Children at The Playing Field, a Madison child care center that participates in the federal Head Start program. (Courtesy of The Playing Field)

Federal payments to Wisconsin’s Head Start programs in the first three and a half months of 2025 are half what they were a year ago, exacerbating worries about the future of the program that provides child care and early education to low-income families.

The Office of Head Start’s payments to Wisconsin program operators from Jan. 1 through April 15 of this year were down by $35 million from the same period in 2024, Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) said this week.

Nationwide, Head Start program operators have received $943 million less during that period this year compared with the period a year ago, according to Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), who published a table of calculations comparing disbursements for every state in a press release. The table shows Wisconsin disbursements of $34.5 million as of April 15, compared with $69.5 million in the 2024 period.

Baldwin contrasted the potential impact with the pledge by the White House and the Republican majority in Congress to extend tax cuts enacted in 2017 during Trump’s first term.

“The idea that the president is actively working to give the biggest corporations and wealthiest Wall Street guys a new tax break while taking away preschool and child care from Wisconsinites is beyond the pale,” said Baldwin, vowing to fight actions of President Donald Trump she described as “defunding Head Start.”

The calculations in Murray’s table are based on Head Start disbursement data that Senate Democrats pulled from the Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

While most states in Murray’s table had lower disbursements compared with a year ago, Alabama, Delaware, New Jersey, Rhode Island and the District of Columbia all showed increases.

The calculations put the big-picture numbers on funding disruptions that Head Start providers have been experiencing in the last three months, said Jennie Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association.

Those disruptions first surfaced after Trump took office, with delays of up to two weeks in late January and early February for Head Start programs seeking authorized payment for their expenses.

More recently, the disruptions have continued as providers who have submitted the required documents for payment have been confronted with unexpected demands for “more information” Mauer said Friday.

“The [federal] administration is really messing around, pulling out the foundational blocks of grant operation,” Mauer said.

In order to get approved for a grant, recipients must provide a detailed accounting of how it will be spent, she said. To get payment, providers must submit detailed documentation that the expense it covers has already been incurred. 

“This is a highly regulated system,” Mauer said. “There’s a very rigorous initial grant application process, and then on an ongoing basis grantees are demonstrating, ‘We told you what we’re going to spend the money on. Now based on what I told you, I’m asking for that money.’”

The disclosure of the drop in Head Start funding comes a week after a published report raised the possibility that Head Start will be zeroed out of the next federal budget.

It also comes as some providers wait for information about their upcoming grant replenishments, Mauer said.

Head Start grants are provided under multi-year contracts signed with providers. The money itself, however, does not come to providers in large lump sums but in smaller amounts paid upon the submission of documented expenses, Mauer said.

Every six months, an allotment from the provider’s grant is made available, she said. Those funds are not paid directly to the provider, however. The money is set aside for the provider to draw on after submitting expense documents through the federal online payment system.

Providers’ grant cycles start on the first of the month. In Wisconsin, providers whose grant cycle started Nov. 1 have now received confirmation of their next grant allotment for the six months starting May 1, Mauer said Friday.

But with the previous funding access problems and then the sudden closing three weeks ago of half of Head Start’s national offices, including the Chicago Region 5 office that served Wisconsin and five other states, providers were apprehensive.

“The level of uncertainty and chaos is so dramatic,” Mauer said — in contrast not only to the Biden administration, but also the previous Trump administration. Until this year, “these kinds of questions and uncertainties didn’t exist.”

Three providers whose grant cycle started Dec. 1 are waiting to learn whether their next allotment will become available starting June 1 as scheduled.

Mauer said the Senate Democrats’ calculations appear to be “showing the cumulative effect” of the access to HHS funding streams by the team working for DOGE, an agency directed by billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk.

DOGE is the acronym for the Department of Government Efficiency, although the office is not a cabinet department, and many of its claims of government savings have been questioned.

The hold-up on information is having “a tremendous negative effect on our programs and it’s alarming,” Mauer said. “When we think of what are the impacts of Region 5 closing and that we continue to have very, very minimal and slow communication from the Office of Head Start — they need to start communicating with grantees in a much more substantive way.”

The Wisconsin Examiner contacted the federal Department of Health and Human Services using the HHS website for journalists’ inquiries and has not yet received a response. This report will be updated when a response is received.

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State Superintendent Jill Underly said "Washington, D.C. should not dictate how schools educate their kids." Underly pictured with Madison La Follette High School Principal Mathew Thompson and Madison Public School District Superintendent Joe Gothard in the hallway at La Follette in September 2024. (Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction rejected the Trump administration’s request to certify compliance with a ban on diversity, equity and inclusion in K-12 public schools. 

State Superintendent Jill Underly said in a statement that Wisconsin schools are following the law. 

“We’ve put that into writing to the USDE,” Underly said. “We believe in local control in Wisconsin and trusting our local leaders – superintendents, principals, educators – who work together with parents and families every day to support students. They know their communities best. Washington, D.C. should not dictate how schools educate their kids.” 

The U.S. Department of Education sent a letter earlier this month to state agencies across the country requesting that agencies check with local school districts to ensure they don’t have diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. 

The federal administration is trying to apply the U.S. Supreme Court’s Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard decision, which said race-based programs in higher education violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, to K-12 education. The administration said state agencies needed to ensure compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Supreme Court decision. 

Wisconsin is one of several states, mostly led by Democrats, that have pushed back on the request. The Trump administration, which has been targeting diversity efforts in K-12 schools as well as in higher education and other sectors, has threatened that it could pull funding from states that don’t comply with the request.

Wisconsin schools receive $841.9 million from the federal government, making up about 8% of the total funding for schools across the state. Funding from the Department of Education makes up $568.2 million of that, and according to DPI, this is equivalent to 6,106 educator jobs. 

According to the letter, DPI provided the Department of Education with copies of previous certifications of compliance with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act.

The agency said that its repeated requests for additional information about the new certification request went unanswered. In an April 9 letter, DPI asked for clarification on why the federal government was requesting another certification and asked the Department of Education to answer questions including whether the requested certification seeks to enforce any requirement beyond what is required by federal law and regulation and what legal authority the Education Department is using to make the request a condition of federal aid. 

“If the certified assurances are insufficient to meet the conditions of federal funding imposed by USDE, please articulate the basis in law for imposing these conditions, as well as an explanation as to why these assurances do not fulfill those requirements,” DPI General Counsel Benjamin Jones wrote to the Department of Education.

Underly said the new certification is a way for the federal government to “directly control the decisions in our schools by conditioning federal dollars. This is a serious concern – not just for the DPI, but for anyone who believes in lawful, transparent government.”

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Gov. Tony Evers after signing the 2023-25 budget bill with 51 partial vetoes on July 5, 2023. (Baylor Spears | Wisconsin Examiner)

A split Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Friday that Gov. Tony Evers’ partial veto in the last state budget extending school funding increases for an additional 400 years was within his constitutional powers. 

The executive partial veto powers granted in the Wisconsin State Constitution are uniquely expansive, though they have been limited in the past through Supreme Court decisions and constitutional amendments passed by the Legislature and approved by voters.

In the 2023-25 state budget bill, Evers used his partial veto power striking two digits and a dash from the years to extend the annual increases through 2425, saying the action would help provide ongoing financial support to schools. The initial bill had included a $325 increase to schools’ revenue limits for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years.

Justice Jill Karofsky wrote in a majority opinion that the partial veto was within the power given to Evers in the state constitution, which says “appropriation bills may be approved in whole or in part by the governor.”

“We uphold the 2023 partial vetoes, and in doing so we are acutely aware that a 400-year modification is both significant and attention-grabbing,” Karofsky wrote. “However, our constitution does not limit the governor’s partial veto power based on how much or how little the partial vetoes change policy, even when that change is considerable.”

The case challenging the partial veto was brought by Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce on behalf of two Wisconsin taxpayers, Jeffery A. LeMieux, a retired professor, and David T. DeValk, a Fox Valley substitute teacher — arguing that the action was unconstitutional and undemocratic. 

WMC Executive Vice President of Government Relations Scott Manley said they were disappointed by the ruling, and that Evers “exceeded his authority at the expense of taxpayers, and now our great-great-great-great-grandchildren will still be paying the price for his reckless disregard for the law.”

Karofsky laid out several options that lawmakers could take if they want to address the issue further, including by addressing it in a future budget — such as the 2025-27 budget that is being worked on now, by passing a constitutional amendment or by drafting bills separate from appropriation bills to avoid the governor’s partial veto or trying to anticipate how the power might be used. 

Lawmakers have introduced a couple of proposed constitutional amendments. One, which passed last session, would bar the governor from using the veto power to create or increase any tax or fee. Another introduced in January would replace current language that says a partial veto may “not create a new word by rejecting individual letters in the words of the enrolled bill, and may not create a new sentence by combining parts of 2 or more sentences” to say the governor may “only reject one or more entire bill sections.” 

Those proposals have to pass in two consecutive sessions of the Legislature before they could go to voters for ratification. 

Karofsky wrote that the Court “takes no position regarding these measures. We merely outline them to illustrate legislative alternatives to the action before us.”

The three conservative justices on the Court slammed the majority opinion, saying that by upholding the veto the Court has given the executive the power to make law separately from legislators.

“How does a bill become a law?” Justice Brian Hagedorn wrote in the dissenting opinion. “According to the majority, one option looks like this: The legislature passes a bill in both houses and sends it to the governor. The governor then takes the collection of letters, numbers, and punctuation marks he receives from the legislature, crosses out whatever he pleases, and — presto! — out comes a new law never considered or passed by the legislature at all. And there you have it — a governor who can propose and enact law all on his own.” 

Hagedorn wrote that the majority’s opinion makes “a mockery of our constitutional order. This is a mess of this court’s making, and it is long past time for us to fix it.” 

In an opinion concurring with the majority, Justice Rebecca Dallet said the precedent set forth in other cases before the court have “emphasized that a partial veto may affirmatively change the policy of the original bill.” Dallet said that she is “open to revisiting” that, but “this case is not a ‘clear opportunity’ to do so.”

“Petitioners do not ask us to overturn any of our prior decisions, let alone reimagine completely our approach,” Dallet wrote. 

Republican leaders and Evers react to decision, upcoming budget

Republican leaders were critical of the decision, saying that the Court had granted the governor unchecked power and that the decision would lead to tax increases for Wisconsinites.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) said that the decision was evidence of the Court being partisan and “should worry every Wisconsinite.” 

“Is any Wisconsin citizen surprised that the liberals on the Wisconsin Supreme Court are now a rubber stamp for liberal ally Tony Evers?” Vos asked. “The liberal Justices’ decision itself describes the effects of this decision as ‘significant and attention-grabbing.’ Modest words for a tortured reading of our Constitution that will hurt Wisconsin taxpayers for hundreds of years to come, all in the name of supporting their ally in the Governor’s office.”

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu (R-Oostburg) said that the Court “proved again that they will rule based on partisanship and politics rather than the rule of law” and that the veto was “an unprecedented overreach that will impact generations of Wisconsin taxpayers.”

Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said that the state cannot afford to provide money for the increases, calling it “wildly unrealistic” and “fiscally unsustainable,” and that increases would be felt by property taxpayers. 

The partial veto applied to increases to schools’ revenue limits, meaning that school districts will have more leeway to bring in funds through property taxes or state funds. The partial veto did not allocate additional state dollars for the increases, though lawmakers could decide to provide state funds for the increases. The partial veto also did not automatically mean school districts would raise taxes, though they would have the option.

Wisconsin has limited school districts’ ability to raise funds through property taxes since 1993. Schools originally received regular adjustments to their limits on an inflationary basis, but that was eliminated in 2009 and since then increases have relied on lawmakers or school districts going to taxpayers for permission to increase taxes.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s via property taxes or income taxes, this money is going to come out of the pockets of Wisconsinites from Tomahawk to Racine,” Felzkowski said. She called on Evers to “come to the table to find a solution to this problem that he created, otherwise average Wisconsinites will be forced to take on the financial burden that he has put on them.” 

Evers said in a statement that schools deserve “sustainable, dependable, and spendable state support and investment” and said the decision was great news.  

“For over a decade, the Legislature has failed to meet that important obligation. Importantly, this decision does not mean our work is done — far from it,” Evers said. “Today’s decision only further underscores the urgent need for Republican lawmakers to approve the K-12 investments I’ve proposed to ensure our kids and our schools have the resources they need now and into the future.”

Evers has called for an additional $3 billion in investments for the state’s K-12 schools, funded with the state’s $4 billion budget surplus. Lawmakers have said the decision would be influential in the shape of education funding in the 2025-27 state budget. 

Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Jill Underly echoed Evers’ sentiment, calling the decision a win.

“The broader need remains: real, usable investments in our schools. That means fair special education reimbursement, meeting the mental health needs of our kids, stronger support for our educators, and access to nutritious school meals at no cost for every child,” Underly said. “These priorities must be reflected in the upcoming state budget. Without meaningful investment and an aid commitment from our Legislature, the burden continues to fall on local property taxpayers.”

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U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, right, meets with Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia in El Salvador on April 17, 2025. Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, had been seeking a meeting with Abrego Garcia after the administration said it mistakenly deported him to a mega-prison in his home country. (Photo via Van Hollen on X.)

This story was updated at 6:01 p.m. Eastern.

Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the Maryland resident the Trump administration erroneously deported to his native El Salvador, appeared to be in good health and had been moved from a notorious mega-prison to another detention center, as his case tests the limits of executive power to override due process rights in the United States, Sen. Chris Van Hollen told reporters Friday.

Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, met Thursday with Abrego Garcia and briefed reporters on the visit after landing Friday afternoon at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C.

The meeting with Van Hollen was Abrego Garcia’s first contact outside of the U.S. and El Salvador immigration and legal systems since he was deported in March, the senator said.

“His conversation with me was the first communication he’d had with anybody outside a prison since he was abducted,” Van Hollen said Friday. 

Accompanied by Abrego Garcia’s wife, mother and brother at Dulles, Van Hollen said he’d been preparing to catch his plane out of El Salvador Thursday evening when he got word from the U.S. embassy that he would be able to meet with Abrego Garcia.

The meeting came at the end of Van Hollen’s second day in the country, where he faced difficulties securing an in-person meeting or phone call with the Salvadoran citizen. The second-term senator traveled to the Central American country this week to urge the Salvadoran government to release Abrego Garcia and to meet with him.

Abrego Garcia told Van Hollen he’d been taken to a detention center in Baltimore, Van Hollen said Friday. From there, he was transported to Texas and then flown to El Salvador, where he was detained at the notorious mega-prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

Abrego Garcia was moved on April 9 from CECOT to another El Salvador detention center, Van Hollen reported. The conditions at the new prison were better, but Abrego Garcia was still denied access to the outside world, including communication with his family or lawyers, which is a violation of international law, Van Hollen said.

The meeting occurred under close supervision from Salvadoran officials, Van Hollen said, but Abrego Garcia appeared in adequate health.

“On a very cursory examination, he appeared OK,” Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen on Thursday shared a picture on social media of his meeting with Abrego Garcia, who appeared in civilian clothes.

Constitutional conflict

While he said Abrego Garcia’s individual case was tragic, Van Hollen said it had even larger implications for the strength of constitutional rights to due process.

“This should not be an issue for Republicans or Democrats,” he said. “This is an issue for every American who cares about our Constitution, who cares about personal liberty, who cares about due process and who cares about what makes America so different, which is adherence to all of those things. This is an American issue.”

Noting that the administration has ignored federal courts at every level — including a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last week that President Donald Trump’s administration must “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return to the United States — Van Hollen said officials at the U.S. embassy in El Salvador told him they had not received any instruction from the administration to seek his release.

“It’s very clear that the president, the Trump administration, are blatantly, flagrantly disagreeing with, defying, the order from the Supreme Court,” he said.

White House says ‘he’s NOT coming back’

The Trump administration, which has admitted in court that Abrego Garcia’s deportation stemmed from an “administrative error,” continued Friday to be steadfast in refusing to return him.

The Trump administration has criticized Van Hollen’s advocacy for Abrego Garcia, and the White House targeted the senator on social media Friday.

“Oh, and by the way, @ChrisVanHollen — he’s NOT coming back,” a post on X from the official White House account read. The post included an illustration of a New York Times headline on the meeting, with two sections crossed out and replaced with administration claims about Abrego Garcia. 

The administration has claimed there are logistical reasons it cannot repatriate Abrego Garcia, but some — including a Reagan-appointed federal appeals court judge on Thursday — have said the executive branch is defying the Supreme Court order.

Payments to El Salvador

Van Hollen said the Trump administration has promised to pay El Salvador up to $15 million to detain the prisoners, but noted that Democrats in the U.S. Senate are not “totally powerless” to stop those payments.

“Appropriations need to go through the Congress, and that $15 million, you can be sure we’re going to be looking for where it is because that wasn’t authorized in previous appropriations,” he said.

He said that while Democrats are in the minority in both houses of Congress, they could block any Senate funding bill that included payments for detention in El Salvador.

“You can be sure that I won’t support the use of one penny of taxpayer dollars to keep Abrego Garcia illegally detained in El Salvador,” he said. 

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

Federal funding cuts and national culture war politics cast a long shadow over a state legislative committee hearing Thursday as Wisconsin’s higher education leaders asked lawmakers for additional investments in the next state budget — warning that disinvestment by the state could damage  public universities’, private nonprofit schools’ and technical colleges’ ability to serve students and the state. 

Lawmakers working on the 2025-27 state budget are gathering feedback from agency heads and members of the public just as higher education institutions across the country are facing an onslaught of threats from the Trump administration. 

As Republican lawmakers on the Assembly Colleges and Universities Committee grilled Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman and other higher education leaders on their budget goals, they appeared skeptical about providing additional funding. They pointed to current levels of spending and diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which state Republicans have demanded be cut from the UW. Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, expressed concerns about federal cuts to research and recent targeting of international students whose visas have been revoked. 

Rothman defends $855 million budget request

Rothman asked lawmakers whether the state is going to let its public universities “atrophy.” If not, he said,  new investments need to be made. The UW system has requested an additional $855 million, with the support of  Gov. Tony Evers, in the upcoming budget. 

The money  would be used to keep college affordable and accessible for Wisconsinites,  invest in retaining talented staff and support innovation, Rothman said. He told lawmakers the money would help UW maintain its two-year campuses and avoid raising tuition.

“We are at a state that without additional support from the state, student successes that we are seeing across our universities are at risk,” Rothman said. He noted that the state’s investment in the system has not kept up with inflation, and the money would put Wisconsin at the median nationwide. This would be up from Wisconsin’s current position of 43rd out of 50 when it comes to state investment in public universities.

This is not the first time Rothman has testified to lawmakers about the system’s request, having addressed lawmakers on the Joint Finance Committee, which is in charge of writing the budget on April 1.

Committee Chair Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Greenville) asked Rothman where he thought the money would come from.

“That is a challenge for the Legislature… This is an investment in the future of the state. We are returning $23 for every dollar that is invested in the Universities of Wisconsin,” Rothman said, citing a number that comes from a 2018 study.

Murphy told Rothman that he was “leery” of that number.

“If we’re increasing the money to the university by $855 million, are you telling me that I can expect $20 billion?” Murphy asked.

Rothman pointed out that lawmakers and their constituents have benefited from the existence of UW schools.

“At this table, you represent districts that have 9,000 students currently in school at the Universities of Wisconsin… More than half of you have attended one of our universities and hopefully you have benefitted from that,” Rothman said.

Murphy attended UW-Fox Valley from 1972 to 1974, according to his legislative biography. The school was merged with UW-Fond du Lac and UW-Oshkosh in 2018, and is now known as UW Oshkosh-Fox Cities. That campus is set to close in June.

Trump administration threats hanging over college campuses across the nation were central to the discussion over whether lawmakers should provide universities additional state funding.

Rep. Amanda Nedweski (R-Pleasant Prairie) brought up diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at UW institutions. An audit released last week found campuses haven’t been tracking their spending on these efforts. The audit was part of Republican lawmakers’ ongoing targeting of DEI, and comes as the Trump administration has also ramped up efforts to try to eliminate diversity programs in education. 

Republican lawmakers used staff pay and capital projects funding during the last legislative cycle as a negotiating tool with the UW system to get concessions on DEI efforts, including a reduction in positions focused on DEI. 

“We’re trying to see more of an effort to see in money savings, and I know there’s been reductions in positions, but there’s also been requests to add more,” Nedweski said. “We had a deal on DEI. Would you say that the UW system kept up their end of the deal?”

“Yes,” Rothman said.

“I wouldn’t say that’s what the audit says,” Nedweski said. 

Rothman responded that the UW has gone above and beyond the terms of  the deal, having reduced staffing by 43 positions even though the agreed upon deadline won’t arrive until December 2026. 

“We were on our way when the [Legislative Audit Bureau] did its field work in May of 2024,” Rothman said. “Since that time, we have made significant progress, and we are in compliance with the agreement as it relates to the positions. We’ve exceeded what we said we were going to do.” 

Nedweski said she was concerned about being able to measure the outcomes of the investments in DEI programs. 

“We now have a pattern within the UW system and our other state agencies where taxpayers are making investments in things like employees teleworking without knowing if there’s productivity. We’ve heard repeatedly from the UW system that we don’t really know their actual impact,” Nedweski said. 

Rothman noted that nearly 36,000 students graduate with degrees from Universities of Wisconsin schools each year. 

“I think that is an extraordinary [return-on-investment] for our state,” Rothman said. 

Murphy asked Rothman about a letter from the Trump administration sent to over 60 schools, including UW-Madison, warning that they could face consequences if they don’t address “antisemitism” on campus. UW-Madison is one of many schools where students joined encampment protests against the war in Gaza last spring. The Trump administration has said the university didn’t properly protect Jewish students.

“How do we control this antisemitism problem on our campuses?” Murphy asked. 

Before Rothman answered the question, Rep. Jodi Emerson (D-Eau Claire) interjected, asking what the topic had to do with the budget. 

Murphy shot back that, as chair of the committee, he could ask what he wanted. 

“If you think this isn’t a budgetary issue, I think you should talk to Columbia University and see what they would say about that,” Murphy said. Columbia became a target of the Trump administration after large student protests there and has had over $400 million in federal funding, mostly for medical and other scientific research, terminated, despite agreeing to police student protesters and place the department of Middle East, South Asian and African Studies under scrutiny.

Rothman said the UW system is navigating First Amendment issues and being inclusive, but that the UW has done a lot of work to ensure that all students, including Jewish students, those with conservative beliefs, veterans, those who are disabled, “feel they are part of the campus community.”

Democrats on the committee expressed concerns about federal cuts to research funding, potential threats to Pell Grants and student loans and the targeting of international students. 

Emerson asked about the impact of federal cuts to research. The Trump administration has been targeting funding for higher education institutions across the country, including cutting over $12 million in research funding to UW-Madison. The flagship campus has laid off six employees so far.

Rothman said he is deeply concerned about the federal cuts. UW-Madison and UW-Milwaukee are both tier one research institutions and the federal government invests about $1 billion annually in UW schools for research, Rothman said. 

“It’s not like we can start five years from now, six years from now… These research engines were built over generations,” Rothman said. “If they are not maintained, that’s gone.” 

Rothman said the impact would be felt in sectors across the state including as research would be lost and researchers even in the private sector could be affected as many are educated at public universities. 

Rothman said that philanthropic support would be incapable of filling the gap that would be left from federal funding cuts.

Nedweski said she thought there is skepticism among taxpayers about the federal funding of research. She asked whether the UW system is expecting Wisconsin taxpayers to pick up the cost. 

“I don’t think that the state could afford to pick up what could be lost,” Rothman said. “I think what’s going to happen if that occurs is that research capacity is going to decline, research infrastructure is going to decline and that will be our new reality going forward.” 

Emerson also asked Rothman whether the Trump administration’s move to cancel foreign students’ visas is having a “chilling effect” on prospective international students. Dozens of UW students and alumni, including 26 at UW-Madison, have had their visas cancelled by the Trump administration in recent weeks as a part of an unprecedented nationwide move by the federal government targeting international students. 

“Do we have fewer applications from international students for next school year?… Are there international students who are thinking of finishing their bachelor’s or higher education back home?” Emerson asked.

Rothman said that it was too early to know as most applications have already been submitted. He said that about 10,000 international students attend UW schools.

“We may have a number of international students who might be accepted into our universities that will not come because of this. We know there is anxiety among our international students just generally, for reasons that are understandable,” Rothman said, adding that the university is seeking to support students, but is  not providing legal representation to them.

Private, nonprofit schools and tech colleges on budget requests

Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities President Eric Fulcomer told lawmakers the top priority for private nonprofit colleges and universities is doubling the funding for the Wisconsin Grant (WG-PNP) Program, which provides assistance to undergraduate, Wisconsin residents enrolled in a degree or certificate program at non-profit, independent colleges or universities based in Wisconsin, from $57 million to $114 million.

Fulcomer’s organization represents 22 private nonprofit colleges and universities in Wisconsin, including Marquette University, the Medical College of Wisconsin, Beloit College and St. Norbert College. It also includes Northland College, which was founded in 1892, but announced in February the school will be closing after this year’s graduation due to financial hardships.

There has been no additional investment in the grant program in the last two state budgets. Private, nonprofit schools don’t receive state funding to sustain their operations, but many students rely on the funding to be able to attend the schools. 

Among its neighboring states, Wisconsin ranks last when it comes to the amount of need-based grants awarded to students attending private nonprofit schools. The investment would not bring Wisconsin to the top, but would bring it to the middle among states in the Midwest. Currently, Wisconsin can give a maximum amount of $4,400.

The schools’ request is more than the governor’s budget request; Evers  proposed a 20% increase.

“I would prefer a larger increase,” Fulcomer said. “20% would be welcomed but it’s not enough to move the needle.”

If there is no increase in the budget, Fulcomer said the award will need to be reduced to $3,850, bringing Wisconsin even further below its peers.

Nedweski asked if he had suggestions for where the money for the budget request could come from. The state has a $4 billion budget surplus, which Evers wants to pull from to fund many priorities in his budget.

Fulcomer noted that about a quarter of all bachelor’s degrees and a third of all master’s degrees come from Wisconsin’s private, nonprofit schools and that students are providing millions in revenue to the state via taxes. 

“It’s a good investment, but I’m not in a position to tell you where you might find those dollars,” Fulcomer said.

“We are not operating with a lot of extra money in the next biennium. If you get more, it has to come out of somebody else’s bucket,” Nedweski said.

Rep. Rob Kreibich (R-New Richmond) commented that he thinks lawmakers “should reward success” and he admires the retention and placement rates for the private schools. 

Emerson asked about what would happen if the Pell Grants were reduced or eliminated — a question that comes as the federal grants face a shortfall and as there is also uncertainty surrounding the future of student loans. 

“Potentially we’d be looking at a 27% cut to enrollment,” Fulcomer said. “Cutting the Pell Grant or eliminating the Pell Grant would be devastating for our sector.”

Wisconsin Technical College System President Layla Merrifield asked for  about $60 million from the state, including $45 million that would go toward general aid for its 16 colleges. The technical college system’s budget for 2024-25 totaled about $1.3 billion with $592.9 million coming from state aid. 

“There’s almost no better investment that you could make in Wisconsin’s economy, in its workforce and its people than the technical college system,” Merrifield said. “Our outcomes are well documented. We are transparent with our data, both our failings and our successes.”

Murphy thanked Merrifield for her approach to the budget. 

It is “a little bit what we were looking for from the UW today…,” Murphy said. “They want $855 million, but it’s taken nine months, and we still don’t have very much detail around what they expect to do with that money.”

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A surveillance van or "critical response vehicle". (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin has issued a letter asking elected leaders in Milwaukee to temper the acquisition and use of surveillance technologies by the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD). On Thursday evening, the police department went before the Fire and Police Commission (FPC) to push for the use of facial recognition technology. This, along with the common council’s recent approval of drone usage by the MPD, has spurred the ACLU to call for a two-year pause on the adoption of new surveillance technologies, and craft frameworks to regulate the technology MPD already has “with meaningful opportunities for community input.” 

Although it acknowledges that many on the council and within MPD “care deeply about the safety and well-being of our city,” the ACLU’s letter also warns that “history has shown time and again, authoritarianism does not always arrive with flashing lights and villainous speeches — it often comes wrapped in routine procedure, paperwork, and people ‘just doing their jobs.’” 

“We are already seeing how surveillance technology is being weaponized in real time,” the ACLU continued, citing data-gathering, automatic license plate readers, artificial intelligence (AI), and other tools that are used to “target and detain individuals.” 

The MPD has long denied that it uses facial recognition technology. As part of an investigation into surveillance technologies which the department obtained ahead of the 2020 Democratic National Convention (DNC), Wisconsin Examiner reviewed “investment justification” records from the state’s Homeland Security Council which suggested that the Southeastern Threat Analysis Center — a homeland security-focused aspect of the MPD’s intel-gathering Fusion Center — utilized Clear facial recognition technology. It was described as a “mobile device” that would allow police to “conduct timely identification of individuals in the field to prevent terrorist attack.” 

By contrast, MPD PowerPoint presentations prepared for the April 17 FPC meeting openly advertise the use of facial recognition. The PowerPoint details two examples of arrests made using facial recognition software. One “case study” from March 2024 involved a fatal gun violence incident where the suspects fled. The PowerPoint said that they were later seen at a gas station, and that facial recognition software provided leads to both suspects. Noting that “facial recognition results are advisory in nature and are to be treated as investigative leads only,” the PowerPoint states that a Department of Corrections agent confirmed the software’s results, leading to arrests the next morning. 

One of the PowerPoint slides shows in-custody photographs of the arrested men above pictures of them masked in a gas station. The slides showed that the facial recognition software had a “similarity” rating of 99.7% for one man, and 98.1% for another. Both men are waiting for a trial. The other case study focused on a sexual assault incident involving a gun. Like the other example, surveillance footage of the suspect from a gas station helped lead to the arrest. MPD sent out a facial recognition request to local agencies. It was answered by the Wauwatosa Police Department, which returned two pictures of the same individual. The pictures had similarity ratings of 99.1% and 98.9% respectively. The arrested man was sentenced to 20 years in prison. 

The PowerPoint presentation lists 14 cases from the North and South Sides of Milwaukee. It states that MPD “would be diligent in balancing the need for effective, accurate investigations and the need to respect the privacy of others,” and that facial recognition does not establish probable cause to arrest someone or obtain a warrant. “It may generate investigative leads through a combination of automated biometric comparisons and human analysis,” the PowerPoint states. “Corroborating information must be developed through additional investigation.” 

 

PUBLIC Facial Rec for FPC

A PowerPoint presentation detailing the Milwaukee PD’s plans for facial recognition software.

 

MPD has reviewed procedures for the technology’s use nationwide, and stated that “oversight of the system will consist of an audit report showing information requested, accessed, searched, or disseminated.” All requests for facial recognition must be approved by a supervisor, and the department will keep a log of each search and the type of crime involved. Biometrica is the chosen facial recognition vendor. The PowerPoint states that the company has worked with the NAACP and the ACLU to provide anti-bias training for users of the software. 

The reassurances, however, do little to quell the concerns of privacy advocates. In their letter to the MPD and common council, the ACLU of Wisconsin highlighted ongoing immigrant roundups by  the Trump administration, and the deportation of Milwaukee residents to a notorious maximum security terrorism prison in El Salvador. “It is being used to monitor and prosecute political protesters, people seeking reproductive health care, LGBTQ+ individuals, and doctors trying to provide care,” the letter states. “These are not projections — these are present-day realities carried out by bad actors within the federal government and local jurisdictions.” 

The ACLU letter warns, “while we trust that our local leaders and police officers have good intentions, history reminds us how quickly larger systems can override those intentions.” 

In recent years MPD has expanded its network of surveillance cameras and other activities such as its phone surveillance operations remain shrouded in secrecy. MPD has also built up its social media surveillance footprint using AI-powered software, after downplaying the very existence of those activities in years past. 

“Data collected in Milwaukee does not stay in Milwaukee,” the ACLU states. “Once it enters a federal pipeline, it can be accessed, shared, and used in ways we cannot predict — or stop. That’s why now, more than ever, we must choose restraint. The rule of law at the federal level is unraveling before our eyes.”

The same set of concerns came up during a March 20 FPC meeting, where commissioners discussed the MPD’s use of drones and facial recognition technology. Police officials claimed that complaints about law enforcement using drones lagged behind the rate of agencies acquiring the technology, suggesting that the public approves. Police officials said that MPD’s “Airborne Assessment Team,” which is attached to the department’s Specialized Patrol Division, would help increase situational awareness, de-escalate dangerous situations, aid search-and-rescue, help manage major events and offer unique opportunities to “positively engage” with the community. In protest situations, drones would allow MPD to monitor an area while not physically placing officers nearby, whose presence could trigger an escalation among the protest crowd. 

MPD said that its drones do not have facial recognition capabilities. Still, the growth of MPD’s surveillance powers have worried some community members. Commissioner Bree Spencer said during the meeting that it would be nice for a community-based tech advisory board to be established to help review MPD’s surveillance requests. Spencer said that nationwide and historically, it’s not unheard-of for law enforcement surveillance programs to get out of hand. 

“I get it for water rescue, I’m very worried about things like protests,” said Spencer. “I think for very good reason. Our federal government is doing some very funky things right now with protesters. So I get what you’re saying, and I see in the SOP that you’re like, ‘We’re not going to do that.’ I don’t know if that’s sufficient in terms of a protection, particularly for people who are skeptical about the use of these technologies.”

Police officials said that drones are a crowd management tool, and that during the Republican National Convention (RNC) they helped monitor protest movements to ensure opposing groups didn’t come into contact with one another. Spencer reiterated, “I think I just worry about the cost to individual civil rights and, like, how that’s going to just keep growing in our society…I wish the public had more input into whether or not the use of this type of technology is happening here. Talking to the community is not the same as letting them have a decision about whether or not they want drones in their city being run by police.” 

MPD spokespeople said the department based its drone usage procedures on best practice guidance from the ACLU, and that the department is “very late” to the drone game. The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office, for example, officially announced its drone program in 2021. 

Ahead of the DNC nearly five years ago, the MPD acquired large white vans called “critical response vehicles”, which are also attached to the Specialized Patrol Division and came equipped with their own tethered aerial drones. Wisconsin Examiner found that the sheriff’s drones were used to monitor police accountability protests, with the number of flights dropping significantly once the protests subsided. 

In its letter Thursday, the ACLU stressed that police abuse of surveillance “is not ancient history” but rather “it’s living memory for many in our city.” Some may remember the reign of police chief Harold Breier, who surveilled civil rights activists, LGBTQ+ communities, and Black Milwaukeeans. “And those who carried out that surveillance often believed they were ‘just doing their jobs.’” The ACLU’s letter questions what a personality like Chief Breier would do with today’s surveillance powers. 

“We’re not calling for a ban,” the letter states. Instead, the ACLU calls for a  two-year pause on acquiring new surveillance technologies, especially facial recognition technology, “while we assess the potential risks.” In the meantime, the letter urges city leaders to “pass a framework for regulating existing surveillance technology, such as adopting a Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) Ordinance to bring accountability to these decisions before it’s too late.”

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on April 17, 2025, over the White House denying The Associated Press journalists from certain spaces open to other journalists. (U.S. General Services Administration photo)

WASHINGTON — The Associated Press and the Trump administration faced tough questioning in court Thursday as the White House fights to block a lower court order mandating officials stop denying the wire outlet entry to spaces where other journalists are permitted.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia grilled the parties at length on how the First Amendment applies to journalists in the Oval Office and other areas, and whether the president can decide which journalists follow him in the press pool and exclude others based on their viewpoint.

The case, playing out at the district court level as well, tests decades of established press access for the AP in the White House, which was curtailed after President Donald Trump declared the term “Gulf of America” should be used rather than “Gulf of Mexico.”

District Judge Trevor McFadden sided with the AP on April 8 on the grounds that the Trump administration violated the wire service’s First Amendment rights when it publicly retaliated against the agency for an editorial decision to continue using “Gulf of Mexico” in its reporting and influential stylebook.

Oval Office not for ‘silent retreat’

Before the appeals court Thursday, Eric D. McArthur, representing the government, argued against McFadden’s “unprecedented” preliminary injunction, saying it interferes with the president’s “autonomy” in “highly restricted spaces.”

Pointing out the AP was not demanding access “when the president wants to concentrate on his writing and his work,” Judge Corenlia Pillard said “it’s a little confusing to me when you say a place of ‘autonomy.’”

“You make the Oval sound like a place of silent retreat,” said Pillard, who was appointed to the appeals bench during President Barack Obama’s second term.

Pillard also highlighted the expectation of privacy is different for people in “high public office.”

“There’s already a dozen people in there, so he’s agreed to have a press pool,” she said during McArthur’s roughly 45-minute questioning.

The administration argued in its emergency appeal to block the ruling that Trump will be “irreparably injured” if the higher court doesn’t stay the lower court order while it adjudicates the case.

Officials also countered that the First Amendment protects the president’s right to choose which journalists enter the Oval Office, Air Force One or Mar-a-Lago based on the content of their coverage.

Where’s the distinction?

Charles Tobin, attorney for the AP, argued that the White House has “brazenly excluded” AP reporters and photographers from opportunities open to other journalists.

McFadden “appropriately and very narrowly tailored” his injunction, Tobin said. The lower judge ruled that, under the First Amendment, once the White House opens doors for all journalists to spaces including the Oval Office and East Room, it cannot then exclude them based on viewpoint.

McFadden explicitly wrote his ruling does not mandate journalists be given access to the president or that the president cannot choose which outlets to grant exclusive interviews.

Judge Neomi Rao said, “the AP concedes he could choose journalists based on viewpoint for exclusive interviews.”

“When you’re talking about 10 or 12 journalists in the Oval or on his plane or in his home at Mar-a-Lago, what is the distinction?” asked Rao, who was appointed during Trump’s first presidency.

Tobin replied that the pool is a system that invites numerous journalists to participate on a rotating basis.

“That’s exactly where the distinction lies,” he said.

Private invitations allowable

Judge Gregory Katsas presented other scenarios when the president could invite only “supportive” members of the public and press, for example in the Cabinet room for a policy rollout.

Tobin argued if the event is open to all press members, the president cannot discriminate based on viewpoint.

“Once you have a system of rotation, that’s when the viewpoint becomes anathema,” Tobin replied.

What if the president “tapped (certain reporters) on the shoulder” and invited only them into the Oval Office, asked Katsas, who was appointed during Trump’s first term.

Tobin replied the president could handpick reporters for a private interview in the Oval Office, as long as it wasn’t an event open to the wider press pool.

“This seems awfully close to what’s happening here,” Katsas said.

Wire position axed

On Wednesday the White House announced a new media policy placing restrictions on all wire services’ access to the Oval Office and other spaces. Other wire services include Bloomberg and AFP.

Despite McFadden’s court order, the White House on Monday denied entry to an AP reporter and photographer to an Oval Office press conference between Trump and El Salvador President Nayib Bukele.

The AP filed a motion in district court Wednesday requesting McFadden to enforce his preliminary injunction.

McFadden has scheduled a hearing for Friday.

The White House began denying the AP entry to the Oval Office, East Room and other places on Feb. 11.

Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, announced in late February that White House officials would take over pool rotation decisions from the White House Correspondents Association, a member organization that has self-governed journalist rotations and briefing seats placement since the Eisenhower administration.

Mural depicting workers painted on windows of the Madison-Kipp Corp. by Goodman Community Center students and Madison-Kipp employees with Dane Arts Mural Arts. (Photo by Erik Gunn /Wisconsin Examiner)

The economic uncertainty that has sent the stock market and consumer confidence plummeting in the last month hasn’t yet affected employment in Wisconsin, according to the state’s chief economist.

Wisconsin’s job numbers reached another record high in March, and unemployment, although up slightly, is still close to an all-time low, the Department of Workforce Development (DWD) reported Thursday.

Uncertainty over the impact of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration has contributed to falling consumer confidence as well as business confidence, said Dennis Winters, DWD’s chief economist. So far that hasn’t affected the state’s job market, however, he said.

Based on a monthly federal survey of employers, DWD projected Wisconsin had 3.055 million nonfarm jobs in March — an increase of 10,000 from February and 15,000 from a year ago.

From a separate household survey, the department projected Wisconsin’s March unemployment rate at 3.2%. That’s even with February, but a slight increase from the 2.9% calculated for March of 2024.

The job growth was greatest in service industries, which added more than 21,000 jobs over the last 12 months.

Manufacturing jobs have fallen by 7,000 since March 2024 — all of that in durable goods. Winters said that reflects longstanding challenges in the sector more than specific recent developments. 

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Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Thursday that soldiers blocked him from entering a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador where the erroneously deported Maryland resident Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia has been held for more than a month.

The Maryland Democrat arrived in the Central American country Wednesday in an effort to help bring Abrego Garcia, whom the Justice Department admitted in court was deported in error, back to the United States, or at least check on his wellness. He met with El Salvador Vice President Félix Ulloa that day, who denied his requests to either visit or speak on the phone with Abrego Garcia.

Van Hollen told reporters Thursday afternoon that he again tried to make contact with Abrego Garcia that morning.

A U.S. immigration judge issued a protective order in 2019 finding that sending Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran citizen, back to his home country would put him in grave danger.

Accompanied by Chris Newman — the lawyer for Abrego Garcia’s wife and his mother — Van Hollen said they tried to enter Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, but soldiers stopped them at a checkpoint about three kilometers from the prison.

“We were told by the soldiers that they’d been ordered not to allow us to proceed any further than that point,” Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen said that since Abrego Garcia was sent to CECOT, he has not spoken with anyone outside of the prison walls, and “this inability to communicate with his lawyers is a violation of international law.”

The senator pointed out that El Salvador is a party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

“That covenant says, and I quote, ‘A detained or imprisoned person shall be entitled to communicate and consult with his legal counsel,’” he said.

Van Hollen also said he met with the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador and they discussed “the full range of important bilateral relations between the United States and El Salvador.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt and other Republicans have criticized Van Hollen for making the trip, repeating the accusation that Abrego Garcia is a gang member.

Representatives for the White House and DHS did not respond to messages seeking comment Thursday.

Appeals court slams administration’s inaction

Meanwhile, Abrego Garcia’s case continues to work its way through U.S. courts as a flashpoint conflict between two branches of government that has led to the precipice of a constitutional crisis.

On Thursday, a federal appeals court panel dismantled the administration’s latest appeal, saying the government had done “essentially nothing” to attempt to return Abrego Garcia in compliance with last week’s Supreme Court order.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said the executive branch was due deference in conducting foreign policy, but that the administration’s inaction in seeking Abrego Garcia’s return amounted to defiance of a judicial order.

The unanimous ruling was written by Fourth Circuit Chief Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, who was nominated by Republican President Ronald Reagan. The other two judges, Robert Bruce King and Stephanie Thacker, were nominated by Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

“The government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done,” the panel wrote. “This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear.”

The appeals ruling responded to the government’s appeal of U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’ order this week for the Trump administration to offer evidence on how it has sought to help with Abrego Garcia’s release from CECOT.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration must “facilitate” — but stopped short of requiring — his return to the United States.

In unusually frank language, the Fourth Circuit panel warned Thursday the conflict between the executive and judicial branches threatened the foundation of U.S. government.

“If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?” the court asked. “And what assurance shall there be that the Executive will not train its broad discretionary powers upon its political enemies? The threat, even if not the actuality, would always be present.”

Near the end of the order, the panel urged the administration to obey the judicial branch.

“We yet cling to the hope that it is not naïve to believe our good brethren in the Executive Branch perceive the rule of law as vital to the American ethos,” the judges wrote. “This case presents their unique chance to vindicate that value and to summon the best that is within us while there is still time.”

Neither country taking action

The Fourth Circuit panel pointed out that the leaders of both the United States and El Salvador claimed they had no power to return Abrego Garcia.

“We are told that neither government has the power to act,” they wrote. “The result will be to leave matters generally and Abrego Garcia specifically in an interminable limbo without recourse to law of any sort.”

During a White House visit this week, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele said he would not bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

The Trump administration has admitted in court that Abrego Garcia’s deportation stemmed from an “administrative error.” The administration continues to accuse him of being part of the gang MS-13, despite no charges or convictions of any criminal offenses against him, including gang-related crimes.

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report.

The U.S. Supreme Court is pictured Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court announced Thursday it will hear oral arguments next month over President Donald Trump’s efforts to restructure birthright citizenship, though the justices won’t decide on the merits of the case just yet. 

Instead, they will choose whether to leave in place nationwide injunctions from lower courts that so far have blocked the Trump administration from implementing the executive order.

The oral arguments, scheduled for May 15, will likely provide the first indication of whether any of the nine justices are interested in revisiting the Court’s interpretation of the 14th Amendment, which was ratified in 1868 following the Civil War.

The amendment states that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The Supreme Court ruled in 1898 in United States v. Wong Kim Ark that the 14th Amendment guarantees any child born in the United States is entitled to U.S. citizenship, even if their parents are not citizens.

Trump disagrees with that ruling and signed an executive order on his first day in office seeking to change which babies born in the United States become citizens. If that order were implemented, babies whose parents were “unlawfully present in the United States” or whose parents’ presence “was lawful but temporary” would not be eligible for citizenship.

Several organizations and Democratic attorneys general filed lawsuits seeking to block the executive order, leading to nationwide injunctions against its implementation.

Last month, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the lower court’s nationwide injunctions, limiting them to the organizations and states that filed suit.

The three cases are Trump v. State of Washington, Trump v. CASA, Inc. and Trump v. State of New Jersey.

Legislation

Nationwide injunctions by lower court judges have become an issue for Republicans in Congress as well as the Trump administration.

Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley introduced a bill in Congress that would bar federal district court judges from being able to implement nationwide injunctions.

“We all have to agree to give up the universal injunction as a weapon against policies we disagree with,” Grassley said during a hearing earlier this month. “The damage it causes to the judicial system and to our democracy is too great.”

Wisconsin Elections Commissioner Robert Spindell arrives at Milwaukee Central Count with Sen. Ron Johnson (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) Chair Ann Jacobs said at a meeting Thursday that the body is still investigating how the City of Madison lost nearly 200 ballots during the 2024 presidential election. 

The city of Madison announced in late December that 193 unprocessed absentee ballots had been found in the weeks following the election. The discovered ballots weren’t enough to sway the results of any contests, but WEC began an investigation into the error to determine what caused it and how similar mistakes can be prevented in future elections. 

On Thursday, Jacobs said that she and Republican commissioner Don Millis had already taken depositions of former Madison city clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl and members of her staff but that there was more work to be done and depositions to conduct with employees of Madison and Dane County. She added that those other interviews were delayed until after the April 1 election. 

Witzel-Behl, who had already been on administrative leave during the spring elections, resigned from her position as Madison city clerk earlier this week after nearly two decades in the role during which time she oversaw more than 60 elections. 

Jacobs said the investigation has already highlighted ways the state can improve its absentee ballot processes. 

“On a positive note, I do think the information we’re learning from the work we’ve done so far will help inform some best practices for tracking absentee ballots, making sure all absentee ballots are counted timely, and as we move to amend our manuals and update them … I really do think that what we’ve learned is going to help us do a better job there on some of that absentee ballot processing,” she said. 

After the update on the investigation, Republican commissioner Robert Spindell began remarks that devolved into a shouting match with Jacobs. 

Spindell began by noting how long Witzel-Behl had been the Madison clerk. 

“I think it’s fine that we’re doing this investigation of the city of Madison, or the misplacement of some [193] ballots and then not properly following through when they were found,” he said. “But I do want to commend the Madison clerk for her 20-plus years service.” 

Spindell then transitioned into what he said he believes is a “more serious problem” — some Milwaukee polling places running out of ballots during the April 1 election. On Election Day earlier this month, seven polling sites ran out of ballots, causing city officials to scramble to replenish supplies. The delay caused long lines to form at some polls. 

City election officials said they generally determine how many ballots to print and distribute to poll locations by assessing voter turnout in previous similar elections. But this year Wisconsin and Milwaukee broke turnout records for a spring election. 

A former member of the Milwaukee Elections Commission who previously sparked controversy when he celebrated and took credit for the low turnout among Black voters in the 2022 midterm elections, Spindell has often been extremely critical of the administration of Milwaukee’s elections. 

Republicans have often attacked Milwaukee’s election administration, resulting in frequent, baseless accusations that the city’s election results are fraudulent. 

Before Spindell could finish his statement, Jacobs banged her gavel, saying she was ruling his comment out of order, but Spindell just got louder and continued. 

Wisconsin open meetings law requires that if a government body such as the elections commission is going to discuss an issue at a meeting, it must have been properly listed on the meeting’s announced agenda. 

“I am not going to let you keep going,” Jacobs said. “I’m going to talk over you until you stop. You must stop. You are out of order, and I will eject you from this meeting. Do you understand the words I am saying? They are simple. You are out of order. The City of Milwaukee is not on this agenda. You do not get to hijack the agenda. You are not the chair. When you are chair you get to put things on the agenda, it’s not on the agenda.” 

Even though most of what he said was inaudible, Spindell ended by saying “I’ve said what I needed to say.” 

During the meeting, the commission also approved the design for a mailer that will be sent to voters who haven’t voted in four years to ask if they still live at the addresses listed in their voter registrations and informing them they risk having their registrations deactivated. The commissioners also  received an update on an audit to determine if any people currently serving felony sentences voted in recent elections and moved forward an administrative rule that would keep the home addresses of judicial candidates off public elections paperwork.

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Solar panels in Damariscotta, Maine. (Photo by Evan Houk/ Maine Morning Star)

WASHINGTON — The legal battle over a Biden-era climate program ramped up late Wednesday when an appeals court halted a federal judge’s ruling requiring the disbursement of those funds.

The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will keep funds frozen in Citibank accounts while a federal suit over the program is ongoing.

The appeals court order reversed a preliminary injunction that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan of the District of Columbia issued Tuesday that temporarily barred the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from “unlawfully suspending or terminating” grant awards.

The appeals panel said it had not had access to Chutkan’s opinion explaining her order granting an injunction — which came a day after the order itself — and the trial judge had therefore not met the high bar needed to issue a preliminary injunction. The panel’s order “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits,” the judges said.

“The purpose of this order is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the district court’s forthcoming opinion in support of its order granting a preliminary injunction together with” the government’s appeal, the judges wrote.

Chutkan issued her opinion the day after granting the preliminary injunction, pointing out that “for weeks, despite repeated inquiries to Citibank and EPA, Plaintiffs received little to no communication from EPA or Citibank regarding their inability to access their funds.”

“Overnight, billions of dollars appropriated by Congress were frozen. As a result, nationwide projects were halted, workplans were disrupted, and millions of dollars in approved transactions with committed partners could not be disbursed,” she wrote.

On Thursday, the D.C. Circuit panel asked the government to refile its argument responding to Chutkan’s opinion by 5 p.m. Eastern on Saturday.

Fight over funding

Climate United Fund and other organizations sued President Donald Trump’s administration and Citibank in March over money frozen in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund.

The $27 billion initiative, which provides funding to organizations building for energy-efficient projects and other measures to tackle climate change, was authorized by Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act that Democrats passed along party lines and President Joe Biden signed into law in 2022.

Chutkan’s order blocked the administration from “directly or indirectly impeding” Citibank or causing the bank to “deny, obstruct, delay, or otherwise limit access to funds in accounts established in connection with” the organizations’ grants.

The Trump administration quickly challenged that ruling Wednesday in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The higher court temporarily blocked Chutkan’s decision “pending further order.”

The appeals court’s ruling halts Chutkan’s preliminary injunction to the extent that it “enables or requires Citibank to release, disburse, transfer, otherwise move, or allow access to funds.”

The higher court also prevented the Trump administration from having to file a status report with the district court within 24 hours of the preliminary injunction’s entry that confirmed their compliance, as outlined in Chutkan’s ruling.

The appeals court also ordered that “no party take any action, directly or indirectly, with regard to the disputed contracts, grants, awards or funds.”

The EPA said in March it would be terminating $20 billion in grants under the program, and the agency’s administrator Lee Zeldin described the climate initiative as a “gold bar” scheme.

Climate United Fund did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday, and the EPA declined to comment. 

Child care providers, parents and advocates arrive at the state Capitol Wednesday, April 16, 2025, for a rally in support of child care funding. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Hundreds of child care providers and parents rallied outside the state Capitol Wednesday, then headed inside to buttonhole lawmakers of both parties, urging support for a $480 million provision in the next state budget for Wisconsin’s child care providers.

“Child care is not a luxury, it’s not a nice-to-have,” said Claire Lindstrom, an Eau Claire parent who addressed the rally. “It is infrastructure.”

“We’re here today because the people who are doing this very important work can no longer afford to hold up a broken system,” said Toshiba Adams, an instructor and instructional chair in early childhood education at Milwaukee Area Technical College.

The rally and afternoon visit with legislators followed a morning gathering of the participants at the nearby Concourse Hotel that included talks by lawmakers, parents and providers. At noon 350 or more people — the largest action by child care advocates in recent memory — marched from the hotel to the rally, with chants of “Kids first, families first, invest in child care now.”

The crowd massed on the Capitol building’s west steps for a half hour of speeches.

Lindstrom broke down the average cost for child care. A single parent paid the minimum wage, $7.25 an hour, “would have to work 43 full-time weeks just to cover one year of infant care,” she said. A family making the median income in Wisconsin — about $75,000 a year — will probably spend 20% of their earnings on care for a single child.

“If they have two kids, an infant and a 4-year-old, they’re spending over a third of their income just to go to work,” Lindstrom said. “This is not a personal budgeting issue. That’s a broken system.”

Gov. Tony Evers has proposed $480 million in the state’s 2025-27 budget that would go to licensed child care providers, replenishing the state’s Child Care Counts program funded from federal pandemic relief. Without that, Child Care Counts will expire for good in June.

At its height between 2021 and 2023, Child Care Counts was credited with stabilizing Wisconsin’s providers, who shared in payments totaling $20 million a month. Providers reported that with the money they were able to raise wages for child care workers while holding down increases in the fees that parents paid.

“Our early childhood educators are trained in how to support brain development, emotional regulation, and school readiness,” Lindstrom said. “We expect them to do this important work and yet we pay them less than workers at Kwik Trip and Culver’s.”

Evers, a Democrat, was unable to persuade the Legislature’s Republican majority to extend the program in the state’s 2023-25 budget. He repurposed other federal funds, and the total payment was reduced to $10 million a month. That will run out in June.

Providers, advocates and early childhood education experts have argued that only with an ongoing investment like Child Care Counts can providers pay child care workers adequately without pricing care out of reach for the average family.

“We need child care for our communities to function,” Lindstrom said. “We can no longer afford to treat this like a personal problem. It’s a public domain. And the solution is clear. We need to fund child care.”

A survey report released April 10 found that up to 25% of Wisconsin providers said they might close without continued support along the lines of Child Care Counts. More than one-third said they might have to reduce the number of children then could serve for lack of staff.

Large majorities said they might have to cut pay and that they expect to have more difficulty recruiting workers. More than half said they expect some employees to quit and that providing high quality care would become more difficult.

“We will see dramatically less care available in virtually every single county in the state,” Ruth Schmidt, executive director of the Wisconsin Early Childhood Association, told the crowd. “Is that acceptable?”

“No!” the crowd roared back in reply.

“Is it acceptable that moms will have to consider leaving the workforce in record numbers because you cannot work if you cannot afford or find child care? Is it acceptable that stressed out parents doing the best they can will have no support from the state to ensure that they can work and contribute to our tax base?”

With each question the rallygoers responded with resounding shouts of “No!”

Sachin Shivaram, CEO of Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry in Manitowoc, told the crowd that businesses should support state funding for child care.

His company pays employees with young children $400 a month toward their child care costs, he said. When the crowd applauded, he thanked them, then added, “but I also feel very embarrassed. … That’s so little, and the cost of child care is, you know, several thousand dollars a month, and this is just barely scratching the surface.”

Shivaram pointed out the state manufacturing tax credit that his company receives, along with all Wisconsin manufacturers.

“And guess what? We have to do absolutely nothing to get that tax credit,” he said. “We don’t have to invest in any capital equipment, we don’t have to train any workers, we don’t have to give back to the community, nothing. You know, how about we make that tax credit contingent on helping the child care situation?”

In an interview after the legislative visits Schmidt of WECA said the hundreds who took part went to almost every state Senate office and about 90% of the Assembly members’ offices as well. WECA organized the event along with Wisconsin Head Start Association and Raising Wisconsin — an advocacy campaign that WECA and allied groups launched in 2022.

“We really wanted this to be nonpartisan,” Schmidt said — “just an opportunity to tell stories and share, from a real perspective, from the heart what’s going on with this industry.”

Some of those conversations — with leaders in the Legislature who advocates have already spoken to about the budget request — were “not necessarily a surprise,” she acknowledged.  

With other lawmakers, she added, including some of the 30 first-term Assembly members elected in November as well as others who have not served on committees where child care has been an agenda item, “there was a lot of interest in just learning,”

The visits were an opportunity for personal testimony to reach lawmakers and their staff, Schmidt said. “The power of having parents tell their stories, and the power of having educators tell their stories about how they’ve been using the public funding when it’s available — it was very compelling.”

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan speaks with reporters Wednesday in his Madison office. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

House Democrats think their most likely strategy to prevent major cuts to Medicaid or other popular federal programs in the current budget reconciliation process will be to win over a few House Republicans.

“We just need three Republicans, basically nationwide, to say no to something,” said U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) at a Q-and-A session with reporters Wednesday in his Madison office.

The Republican majorities in both houses of Congress are using the complicated budget reconciliation process to pass a spending plan that will allow them to extend tax cuts enacted in 2017 during President Donald Trump’s first term.

As part of that, House Republicans passed a blueprint calling for $880 billion in cuts to programs overseen by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Medicaid represents the largest expense item in the committee’s purview, and analysts have said Congress could only hit that target by making Medicaid cuts.

Pocan said estimates of the cost of preserving the tax cuts have risen in Washington, from $4.5 trillion in the original House proposal to “more like $7 trillion in tax cuts” in the current proposal combined from House and Senate alternatives.

The objective for House Democrats currently is to make cuts to Medicaid harder for GOP members to go along with, Pocan said. In Wisconsin, about 1.3 million residents are enrolled in Medicaid, including one third of the children in the state and 55% of seniors in nursing homes.

“You know, the more they hear that, at some point they may listen,” Pocan said of Republican members who won swing districts by narrow margins — and, he argues, they could push back against those sorts of cuts.

“I don’t expect them to maybe say it publicly and maybe to hold a town hall and say it, but if they say it privately in their caucus, that’s good enough, as long as three people won’t support something,” Pocan said. “That’s enough to kill something, right? So that’s kind of my goal is to keep facilitating that.”

The focus, though, is not on stopping the tax cuts, but stopping the cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other federal programs.

“If we could stop that, and we could stop, maybe, some of the education cuts that might otherwise come … funds for low-income [districts], funds for special ed, I think they’re still going to move forward with their tax cut bill,” Pocan said.

He speculated that under those circumstances, the GOP majority would pay for the tax cut with a deficit increase. 

“Is that a good answer? No,” Pocan said. “But is it better than seeing people lose their health care right now or their food assistance through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program? Yeah. So you know my job is to wake up in the morning and get excited about bad choices rather than the worst choices.”

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Protesters outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in Greenbelt rally on April 4, 2025, in support of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father who was deported to El Salvador in an “administrative error,” calling for him to be returned to the U.S. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Wednesday he was denied a meeting with Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, an El Salvador-born Maryland resident who was mistakenly deported to a mega-prison in his home country notorious for human rights abuses.

The Maryland Democrat met with El Salvador Vice President Félix Ulloa in the Central American country in an effort to help bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States. Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador, but a U.S. immigration judge issued a protective order in 2019 finding that sending him back to his home country would put him in grave danger.

After meeting with Ulloa, Van Hollen briefed reporters on the visit and said the Salvadoran vice president rebuffed his requests for contact with Abrego Garcia.

“I asked the vice president if I could meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia and he said, ‘Well, you need to make earlier provisions to go visit CECOT (Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo),’” Van Hollen told reporters in El Salvador, referring to the mega-prison.

“I said, ‘I’m not interested, at this moment, in taking a tour of CECOT, I just want to meet with Mr. Abrego Garcia,’” Van Hollen said.

“He said he was not able to make that happen. He said he’d need a little more time. I asked him if I came back next week, whether I’d be able to see Mr. Abrego Garcia. He said he couldn’t promise that either,” the senator added. 

Van Hollen said he was also denied a phone or video call with Abrego Garcia to ask how he was doing and report that information to his family. 

The senator said he would contact the U.S. Embassy in El Salvador and request they ask the government of El Salvador to connect the two of them via phone, following a suggestion from Ulloa.

Van Hollen’s visit came a day after a federal judge in Maryland ordered the Trump administration to offer evidence on how it has sought to help with Abrego Garcia’s release from CECOT.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that the Trump administration must “facilitate” — but did not require — his return to the United States. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele also said Monday that he would not bring Abrego Garcia back to the United States.

The Trump administration has acknowledged in court that Abrego Garcia was deported due to an “administrative error.”

The administration accused him of being a member of the gang MS-13. He has not been charged or convicted of any criminal offenses, including gang-related crimes.

Van Hollen, noting that the Trump administration “illegally abducted” Abrego Garcia, said he “won’t stop trying” to get the wrongly deported man out of the prison and back to Maryland and predicted others would follow.

“I can assure the president, the vice president, that I may be the first United States senator to visit El Salvador on this issue, but there will be more, and there will be more members of Congress coming,” he said.

Administration responds

Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security posted on social media Wednesday a copy of a restraining order Abrego Garcia’s wife sought against him in 2021 “claiming he punched, scratched, and ripped off her shirt, among other harm.”

In response, Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, told Newsweek she had a disagreement with him, but that things did not escalate and she did not continue with the civil court process. 

Late Wednesday afternoon, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made a statement on the case, displaying the restraining order, repeating the accusation Abrego Garcia is a gang member and objecting to media references to him as a “Maryland father.”

“There is no Maryland father,” she said.

Patty Morin, the mother of a Maryland woman slain by a Salvadoran immigrant in the country without legal status, also appeared at the briefing and spoke in favor of the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation actions.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a press conference at the department's headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, April 16, 2025.  (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Wednesday the department will shift its research into autism toward potential environmental causes, though he declined to say exactly what the Trump administration would do if certain industries or pollutants were found responsible.

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with no medical or research training, declared that autism is a preventable disease, argued research into genetic causes is a “dead end” and asserted that “we know it’s environmental exposure,” before saying HHS would fund “a series of new studies to identify precisely what the environmental toxins are that are causing it.”

“This has not been done before,” Kennedy said. “We’re going to do it in a thorough and comprehensive way and we’re going to get back with an answer to the American people very, very quickly.”

Kennedy said during his first press conference since receiving Senate confirmation that he wanted researchers to look into numerous potential factors, including mold, food additives, pesticides, air, water, medicines, ultrasound, age of parents, obesity in parents and diabetes in parents.

He pledged to have “some of the answers by September,” though he added the research will “be an evolving process.”

Kennedy appeared confident in his personal assessment that environmental factors lead to autism, without attributing that belief to any one industry or contaminant.

“This is coming from an environmental toxin and somebody made a profit by putting that environmental toxin into our air, our water, our medicines, our food,” Kennedy said. “And it’s to their benefit to normalize it, to say, ‘This is all normal. It has always been here.’ But that’s not good for our country.”

Autism experts, however, cast doubt on Kennedy’s assertion that environmental factors lead to autism and questioned his proposed timeline to prove such a link.

When asked by a reporter what exactly the Trump administration would do if research found conclusive evidence that one specific industry or pollutant was causing autism, Kennedy didn’t say whether HHS would push to ban it or close down any businesses. 

“I think we’re going to figure out a way to make pressure on them to remove it,” he said. “I think also there will be market forces that also exert pressure on them to remove it.”

Research difficult

Catherine Lord, professor of psychiatry with the school of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, said during an interview with States Newsroom following Kennedy’s remarks that trying to reach a definitive cause of autism before September was an “utterly ridiculous” timeline.

Lord said “the most likely hypothesis is that there may be interactions between genetics and, for example, environmental exposures, or even experiences like extreme prematurity.”

But she noted that studying the impact of environmental contaminants on people’s health, or a complex diagnosis like autism, is challenging because scientists obviously cannot expose people to toxins.

“It’s so difficult to do that work well, and people do it, but they can’t do it quickly,” Lord said. “And so I think that we do need work in that area, and I think it has been funded in the last few years. It just hasn’t come out with anything that is earth-shattering. It’s more the same thing, which is that if you’re exposed to something bad, your chances of having a child with any kind of neurodevelopmental disorder is going to go up.”

Lord expressed concern about moving funding and research away from genetic factors, saying “we do know that autism is genetic, so I think that is not under question.”

“I think the genetic work was moving forward,” she said. “It’s a slow pace, again, because they’re addressing so many different genetic patterns. But I think that at least there’s clear progress within this science.”

Limits funding for genetic research

Eric Fombonne, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Oregon Health and Science University, said during an interview that it was unwise for Kennedy to say there would be some answers about autism within a few months.

“It’s ridiculous to say that he’s going to unravel the etiology of autism in six months,” Fombonne said. “I mean, he could give, like, all the money of the world to any lab or any person. They could never report any results before several years from now, at the minimum.”

The pace of medical research, he said, is slow and Kennedy’s comments show “a complete ignorance and disregard for science and what we do and how complicated it is and the time it takes.”

Directing research dollars toward possible environmental contributors to autism will also limit the amount of funding available for genetic research, which Fombonne said “has been incredibly productive.”

“The pie is limited,” Fombonne said. “So if you move funds from genetic research to environmental research, you’re going to slow down the pace of genetic research.”

Fombonne explained that research into genetics and autism is “quite complicated” and has shown that not all genetic mechanisms are “the same across different families.”

“So it’s a very complex puzzle. And as you know, the brain is a very hard organ to study. So understanding the pathophysiology, which is associated with these gene variants, is a very hard process,” he said. “But we are doing that and we are progressing. And this has been paying off enormously over the last 20 or 30 years.”

Fombonne wouldn’t make the same assessment of potential environmental factors, saying there are no signs of higher rates of autism in certain areas or certain time periods, like scientists have found for some other conditions.

“There is no evidence that there is a cluster of cases of kids who have been living in a polluted area, or exposed to particular environmental circumstances,” Fombonne said. “There is no starting point, which is strong, to start environmental research somewhere we can say is going to pay off.

“So it’s going to be very exploratory initially, which may be a good thing to do. But at least, let’s do it well, and most of the studies so far are short.”

Krish Lal Isserdasani, who is from India, has been studying computer engineering at the UW-Madison since 2021 and plans to graduate on May 10. UW-Madison Engineering Hall. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the cancellation of a 21-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison undergraduate student’s visa and any actions in relation to that by the Trump administration. 

Krish Lal Isserdasani, who is from India, has been studying computer engineering at the UW-Madison since 2021 with plans to graduate on May 10. On April 4, just a month before graduation, Isserdasani received notification from UW-Madison’s International Student Services office that his visa was cancelled and his authorization to be in the country would end on May 2. He received no communication from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the State Department regarding the visa revocation.  

His cancellation was part of a wave of cancellations at universities across the country as President Donald Trump’s administration targets international students and ramps up deportation efforts in a crackdown on immigration.

U.S. District Judge William Conley wrote in his order Tuesday that Isserdasani has a “reasonable likelihood of success” on his claim that his visa was wrongly terminated and faces “possible devastating irreparable harm” as a result of the cancellation. Conley’s order bans the government from revoking his visa, detaining him or taking any other actions related to the cancellation pending a preliminary hearing April 28.

“The loss of timely academic process alone is sufficient to establish irreparable harm,” Conley wrote. “Given the amount of Isserdasani’s educational expenses and potential losses from having to leave the United States without obtaining his degree, the court concludes that Isserdasani credibly demonstrates that he faces irreparable harm for which he has no adequate remedy at law in the absence of injunctive relief.” 

Since the termination earlier this month, Isserdasani has reported a significant psychological impact on him, according to the order, including “difficulty in sleeping and fear that he will be placed in immediate detention and deportation.” 

“He reports being afraid to leave his apartment for fear of being apprehended at any moment,” the order states.

According to the complaint, Isserdasani and his family have spent about $240,000 on his education in the country. He would lose $17,500 on the current semester’s tuition and would be responsible for four months of rent despite not being able to stay in the country, the complaint states.  

Isserdasani is represented by Madison lawyer Shabnam Lotfi, who said in a statement to the Wisconsin State Journal that the “international students have done absolutely nothing wrong.” 

“They have followed U.S. laws and fully complied with the terms of their student status. They do not deserve this,” Lotfi said. “America must speak out against this injustice and not allow the Administration to distort the facts for their own political purposes.”

Isserdasani is one of dozens of students and alumni at University of Wisconsin institutions to have had their visas canceled by the federal government in recent weeks. There have been at least 26 at UW-Madison, 13 at UW-Milwaukee and several more at other campuses.

UW-Madison first announced cancellations on April 8, saying the university wasn’t notified by the government but had learned about them because staff has been reviewing federal databases every day to see whether students have been affected

According to the Associated Press, the Trump administration’s work to cancel visas has affected  at least 901 students at more than 128 colleges and universities nationwide. Some have been participants in protests about the war in Gaza, and others have had minor infractions, including traffic violations, according to published reports. 

Conley’s order indicates that Isserdasani appears to have had his visa canceled in relation to an arrest for disorderly conduct in November 2024 after he and friends got into an argument with other people while walking home from a bar one night. Madison District Attorney Ismael Ozanne declined to pursue charges after the arrest, and Isserdasani never had to appear in court and thought the issue was dealt with. He has had no other encounters with police, the order says. 

The university’s notification email that Isserdasani received stated that the reason given was “otherwise failing to maintain status” and he was “identified in criminal records check and/or has had their VISA revoked.” It said the termination “does not have a grace period to depart the U.S.” and that “employment benefits, including on-campus employment and any practical training you may have had authorized, end immediately when a SEVIS record is terminated. Therefore, you no longer have authorization to work in the United States.”

The order said Isserdasani “was given no warning, no opportunity to explain or defend himself and no chance to correct any potential misunderstanding.”

The judge’s order also covers the visa cancellation for Hamidreza Khademi, a 34-year-old citizen of Iran and graduate student at Iowa State University, who is also being represented by Lotfi.  Khademi graduated in December 2023, but was working in the country through a visa extension approved in 2024.

Khademi was arrested in February of 2024 and accused of evading arrest in a vehicle in Texas. However, the Texas Department of Public Safety eventually determined that there was no violation and decided against filing charges. His visa was terminated on April 10 and an email notifying him included similar reasoning as the one Isserdasani received. 

The judge reserved a ruling on the motion for a temporary restraining order for Khademi, pending further briefing by the parties, because he questioned whether the western Wisconsin court was the appropriate venue for the case. 

“Plaintiffs include no facts showing that venue is proper for the claims brought by Khademi, who appears to have no ties to the Western District of Wisconsin, nor do the events or omissions giving rise to his claims,” the judge wrote.

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Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) speaks about how advocates can convince Republicans to fund the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program at the Great Lakes Audubon Society's 2025 advocacy day. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc) said Wednesday the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program is “on life support,” adding that some of his Republican colleagues give it a 20% chance of being extended in this year’s budget debate before its expiration next year. 

Kurtz, Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine), Sen. Jodi Habush Sinykin (D-Whitefish Bay) and Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Secretary Karen Hyun spoke Wednesday to a gathering of members of local Audubon Society chapters and staff of Audubon Great Lakes ahead of the organization’s advocacy day to lobby legislators to support conservation funding. 

The Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program was established in 1989 to help preserve local natural environments. Throughout its history, the program has enjoyed mostly bipartisan support as it has provided grants through the DNR to help local governments and nonprofits fund the acquisition, restoration and maintenance of public land, parks and wildlife habitats. 

In recent years, the program has become a flashpoint in the fight over the boundary between the executive and legislative branches of state government. Until a decision by the state Supreme Court last year, any member of the Legislature’s powerful Joint Committee on Finance had the authority to hold up a project funded through the stewardship program by placing an anonymous hold on that spending. 

The Court’s decision entirely removed the Legislature’s oversight of the program, a change that further turned Republicans against its continued existence. 

“We could make that process better, where it was not just one individual not liking something and being able to kill a project. I agree with that,” Kurtz said. “When the court case came in and basically took that entire process away, that was not good either, because there was no oversight. And I understand some of you believe whatever the DNR does is fine. That’s great. Some of my colleagues don’t believe that.”

Especially in the northern part of the state, Republicans have objected to stewardship funds being used to conserve land that then gets taken off of local property tax rolls — taking money away from already struggling small local governments. In other cases, Republicans have complained that proposals for projects under the grants rely too heavily on the state funds without the local governments providing enough of their own money. 

In his proposed 2025-26 budget, Gov. Tony Evers has requested the stewardship program be increased from its current funding of $33 million per year to $100 million per year for 10 years. 

Kurtz said he’s working on a bill that would return some oversight authority over the program to the Legislature without the anonymous objection provision. He added, though,  that if the Audubon members went to Republicans Wednesday saying, “‘It’s the governor’s budget or nothing,’ you already lost.” 

“I don’t need you to do that, because, I’m being very sincere, I’m trying to keep this alive, and if you go over there [saying that], there’s a good chance it’ll die,” he said. “So don’t do that. Let them, especially when you’re meeting with my colleagues, ask them what [their] concerns are. ‘Why don’t you like this? What is it about the program that we can do better so we can have another day to make sure we protect all our wonderful birds and animals.’”

Habush Sinykin noted that 93% of Wisconsinites support the program and said that in her purple district covering Milwaukee’s northwest suburbs, the stewardship program is hugely popular. She said the anonymous hold of a project in the district drew the ire of community members of both parties. 

“There’s a lot of understanding at the legislative level that in these uncertain times, with these newer maps, that our state representatives and senators, including those on the Joint Finance Committee, have to be wary and strategic about issues like this that are bipartisan,” she said. “They’re actually non-partisan. They are successful community building issues. So I think that’s a little bit where your leverage is to lean in hard. How popular these are.”

Aside from the stewardship program, the society members lobbying in the Capitol Wednesday were pushing for the state to increase protections for wetlands and grasslands, advance sustainable practices in the state’s agriculture and forestry industries and grow renewable energy production. 

On Wednesday morning, the administration of President Donald Trump announced a proposed rule that would rescind habitat protections for endangered species across the country. 

Marnie Urso, Audubon Great Lakes’ senior director of policy, said that with the federal government retreating from conservation efforts, state level efforts have become more important. 

“With that uncertainty, this kind of work is even more important, for state lawmakers to be on the path to conserving our natural resources,” Urso said. “The Knowles Nelson project program is bipartisan. It always has been a permanent foundation. So we know it has wide, widespread bipartisan support.”

Urso said leaning into that popularity could help advance the group’s priorities. 

“Even Trump voters like the Knowles Nelson Conservation Fund,” she said. “So we’re confident that by coming and talking, telling our story and getting to understand what’s important to our lawmakers, we can inform those decisions. And now it’s more important than ever to have state conservation programs continue.”

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Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center, or CECOT, on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)

This story was updated at 4:04 p.m. Eastern.

WASHINGTON —  A federal judge in Washington found probable cause Wednesday the Trump administration is in contempt of court for defying his order to stop flights of Venezuelan immigrants headed to a prison in El Salvador.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg gave officials one week to submit a list of steps they have taken, or will take, to comply with his order, or identify the official or officials who chose to send the planes to El Salvador, despite learning of his order, he wrote in a 46-page opinion Wednesday.

Boasberg wrote the government could “purge its contempt,” for example, by voluntarily obeying the order and giving the imprisoned men an opportunity to challenge their cases. Officials could also “propose other methods of coming into compliance.”

If the government does not attempt to remedy the situation, Boasberg will require declarations, or even live witness testimony, to identify who’s responsible for the noncompliance and refer them for criminal prosecution.

The case centers on President Donald Trump’s decision in mid-March to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport more than 200 Venezuelans – and other nationals – with suspected gang ties. The men were detained at the Salvadoran mega-prison Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

Despite Boasberg’s order to halt the flights, including returning two planes that were mid-air, immigration officials allowed them to land in El Salvador — and directed a third one to take off.

Boasberg wrote Wednesday that the “Government’s actions on that day demonstrate a willful disregard for its Order, sufficient for the Court to conclude that probable cause exists to find the Government in criminal contempt.”

“The Court does not reach such conclusion lightly or hastily; indeed, it has given Defendants ample opportunity to rectify or explain their actions. None of their responses has been satisfactory,” continued Boasberg, who was appointed to the bench in 2011 by former President Barack Obama and confirmed unanimously by the Senate.

Order ‘gleefully’ violated

Boasberg provided a detailed timeline in a memorandum opinion Wednesday accompanying his probable cause order.

The judge delivered a verbal order at 6:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 15, mandating the government halt any new deportation flights and bring any planes that had taken off back to the U.S. He later entered a written order into the record at 7:25 p.m., according to the court filing.

“By mid-Sunday morning, the picture of what had happened the previous night came into clearer focus,” he wrote. “It appeared that the Government had transferred members of the Plaintiff class into El Salvador’s custody hours after this Court’s injunction prohibited their deportation under the Proclamation.

“Worse, boasts by Defendants intimated that they had defied the Court’s Order deliberately and gleefully,” Boasberg wrote in his opinion.

He highlighted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposted on social media a post from El Salvador President Nayib Bukele who highlighted a headline about the judge’s order and wrote “Oopsie … Too late” with a laughing face emoji.

What followed was “obstructionism” and “stonewalling” from the government, according to Boasberg, as officials refused to answer basic questions about the timeline of the flights and whether the plaintiffs who were granted class status in the lawsuit were now in El Salvador’s custody. The government argued such information would compromise national security.

Boasberg denied the government’s motion to block his temporary restraining order, and an appeals court upheld it.

Supreme Court ruling

The Trump administration then appealed to the Supreme Court, and the justices ruled 5-4 on April 8 that Trump could use the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants but must provide them a chance to challenge their cases first.

Boasberg addressed that ruling in his opinion Wednesday, writing that even a win on appeal did not negate the government’s responsibility to obey the order while it was active.

“If a party chooses to disobey the order — rather than wait for it to be reversed through the judicial process — such disobedience is punishable as contempt, notwithstanding any later-revealed deficiencies in the order,” he wrote.

Disputed gang membership

Family members and attorneys for many of the deported men have disputed the Trump administration’s claims that those taken to El Salvador were members of the Tren de Aragua gang.

They claim the men were deported because ICE agents misinterpreted their tattoos. Many deportees had no criminal record and were in asylum hearings before an immigration judge, they added.

Among those deported was El Salvadoran native Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, whose wife, a U.S. citizen, has been fighting in a separate federal case for his release from CECOT. Abrego Garcia had a protective order from an immigration judge in 2019 shielding him from removal to his native country because of risks of gang violence.

The Trump administration has not complied with a court order to return him to the U.S. 

Sandra Lomeli testifies at a public hearing April 10, 2025, against a bill imposing new restrictions on the process for confirming eligibility for Medicaid. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)

Legislation that would add new restrictions to the process of qualifying for Medicaid is on hold in the Wisconsin Capitol after meeting with resounding opposition at an Assembly hearing less than a week ago.

At a meeting Tuesday to vote on two other bills, State Rep. Dan Knodl (R-Germantown) told the Assembly Committee on Public Benefit Reform that he chairs that the Medicaid measure “has some work to be done yet.”

The bill’s author, Rep. William Penterman (R-Columbus), told the Wisconsin Examiner in an email message Tuesday that the legislation “is still in the Assembly Committee on Public Benefit Reform. The conversation on how to improve the bill is ongoing.”

An opponent of the measure, however, suggested that opposition testimony had prevailed in keeping it from moving forward.

“I think you all realized how terrible and harmful that legislation was,” said committee member Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), directing his comment at his four Republican colleagues. “We heard two and a half hours of testimony overwhelmingly against that [bill].”

Clancy spoke before voting against two other bills that the committee passed 4-2 along party lines — one making sweeping revisions to Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance (UI) system, and the other barring local governments from instituting guaranteed basic income programs using tax dollars. 

Recipients marshal opposition to Medicaid measure

Medicaid covers acute and long-term medical care for low-income people as well as people with disabilities. It’s funded jointly with federal and state money and managed by the state under federal rules and guidelines.

With some exceptions, recipients must have incomes at or below the federal poverty guideline. Most Medicaid recipients must be reviewed once a year to confirm they are still eligible for the program.

AB 163 would direct the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) to conduct eligibility reviews every six months.

It also would add restrictions on the verification process — forbidding the state from automatically renewing Medicaid beneficiaries, forbidding the state from automatically filling in electronic forms with the recipient’s information except for their name and address, and cutting off a person’s ability to enroll in Medicaid for six months for failing to report a change that might make them ineligible.

Penterman, the only witness who testified at the bill’s April 10 public hearing, highlighted the statistic that 20% of Wisconsin residents are on Medicaid. 

He described the legislation as an effort to “reassess and restore integrity to the system by ensuring that only those who are truly needy and truly qualified for this coverage receive benefits.”

But the recurring message from a stream of hearing witnesses — the vast majority of them people with disabilities who rely on Medicaid for long-term health care in their homes or in the community or their family caregivers — was that the current eligibility requirements are already burdensome, and strict enough to keep out people who aren’t eligible.

“We heard from so many people who do a tremendous amount of work to prove to the state that they have low enough income, low enough assets, that they are who they say they are, that they meet the functional screen and all of the other requirements that the department has [for them] to be able to get in or stay in the program,” said Tamara Jackson, legislative policy representative for the Wisconsin Board of People with Developmental Disabilities, in an interview Tuesday.

The hearing came just two days after the bill was introduced April 8. Its fast track prompted an overnight opposition campaign by Medicaid recipients.

“We heard from people across the state who had said that they had contacted their state lawmakers about this particular bill and had really used it as an opportunity to tell them what they do to be allowed in the Medicaid program,” Jackson said.

Federal Medicaid debate draws attention

Recent Congressional action on federal legislation to extend tax cuts enacted in 2017 has included spending targets that would appear to make Medicaid reductions inevitable. Medicaid recipients have been following those debates and making public appeals to oppose cuts in the program — priming them to oppose the state proposal as well.

“I think that people are paying attention, and the reason there were so many contacts is because Medicaid is so important to folks and they’re willing to show up and talk about it,” Jackson said.

At the very start of the April 10 hearing, Penterman alluded to communications he had already received from advocates and said he planned an amendment to exempt people with developmental disabilities from some of the bill’s restrictions. He introduced the amendment later that day.

Several witnesses, however, criticized limiting the amendment to people with developmental disabilities, arguing that the bill’s requirements would be needlessly onerous for many other people.

Sandra Lomeli of Pewaukee was one of the hearing witnesses against the Medicaid bill. She is the mother of two adult children with severe disabilities who are able to get long-term care through Medicaid. One requires 24-hour care as a sexual assault survivor, she said.

Lomeli is also covered by BadgerCare Plus, the Wisconsin Medicaid plan for primary and specialty health care and hospitalization, because being her children’s family caregiver limits her working hours to a part-time nonprofit position.

She told the committee that she fills both sides of a ream’s worth of forms each year to confirm her children’s Medicaid eligibility. She said she spends 54 hours completing those forms and 10 hours confirming her own eligibility each year.

In her testimony Lomeli challenged lawmakers to enlist Medicaid participants and advocates if they wanted to write legislation to improve the program.

It appeared to Lomeli that her suggestion “took people by surprise that we would even be at the table,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “I don’t think they valued that we could add value — because if they did, somebody would have reached out.”

She said she doesn’t consider the legislation dead, however, which concerns her.

“The issue is not off the table yet,” Lomeli said. “They’re just going to reword it. We have won the battle now. We haven’t won the war.

UI change, basic-income ban, both pass on party lines

While setting the Medicaid bill aside Tuesday, the Committee on Public Benefit Reform advanced two others with only Republican votes.

AB 164 would rename Wisconsin’s unemployment insurance system as a “re-employment assistance” program with new requirements for workers and for the state agency that administers it.

Those include requiring recipients, who must currently make four work searches a week, to make two of those in the form of direct contacts with prospective employers. It also adds a variety of additional counseling procedures and requirements for people who receive unemployment benefits.

Department of Workforce Development Secretary-designee Amy Pechacek submitted written testimony expressing “concerns about this proposal due to the anticipated reporting burden for employers, potential costs, bureaucratic requirements, and lack of sustainable funding.”

Gov. Tony Evers vetoed similar legislation in 2023, citing similar complaints as well as the fact that it did not go through the state’s joint labor-management unemployment advisory council.

AB 165 would bar local governments from using tax dollars to create guaranteed income programs without a work or training requirement. Evers vetoed a similar bill to that one in 2023 as well, on the grounds it usurped local control. 

Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) made the same argument against the current legislation.

Knodl defended the both bills as helping to “protect the integrity of these systems, and that’s important if we want them to be sustainable in the future.”

Clancy argued that both should have been put on pause along with the Medicaid bill.

“But all three of those . . . bills are fundamentally the same,” Clancy said. “They are kicking people when they are down. They are hitting people at their most vulnerable, and frankly, in 2025, when national and state Republican policies have meant that people have more needs. We should not be attacking those social safety nets.”

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