As red sand filled the cracks along the sidewalks in front of the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, community members stood in quiet solidarity as drums beat.
The pouring of red sand marked another year of remembrance and healing for missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives, referred to as MMIWR.
The symbolic act of pouring sand was part of the HIR Wellness Institute’s ninth annual Community Activated Medicine & Red Sand Events on Nov. 14.
The Electa Quinney Institute was founded in 2010 to support the Native American community on campus.
Started in 2017, the event has provided a sacred space for community grief and collective healing in honor of MMIWR through art, storytelling and community care.
Each year, the HIR Wellness Institute collaborates with the Red Sand Project to host the event. The Red Sand Project was designed to raise public awareness about human trafficking and modern slavery, using the red sand to represent those who have fallen through systemic cracks.
A person walks down a path in between posters that have statistics about missing and murdered Indigenous women. One poster stated that 45.6% of American Indians/Alaska Native women in Wisconsin have experienced sexual violence.
Analia Ninham, a member of Daughters of Tradition, an Indigenous youth group at the HIR Wellness Institute, offers attendees a cleansing sage.
Malia Chow blows into a conch shell in all four cardinal directions as part of a Native Hawaiian tradition.
The RedNationBoyz, a Milwaukee-based youth and community drum group, performs.
Marla Mahkimetas, a Menominee water educator and artist, speaks about losing her daughter-in-law to human trafficking and her family’s healing journey since.
“Trauma is not a life sentence.”
Marla Mahkimetas
Dr. Jeneile Luebke, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, speaks to attendees about her research on gender-based violence in the Indigenous community.
“We got to cry and say her name.”
Malia Chow
Malia Chow, community healer with the HIR Wellness Institute, speaks about losing her twin sister to violence.
Shanna Hickman and her daughter, Ziraya Sunn, listen to a woman tell the story of how their sister was killed due to domestic violence.Hanna Jennings, an intern with the HIR Wellness Institute, hands out a bag containing red sand, tissues and community resources.The RedNationBoyz, led by one of the founders, Isiah Nahwahquaw (second from left), performs.
Monique Valentine writes the name Anacaona, a ruler of Jaragua (modern day Haiti), who was executed by the Spanish in 1503 and has become a symbol of Indigenous resistance.
Flower Harms pours red sand from the Red Sand Project, which was started by Molly Gochman in 2014 to bring awareness to human trafficking and modern slavery.
Red sand fills a crack during the ninth annual Community Activated Medicine & Red Sands Event.Rachel Fernandez, co-chair of the Wisconsin Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Relatives Task Force, pours red sand along a crack in the sidewalk.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
Joeniece Jackson surveys food available at the Elver Park Neighborhood Center food pantry on Tuesday, Nov. 25. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Elver Park Neighborhood Center on the far southwest side of Madison has long been a familiar and welcome source of help for Joeniece Jackson and her four children.
Her oldest, now 14, attended the center’s after-school programs from an early age, as have her other three kids. And Joeniece says she’s enjoyed volunteering as well, or bringing the children of friends who may need child care unexpectedly.
But in the last few years, the center has served another purpose as well — as a food pantry for families who need to stretch their family meal budgets.
“The food pantry has gotten us through some of our hard times,” Jackson says.
The Elver Park after-school program isn’t the only one doing double duty. Across Wisconsin, other after-school programs have added food pantry services to their offerings for families who may not be able to afford to keep their cupboards full.
“After-school programs have long been doing after-school meals and snacks for kids,” says Daniel Gage of the Wisconsin Out of School Time Alliance, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of after-school programs. Food pantry programs are a newer addition to that work. “After-school programs tend to be a place where people come together as parents are coming to pick up their kids.”
The recent federal shutdown, when federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Payments were halted Nov. 1, exacerbated the need. With the shutdown finished and SNAP funds flowing again, that has eased off, but only slightly.
The Elver Park Neighborhood Center and its after-school program are run by the Wisconsin Youth Company. The agency operates two neighborhood centers in Madison along with school-based after-school programs in Dane County and Waukesha County.
Elver Park’s food pantry began operating during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools were closed and, for a time, the center’s after-school programs were on hold as well, according to Takela Harper, the assistant director of centers for Wisconsin Youth Company.
Originally the center partnered with the Madison Metropolitan School District to deliver food to school district families who needed it, Harper said. When schools and after-school programs reopened, the program converted to a store-style food pantry, where families come on Tuesdays and Thursdays to pick up donations of packaged as well as fresh foods.
At Elver Park, there’s been “a consistent flow” in traffic for the last couple of years, Harper says. But that doubled in October from the previous month, with about 30 to 50 families a week coming in for assistance.
In Nekoosa, located in Wood County in North Central Wisconsin, the Nekoosa School District launched a food pantry a year ago. The city has a population of about 2,500 and the school district an enrollment of just over 1,200.
Nikki Stearns organized the Nekoosa program while serving in Americorps with the local YMCA. Her Americorps assignment had her working with elementary school-age children, and she soon learned the extent of hunger in some of those kids.
“So many of my kids are hungry,” Stearns said. “I started bringing in snacks, and other teachers started bringing in snacks for students, too.”
A 2023 United Way report on ALICE families in the community — families on the edge and vulnerable to falling into poverty — documented how pervasive families are who cannot count on regular meals or an adequate supply of food .
“In Nekoosa, 53% of our community is either living in poverty or one paycheck away,” Stearns says.
In the Nekoosa program, families who sign up receive a box of food each month. Some are also enrolled in FoodShare — Wisconsin’s name for the state’s SNAP benefits program. When SNAP payments stopped Nov. 1, however, the food pantry’s signups shot up.
Through September and October, the Nekoosa program served 38 people — eight to 10 families, Stearns said. That jumped to more than 50 in November after SNAP benefits stopped.
“The first day when SNAP benefits weren’t uploaded to people’s [electronic benefits] cards, I think I had 35 applications come in in one day,” Stearns said. “Now we’re serving about 200 people.” Even with the resumption of SNAP after the end of the shutdown, the demand has not diminished significantly, she added.
The Nekoosa food pantry program had been housed with the YMCA after-school program, based at a middle school. In June, the school transferred the food pantry program to the operation of the YMCA, which moved it to share space with the Y’s child care program, where recipients pick up their monthly boxes of food.
Providing a monthly allotment of food proved to be the most practical way for the Nekoosa program to operate, Stearns said, because “I don’t always know what [food] donations we’ll get or how much funding we’ll have to support people.”
The Nekoosa program was launched as part of a Wisconsin Partnership Program grant that the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health made to the Marshfield Clinic. With the $500,000 grant, the clinic was able to fund seven projects across the state’s northern half to address food insecurity.
“When students are fed and have those basic needs met, with food as one of those basic needs, they certainly can learn and focus so much more,” says Jill Niemczyk, a health educator with the Marshfield Clinic’s Center for Community Health Advancement who has been coordinating the program.
Other projects included a food pantry expansion, a teen meal program, gardening projects and a variety of nutrition education and community engagement programs.
“Each one of our seven sites is doing something a little bit different,” Niemczyk says.
The grant is now in its second year. In the third and final year, she says, attention will turn to assisting the various recipients as they look at how to establish ongoing community support and build on what they have been doing.
Even with SNAP benefits restored with temporary legislation to fund the federal government through January, Stearns expects the need to address hunger and food insecurity to persist.
“I think a lot of people are feeling like the food crisis is addressed” because the shutdown ended, Stearns says. “But a lot of us in food security are nervous about January. There’s a pretty big need to focus on people being fed — students are going to school hungry, whether there’s FoodShare or not.”
A medical worker pushes a stretcher through a hallway at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. States are passing laws to target private equity transactions of health care facilities, such as hospitals. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
As more private equity firms buy health care physician practices and facilities, states are pushing back on acquisitions that some critics say could potentially gut health care infrastructure.
This year alone at least seven states, including California, Indiana, Massachusetts, Maine, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, have enacted laws requiring more oversight over private equity acquisitions in health care. Private equity involves pooling resources from pension funds, endowments, sovereign wealth funds and wealthy individuals to buy controlling stakes in companies and boost their value — often with the goal of selling at a profit within a few years.
Private equity firms argue that their role in upgrading technology and increasing efficiency helps health care access, especially in rural and other underserved areas.
Private equity interest in health care has been around for a while, but really started to grow in the past decade, said John McDonough, a professor of public health practice at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Now there are private equity interests “in every imaginable iteration of medical care,” from hospitals to nursing homes, hospice care, physician practices and even veterinary care, he said.
This year, several states have passed laws to increase oversight and transparency of private equity’s continuing acquisitions.
Massachusetts and California enacted laws requiring more groups that were not included under previous reporting requirements, such as private equity firms, real estate investment trusts and management service organizations, to now notify the state if they make a health care acquisition and to give the attorney general more power to investigate the transactions. Indiana passed a law that gives the attorney general authority to investigate market concentration.
Oregon passed an oversight law that not only limits how much private equity firms can buy up a health care market, but also bars private equity firms from having any control over clinical operations. The law also gives the state power to block any pending transitions that violate the law. California also enacted another law that prohibits private investors from interfering with the judgment of physicians and dentists.
New Mexico passed a law that strengthened its 2024 Health Care Consolidation Oversight Act, which temporarily gave the state regulators more oversight over transactions. The new law makes that oversight authority permanent and more expansive, while also establishing penalties for non-compliance with reporting requirements. And Washington state passed a transparency law creating a registry of all health care entities.
The purpose of the dealmaking is to enrich the owners as quickly as possible, and then get out and move on to your next conquest.
– John McDonough, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Maine passed a law to impose a one-year moratorium on all private equity or real estate investment trust purchases of hospitals.
“The purpose of the dealmaking is to enrich the owners as quickly as possible, and then get out and move on to your next conquest,” McDonough said. “And so there’s a fundamental conflict there between duty to patients as a primary obligation and return on profits to shareholders.”
According to researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, the number of acquisitions of physician practices rose from 816 in 2012, to 5,779 in 2021. Researchers also found that some single private equity firms captured 30-50% of specialty practices in local markets.
With limited congressional oversight on private equity actions in health care, states play a critical role in reining in predatory practices, said Michael Fenne, senior policy coordinator at the Private Equity Stakeholder Project, a watchdog group that monitors private equity activity.
“There’s not really federal law that targets private equity acquisitions in the same way [as laws] that states have been passing recently,” he said.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Tim Scott was shocked when he was laid off in May as the executive director of Nearby Nature, an organization that works to reconnect Black people to nature by offering nature education classes and introducing residents to new outdoor experiences.
Instead of letting the sudden change deter him, he doubled down on his commitment to help Milwaukee residents experience the outdoors.
Scott is opening Urban Nature Connection, a community-based nonprofit dedicated to reconnecting Black and Brown communities with nature.
The organization’s mission is to promote the physical, spiritual and mental health of outdoor activities such as birding, gardening, biking, hiking and fishing.
Finding a new purpose
According to Scott’s wife, Theresa Scott, he has always been an outdoorsman.
“He has always enjoyed walking or spending time in the park or outdoors,” Theresa Scott said.
Tim Scott spent most of his career in construction work.
He’s also done some coaching and marriage counseling but said he found a new purpose when he took the role at Nearby Nature.
“This is my passion, this is my healer, I owe nature my life to tell you the truth,” Scott said.
His wife agrees.
“I think this is a great second career for him,” she said. “It’s better for his mind and his body.”
Scott said he now knows the importance of pushing nature as a healing mechanism, especially for those who don’t have access to mental health services.
“We all experience trauma in different ways,” Scott said. “But we don’t all have access to the same mental health services. Being out in nature really saved me when I was experiencing my own crisis.”
By connecting people with nature, Scott hopes to help others find their own healing.
In addition to outdoor activities, the organization will focus on indoor gardening, programming and advocacy of green space.
Over the next few months, the focus will be on getting people outside even during the colder months.
“A lot of our work will be advocacy,” he said. “So, we will center advocacy through every season.”
Scott says he plans to partner with other agencies to host wellness events, community discussions and group walks.
To keep up with Urban Nature Connection, you can follow its Facebook page here.
“What he wants to do here is truly a movement,” Theresa Scott said.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
Surveys by the Federal Reserve Banks of Minneapolis and Chicago found tougher farm credit conditions in the third quarter of 2025. Surveyed farm lenders reported lower rates of loan repayment and higher demand for extensions and new loans.
At a time when states across the country are locked in redistricting battles aimed at swaying the balance of power in Congress, two lawsuits attempting to redraw Wisconsin's congressional map are using a process that is anything but ordinary.
After a mental health-related tragedy resulted in a Milwaukee woman’s death last month, Wisconsin mental health advocates are asking why there weren't crisis interventions before the situation escalated.
The entrance to a Big Lots store in Portland with a SNAP eligibility sign. Up to 3,000 Oregonians with (Stock photo by hapabapa/Getty Images)
On the eve of Thanksgiving, Oregon is co-leading a group of Democratic attorneys general in suing the U.S. Department of Agriculture and its leader Brooke Rollins over abrupt cuts to food assistance for refugees and asylum seekers.
The cuts could affect up to 3,000 Oregonians who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, and who came to the U.S. as refugees, asylum seekers or through other humanitarian protection programs, according to state Attorney General Dan Rayfield.
The attorneys general argue in their lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Oregon, that Rollins broke federal law by attempting to cut off food assistance for some non-citizen groups even after they’ve obtained permanent residency, and that the USDA violated its own rules for issuing new guidance to states.
Rollins gave states’ SNAP agencies one day, rather than the standard 120 days, to adjust and respond to the new guidance or face steep penalties.
“We’re one of the most wealthy countries in the world, and no one should go hungry in America,” Rayfield said at a virtual news conference on Wednesday. “It’s absolutely absurd that we’re having this press conference here today, a day before Thanksgiving.”
Oregon is co-leading the suit with New York, and is joined by 20 other states and the District of Columbia. It is Oregon’s 48th lawsuit against the federal government since President Donald Trump began his second term in January.
Confusion sown
Congressional Republicans did eliminate SNAP eligibility for some refugees and asylum seekers in the GOP tax and spending megabill they passed this summer, several attorneys general at the news conference explained, but it did not make those groups permanently ineligible for SNAP after they’ve obtained green cards and permanent resident status. Furthermore, federal law prohibits this, they argue.
But an Oct. 31 memo from USDA Associate Administrator Ronald Ward to states’ SNAP agencies listing some refugee and asylum groups as “not eligible” and others not eligible until they’ve been permanent residents for five years, has sown confusion.
The memo was sent on a Saturday in the midst of the government shutdown, and the state SNAP agencies were given one day to respond.
“Federal law is specific and says that refugees, asylees, humanitarian parolees and other vulnerable legal immigrants are eligible for SNAP benefits as soon as they obtain their green cards and meet standard program requirements,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta said at the news conference. “The administration does not have the power to rewrite these rules just because they don’t like them.”
In a Nov. 19 letter, the attorneys general collectively asked Rollins to correct the error and explain why the 120-day standard for response was not being honored, but they did not receive a response, they said, necessitating the lawsuit.
Bonta said the mixed messaging from USDA is not happening in a vacuum.
“Families who rely on SNAP are still recovering from the whiplash of the recent government shutdown, when the Trump administration tried to block November SNAP benefits,” he said.
The Democratic attorneys general successfully fought that attempted block and two judges ordered the benefits paid.
“The reality is, after losing in court again and again, the Trump administration is still trying to find ways to deprive families that are barely scraping by of basic food assistance that the law affords them,” Bonta said. “They are working overtime to deprive hungry Americans of food.”
This story was originally produced by Oregon Capital Chronicle, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Members of law enforcement and National Guard soldiers respond to a shooting of two National Guard members on Nov. 26, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Two National Guard members from West Virginia were in critical condition Wednesday evening after being shot near the White House in Washington, D.C., officials said.
FBI Director Kash Patel, a Metropolitan Police Department leader and Mayor Muriel Bowser emphasized during a press conference the investigation was in the preliminary stages, but said the shooting was “targeted” and that one suspect, who was also shot, was in custody.
“At approximately 2:15 this afternoon, members of the D.C. National Guard were on high visibility patrols in the area of 17th and I Street Northwest when a suspect came around the corner, raised his arm with a firearm and discharged at the National Guard members,” MPD Executive Assistant Chief Jeffery Carroll said.
“There were other (National Guard) members that were in the area. They were able to, after some back and forth … subdue the individual and bring them into custody,” Carroll added. “Within moments, members of law enforcement in the area were also able to assist and bring that individual into custody.”
The Department of Homeland Security in a press release late Wednesday identified the suspect as an Afghan national who entered the U.S. in September 2021. Numerous news reports gave his name as Rahmanullah Lakanwal. The Associated Press, citing a law enforcement official not authorized to speak publicly, reported the suspect sustained “injuries that are not believed to be life-threatening.”
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services posted late Wednesday that “Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols.”
Carroll said there were no other suspects at the time of the press conference, in the early evening, and that law enforcement officials had reviewed video footage from the area where the shooting took place.
“It appears, like I said, to be a lone gunman that raised the firearm and ambushed these members of the National Guard, and he was quickly taken into custody by other National Guard members and law enforcement members,” he said.
The guardsmen were armed, but Carroll said investigators had not yet determined if they shot back or how the suspect, whom he did not name, was shot.
“At this point, we’re still investigating exactly who shot the individual. It’s not clear at this time,” he said.
Officials were also not yet sure “what kind of weapon” the suspect used during the shooting, which Carroll said “happened right in front of the Metro, although there is no indication that the perpetrator was on the Metro.” The Metro is the district’s public transit system.
Bowser reiterated during the press conference that the two National Guard members were in critical condition and referred to the shooting as “targeted.”
Trump delivers remarks
President Donald Trump delivered brief remarks Wednesday night from Florida, condemning the “monstrous, ambush-style attack.”
Trump praised his deployment of guard troops to the district as “part of the most successful public safety and national security mission in the history of our nation’s capital.”
“This heinous assault was an act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror. It was a crime against our entire nation. It was a crime against humanity. The hearts of all Americans tonight are with those two members of the West Virginia National Guard and their families,” Trump said in a recorded video message posted on his social media platform, Truth Social, around 9:20 p.m. Eastern.
Trump said “based on the best available information” the suspect is from Afghanistan, which he called “a hellhole on Earth” and that he had been “flown in” by former President Joe Biden.
Trump said his administration will “re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden.”
Biden established a program to bring Afghans who assisted American troops during two decades of war to the United States after his administration withdrew troops in August 2021.
FBI Director Kash Patel speaks to reporters following the shooting. Mayor Muriel Bowser looks on. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
FBI and partners to lead investigation
Patel said the investigation will be treated as an assault on a federal law enforcement officer.
“The FBI will lead out on that mission with our interagency partners to include the Department of Homeland Security, Secret Service, ATF, DEA, and we’re thankful for the mayor’s assistance in this matter,” Patel said. “The Metropolitan Police Department and their skills in investigating homicides and gun shootings in this city is exceptional.
“We will work together collaboratively, because this is a matter of national security, because it’s a matter of pride.”
West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey wrote on social media before the press conference that the guard members had died, though he later posted he was hearing “conflicting reports about the condition of our two Guard members and will provide additional updates once we receive more complete information.”
“Our prayers are with these brave service members, their families, and the entire Guard community,” he added.
Trump was briefed on the shooting and was “actively monitoring this tragic situation,” according to a statement Wednesday afternoon from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. The shooting happened just one day before Thanksgiving.
Trump posted on social media that both guardsmen were “critically wounded” and taken to two separate hospitals. The shooter, he added, was “also severely wounded, but regardless, will pay a very steep price.”
Trump mobilized 800 National Guard members to the district in August, on the grounds of a “crime emergency,” despite a nearly 30-year low in violent crime in the city.
Some of the guard troops were instructed they would be carrying service weapons while deployed in the district, according to an Aug. 17 report in the Wall Street Journal.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told reporters Wednesday the administration will send an additional 500 National Guard troops to the district.
“This will only stiffen our resolve to ensure that we make Washington DC safe and beautiful,” Hegseth said.
The White House was placed on lockdown for a period due to the shooting, according to a White House official. Trump and first lady Melania Trump were not present at the time of the shooting.
Last week, a District of Columbia federal judge found the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard in the city illegal. However, Judge Jia Cobb paused her order for three weeks to give the Trump administration time to remove the guard members along with appealing her ruling.
More than 2,000 members of the guard have remained in the district, and are expected to stay until the end of February, according to Cobb’s order.
The Trump administration on Wednesday asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in an emergency motion to intervene.
When Trump mobilized the Guard, he also federalized the district’s police force for 30 days. While the federalization of the police force expired, Trump has kept the National Guard in the district.
Since then, Republican governors have agreed to send their own Guard members to the district, from Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia, among others.
Lawmakers react
Members of Congress responded to the initial reports of the shooting with prayers and gratitude for the service members.
Members of the U.S. Secret Service and other law enforcement agencies respond to a shooting near the White House on Nov. 26, 2025. At least two National Guard members were shot, officials confirmed. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“Praying for the National Guard members wounded in this horrific shooting,” U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote on social media. “Thankful for the brave law enforcement officers and first responders who swiftly apprehended a suspect. There is no place for violence in America.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican and retired lieutenant colonel in the Iowa National Guard, called for prayers for the victims.
“Join me in praying for the two National Guardsmen shot in D.C. and their families,” she said. “Our men and women in uniform truly put their lives on the line to keep us safe and deserve our greatest respect.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote he was “closely monitoring the situation and am praying for the wounded National Guardsmen and their families.”
“My heart breaks for the victims of this horrific shooting in Washington DC near the White House,” Schumer wrote. “I thank all the first responders for their quick action to capture the suspect.”
Speaking in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, Vice President JD Vance, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, said the attack was “a somber reminder.”
“Our soldiers are the sword and the shield of the United States of America,” he said. “And as a person who goes into work every single day in that building and knows that there are a lot of people who wear the uniform of the United States Army, let me just say very personally thank them for what they’re doing.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., wrote that his “thoughts and prayers are with the National Guardsmen who were attacked this afternoon. I urge you to keep them in your prayers too.”
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote the “National Guard has done heroic work this year working around the clock to make our nation’s capital safe again. We are forever grateful for the swift actions of law enforcement and for all those who risk their own lives to protect everyone else.”
Jacob Fischler and Leann Ray contributed to this report.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a Nashville press conference on July 18, 2025, to discuss arrests of immigrants during recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement sweeps. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Wednesday the end of temporary protected status for roughly 330,000 nationals from Haiti by February, opening them up to deportations.
In her reasoning, Noem said extending temporary protected status to Haitians would be “contrary to the national interest of the United States” and will end on Feb. 3.
TPS is granted to nationals who hail from countries deemed too dangerous for a return, due to violence or major natural disasters.
While TPS was granted to Haitians due to the 2010 earthquake, conditions in the country have worsened amid rising gang violence since 2021.
“Moreover, even if the Department found that there existed conditions that were extraordinary and temporary that prevented Haitian nationals …from returning in safety, termination of Temporary Protected Status of Haiti is still required because it is contrary to the national interest of the United States to permit Haitian nationals … to remain temporarily in the United States,” according to the notice in the Federal Register.
The notice is meant to comply with a court order earlier this year that barred DHS from ending TPS for nationals from Haiti until protections were set to expire in February.
States with large Haitian immigrant populations include Florida, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that studies global migration.
Noem, who stated in her confirmation hearing that she planned to curtail TPS renewals, has moved to end protections for nationals from Afghanistan, Cameroon, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua, Syria and Venezuela.
Prisoners look out of their cell as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, in Tecoluca, El Salvador, on March 26, 2025. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice acknowledged in a court filing that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem made the call to continue removals of Venezuelans to a brutal Salvadoran prison, despite a federal judge’s order to stop the deportations.
The Tuesday filing noted that Noem was advised by top officials at the Justice Department she did not need to comply with the March 15 judicial order to halt the deportations because it had been issued after the flights took off. The Venezuelan nationals were deported under an obscure wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.
“After receiving that legal advice, Secretary Noem directed that the AEA detainees who had been removed from the United States before the Court’s order could be transferred to the custody of El Salvador,” according to the DOJ filing. “That decision was lawful and was consistent with a reasonable interpretation of the Court’s order.”
Noem’s decision sent 137 Venezuelan men to a mega-prison for months until the Venezuelan government could broker a prison swap with El Salvador and the United States to have the men returned.
In an emergency March 15 order, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said the planes carrying the Venezuelans had to return to the United States.
They did not have the opportunity to challenge their removal, which was a violation of their due process rights, the American Civil Liberties Union has argued in its case against the Trump administration.
Tuesday’s filing represents a shift in legal strategy from the administration, which had initially argued that because Boasberg’s order was verbal and not written, his temporary restraining order carried no weight.
Contempt probe
The filing comes after Boasberg resumed a contempt investigation to identify the Trump administration officials involved in authorizing the Venezuelans’ removals.
Last week, Boasberg ordered the administration to submit filings on how to proceed with the contempt inquiry.
“I certainly intend to find out what happened that day,” Boasberg said last week.
Tuesday’s filing argued that contempt proceedings are not needed and that “the Government maintains that its actions did not violate the Court’s order.”
The ACLU, which is representing the deported men, in its filing on the contempt issue urged Boasberg to request testimony from nine current and former officials from the Homeland Security and Justice departments.
The ACLU also said the government should identify “all individuals involved in the decision… regardless of whether they were the ultimate decision-maker or had direct input into the decision, as well as all those with knowledge of the decision-making process.”
Once those people had been identified, Boasberg could determine in what order testimony should be gathered.
(The Center Square) – Democratic attorneys general from 22 jurisdictions sued the Trump administration Wednesday over ending food assistance for noncitizens who are legal permanent residents.
(The Center Square) – A pair of Wisconsin legislators are proposing legislation that would create various fees for activities on state land to help fund the state’s Department of Natural Resources.
(The Center Square) – Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission agreed to a $31.3 million increase settlement to residential rates for electricity and natural gas for Madison Gas and Electric customers over the next two years, according to preliminary estimates from the…
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