Family and friends hold posters of missing and murdered Indigenous people on May 5, 2025 in Duluth | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner

On Monday, May 5, near Duluth City Hall, the mayors of Duluth, Minnesota, and Superior, Wisconsin gathered with tribal members from the two states to offer their support for the 5th Annual National Day of Awareness for Missing, Murdered, Indigenous Women and Relatives (MMIWR).

The May 5th event was one of many held in Wisconsin and around the nation to highlight the crises plaguing Native American communities.

Tribal members face violence, both domestic and outside their families, at a higher rate than the general population. Several factors contribute to the MMIWR phenomenon including the fact that missing people belong to a vulnerable population that has suffered historical trauma and is disproportionately affected by poverty and substance abuse; exploitation associated with itinerant workers in mining and oil camps near reservations; and an inconsistent track record of law enforcement committing resources to solve murders or finding missing person.

“On this day, we remember our stolen relatives and honor those who are still missing,” the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition said in a statement. “May 5 also serves as a call to action at the national level, for intervention at both the state and federal levels to the epidemic of our missing & murdered relatives.”

Tribal members, including many holding posters of missing or murdered people, represented family and friends.

Ian Martin is the nephew of Peter Martin, a Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa tribal member  who went missing from the Minnesota reservation in March 2024. Ian noted that May 5 was Peter’s 33rd birthday.

“After this week, we’re going to be starting up our search parties again,” said Ian. “That consists of looking through acres of woods, acres of properties. We have set up meetings with the agencies working this case and tips and leads are still being followed up on, and the investigation is still ongoing.”

Ian said there is no solid theory why his uncle went missing. 

“When a relative disappears from us or is taken from us, it creates a lot of unresolved grief, a lot of incomplete relationships,” he said. “Our family wishes day and night that he comes home.”

He continued, “I don’t have a solution to this MMIR issue in Indian Country, but I do have advice. The best advice is that care of one another. There’s only a handful of us, Indian people on this world. Remember to take care of your well-being.”

The mother of Chantel Moose, 25, a Native American murdered April 12, 2024 in Duluth also spoke. 

“This year has been hard,” said Shauna Moose, speaking in a trembling voice. “Hoping and praying for justice for her.”

Rene Ann Goodrich, a MMIWR advocate who organized the event, noted that the trial is set for the man accused of killing Chantel.

“The family has just completed their first memorial,” said Goodrich. “Now is the time that they’re seeking justice, and they need support from the community…and we want the family to know that we’re here with you. We’re here for the duration.”

Tony Mainville, a tribal member from Northern Minnesota and the uncle of Jeremy Jourdan, 16, who went missing on Halloween 2016, spoke of the family’s pain of missing the young man and their determination not to stop looking for him.

Steve Woodworth, a Leech Lake Tribal Member, filled out information at the event about his sister, Melissa Woodworth, who has been missing since December 2020. Steve said during a RV trip that Melissa’s boyfriend said she walked away in a town in Iowa, a town the boyfriend couldn’t remember, and she has never been heard from again.

Steve said he was the one who had reported his sister missing, and as the only remaining sibling, he had been working with the FBI and the Minnesota, Murdered, Indigenous. Relative (MMIR) Office.

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Anna Schlobohm de Cruder stands in the remains of her home, which was destroyed in the Eaton Fire on March 20, 2025 in Altadena, California.  (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House lawmakers on Wednesday began debating when the Federal Emergency Management Agency should provide state and local communities with help addressing natural disasters and when aid should be handled by others.

The Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee’s hearing on FEMA’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year came just days after the Trump administration sent its spending proposal to Capitol Hill.

That “skinny” request, however, didn’t include an actual spending level for FEMA, only suggesting that Congress cut $646 million for various non-disaster grant programs, including Targeting Violence and Terrorism Prevention, and the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium.

Chairman Mark Amodei, R-Nevada, urged the FEMA official at the hearing to get the full budget request to the committee sooner rather than later.

“If we don’t have the information, it’s going to be a problem,” he said. “And I’m not threatening. You don’t need threatening. We don’t work that way.”

Amodei also told Cam Hamilton, senior official performing the duties of the administrator at FEMA, that the agency needs to communicate with lawmakers better, especially those on the panel that provides its funding.

“I’m not trying to horn in on your guys’ discretion of running your program,” Amodei said. “But what I am definitely trying to horn in on is, not being faced with a situation where the bell’s already been rung. Now I’ve got to un-ring the bell.”

Amodei was referencing FEMA halting funding for Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, grants, including for three projects within a few miles of his front porch that he didn’t know existed until recently.

Hamilton said that Trump administration officials “found a lot of inefficiencies with the design of the program itself, which caused us to have serious concern over whether it was the appropriate use of taxpayer funds for many projects that were funded that we believe were very wasteful.”

“But there are also projects that were fully funded that we intend to move forward to completion,” Hamilton added. “We’re unpacking and analyzing that. Every grant recipient, under BRIC, should receive some form of notification” soon from FEMA regional offices. 

No budget numbers

The 90-minute hearing, which would typically have centered around the numbers in FEMA’s budget request, was instead a bit of a referendum on the size and scope of the agency, as well as expectations the Trump administration will seek to significantly reduce its mission.

Hamilton, asked point-blank if FEMA should continue to exist, testified that he personally did “not believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency.”

“Having said that, I’m not in a position to make decisions and impact outcomes on whether or not a determination, such as consequential as that should be made,” he said. “That is a conversation that should be had between the president of the United States and this governing body on identifying the exact ways and methodologies, in which, what is prudent for federal investment, and what is not.”

Illinois Democratic Rep. Lauren Underwood, ranking member on the panel, said she would not support efforts to completely shift FEMA responsibilities onto state and local governments.

State emergency management leaders, she said, “are not equipped to handle the roles FEMA currently plays—- marshaling emergency resources for multiple federal agencies, providing flood insurance, conducting damage assessments and distributing billions of dollars in recovery funds.”

“Pushing disaster response and recovery fully back to the states is dangerous and unrealistic,” Underwood said.

Hamilton said the Trump administration is looking at ways to institute “top-down reform” and “overhaul the grant process entirely” as well as other possible recommendations from the FEMA review council.

“FEMA was established to provide focused support in truly catastrophic disasters,” Hamilton said. “Yet at times, we have strayed far from that core mission and evolved into an over-extended federal bureaucracy; attempting to manage every type of emergency, no matter how minor.

“Instead of being a last resort, FEMA is all too often used by states and public officials as a financial backstop for routine issues that, frankly, should be handled locally. This misalignment has fostered a culture of dependency, waste, inefficiency, while also delaying crucial aid to Americans who are in genuine need.”

Disaster relief deficit

One of the more immediate budgetary issues facing FEMA is that its disaster relief fund is slated to run at least a $9 billion deficit before the end of the year, which several lawmakers raised concerns about during the hearing.

The Trump administration, however, does not plan to send Congress a supplemental spending request, asking lawmakers for more money for that account.

The disaster relief fund is able to run deficits, unlike the vast majority of federal programs. When the DRF runs out of funding, FEMA uses something called immediate needs funding to keep providing response and recovery to communities with declared disasters.

Hamilton said, even with the expected use of immediate needs funding again this year, FEMA was prepared to respond to hurricane season and ongoing wildfires.

“There are always challenges that we have to work through,” Hamilton said. “So we are focusing on ways to make us operationally more capable, and also finding ways to be more fiscally practical with our means, so that we don’t buttress us up against those kinds of thresholds nearly as quickly as before.”

 

Haverford College President Wendy Raymond testifies before the U.S. House Committee on Education and Workforce on Wednesday, May 7, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A trio of college presidents from across the nation Wednesday took heat from U.S. House lawmakers, as Republicans expand their drive to penalize higher education institutions they say have failed to combat antisemitism.

The presidents of Pennsylvania’s Haverford College, DePaul University in Chicago and California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo appeared before the House Committee on Education and Workforce to detail the steps the schools have taken to address antisemitism at their schools.

But it was the Haverford president, Wendy Raymond, who drew the most outrage from Republicans, including a tense exchange with Rep. Elise Stefanik, a New York Republican, when Raymond could not say how many students have been disciplined recently for antisemitic conduct.

Stefanik called Raymond’s responses “completely unacceptable.”

The hearing in the GOP-controlled House education panel — the first on antisemitism since President Donald Trump took office — came as his administration takes drastic steps to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding from several elite institutions across the country over claims that the schools are harboring antisemitism on their campuses.

Harvard University has had grant funding yanked by the administration for permitting “intolerable” harassment of Jewish students.

Trump officials have also attempted to make elite institutions align more with the administration ideologically.

GOP lawmakers have focused on antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel and college protests that surfaced across the country last year over the war in Gaza. Now they are moving on beyond the Ivy League.

Chairman Tim Walberg said “the scourge of antisemitism has taken root far beyond the country’s best-known ivory towers, and it’s our responsibility as a committee to unearth and address antisemitism at these schools, too, and others, especially as antisemitism is at a historic high in the United States.”

“Antisemitism is proliferating at colleges across the country, both private and public, in rural, urban and suburban settings,” the Michigan Republican said.

Haverford president apologizes

Republicans on the panel expressed particular dissatisfaction with testimony offered from Haverford’s Raymond.

The small liberal arts college, founded in 1833, is located in the suburbs of Philadelphia. 

Raymond acknowledged that in reaction to the war in Gaza, “events have occurred on our campus that are inconsistent with our values” and apologized to Haverford’s Jewish community. She did not elaborate on the incidents.

She said the college has taken “significant steps to address these issues and strengthen our policies.”

“That includes updating our policies, strengthening campus safety programs, deepening engagement with the Jewish community, launching programs to combat antisemitism and forming our ad hoc committee on free expression.”

Asked by Walberg how many students have been expelled or suspended for antisemitic conduct since Hamas’ 2023 attack, Raymond was the only one of the three presidents who could not provide concrete numbers.

Raymond said Haverford does not publicize that information but that suspension and expulsion are “normal parts” of their disciplinary process.

‘Straightforward questions’

Stefanik took aim at Raymond’s refusal to offer more details on any actions taken by the school regarding antisemitism.

During a heated exchange between Stefanik and Raymond, the Haverford president said: “Respectfully, representative, I will not be talking about individual cases here.”

Stefanik fired back, saying: “Respectfully, president of Haverford, many people have sat in this position who are no longer in the positions as president of universities for their failure to answer straightforward questions.” 

Stefanik was pointing to multiple university presidents she grilled who appeared before the House education panel for hearings regarding campus antisemitism and later resigned, including leaders at Harvard, Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania.

Raymond had said that there “have been some” disciplinary actions taken by Haverford related to antisemitism but did not offer details.

“For the American people watching: You still don’t get it. Haverford still doesn’t get it. It’s a very different testimony than the other presidents who are here today, who are coming with specifics,” Stefanik said. 

DePaul’s president, Robert Manuel, detailed a number of steps the university is taking, including implementing a new ID verification and mask policy, placing  new limits on campus protests and suspending the operations of a student group that Walberg claimed is “at the very center” of the school’s “antisemitism problem.”

Cal Poly’s president, Jeffrey Armstrong, said “when alleged antisemitism or harassment occurs, we investigate and impose immediate university discipline.”

He also said the university is enhancing its mandatory student orientation and biannual employee training to provide greater education and awareness on antisemitism.

At the end of her heated exchange with Raymond, Stefanik said “this is completely unacceptable, and it’s why this committee has stepped in, because higher education has failed to address the scourge of antisemitism, putting Jewish students at risk at Haverford and other campuses across the country.”

Democrats criticize cuts at Education Department

Meanwhile, Democrats on the panel criticized Republicans on the committee for pursuing hearings on antisemitism when the Trump administration has made huge cuts to the U.S. Department of Education, including its Office for Civil Rights that’s tasked with investigating discrimination complaints.

Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the panel, said “in its first three months, the Trump administration has closed down seven of 12 OCR regional offices, all of which conduct investigations into discrimination on campus, whether it be based on antisemitism or race, national origin, gender or disability.”

The Virginia Democrat also pointed to reports of nearly half of the OCR staff being laid off. “One is left to wonder: how can OCR carry out its important responsibilities with half the staff?” he said.

Scott added that the administration’s move to dismantle OCR “raises reasonable doubt about the plans for addressing antisemitism on campus as well as racism, homophobia, sexism, Islamophobia or the needs of students with disabilities.”

Deported migrants queue to receive an essential items bag during the arrival of a group of deported Salvadorans at Gerencia de Atención al Migrante on Feb. 12, 2025 in San Salvador, El Salvador.  (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Immigration attorneys are asking a Massachusetts federal judge for an emergency temporary restraining order to stop the Trump administration from removing their clients to Libya and Saudi Arabia as soon as Wednesday, in a major new development in President Donald Trump’s drive for mass deportations.

“Multiple credible sources report that flights are preparing to immediately depart the United States carrying class members for removal to Libya,” according to the new filings, referring to a group of migrants.

Sending migrants to the North African nation is striking, as it is the site of an ongoing conflict and the State Department has a travel advisory against traveling to Libya due to “crime, terrorism, unexploded land mines, civil unrest, kidnapping and armed conflict.”

The class members the attorneys are concerned about include nationals from Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam. As the Trump administration seeks to carry out mass deportations, it’s sought partnerships with countries to take migrants, such as sending them to CECOT, a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The practice has spawned numerous ongoing lawsuits over use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and allegations the administration is ignoring due process for deportees.

In a complication, Libya’s prime minister in Tripoli, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, wrote on social media that his country would not accept migrants deported by the Trump administration.

“We refuse to be a destination for the deportation of migrants under any pretext, and any understandings made by illegal parties that do not represent the Libyan state, and do not bind us politically or morally, as human dignity and national sovereignty are not a negotiable card,” he wrote.

Injunction bars removals

Attorneys say such removals would violate U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy’s preliminary injunction that bars removals of migrants to a third country without adequate notice.

“Class members were being scheduled for removal despite not receiving the required notice and opportunity to apply for (United Nations Convention Against Torture) protection,” according to the filing. “This motion follows class counsel receiving multiple reports that class members and their immigration counsel have not received the required protections provided by this Court’s Preliminary Injunction.”

The attorneys are also asking that any class members removed to Libya be returned to U.S. soil.

Flights to Saudi Arabia

There are also concerns that those in the group could be removed to Saudi Arabia.

“Class Counsel has also received a report that Defendants and those working with them may be planning flights to Saudi Arabia. At least one detainee—a citizen of Laos—reported that he had been verbally informed he was to be removed imminently to Saudi Arabia on a military flight,” according to the brief.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

In April, Murphy certified the class to include all immigrants with final orders of removal who were facing deportations to a country that was not their home country.

Murphy, who was appointed by former president Joe Biden, issued a nationwide injunction to bar that group’s removal to a third country without first being provided written notice.

He also ruled that those who are being removed to such a country must “be given an opportunity to explain why such a deportation will likely result in their persecution, torture, and/or death.”

The suit was brought by the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and Human Rights First.

“Libya has a long record of extreme human rights violations,” according to the court filing. “Any Class Member who is removed to Libya faces a strong likelihood of imprisonment followed by torture and even disappearance or death. Indeed, given Libya’s human rights record, it is inconceivable that Class Members from other countries would ever agree to removal to Libya, but instead would uniformly seek protection from being removed to Libya.”

Torture and abuse among human rights violations

The State Department’s 2023 human rights report on the country found human rights violations experienced by migrants who were either being held by Libya’s government or armed groups.

“The criminal and nonstate armed groups controlling extralegal facilities routinely tortured and abused detainees, subjecting them to arbitrary killings, rape and sexual violence, beatings, electric shocks, burns, forced labor, and deprivation of food and water, according to dozens of testimonies shared with international aid agencies and human rights groups,” according to the report.

The State Department’s 2023 human rights report on Saudi Arabia said it was possible migrants were killed by Saudi Arabia forces.

“There were reports that Saudi security forces along the border with Yemen killed significant numbers of African and Yemeni migrants and asylum seekers using both explosive weapons and by shooting individuals at close range,” according to the report. 

U.S. House Republicans are debating cutbacks to Medicaid, the health care program for lower-income Americans and some people with disabilities. (Photo by Thomas Barwick/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday that potential major cuts and changes to Medicaid under consideration by Republicans could mean states would have to spend more of their own money on the program, reduce payments to health care providers, limit optional benefits and reduce enrollment.

The end result, under some scenarios, could be millions of Americans would be kicked off Medicaid and possibly left without health insurance, said the nonpartisan agency relied on by Congress for budget estimates.

The letter from CBO stemmed from a request by Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and House Energy and Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J.

Both oppose GOP attempts to slash federal funding for the health care program for lower-income Americans and some people with disabilities. Republicans, who have not settled on an approach, say they are interested in ending waste, fraud and abuse in the program.

CBO Director Phillip Swagel wrote that possible Medicaid changes would likely lead to several outcomes in the states. The impact on states would occur because the federal government covers at least 50% of the cost of the program, with that share increasing in states with lower per capita incomes and those that expanded eligibility under the Affordable Care Act.

Wyden wrote in a statement the CBO letter showed “the Republican plan for health care means benefit cuts and terminated health insurance for millions of Americans who count on Medicaid.”

Pallone wrote in a statement of his own that reducing federal funding for the program by hundreds of billions of dollars would lead to “millions of people losing their health care.”

“(President Donald) Trump has repeatedly claimed Republicans are not cutting health care, but CBO’s independent analysis confirms the proposals under consideration will result in catastrophic benefit cuts and people losing their health care,” Pallone wrote. “It’s time for Republicans to stop lying to the American people about what they’re plotting behind closed doors in order to give giant tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations.”

The Medicaid changes would come as Republicans use the complex budget reconciliation process to move a sweeping legislative package through Congress with simple majority votes in each chamber, avoiding the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster, which would otherwise require bipartisanship. 

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is tasked with cutting at least $880 billion from the programs it oversees — including Medicaid — during the next decade, has yet to release its bill that if approved by the committee will become part of that package.

The panel, led by Kentucky Republican Rep. Brett Guthrie, is expected to debut its proposed changes next week before debating the legislation during a yet-to-be-scheduled markup.

Republicans plan to use the reconciliation package to permanently extend the 2017 tax law, increase spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, overhaul American energy production, restructure higher education aid and cut spending.

Five scenarios

CBO’s analysis looked at five specific Medicaid scenarios including:

• Congress reducing the federal match rate for the 40 states that expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.
• Lawmakers eliminating a 6% threshold that exists for states that collect higher taxes from health care providers and then return that additional money in the form of higher Medicaid payments. CBO writes those “higher Medicaid payments increase the contributions from the federal government to states’ Medicaid programs.”
• Republicans creating a per-enrollee cap on federal spending.
• Congress establishing a cap on federal spending for Medicaid enrollees who became eligible for the program after their state expanded eligibility under the ACA.
• Lawmakers repealing two Biden-era rules that addressed the Medicare Savings Programs and standardized how states approached enrollment and renewals.

The analysis said states could raise taxes or cut spending on other programs to replace the lost federal revenue that would coincide with the first four scenarios, though CBO “expects that such steps would prove challenging for many states.”

“In CBO’s view, different states would make different choices regarding how much of the reduced Medicaid funds to replace,” the analysis states. “Instead of modeling separate responses for each state, the agency estimated state responses in the aggregate, accounting for a range of possible outcomes.”

Overall, CBO expects state governments would be able to replace about half of the lost federal revenue and that they would “reduce provider payment rates, reduce the scope or amount of optional services, and reduce Medicaid enrollment” to address the other half.

Alternatives studied

The first scenario, where lawmakers reduce the federal matching rate for expanded Medicaid populations, would save the government $710 billion during the next decade.

But in 2034, CBO expects that “2.4 million of the 5.5 million people who would no longer be enrolled in Medicaid under this option would be without health insurance.”

CBO wrote that in the second, third and fourth scenarios, “Medicaid enrollment would decrease and the number of people without health insurance would increase.”

The second scenario of limiting state taxes on health care providers would save the federal government $668 billion during the 10-year budget window. It would lead to 8.6 million people losing access to Medicaid with a 3.9 million increase in the uninsured population by 2034.

The third projection that looked at a federal cap on spending per enrollee would reduce federal spending by $682 billion during the next decade. A total of 5.8 million people would lose Medicaid coverage and 2.9 million would become uninsured under that proposal. 

And the fourth scenario, where Congress caps federal spending per enrollee in the expansion population, would cut the deficit by $225 billion during the next 10 years. More than 3 million people would lose Medicaid coverage and 1.5 million would become uninsured under this scenario.

Under the fifth scenario, where GOP lawmakers would change two Biden-era rules, CBO expects that the federal government would spend $162 billion less over the 2025–2034 window.

“CBO estimates that, in 2034, 2.3 million people would no longer be enrolled in Medicaid under this option,” the letter states. “Roughly 60 percent of the people who would lose Medicaid coverage would be dual-benefit enrollees who would retain their Medicare coverage.” 

Trump administration cuts are reducing safe drinking water protections in the Great Lakes region, along with science that aids navigation and fishing. Sea caves line some of the Apostle Island shores on Lake Superior. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

This story is republished from ProPublica

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A yard sign urging voters to vote 'Yes' on a referendum request for Madison School District in 2024 when a record number of schools went to referendum. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner.

Republican lawmakers are seeking to give military recruiters and youth organizations a boost from the state when it comes to reaching students in public schools, saying that some school districts aren’t giving the organizations equal access. Lawmakers on the Senate Education Committee considered those along with bills that would add further requirements to school referendum requests. 

“I think we have a theme here when it comes to anything that seems patriotic in a way, we’re having a little bit of struggles getting into particular schools,” Sen. Rachael Cabral-Guevara (R-Appleton) said during a Tuesday Senate Education Committee meeting. She said during the hearing that she feels “discouraged” about the way military recruiters and scouts are viewed by “certain” communities in Wisconsin. 

One bill — SB 10 — would specifically require schools to allow military recruiters access to common areas in high schools and to allow access during the school day and during school-sanctioned events. It wouldn’t require districts to give recruiters access to classrooms during instructional time.

Federal law has mandated since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act during the Bush administration that public schools give military access to students at school and to students’ contact information. Families can opt their children out of the release of information. However, Cabral-Guevara said she has heard complaints that recruiters have had difficulty. 

Cabral-Guevara said she has heard of recruiters being placed in rooms separate from employment recruiters and has also heard of a limit being placed on the number of times a recruiter can visit a school as well as visits to drop off documents being counted as a recruiting visit. She said recruiters said they have the most difficulty with access to Madison and Milwaukee schools.

“There should be no reason why a military recruiter should have restricted access or be placed at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to speaking with students,” Cabral-Guevara said. 

The bill comes as the U.S. military, including the Wisconsin Army National Guard, in recent years has struggled to reach recruitment goals.

“They have not said they have been denied access to enter the building, what they have been saying is that… they have been prohibited from doing meaningful recruitment,” Cabral-Guevara said. 

Bill co-author Rep. William Penterman (R-Hustisford) compared military recruiters to students trying to sell chocolate bars to their peers.

“After school and during lunch, they have a table in the commons where they sell those candy bars. It’s in a public space, it’s in a common area. Now, I can only imagine if they were restricted to, perhaps inside the counselor’s office, or in a back room somewhere, how that would negatively impact their sales of chocolate bars,” Penterman said.

Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said that school officials in his district had some concerns about whether the bill would lead to excessive access to schools, especially as they already provide access. He said the bill “seems like it’s opening it up to infinite” access. He noted that there are a lot of different groups that seek access to schools. 

“They try and button it and say, OK, we have career fairs and they have to make that balance to try and figure that out,” Larson said. “I think [limitations] would have to be written in, and not just assumed, because if there’s a military recruiter who’s just like, OK every Tuesday, we’re gonna pop in and we’re just going to run the rotation.’ There’s nothing that would stop them if this legislation were passed.”

Sen. Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi) said the bill seems “problematic” because of a lack of boundaries.

“It says, ‘during school sanctioned events’ — that could be a ball game, that could be during mock trial, that could be during prom… there’s just no boundaries around it with this bill,” Keyeski said. 

Cabral-Guevara said that she is not seeking “to change federal code on how many times they can access a building” or give military recruiters more access than others. Rather, she said she wants to ensure that when recruiters are in a school building for what is counted as a recruiting visit, it is a meaningful interaction.

“That’s not what it says in the bill though,” Keyeski responded. 

The committee also considered SB 11 that would similarly require that if a “federally chartered youth” organization — particularly the Girl Scouts or Eagle Scouts — requests access to a public school that a principal allow them to provide oral or written information to students to help encourage participation in the organizations. The bill is co-authored by Cabral-Guevara and Rep. Barbara Dittrich (R-Oconomowoc). 

“In essence, what we’re finding is that there again are certain groups that when they look for access for recruitment purposes, they are maybe put in a different room. They are not allowed the same access that other organizations get,” Cabral-Guevara said. “As a mother of four children who all worked at scout camps, as somebody that’s active amongst the world of scouting, it is amazing what these organizations help produce in these children. You’re looking at amazing leadership skills. You’re looking at outstanding community volunteers.” 

A similar bill passed the Legislature last session, but was vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers. He wrote in his veto message that he objects to “undermining local decision-making regarding whether organizations may visit school buildings to recruit students for memberships” and said the bill might conflict with federal law.

Keyeski said she heard from a local school leader that the bill appears focused on the wrong priorities. 

“One of the superintendents in my district said the bill does not address any of the things I’m worried about, and then he said that about every single one of these bills,” Keyeski said, adding that she asked what he meant. “He said, ‘We need funding, we need better school opportunities for technological advances.’ This was just not a concern.”

Proposed referendum requirements

Lawmakers on the committee also considered two bills that would impose new restrictions on school referendum requests, which districts have increasingly relied on to help meet costs. 

One bill — SB 58 — would require ballots to include a “good faith estimate” of the property tax impact for a referendum. Ballot questions are currently required to include the dollar amount of the increase in the levy limit.

“It is not the intent of this bill to sway people one way or another on any particular referendum. The point is simply to ensure that voters are given the information that they need so that their decision is informed,” bill coauthor Rep. Scott Allen (R-Waukesha) said. 

The other bill — SB 81 — would eliminate referendum questions that allow recurring — or permanent — operational funding increases and would limit “nonrecurring” referendum requests to cover no more than a four-year period.

“There’s really no mechanism to say we need to make sure that whoever, sometime down the road, is actually having to pay the bill and also who’s responsible for spending the money — if they’re completely different people, there should be a mechanism where both sides have to come back to the table and say, “Let’s relook at everything,” Sen. Chris Kapenga (R-Delafield) said.

Keyeski said that she thought the mechanism for ensuring that referendum requests are considered responsibly is the elected officials and voters who decide whether to approve them. 

“It’s just taking away local control and it’s taking away democracy in action,” Keyeski said. 

School district leaders and representatives of school associations expressed an array of concerns about the bills, saying the ballot requirements could create confusion for voters and that further restrictions on referendum requests could increase the financial challenges school districts face.

Dee Pattack, executive director of the Wisconsin School Administrators Alliance, told lawmakers that school districts do not want to go to referendum and said that some of the requirements in the  bill would be difficult to meet.

The “good faith estimate piece, that would be really challenging,” Pattack said, noting that there is market volatility that could affect total debt referenda costs. She also said that trying to include all of that information on a ballot could be confusing. 

School districts seeking a referendum will often have a webpage dedicated to information about the request, will host meetings with local residents and stakeholders, speak with news outlets to spread the word and take other actions to ensure the public knows the purpose of a referendum and the costs. 

“It’s a long process, and we just think that, you know, we try to be as transparent as possible right now and trying to condense that into a small area on a ballot might not really be the best way to enhance that transparency,” Pattack said.

Cathy Olig, executive director of the Southeastern Wisconsin Schools Alliance, told lawmakers that school staff and local taxpayers are suffering from referendum fatigue. There were 94 referendum requests during February and April 2025, with about a third of those representing “retry” efforts, according to the Wisconsin Policy Forum. Voters approved 53 of those for a passage rate of 56.4%, making 2025 one of the lowest referendum passage rates in a non-presidential or midterm election year since 2011. 

“We’re concerned [SB 81] will create a constant cycle of referenda for school districts. We would welcome alternatives to referenda, which could be addressed through the budget, but to add further requirements and costs takes the focus away from finding solutions to the larger problems plaguing the school finance formula,” Olig said.

Kenosha Unified School District Superintendent Jeffrey Weiss told lawmakers that his district has  closed several schools in recent years, including five elementary schools and a middle school. He said the change involved a lot of redistricting of students. He said the district has also cut 200 positions and more than $1 million of staff out of the district office.

“We are very responsible stewards of public funds… We wanted to do all we could to avoid having to go for an operational referendum,” Weiss said, adding that superintendents don’t want to go to referendum. The district’s $115 million request failed in February.

Weiss said he thought transparency was already part of the referendum process because the community holds school districts accountable.

“I think these bills around referendum questions are really treating a symptom,” Weiss said, noting that a Blue Ribbon Commission proposed actions in 2019 that could address the problems with the state’s school funding system. “That is the cure and the conversations that we’re having right now, we’re talking about the symptoms. I don’t want to lose my ability to go to the community. This really is our only lever. There are not another seven schools in the city of Kenosha that I can close.”

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Main Street in the Wisconsin community of Cambridge. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

As a former small business owner for 27 years and a longtime board member of the Monroe Street Merchants Association in Madison, I’ve spent decades working to strengthen the small businesses and Main Streets that make our communities thrive. Today, I’m deeply concerned — because Main Streets across America are under threat like never before.

The sweeping tariffs imposed by the current administration are already fueling inflation, disrupting supply chains, and pushing small businesses to the brink. Local retailers, independent producers and small manufacturers — the very backbone of our neighborhoods — are being hit hardest.

Carol “Orange” Schroeder, our board chair at the Monroe Street Merchants Association and owner of Orange Tree Imports, a favorite Madison store, understands this better than most. This year, Orange is celebrating 50 years in business — an incredible milestone. Over the decades, she’s helped independent retailers nationwide weather many challenges, including fierce online competition. But as she recently wrote, not even the pandemic has matched the level of economic turmoil small businesses are facing today.

The problem is clear and devastating: suppliers can’t get the goods they need, vendors are questioning whether they can stay afloat and customers — grappling with rising prices and financial anxiety — are pulling back from shopping locally. Sales reps are going unpaid as orders are canceled, and stores of all sizes are bracing for empty shelves. In short, the social fabric that binds our communities is beginning to fray under the weight of uncertainty.

The National Retail Federation recently warned that these tariffs threaten the American dream — and they’re right. Small businesses aren’t just part of our economy; they’re central to our national identity, job creation, innovation and the strength of our local communities.

Now more than ever, Congress must step up and act. Policymakers have a critical opportunity to end these harmful tariffs, restore stability, and reassert balance in our trade policies. Just as importantly, Congress must reassert its constitutional authority over the power of the purse — a responsibility that rests with the legislative branch, not the executive alone.

The stakes couldn’t be clearer. Without immediate action, we face shuttered storefronts, lost jobs and an avoidable recession. According to Gallup, Americans’ economic outlook is now worse than at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic or the global financial crisis — a sobering indicator of just how fragile the moment is.

This is not a partisan issue. It’s a matter of economic survival, community resilience and protecting the American dream for generations to come.

Congress must act now. Small businesses, workers, and families across the country are counting on bold leadership. It’s time to end the tariff chaos, restore stability, and ensure Main Street can keep doing what it does best: creating jobs, driving innovation and strengthening the communities we all call home.

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Angélica Infante-Green, Rhode Island’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education, speaks at a forum on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Screenshot via YouTube)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats on Tuesday blasted the Trump administration’s efforts to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, underscoring the impact of the dizzying array of cuts, overhauls and proposed changes to the agency on students, families and educators.

Sen. Patty Murray, who hosted the forum in a U.S. Senate hearing room alongside several Democratic colleagues, said Trump is “essentially bulldozing the Department of Education, regardless of who depends on it, regardless of who is still inside, and regardless of the very loud outcry from parents and educators and students about this.”

The Washington state Democrat brought in education advocates and leaders, who emphasized the importance of the department in delivering on federal resources for public education, investigating civil rights complaints and helping students cheated by predatory institutions.

Trump and his administration have sought to dramatically reshape the federal role in education, including an executive order calling on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to facilitate the closure of her own department, the gutting of more than 1,300 employees at the agency, threats to revoke funds for schools that use diversity, equity and inclusion practices and a crackdown on “woke” higher education.

‘Unnecessary confusion and chaos’

Angélica Infante-Green, Rhode Island’s commissioner of elementary and secondary education, said she and colleagues who lead state education across the country have spent a great deal of time trying to decipher the intent of Trump’s executive orders and the department’s directives and policy changes.

“They seem unclear and cause unnecessary confusion and chaos for all of us,” Infante-Green said. “While the impact of the confusion may be hard to quantify,  what is clear is that students and families and educators are the losers in this new paradigm.”

Denise Forte, CEO of the nonprofit policy and advocacy group EdTrust, said “most urgently, we are alarmed by the mass firing of over half of the department staff.”

“This isn’t reform — it is sabotage,” Forte said, pointing to the layoffs hitting wide swaths of the department, particularly in the Office for Civil Rights, Office of Federal Student Aid and Institute of Education Sciences.

“With the Office for Civil Rights now severely understaffed, civil rights complaints will skyrocket while response capacity plummets,” she said.

Students with disabilities 

The cuts at the agency and Trump’s proposal in March that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “will be handling special needs” have sparked worries among disability advocates over whether the department can carry out its responsibilities to serve students with disabilities.

Diane Willcutts, director of Education Advocacy, said she’s been getting “panicked phone calls from parents of children with disabilities who are wondering, ‘What does this all mean?’”

Willcutts has worked for over two decades in Connecticut and Massachusetts helping families of children with disabilities navigate the education process.

“I think everyone’s shell-shocked, and we’re looking for direction — how can we be helpful to you in order to protect the U.S. Department of Education?” she said. “I know there’s this assumption that ‘Oh, the states will take care of it.’ That is absolutely not the case, I can tell you in my state that is not what is happening right now, and so, as I said, there’s a level of panic but we’re looking for direction.”

Trump’s budget request

Meanwhile, Trump also released a budget request last week that calls for $12 billion in spending cuts at the department.

Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin said the budget includes “devastating cuts to many critical programs,” and that the proposal “comes at a time when too many students are chronically absent and achieving at levels that will not set them up for success.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the Trump administration is “cutting so many things — don’t feel alone, Department of Education.”

“They don’t know what they’re doing about just about anything, and they want to cut everything, but to cut education, which has been sacrosanct in America, is just awful,” the New York Democrat said.

Schumer said Tuesday’s “spotlight hearing” is just one in a series Senate Democrats will be hosting in response to Trump’s cuts to the department.

Trump administration officials said the outrage was misplaced. 

“If Senate Democrats were truly interested in fighting for parents, students, and teachers as they claim, where was their outrage over this year’s dismal math and reading scores? Don’t get it twisted,” Savannah Newhouse, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Education, said in a statement shared with States Newsroom.

Senate Democrats “are fighting President Trump’s education agenda for one reason: to protect the bloated bureaucracy that has consistently failed our nation’s students,” Newhouse said.

“By returning education authority to the states, President Trump and Secretary McMahon will help every American child — including those in public schools — to have the best shot at a quality education.” 

Democratic Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania joins veterans protesting the Trump administration's proposed cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, outside the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Veterans and Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill Tuesday protested the Trump administration’s planned cuts for the Department of Veterans Affairs that include slashing some 80,000 jobs, which many worry will affect the massive agency’s delivery of medical care and benefits.

The group rallied outside the U.S. Capitol shortly after VA Secretary Doug Collins finished lengthy questioning before the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, where he defended the cuts as necessary to improve the department’s efficiency.

Holding signs that read “Veterans Healthcare Not For Sale,” a crowd of former service members joined by senators and representatives decried that argument as “nonsensical,” as Sen. Richard Blumenthal, top Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee, put it.

“We’re not going to allow veterans to be betrayed by this administration,” Blumenthal, of Connecticut, said. “I’ve just come from a hearing with the VA secretary, and to say it was a disappointment is a huge understatement. That hearing was a disgrace.” 

‘Non-stop smear campaign’

Jose Vasquez, executive director of Common Defense, the advocacy group that organized the press conference, said, “They call this efficiency, but we call it betrayal.”

Vasquez, an Army veteran who recently received care from the VA in New York for a cancerous tumor on his pancreas, said, “Millions of veterans depend on VA every day — survivors of cancer, toxic exposure, traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress.”

He contends the agency’s workers, many of whom are veterans, have been the target of a “non-stop smear campaign.”

“Why? Simple. Because a small group of greedy billionaires would rather get tax cuts than pay for the true cost of war,” Vasquez.

Trump’s temporary DOGE organization, led by top campaign donor Elon Musk, cut roughly 2,400 VA jobs in early March.

Collins, a former Georgia congressman who still serves in the Air Force Reserve, unveiled a plan in early March to return VA staffing to 2019 levels of 398,000, down from the current approximately 470,000 positions.

The lawmaker told senators Tuesday that he’s “conducting a thorough review of the department’s structure and staffing across the enterprise.”

“We’re going to maintain VA’s mission-essential jobs like doctors, nurses and claims processors, while phasing out non-mission-essential roles like interior designers and DEI officers. The savings we achieve will be redirected to veteran health care and benefits,” Collins said.

Collins drew pushback during the hearing, including from Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who told the secretary “there’s no way that all those 80,000 are in those job fields,” referring to his comment about DEI and interior designers.

“I’m having a problem understanding how the veterans in Michigan are going to get the same or better care, which is what we want,” said Slotkin, who served three tours in Iraq as a CIA analyst.

GOP says VA must change

Many Republicans on the panel maintained the VA, as Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said, “is not working.”

“If we just say everything has to stay the same and you just gotta add more money and more people, then you’re looking at it the wrong way,” Tillis said, adding that he’s “open to any suggestions” and will review the proposal for workforce reductions.

Collins criticized the increase in hiring under former President Joe Biden, who signed into law the PACT Act, the largest expansion of VA benefits in decades.

The law opened care to roughly 1 million veterans who developed certain conditions and cancers following exposure to burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Vietnam vets exposed to Agent Orange.

Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said Collins was being “battered” about the possible 80,000 cuts. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe there were 52,000 new positions added between 2021 and 2024. … That 52,000, has that saved the day for our veterans?

“I don’t think so,” Collins responded.

But at the rally afterward, Democratic Rep. Chris Deluzio, a former Navy officer who served in Iraq, defended the PACT Act expansion.

“At this moment when so many toxic-exposed veterans of my generation, Agent Orange-exposed veterans from the Vietnam era, are finally getting the benefits they’ve earned because of the PACT Act, we should be investing in the resources for the VA, and Donald Trump and his team are doing the opposite,” said Deluzio, who represents Pennsylvania.

Minister of Justice and Public Security Héctor Villatoro,  right, accompanies Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center during a tour of the CECOT prison on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador.  (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Two federal judges Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelans, limiting the rulings to Colorado and a New York district.

U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York Alvin K. Hellerstein found that President Donald Trump’s invocation of the wartime law was likely not valid, because there is no “existence of a ‘war,’ ‘invasion’ or ‘predatory incursion,’” as required by the Alien Enemies Act statute.

A similar order was made by U.S. District Judge for the District of Colorado Charlotte N. Sweeney, who noted the Trump administration likely exceeded the scope of the Alien Enemies Act in its use of it.

Hellerstein, who was appointed by former President Bill Clinton, also reiterated in his order that anyone in the United States – including those who are not citizens – is entitled to due process.

He noted that the Venezuelan nationals subject to the Alien Enemies Act were deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, CECOT, “​​with faint hope of process or return.”

“The sweep for removal is ongoing, extending to the litigants in this case and others, thwarted only by order of this and other federal courts,” Hellerstein wrote. “The destination, El Salvador, a country paid to take our aliens, is neither the country from which the aliens came, nor to which they wish to be removed. But they are taken there, and there to remain, indefinitely, in a notoriously evil jail, unable to communicate with counsel, family or friends.”

Two Venezuelan men who feared they would be subjected to the proclamation brought the suit in the Southern District of New York. It’s now a class to cover any Venezuelan potentially subject to the proclamation.

Sweeney, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, also ordered the suit should cover a class of people.

The New York area in which Trump officials would be barred from using the wartime law includes New York City, the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx and Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan and Westchester counties. 

Multiple rulings against administration

This is the third preliminary injunction granted by federal judges against Trump’s use of the wartime law in a court’s district. The president invoked the Alien Enemies Act to subject for removal any Venezuelan national 14 and older with suspected ties to the Tren de Aragua gang.

Tuesday’s rulings are similar to another out of Texas, where Trump-appointed Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. struck down the Trump administration’s use of the wartime law to deport Venezuelan nationals in the Southern District of Texas.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is at the forefront of challenges against the Trump administration’s use in March of the Alien Enemies Act, praised the preliminary injunction in New York.

“The court joined several others in correctly recognizing the president cannot simply declare that there’s been an invasion and then invoke a wartime authority during peacetime to send individuals to a Gulag-type prison in El Salvador without even giving them due process,” said Lee Gelernt, lead ACLU attorney on the case.

The ACLU has filed lawsuits against the use of the wartime law in federal courts in Colorado, Georgia, Nevada, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, D.C.

Antwon King got help for his trucking business from the Minority Business Development Agency center in Milwaukee. On Tuesday, a federal judge issued an injuction that blocked a Trump administration executive order to close down the MBDA's operations. (Photo courtesy of Antwon King)

A federal judge in Rhode Island issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday, blocking a Trump administration executive order from effectively closing three federal agencies that support museums and libraries, promote labor peace and assist minority-owned businesses.

The agencies involved are the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS), the Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). They were among the agencies that President Donald Trump listed in a March 14 executive order to be effectively shut down.

The order violates the federal Administrative Procedures Act “in the arbitrary and capricious way it was carried out,” wrote Judge John J. McConnell of the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island.

“It also disregards the fundamental constitutional role of each of the branches of our federal government; specifically, it ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated,” McConnell wrote.

The lawsuit against the order was brought by 21 states, including Wisconsin, with attorneys general in Rhode Island, Hawaii and New York leading the litigation.

“Today’s preliminary injunction is a critical win for the public interest,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha in a statement. “When the Trump Administration attempts to dismantle these agencies, it is making a targeted, concerted effort to prohibit everyday people from accessing their full potential.” 

Trump’s order named seven agencies — including the three involved in Tuesday’s court ruling — and directed them to eliminate their “non-statutory components and functions . . . to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” It also directed them to “reduce the performance of their statutory function and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”

McConnell wrote that the day after issuing the order, Trump signed a continuing appropriations bill “in which Congress funded IMLS, MBDA, and FMCS through Sept. 30, 2025 at the same level it funded these agencies in fiscal year 2024.”

Despite that, in the aftermath of the order, the three agencies “are rescinding or deferring appropriated funds and do not plan to spend them,” McConnell wrote.

The FMCS provides mediation in labor negotiations between employers and unions and was established under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. The IMLS, established in the 1990s, provides grants to museums and libraries while also providing research and policy analysis for museums, libraries and information services.

Help for minority-owned business

The MBDA, part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, was launched in 1969 by President Richard Nixon and was given its present name 10 years later.

Over its lifetime “it’s gotten bipartisan support,” Henry Childs, who served as the agency’s national director from 2018 to 2020, the last three years of Trump’s first term, told the Wisconsin Examiner.

In 2021, the bipartisan infrastructure law enacted under President Joe Biden made the MBDA a permanent federal agency — the result of an amendment to the legislation promoted by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) with support from members of both parties. Baldwin went on to advocate for an MBDA center in Milwaukee, which was established in 2022.

After Trump returned to the White House this year, Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said at his January confirmation hearing that he did not support dismantling MBDA.

Last month, however, Milwaukee’s MBDA center abruptly closed when the federal grant that supported the program was canceled.

Carolyn Mosby, interim president of the North Central Minority Supplier Development Council, a nonprofit that had the federal contract to operate the center, said she received notice April 17 of the grant’s cancellation. The Milwaukee center was one of more than 40 across the country that were closed, she said.

“The MBDA and other programs are not about exclusion, they’re about inclusion,” Mosby told the Wisconsin Examiner. “These initiatives were created to address long-standing, well-documented disparities when it comes to access to capital and contracts and opportunities that have disproportionately affected minority businesses across this country.”

Antwon King started his Milwaukee-based trucking business in 2020 with a simple cargo van. He graduated to a semi-trailer cab unit and found his niche hauling loads on flatbed trailers across the country — everything from pipes to wire coils to farm equipment and heavy construction machinery.

Along the way, he needed help at times, primarily with access to capital, advice on business planning and connections with large corporations that had programs to encourage minority-owned suppliers.

Through coaching at the Milwaukee MBDA center, he got guidance on funding sources for new equipment and learned how to pursue opportunities targeted to minority owned businesses.

“Those resources were extremely valuable,” King said. “I was kind of shocked to hear they were shutting down. There were some things I was still working on.”

Democrats on the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation committee have written three times to the Department of Commerce demanding that Lutnick protect the agency from Trump’s order.

The third letter, sent April 30, quotes the closing notice that centers received stating they are “unfortunately no longer consistent with the agency’s priorities and no longer serves the interests of the United States and the MBDA Program.” The termination notice also stated that “MBDA is repurposing its funding allocations in a new direction in furtherance of the President’s agenda.”

The letter demands an explanation of what types of funded activities would be “consistent with the agency’s priorities” and would serve its interests. It also demands a “detailed explanation” of how MBDA will repurpose its funding.

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Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) speaks to reporters on the steps of the U.S. Capitol Building following a vote on July 25, 2024 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Tierney L. Cross/Getty Images)

U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Prairie du Chien) has said he’s opposed to Republican efforts to make changes to the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), more commonly known as food stamps, even though he voted for the Republican-authored federal budget blueprint that calls for more than $200 billion in cuts to programs including SNAP. 

Despite voting for the budget blueprint, earlier this week Van Orden co-sponsored legislation that states he’s against a budget bill that would reduce Medicaid and SNAP benefits. 

Republicans in the House of Representatives have been searching for $230 billion in budget cuts for their budget reconciliation bill — which also includes a permanent extension of President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Progress on the bill has stalled as some Republicans have objected to the cuts to popular programs in the blueprint. 

Van Orden sits on the House Agriculture Committee, which oversees SNAP. The committee has been considering a proposal that would, for the first time, pass some of the cost of operating the program on to the states while also adding work requirements and implementing methods to limit future increases to benefits. 

Last week, Van Orden walked out of a Republican House Agriculture briefing and yelled an insult at staff, according to Politico. The outlet also reported he raised concerns that the SNAP changes unfairly penalized Wisconsin during a meeting of House Republicans. 

Democrats said that if Van Orden were really against the cuts, he wouldn’t have voted for the budget blueprint. 

“If Derrick Van Orden really wanted to save Medicaid and SNAP, he should have voted ‘NO’ on the Republican budget that cuts both,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Spokesperson Justin Chermol said in a statement, He signaled that Democrats will use the blueprint vote against Van Orden in the 2026 election.

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The Milwaukee County Courthouse (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

A bipartisan group of 150 former federal and state judges criticized the FBI’s arrest of Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan late last month in a letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

The letter, sent on Monday, takes issue with the way federal officials publicized Dugan’s arrest and used it in an attempt to intimidate the judiciary system across the country.

Dugan was arrested and charged with two federal crimes after she directed Eduardo Flores-Ruiz — a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant who appeared in Dugan’s courtroom on misdemeanor battery charges —  to use a side exit when a group of federal agents came to arrest him as part of an immigration enforcement action. 

Dugan herself was arrested a week after Flores-Ruiz, accused of impeding the federal agents. Trump administration l officials quickly drew attention to Dugan’s arrest outside the court. FBI Director Kash Patel posted about the arrest on X and later posted a photo of Dugan in handcuffs being walked out of the Milwaukee County Courthouse. Bondi appeared on cable news to call judges who resist the Trump administration “deranged.”

bondi-letter

The letter states that if Dugan’s case were an emergency she would have been arrested sooner, and since it wasn’t an emergency she didn’t need to be “perp walked” out of the courthouse. She could have been issued a summons to appear before a federal judge, which is common practice in other white-collar criminal cases, according to the letter. 

“The circumstances of Judge Dugan’s arrest make it clear that it was nothing but an effort to threaten and intimidate the state and federal judiciaries into submitting to the Administration, instead of interpreting the Constitution and laws of the United States,” the letter states. “This cynical effort undermines the rule of law and destroys the trust the American people have in the nation’s judges to administer justice in the courtrooms and in the halls of justice across the land.”

Retired Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge Janine Geske is among the letter’s signers.

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Jay O. Rothman, president of the University of Wisconsin System, speaks during the UW Board of Regents meeting hosted at Union South at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on Feb. 9, 2023. (Photo by Althea Dotzour / UW–Madison)

As Congress is considering remaking the federal financial aid program, Wisconsin higher education leaders are warning that changes could significantly affect access to its campuses. 

Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman wrote in a series of posts on social media last week that he is “very disappointed” by the potential cuts that could be made to student aid. 

Congressional Republicans recently introduced a 103-page proposal that would overhaul the federal financial aid system with cuts meant to help support the extension of tax cuts. Changes would include reducing eligibility for Pell Grants by requiring students take more credit hours to qualify, capping the total amount of student loans one can take out annually and ending certain student loan programs. 

The proposed changes come alongside the Trump administration’s work to remake the system by moving the student loan portfolio from the Department of Education to Small Business Administration, even as both agencies have had significant layoffs, and seeking to eliminate loan relief for people working to support immigrants and trans kids. 

Rothman said nearly half of the 164,400 students across University of Wisconsin campuses rely on federal aid to access the schools and noted that many of the students receiving the help are first-generation college students and low- to middle-income. He said federal financial aid has helped better the U.S. economy and allowed millions of people to improve their own lives. 

“It makes no sense for the US to narrow opportunities if our country wants to win the global War for Talent. I’m dumbfounded that cutting educational opportunities would even be considered when our economic vibrancy is at stake,” Rothman wrote. “While the UWs are among the most affordable in the nation, many lower- and middle-class families rely upon federal financial aid to make these life-changing educational opportunities real.”

Rothman urged Congress to reevaluate the potential cuts in the federal budget, continuing his advocacy for keeping the UW accessible for current and future students. 

In a letter to the Wisconsin Congressional delegation last month, Rothman noted that in the 2023-24 school year, 91,000 UW undergraduate students — or 59% — received some form of financial aid. The federal government distributed $130 million in Pell grants to about 23.4%, or 26,060 undergraduate students that year, delivering an average award of $5,000. 

During that year, undergraduate and graduate students across the system received nearly $1.5 billion in financial aid, including $634 million in grants, $666 million in loans and $13 million in work-study funding.

“Programs like the Pell Grant and other federal financial aid are critical to ensuring continued access and success for students who choose to pursue higher education,” Rothman wrote to lawmakers. “Indiscriminate cuts whether to research, financial aid or programs that provide student support are ultimately shortsighted and will negatively impact the next generation of Wisconsin’s workforce.” 

Rothman is not the only leader who has expressed concerns about cuts to programs. During a hearing last month, Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities President Eric Fulcomer told state lawmakers that “cutting the Pell Grant or eliminating the Pell Grant would be devastating for our sector.” He said private colleges could be looking at a 27% cut to enrollment.

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Frank Bisignano, Social Security commissioner nominee, at his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing on March 25, 2025. (Senate webcast)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate on Tuesday confirmed Frank Bisignano as Social Security commissioner, putting him in charge of a $1.5 trillion entitlement program that’s relied on by tens of millions of Americans.

The 53-47 party-line vote drops a considerable amount of responsibility onto Bisignano, who will not only be tasked with fixing the Social Security Administration’s customer services issues, but ensuring plans to cut its staff by at least 7,000 workers doesn’t hinder the safety net program that helps to keep seniors out of poverty.

Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden said during a floor speech just before the vote that Bisignano should have been disqualified from consideration after he “lied multiple times” during the confirmation process.

Wyden also argued that Bisignano would institute substantial changes at the Social Security Administration, which could negatively affect people who rely on the program.

“Every single member of this body that votes to confirm this nominee is going to own the consequences,” Wyden said. “Mr. Bisignano is unfit to be the steward of Americans’ hard-earned Social Security benefits.”

Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said during a floor speech last week that he was “confident” Bisignano held the “experience needed to lead this important agency.”

“The Social Security Administration needs steady, Senate-confirmed leadership,” Crapo said. “Mr. Bisignano would bring his decades-long focus on customer service and operational excellence to the Social Security Administration.”

Wait times, error rate

Bisignano said during his nearly three-hour confirmation hearing in March that he would make sure beneficiaries could visit an office, use the website, or speak to a real person after calling the 1-800 number.

“On the phone, I’m committed to reducing wait times and providing beneficiaries with a better experience; waiting 20 minutes-plus to get an answer will be of yesteryear,” Bisignano said at the time. “I also believe we can significantly improve the length of the disability claim process.”

Bisignano told lawmakers during the hearing he would reduce the 1% error rate in payments, which he said was “five decimal places too high.”

Whistleblower allegations

The Senate Finance Committee voted along party lines in April to send Bisignano’s nomination to the floor, though Chairman Crapo said at the time the panel would look into a whistleblower’s allegations.

“Even though the timing of the anonymous letter suggests a political effort to delay the committee vote on this nominee, my staff have told Sen. Wyden’s staff — and we have discussed this just now — we are open to meeting with the author of the letter and keeping the individual anonymous,” Crapo said. “However, any information provided by the individual must be thoroughly vetted, including allowing the nominee the opportunity to respond.”

Wyden, ranking member on the panel, urged Republicans to delay that committee vote until after the investigation concluded.

“This nominee lied multiple times to every member of this committee, including the bipartisan Finance staff and the nominee’s actions and communications with DOGE remain very much at the heart of my objection here,” Wyden said. “My office received an account from a whistleblower about the ways the nominee was deeply involved in and aware of DOGE’s activities at the agency.”

Crapo said during his floor speech last week that the whistleblower “allegations focused on the frequency and details of communications between the nominee and Social Security Administration officials.”

“Mr. Bisignano addressed these allegations during the hearing and responded in writing as part of the questions for the record,” Crapo added. “He has stated clearly that he does not currently have a role at the Social Security Administration and was not part of the decision-making process led by the Acting Commissioner, Lee Dudek, about Social Security operations, personnel, or management.”

Bisignano, of New Jersey, most recently worked as chairman of the board and chief executive officer at Fiserv, Inc., which “enables money movement for thousands of financial institutions and millions of people and businesses,” according to its website. The company is based in Wisconsin.

He previously worked as co-chief operating officer and chief executive officer of Mortgage Banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Prison officers stand guard at a cell block at maximum security penitentiary CECOT  on April 4, 2025 in Tecoluca, San Vicente, El Salvador.  (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)

BALTIMORE — A federal judge in Maryland Tuesday will for 48 hours pause her own order to require the federal government to facilitate the return of an asylum seeker mistakenly deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador, while the court waits for the Trump administration’s anticipated appeal of her decision.

“I am simply skeptical that we’re going to get … compliance or facilitation based only on this court’s order without allowing it to go to the next level,” said U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher, nominated by President Donald Trump in 2018, at a hearing. She also indicated she was concerned the asylum seeker was denied due process, a major question as lawyers challenge Trump administration deportations.

Richard Ingebretsen, arguing on behalf of the Department of Justice, said the Trump administration plans to appeal Gallagher’s earlier order to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

It’s the second case of a wrongly deported man sent to El Salvador’s brutal Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, prison, following the high-profile case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The Maryland man was erroneously deported there despite a 2019 court order barring such action.

That case is now in closed proceedings before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis in Greenbelt, Maryland, as discovery and depositions from officials interviewed under oath about the case continue. The Department of Justice and the White House have strongly fought the return of Abrego Garcia.

Earlier agreement protected asylum seeker

In the case heard in Maryland on Tuesday, the 20-year-old man who was sent to El Salvador is referred to by the pseudonym “Cristian” in court documents. In 2019, he came to the United States as an unaccompanied minor from Venezuela to apply for asylum.

Under a settlement agreement at the time, Cristian, along with a class of other asylum seekers, could not be deported until their cases were decided by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. His asylum case has not yet been decided.

But Cristian was taken from the U.S. on one of three deportation flights to the CECOT prison in mid-March.

Two of those flights contained Venezuelan men deported under a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act. The Trump administration invoked the wartime law to apply to any Venezuelan national 14 and older who is suspected of having ties to the Tren de Aragua gang.

Ingebretsen argued that Cristian has ties to the gang, and Tuesday’s hearing for a period was closed to the public — put under seal— so Gallagher could be shown that evidence.

In a declaration, Acting Field Office Director for Enforcement and Removal Operations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement Robert Cerna said Cristian was subject to the Alien Enemies Act because in January he was convicted of possessing cocaine.

Judge issued order for return

Gallagher wrote in an April 23 order that the case before her relates to that of Abrego Garcia and that “like Judge Xinis in the Abrego Garcia matter, this court will order Defendants to facilitate Cristian’s return to the United States so that he can receive the process he was entitled to under the parties’ binding Settlement Agreement.”

Gallagher added in her order that the federal government must also show “a good faith request to the government of El Salvador to release Cristian to U.S. custody for transport back to the United States to await the adjudication of his asylum application on the merits by USCIS.”

Ingebretsen said that the State Department has been made aware of her order, but he did not give any details on steps taken to facilitate Cristian’s return.

“The government’s view is that further compliance should be put on hold,” Ingebretsen said.

Attorneys, on behalf of the 2019 class, are pushing for declarations from the federal government on steps taken to facilitate Cristian’s return, citing concerns he’s been in CECOT for almost two months.

List of detainees

Kevin DeJong, one of those attorneys for the class, asked Gallagher to require the Trump administration to produce a list of the class members, to determine if any more of them have been wrongly deported.

DeJong said another class member — separate from Cristian — has been removed.

“If we don’t know if a class member has been removed, and we don’t know about it, there’s nothing we can do to bring a motion to enforce,” he said.

He is asking the court to order the federal government to provide a list because the Trump administration’s DOJ will only notify migrants’ lawyers of class members removed under Title 8 deportation. Cristian was removed under the Alien Enemies Act, or Title 50.

“We need to know if any class members have been removed for any reason other than Title 8,” DeJong said. “We’re concerned that there are more.”

Gallagher seemed skeptical that she had the authority to do so, as the settlement does not mention a way for a list to be made up.

“It is an unusual settlement agreement in that we don’t have a defined list of class members, a defined way of identifying who is and is not a member,” she said.

Gallagher added that the settlement agreement was “drafted with some degree” of “trust that the government would be acting in good faith and would maintain this list itself.”

‘Process is important’

In the Abrego Garcia case, the Trump administration has argued that because he is a national of El Salvador, he is in that government’s custody and cannot be returned, despite the U.S. paying up to $15 million to El Salvador to detain roughly 300 men at CECOT.

Experts have raised concerns that U.S. foreign assistance funds to El Salvador from the State Department violate the Leahy Law, which bars financial support of “units of foreign security forces” — which can include military and law enforcement staff in prisons — that face credible allegations of gross human rights violations.

However, the president has contradicted his own administration, arguing that he has the ability to order Abrego Garcia returned to the U.S. Trump has said he is not willing to do so because he believes Abrego Garcia has gang ties, an argument repeated by multiple members of the administration.

In DOJ filings, government attorneys argued that because Cristian was designated for removal under the Alien Enemies Act, he could no longer be part of the 2019 class settlement and the government is therefore not violating the settlement.

On Tuesday, Ingebretsen added that if Cristian were returned to the U.S., his asylum application would be denied by USCIS.

Gallagher rejected that argument and said that based on the settlement, Cristian was allowed a certain form of due process to remain in the U.S. while his asylum case was pending.

“This is not a case about where or not Cristian will receive asylum, the issue is of process,” Gallagher said. “Process is important. We don’t skip to the end.” 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of Health and Human Services, testifies during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Jan. 29, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Less than half of Americans have confidence in federal public health agencies’ ability to regulate prescriptions, approve vaccines and respond to outbreaks, according to a poll released Tuesday by the nonpartisan health research organization KFF.

The survey shows that just 46% of the people questioned have at least some confidence in federal agencies ensuring the safety and effectiveness of prescription drugs.

Even fewer, 45%, have confidence in the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and only 42% said they have confidence federal health agencies to respond to infectious disease outbreaks, like bird flu and measles.

An especially low percentage of those polled, 32%, had either some confidence or a lot of confidence in federal health agencies acting independently without interference from outside interests.

“There are remarkably low levels of trust in the nation’s scientific agencies, shaped by partisan perspectives, and that presents a real danger for the country if and when another pandemic hits,” KFF President and CEO Drew Altman wrote in a statement accompanying the poll.

Confidence in agencies sags or rises by party affiliation

The percentage of people overall who hold confidence in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to provide reliable information about vaccines has dropped since a similar survey in September 2023, though party affiliation shows differing trends.

Democrats with a fair amount or great deal of trust in the FDA’s vaccine information has decreased from 86% to 67%, while trust among Republicans has increased from 42% to 52%.

When combined with independents, overall trust in the FDA’s information about vaccines has decreased, from 61% to 57%.

Confidence in the CDC providing reliable information about vaccines has also shifted based on party affiliation.

During the Biden administration, 88% of Democrats had a fair amount or great deal of trust in the CDC, though that has since dropped to 70%. Republicans have started to come back around to the CDC’s vaccine information, with their level of trust increasing from 40% to 51%.

Altogether, trust in CDC has dropped from 63% to 59%, according to the survey.

“The overall level of trust in each case is similar to where it stood in September 2023, though the poll reveals significant partisan shifts as the second Trump administration and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have started to change vaccine policies and messaging,” the poll states.

Local sources trusted

Health care providers and local public health departments are overwhelmingly looked to as trusted sources for reliable information on vaccines, according to the survey.

Eighty-two percent of respondents said they either have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in doctors and health care providers to give them reliable information about vaccines.

Eighty-one percent said they trust their child’s pediatrician, 66% responded they have confidence in their local public health department, 59% believe in the CDC, 57% trust the FDA and 51% have confidence in pharmaceutical companies to provide factual information about vaccines.

Those polled held less trust in politicians, with 41% believing Kennedy’s comments about vaccines and 37% trusting President Donald Trump “to provide reliable information about vaccines,” according to the poll.

A majority of those surveyed, however, are somewhat or very confident in the safety of several vaccines, including 83% for measles, mumps and rubella, or the MMR vaccine; 82% for pneumonia; 79% for shingles; 74% for the flu; and 56% for COVID-19.

The poll included 1,380 U.S. adults contacted online or via telephone from April 8-15, for a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. 

The crime scene around King Park in Milwaukee, where Sam Sharpe was killed by out-of-state police from Ohio. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday that five officers from the Columbus, Ohio, police department will not be charged in the fatal shooting of Sam Sharpe, a man who was killed by the out-of-state officers during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on July 16. 

Sharpe, 43, returned to Milwaukee’s King Park, where he was living in a tent for the last time to gather his belongings and his dog Ices to avoid a man who’d allegedly begun harassing and threatening him, according to Sharpe’s family. Sharpe, who was remembered as positive and well-liked by other King Park residents, shared a fragile sense of shelter and community with numerous other unhoused locals. But when he encountered his alleged harasser that summer day, a confrontation ensued which ended in a volley of gunfire from police officers deployed to Milwaukee as part of the security force for the RNC. 

The day before the shooting, a group of housing rights activists, who had slept in King Park overnight, marched on the RNC. Law enforcement officials said after the shooting that the prior day’s protest had drawn the officers to King Park. Body camera footage showed the officers standing together just before the shooting, then noticing a fight occurring in the distance. The officers immediately unholstered their weapons and sprinted over, yelling commands before unleashing a torrent of gunfire. 

The district attorney’s May 5 letter detailing the decision not to issue charges states that five officers fired a total of 23 times. Each of the officers — identified as Sgt. Adam Groves and officers Nick Mason, Austin Enos, Karl Eiginger, and Canaan Dick — told investigators that they feared that Sharpe, who was armed with knives, was an imminent threat to the other person in the confrontation, identified only as “AB” in the district attorney’s letter. 

Within hours people gathered at the scene to mourn Sharpe, who was known and beloved by housing outreach advocates and his family. Body camera and surveillance footage leaked online, and people were already beginning to discuss the fact that Sharpe had been the Columbus PD’s eighth fatal shooting so far in 2024. Milwaukee police Chief Jeffrey Norman held a press conference, saying that the officers had acted to save a life. 

The investigation found that the officers’ use of deadly force was justified under Wisconsin law, to prevent imminent harm to a civilian, that Sharpe ignored commands to drop the knives he was carrying and that the officers had a reasonable fear for the civilian’s safety.

Milwaukee PD officials said prior to the convention that their intent was to have out-of-state officers placed in positions “where they’re not necessarily forward facing”, and that outside officers were to be accompanied by Milwaukee officers, and were not to make arrests unless in urgent circumstances where local officers weren’t available.

The investigation of Sharpe’s killing was led by the Greenfield PD as part of the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT), a local task force which investigates officer-involved deaths. Angelique Sharpe, Sam’s sister, recounted the day that detectives came to her mother’s home, escorted by Milwaukee officers. The department was already receiving criticism for not having accompanied the Columbus officers at King Park. 

“They didn’t really care,” Angelique Sharpe told Wisconsin Examiner. The detectives had few answers to the family’s questions, she said. After Sharpe’s death, his family said that he had been living in the park doing street preaching for the unhoused community, when he began getting harassed by a man who allegedly threatened to destroy his tent and harm his dog. Sharpe was generally in good spirits, his family said, but he suffered from illness including multiple sclerosis. Sharpe had returned to the park to gather his things and leave that day, his sister said, armed with knives because he was worried about his safety. 

Angelique Sharpe told Wisconsin Examiner that MAIT detectives seemed uninterested in what she feels is important context. “I feel like nobody has really investigated this case fully for what it was. The only thing that they cared about was the actual shooting itself. Not anything that led up to it. Not why any of them were in the street, what led up to that, or what happened, or verifying that he was robbed and beat up,” Angelique said. “Nobody checked any of that stuff or cared about any of that stuff. All they cared about was the police [were] justified in the few seconds … and I just don’t feel like they was justified, because they should’ve never been there.”

Angelique blames the Columbus officers, who she feels acted in haste, as well as Milwaukee officials who assured residents ahead of the RNC that out-of-state law enforcement would not patrol neighborhoods unsupervised. “The whole case was handled poorly,” she said. 

The fallout from the shooting continues to weigh on the Sharpe family. Sam’s dog Ices was taken by animal control, much to the dismay of Sharpe’s family. Ices was eventually returned, and later found a new owner. 

Shortly after Sam died, someone mailed what appeared to be online court records of people with the last name “Sharpe” to the family, with a mocking letter saying “another criminal off the street,” Angelique told Wisconsin Examiner. Months passed before the family was able to obtain a death certificate, and organize a proper funeral for Sam, because of the ongoing investigation. Angelique said their mother’s health declined as  the whole ordeal took a toll. 

In a press release put out by the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Angelique Sharpe stated that her brother was found to have been shot 23 times, yet sustained 34 wounds. “The math ain’t matching,” she said. “It’s a miscarriage of justice and gross neglect of oversight on the part of MPD, who lied to the public to let killer cops run loose in one of the most vulnerable communities in our city. My brother’s blood is on your hands regardless of the law continuing to support murderers behind badges.”

After the district attorney received MAIT’s investigation for review, prosecutors met with Sharpe’s family members and their attorneys at the Greenfield Police Department. It became clear to the family that prosecutors were leaning toward not charging the officers, and that the shooting officers had retained lawyers. All of the involved officers refused to have their interviews recorded. 

Attorney Nate Cade, who represents the Sharpe family, said that a lack of recorded interviews is a common frustration, as police investigated by MAIT have the option to forego them. “They don’t record, they dictate what they think they hear,” Cade told Wisconsin Examiner. Cade agrees with the Sharpe family that the lack of a Milwaukee police escort for the Columbus officers led to an avoidable escalation.

The Sharpe family is considering bringing a civil case. Protest actions are planned in the coming days.

“From the moment it was announced that the RNC would be held in Milwaukee, the community was clear,” the Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression said in a press release, “we do not want outside law enforcement agencies unleashed on our community.” The Alliance blamed local officials, including Mayor Calvalier Johnson and Chief Norman, for welcoming  the RNC to  Milwaukee. 

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Bascom Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Ron Cogswell | used by permission of the photographer)

Madison attorney Shabnam Lotfi says her client, Krish Lal Isserdasani, was exceptionally responsible in the way he handled the news that the Trump administration had suddenly taken away his student visa.

Isserdasani, a 21-year-old computer engineering senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from India, was about a month out from his graduation on May 10 when he became one of thousands of students across the U.S. that had their Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) records cancelled by the Trump administration. According to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, SEVIS is a “web-based system for maintaining information on nonimmigrant students and exchange visitors” in the U.S. Once SEVIS records were canceled, students faced the termination of their student visas and their ability to remain in the U.S.

UW-Madison notified students of the changes to their SEVIS status, warning them that status termination generally means an affected person should depart the United States immediately.

“I admire him for acting quickly,” Lotfi told the Wisconsin Examiner. “He saw that his SEVIS record was terminated, immediately contacted the university to see what it means, did not attend classes for a week to figure out what’s going on, [and] hired a lawyer immediately.” 

In April, U.S. District Judge William Conley issued a temporary restraining order blocking the government from terminating Isserdasani’s SEVIS and from taking any further related actions. That order noted Isserdasani and his family had spent about $240,000 on his education, stood to lose $17,500 on the current semester’s tuition and would be responsible for four months of rent on an apartment he would vacate if he was forced to leave the country. 

With the temporary restraining order in place and providing some protection, Lotfi said he was able to resume attending classes. 

“That doesn’t necessarily mean he feels entirely welcome and free and comfortable,” Lotfi said, “but he’s doing the best he can with the cards he has in the situation.” 

At the end of April, the Trump administration started reversing the cancellations. Administration attorneys said in court that they were working on developing a policy that would provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations. Lotfi said she is “aware of what they’re thinking about” and that if they’re trying to find a way to make the terminations lawful, that “will likely be challenged again.”

Lotfi said the Trump administration’s step back from the cancellations is a win. This is not the first time she has fought a Trump order involving immigrants, having brought a challenge in 2018 to the Muslim travel ban during Trump’s first term.

“It was a coalition of attorneys nationwide bringing so many [temporary restraining orders], so many lawsuits on behalf of so many students all at the same time — and the government not having any defense to any of it — that caused them to have to reevaluate,” Lotfi said.

As of April 28, the 27 cancellations for UW-Madison students and alumni were reversed as were the 13 for UW-Milwaukee. However, the reversals are not the end of Isserdasani’s case.

When it comes to his case, Lotfi said it appeared during a hearing last week that the government attorneys were not changing their plan to eject Isserdasani based on the administration’s perceived change in stance on international students’ visas. She said the government’s attorney indicated her client’s SEVIS record was only active because of the temporary restraining order and that “it was not related to any change in a government policy.”

“The government attorneys also indicated that they maintain their right to terminate his SEVIS record again in the future should that be necessary,” Lotfi said. “It certainly surprised me, and I think it surprised the court that they were taking that position.” 

Lotfi noted that the government attorneys in Isserdasani’s case have been arguing, based on a declaration by Andre Watson, a Trump Department of Homeland Security official, that the SEVIS record and a student’s visa status are not the same. She said no one is buying the argument. 

“The vast majority of judges nationwide are asking, then, why do you terminate the SEVIS record? What was the point of doing this? If you guys say that SEVIS and student status are not the same, does that mean that Mr. Isserdasani is in a lawful student status right now?” Lotfi said. “They won’t say that. They’ll just say that the two are not the same, but they will not confirm that he is in a lawful student status with the SEVIS terminated.”

The case challenges the cancellation of the record in several ways, including arguing that the government cannot just take away his status without due process — the ability for him to know why his SEVIS is being terminated and to challenge the termination — and arguing the cancellation was arbitrary and capricious.

“It’s not that Isserdasani failed to go to class. It’s not that he had a criminal activity [or] he was convicted of criminal activity. It’s just because his name [was] in a database,” Lotfi said. In determining cancellations, the Trump administration had run international students’ names through an FBI database called the National Crime Information Center. It appeared that an arrest for disorderly conduct in November 2024 was the reason for Isserdasani’s SEVIS cancellation, but charges were never pursued and he never had to appear in court.

Lotfi said she and her client are waiting for the court’s written decision on whether the temporary restraining order will be converted to a preliminary injunction, which would prevent actions by the government through the course of litigation. Then, she said, litigation will continue, which can take time.

“It is in the interest of justice, and in the interest of the American people, that a final decision on the merits of the case is issued,” Lotfi said.

Lotfi said people shouldn’t accept the Trump administration’s accusations against foreign students as true.

“These students are in a foreign country. Many have learned a second language… They are young and alone without family. They are following this country’s rules and regulations, and they didn’t do anything wrong,” Lotfi said. “They don’t deserve this.”

“If it’s a U.S. citizen, we say innocent until proven guilty… Why do we not have that same mindset when it comes to foreign nationals?” she added. “It just seems like any arrest for anything then that’s guilt, and that’s not the case. We would never allow that for any of our neighbors, so we should not accept the administration’s description of international students having violated their status when they didn’t.”

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