Workers, including one man in a wheelchair, discuss a project they are working on in Houston, Texas. (Getty Images)

A state program to help people with disabilities find employment is running short of funds, the state labor department reported Monday, leading to a waiting list for people seeking the agency’s services.

The Department of Workforce Development will seek $4.6 million from the state Legislature to fully fund the Division of Vocational Rehabilitation in the 2026 fiscal year.

The division serves about 19,000 people at any one time and enrolls about 1,000 new participants each month who have disabilities and are looking for work opportunities, said Haley McCoy, director of communications at DWD.

The unemployment rate for people with disabilities is about twice that for the general population, said Melanie Cairns, managing attorney for Disability Rights Wisconsin.

“The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation provides vital support and services that people with disabilities need in order to work and to find better work,” Cairns said.

Those services include assessment of a person’s current job skills and discussions about the individual’s work goal and what services and supports they need to pursue that goal, Cairns said. Those can include grants for training in a specific occupation or skills, job coaching and other forms of support.

Federal funds cover 78.7% of the program’s cost, with the state required to pitch in 21.3% to match that. The additional state appropriation DWD is seeking would unlock the corresponding additional federal money.

The 2025-27 state budget appropriated $21.3 million in state funds for the 2026 fiscal year — $2.4 million less than the state spent in 2025 and $4.6 million less than what the state had projected it would need, according to DWD.

Unless the shortfall is made up, the agency will have to put potential new participants on a waiting list, according to DWD. McCoy said about 2,000 people are currently awaiting an employment plan through the division and would be put on the waiting list as a consequence.

DWD has scheduled a virtual public hearing for Thursday, Nov. 13, at 2 p.m., to explain the need for the waiting list and seek comment from the public about that prospect.

“We want to find a solution to continue to provide employment services for anyone with disabilities who wants to find a job,” said DWD Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek in a statement Monday. “We welcome the public to participate in this public hearing and are working with all stakeholders to address this issue.”

 

Migrants from Mexico and Guatemala are apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officers after crossing a section of border wall into the U.S. on Jan. 4, 2025 in Ruby, Arizona. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A panel of District of Columbia Court of Appeals judges Monday heard oral arguments from the Trump administration defending the president’s move to end asylum claims at the southern border through an executive order.

Civil rights and immigration advocacy groups sought to make permanent a District of Columbia District Court’s July injunction that found the Trump administration could not block asylum seekers from making asylum claims — a form of protection extended to those fearing persecution. 

A separate appeals panel lifted the lower court’s order, permitting the administration to block asylum seekers while the merits of the case were argued.

The Trump administration cited the 212(f) proclamation and claimed that because there is an “invasion” at the southern border, asylum protections – which were created by Congress – could be denied. The 212(f) proclamation gives the president the authority to suspend entry of migrants under certain circumstances.

Encounters with migrants at the southern border have remained the lowest in years. 

Immigration crackdown

The executive order from January fell in line with the president’s immigration crackdown, as he aims to limit immigration in the interior of the country with mass deportations and cease migration to the United States through curbing access to asylum and refugee resettlement. 

During Monday’s oral arguments, Department of Justice attorneys on behalf of the Trump administration argued that Trump has the authority to decide who is admissible into the country, regardless if it’s an asylum claim.

The suit was brought on behalf of three organizations by the American Civil Liberties Union, National Immigrant Justice Center, Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, Texas Civil Rights Project, ACLU of the District of Columbia and ACLU of Texas. 

Those three organizations are the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services, or RAICES, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center and the Florence Immigrant & Refugee Rights Project. They provide legal services to people seeking asylum and argued that they are unable to do so under Trump’s proclamation.

The judges on the panel included Cornelia T.L. Pillard, Justin R. Walker and J. Michelle Childs.

Former President Barack Obama nominated Pillard and former President Joe Biden nominated Childs. President Donald Trump nominated Walker during his first term. 

Trump executive powers

Arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, DOJ attorney Drew Ensign said the president’s proclamation was an extension of his executive branch powers.

Ensign argued that the Trump administration views asylum as discretionary, and that the president can “take the steps necessary to make an entry bar effective, including defining consequences for violating it.” 

Ensign argued that because the appeals court this summer allowed for the district court’s order to be paused, it means the government is likely to prevail on its argument.   

Lee Gelernt of the ACLU argued that the proclamation’s use of 212(f) cannot override asylum law in the Immigration Nationality Act that Congress passed.

“This is an internally coherent statute which Congress has put together the pieces,” Gelernt said of the INA. “And what’s ultimately happening here is that the administration doesn’t like the way Congress has put together the pieces.”

He added that Congress was specific in describing a migrant who would not be allowed to qualify for asylum, such as someone who has ties to terrorism. 

“But 212(f) itself cannot override asylum,” Gelernt said. 

Ensign also asked the panel of judges, if they decide to allow the lower court’s injunction to go into effect, to give the Trump administration at least two weeks to implement the new policy at the southern border.

The Trump Administration yanked more than $65 million in Title X funding from clinics nationwide in April, and some of that funding is still frozen, leaving clinics struggling to offer free or low-cost contraception and other family-planning services. Some states are suing to get the funding back, but Idaho officials chose to forego it due to a conflict with state law. (Getty Images)

The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare quietly declined the entirety of its annual $1.5 million federal Title X funding, leaving patients statewide without free and low-cost contraception and reproductive health care services from a key family planning program. 

Though thousands of Idahoans relied on the health care provided through Title X for over 50 years, the state made no public announcements as the decision took effect in April, leading to the closure of 28 out of 43 — about 65% — Title X-funded family planning clinics in public health districts throughout the state, according to the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare. 

After turning down the Title X money entirely, Health and Welfare said there are no plans for the state to make up the difference by increasing the family planning budget. 

In one district, Eastern Idaho Public Health, spokesperson Brenna Christofferson said contraception services are no longer available at all, which has only been communicated to existing Title X patients. Sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, and breast and cervical cancer screenings are still provided using different funding sources.

Many of the clinics closed in eastern Idaho, including more populated cities such as Twin Falls and Idaho Falls, and more rural areas such as Salmon, Rexburg and Rigby. Title X services also ended at clinics like Terry Reilly Health Services in one of southwestern Idaho’s most populous areas of Nampa and Caldwell. 

The decision to forego the funds came at the same time the Trump administration yanked more than $65 million in Title X funding from Planned Parenthood clinics and some independent reproductive health clinics across the country, much of which is still frozen, including for Idaho’s last remaining Planned Parenthood in Meridian. Spokesperson Nicole Erwin said Planned Parenthood continues to fundraise to help offset costs and keep family planning services affordable on a sliding scale.

Although Idaho’s move came at the same time national attention was focused on the frozen funds, it was a separate decision, according to Health and Welfare.

“The discontinuation of Title X funding … was not related to the federal administration’s Title X policy changes earlier this year,” said AJ McWhorter, spokesperson for the Health and Welfare Department. “The department made the decision to decline the funding to remain compliant with current Idaho laws concerning parental rights and counseling on pregnancy options.”

Nationally, seven out of 16 grantees have had their funding restored, while others have been waiting nearly seven months for resolution, said Clare Coleman, president and CEO of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association.

“For Idaho to walk away from the money doesn’t just disadvantage and imperil young people, it imperils all the people in the state,” she said. “It hurts women, it hurts men, and it hurts young people.”

Coleman’s organization sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over the frozen funds, and the case is still pending. A coalition of 20 Democratic-led states sued federal government agencies in July to halt its actions related to several social safety net programs, including Title X. That case is paused while the government is shut down.

In 2023, U.S. Health and Human Services reported Title X provided care to nearly 3 million people nationwide, a 7% increase from the prior year. Under the program guidelines, people with family income levels at or below 100% of the federal poverty level can receive services free of charge, while those making up to 250% of the federal poverty level pay a discounted rate on a sliding scale.  

The program, established by Congress and signed by former Republican President Richard Nixon in 1970, is intended to prioritize low-income or uninsured people, including those who make too much to qualify for Medicaid, who may not otherwise have access to family planning and reproductive health services. Abortion services cannot be covered by Title X dollars.

Pregnancy options and parental consent 

The federal statute guiding the administration of Title X funds includes a section on adolescent services that says grantees cannot require the consent of parents or guardians before or after the minor has requested or received family planning services. Another section directs grantees to allow pregnant patients the opportunity to receive information and counseling regarding prenatal care and delivery, infant care, foster care, adoption and pregnancy termination. Idaho has a near-total abortion ban with few exceptions.

Idaho’s Legislature passed Senate Bill 1329 in 2024, requiring parental consent for “the furnishing of health care services” to a child, with the exception of lifesaving care. Idaho Capital Sun reported the law has also created difficulties for the state’s suicide hotline, because some minors need permission from a parent to receive certain services.

Coleman said the adolescent and pregnancy options requirements have long been part of Title X guidance, and it has not conflicted with state law because federal law should take precedence under the U.S. Constitution.

Idaho is one of at least two states that currently has no Title X funding, Coleman said, after Utah lost all of its Title X money when the Trump administration withheld funding from Planned Parenthood clinics, which were the only places offering those low-cost or free services. Planned Parenthood of Utah closed two of its centers — in Logan and St. George — in the wake of the decision to freeze funding. Logan is less than an hour away from eastern Idaho’s border.

Some states were temporarily left without Title X providers after the Trump administration’s actions in April, but the funding was restored at later dates for certain states, including Missouri and Mississippi. The federal health agency also restored funds in May for two states with abortion bans, Tennessee and Oklahoma, whose grants were revoked under Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration because of their refusal to include abortion among the options during pregnancy counseling. 

In a letter from HHS to Tennessee state officials providing notice of the award, the acting chief grants management officer wrote, “Tennessee is one of only two states to have lost funding for failure to comply with the Title X 2021 regulations requiring counseling and referral for abortion. The department is declining to enforce this provision against the state, and you may rely on this letter to that effect.” 

A total of 7,528 Title X clients were served across Idaho in 2024, McWhorter said. The 15 remaining family planning clinics are supported by other funds, and additional service sites may be added as funding becomes available. Those clinics are in two out of the state’s seven public health districts, which served about 1,400 people combined in 2024. 

The closures add another challenge in an already difficult landscape for sexual and reproductive health care in Idaho. A recent study found that 94 of 268 practicing OB-GYNs left Idaho between August 2022 and December 2024, and care is becoming harder to obtain, according to residents, who say wait times are longer and certain treatment is unavailable locally. 

Coleman said under Biden’s administration, when an entity lost Title X dollars for noncompliance or other reasons, there was an effort to reallocate the funding to another willing participant. Without that action, it would revert back to the U.S. Treasury, and the next opportunity for another Idaho entity to apply for Title X funding will be late 2026. 

Preventing unplanned pregnancies 

Amy Klingler, a clinician in rural eastern Idaho, told States Newsroom she was devastated by the closure of Eastern Idaho Public Health’s family planning clinic. She worked there in addition to another clinical job since 2006 and said there aren’t many other options for family planning care in that area of the state.

“Idahoans don’t trust doctors, but they trust their doctor,” Klingler said. “So when we see rural health care being eroded and doctors leaving Idaho or not coming to Idaho, I think that is really going to impact the health of people in our communities.”

The additional cuts to Planned Parenthood through Medicaid, along with overall Medicaid cuts that may force the closure of more rural hospitals and clinics, will force people to delay care until they are sicker and require more expensive medical care, Klingler said.

The minor consent for treatment bill had good intentions, she said, and in an ideal world, every child would feel comfortable talking to their family members about birth control. But she said she is confident there are young women who don’t get birth control because they don’t want to have that conversation with their parents. 

And with Idaho’s abortion ban, unplanned pregnancies either have to be carried to term or the person must go to another state where abortion is legal. It’s also a felony in Idaho for someone to take a minor to another state for an abortion without parental permission.

“Providing free birth control is really powerful if you’re trying to prevent unplanned pregnancies,” Klingler said.

On her last day at the family planning clinic in June, Klingler said the staffers cried together.

“We often ended the day by saying, ‘We did some really good work today,’” she said. “And to not be able to do that good work kind of hurts the heart.”

Sarah Donald of Pearl, Miss., left, who has been in recovery for nine years, receives naloxone nasal spray from an organizer at the state’s Save a Life Day in September. Overdose awareness is continuing to save lives, but overdoses and deaths have spiked in some areas this year. (Photo by Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today)

Illicit drug overdoses and the deaths they cause are trending down this year, despite spikes in a handful of states, according to a Stateline analysis of data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A handful of places with rising overdoses are responding to the problem with cooperation, they say, by sharing information about overdose surges and distributing emergency medication.

“The national conversation is just about warships in the Caribbean and drones and borders,” said Nabarun Dasgupta, who studies overdose trends at the University of North Carolina. “It discounts this huge groundswell of Americans taking care of Americans. There’s a huge amount of caregiving and tending to the needs of local communities that is being done in a non-flashy way because this is hard, slow work.”

Overdose deaths have been dropping steadily since 2023. As of April, the latest date available, deaths were at 76,500 for the previous 12 months — their lowest level since March 2020. A pandemic spike in overdose deaths drove the number as high as almost 113,000 in the summer of 2023, according to federal statistics.

President Donald Trump has ordered more than a dozen military strikes against boats in the open waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean since Sept. 2, claiming without publicized evidence that their occupants were drug runners bringing narcotics to the United States. Nearly 60 people have been killed.

The bulk of deadly fentanyl is smuggled over the border with Mexico in passenger cars, according to a September report by the federal Government Accountability Office. Chemicals and equipment, mostly from China, are smuggled in via cargo trucks, commercial ships, airplanes and the mail, according to the report.

A more timely indicator of overdoses — nonfatal suspected overdose patients in hospital emergency departments — was down 7% this year through August compared with 2024, according to Stateline’s analysis of CDC statistics.

The nonfatal overdoses were up for the year in only a few states and the District of Columbia. The largest spikes were 17% in the district, 16% in Rhode Island, 15% in Delaware, 11% in Connecticut and 10% in New Mexico, with smaller increases in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, South Dakota, Utah, New Jersey and Minnesota.

Other states saw drops in nonfatal overdoses: Maryland had the largest decrease through August, about 17%.

But Baltimore had an attention-grabbing cluster of 42 overdoses between July and October, all within the same neighborhood. No fatalities were reported. The cluster led the city to set aside $2 million in October for more mobile services, harm reduction and social supports to fight overdoses.

New Mexico is seeing more overdoses and more deaths than the previous year in three counties on the Colorado border. In response, New Mexico is distributing both warnings and naloxone, an opioid-overdose antidote.

Officials are giving naloxone to storekeepers near overdose sites and alerting those seeking services about the deadly threat in the local supply.

“We started planning naloxone saturation and different types of outreaches so we can hopefully stem this from getting even worse,” said David Daniels, harm reduction section manager in the New Mexico health department.

“Putting messaging directly into clients’ hands is extremely valuable. That might be, ‘If you’re choosing to use, don’t use the regular amount. Maybe you should use a quarter of it. Test it out first,’” Daniels said.

The three counties in New Mexico — which include the capital city Santa Fe, ski resort Taos and Española, the setting of the 2023 TV black comedy series “The Curse” — saw about 438 more deaths from July through September than they did during the third quarter of 2024, according to Stateline calculations. That’s more than double the 383 overdose deaths for the area during the same time period last year.

Roger Montoya, a former Democratic state representative who runs an arts nonprofit in Rio Arriba County, said most of the deaths there have been among homeless substance users.

A local hospital has responded with programs to get treatment for more people, and his own Moving Arts Española group concentrates on helping children and young people break a cycle of economic despair that often leads to addiction and homelessness, he said.

“We try to redirect and strengthen the resiliency of young people who largely are being raised by grandparents and kin because mom and dad are either dead, on the street or incarcerated,” Montoya said.

But most states with overdose increases are still showing fewer deaths, mostly because the drug supply in the eastern United States is more likely to be cut with sedatives that don’t have the same deadly effect as fentanyl, though they can cause overdose.

The drugs linked to Baltimore’s mass overdoses were cut with an unusual, powerful sedative, according to federal testing. The sedative can cause people to lose consciousness but can’t itself be treated with reversal medication such as naloxone.

By contrast New Mexico’s tests on this year’s clusters generally found more deadly fentanyl than usual in the local supply, said Phillip Fiuty, a technical adviser on adulterant testing in the state health department.

“We’re not seeing the type of adulteration they’re experiencing on the East Coast. Once something is in New Mexico, there’s little to no adulteration,” Fiuty said.

Some East Coast states are seeing more overdoses but fewer deaths. Rhode Island warned of spikes in nonfatal overdose in August and September, but deaths through September were still lower than during the same period last year, according to state figures.

That’s not always the case. Connecticut reported a surge of both fatal and nonfatal overdoses near interstate highways in May and June.

“One of the factors is change in the illicit drug supply or bad batches. I think that’s what’s playing out now. The drug supply is increasingly unpredictable,” said Lori Tremmel Freeman, CEO of the National Association of County and City Health Officials.

The association has a suggested framework for community response to spikes, but cities and counties may be hampered by a new aggressiveness on enforcement and more hostility to local efforts to stop deaths, she said.

The current Trump administration has shown some reluctance to support community harm reduction techniques, she said. That includes the temporary suspension of $140 million in funds for a program called Overdose Data to Action, known as OD2A, that the first Trump administration started to sound the alarm when spikes happen.

“Given recent cuts to health care and substance use and overdose prevention services that we’re seeing, that is impacting some of the work on the ground,” Freeman said. “It’s pushing people away from being able to make the changes they need to make to change their lives. It has the potential to create more of an overdose problem.”

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Federal funding for SNAP ran out on Nov. 1, and the cuts are affecting about 700,000 Wisconsinites who rely on SNAP. A “SNAP welcomed here” sign is seen at the entrance to a Big Lots store in Portland, Oregon. (Getty Images)

Gov. Tony Evers has declared a state of emergency in Wisconsin due to federal funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known as FoodShare in Wisconsin, being cut off over the weekend.

“Wisconsinites and Americans across the country are now scrambling, trying to figure out how to feed their families,” Evers said in a statement. “There’s no excuse for it, and this is a direct result of Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration, who’ve done nothing to help. As the courts agree, the Trump Administration could’ve stopped this from happening, but they didn’t, and now, Wisconsin’s kids, families, and seniors are worried about whether or when they’re going to eat next. This shouldn’t be happening.” 

Evers issued the declaration on Friday evening and ordered state agencies to take actions within their powers to provide support to Wisconsinites. 

Federal funding for SNAP ran out on Nov. 1, and the cuts are affecting about 700,000 Wisconsinites who rely on SNAP.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has a $5 billion contingency fund for SNAP, but the Trump administration had claimed it couldn’t use it to fund regular benefits during the shutdown.

Two judges ruled on Friday that the Trump administration should use the contingency funds. It has until Wednesday to do so. The Trump administration said Monday it would partially fund SNAP following the rulings, though it is unclear how quickly SNAP beneficiaries will receive funds and how much they will receive. 

Until then, Evers said the executive order would help ensure Wisconsin agencies can do what they can within their power to support Wisconsinites. 

The order directs state agencies to take any and all necessary measures to address the emergency by prohibiting price gouging due to loss of FoodShare funding and economic disruptions and ensuring resources are available for Wisconsinites, including information about emergency aid and consumer protection. 

“The federal government shutdown has gone on long enough — it has to end,” Evers said. “Republicans must start working across the aisle to end the federal government shutdown and extend tax credits that will lower the cost of healthcare so Wisconsinites and Americans across our country have economic stability and certainty, and the Trump Administration must take action and do so quickly to fix the damage they’ve caused and ensure folks can get basic food and groceries they need to survive without any further delay.”

Evers is limited in the steps that he can take unilaterally to fill gaps and address the loss of funds. Some states, including Connecticut, Louisiana, Virginia and Vermont, have taken steps to partially fund SNAP using state and local dollars while federal funds are unavailable. For Wisconsin to take similar steps, however, it would require cooperation from the Republican-led Legislature and Evers.

A bill would need to pass both houses of the Legislature to appropriate funds and be signed by Evers. 

Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said in an interview with WISN-12 on Oct. 26 that it was unlikely that state lawmakers would take action to backfill SNAP. 

“My heart goes out to people, but this is a federal issue, and I don’t see the state having the resources to do that,” Felzkowski said. “I just wish that the Democrats would sign this continuing resolution and vote for it, and let’s move on. They shouldn’t be playing games like this. You don’t hold people hostage over these kinds of issues, so no, I don’t see us stepping in.” 

The government shutdown is entering Day 34 with no end in sight, 

During a virtual press conference on Monday, a group of Wisconsin legislative Democrats criticized Republicans for letting SNAP funding lapse and for not taking more actions during the state budget to ensure that state programs support food assistance and farmers, saying they’ve fallen short when it comes to providing necessary aid for Wisconsinites. 

“The federal government is using hunger to negotiate, and I think that’s immoral,” Rep. Robyn Vining (D-Wauwatosa) said. 

Rep. Jenna Jacobson (D-Oregon) noted that the federal funds the Trump administration has agreed to release will not fully fund SNAP. 

“The funds being released — it’s only a partial payment, so there will still be families and kids that go hungry and yet Wisconsin’s portion of FoodShare is about one-third of the White House ballroom,” Jacobson said, referencing the renovations that Trump has undertaken in recent weeks to demolish the East Wing of the White House to build a ballroom. “We could get it funded.” 

Pfaff highlighted a number of measures that Democratic lawmakers have proposed this year, including free school meals for students, funding for a food security grant program, which would assist food banks and funding for a farm to fork grant program, which would provide state funding to help connect local entities with cafeterias to nearby farms to provide locally produced foods. 

“Every single one of these measures were either completely eliminated, or as in the case of the Farm to Fork program, severely cut by the Republican-controlled Legislature, which struck $20 million out of our Food Security Grant program, which would be very helpful right now,” Sen. Brad Pfaff (D-Onalaska) said. 

Asked whether the state Legislature or Evers should play more of a role as the shutdown continues and SNAP isn’t funded, however, Pfaff said the lawmakers were “not here today to talk about that.”

“What we are here today is to talk about what the [state] Legislature has within its jurisdiction right now, there’s bills that are ready to go,” Pfaff said.

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Chief Inspector Megan Williamson processes absentee ballots at the Hawthorne Library on Madison's East Side. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a right-wing law firm, complained in a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice last week that the Wisconsin Elections Commission is improperly allowing erroneous data entries to remain in the state voter registration database. 

The Elections Commission says WILL is overstating its claims, misunderstanding how the voter database is used and wrong about the requirements of federal law. Meanwhile election administration experts say that WILL is stoking the fears of Wisconsin election conspiracy theorists, which is dangerous because of the Trump administration’s history of election meddling, increasing willingness to prosecute perceived enemies and growing warnings that it will interfere in next year’s midterms. 

In its letter to the DOJ, WILL complains that the state voter database includes “thousands of active, registered voters in Wisconsin whose voter registration information does not match the information in their DOT records. And WEC appears to be doing nothing about it.” The letter states that this problem has only worsened in recent years. 

State law requires that whenever someone registers to vote, either online or in person with their local municipal clerk, the information they provide is double checked against data kept by the state Department of Transportation — the person’s name, date of birth, address, driver’s license number or Social Security number. 

When someone registers online, this double check happens automatically. When someone registers on paper, the data is entered manually by the clerk and checked against the DOT information. 

The problem is that human error can creep into data entries, so there are entries in which someone with the full name “Robert” registers to vote under “Bob,” or the characters in a 14-digit driver’s license number are transposed or the clerk makes a typo. 

When these mistakes are made, clerks can rectify them on their own, or reache back out to the voter to clarify. The double-checking process is required under a federal law, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). 

“Approximately 5% of the people who registered to vote between January 1 and November 3, 2020, were at least initially non-matches with either DMV or Social Security databases,” a FAQ page on the elections commission website states. “That does not mean these voters are not real Wisconsin citizens. When there is a non-match, a registered voter is never ‘removed’ from the statewide voter database. Neither Wisconsin nor federal law require a match, and Wisconsin law does not permit clerks or the WEC to remove a voter from the list for not matching.”

WEC notes that the HAVA check requirements on the state were litigated in 2008 and that the law does not require Wisconsin’s election authorities to declare people as ineligible voters. But WILL states the agency has been ignoring the problem.

“Critically, WEC has not taken sufficient steps to remedy this situation. In fact, the issue has gotten worse,” the letter states. “WILL understands that this data does not indicate the cause of the discrepancy. And while some of these errors might be minor, the large and growing number of mismatches in the system underscores the need for a comprehensive audit of Wisconsin’s voter registration list, which WEC refuses to perform in violation of its obligations under HAVA. Accordingly, we respectfully request that the U.S. Department of Justice takes this information into account as it investigates this issue and takes all necessary steps to remedy this significant problem.”

Emilee Miklas, a spokesperson for WEC, disputes the WILL analysis. 

“The primary objective of the HAVA check process is to identify errors and rectify discrepancies,” she said in an email. “The presence of non-matches discovered in a previous analysis does not necessarily indicate a persistence of errors in the system a year later.”

In a statement, WILL Deputy Counsel Lucas Vebber said the commission FAQ is “not a sufficient explanation” for the data errors. 

“Given the thousands of mismatches that are in the current voter registration list, it appears that whatever WEC does, if anything, is woefully insufficient,” Vebber said. “But to determine if WEC is complying with HAVA it is necessary for WEC to describe the complete process in its response.”

Jeff Mandell, general counsel at the progressive voting rights focused firm Law Forward, says the letter is the latest example of WILL repeatedly casting doubt on the voter rolls. He pointed to a 2018 lawsuit in which WILL sued to force WEC to kick thousands of people off the voter registration list. WILL ultimately lost that lawsuit at the state Supreme Court, which was controlled by a conservative majority at the time. 

“This is just more fearmongering. WILL has been trying to purge the voter rolls for years,” Mandell says, adding that it’s part of the Republican party’s recent efforts to stir up unfounded concern about non-citizens casting ballots. “They have been upset about the voter rolls and insisting without evidence the voter rolls are wrong. Now they’re jumping onto the latest piece of this and skepticism about proof of citizenship. There is still no evidence, no one has been able to show any incidence of non-citizen voting. If the rolls were as error-filled as WILL’s latest suggestions insist, that wouldn’t be true.”

After the rise of election conspiracy theories in the wake of the 2020 election, WILL  distanced itself from the most fevered Republican theories. The firm released a report on the 2020 presidential election, affirming that it was won by Joe Biden while pointing to a number of adjustments and rule changes that could be made to improve Wisconsin’s  election administration. 

“WILL seems to want it both ways, claiming to not be conspiracy mongers and that they can prove that by saying Donald Trump lost the 2020 election and yet still play footsie with conspiracy mongers,” Mandell says. “They do that by filing nonsense lawsuits over and over and over … and this is another example.” 

Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, says that the only effect of going to DOJ with these complaints is raising the likelihood that the results of the 2026 midterms will be questioned — by Trump or his supporters. 

“All they’re doing is providing a little ammo to the Trumpers and the people that are going to question the outcome of the 2026 election,” Heck says. “And so they’re just planting more seeds of doubt in people’s minds, at least the people that would be doubting it anyway.”

Heck also points out that an easy solution to WILL’s complaint would be the establishment of automatic voter registration in Wisconsin, which would automatically register someone to vote when they obtain a driver’s license or state ID from the DOT and cut out WEC’s role as the middleman. But, he says, WILL and Republicans do not support that. 

Despite the DOJ’s potential threat to interfere in election administration, Vebber said in his statement the firm went to the DOJ because it is the agency responsible for enforcing HAVA.

“The U.S. Department of Justice has the express authority to enforce each state’s compliance with HAVA,” Vebber said. “WILL is concerned that WEC is violating HAVA. As a result, the correct agency to complain to is USDOJ. As stated above, in our letter to the U.S Department of Justice we suggested [eight] specific follow-up questions on this issue. WEC does not need to wait for the USDOJ to answer these questions. In the interests of transparency, we would ask WEC to voluntarily answer them.”

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A sign in a convenience store along Barlowe Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2025, advertises that it accepts SNAP benefits. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture will pay about half of November benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, though benefits could take months to flow to recipients, the department said Monday in a brief to a federal court in Rhode Island.

A four-page report from the USDA answered U.S. District Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr.’s order that President Donald Trump’s administration pay at least a portion of benefits to the 42 million people who receive assistance through the program by the end of Wednesday, despite the government shutdown.

The USDA action does not address what would happen if the shutdown stretches beyond November.

Leading Democrats in Congress blasted the administration’s decision to pay only part of the month’s benefits, saying Trump was willfully denying food assistance to needy Americans.  “Providing partial benefits is not enough, is not compliant with the law, and it’s particularly cruel of Trump with the Thanksgiving season around the corner,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. 

McConnell on Saturday laid out two options for the administration: pay for partial benefits by the end of Wednesday through a contingency fund which currently has about $4.65 billion available, or pay for a full month of benefits by tapping other reserve sources such as the child nutrition program by the end of Monday. 

USDA opted to use the contingency fund, giving the department until the end of Wednesday to pay out benefits. 

But a declaration from Patrick A. Penn, USDA’s deputy under secretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, said the administrative hurdles in calculating and delivering a half-month’s portion of benefits could take “anywhere from a few weeks to up to several months.”

The department was complying with McConnell’s order by starting the process of resuming payments Monday, according to the status report signed by U.S. Justice Department officials.

USDA “will fulfill its obligation to expend the full amount of SNAP contingency funds today by generating the table required for States to calculate the benefits available for each eligible household in that State,” they said. “USDA will therefore have made the necessary funds available and have authorized the States to begin disbursements once the table is issued.”

Delayed SNAP benefits in shutdown

McConnell’s order acknowledged that calculating reduced benefits would take the government some time, which he explained was why he gave USDA until Wednesday if the department chose that path.

But Penn said Monday that was not nearly enough time, in part due to some states’ outdated systems for processing benefits.

The federal government would provide states with updated tables for benefits at the partial funding level by Monday, he said. States will then need to send updated files to the vendors that process benefits and add them to beneficiaries’ debit-like EBT cards to be spent on groceries.

Monday marked the 34th day of the federal government shutdown, which began Oct. 1 when Congress failed to appropriate money for federal programs or pass a stopgap spending bill. 

The U.S. Senate was expected to hold another procedural vote to move forward the House-passed GOP stopgap bill that would fund the government at fiscal 2025 levels until Nov. 21. 

Democrats have voted against that measure in a bid to force negotiations on expiring tax credits for people who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

On Tuesday, the funding lapse will tie for the longest shutdown in history, which took place between 2018 and 2019. 

Contingency fund dispute

Leading up to the end of October, the administration had warned it could not pay SNAP benefits for this month amid the shutdown, saying it was legally forbidden from using the contingency fund that was supposed to be for natural disasters and similar emergencies.

But two federal judges ruled Oct. 31 that USDA not only could use the fund, but was obligated to in order to keep SNAP benefits flowing.

Saturday marked the first lapse in benefit payments in the modern history of the program that dates to part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty agenda.

Lawmakers, advocates and SNAP experts said users of the program would see a delay in November benefits as the administration worked to restart it.

The administration’s insistence it could not use its contingency fund, originally appropriated by Congress at $6 billion, was a reversal from a Sept. 30 USDA plan on how to operate in a shutdown, which explicitly called for use of the fund to keep issuing benefits.

A month of SNAP benefits costs the federal government about $9 billion.

While USDA would not use the contingency fund to pay for regular benefits, it did spend about $750 million of the original $6 billion for other uses in October, according to a Monday declaration to the court by Penn.

The department spent about $450 million for state administrative expenses and $300 million for block grants to Puerto Rico and American Samoa, Penn wrote.

The department would again allocate $450 million for administrative expenses in November, and $150 million for the block grants to territories, he added.

That left $4.65 billion available for November benefits, Penn wrote. 

No use of child nutrition funds

Penn also explained USDA’s decision not to use a fund for a child nutrition program to cover shortfall for SNAP benefits.

The administration wanted to keep that fund fully stocked, he said.

“Child Nutrition Program funds are not a contingency fund for SNAP,” he said. “Using billions of dollars from Child Nutrition for SNAP would leave an unprecedented gap in Child Nutrition funding that Congress has never had to fill with annual appropriations, and USDA cannot predict what Congress will do under these circumstances.” 

The child nutrition program funds school meals, summer meals for children and summer EBT benefits for low-income families with children. The school lunch program alone serves about 29 million children per day, Penn said.

Democrats call USDA plan ‘not acceptable’

Democrats expressed dismay that the administration opted not to fully fund November benefits.

“Just now paying the bare minimum to partially fund SNAP is not enough, and it is not acceptable,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state wrote in a social media post Monday.

“Trump should immediately work to fully fund benefits under the law,” added Murray, who serves as the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee. 

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the House Appropriations panel, said “this was entirely avoidable,” noting that Trump “chose to hold hungry children, seniors, and veterans hostage in a selfish and cruel attempt to gain political advantage.” 

“Now, only partial benefits will be sent out late, and families will go hungry, while this administration continues to host lavish parties for their billionaire donors and political allies,” the Connecticut Democrat said.

She added that “we are in this situation because of a lack of political will on the part of the Trump administration” and urged USDA “to put politics aside and use the money they have available to ensure families do not go hungry.”

Speaker Johnson defends Trump

At a press conference Monday, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson continued to defend Trump’s handling of the SNAP payments.

The president is “desperate for SNAP benefits to flow to the American citizens who desperately rely upon it,” Johnson said.

The Louisiana Republican echoed Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ Friday claim that sought to justify her agency’s refusal to tap into the contingency fund to pay for SNAP. 

“The way we always understood it was: The contingency fund could not be used legally if the underlying fund was suspended,” Johnson said. 

He blamed congressional Democrats for voting against the stopgap spending bill and noted that two judges, McConnell and Indira Talwani in Massachusetts federal court, who separately ordered payments resume, were appointed by Democratic former President Barack Obama.

Talwani ruled Friday that the USDA plan to pause SNAP was illegal — but gave the Trump administration until Monday to respond to her finding before she decides on a motion to force the benefits be paid despite the ongoing government shutdown.

Johnson also acknowledged the complex logistics of releasing the money to states. 

“So, it’s not as easy as hitting go send on a computer — you gotta go through and recalculate partial payments to the 42 million recipients of the program,” Johnson said. “That puts a huge burden on states and on the feds to try to figure that out in short order.”

A produce cooler at Willy Street Co-op in Madison, Wisconsin. FoodShare funding from the federal government will stop Nov. 1 if the federal government shutdown continues. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Milwaukee elected leaders gathered outside the county’s Marcia P. Coggs Health and Human Services Building on Friday, providing updates to residents and praising the community’s resilience amidst the ongoing federal government shutdown. 

“Milwaukee County is strong and resilient, but the health and wellbeing of our residents and families should never be casualties of political fights in Washington,” said Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. “Until this federal shutdown ends, we will do what we always do: look out for our neighbors and step up to help in times of need. I’m grateful to our community partners and encourage every resident who is able to join us in caring for our community.”  

Beginning Saturday Nov. 1, people across the state who depend on the Wisconsin FoodShare assistance program will be at risk of losing that aid, due to the discontinuation of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as a result of the government shutdown.

A Milwaukee County press release said that over 230,000 local residents will be left without food assistance “with no clear end in sight”. The release also noted that if the shutdown continues into December, then Section 8 housing benefits will also be on the chopping block. This aspect of the shutdown could lead the Milwaukee County Department of Health and Human Services to not pay federally mandated portions of rent costs, placing a strain on tenants and small-scale landlords. 

“I have been clear as day: no one wins in a shutdown,” said U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin. “Republicans and Donald Trump need to finally come to the table to end this shutdown and lower health care costs for families…Wisconsin families just want to live a comfortable life where they can put food on the table, afford their health care and monthly bills, and not have Washington politics butting into their life. While Wisconsin’s House Republicans are on day 42 of a paid vacation and President Trump is just coming home from another foreign trip, Wisconsinites are going to wake up tomorrow to find their health care premiums are skyrocketing and food assistance is being taken from them. Enough is enough.”

 

Food drive donations are being accepted at locations across the county including:

• Milwaukee City Hall (200 E. Wells St)
• Milwaukee County Courthouse (901 N. 9th St)
• Zeidler Municipal Building (841 N. Broadway)
• Marcia P. Coggs Health & Human Services Center (1230 W. Cherry St)
• Hillview (1615 S. 22nd Street)
• Fiserv Forum (1111 Vel R. Phillips Avenue)
• All Milwaukee public schools 
• All Milwaukee library branches
• The Mason Temple Church (6058 N. 35th St)
  

Residents can also donate to NourishMKE or Feeding America if they’d like to provide financial assistance to programs. While republicans blame the shutdown on democrats wanting to protect people living in the country without legal documentation, democrats say they’re attempting to preserve Affordable Healthcare Act health insurance subsidies which, if allowed to expire, would lead to inflated health costs for people across the country, including some 310,000 Wisconsinites, many of whom would see their insurance payments rise between 45 and 800%.

“This hunger crisis did not need to happen,” said Congresswoman Gwen Moore in a statement. “The Trump Administration is purposefully withholding $5 billion in contingency funding, so they can inflict maximum pain and hardship on the American people…Unlike what Republicans claim, this won’t only hurt my district, but their constituents throughout Wisconsin, including rural areas. SNAP is a lifeline, not a political weapon.” 

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said he was grateful that neighbors were uniting “so that hunger does not rule the day.” Johnson said, however that, “donations and food drives are a temporary fix. We need resolution to this shutdown so that the federal government can resume the important work we ask of it.”

As the government shutdown continues, federal employees who work in Milwaukee County are also feeling the pressure. Many have been furloughed from their jobs, or are working without pay. At Mitchell International Airport, federal air traffic and security workers are not getting paid, as are Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers. The Veteran Affairs Regional Benefits Office in Milwaukee is closed due to furloughed employees. 

 

Sign on the door of the Dane County Job Center in Madison, Wisconsin. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Unemployed Wisconsinites could lose a week’s jobless benefits if they don’t show up for an interview if a new draft bill becomes law.

The same measure would also turn up the scrutiny on the weekly work searches that people who’ve lost a job must undertake to collect unemployment insurance.

Gov. Tony Evers has repeatedly vetoed bills authored by Republicans in the Legislature that contain those and other changes to Wisconsin’s unemployment compensation system.

In his veto messages, Evers, a Democrat, has consistently criticized GOP lawmakers for trying to change the rules on jobless pay without working through Wisconsin’s joint labor-management Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council.

This time, however, the proposals have come from the advisory council itself.

On Sept. 24, the council voted to advance a bill that was endorsed by both its labor and management members. Despite that unanimous backing, some worker advocates are condemning the draft legislation.

“This is a terrible, terrible bill,” said lawyer Victor Forberger, whose practice focuses on representing people whose claims for unemployment compensation have been rejected by the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development.

State Rep. Christine Sinicki (D-Milwaukee), the ranking Democrat on the Assembly’s labor committee, has repeatedly scolded Republican lawmakers for proposing unemployment insurance changes without going through the advisory council.

But after reading the advisory council’s draft legislation, Sinicki said, “I will not be voting for the bill, and we will probably offer an amendment to it.”

Shane Griesbach, a union official who chairs the council’s labor caucus, defends the council proposal, highlighting that it includes an increase in the maximum weekly unemployment benefit for the first time in more than a decade.

“It was a compromise between both labor and management on various issues,” Griesbach told the Wisconsin Examiner.

The draft bill has not yet been formally introduced in the Legislature. On Tuesday, Oct. 28, members of the Assembly Committee on Workforce Development, Labor, and Integrated Employment were told by email to hold their calendars open for a hearing on Nov. 13.

Labor-management negotiations

From the launch of Wisconsin’s unemployment compensation system in 1932 — the first of its kind in the country — the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council has been a standing feature, intended to reflect the interests of both sides.

“The Wisconsin UI advisory council — with five representatives each from labor and management — was designed to balance the needs of workers and employers in unemployment insurance policy,” said Laura Dresser, associate director of the High Road Strategy Center, a think tank at the University of Wisconsin-Madison that focuses on the impact of economic policy and trends on working people.

“It is a good idea, and part of the Wisconsin Idea, to build this sort of policy infrastructure around the people who rely on and fund the system,” Dresser said. “But if either labor or management thinks they can get a better deal from the Legislature than the advisory council, that undermines the policy-making power of the council itself.” 

Among the controversial provisions of the draft bill is a disability pay penalty.

Under the typical protocol for bills that come from the advisory council, Sinicki, as the ranking minority party member of the labor committee would be listed as a coauthor of the legislation.

But Sinicki objects to the bill’s proposed penalty for people with unemployment claims who receive federal disability payments. If that doesn’t change, “I will not put my name on the bill,” Sinicki said

Since 2013, people laid off from work have been denied unemployment compensation if they also received Social Security Disability Income. This summer, a federal judge ended that ban, and the advisory council’s draft bill removes the ban as well.

But the draft bill also includes an “offset” that would claw back money from the SSDI recipient’s jobless pay each week. Over the course of one month, the amount clawed back would equal 50% of the recipient’s monthly disability check.

Earlier this year, DWD proposed to the advisory council ending the SSDI jobless pay ban but deducting 100% of federal disability income.

In September, Sinicki and state Sen. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) introduced their own bill to repeal the SSDI unemployment pay ban and criticized DWD’s offset recommendation. Nine days later, the department told the Unemployment Insurance Advisory Council it was dropping the offset proposal entirely and simply recommending an end to the SSDI jobless pay ban.  

The advisory council brought back the offset, however, at 50% rather than 100% of the federal disability income, in the draft bill approved Sept. 24.

Forberger said that at either 100% or 50%, requiring an offset against disability income is likely to wipe out jobless pay for many SSDI recipients.

Resurrecting vetoed changes

Other provisions in the advisory council draft have previously passed the state Legislature with only Republican votes, and then been vetoed by Evers.

‘Ghosting’ interviews: Unemployment insurance recipients accused of “ghosting” a scheduled job interview — failing to show up — would lose their weekly jobless pay for that week. A recipient would also lose benefits for a week for declining a job offer or failing to report on the first scheduled work day after being offered a job.

Republican lawmakers this year passed legislation that also would penalize “ghosting” interviews and rejecting job offers. No Democrats voted for the legislation, and Evers vetoed the bill, AB 169, on Friday. 

“I object to creating additional barriers for individuals applying for and receiving benefits from a program that is designed to support people and families experiencing economic hardship, as well as creating additional mandates for the department in administering these benefits,” Evers wrote in his veto message.

Forberger said the ghosting penalties — which have been introduced and vetoed in past years as well — are unneeded, with unemployment insurance claims remaining at close to record lows.

“We’ve still got a huge worker shortage in the state,” Forberger said. “This does absolutely nothing.”

Work search audit quotas: Another provision in the advisory council bill would require DWD to audit the work searches of half of all people making unemployment claims.

Evers vetoed a bill in 2023 that included the work search audit requirement.

“I object to this bill because the department already has substantial eligibility requirements and fraud prevention mechanisms in place to protect the unemployment system from potentially fraudulent activity,” Evers wrote at the time.

In response to a Wisconsin Examiner inquiry, DWD Communications Director Haley McCoy said via email that the department’s unemployment insurance division “has a well-established work search auditing program.” People making unemployment insurance claims must report their required work searches each week, which are subject “to random or targeted audits,” McCoy said.

McCoy declined to specify the department’s current audit frequency, calling that information “sensitive” and confidential “to protect program integrity.”

Identity proofing requirements: The advisory council bill includes new requirements for unemployment insurance applicants to prove their identities, and would require DWD to follow specific steps, including comparing applications for jobless pay against databases tracking death records, employment records, citizenship and immigration records.

On Friday Evers vetoed AB 168, which included similar identity proofing requirements.

“The department already implements comprehensive fraud prevention strategies, including identity verification, making the proposal to mandate identity proofing both unnecessary and overly burdensome of claimants,” Evers wrote in his veto message.

A benefit increase

The advisory council bill includes a one-time $25 increase in the maximum weekly payment that goes to jobless workers: to $395 a week starting in 2026, from $370 a week.

“The last time unemployment has seen an increase in the weekly benefit rate was 2013,” said Griesbach, the council’s labor caucus chair.

Griesbach said that benefit increase, the unemployment insurance clawback for disability pay, the “ghosting’ penalty and the work search audit requirements were all products of the advisory council’s consensus process.

“All those things were part of an agreed-upon bill between labor and management and negotiation and compromise by both groups,” Griesbach told the Wisconsin Examiner. “It was an agreed-upon bill, and there were a lot of different topics that were discussed, and that was the compromise that was reached.”

Forberger said the proposed benefit increase keeps Wisconsin’s top unemployment benefit well below other Midwestern states.

In Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois, the maximum weekly benefit is at least $500 a week or more. Only Indiana, with a maximum benefit of $390 a week, would be lower, he said.

“This is a paltry increase,” Forberger said of the Wisconsin proposal. “It’s nothing to brag about.”

The advisory council bill’s increase is also less than DWD had recommended in its proposals to the council. The department proposed raising the maximum weekly  benefit by $127 in 2026, to $497, and then indexing the maximum to the consumer price index in 2027.

Sinicki acknowledged that by giving new life to Republican-authored unemployment insurance bills that she’s sharply criticized in the past, the advisory council’s bill has put her in a difficult position.

The ghosting penalty, for example, is an “attempt to throw more people off of unemployment insurance,” Sinicki said. She also voiced skepticism of increasing work search audits without funding more staff positions.

But the disability penalty, she said, is more than she would be willing to support.

“This puts me in a very tough spot, and also puts a lot of Democrats in a very tough spot,” Sinicki said. “As a Democrat, I cannot vote to take away benefits from disabled people.”

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A demonstrator stands outside the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wisc., in 2022 to commemorate missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Researchers have launched a new survey to determine the prevalence of brain injuries in Native survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. (Photo by Stacy Revere/Getty Images)

Abigail Echo-Hawk, director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, recalled a Native mother in her 30s who started having memory loss and other dementia-like symptoms.

The woman had suffered multiple blows to her head and falls at the hands of her husband over the years. He had wanted to disable her, to make it more difficult for her to keep her children if she tried to leave him, Echo-Hawk said.

Many Native women have traumatic brain injury symptoms as a direct result of abuse, Echo-Hawk said. Tribal health advocates and groups serving survivors have long been aware of the problem, she said, but there has been little national research documenting the extent of it.

“It’s a very difficult thing to see,” said Echo-Hawk, of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. “This is a pressing concern.”

The Urban Indian Health Institute, an Indigenous health research group, this month launched a first-of-its-kind national survey of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian women to determine the prevalence of brain injuries in Native survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. The goal is to illuminate the extent of the problem, guide clinicians, raise public awareness and direct resources.

A 2015 study in Arizona found a higher incidence of traumatic brain injuries in Native women in that state, but the new survey is the first national, Indigenous-led study of its kind, according to the institute.

It comes as domestic violence groups across the nation are struggling with federal funding delays caused by the government shutdown. As the impasse continues, the Trump administration has furloughed grant workers at the Office on Violence Against Women, which is part of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Traumatic brain injuries can cause memory loss, confusion and long-term behavioral changes and raise the risk of dementia. Some abusers intentionally inflict traumatic brain injuries on their victims because it doesn’t leave visible bruises, according to the Brain Injury Association of America.

The link between domestic violence and traumatic brain injuries has been documented in women generally, and the effects of such injuries have been studied in former football players and veterans. But research on Native communities is lacking. Even when victims show up in ERs, their cases can go underreported.

In a previous survey of survivors, some Native women reported broken teeth, evidence of blows to the head, Echo-Hawk said. But pushing and strangulation also can cause traumatic brain injuries.

Violence is a public health crisis among American Indian, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian women, who are overrepresented in intimate partner violence statistics. Fifty-five percent report experiencing intimate partner violence, and a disproportionate number of Native women and girls are murdered or go missing.

In a 2020 survey by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 44% of American Indian and Alaska Native women reported being raped in their lifetime.

“People are losing their children because of memory loss and dementia,” Echo-Hawk said. “When people are experiencing intimate partner violence, they end up in ERs. Their children suffer. The whole community suffers as a direct result. And the same with the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.”

Doctors and other hospital staff should receive more training on brain injuries and should know which communities are most likely to experience violence, said Nikki Cristobal, policy and research specialist for Pouhana ʻO Nā Wāhine, a nonprofit domestic violence resource center for Native Hawaiians.

Cristobal said one survivor told her clinicians hadn’t performed a brain scan or traumatic brain injury assessment on her, despite her ongoing psychological and cognitive symptoms. “It never occurred to anybody,” she said.

“We have to talk more about it,” said Cristobal, who worked with Echo-Hawk on developing the survey and is the principal investigator for the Missing and Murdered Native Hawaiian Women, Girls and Mahu state task force.

Native communities, including Native Hawaiians, have endured long-term, intergenerational traumas during colonization and forced assimilation that can’t be ignored when targeting the disproportionate rates of violence, Cristobal said.

“It’s the undercurrent,” Cristobal said. “It’s the precursor.”

Stateline reporter Nada Hassanein can be reached at nhassanein@stateline.org.

State Street in Wauwatosa flooded out. (Photo courtesy of Baiba Rozite)

U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) is raising an alarm after Wisconsin was denied flood mitigation funds by the Trump administration. The assistance, which was denied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), would have  helped the state prepare for situations like the record-breaking floods that swept through southeastern Wisconsin in August. 

“The risks of severe flooding will only increase due to climate change, and our community needs to be prepared,” Moore said in a statement Thursday. “FEMA’s ill-conceived decision denies our state the opportunity to take proactive efforts to prevent future flooding and damage, which saves homeowners and taxpayers dollars in the long run.”

Research shows that severe storms and flooding will increase in Wisconsin due to climate change. Shortly after the August floods, which inundated parks and left over 1,800 homes damaged or  destroyed, Wisconsin Policy Forum noted a “dramatic increase” in extreme rain and flooding events, resulting in higher payouts for flood insurance. 

Although the Trump administration  approved a first round of disaster funds to assist individual homes and small businesses, additional support to help repair public infrastructure was also denied in late October. Counties in areas represented by both Democrats and Republicans were denied additional assistance.

“State and local governments cannot do it alone,” said Moore. “I expect Gov. Evers will rightly appeal this denial, and I hope that request will get bipartisan support in our congressional delegation. As our communities continue to recover, it is clear there is a need to build our communities back stronger and more resilient. I will continue advocating for Wisconsin’s needs at the federal level and push back against these ill-advised decisions.”

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A shopper who receives SNAP benefits slides an EBT card at a checkout counter in a Washington, D.C., grocery store in December 2024. (Photo by U.S. Department of Agriculture)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Saturday issued a written order saying there is “no question” that U.S. Department of Agriculture contingency funds must be used to provide food assistance for 42 million Americans during the government shutdown.

Rhode Island U.S. District Court Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. had said during a Friday hearing he was granting a temporary restraining order sought by cities and nonprofit groups. McConnell ordered that the government distribute payments of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits. 

Because Congress is locked in a stalemate over a stopgap spending bill and did not appropriate money for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, Trump administration officials had said the program could not provide SNAP benefits beyond Saturday.

In response to McConnell, President Donald Trump in a social media post later Friday said administration lawyers believed the funds could not legally be paid and that he needed clarification about how to distribute SNAP benefits. 

“I do not want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT,” Trump said.  “If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding …”

Government lawyers also filed a brief in the Rhode Island case asking McConnell to clarify how his order could legally be carried out, noting it was delivered orally and there was no written transcript.

In his Saturday order, McConnell, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, quoted Trump and said, “So, here’s the ORDER and here’s the legal direction from the Court.”

In a footnote, the McConnell order also said: “The Court greatly appreciates the President’s quick and definitive response to this Court’s Order and his desire to provide the necessary SNAP funding.”

McConnell said it was likely that the plaintiffs would succeed in their case. He noted that Congress appropriated funds for SNAP in an annual spending bill, and lawmakers directed that $3 billion should be put in reserve through Sept. 30, 2026. Another $3 billion in a later bill was put aside until Sept. 30, 2027.

 “There is no question that the congressionally approved contingency funds must be used now because of the shutdown; in fact, the President during his first term issued guidance indicating that these contingency funds are available if SNAP funds lapse due to a government shutdown,” McConnell said.

Two options in written order

Because the $6 billion is not enough to cover the estimated $9 billion cost of November benefits, government lawyers have said it would be difficult to determine reduced benefits, McConnell said. 

He said USDA then should “within its discretion, find the additional funds necessary” to fund the full $9 billion, suggesting use of $23 billion in a fund for state child nutrition programs.

If the government chooses to make full SNAP payments for November, it must do so by the end of the day Monday, he said. If instead the government makes a partial payment of SNAP funds, then it must pay out all the $6 billion in contingency funds by Wednesday, he said.

He asked the government to update him by noon Monday how it was complying with the order.

In a separate case, a federal judge in Boston also ruled Friday that the USDA plan to pause SNAP was illegal — but gave the Trump administration until Monday to respond to her finding before she decides on a motion to force the benefits be paid despite the ongoing government shutdown.

No matter what happens on Monday, experts and a key member of Congress have said that some SNAP recipients still may see delays in their benefits because changes in administration from the federal government to states to vendors take time. In states, SNAP benefits are loaded onto cards on varying dates, but the Saturday cutoff would have been effective for November benefits.

Gov. Tony Evers | Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner

Gov. Tony Evers signed a bill Friday that will limit cell phones in schools, making Wisconsin the 36th state in the nation to do so, and a bill that will make it easier for candidates for office to remove themselves from ballots. 

A Wisconsin Policy Forum report from May found that most school districts already restrict student cellphone usage to common areas, though policies vary widely across the state.  

Under the new law, 2025 Wisconsin Act 42, school districts will have until July 2026 to implement a policy that bans cellphones during instructional times. The policy will need to include exceptions for emergencies, for educational purposes and cases involving student health care, individualized education plans (IEPs) or 504 plans (learning environment accommodations).

Evers said in a statement that the decision about whether to sign the bill weighed heavily on him, especially given his belief that “decisions like this should be made at the local level by local school districts”. However, he said he is “deeply concerned” about how cell phone and social media use are affecting students, including their mental health, school outcomes and social skills. 

“Our kids are struggling today, perhaps now more than ever. It’s really tough to be a kid these days, and we know that cellphones can be a major distraction from learning, a source of bullying, and a barrier to our kids’ important work of just being a kid,” Evers said in a statement. “While I wish the Legislature would have taken a different approach with this legislation, I will never stop fighting for Wisconsin’s kids and working to do what’s best for them, which is why I am signing this bill into law today.”

Evers also pointed to widespread support for cellphone ban policies in his statement. 

Pew Research recently found that 74% of U.S. adults support banning middle and high school students from using cellphones during class — an increase from 68% last fall. A Marquette Law School poll found that 89% of voters support banning cellphones during class periods. 

Evers also takes action on 19 other bills

Evers also signed Assembly Bill 35, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 43, to make it easier for candidates to withdraw themselves from a ballot. 

Under the law, candidates for office in Wisconsin will be able to withdraw their candidacy in a general or primary election and not be included on the ballot if they file a sworn statement. 

The change to Wisconsin law was proposed after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was not allowed to remove himself from the presidential ballot in 2024 after he dropped out and endorsed President Donald Trump. State law then said that candidates could only have their names removed if they were dead. 

The new law will allow candidates to remove themselves, but they’ll be responsible for paying the Wisconsin Elections Commission a $1,000 fee. Non-statewide candidates will need to pay $250. 

Under the law, a person could face a Class G felony with a maximum penalty of up to $25,000 and imprisonment for up to 10 years if they intentionally filed a false statement withdrawing a person’s candidacy. 

Evers also signed Senate Bill 309, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 41, which clarifies statute to say that 911 call centers and dispatchers who transfer a caller to the national 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline are generally immune from civil liability for any outcomes resulting from the transfer. 

“Our 911 dispatchers play a vital role in the safety and security of our state, but they often don’t have the time or resources available to provide the response necessary for somebody experiencing a mental health crisis,” Evers said. “By offering much-needed protection to 911 dispatchers who transfer calls to the 988 Lifeline, this bill allows for a better and safer crisis response by ensuring crisis calls go to the service providers who are trained to provide appropriate care and resources to those who need it most.”

The law specifies that the immunity doesn’t apply if an injury is the result of an act or omission that constitutes gross negligence or willful misconduct by the dispatcher. 

Another bill signed by Evers, now 2025 Wisconsin Act 46, seeks to address the reckless driving issue in Wisconsin by allowing local governments to implement ordinances that will allow officers to immediately impound a vehicle used to drive recklessly and retain the vehicle until all outstanding fees, fines and forfeitures are paid.

Evers said in a statement that the law will “hold bad actors accountable” and help keep roads and communities safe.

“Whether it’s distracted driving, speeding, or erratic and aggressive behaviors, reckless driving puts our kids, families, and communities in harm’s way,” Evers said. “Tackling reckless driving has been a bipartisan goal in recent years, and I’m glad to see this trend has continued this session.” 

Evers also vetoed several bills. 

• AB 5, which would have required school districts respond to material inspections requests within 14 days
• AB 39, which would have required state employees to work in person for 80% of their week, 
• A handful of bills — AB 162, AB 168 and AB 169 — that would have made changes to unemployment and workforce development programs. 
• SB 25, which would have prohibited a court from allowing a complaint to be filed in a John Doe proceeding against a police officer who is involved in a shooting if the district attorney determines there is no basis to prosecute the officer. 
• SB 184, which would have barred local governments from implementing restrictions on a cars and vehicles based on its energy source 

The full list of bills upon which Evers took action can be found here. 

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Boxes of sugary cereal fill a store's shelves on April 16, 2025, in Miami, Florida.  (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Boston ruled Friday that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s plan to pause a food assistance program for 42 million people was illegal — but gave the Trump administration until Monday to respond to her finding before she decides on a motion to force the benefits be paid despite the ongoing government shutdown.

At nearly the same time Friday, a Rhode Island federal judge in a similar case brought by cities and nonprofit groups ordered USDA to continue payments and granted a request for a temporary restraining order.

However, experts and a key member of Congress said that some SNAP recipients still may see delays in their benefits because changes in administration from the federal government to states to vendors take time. 

There was also no immediate word from USDA on how it will implement the judicial orders, while the administration sought guidance from the courts.

In a social media post late Friday, President Donald Trump said administration lawyers believed the funds could not legally be paid and that he needed clarification about how to legally distribute SNAP benefits.

In Massachusetts, in a Friday afternoon order, District Court of Massachusetts Judge Indira Talwani said she would continue to take “under advisement” a coalition of Democratic states’ request to force the release of funds from a contingency account holding about $6 billion.

Her ruling came a day before a cutoff of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits to low-income households.

Because Congress is locked in a stalemate over a stopgap spending bill and did not appropriate money for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, administration officials say the program cannot provide federal funds beginning Saturday. In states, SNAP benefits are loaded onto cards on varying dates, but the cutoff would be effective for November benefits.

Talwani, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, called the administration’s conclusion it can’t provide SNAP funding “erroneous,” and said the reserve fund was sufficient for SNAP benefits to flow to states and the vendors that add money to debit-like cards issued to the program’s beneficiaries that are used to purchase groceries. 

The law creating the program mandated that benefits continue, she said.

“Defendants are statutorily mandated to use the previously appropriated SNAP contingency reserve when necessary and also have discretion to use other previously appropriated funds,” Talwani wrote.

Talwani ordered the administration to say by Monday whether it would provide at least partial benefits for November.

Trump seeks clarification

Trump on social media said that he would be happy to see the funding go out and blamed Democrats for the monthlong shutdown.

“I have instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible,” Trump wrote. “It is already delayed enough due to the Democrats keeping the Government closed through the monthly payment date and, even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out.”

The government filed a brief in the Rhode Island case asking the judge in that case to clarify how his order could legally be carried out.

Earlier Friday, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was noncommittal when asked if the department would comply with an order to resume benefits, according to CNN.

Spokespeople for the Department of Justice, which is representing the administration in the case, did not return messages seeking comment Friday.

The 25 states that sued were Massachusetts, California, Arizona, Minnesota, Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state, Wisconsin Kansas, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. The District of Columbia also sued. 

Contingency fund can’t flow in shutdown, USDA chief says

At a press conference with U.S. House Republicans earlier Friday, Rollins said it was “a lie” that the contingency fund could be used to provide benefits.

“There is a contingency fund at USDA, but that contingency fund, by the way, doesn’t even cover, I think, half of the $9.2 billion that would be required for November SNAP,” she said. “But it is only allowed to flow if the underlying program is funded. It’s called a contingency fund, and by law, a contingency fund can only flow when the underlying fund is flowing.”

The judges authoring Friday’s court orders disagreed with Rollins’ argument, which was also at odds with a shutdown plan her own department published on Sept. 30 before quietly deleting it sometime in October. The plan called for SNAP benefits to continue during a shutdown because the contingency fund existed.

“Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds,” the Sept. 30 plan said.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said benefit payments “will likely be delayed by several days or more” and blamed the situation on the administration’s refusal to spend from the contingency fund.

“The administration has chosen to hold hungry families hostage in their partisan political games,” she said in a statement. “It is cruel. It is shameful. And as federal judges in two states have now affirmed, it is illegal.”

Rhode Island case

In Rhode Island, where the judge granted a temporary restraining order, the advocacy group Democracy Forward, which was among those bringing the suit, praised the move.

“A federal court today granted a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump-Vance administration’s unlawful effort to halt the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during the ongoing government shutdown,” the group said. “The decision ensures that millions of children, seniors, veterans, and families will continue to receive essential food assistance while the case proceeds.”

The judge in that case, John James McConnell Jr., said the administration’s actions violated a key federal administrative law against arbitrary and capricious executive action and federal spending laws “by disregarding Congress’s direction that SNAP must continue operating,” Democracy Forward said.

McConnell also was appointed by Obama.

Delays in benefits likely

Friday’s orders will likely not stop some SNAP benefits from at least being delayed, according to Lauren Kallins, a senior legislative director for state-federal affairs at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Even if the Trump administration immediately complied with McConnell’s order that benefits must be released, the process of moving money from the U.S. Treasury to states to vendors to beneficiaries takes time.

“Under the best of circumstances… it’s not a switch that can be flipped on once USDA decides to release funds,” Kallins, whose organization coordinates and advocates for bipartisan state lawmakers in every state, said.

States generally release SNAP funds to beneficiaries on a staggered basis, meaning that different beneficiaries receive their allotments on different days of the month. 

With the situation unresolved a day before the new benefits month begins, some are certain to see at least delays in benefits, Kallins said.

“For people who get their allotments in the beginning of the month, there’s definitely going to… be a delay here,” she said.

Additionally, if USDA were to release money only from the contingency fund, it could take states time to determine how to distribute prorated benefits.

Congress no closer to resolution

On Capitol Hill, the parties appeared no closer Friday to reaching an agreement as the government shutdown stretched into its second month.

House Republicans continued to blame Democrats for the standstill, urging Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to get his caucus behind the House-passed GOP measure to reopen the government at last fiscal year’s spending levels.

“Republicans have done our part to end the Democrat shutdown, and now it’s time for Democrats to do theirs,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Friday morning. 

“The path forward is simple — please, please, every American who is concerned about this, every American that is feeling the harm, you should call the Senate Democrats and tell them to stop the nonsense, echo the voices of the unions, of the airlines, of hardworking people everywhere, and tell them to stop doing this and open the government.”

Democrats have voted against the GOP measure, saying congressional Republicans must negotiate an extension of tax subsidies for those who buy health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. 

Those subsidies are set to expire at the end of the year, leaving millions to see their premiums skyrocket when they get premium notices beginning Saturday.

Volunteers from No Limits Outreach Ministries in Hyattsville, Maryland, and the Capital Area Food Bank prepare for distribution on Oct. 28, 2025 to furloughed federal workers affected by the government shutdown. People with government employment ID began lining up hours ahead of time. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — By Saturday, millions of Americans are expected to face a drastic spike in health care premium costs during open enrollment, though a hunger crisis may have been temporarily averted, both tied to the ongoing government shutdown.

A federal judge in Massachusetts Friday afternoon found that the U.S. Department of Agriculture acted unlawfully in deciding to withhold billions in emergency funding for 42 million people who rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, amid a government shutdown.

But while the ruling does not order USDA to immediately tap into its roughly $6 billion contingency fund, a separate ruling from a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the agency to continue the payments after a coalition of religious and advocacy groups sued.

Prior to both rulings, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins defended USDA’s decision to not use the contingency fund during a Friday press conference at the U.S. Capitol with House Speaker Mike Johnson on day 31 of the government shutdown. 

“We are here today because SNAP benefits run dry tomorrow, so the truth has finally revealed itself, hasn’t it?” Rollins said. “Democrats’ support for programs like SNAP is now reduced to cynical control over people’s lives.”

It was not yet clear midday Friday how the two court rulings would be carried out by the administration.

The move to cut off SNAP would leave millions hungry, nearly 40% of them children, and is an effort by the Trump administration to put pressure on Senate Democrats to accept the House-passed GOP stopgap spending bill to fund the government until Nov. 21. 

Senate Democrats have held out demanding action on tax credits that will expire at the end of the year for people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplace, hugely driving up costs. 

They have tried to spark negotiations, but Republicans have maintained that talks on health care subsidies will only begin after the government is funded. 

Flight delays, filibuster fate 

As the government shutdown continues, millions of federal workers are furloughed, or have continued to work without pay, including air traffic controllers. 

Flight delays and cancellations are starting to mount, with 3,739 delays within, into or out of the United States and 364 cancellations within the United States by midday Friday, according to the FlightAware delays tracker.

Another shutdown complication emerged when President Donald Trump, who has spent most of the week abroad in Asia meeting with foreign leaders over trade and tariff talks, Thursday night urged Republicans to eliminate the Senate filibuster, which requires a 60-vote threshold. 

“Get rid of the Filibuster, and get rid of it, NOW!” Trump wrote on his social media platform. Senate Republicans have been lukewarm on the idea, since Democrats then could do the same if they regain control of the chamber now held by the GOP with 53 seats.

Lacking 60 votes, the Senate has failed 13 times to pass the House-passed stopgap spending measure and left Capitol Hill Thursday night. Democrat Sen. Jacky Rosen from Nevada tried to keep the Senate in session, but was overruled by Republicans. 

Another critical deadline approaching Friday was pay for active duty military members. Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration would shuffle funds to ensure pay, but did not detail those plans. According to Axios, the Defense Department pulled billions from several accounts to ensure the troops could be paid. 

Rollins defends USDA refusal to pay benefits

Congress failed to fund SNAP and nearly every other discretionary federal program for the 2026 fiscal year that began Oct. 1.

In order to receive SNAP benefits, a household’s gross monthly income must be at or below 130% of the federal poverty guidelines. A family of four would receive a SNAP maximum monthly allotment of $994, according to USDA.

Rollins sought to justify her agency’s refusal to shuffle the contingency funds to pay for SNAP, saying that money “is only allowed to flow if the underlying program is funded,” and “by law, a contingency fund can only flow when the underlying fund is flowing.” 

The Agriculture secretary said that “even if it could flow, it doesn’t even cover half of the month of November.” 

USDA said in a memo earlier in October that it would not tap into the contingency fund to keep the program afloat in November, despite its since-deleted Sept. 30 shutdown plan saying it would tap into this reserve. 

The memo said the contingency fund “is a source of funds for contingencies, such as the Disaster SNAP program, which provides food purchasing benefits for individuals in disaster areas, including natural disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, that can come on quickly and without notice.” 

Democrats have objected. Friday’s decision from a federal judge in Boston stems from a lawsuit brought by 25 states and the District of Columbia against the Trump administration to force USDA to use the contingency fund. 

USDA secretary recounts conversation with waiter

At the Capitol press conference, Rollins also recalled a recent encounter she had at a Louisiana restaurant with a “wonderful” waiter named Joe, who she said took on that job after being furloughed as a federal government employee due to the shutdown. 

“He didn’t know who I was. And I said, ‘Well, Joe, I can appreciate that. You know, I’m sort of in that world as well.’ And I said, ‘Where do you work?’ And he said, ‘Well, I work for the U.S. Department of Agriculture in their New Orleans office as part of the financial team.'”

Rollins said that encounter “just really brought home for me … to echo what Mike (Johnson) said, just thanking so many thousands of federal workers who are showing up, who are still doing their job, who aren’t getting paid, those that are now concerned about putting food on the table and making their mortgages and paying their rent.” 

Rollins, along with the rest of the president’s Cabinet, is still getting paid.

Health premiums skyrocket

As open enrollment begins Saturday, those enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplace who currently receive a tax credit are likely to see their monthly premium payments more than double to about 114% on average, according to an analysis by KFF. 

For the last month, Democrats have warned of this, as the tax credits that help pay for individual health insurance are set to expire at the end of the year. 

The top Democrat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, said in a statement that many families will see an increase in their premiums on Nov. 1.

“The sticker shock many families will face when they shop for health coverage is unacceptable, and it’s why Congress must act,” Pallone said.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that if Congress does not extend the tax credits, insurers expect healthy, younger people to drop their marketplace coverage plans, which will lead to increased premium costs. 

Anxiety over WIC program

Meanwhile, USDA’s Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or WIC, a program separate from SNAP, got a $300 million infusion from the agency, using tariff revenue, to keep the program running through October. 

The program provides nearly 7 million women, infants and children with healthy foods, breastfeeding support, nutrition education and other resources. 

Advocates are calling on the administration to supply additional emergency funds for WIC. 

Led by the National WIC Association, more than three dozen national organizations signed on to an Oct. 24 letter to the White House urging the administration to provide an additional $300 million in emergency funding. 

Head Start affected

The consequences of the shutdown are also hitting Head Start — a federal program that provides early childhood education, nutritious meals, health screenings and other support services to low-income families and served more than 790,000 children in the 2023-2024 program year. 

The National Head Start Association estimates that 140 programs across 41 states and Puerto Rico serving more than 65,000 children will not receive their operational funding if the shutdown continues past Nov. 1 — a reality that appears certain.

Six of those programs serving more than 6,500 children did not receive this funding on Oct. 1 and have had to look to outside resources and local funds to keep their programs afloat. 

SNAP, WIC and Native communities 

American Indian and Alaska Native communities are also scrambling to fill the anticipated gaps in food security and assistance due to funding uncertainties for SNAP and WIC. 

Advocates and U.S. senators across the aisle say these funding uncertainties for the key federal nutrition programs are putting particular pressure on Native communities. 

At an Oct. 29 Senate Indian Affairs Committee hearing on the shutdown’s impacts on tribal communities, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Tina Smith said she is hearing from tribal nations in her state about people switching from SNAP to the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations, or FDPIR, a separate USDA initiative.

FDPIR is an alternative to SNAP and, per USDA, provides foods “to income-eligible households living on Indian reservations, and to American Indian households residing in approved areas near reservations and in Oklahoma.” 

A volunteer stocks produce at the Independence Food Basket, a food pantry operated by the Community Access Center in Independence, Kan. Like other food pantries across the country, the organization has been providing food assistance to more families even before a disruption to the federal food stamp program. (Photo by Kevin Hardy/Stateline)

INDEPENDENCE, Kan. — Just a few years ago, the Community Access Center’s food pantry here served up to 250 families per month. But that figure has skyrocketed as the price of groceries has pinched more and more families.

Now, the small food pantry serves about 450 families a month in this community of about 8,500 people. Serving that growing number has become increasingly difficult with the high cost of food, cuts in federal aid — and an unprecedented disruption in the nation’s largest food assistance program looming.

Chris Mitchell, who leads the nonprofit that operates the Independence Food Basket and provides other services, said the amount the organization spends on food to supplement donated items increased from $1,700 per month in 2018 to $4,000 per month now.

“And that’s getting it from the food bank without taxes,” he said.

Like other providers across the country, the Independence Food Basket is bracing for a spike in demand when an estimated 42 million people are expected to lose access to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP. Monthly benefits will not be provided beginning Saturday because of the ongoing federal government shutdown.

The unparalleled stress of a SNAP disruption on food pantries and the food banks that collect, warehouse and distribute food comes at a time when they were already stretched thin. High grocery prices have pushed more Americans to look to food banks for help. But organizations providing food relief have lost more than $1 billion in federal aid and are bracing for the impacts of legislation that will permanently limit the reach of SNAP.

Food banks now are asking local governments and donors to step in as they prepare for long lines. Many operations have increased orders ahead of the expected SNAP chaos, though some food pantries say they may have to ration food if supplies dwindle too quickly.

“You’d have to be living under a rock somewhere to not know that the prices of groceries went up and stayed up,” Mitchell said. “Now, you’re going to take away the means that people in poverty can afford food.”

The rising price of food has driven up not just visits to pantries, but also costs for the charitable food system in recent years.

Social service providers also are bracing for the impact of permanent changes to food stamps and other social services enacted in President Donald Trump’s major tax and spending law signed in July. The first in a wave of cutbacks to SNAP ended exemptions from work requirements for older adults, homeless people, veterans and some rural residents, likely pushing millions out of the food stamp program.

The administration also has pulled direct aid to food banks.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture in March nixed more than $1 billion from two programs that helped food banks and school meal programs buy local foods including fruits, vegetables and proteins.

Also this spring, the administration abruptly cut $500 million from a program that sends domestically produced meat, dairy, eggs and produce to food banks. The items that were delivered through The Emergency Food Assistance Program were some of the healthiest, most expensive items organizations distribute, ProPublica reported.

In Missouri alone, that move canceled 124 scheduled deliveries to food banks, including 146,400 pounds of cheese, 433,070 pounds of canned and frozen chicken and 1.2 million eggs.

“Food banks have been operating on fumes since the pandemic,” said Gina Plata-Nino, interim SNAP director at the Food Research & Action Center, a national nonprofit working to address poverty-related hunger. “As much as we love the food banks and the superhero work that they’re doing, they can only do so much.”

Already rising demand

Plata-Nino said food banks and food pantries were intended as emergency food aid, but have become “a way of life” for many who struggle to afford groceries.

A disruption in SNAP benefits will cause millions to make impossible decisions about how to stretch their limited dollars, Plata-Nino said. She noted that the majority of SNAP recipients make less than $1,100 per month. (The liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates the average SNAP benefit this fiscal year is about $188 per month per person.)

“People are already making really difficult choices,” she said, “and I hate to call it a choice, because it’s not a choice when you don’t have one.”

In Texas, the San Antonio Food Bank has been responding to a surge in need from furloughed federal workers. With major Defense Department operations across the area, San Antonio is home to the largest number of federal employees in Texas.

Eric Cooper, the food bank’s president and chief executive officer, estimates it will serve about 50,000 more people who have gone without paychecks this month. Each year, the food bank serves about 577,000 people across 29 counties.

He recalled one furloughed U.S. Social Security Administration employee who recently visited for the first time. Though she weathered previous shutdowns, she now takes care of her grandchildren.

“She’s like, ‘Hey, I showed up to get food because I don’t know if I’m going to get paid, and I can’t let my grandbabies go hungry,’” Cooper said.

Given the disruption to SNAP, Cooper said the food bank has been gearing up to not only increase inventory but also manage limited supplies and heightened emotions among the public.

“Should the demand start to outpace our supply, we will start to ration,” he said. “Rather than giving a week’s worth of food or two weeks’ worth of food, we’re going to be giving less.”

Generally, the need for free food spikes during times of natural disasters or recessions, said Michelle Ness, executive director of PRISM, a nonprofit providing housing and food assistance in suburban Minneapolis.

But Minnesota food shelves, known as food pantries in other parts of the country, have seen a 150% increase in visits since the pandemic, she said.

“This is during nonemergency times, nondisaster times — needs are going way up,” she said. “Right now, food shelves are at just about the max capacity we can handle.”

To meet the projected increase in demand because of the SNAP disruption, Ness said her organization’s food shelf is considering launching a sort of express lane that would allow people to quickly pick up prepackaged boxes of food. She hopes donors will increase their giving to avoid rationing food.

“If anything, I would like to be able to give out more food, because people will have greater needs without getting SNAP benefits,” she said. “That’s a lot of food that they’re not going to have to fill their refrigerator and cupboards.”

A daily necessity

While nonprofits happily take donated food items, much of the stock is purchased. And that doesn’t come cheap — even with discounts for purchasing foods in bulk from nonprofit food banks.

The Food Group, a Minneapolis food bank that supplies PRISM and other operators, has had to raise its prices and cut back on certain expensive items — including eggs, said Executive Director Sophia Lenarz-Coy.

In the past year, The Food Group has raised its wholesale prices of spaghetti by 26%. Jasmine rice has gone up 6%, and dry potatoes have increased 11%. Between 2022 and 2025, a case of frozen ground beef has increased from just under $50 to $63.08 — a 28% spike. Cases of margarine have risen 39% over that time, and diced tomatoes have gone up 23%.

“I think it’s really hard to overstate just how grocery prices have changed in the last three years,” said Lenarz-Coy.

While higher earners can make adjustments in their monthly budgets, she noted that food is often the only flexible item in lower-income household budgets.

“Housing costs, how much you need to pay for transportation or medical costs or day care — those are all fixed costs,” she said. “The place where people can flex is on food, but those flexes just don’t get you as much as they used to.”

Back in southeast Kansas, Mitchell, of the Community Access Center, has come to appreciate the urgency of hunger.

Mitchell previously worked in homeless services. Oftentimes, people can get by temporarily staying with friends and families, but food is a constant, daily need, he noted.

“It’s like going without liquid,” he said. “You just don’t last very long without it. And that’s probably what hurts me the most about this cutoff.”

The looming SNAP disruption has him bracing for panic among those who rely on the pantry.

The per capita annual income in Independence is just under $30,000, and about a quarter of all children live in poverty, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures.

To meet surging demand, Mitchell is considering further limiting the pantry’s already rationed offerings, whether families have one person or six in the household.

“That kills my heart,” he said. “But that’s so everybody gets some. … I’ve got this many people, and I’ve got to make sure that I can put something in each hand.”

Located inside a beige cinderblock building, the one-room food pantry is set up like a grocery store, with freezers for meats, refrigerators for fresh veggies and shopping carts for browsing.

Mitchell is proud to offer that kind of choice for people, which makes the process more dignified and reduces the likelihood that food goes to waste.

But a rush of visits next week — and concerns about hoarding and public safety — may force the nonprofit to reinstate its pandemic-era practice of handing out prepackaged boxes outdoors.

“It feels like going backwards,” Mitchell said.

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

A protester holds a photo of Kilmar Abrego Garcia as demonstrators gather to protest against the deportation of immigrants to El Salvador outside the Permanent Mission of El Salvador to the United Nations on April 24, 2025 in New York City.  (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Maryland on Friday approved the transfer of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from immigration detention in Pennsylvania to Nashville, Tennessee, for a multi-day hearing in his criminal case brought by the Trump administration after an erroneous deportation to El Salvador. 

The Trump administration previously planned as soon as Friday to again deport Abrego Garcia, this time to the West African country of Liberia. Abrego Garcia has protections from deportation to his home country of El Salvador after an immigration judge in 2019 feared he would face violence if removed there. 

Maryland District Judge Paula Xinis will allow for the transfer for his multi-day hearing on Nov. 4 and 5, according to court documents. 

Xinis, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, is overseeing Abrego Garcia’s challenge to his detention, which is separate from the criminal case. His attorneys argue the Trump administration is keeping Abrego Garcia in detention to punish him, rather than seeking deportation. 

Abrego Garcia has agreed to be removed to Costa Rica, which has offered to accept him as a refugee. The Trump administration also has floated several other African countries as deportation destinations for Abrego Garcia: Ghana, Eswatini and Uganda.

Deportation, criminal charges

The Trump administration in March erroneously deported Abrego Garcia, a longtime Maryland resident, to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador — a move that thrust a spotlight on the realities of the president’s immigration crackdown. 

Facing mounting pressures from various courts that ordered Abrego Garcia’s return, the Trump administration brought him back in June to face criminal charges lodged against him by the Justice Department that stemmed from a traffic stop in 2022. 

Those charges, to which Abrego Garcia has pleaded not guilty, accuse him of smuggling migrants across the country. 

The federal judge overseeing Abrego Garcia’s criminal trial in Nashville, U.S. District Judge Waverly Crenshaw, this week filed an order warning Trump administration officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, they could face sanctions if they continue to make inflammatory remarks about Abrego Garcia. 

Members of the Trump administration, including President Donald Trump, have without evidence repeatedly labeled Abrego Garcia as an MS-13 gang member. 

Tennessee hearing

The multi-day hearing for Abrego Garcia in Tennessee comes after Crenshaw earlier this month found there was a “likelihood” that the DOJ indictment against Abrego Garcia was vindictive. Obama also nominated Crenshaw.

Abrego Garcia was living in Maryland with his wife and their three children when he was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents earlier this year and notified that there had been a change in his status. Because of the deportation protections, Abrego Garcia was required to check in with ICE each year.

American Family Children's Hospital in Madison. An annual report from the Wisconsin Hospital Association says hospitals in the state are doing better financially, but face uncertainty. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Uncompensated health care at Wisconsin hospitals rose more then 30% in 2024 from the year before, according to a new report from the Wisconsin Hospital Association.

People without health insurance or regular health providers are using emergency rooms more, the report also finds.

The association annually assesses the state of Wisconsin hospitals, including their finances, utilization and staffing. The 2024 report was released Thursday.

“We are seeing a modest improvement in hospital financials across the state,” said Kyle O’Brien, president of the Wisconsin Hospital Association, in an interview. Nevertheless, he added, “there’s a lot of uncertainty in the health care market right now.”

While the state’s hospitals were doing better in 2024 than in the previous two years, 40 hospitals had a negative operating margin, O’Brien said, and many hospitals across the state where margins were positive, but narrow.

Uncompensated care includes charity care — provided by the hospital with the full knowledge that the cost won’t be covered — as well as bad debt: care for which the hospital expected to be paid but wasn’t.

In 2024, uncompensated care in both categories added up to $1.77 billion — a 30.5% increase over the 1.36 billion in uncompensated care in 2023.

O’Brien said several factors are responsible for that increase. One of those is generally higher deductibles on health insurance plans, requiring patients to spend more out of pocket before their insurance coverage kicks in.

“If that patient can’t pay for that higher out-of-pocket [expense], hospitals are the ones that either have to try to collect those dollars, or they are the ones that provide relief through charity care, bad debt policies, or things like that,” O’Brien said.

For hospitals, another top concern is how much Medicaid pays to cover the cost of care.

State budgets over the last decade have been increasing Medicaid hospital payments, O’Brien said, with the 2025-27 budget having the largest increases to date. Even so, he said, hospital Medicaid reimbursements fall short of fully covering the cost of the care that Medicaid is supposed to cover.

Decisions by health insurance to deny coverage are a source of “general consternation” for hospitals, O’Brien said — both with group health insurance policies but also for Medicare Advantage policies. Medicare Advantage policies are sold to people eligible for the federal Medicare program but are instead provided by private insurance companies.

O’Brien said the hospital association is also concerned about projected increases in people without health insurance as a result of higher premiums paid by people who buy their own insurance at the federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov, created under the Affordable Care Act.

Enhanced subsidies for HealthCare.gov policies enacted in 2021 will expire at the end of this year unless they are renewed. The subsidies are provided in the form of federal income tax credits for consumers who purchase insurance through HealthCare.gov

This week the state Office of the Commissioner of Insurance released projected rates for 2026 that reflected the loss of those enhanced subsidies.

Those higher costs have prompted widespread predictions that, after years in which enrollment in the marketplace plans has set new records, enrollment will drop off and more people with go without health insurance instead.

“We are certainly concerned anytime there’s a potential that somebody might lose coverage,” O’Brien said. Federal law requires hospitals to treat patients whether or not they are able to pay.

“We have been advocating with the congressional delegation to reauthorize those enhanced premium tax credits,” O’Brien said. He said members of Congress have been focused on “issues that are playing out right now [that] may be even bigger than hospital-related issues, but I think that they understand our concerns.”

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Idaho resident Lynlee Lord said she used nutrition assistance programs that helped ease some of the stress she was dealing with while pregnant in the aftermath of her partner’s death. Food insecurity can bring heightened risks of preeclampsia, preterm birth and NICU admission, research shows. (Courtesy of Lynlee Lord)

Millions nationwide could be cut off from access to government food assistance Saturday due to the shutdown, including those who are pregnant or have babies and young children.

That possibility brings back a lot of difficult memories for Lynlee Lord, a mom of three in rural Idaho. In 2014, when Lord was 24, her partner died by suicide. She was 11 weeks pregnant with his daughter and already had a 2-year-old son.

“I went from building my life with my best friend to not having anything, and having to move into income-based apartments,” Lord said.

She was also going to cosmetology school full-time in Boise, Idaho, nearly an hour away from where she lived, spending more than 12 hours away from home each day. She worked on her dad’s ranch and cleaned houses to earn gas money. She tried to keep her stress levels down, but the one thing she didn’t worry about was food, because she had benefits from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

“It took a lot of pressure off of me,” she said.

Many studies have shown adequate nutrition is essential for a developing fetus, and a January study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found food insecurity in pregnancy is associated with medical complications. The researchers defined food insecurity as being worried about running out of food before there’s money for more. Risks include preeclampsia, preterm birth and NICU admission. 

Those who did not have access to food assistance had the highest risk of complications, according to the January study. The increased rate was alleviated by food assistance. 

It’s unclear how many pregnant people use SNAP benefits on average, but the program helped feed 42 million Americans in 22 million households in the 2025 fiscal year, according to the USDA. A separate supplemental nutrition program for Women, Infants and Children — known as WIC — is often used simultaneously by participants. The federal government temporarily shored up WIC through October and promised more money, but whether the funding will last through November remains uncertain as the shutdown wears on.

The Trump administration has so far declined to use emergency funds to keep SNAP solvent while the government shutdown continues. Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he won’t consider a Democrat-led standalone funding bill to keep the program going during the shutdown.

Though officials in some states are making moves to boost food assistance temporarily, others — including in Indiana and Tennessee — have refused to step in.

Lord doesn’t need food assistance anymore, but about 130,000 Idahoans still do and are set to lose their benefits starting on Saturday, Nov. 1. The Women, Infants and Children program, which helps families afford formula and other supplemental foods, could also soon run out of funds in certain states, including Idaho, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

Instability and hard choices

Gestational diabetes — one of the more severe complications that can result from food insecurity — affects up to 10% of all pregnancies on average. The condition occurs when the placenta produces hormones that decrease insulin sensitivity, creating unstable blood sugars that necessitate a more strictly controlled diet and potentially the use of insulin or other medication to keep glucose levels in a normal range. Most cases are diagnosed in the third trimester, when the amount of insulin needed to keep blood sugars normal is at its peak.

Blood sugar can also be affected by stress, poor sleep, irregular meals and other physiological factors. If left untreated, or if glucose remains unstable through the last trimester of pregnancy, it can cause the fetus to grow too quickly, increasing the risk of stillbirth and other complications, like high blood pressure and low blood sugars in the baby after delivery.

Dr. Chloe Zera, chair of the Health Policy and Advocacy Committee for the Society of Maternal-Fetal Medicine, specializes in gestational diabetes and said she saw a patient on Tuesday who was worried about losing her SNAP benefits.

“Adding that on top of what is already a stressful diagnosis is incredibly challenging for people,” Zera said. “There’s so much guilt and shame and blame that goes along with gestational diabetes and diabetes in general in pregnancy.”

People with gestational diabetes who already have children and who are food insecure will also most often feed their children before themselves, Zera added.

“They’re going to make really hard choices that mean they have even less control over their nutrition,” she said.

Dr. Andrea Shields, an OB-GYN and maternal-fetal medicine specialist at the University of Connecticut, said uncontrolled gestational diabetes can cause low blood sugar in babies after delivery, which has been linked to neurodevelopmental issues later in life. If the SNAP benefits stop, she said, more people will have to get creative about finding ways to help pregnant patients without assistance from the federal government.

“This is a perfect example of why we pay taxes and why we want to help society in general, because we don’t need to create generational issues, which this will, because it impacts the unborn fetus,” Shields said.

Lord said if she was in the same situation today that she was 10 years ago, she might have had to consider an option that never crossed her mind at the time — an abortion. Even though it was her partner’s only child, and abortion is now banned in Idaho, Lord said she may have needed to find a way to end the pregnancy out of necessity, especially considering the costs of rent, child care, food and other expenses today.

“I would’ve probably picked my child that was living,” she said. “It was really scary for me back then, and I can’t even imagine in today’s world if that happened.”

UPDATE: This story was updated to include more information about WIC on Friday, Oct. 31. 

Democratic U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, accompanied by Democratic U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, points to a poster depicting rising medical costs if Congress allows the Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

States are preparing for the possibility of a rapid shift in the cost of Obamacare health plans, depending on whether Congress extends the subsidies that are at the center of the federal government shutdown.

No matter what Congress does, the amount insurers charge for coverage sold on the marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act will increase by an average of 26% in 2026, according to KFF, a health research nonprofit. In the 30 states that use the federal Healthcare.gov, premiums will rise by an average of 30%. In the states that run their own marketplaces, the average increase will be about 17%.

But 22 million of the 24 million people who are enrolled in marketplace plans receive a tax credit. If Congress extends the credits, the amount subsidized enrollees pay each month won’t significantly change, even as insurers charge more.

If Congress doesn’t act, people with incomes below 400% of the federal poverty level will receive less financial help, while people making more than that amount will not get any help at all. As a result, according to KFF, monthly premium payments for all enrollees will increase by an average of about 114%,

For a month, Republicans and Democrats have been in a stalemate over whether to extend these subsidies, leading to a government shutdown. The situation has created ambiguity for the states that run their own marketplaces, as many of them move this weekend into the open enrollment period for people to purchase health plans.

Some states, such as Maryland, are preparing for a scenario in which they would either extend state-funded subsidies to enrollees to help them keep their plans, or rapidly apply federal subsidies if Congress extends them.

“It’s going to vary state by state based on their technological abilities and if they need to do anything with their rates,” Michele Eberle, executive director of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, said in a phone interview.

Eberle said Maryland created a state subsidy program to make up for some of the federal subsidies that are in limbo. She said that if Congress extends the subsidies, enacting changes for the state’s 240,000 marketplace enrollees could take around three weeks.

Maryland would have to ask health insurers to resubmit their rates. The state also might have to send notices to enrollees to give them the opportunity to change their choice of plan, according to Eberle.

“We would change [enrollees’] premiums. We would have to back out the state subsidy [that we] put in, if there’s a new rate, put the new rates in, recalculate the new premium tax credit and apply that,” Eberle said.

In California, where two million people are enrolled in Covered California, residents are already reeling from sticker shock after seeing next year’s premiums on the state’s website.

“People are very stressed about what to do and what their options are with these cost changes,” Jessica Altman, executive director of California’s marketplace, said in an interview. “At the same time, we are very much ready, and we’ll move any mountain that we can possibly move if Congress does act.”

Altman said the state will automatically recalculate what enrollees would pay for their plans if Congress extends the credits, and is prepared for people to want to change their plans if federal lawmakers act.

“We’re also very much going to want to inform our consumers and give them the opportunity to make a different choice,” she said.

Altman said notifying enrollees’ of changes should take a few weeks, but changing information in the state’s system should only take about a week.

“Even when the enhanced tax credits passed the first time, it was in the middle of the year, in the spring,” Altman said.

“All the state exchanges had to build that, and it was done in a matter of weeks, right? So, that’s who we are, and that’s how we’re thinking about this challenge.”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org