related deaths in the U.S. between 2018 and 2022 found the pregnancy-related death rate was 3.8 times higher among American Indian and Alaska Native women and 2.8 times higher among non-Hispanic Black women, compared with the rate among non-Hispanic white women. Other recent research has found that Black women are disproportionately impacted by rising maternal cardiac deaths and that 30% of Black women report mistreatment by medical staff during maternity care.
But in the backdrop of worsening outcomes for Black women and rising deaths attributed to abortion bans, some state governments, like in Georgia and Texas, have opted to halt or change how maternal mortality data is collected and studied. And as part of sweeping layoffs, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently placed on administrative leave the entire staff overseeing the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System, designed to better understand infant and maternal health.
Georgia disbanded its maternal mortality committee last year after ProPublica reported on deaths attributed to the state’s abortion ban. The committee has since been reconstructed, but a bill that would have directed the committee to focus specifically on why certain communities are disproportionately impacted failed to pass. Democratic state Rep. Jasmine Clark, who is sponsoring a resolution for Black Maternal Health Week, said she hears a lot from Black women in her district who say their pain concerns are dismissed by providers due to racist beliefs that Black people have a higher pain tolerance or are simply seeking out drugs.
Clark, who’s in her 40s and has two teenagers, said she has considered growing her family but is scared by the stories she regularly hears of Black women having detrimental reproductive health experiences or even being criminalized for their choices.
“It’s scary to hear these stories and not wonder in the back of your mind, ‘What if that were me?’” Clark said. “I worry that the policies that we have in place in the state where I live mean that not only do I have to worry about what happens if I were to go to term and to deliver a baby and what happens in the postpartum, but I also have to worry about what happens if things don’t go according to plan, and what happens in the process of miscarriage care and whether or not I will receive the care.”
Dr. Jamila Perritt, an OB-GYN in Washington, D.C., who specializes in complex family planning and is the CEO of the advocacy group Physicians for Reproductive Health, said more research is needed to combat the Black maternal mortality crisis.
“It’s actually dangerous for the federal government or state government or anyone to suggest that these review committees are not useful,” she said. “If we do not investigate, if we do not evaluate what is happening for folks while they’re dying … then how can we suggest that we care about pregnant people and their families?”
Perritt also advocates for more access to midwifery and doula services in Black communities led by culturally competent providers, which research has shown helps reduce rates of high-risk procedures, like cesarean sections and inductions.
That is clear for Jamarah Amani, who is a midwife and the executive director of the Southern Birth Justice Network based in Miami, whose mission is to increase the number of midwives and doulas throughout the U.S. and to integrate them in hospital systems.
She said that while she was in labor with her second child in a Georgia hospital, she was told by medical staff that “I was going to kill my baby,” if she got out of the bed to labor upright.
“I had a doula that actually physically blocked the door so that I could labor on the toilet, and then as the baby was crowning, I was like, ‘OK, call them in,’” Amani said. “I knew what my body needed, and I knew that that nurse was lying. She was a white nurse. I was a Black woman. When I tried to challenge her, ask questions, she got very defensive and even threatening. And I think, as a Black person, what we often experience is a fear of, you know, DCF [Department of Children and Families] being called … because we’re asserting our rights and that’s looked at as some form of neglect.”
Doula Brandie Bishop-Stacker said her work specializing in Black births has taught her how effective this kind of advocacy can be in improving health outcomes and especially coming from Black and brown doulas. Though she has never given birth herself, she said that when she was 18, she adopted her little sister “due to health concerns that limited my mom’s abilities and the incarceration of our fathers.”
“When you are able to have somebody who has a shared lived experience of not being seen, of not being heard of, not being valued, and they understand what those things feel like, that can help them to care for you in a way that goes a bit further, because they actually walked in your shoes,” she said.
After two high-profile cases in which candidates were unable to remove their names from the ballot, Wisconsin lawmakers are weighing a change to one of the nation’s strictest withdrawal laws.
Under current Wisconsin law, once candidates qualify for the ballot, they can only be removed if they die.
The restriction received renewed attention in August 2024, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running as an independent, unsuccessfully sought to withdraw from the Wisconsin presidential ballot — a request that ultimately reached the state Supreme Court.
More recently, in January, Madison Ald. Dina Nina Martinez-Rutherford announced she was dropping out of her reelection race and endorsing her opponent, citing two major life events. Despite her public withdrawal, she remained on the ballot and was reelected in April.
On Tuesday, the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections held a public hearing on the proposal written by Rep. David Steffen, a Republican, to allow candidates for certain statewide, congressional and legislative offices and independent candidates for president and vice president to withdraw from the ballot any time before the Wisconsin Elections Commission certifies candidates’ names.
Steffen said he’s working on an amendment to address concerns raised by election clerks about how the proposal could disrupt tight ballot production timelines.
Calling the current law outdated, Steffen told lawmakers that candidates deserve a straightforward way to remove themselves from consideration before Election Day.
While the bill would not apply to local or off-cycle races like Martinez-Rutherford’s, election clerks say even the limited version could still cause issues. They warned that allowing candidates to withdraw up until the day of certification doesn’t give them enough time to finalize ballots, which are often already in production before that point.
“I have no problem if a candidate wants to remove their name,” Columbia County Clerk Sue Moll, a Republican, said. “I just want to make sure that the timeline is such that we can meet our deadlines.”
Most states provide nominees who wish to drop out of a race some sort of off-ramp. Many states allow nominees to drop off the ballot between 60 and 85 days before an election. Some states require polling places to have notices clarifying candidates’ withdrawal if they drop out after ballots are already printed.
Wisconsin law used to allow nominees to drop off the ballot if they declined to run, but it changed in 1977 to the current policy — allowing withdrawal only in the event of death.
Under the proposal presented on Tuesday, nominees could drop off the ballot anytime before the election commission certifies candidate names.
Processing a candidate’s withdrawal on that last day would put clerks on a “really tight” timeline, Moll said.
Even with a head start to prepare ballots, county clerks are scrambling at the last minute to get their ballots programmed, printed and sent to municipal clerks in time for them to send out by the state’s legal deadline, which is 47 days before a federal election, Moll said.
It would have taken about an extra half-day of work to reprogram everything if Kennedy dropped off the ballot last-minute, she said. It could take more time in counties that rely on vendors to prepare their ballots and program voting equipment, she added.
When a candidate changes his or her mind and drops out, Moll said, “Well, OK, that’s one candidate. What happens if there’s five candidates?”
Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson, a Democrat, told Votebeat that clerks would risk going past the deadline for sending out ballots if candidates waited until the last minute to drop out.
If the deadline to withdraw was about a week before the commission certifies candidates’ names, Tollefson said, “we should be OK.”
Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard, listens to testimony during an Assembly committee hearing March 11, 2025, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Steffen, the author of the proposal, said at the Tuesday public hearing that an amendment in the works would do exactly that: Require nominees to withdraw at least seven business days before the Wisconsin Elections Commission meeting to certify nominees. The amendment would require clerks to be notified of a nominee’s withdrawal at least five days before the meeting.
At the hearing, Tollefson said she agrees with the amendment. She told Votebeat that the timelines would still be tight under the amendment, particularly in bigger counties like Milwaukee County and Dane County, but that clerks should be able to get their ballots done in time.
February and April elections don’t have long enough window
Giving nominees a path to withdraw their candidacy for the February and April elections — like the one Martinez-Rutherford won after trying to exit — would be virtually impossible because those elections are run in such a short time span, clerks told Votebeat.
Clerks only have about a week between the February and April elections to prepare their ballots, get them printed and send them out to municipal clerks, Moll said.
If the amended measure becomes law and plays out well, Steffen said he may introduce a separate proposal that addresses local races. But he also acknowledged the tight timelines that clerks face in February and April elections.
Just after the hearing, at the Eastmorland Community Center in Madison, Martinez-Rutherford, the candidate who won a city council seat in April despite informally dropping out of her race, said that she would remain on the council but that it would be “reasonable” to create a process for candidates to formally drop out.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
“The sooner this can conclude, the sooner that the entire strategy plays out and we end up with whatever the result will be, the better,” Johnson told WPR's "Wisconsin Today."
After announcing a major workforce reduction at the beginning of the year, Air Wisconsin is planning another round of layoffs affecting more than 100 people.
Republican-ordered audits released Friday found that Wisconsin state agencies and the Universities of Wisconsin have failed to track the millions of dollars they spent on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, making it difficult to fully assess the initiatives.
A section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall near El Paso, Texas, on June 6, 2024. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump late Friday signed a memorandum directing several agencies to start militarizing a stretch of the southern border, an escalation of the administration’s use of the U.S. military amid its immigration crackdown.
The move, which The Washington Post first reported last month, could potentially put U.S. military members in direct contact with migrants, a possible violation of federal law.
The memo directs the Interior Department to allow the Defense Department to have jurisdiction over portions of federal land known as the Roosevelt Reservation, excluding any Native American reservations.
By creating a military buffer zone that stretches across the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, California and New Mexico, it means any migrant crossing into the United States would be trespassing on a military base, therefore allowing active-duty troops to hold them until U.S. Border Patrol agents arrive.
National and military experts have raised concerns that giving control over the land to the military could violate the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that generally prohibits the military from being used in domestic law enforcement.
The Friday memo instructs its “phased” implementation within 45 days, and says it could be expanded over time.
The memo is directed at the secretaries of the departments of Defense, Interior, Agriculture and Homeland Security.
“The complexity of the current situation requires that our military take a more direct role in securing our southern border than in the recent past,” according to the memo.
Friday’s announcement comes ahead of a report that is due to Trump by April 20 from the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security with recommendations on whether or not to use the Insurrection Act of 1807 to aid in mass deportations.
The memo states: “At any time, the Secretary of Defense may extend activities under this memorandum to additional Federal lands along the southern border in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor, and other executive departments and agencies as appropriate.”
The memo also says that it’s part of an executive order Trump earlier this year signed, “Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States.”
That executive order is one of five that lay out the use of military forces within the U.S. borders and extend other executive powers to speed up the president’s immigration crackdown.
Minister of Justice and Public Security Héctor Villatoro, right, accompanies Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
GREENBELT, MARYLAND — A federal judge Friday demanded daily reports from the Trump administration on how it is working to return an erroneously deported Maryland man from an El Salvador prison, despite objections from a Department of Justice lawyer who insisted the Trump administration could not immediately obey a U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
The Maryland judge’s order came after the high court Thursday night ruled the Trump administration must try to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, of Beltsville, but stopped short of requiring he be brought back from the notorious mega-prison.
The unsigned order from the Supreme Court said the district court also needs to clarify what it meant by saying the administration must “effectuate” the return of Abrego Garcia and the scope of that term is “unclear” and may exceed the district court’s authority.
Immigration officials admitted to an “administrative error” in the March 15 deportation of Abrego Garcia to El Salvador, despite protections from removal to his home country placed in 2019 by an immigration judge.
U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis of the District of Maryland grilled DOJ attorney Drew Ensign on where Abrego Garcia was currently and what steps President Donald Trump’s administration had taken to return him to the United States.
Ensign said he could not answer those questions and instead requested more time because the administration is currently “vetting what we can say” in court.
He also objected to the requirement to submit daily updates.
Xinis, who earlier set a deadline, now expired, for the government to bring back Abrego Garcia, was critical of that response.
“The record as it stands is, despite this court’s directive … your clients have done nothing to facilitate the return of Mr. Abrego Garcia,” she said.
Xinis said she would schedule a hearing for early next week.
“We’re not going to slow walk this,” she said.
She continued to ask Ensign where Abrego Garcia was located.
Ensign said he had no information.
“It’s quite basic,” she said. “I’m not asking for state secrets.”
CECOT prison
Administration officials have said Abrego Garcia is in the custody of El Salvador’s government at the notorious prison known as Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT. The Beltsville man was apprehended by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement while driving his 5-year-old son home.
El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, is visiting the White House Monday to meet with President Donald Trump.
The attorney representing Abrego Garcia’s family, Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, said he would welcome daily updates on what the Trump administration is doing to facilitate his client’s return.
“It’s quite clear that the government is playing a game with their own lawyers,” he said, noting that this is the second time he has faced a DOJ attorney who claimed he had little information for Xinis.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the attorney that originally argued on behalf of the government, Erez Reuveni, was placed on administrative leave for not “vigorously” defending the Trump administration.
Reuveni was candid with Xinis about how the Trump administration gave him no information as to why Abrego Garcia could not be returned, despite admitting to his deportation as a mistake.
Administration official rejects district court authority
Meanwhile, Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, rejected the judge’s authority to require the return of Abrego Garcio in a social media post after the high court decision.
“SCOTUS rejected the lower court and made clear that a district court judge cannot exercise Article II foreign affairs powers. The illegal alien terrorist is in the custody and control of a sovereign foreign nation,” Miller wrote.
While the Trump administration has labeled Abrego Garcia as a member of the MS-13 gang, he has no criminal record in the U.S. or any country.
Before Friday’s hearing, the Department of Justice had sought a delay until Wednesday, which Xinis rejected in a searing order.
“First, the Defendants’ act of sending Abrego Garcia to El Salvador was wholly illegal from the moment it happened, and Defendants have been on notice of the same,” she wrote. “Second, the Defendants’ suggestion that they need time to meaningfully review a four-page (Supreme Court) Order that reaffirms this basic principle blinks at reality.”
She said the Department of Justice should have been making efforts to return Abrego Garcia after her decision last week ordering them to do so.
During the hearing she asked Ensign what progress the Trump administration made before the Supreme Court stayed the deadline she had set — so from April 4 until April 7.
Ensign said that the Trump administration was “not yet prepared to share that information.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem walks past reporters after doing a TV interview outside of the White House on March 10, 2025. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Millions of immigrants in the country without legal authorization are required as of Friday to register with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security after a federal judge rejected advocacy groups’ request to pause the requirement.
They’ll also have to carry documents proving their registration.
The Thursday decision from U.S. District Court Judge Trevor Neil McFadden of the District of Columbia allows the Trump administration to issue hefty fines and potential prison sentences if those subject to the registration requirement do not comply.
McFadden, who was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017, said in his ruling that the advocacy groups lacked legal standing – meaning they had not shown how they would be harmed by the requirement – to bring the suit.
“As organizations, many of their harms are too speculative, and they have failed to show that the Rule will erode their core missions,” McFadden wrote in his order.
In a statement, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem cheered the order.
“President Trump and I have a clear message for those in our country illegally: leave now. If you leave now, you may have the opportunity to return and enjoy our freedom and live the American dream,” Noem said.
The Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank, estimates that between 2.2 million and 3.2 million immigrants will have to register. The registration requirement could be a powerful tool in the Trump administration’s efforts to carry out mass deportations.
Registration requirements
DHS announced the new requirement in February. Under the rule, immigrants aged 14 and older who are required to register will need to carry registration documents at all times or risk potential prison terms or fines of up to $5,000.
Immigrants covered by the requirement must submit fingerprints and other biometric and personal information through an online application handled by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Once an application is approved, the agency will provide documentation that immigrants must carry at all times.
The suit, brought by immigration advocacy groups, argued the Trump administration violated proper rulemaking procedures in creating the application. The groups also warned in court documents that use of the application “will lead to racial profiling and the mistaken targeting of U.S. citizens.”
The registration requirement is authorized under a wartime act known as the Alien Registration Act of 1940 that was first used in World War II.
The requirement was rarely used until the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. During that time, any noncitizen males older than 16 who hailed from 25 Muslim-majority countries had to register with the U.S. government.
The program, the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, led to no terrorism convictions and was dissolved in 2016.
Under the requirement in place Friday, those who are required to register include immigrants who entered the U.S. without legal authority and Canadian visitors in the U.S. for more than 30 days.
Those who do not have to register include lawful permanent residents, immigrants with work visas or certain other visas and those in removal proceedings.
In a new survey of Wisconsin child care providers, 25% said they could close without renewed state support. Corrine Hendrickson, shown here at a 2023 event to support the child care sector, said her New Glarus family care will likely have to raise fees. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
One in four Wisconsin child care providers could close their doors if the state’s ongoing support isn’t replaced after it ends in June, according to a state-commissioned report released Thursday.
More than one in three providers expect to reduce their capacity for children or the hours they operate, or both, according to the report, based on a survey of most of the state’s licensed child care providers.
The report was commissioned by the state Department of Children and Families (DCF) and produced by the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
It was released by the office of Gov. Tony Evers to support $480 million for child care providers in his 2025-27 proposed budget — a successor to the state’s Child Care Counts program that was funded with federal pandemic relief money.
Ruth Schmidt, executive director, Wisconsin Early Childhood Association. (Courtesy WECA)
“It underscores what those of us in the field have known for a long time — that is, the need for public investment in order to stave off closures and rate increases,” said Ruth Schmidt, executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association.
The association supports Evers’ $480 million budget proposal and is holding an advocacy day at the state Capitol on April 16, with plans to meet lawmakers.
In a statement announcing the survey findings, Evers underscored his proposal.
“The cost of child care is too darn high, wait lists are too long, and providers are already struggling to keep the lights on, their doors open, and meet demand for child care across our state,” Evers said.
“The results of this survey are crystal clear: if we don’t make needed investments to support our child care providers and industry, programs will close, wait lists will get even longer, providers will be forced to raise prices, and parents and loved ones who can’t afford for [their] costs to get any higher may have to leave our workforce.”
Child Care Counts has provided monthly payments to state child care providers since 2021. From November 2021 to January 2024, it was funded from Wisconsin’s share of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), the federal pandemic relief legislation enacted in 2021. The program paid out more than $479 million to providers. After that money ran out, Evers directed another $170 million additional pandemic relief funds to carry the program through June 2025.
Child Care Counts paid out $20 million a month until mid-2023, when it was cut to $10 million a month, with providers getting half of what they had previously received.
The Republican majority in the state Legislature rejected Evers’ proposal to put up to$360 million in the 2023-25 budget to continue the subsidy program at its earlier monthly amount.
Providers have credited the Child Care Counts program with making it possible for them to increase pay for child care workers in the face of competition from other employers without being forced to raise the fees they charge parents.
About 80% of the state’s more than 4,500 child care providers received and took part in the survey, which was included in providers’ November application for Child Care Counts payments.
The survey included questions about providers’ experiences before and after the Child Care Counts reduction. It also asked about their expectations after the program ends in June, as well as the potential impact of a continued program.
Two-thirds of providers surveyed reported that after the payments were reduced, they raised fees.
Responding to questions about the impact of state support ending in June, 25% or more of providers in the survey said they would be somewhat or more likely to close. Fully 10% of providers said closing their program “was very or extremely likely,” the report found.
“That’s an incredibly concerning statistic,” said Schmidt. “That’s a lot of child care programs that could be pulling up stakes. It’s going to hit rural communities super hard, but across the state we’re going to see significant closures.”
More than one-third of providers — 37% — said they were “at least somewhat likely” to close some of their classrooms or reduce the number of children they serve. Almost that many, 36%, said they were likely to reduce the number of hours they provide care.
By 59%, providers also expect their waiting lists to grow without continued state support.
Providers also expect to have a harder time hiring and keeping employees, with 66% saying that it was “at least somewhat likely” they will have to cut compensation, including their own. Fully half of providers “said this was very or extremely likely,” the report states.
More than half of providers — 56% — said it was at least somewhat likely that more employees would quit, and 46% said staff cuts were somewhat or more likely.
Of providers in the survey, 69% said “that it was at least somewhat likely” they would have a harder time hiring qualified employees.
About half of providers surveyed — 51% — said they thought it would be “at least somewhat likely” that they would find it harder to provide high quality care.
Between one-fourth and nearly half of providers said they expected to have more trouble being able to meet some parents’ specific needs. Those include providing care earlier or later in the day, serving families in the state’s Wisconsin Shares subsidy child care program for low-income families, caring for infants and toddlers or caring for children with special needs.
“With families already struggling to afford child care, respondents repeatedly described how continued funding — whether at the original or at current levels—would help prevent further tuition rate increases,” the survey report notes. Some providers said it would allow them to hold rates at their current level or reduce them, while others said it would keep the rate of tuition increases down.
Corrine Hendrickson, a New Glarus child care provider and organizer of an advocacy group for providers and families, Wisconsin Early Childhood Action Needed (WECAN), said the survey points out “the disastrous results for children and families after the initial [Child Care Counts] funding wasn’t replaced in the state budget.”
Rural areas, where families are younger and have lower incomes, may be hit the most dramatically if the child care sector contracts, Hendrickson said.
Hendrickson said she is likely to have to raise the rates she charges for her family child care center, which has a capacity of eight children. A $30 increase “will put me out of reach for too many families,” Hendrickson said. “If I lose two children and can’t replace them within a month or two, I will have to close.”
Chad Sobieck testifies in opposition to a bill introduced in the Wisconsin Assembly that would place new limitations on the process to establish if a person is eligible for Medicaid. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
State legislation that would require the Wisconsin health department to verify that all Medicaid recipients are eligible twice a year was met with resounding opposition at a public hearing Thursday.
The bill,AB 163, also would add restrictions on the verification process. With a few differences, the legislation echoed a bill that failed to pass two years ago.
Only one witness testified in favor of the measure: its Assembly author, state Rep. William Penterman (R-Columbus).
“It will create a balance, an important balance, in preserving a strong safety net for our most vulnerable residents while curbing inappropriate long-term reliance on public assistance,” Penterman said.
The legislation would prohibit the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) from renewing Medicaid recipients automatically and require DHS to reconsider a person’s eligibility every six months instead of annually, the federal standard.
It would cut off eligibility for six months for Medicaid recipients who don’t report a change, such as higher income, that would make them ineligible for the program. It also prescribes additional requirements for checking databases of other agencies to confirm information about a Medicaid recipient’s qualifications.
Over the course of a 2-1/2-hour hearing, witnesses said the bill would impose significant administrative burdens on Medicaid recipients and likely lead some to be kicked off the rolls, not because they were not eligible but because of mistakes, whether made by the recipient in the process of trying to requalify or by state officials processing their paperwork.
“Its reason seems to be purposely causing difficulty for people whose lives are already a monumental struggle in an attempt to make it too difficult for them to access the services they are entitled to,” said Karel Oliveras, who has two grandchildren withAngelman syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes developmental delays and other problems.
Referring to Oliveras’ comments about the process of establishing eligibility for the program, Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) asked, “Would you characterize it as too easy?”
“It’s my daughter and her husband who do that,” Oliveras said. “But the stress of that [on them] was very, very obvious.”
Both Clancy and Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire), the committee’s two Democrats, were skeptical about the idea that there were people in Wisconsin who were on Medicaid but didn’t qualify.
In response to lawmakers who had implied that Wisconsin’s Medicaid enrollment — about 20% of the state population — was excessive, Tamara Jackson, the legislative policy representative for the Wisconsin Board for People with Developmental Disabilities, said the percentage is similar in most states.
According to Jackson, Wisconsin’s Medicaid staff already monitors people’s eligibility rigorously. “They are really checking every application and every renewal to make sure that people meet the income, asset, and other eligibility requirements,” she said.
Chad Sobieck, who uses a wheelchair, said he has been on Medicaid for his entire life and it has enabled him to live in the community with the help of caregivers covered by the program. When completing paperwork, he has to enlist the help of others because he cannot write due to his physical disability, he said.
A provision in the bill banning DHS from prepopulating forms for the renewal applicant would make that even more difficult.
If he has to qualify every six months and there’s an error that kicks him off Medicaid for six months, “that would mean that I don’t have caregivers,” Sobiek said. “If there is a gap in those services, I will not be able to remain independent and it will become a safety and health issue for me.”
Almost all the opposition testimony focused on people with disabilities. Several Wisconsin Medicaid programs enable people with disabilities to live at home or in the community, rather than in an institution, with the program covering their needs for health care and home and personal care that they cannot manage on their own.
Penterman said that after “conversation and collaborating with the stakeholders” he was planning to offer an amendment that would exempt people with developmental disabilities from the legislation.
Critics of the bill, however — including those speaking on behalf of people with developmental disabilities — were largely skeptical about that announcement.
“I am a little offended about the fact that the amendment offered only covers the developmentally disabled,” said Jason Glozier, executive director of the Wisconsin Coalition of Independent Living Centers, arguing that the proposal’s limits would be onerous for people with physical disabilities, too.
“To say that doubling the administrative burden would decrease waste or decrease fraud doesn’t seem to make sense when we have a system that is overburdened and unable to meet its need effectively,” Glozier said.
“Why should somebody who’s been disabled from birth, who’s been paralyzed or acquired a disability, have to consistently re-insist that they have a disability?” he added. “It’s not going to get better.”
Sen. Jeff Smith holding up a printout of President Donald Trump's post telling people to buy, which went out just hours before he paused most tariffs. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin Democrats are resurrecting a resolution that would allow voters to weigh in on whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Citizens United ruling should stand — an effort that comes just a week after historic spending in Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court election.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission found that corporations and unions have a First Amendment right to speech and laws preventing them from spending were unconstitutional. The decision has enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend virtually unlimited amounts of money on elections.
Lawmakers said the decision is the core of why spending has gotten so out of hand in the last decade and a half. According to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, preliminary data shows that nearly $100 million was spent during the April race between Justice-elect Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel.
At a press conference, Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) called billionaire Elon Musk — who has directed efforts in the Trump administration to slash federal programs and fire federal employees and spent millions trying to influence the outcome of the Wisconsin Supreme Court — a “carpetbagger.” He criticized Musk for giving money to voters, saying Wisconsinites shouldn’t get accustomed to being paid to vote, but should be voting to make their voices heard.
Smith said money in elections is making voters feel like billionaires are outweighing their voices. He then called specific attention to President Donald Trump telling investors to ‘buy’ on social media — as the stock market was wavering — just hours before he announced that for 90 days he would be lowering U.S. tariffs to 10% on most countries and raising them on China to 125%. The move caused the stock market to rise and, then led to accusations of market manipulation and insider trading.
“The man in the White House sent this message — ‘A great time to buy! A great time to buy.’ He sent his message to his rich donors and friends,” Smith said.
“It pays off to put millions of dollars in campaigns because they’re going to make money in the end if they win,” Smith continued. “We need Congress to reevaluate this role of corporations and billionaires and their role in money and politics.”
The advisory referendum would seek an answer from voters on whether Wisconsin’s Congressional delegation should support a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision. Specifically it would ask voters the question whether “only human beings are endowed with constitutional rights — not corporations, unions, nonprofit organizations, or other artificial entities” and whether “money is not speech, and therefore limiting political contributions and spending is not equivalent to limiting political speech.”
Smith said voters sent a message that they won’t be bought last week by rejecting Musk’s preferred candidate.
“We don’t want that money coming in here in Wisconsin to buy our elections and our freedom,” Smith said. “Let’s put this referendum on the ballots, so voters can make their voices heard directly to Congress.
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Operations and Policy Director Beverly Speer emphasized at the press conference that the issue goes beyond Musk, saying that spending by independent expenditures — totaling about $51.5 million in April — are often backed by billionaires and operated in shady ways.
“Don’t be mistaken, Musk is just one of a handful of billionaires who contributed to this bipartisan arms race,” Speer said. “Things will continue to escalate… Unless we want to see a $150 million race, and then maybe a $200 million race, we need to cut off this free-for-all.”
Speer said that voters are mostly opposed to the vast spending in campaigns.
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign conducted a survey in February that found about 88% of Wisconsin voters statewide are “extremely concerned” or “very concerned” about the influence of money in politics. The survey also found that 86% of respondents said people and groups shouldn’t be able to spend “unlimited amounts of money” to support political campaigns and 83% of respondents said there should be limits on how much campaigns can spend.
“While working Wisconsinites stretch to pay rent, feed their families, and make ends meet, billionaires treat our elections like a game — pouring millions into a state that they don’t even normally live in, hoping to tip the scales in favor of their special interests,” Speer said.
A statewide referendum would need to pass the Republican-led Legislature, and Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) acknowledged that previous attempts have been unsuccessful. She said she welcomes more conversation about the issue and proposal.
“Not once has it even gotten a hearing, and you know, why? Because politicians who are beholden to big money in politics don’t want to hear what the people have to say about it, but we are calling on… our colleagues to join us in this resolution,” Subeck said.
Subeck said lawmakers were starting with the referendum because any changes in state law are “neutered” by the Citizens United decision. She said Democrats would be introducing more bills to address the issue in the near future, including on disclosure of money in campaigns and on public financing. However, she said pushing Congress for a constitutional amendment will be key to changing the state of money in elections.
“We cannot fundamentally make wholesale change in this through any state law as long as Citizens United is still law of the land,” Subeck said. “We need to amend our federal Constitution and we need to send that message clear and simple.”
Prisoners sit at the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, a mega-prison in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador, on April 4, 2025. The Trump administration has acknowledged mistakenly deporting a Maryland resident from El Salvador with protected status to the prison but is arguing against returning him to the U.S. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)
A disgraced former Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) officer was found to be linked to a high-profile deportation by the Trump Administration. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Charles Cross Jr. 62, signed a report that claimed Andry José Hernandez, 30, a gay Venezuelan citizen who worked as a make-up artist, was linked to the Tren de Aragua gang and cited his tattoos. Cross, now employed by the private prison company CoreCivic, left MPD under a cloud of conduct and credibility problems, which also landed him on the Brady list of untrustworthy officers maintained by the Milwaukee County district attorney’s office.
In 2012 when he held the rank of sergeant at MPD, Cross was fired after driving his car into a family’s home while he was intoxicated. Cross was allowed to resign after appealing the decision to the Fire and Police Commission (FPC). The Journal Sentinel also reports that Cross was being investigated for claiming overtime he allegedly hadn’t earned when he was fired from the department.
Prior to the crash, Cross had been placed on the Brady list after kicking in the door of an apartment shared with his girlfriend and threatening to kill himself with his service revolver. The incident, in 2007, cost him his job, but Cross was reinstated after appealing to the FPC. Four months after he separated from MPD in 2012, Cross was hired by CoreCivic, the Journal Sentinel reported.
According to court filings, Cross identified himself as an “investigator” in a form claiming Hernandez was part of Tren de Aragua, one of the gangs that the Trump administration says it is targeting through mass deportations and detentions of non-citizens. Hernandez had tattoos depicting crowns with the words “dad” and “mom.” Hernandez’s attorneys say the crowns are a reference to the “Three Kings” festival in his hometown of Capacho, Venezuela, and are not connected to Tren de Aragua, as Cross reportedly assumed.
Hernandez was one of more than 200 mostly Venezuelan migrants sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center. Authorities at the prison have been accused of human rights violations and torture.
Hernandez fled Venezuela fearing persecution for being a gay man, as well as for his political views. The Journal Sentinel reports that after entering the U.S. illegally, he was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol agents and sent to Mexico, where he made an appointment and presented himself at a port of entry in San Diego. Hernandez was asked about his tattoos by federal agents, who named him as a “suspect,” but didn’t check any of the other categories on the questionnaire such as “intelligence information received from other agencies” or “group photos.” Since he was deported to El Salvador, Hernandez has not been able to reach his lawyers.
The developments have raised questions about the involvement of private contractors in immigration and deportation actions, as well as the ability of police officers with problematic histories to be hired by private companies like CoreCivic.
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin voters approved $950.8 million in new funds through K-12 school referenda this spring in the February and April elections, including $441.7 million for operations and $509.1 million for capital projects.
(The Center Square) – Democratic lawmakers from the Green Bay area say they don’t want to see another million-dollar giveaway before the next election.
Republican-ordered audits released Friday found that Wisconsin state agencies and the Universities of Wisconsin system have failed to track the millions of dollars they spent on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, making it difficult to fully assess the initiatives.
The highly anticipated reports come amid a push by President Donald Trump to end federal government support for DEI programs. There have been similar efforts in Wisconsin by Republicans who control the Legislature. The reports’ findings are likely to further increase pressure from Republicans to do away with anything related to DEI.
DEI practices at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in particular have come under close scrutiny.
The system’s flagship campus fired its chief diversity officer, LaVar Charleston, in January for what university officials said were poor financial decisions he had made, including approving substantial raises and authorizing what they deemed to be excessive spending on travel.
The school is one of 50 universities across the country that Trump said are under investigation for alleged racial discrimination related to DEI programs. UW-Madison also is one of 60 schools that federal education officials are investigating because of accusations that they failed to protect Jewish students during campus protests last year over the war in Gaza. UW-Madison officials said Friday that they are cooperating with both probes and that they condemn antisemitism in all of its forms.
Audits estimate that millions of dollars went toward DEI activities
The audits found that neither UW nor the 15 state agencies that were reviewed specifically tracked how much money they spent on DEI efforts during the 2023-2024 fiscal year, which ended June 30.
Auditors noted that neither the UW system’s Board of Regents nor its administration required schools to define DEI, which resulted in them launching individualized initiatives. Auditors were able to estimate that the system spent about $40 million on offices with duties connected to DEI. The system spent about $12.5 million on salaries for positions with job duties related to DEI and another $8 million working on DEI-related activities. A dozen state agencies spent about $2.2 million on salaries for jobs related to DEI.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ administration didn’t consistently require agencies to ensure DEI plans were developed and implemented correctly, the audit found. Also, agencies didn’t consistently document when they corrected noncompliance, the report said.
The administration cautioned about drawing conclusions about the actual costs related to DEI as outlined in the audit.
Many of the costs were related to implementing programs required by law, were human resources best practices or were tied to worker retention and recruitment efforts, said Kathy Blumenfeld, who heads the state’s Department of Administration.
GOP pushes to eliminate DEI programs
Legislative Republicans have been pushing for years to end DEI programs and last year ordered the review by the nonpartisan Legislative Audit Bureau.
Assembly Speaker Robin Vos has pledged to end diversity efforts in state government, saying that such initiatives are “cancerous” and that he wants a society that is “truly colorblind.”
State Sen. Eric Wimberger and state Rep. Robert Wittke, Republican co-chairs of the Legislature’s Joint Audit Committee, said in a statement Friday that the audits show taxpayers spent millions on DEI with very little to show for it.
Vos said in a statement Friday that Assembly Republicans would keep pushing to eliminate DEI as they deliberate on the 2025-27 state budget.
“Student achievement should be based on merit,” Vos said.
DEI positions shrink at UW
Under a deal reached with Republicans in 2023, the UW system froze diversity hires, re-labeled about 40 diversity positions as “student success” positions and dropped an affirmative action hiring program at UW-Madison. In exchange, the Legislature paid for staff raises and construction projects.
Auditors found that when the deal took effect, the system had at least 123 full-time positions that provided DEI services, had job titles that included the terms “diversity, equity and inclusion” or were senior leadership positions focused on DEI. The number of positions had dropped to 110 by May 2024.
There are now 64 positions, UW system President Jay Rothman wrote in response to the auditors. Rothman said the auditors’ work was challenging because there is no universal definition of DEI, each school developed its own initiatives and the offices that perform DEI work also might have duties unrelated to DEI projects, blurring spending lines and funding sources.
“In that context, it is important to emphasize both the UW’s philosophical shift aimed more broadly at student success as well as the variance in which universities structure their offices and positions that may pertain to — though not exclusively focus on — ‘DEI’ activities when one is interpreting the data offered in the report,” Rothman wrote in his letter.
Governor required agencies to create DEI plans
Evers signed an executive order in 2019 requiring each state agency to create and monitor equity and inclusion plans to address employment barriers, assess workplaces to ensure they’re equitable and promote inclusion and expand professional development to encourage a more inclusive culture.
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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