WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in a case that could reshape the understanding of who is American by birth.

The case, Trump v. Barbara, challenges President Donald Trump’s executive order that redefines citizenship to exclude children born to parents who either do not have legal status, or hold temporary legal visas. 

It has the potential to upend the guarantee of birthright citizenship in effect since a Supreme Court decision in 1898 that extended citizenship to virtually anyone born in the United States. There is a small carveout for children born to foreign diplomats. 

The Trump administration petitioned the high court in December after multiple lower courts struck down the executive order, finding it violated the Constitution.

Birthright citizenship has been a longstanding core principle in the United States, where nearly any child — regardless of their parents’ immigration status — born on U.S. soil is automatically granted citizenship. Experts have warned that if birthright citizenship were struck down, it would effectively create a class of millions of stateless people.

But what was once a fringe legal theory has been pushed into the mainstream by the president and his far-right allies, who have sought to redefine who is American. 

They argue the citizenship clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which is the basis for birthright citizenship, was meant to apply to newly freed African American slaves after the Civil War, not to children of immigrants. Most legal scholars and historians disagree with that interpretation. 

The text of the clause is: “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.”

After oral arguments are heard on Wednesday, a decision from the Supreme Court is expected before the court’s summer recess begins at the end of the term in late June or early July. 

19th-century case

This is not the first time the Trump administration has brought a birthright citizenship case before the Supreme Court. 

Last year, after federal judges in Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Washington state struck down the president’s executive order, the Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court, but asked the justices to consider the lower courts’ use of universal injunctions, rather than the merits of birthright citizenship.

The justices took up the case, and in a 6-3 vote divided along ideological lines, the use of universal injunctions was curtailed by the conservative wing of the high court. 

After the ruling, immigration advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union filed class action suits, which were successful in blocking the birthright citizenship executive order. The suits argued that future children born in the United States without gaining citizenship constituted a nationwide class.

Cody Wofsy, of the ACLU, is a co-lead attorney in the case and told reporters last week that the Supreme Court already decided the issue of birthright citizenship in 1898.

“The constitutional text is clear, the precedent is clear and the history is clear,” Wofsy said.

The 1898 case, United States vs. Wong Kim Ark, settled the idea that automatic citizenship was granted to children born on U.S. soil, Wofsy said.

Ark, born in San Francisco, was denied entry back into the country after visiting China. Officials at the time argued that because his parents were Chinese citizens in the United States on temporary visas at the time of his birth, and therefore were not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the U.S., he was not a citizen. He took the issue to the high court and in 1898 the Supreme Court affirmed that children born in the United States were guaranteed citizenship.

Arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, Solicitor General D. John Sauer has said that the 1898 case is being misinterpreted, and that it meant to only include children born to parents who were granted authorization to be in the U.S.

“Illegal aliens are not ‘permitted by the United States to reside here,’ and thus their children are excluded from citizenship,” Sauer argued in briefs. 

However, Trump’s executive order would also deny citizenship to children born to parents on temporary visas, such as for work or school. 

Sauer also relies on an 1884 Supreme Court decision that denied citizenship to John Elk, a Native American man born in Nebraska, who was no longer a member of his tribe and tried to become a naturalized U.S. citizen in order to vote. 

Elk was denied citizenship, because he was not “subject to the jurisdiction of” the U.S. because of his “political allegiance” to his tribe, even though he had renounced his tribal citizenship. Congress extended citizenship to all Native Americans in 1924.

Sauer cites the Elk case in his argument that the citizenship clause does not apply to children born to immigrants on temporary visas or undocumented people and “only to those born of parents with primary allegiance to the United States.” The administration is not arguing that Indigenous people should be denied birthright citizenship.

Torey Dolan, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School, said Sauer’s argument wrongly conflates Indigenous people with migrants, despite a long U.S. legal tradition of treating them distinctly. 

“American law has always found a way to distinguish Indigenous people from non-Indigenous people in a way that has never been applied to immigrants,” Dolan, an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, said. 

She noted that in the Declaration of Independence, which includes the grievances of the colonists, one complaint was how British King George III refused to allow for migration into the colonies in order to occupy land stolen from Indigenous tribes. 

“This conflation of immigrants and Indigenous people, for the sake of this argument, I think, is pretty egregious, and I think it really obfuscates American history and its colonial history in particular,” she said. 

‘Pure chaos’

Legal advocates challenging the executive order are confident they will win at the Supreme Court. 

“President Trump’s executive order is plainly unconstitutional and unlawful, and we’re confident that the Supreme Court will reaffirm existing legal precedent and strike down this executive order once and for all,” Hannah Steinberg, a staff attorney for the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told reporters. 

In briefs, the ACLU has also argued that if Trump’s executive order were to go into effect, it would create a stateless class of people. The Migration Policy Institute, a think tank that studies migration, found that the end of birthright citizenship would increase the unauthorized population by an additional 2.7 million by 2045. 

Trump’s push to end birthright citizenship is part of the administration’s broader goal to curtail migration to the U.S., arguing that birthright citizenship is an incentive for unauthorized immigration.

But the idea that people migrate to the U.S. so their children can be born as citizens is not supported by research, Julia Gelatt, the associate director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute, said.

“People move mainly for opportunity for themselves and their children and also for safety,” she said. “There are many unauthorized immigrants who have come to the United States with their own children, who were born in another country, who won’t be U.S. citizens, and they still come.” 

“I don’t think there’s any evidence that birthright citizenship specifically is an independent pull factor. It’s more the safety, the rule of law and the earnings potential that people see in the United States, and the opportunity to reunite with other families is another major factor,” she continued. 

Ama S. Frimpong, the legal director for the immigrant rights group We Are CASA, told reporters that there are practical questions to how Trump’s executive order would even work. 

“What happens in a household in which there are older children who are born here and now, suddenly they have a new baby who’s born tomorrow, and that baby is not going to have the same rights that their siblings have?” she asked. “Is a baby going to be subject to detention and deportation by their very own government that is meant to protect them because they were born here?” 

That reality of birthright citizenship being stripped, Frimpong said, would be “just pure chaos.”

Gov. Tony Evers vetoed Republican lawmakers’ bill that would have opted Wisconsin into a federal program rewarding taxpayers for contributions to private voucher schools and other educational organizations, saying he objected to the national expansion of private school choice and that public funds should go to public schools.

A provision in the federal tax and spending law signed by President Donald Trump in July 2025 will provide a dollar-for-dollar tax credit of up to $1,700 to people who donate to qualifying “scholarship granting organizations.” Donations to organizations are used for educational expenses including tuition and board at private schools, tutoring and books. The provision created the first major federal program to allocate public money towards private school tuition in the form of tax incentives. 

Republican lawmakers, who hold the majority in Wisconsin’s state Legislature, as well as conservative and school choice advocacy groups have advocated for Wisconsin’s participation in the program — highlighting that the funds could be used for costs for public school students, including tutoring, as well as for private school students. However, governors are responsible for opting their states into the program by 2027, meaning they needed to convince Evers, a former state superintendent and public school teacher who had previously expressed skepticism about the program, to opt in. Without Evers’ approval, Wisconsin taxpayers can still reap the benefits of the federal tax credit, but the money they donate will support private school programs in other states.

AB 602 directed Evers to join the program on behalf of Wisconsin. In his veto message, Evers laid out a number of his concerns. 

“This nationwide voucher program has no student achievement metrics, no school accountability measures, no minimum or maximum scholarship size, no certain end date, and no cap on how much the federal government can spend,” Evers said. “Republicans in Washington have given private voucher expansion carte blanche to run roughshod over public education in this country — and a blank check to do so at taxpayer expense, clearly without any regard for whether it actually does what is best for kids.”

Evers also noted that the rulemaking process for the program has not been completed. 

According to an estimate by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the cost of the program could range to as high as $51 billion annually.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, 23 states had opted into the program as of January. Those states, mostly led by Republican governors, include Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, Louisiana and Texas. In February, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis became the first Democratic governor to opt into the program. Other Democratic governors have remained skeptical. 

Evers said in his veto message that Wisconsin is uniquely positioned to understand the effects of voucher expansion and disputed claims that the federal program would provide sufficient support to public school students.  

“As a former science teacher, principal, superintendent, state superintendent and a son of the state that created the nation’s first-ever private school voucher program, I have spent decades of my life watching the impacts that draining public funds from public schools to fund private voucher school programs instead has had on kids, schools and public education in Wisconsin,” Evers said. 

Wisconsin’s school voucher program — from the number of students and schools that participate to the amount of state money invested — has grown exponentially since its inception in Milwaukee in 1990. Growth is likely to accelerate dramatically in the next few years.  Participation caps, which limit the number of students in each district who can participate, have been lifted by 1% each year since 2017. Next year they will be phased out completely. 

“With each passing school year, public school districts continue to endure capped and prorated state funding, strict revenue limits and the need to go to referenda in many cases just to keep up with inflationary pressures to provide a quality education for their kids,” Evers said. “Even now, the Legislature has simultaneously failed to act on my calls to increase funding for special education to ensure the state meets the targets promised in our bipartisan budget.” 

In the most recent state budget, Wisconsin lawmakers provided increases to payments for the school voucher program, but did not provide any additional funding for general aid for public schools. The state’s investment in the special education reimbursement for public schools was not enough to cover the estimated  42% of costs in the first year of the budget and 45% in the second year. 

With funding from the state not keeping pace with inflation, public school districts have turned increasingly to property taxpayers for additional funding that must be approved by voters.

Next week, there will be 74 referendum requests on April ballots across the state — and the results will shape whether school districts can pay their bills, how much staff get paid and whether schools can open their doors next year. A lawsuit filed in February argues that the state isn’t fulfilling its constitutional duties and the current funding formula needs to be overhauled.

Rep. Jessie Rodriguez (R-Oak Creek), who coauthored the school donation tax credit bill with Senate President Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk), wrote in an email to the Wisconsin Examiner that she was “disappointed, but not surprised” Evers vetoed the bill, saying he misunderstands the purpose of the bill. 

“AB 602 would have allowed Wisconsin students to be eligible for more scholarships to use towards the education style that works best for them, whether that be private school tuition or hiring a tutor outside of school time,” Rodriguez said. “This would have benefited K-12 students in all educational settings. For example, a scholarship could have been created to help low-income families send their 8th grade students on their class field trip to Washington, D.C.” 

“It’s just unfortunate, because opting in would have cost the state nothing, and by not opting in Wisconsin will sit idly by while our residents donate to scholarship granting organizations in other states and receive a federal tax benefit for doing so,” she said. “Sadly, we can’t just wait for a new governor in January.” 

Evers is not running for a third term in office this year, meaning the new governor could be a Republican or a Democrat, but will not take office until Jan. 4, 2027. The deadline for states to opt in to the federal program is Jan. 1, 2027. 

Felzkowski said in a statement that Evers was “putting politics over helping Wisconsin students.”

“Apparently, expanded educational opportunities for students in all schools, whether public, private, homeschool or charter, (at NO cost to the state and without the need for a single new bureaucrat!) makes too much sense for the governor. Wisconsin students and families deserve better,” Felzkowski said.

Evers addressed proponents’ argument that “the program will benefit public school students, families, and schools, too” in his veto message.

“Perhaps I am wrong and maybe it will. Nevertheless, right now, I have no such comfort, and my decades of experience in public education in the state with the first and oldest modern voucher program tell me the opposite will be true,” Evers said. “Therefore, I must veto this bill in its entirety. What’s best for our kids is what’s best for our state, and it remains unclear how this bill will do what’s best for the more than 800,000 Wisconsin public school kids for whom the state has a constitutional obligation to adequately provide and invest in public education.”

Peggy Wirtz-Olsen, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union, celebrated the veto in a statement. 

“More than 70 school districts in Wisconsin are going to referendum next week just to have enough money to continue operating because they have been abandoned by the state and federal government,” Wirtz-Olsen said. “Yet the Trump Administration and the Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature think this is a good time to pour tens of billions of dollars into a voucher program that has no standards and no accountability. A veto is the least of what this program deserves.”

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Most Transportation Security Administration officers received a paycheck Monday covering four weeks of back wages that were held up by the funding lapse at the Department of Homeland Security, a TSA spokesperson said.

The lack of pay had produced long wait lines for security checks at some of the nation’s busiest airports after TSA officers quit or called out sick.

The 45-day partial government shutdown of DHS remains ongoing — with each chamber of Congress, both led by Republicans, unable to reach a consensus on a solution. It is now the longest government shutdown in history, exceeding last year’s 43-day record.

But President Donald Trump on Friday ordered the department and the White House Office of Management and Budget to reprogram funds with a “logical nexus” to TSA in order to compensate the airport screeners who had remained on the job without pay.

That month of back pay went out Monday, DHS spokeswoman Lauren Bis wrote in an email.

“Most TSA employees received a retroactive paycheck today that included at least two full paychecks … today,” Bis wrote.

Some TSA workers “might see a slight delay,” which could be attributed to a variety of factors, such as processing by their banks, Bis added. She said the department was working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Finance Center to process the half-paycheck employees missed in February.

Because TSA workers are considered essential, they are required by law to stay on the job even when the government cannot fund their positions. Though they receive back pay once funding is available, long shutdowns cause major problems for workers.

More than 500 TSA workers have quit since the shutdown began and thousands more have missed shifts, Bis wrote.

Breakdown in Congress

The House and Senate passed competing measures Friday to end the shutdown. Because the chambers diverged in how to fund the department, it remains shuttered.

The shutdown began Feb. 14 after Democrats in Congress said they would only support a funding bill for the department if it contained changes in how the Trump administration carried out immigration enforcement following the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by immigration agents in Minneapolis.

Senators last week reached a deal to fund the department except for its immigration enforcement agencies, which received a massive influx from Republicans’ spending and tax cuts law last year. 

The House bill would have extended 2025 funding levels for the entire department for two months. Lawmakers from both chambers left for a two-week recess after passing their respective bills.

White House wants full funding

At a Monday briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt urged Congress to pass full funding for the department.

“The president just can’t keep signing presidential memorandums and proclamations every time Congress fails to do its job and every time Democrats hold our country hostage, picking and choosing the programs and agencies they want to fund just because they don’t like this administration’s policies,” she said. “That’s not how it’s supposed to work.”

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

Wisconsin Elections Commission Chair Ann Jacobs is warning voters that it’s against state law to wager on an election if you are casting a ballot in that race. 

Jacobs’ comments, made last week on X, come as prediction market sites such as Kalshi and Polymarket have continued to grow in popularity. 

“I know it’s all the rage to bet on everything, but you cannot bet on an election in Wisconsin,” Jacobs wrote. “If you do, your ballot can be challenged & thrown out … So go vote and save your $ for playing Euchre with your uncle!” 

Wisconsin’s election laws include a provision that states nobody “shall be allowed to vote in any election in which the person has made or become interested, directly or indirectly, in any bet or wager depending upon the result of the election.” 

Currently on Kalshi, tens of thousands of dollars in bets have been placed on the result, turnout and margin of victory of next week’s state Supreme Court election. Even more money has been wagered on the state’s upcoming race for governor — including $85,000 on the Democratic primary race. 

The ethics of participating in prediction markets have come under scrutiny as their popularity has grown, particularly the opportunity for placing bets that are akin to insider trading. More than $500 million in bets were placed on the prospect of the U.S. going to war with Iran shortly before major announcements about U.S. military actions in the country, NBC News reported. 

The law against betting on elections has been on the books in some form since 1849. Other states, including Arizona and Texas, also have laws against wagering on elections. 

Jacobs told Wisconsin Public Radio that the state isn’t going to go looking for offenders of the election betting law, however if someone brags online about a big win, that could open them up to scrutiny and the potential cancellation of their vote. 

“No, the state is not going out and issuing search warrants to betting platforms to cross reference against voters,” Jacobs told WPR. “I think the most likely way this would come up would be exactly how you think, which is somebody posted on social media saying, ‘Hey, I made this big bet,’ and then someone who doesn’t like them reports it to the authorities.”

Jacobs told the Wisconsin Examiner a voter’s ballot could be voided because of betting through the state’s existing ballot challenge processes, which allow anyone to object to the counting of an absentee ballot. She compared it to challenges that are received for people who post selfies with their ballots.

“Who would do such a thing? people who hate you,” Jacobs said. “It’s almost always the opposing candidate. Is that a lot of work? Yes. Is it sort of silly? Yes. If you think you’re going to get a big amount of money, then don’t vote.”

The emergence of the prediction markets was also an impetus for the state Legislature quickly passing a bill to legalize online sports betting in Wisconsin. That bill is currently awaiting the signature of Gov. Tony Evers.

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Connection, compassion and hope — those are the three key elements members of the Milwaukee Overdose Response Initiative (MORI) say helped lower overdose deaths to levels unseen in Milwaukee County since 2016. “It’s MORI in conjunction with this whole community,” Jonathan Belott, a lieutenant with the Milwaukee Fire Department, told the Wisconsin Examiner. 

“We don’t live in a silo,” said Belott, who’s led the overdose response initiative since its inception in 2019. “We have so many of our different partners that we have come to rely on to get people the help that they need throughout this community.” 

Last year there were 383 fatal overdoses in Milwaukee, the lowest number in a decade, according to the county’s overdose dashboard. That marked a significant reversal of the recent overdose epidemic that peaked in 2022, with 674 fatal overdoses in Milwaukee, fueled by widespread contamination of cocaine, heroin, prescription pills, and other substances with the powerful synthetic opioid fentanyl.

As the crisis accelerated in 2019, Belott was assigned to head a new strategy. “I didn’t even know what I was getting into in that moment,” he told the Examiner, sitting beside fellow firefighter and team supervisor Robert Rehberger and peer support specialist Amy Molinski — both members of the overdose response initiative — at the team’s homebase fire station on Fiebrantz Avenue. 

“I didn’t understand even the full impact of what it was,” said Belott. “I was kind of just told, ‘Hey, you’re going to be this guy.’ But the more you get into it, the more you see how it has been impacting people’s lives over these years…We watched those numbers go up and up…Just a crazy amount of people.”  

Between 2017 and 2025, 4,582 people died across Milwaukee County. Nationwide, overdose deaths became more common than those caused by homicide, car accidents or suicide. The people who died were brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. Some were children younger than 5, others were elders in their 70s. Most were people between 20 and 60 years old. They were unhoused, working class and wealthy people from numerous ethnic and racial backgrounds. Even in Milwaukee — one of America’s most segregated cities — addiction and death have never discriminated.

Every year seemed worse than the last as record-breaking numbers of Milwaukeeans died. “And then we saw just a little decline,” said Belott. Overdose deaths fell by more than 30% in 2024, followed by a sharp drop in 2025. “You’re talking 50% less people dying over the course of the three years,” Rehberger said of the most recent numbers.  

“I’ll say it’s bittersweet,” said Molinski. “And I’ll say that because the number of deaths that we have are still too many. It’s unfortunate that it had to get as high as it did before people were willing to do anything about it.”

Milwaukee’s sharp decrease in overdose deaths mirrors a nationwide trend, tied to stepped-up treatment and harm reduction efforts as well as a shrinking fentanyl supply.

Building a program from scratch

Belott credited Michael Murphy, who served on the common council, with helping steer the first $100,000 to the fire department to start an overdose reduction program. “To his credit, he recognized that we had to do something different than what we were doing,” Belott told the Examiner. 

Although it was just enough money to get a program off the ground, there were questions about what such a program would actually look like. “We had to make the program from absolutely nothing,” said Belott. “Like this didn’t exist anywhere that we knew. …We didn’t base it off anything.” The team itself started off very small. “It was like three hours a day for Monday through Friday,” said Rehberger. “And now we got four teams going out every day doing this work. And it’s just proud to see like,  something come from it.”

The Milwaukee Overdose Response Initiative started by using the fire department’s access to 911 call data to identify people who had survived an overdose within the last 24-48 hours. From there, team members would go out to find those people, and see whether there was any help they could provide. “Help” doesn’t have to mean pressuring someone to go into rehab — although the Milwaukee overdose team also regularly works to get people into treatment programs. With time, the team realized that “help” can also mean getting someone clothes, food, providing them with narcan and other harm reduction supplies, and offering compassionate and non-judgmental support.

Molinski recalled one girl who called the overdose response team because she needed a ride to her psych appointment. “It’s cold, she didn’t want to walk,” Molinski recalled. “So we picked her up and we took her there. We stopped at the food pantry along the way so that she could get some food.”

“Help” can also mean checking in on family members who recently lost a loved one to the overdose crisis, and ensuring they have access to the resources they’ll need to process their loss. Belott said that acts like these are about providing “basic humanity for the people that we work with.” Molinski echoed the sentiment. “It’s helping to eliminate some of the struggle,” she told the Examiner. “We all want to quit when it’s hard.”

The Milwaukee overdose team also had to focus on how it would grow to meet those needs. Like Belott, Rehberger didn’t know what to expect when he joined the team. “I volunteered but I didn’t really know exactly what I was volunteering for at the time,” he told the Examiner. When the team decided to add addiction peer support specialists, Molinski, who is employed by Community Medical Services, a medication-assisted treatment clinic, was brought on. The team’s vehicles, modestly marked with the fire department’s logo and “community paramedics” on the trunk, usually carry two firefighters and one peer supporter.

Working on the overdose response team, Molinski grew to understand just how much people respected the Milwaukee Fire Department. “These guys [firefighters] got rolled into it, and I don’t think that there’s any way that you can’t say that that helped impact the success that we see today,” Molinski, who got into the peer support field after enduring her own battles with addiction, said. When overdose survivors “get greeted by someone in a uniform that doesn’t judge them, tries to take the shame out of what they’re doing and say ‘your life is worth saving, like not just on the street last night but moving forward,’ that means a lot,” she said.

As the overdose response effort evolved, so did team members’ understanding of the epidemic, themselves, and each other. “There was a lot of humility in the beginning,” said Molinski. “There was a lot of us having to look at one another and sometimes kindly, sometimes very directly, [saying] like, ‘Hey, what you just did wasn’t right.’” 

Molinski admitted that “I’m a little rough around the edges” and “I’ve kind of always done things my own way.” She grew to appreciate what representing the fire department meant. “So you can be you, just tone down just a little bit,” she said. “And I needed to hear that. …We learned from one another.” The firefighters learned how to loosen up and Molinski learned how to tighten up, she said, “and we were kind of able to share that with everybody as they came.” 

A conversation, not an interrogation

Firefighters who joined the team also often had to rethink how they approach people struggling with addiction. As emergency responders, Belott and Rehberger were trained to stabilize people, patch them up, and transport them to a hospital in the middle of a crisis. In order to succeed, however, the overdose response effort demanded a completely different modus operandi.

“For us, we’re not there in the crisis moment,” Belott explained. “We’re there following the crisis moment. So we have time…we sit down and we have a conversation, not an interrogation, which is what I used to do at the beginning.” 

“If you have a conversation with somebody, you learn about them…Because a conversation flows,” Molinski said. Rehberger called it “asking a question in a different way, and listening.”

This allowed team members, especially those with no personal experience with addiction, to see a whole new side of the epidemic and what it meant for people fighting to stay alive. The conversations they had affected them deeply, allowing them to experience the gratitude the people they tried to help felt  for anyone willing to treat them with dignity. “Before I came here, one of the things that I wasn’t expecting was how much relationship you grow with the people that we’re meeting,” said Rehberger. “I feel like I was just thinking that it was going to be mostly like a 911 call, you know? Like you’re helping the person in that moment.” Rehberger wasn’t used to people being so grateful on calls that they gave him giant hugs. “Never did I think that I was going to be hugging someone while on the fire department. Ever.” 

Molinski recalled her first month with the overdose response team. “It was in the middle of the summer, it was hot, they didn’t have air conditioning,” Molinski recounted. “He was wearing no shirt, he was smoking cigarettes in his apartment, and it was a lot. And as we left, I hugged him goodbye.” Belott was taken aback, quipping that Molinski was “all in.” The peer support specialist explained that it may have been a very long time since that man had felt “a caring human touch.” 

What winning looks like

Even for Molinski, who’d experienced her own addiction to heroin and other drugs, the conditions people survived day-to-day were startling. “Our stories of addiction while we were in active addiction are insane,” Molinski told the Examiner. People living with an active addiction may or may not have stable housing, regular access to food, hygiene products, transportation, work, or even trustworthy people. Sometimes, the overdose response team would find people only to lose track of them again for over a year.

“They probably lost three phones in those 18 months,” said Molinski. Yet, out of the blue, the same person who couldn’t hold onto a phone might call the overdose response team for help because they had managed to keep a team member’s business card. “I mean, think about that for a second,” said Molinski, “how hard it is to keep track of your property when you’re in active addiction, but somehow a business card was still there to call.” 

Other times, team members learned firsthand just how hard it is for people to stop using drugs. “People are trying,” said Molinski. “… not everybody is just choosing to stay in their addiction. Some of them don’t see a way out. They’ve tried and they can’t get out. And when you see that, it’s easier to treat people with a little bit more compassion. Give somebody a little bit of grace as to why they’re still in that situation.”

Rehberger remembered checking on a woman, who contacted the team saying that she didn’t have any clothes. “I didn’t know what that meant, honestly,” said Rehberger. When team members met the woman they realized that she literally didn’t have clothes to wear. So they got her clothes, then food, and then they returned to see if she’d go into treatment. When they did, the woman told them, “Honestly, I would never have gone in for treatment the next day had you not gotten me the food first,” Rehberger recounted. 

Belott said that simply getting through the door to have a conversation was a success. “If they’re willing to sit down and talk with some strangers in uniform, that’s an amazing thing,” he said. “And we show up and they know, OK, somebody’s following up, somebody gives a crap about me.” 

Team members have dropped off birthday cupcakes to people living in homeless encampments, and celebrated “clean days,” marking milestones for people who’ve quit drugs. Molinski recalled one unhoused man the team had been trying to locate for a long time. After connecting with his grandparents, the team was able to arrange for him to get into detox before going off to a residential facility. It turned out the man was living near an alley. He conveyed to the team that he didn’t want members to park too close to the site.  So they stood near a pizza sign, yelled his name, and he came out accompanied by a friend. “My buddy needs help, too,” he said. 

The overdose response team’s efforts were the subject of intense debate in the community. Team members often found themselves fighting the stigma and shame attached to addiction. Some people were confused about why the team tried so hard, even questioning whether the city would be better off just letting people die. With patience and much labor, however, some people’s minds changed. Belott wondered, “How many 10-minute conversations have we had over the years? And how many minds [were] changed by doing that?” 

Success can be measured in concrete results like the lower number of fatal overdoses. But not every achievement can be recorded on a spreadsheet, and not every good deed results in a life saved.

About eight months into the program, team members were working with a young woman they had come to know well.  “We actually got told that we weren’t allowed to see her anymore,” said Molinski. “We were too invested…She saw us a lot. She was not in good shape. This girl was struggling. And we just kept going to see her. And we didn’t know how we were going to help her, if we could help her. We had no idea what to do.” First they tried reaching her parents, who were exhausted by their daughter’s  addiction. The mother hadn’t seen her in over 200 days, and the father didn’t want her back home because she was prone to stealing. 

Team members eventually found out that she was sustaining herself as a sex worker on Milwaukee’s North Side. Besides her addiction, she also suffered from the condition endocarditis which causes inflammation of the heart. Team members accompanied her to the hospital so that she could get a Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter (PICC) line, a procedure which frightened her.

Then one day the team got a call from a man she was staying with, saying that she was lying in the bathroom and couldn’t get up. She was rushed to the emergency room. She asked team members to bring some of her favorite treats, a Sprite and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, when they visited. 

It was her thirtieth birthday when the team visited the hospital and brought her a blanket and a book to read. “She was completely unconscious, unable to speak in any way,” said Molinski. “And then the day after that, her family called [Belott] and I and said, ‘We’ve made the decision to take her off of life support. And we would like to invite you guys to come and say goodbye if you would like.’” 

Molinski said that she and Belott “were too invested…We were all f-ing in…And we went, and we cried over her bed, and we said goodbye to her, and her family took her off life support, and that sucked.” Yet, Molinski also had texts that the young lady sent her saying that she loved them, and that knowing them was the first time in years that she felt that anyone cared about her. “And she died,” Molinski said, shedding tears, “but she died feeling loved.” Her parents saw that love, too. “I don’t care what anybody says…The numbers say that was a fail,” said Molinski. “They weren’t there. It wasn’t a fail. …We made that girl feel like she was worth something before she left the world. We met her too late, we couldn’t help her. But she felt loved when she left.”

Despite the loss, the team knew that they’d done something good that day. “I think about her all the time,” said Molinski. Belott, the team leader who was sitting near her and Rehberger, wiped tears from his eyes. 

“I still have a list of the books that she wanted me to bring her when she was in the hospital. I can’t delete it off my phone,” said Molinski. “She made an impact on me. And we were told to stop. And we didn’t stop.” 

What Milwaukee needs to keep overdose deaths down

Since the Milwaukee Overdose Response Initiative began its work in 2019, Milwaukee County has made great strides against the overdose and addiction epidemics. Narcan — the crucial spray-medication used to revive an overdose victim — can be found in bars, grocery stores, hospitals, restaurants, and free-to-use vending machines. Not only is Narcan carried by firefighters and other emergency responders, but ordinary people can be trained to use it. “Keep that Narcan flowing out there,” Belott stressed. 

Several Milwaukee County communities have adopted their own kinds of overdose response teams. The West Allis fire department, which recently integrated with Wauwatosa’s, has launched one such effort. The state of Wisconsin also legalized testing strips both for fentanyl and xylazine — a potent tranquilizer — allowing people to check drugs for dangerous substances before using them. New treatment centers have opened in parts of the county. Even within local jails, people are able to access medication-assisted treatment and take the first steps towards recovery.

Many of those resources are also distributed by the Milwaukee Overdose Response Initiative  for free in the form of “Hope Kits.” Similar to a small plastic purse, with the word “Hope” printed on it in bright red lettering, the kits are stocked with Narcan, testing strips and contact information for treatment centers, therapy, and groups like Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous. All frontline firefighters are deployed with Hope Kits.

The Milwaukee overdose response team’s work is funded by opioid settlement funds, paid out by the pharmaceutical companies that helped spark the opioid epidemic. With those funds, and additional grants, the team is able to keep the lights on and grow its coterie of firefighters, peer support specialists, vehicles, and harm reduction resources. “We’re proud of MORI,” Belott told the Examiner. 

Treatment is still in short supply. Often, the team is forced to look for residential treatment beds outside of Milwaukee County. Sometimes that’s a good idea for people who need to sever their old connections. But for those facing transportation challenges, it can be difficult. Molinski, Belott and Rehberger also said no residential treatment centers in Milwaukee have proper accommodations for people with disabilities.

“There is none. Zero,” said Molinski. “Not a single place where someone can get help in a wheelchair. Or somebody that simply hurt themselves while using and is on crutches, they also can’t go.” 

Ultimately, the greatest resource the overdose response team can provide is hope. Regardless of what they’ve done, or experienced, people’s lives are worth saving, team members said. In Molinski’s case, it was disconnection and feeling empty that led her into drug use, and it was connection and hope that pulled her out of it.  

“My life was worth saving,” said Molinski. “It would’ve been really hard to convince someone of that back in 2006, 2007…That would’ve been a tough sell. My parents were starting to wonder if it was worth it for them to keep fighting. But it was worth it!” Today, she is raising a teenage daughter, and works in a field where she can help people who struggle like she did. But to get there, Molinski had to keep trying. “I never dreamt that this was waiting for me,” she said.

This article has been edited to reflect that Ald. Michael Murphy helped steer funds to get the overdose team started, not Ashanti Hamilton.

All 41 states that expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act will see fewer people covered due to new federal work requirements and more frequent eligibility checks. But the percentage of recipients who lose coverage will vary greatly from state to state, depending on how state officials implement the new rules, according to a new report.

The report, released this week by the Urban Institute with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, projects that in 2028, between 4.9 million and 10.1 million people will lose coverage as a result of the federal policy changes included in the broad tax and spending measure President Donald Trump signed last summer. That prediction is roughly in line with estimates by the Congressional Budget Office, which projected last fall that the changes would increase the number of people without health insurance by 7.5 million in 2034.

Whether the actual number ends up at the low end or the high end of that estimate will depend on state policy, according to the researchers. States that automatically check eligibility using data-matching, impose the minimum work requirements allowed under federal law and broadly define certain exemptions, such as those for “medical frailty,” will minimize the number of people who lose coverage.

On the other end of the spectrum, states that require stricter documentation of work hours and implement narrower exemptions will see more people dropped from the rolls.

With stricter state policies, the report projected that eight states — Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, Vermont and Wisconsin — would see a decline in enrollment of 60% or more. (Wisconsin hasn’t expanded Medicaid under the ACA, but it was included in the study because it received a federal waiver that makes some of its Medicaid enrollees subject to work requirements.)

Arkansas, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Oregon would have the smallest declines under strict policies, but would still see losses ranging from 37% to 46%.

With the least stringent policies, North Dakota and South Dakota would have the smallest declines — 18% and 19%, respectively. Even under lax rules, six states — Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, New York, Virginia, Vermont —- would see declines of 30% or more.

Nationwide, between 19% and 37% of people who already work will lose Medicaid coverage, according to the analysis, due to challenges such as fulfilling the documentation requirements to prove that they work.

States have to enforce work requirements by next January. They may enforce them earlier via a waiver or state plan amendment, but so far only one state, Nebraska, has announced a plan to implement the requirements earlier, in May.

Some groups are exempt from the work requirements, including American Indian and Alaska Natives, people deemed “medically frail,” households receiving benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, caretakers for children under age 13 or for those with disabilities, foster care youth and former foster care youth under age 26, among others.

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

When an Alabama clinic’s only OB-GYN left the state to provide abortion care in Colorado, the head of operations thought the facility would have to close. 

But Robin Marty, executive director at WAWC Healthcare in Tuscaloosa, hired a doctor in August who she called a “unicorn” — someone who’s from Alabama and, after training outside of the state, returned home to practice medicine. 

Marty said Alabama’s near-total abortion ban could cause physicians to practice elsewhere after they finish their residencies. 

“Doctors don’t want to worry about surveillance, potential arrests and other legal issues,” she said. 

A study published this month found that applications to medical residency programs in states with abortion restrictions have declined compared to states where abortion remained mostly legal. The findings are an “early signal” that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision nearly four years ago overturning federal abortion rights protections may exacerbate health care shortages, said lead author Dr. Anisha Ganguly.

A majority of doctors end up practicing medicine in states where they trained. Obstetrician and gynecology training programs typically take four years to complete, so the full scope of how abortion restrictions affect where physicians work after they complete their residencies remains to be seen. 

Still, experts said the findings could spell trouble for the future of the reproductive health care workforce in states with abortion restrictions, some of which are already plagued with maternity care deserts. 

Doctors say bans limit training, standards of care

OB-GYNs affiliated with Physicians for Reproductive Health who either trained or work in states with abortion bans told States Newsroom that restrictions after the Supreme Court decision hamstrung their ability to offer reproductive care and affected the education of medical residents. 

Dr. Neha Ali grew up in Texas and trained there, too. But by the end of her OB-GYN residency’s second year, the state enacted SB 8, a six-week abortion ban that allowed residents in the state to sue providers or anyone who helped someone terminate a pregnancy. After the Dobbs decision in June 2022, a near-total abortion ban took effect in Texas.

“I knew I wanted to be an abortion provider before I started OB-GYN residency, and I chose to be in Texas for my residency training because I wanted to experience what that’s like in a state with barriers. But ultimately, the barriers became too large,” Ali said. 

After she finished residency in 2024, Ali moved to Colorado, a state with strong abortion-rights protections, where she practices complex family planning.

Ali said she talks to medical students about her experience training in Texas, where she was not able to perform any dilation and evacuations — a second-trimester abortion procedure — during residency. 

“I do think it’s very valuable to see what it’s like to be in a restrictive state and understand what that is like to be a provider there, but that doesn’t sell people on a residency for four years,” she said.

OB-GYN Dr. Louis Monnig trained in Kentucky before the state banned abortion. 

“Making it difficult or putting up barriers to that training just limits the abilities of any doctor who provides reproductive care to have opportunities to get exposure and experience, and just get better at what they’re doing,” he said. 

Monnig completed his residency in June 2023 and moved back to his home state of Louisiana because of his connections to the region and its health care disparities. “It felt like it was worth it to come back,” he said. 

In October 2024, a Louisiana law classifying mifepristone and misoprostol as controlled dangerous substances took effect. 

“It made me lose faith that lawmakers were doing any of these things to actually protect patients or patient safety,” he said. 

The medications are used not only for abortions, but miscarriages and other conditions, too. The law has sowed confusion among health care providers and led some to practice emergency drills to access the drugs during obstetric emergencies, Louisiana Illuminator reported. Monnig said the law has “changed some of the day-to-day operational workflow for patient care,” especially for situations where misoprostol is used, such as labor induction and postpartum hemorrhaging. 

Patients have faced issues when trying to get prescriptions filled: Pharmacists have called Monnig’s office to make sure a patient wasn’t having an abortion after he prescribed misoprostol for conditions such as cervical stenosis — when it’s difficult to insert a medical instrument in the cervical canal.

Drop in applications to ban states’ residency programs

Out of more than 22 million applications to 4,315 residency programs across the U.S., 67% were submitted to programs in states without abortion restrictions between 2018 and 2023, the new research showed. Thirty-three percent went to programs in states with restrictions. 

Fewer women than men applied to train in states with abortion restrictions before the Supreme Court’s landmark abortion ruling, according to the study, and that disparity widened after more than a dozen states enacted abortion bans. The number of men applying to residency programs in states with abortion restrictions — mostly in the South and the Midwest — also decreased significantly. 

“When there’s a decreased level of interest in these states, it suggests to us that there’s an evolving health care workforce shortage in these states,” said Ganguly, an internal medicine physician and an assistant professor at University of North Carolina’s Division of General Medicine and Epidemiology. 

Many states with abortion bans — Idaho, Iowa, Georgia and Missouri, for example — are also facing labor and delivery unit closures, particularly in rural areas where hospitals struggle with provider recruitment. Health officials in these states listed improvements to maternal health as a priority in their applications to the federal Rural Health Care Transformation Program, but solutions will take years to implement. 

Shortages affect more than one specialty. Ganguly said OB-GYNs have historically offered the bulk of abortion-related care in the U.S., but it’s increasingly important in emergency medicine, family medicine and internal medicine. Primary care providers and emergency medicine doctors often diagnose pregnancy complications such as miscarriages, and internists help women who have chronic disease manage and plan for pregnancy. 

Dr. Hector Chapa, an OB-GYN who teaches obstetrics and gynecology at Texas A&M University and is a member of the American Association of Pro–Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, took issue with the study’s approach. 

“It’s essential to understand that this study is not specific to OB‑GYN residency programs, and by grouping OB‑GYN with family medicine, internal medicine and emergency medicine, the study assumes that all specialties are affected equally, despite their very different levels of involvement in abortion. This broad grouping risks introducing bias into the results,” he said in a statement. 

Ganguly said her team did examine applications to OB-GYN residency programs in isolation to affirm findings of a decline among applicants in abortion-restricted states. Looking at other specialties, too, was meant to provide clarity about how bans affect the health care workforce more broadly.

OB-GYN education and the maternal health care workforce 

The latest study adds to a body of research examining how the Supreme Court’s decision on abortion in 2022 affected training after medical school, particularly for those specializing in reproductive health care. 

In the 2023-2024 application cycle, the number of applicants to training programs in states with abortion bans decreased by 4.2% compared to the previous cycle, while there was less than a 1% decrease in applications to residency programs in states where abortion is legal, according to the American Association of Medical Colleges. 

In some states, abortion bans have definitively led to an exodus of OB-GYNs and maternal fetal medicine specialists. Idaho lost 35% of its doctors who provide obstetrics between August 2022 and December 2024, according to a study published in July. 

Having reproductive health providers flee states with abortion bans is “devastating,” according to Pamela Merritt, the executive director of Medical Students for Choice. 

“It’s a public health disaster that we’re going to see the consequences of decades to come,” she said. 

Merritt’s organization has chapters at several medical schools in states with abortion bans. She said students are not getting adequate training, and some are even discouraged from discussing abortion. 

In February, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center canceled a Medical Students for Choice chapter’s talk with an OB-GYN who wrote a book about providing abortion care later in pregnancy. School officials told The Texas Tribune hosting the event on campus was not in the university’s best interests.   

“Everybody who graduates from medical school in Texas should know that there’s this thing called third-trimester abortion, that when the life of the mother is at risk, you legally can provide this care,” Merritt said. 

Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed legislation last year clarifying that doctors can offer pregnant women abortions during medical emergencies. The Texas Medical Board released guidelines for the abortion law this year, nearly half a decade after the state banned most abortions and at least four Texans died after being denied prompt abortion care, ProPublica reported. 

Program helps residents in restrictive states get abortion care training 

“Every single physician, nurse and health care provider needs to be educated about abortion care,” said Dr. Jody Steinauer, an OB-GYN and the director of the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health at the University of California in San Francisco. “This is a huge crisis in OB-GYN specifically: All OB-GYNs must have the competence and the skill to safely empty the uterus. Even if the individual is personally uncomfortable providing abortion care, they have to be able to empty the uterus to save someone’s life in an emergency.”

Steinauer leads the Ryan Residency Training Program, which works with OB-GYN residencies across the country to ensure comprehensive abortion and family planning rotations. Nearly a dozen states lack Ryan programs, and most of them have near-total abortion bans. 

She said residencies in states with abortion bans are struggling to make sure their students have the skills to provide abortion: “We’re at risk of having a whole generation of OB-GYN graduates who are not skilled to provide the care they need to provide.” 

To remedy this issue, the Ryan Program has helped to establish 20 partnerships with schools in abortion-restrictive states to train OB-GYN medical residents in states with reproductive rights protections. 

Steinauer said the rotations are between two to four weeks and complicated to plan, but they help doctors learn procedural skills, how to manage medication abortions and counseling. 

The rotations also help OB-GYNs navigate pain management during obstetric procedures, communicate effectively with abortion patients and familiarize themselves with ultrasounds, she said. These skills are important for providing the full spectrum of reproductive health care, from inserting IUDs to treating miscarriages, the doctor said. 

“It’s such a refreshing experience for them to be working in a state without a ban, and they get to see abortion as normal health care,” she said. 

Update: This story has been updated to correct that the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health is located at the University of California in San Francisco. 

Mukta Joshi, an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today, is a New York Times Local Investigations fellow examining the ICE detention facility at Adams County Correctional Center. States Newsroom is partnering with Mississippi Today and The New York Times on this project. Mukta can be reached at mukta.joshi@nytimes.com. You can read the entire series here.

The Adams County Correctional Center, one of more than 200 ICE detention facilities in the U.S., is located near the city of Natchez on a sprawling 14-acre site in southwestern Mississippi.

The facility, which holds more than 2,000 people, is a significant economic driver in a county of fewer than 30,000 residents. CoreCivic employs approximately 400 people there, making it one of the largest employers in Adams County. Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson said CoreCivic is the county’s single largest taxpayer.

The federal government sets strict limits on who can visit Immigration and Custom Enforcement detention centers. And nearly all of them are run by for-profit companies, making the details of their operation private and difficult to monitor. 

So far, this is what we know.

Who owns it?

The Adams facility is privately owned and operated by CoreCivic Inc., a publicly traded company based in Tennessee. 

One of the largest private prison companies in the country, it disclosed in its most recent financial filings that it owns or controls about 57% of all privately owned prison beds in the U.S. 

The company, which reported $2.2 billion in revenue last year, has benefited financially from the Trump administration’s push to arrest immigrants. From 2024 to 2025, revenue increased by nearly $200 million thanks largely to an increase in ICE detentions, according to the company’s latest annual report.

Over the past few years, CoreCivic, its employees and PACs have poured millions of dollars into political donations and lobbying. In the 2024 election cycle, 84% of these donations went to Republican candidates. In the same cycle, CoreCivic spent more than $1.7 million lobbying, according to OpenSecrets. The previous year, it spent more than $1.6 million.

The Adams County facility is one of two ICE facilities operated by CoreCivic in the state. A second CoreCivic facility in Tutwiler, in northern Mississippi, was authorized last year to start housing ICE detainees.

What kinds of people are detained there? 

The Adams facility is a men’s facility. Most of its detainees are not from Mississippi. They were picked up by ICE agents somewhere else and are being held here until they decide to leave the country, or until an immigration judge deports them or sets them free.

Being in the U.S. without proper documentation is a civil infraction, like a speeding ticket – not a criminal violation. This fact has contributed to controversy about prison-like conditions that people detained by ICE are experiencing.

Only 9% of people in the Adams center have any sort of criminal conviction. But even those with criminal records are being held for civil immigration infractions, not as punishment. 

In addition to men, the facility currently houses a small number of transgender women. Following President Trump’s 2025 executive order, transgender people are required to be incarcerated in facilities that align with their gender assigned at birth, regardless of their legal status.

How long are detainees held?

In early 2025, then-warden Jason Streeval was quoted by the Natchez Democrat as saying that the average stay in the facility was about 60 days but had been getting longer. He told the newspaper that some detainees had been there for as long as seven months. 

Has the facility ever been the subject of controversy? 

The Adams facility made headlines in 2012, when an inmate protest against poor conditions snowballed into a riot that resulted in the killing of a guard. The FBI opened an investigation, leading to a number of inmates being charged and ultimately sentenced for participating in the riot. In the wake of the riot, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson called for an investigation into CoreCivic, then operating as Corrections Corporation of America.

One section of the facility, known as the “Zulu” unit, contains solitary confinement cells, where detainees are housed as punishment. In 2020, two nonprofit groups submitted a written complaint to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security alleging that immigrants from Cameroon had been tortured by ICE officers in that ward and forced to sign deportation documents. A year later, the complaint was still unresolved, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights. A representative for ICE did not respond to an inquiry about the current status of the complaint.

In 2021, an inspection by DHS found that Adams generally had provided sufficient medical care but identified one case in which the medical unit examined a sick detainee but did not send the person to the hospital. The detainee died. 

DHS also found that Adams didn’t meet other federal standards. Among the cited failures: It did not respond to grievances in a timely manner, it inadequately implemented COVID-19 safety protocols and it failed to assist vulnerable detainees. The ACLU called for the facility to be shut down.

What’s life like inside? 

The facility is divided into units, each holding about 140 people who share eight toilets and 15 showers, according to detainees interviewed by Mississippi Today. While inside, detainees can work if they choose, helping to clean, run the kitchen or do laundry. Several people held at the center said they were paid about $3.50 per day for their work.

Detainees are generally restricted to their own unit, where they can move about freely. One detainee said he was allowed to visit a secure outdoor area once every four or five days.

Several detainees described harsh conditions, but said that they had spent time in other facilities that were far dirtier and more restrictive. 

We don’t know much beyond that, especially about what the detention center looks like inside. A detainee who can afford the fees can send messages and make video calls from inside. They can’t send photos or attachments. And the communication app blurs their background and obscures the video completely if the camera is aimed away from the detainee’s face during a call.

How much does it cost to run? 

The contract to run this facility, like most other ICE detention centers, is an “Intragovernmental Service Agreement” between ICE, CoreCivic and Adams County. The 2019 agreement shows that ICE had agreed to pay a $3.9 million monthly flat rate for the facility, an amount set to increase every year. There have since been changes to this contract, but they were not immediately accessible. 

When we requested an interview with the warden and assistant warden, a spokesperson for CoreCivic redirected us to the company’s public affairs office and requested us to send our questions in writing. 

Over the next few months, we plan to publish weekly dispatches about the facility and about ICE detention in Mississippi and do our best to address these unanswered questions. You’ll be able to find my reporting on the Mississippi Today website, on our social media channels and in our Friday newsletter. And you can follow me on X @mukta_jo.

In the meantime, please fill out our survey. If you know something about the detention center, if you know someone who works there or is detained there, or want me to find out something about it for readers, please get in touch.

Clarification 3/27/26: This story has been updated to clarify the types of detainees held in the Adams County Correctional Center.

Several hundred Madison-area Christians gathered at the state Capitol Sunday for the Palm Sunday Path, a faith-based rebuke to the administration and actions of President Donald Trump.

 The procession was organized as a form of resistance to authoritarianism that organizers say Trump has embraced in the White House. 

“We believe that now is not the time for the followers of Jesus to be silent,” the Rev. Will Massey, associate pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Madison, said in a video posted on Facebook about the Palm Sunday Path by the Wisconsin Council of Churches, which sponsored the program in Madison and in other communities across the state.

“Anchored in the Matthew 25 call to feed the hungry, heal the sick, and welcome the stranger, we follow Jesus to the seat of power to witness to Christ’s reign of justice, peace, and shared belonging,” the council states on its website. “Grounded in worship and open to all who long to follow Jesus in the work of healing the world, this gathering proclaims Christ’s power of love, solidarity, compassion, and peace.”

Participants came from congregational, Lutheran, Methodist, Presbyterian and other Christian traditions. Many carried green palm tree fronds, evoking the story told in the Christian Bible of Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem the week before his death and being greeted by shouts of praise and appeals for deliverance from his followers as they waved palm tree branches.

In a sermon before the group started their walk around the Capitol, Rev. David Hart of Sherman Avenue United Methodist Church told the participants that Jesus during his lifetime paid attention to and identified with the outcasts of society — the poor, the sick, the imprisoned and those ignored by the ruling powers of Rome, who occupied Israel 2,000 years ago.

In the procession that followed, the group walked all four sides of the Capitol Square, singing on their way, led by musician Sarah Burgess.

The event took place a day after the No Kings protests that mobilized millions of people across the country in opposition to Trump, and leaders and participants of the Palm Sunday Path echoed many of the same sentiments — defending immigrants, calling for the respect for human rights and lifting up marginalized groups.

But some put a different twist on the No Kings message, nodding to the common Christian expression that identifies Jesus as the King for Christian believers.

That was reflected on signs such as one carried by a person in the procession that referred to the gospel of Matthew, Chapter 25, verse 35: “Our king says: I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”

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Protesters took to the streets in cities and rural communities Saturday to rally against President Donald Trump’s policies in the third No Kings demonstration since the Republican’s return to office last year.

Organizers said there were more than 3,000 events across the nation expected to draw millions. It came one month after the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran began. The war was among many issues that demonstrators said brought them out, also citing aggressive ICE actions toward immigrants, the rising cost-of-living and attacks on the constitution, and civil and voting rights.

Here is a look at some of the rallies from across the nation.

More than 10,000 march to Wisconsin State Capitol

Indivisible Madison East estimates that more than 10,000 people came out for the third round of No Kings protests in Wisconsin’s capital city.

Madison protestors met at Brittingham Park, a public park that sits on Monona Bay, around 12:30 p.m. and, led by a group of women in Statue of Liberty costumes, marched more than a mile to the Wisconsin State Capitol. 

Protesters highlight two developments since the last No Kings protest in October: President Donald Trump’s decision to unilaterally launch a war with Iran and his decision to send federal immigration agents  to the Twin Cities, escalating mass deportation efforts, resulting in the deaths of two American citizens at the hands of federal agents. 

Protesters carried U.S. flags, some of them positioned upside down to signal dire distress. There were many signs critical of the Trump administration. 

Megan McKay, a Madison resident who grew up in the Chicago area, told the Wisconsin Examiner that immigration was the main issue that brought her out to protest for a third time since Trump took office, due to personal experience that has shaped her outlook. She said her father immigrated to the U.S. from Belfast, Northern Ireland when he was “wee” but received a deportation letter in 2019. She said they were lucky to be able to work through the system to allow him to stay.

“We, quote, unquote, look like we’re supposed to be here. We speak English. I feel like it’s completely unacceptable what this current administration is doing,” McKay said. “Our country was founded on immigrants. We are the land of opportunity, and we’ve completely lost sight of that.”

McKay said she thinks more people are having an “aha” moment about Trump, and she is confident there could be a blue wave in this year’s midterm elections. Wisconsin will have critical elections on the ballot for governor, the state Legislature and Congressional seats in November

As protesters marched, they chanted phrases including “One, two, three, four: we don’t want your bloody war! Five, six, seven, eight: stop the killings, stop the hate!” and “No ICE, no bombs, no billionaires.” 

On the steps of the state Capitol, they were met by the Raging Grannies, who sang songs about democracy.

Dane County Circuit Court judge and Rev. Everett Mitchell was the keynote speaker. He told the crowd he was traveling in the Middle East when  the U.S. launched the war against Iran last month. 

“I was scheduled to come home, and then… the bombs started falling on Iran. The drones started going up and the skies over the Gulf were filled with things that were not supposed to be in the sky,” he said.

Mitchell said for several days there was no word from the U.S. government to citizens traveling abroad, and no flights available to leave.

“I wanted you to sit with that idea for a moment that an America that claims to be superior, had left its citizens stuck in a foreign land because they had engaged in the war that nobody voted for,” he said. 

Mitchell said the U.S. bombing of a girl’s school in Iran on Feb. 28, which resulted in the deaths of more than 170 people including young students, felt like “history repeating itself.” He  compared it to the bombing of a Birmingham church by the Ku Klux Klan in 1963, which killed four young Black girls. He said some of the remarks that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made following the attack were stuck in his head. 

“[King] said that the tragic, unspeakable murder of those girls was not the act of a lone bomber, but it was a product of every politician who fed his constituents the stale bread of hatred,” Mitchell said. 

Mitchell read the names of some of the young children who died in the attack including Hana Dehqani, who was 8, and Zahra Bahrami, who was 7. He added that  “every child deserves to have protection,” and he urged the protesters to not let their action end at the protest. 

“The outrage has to become something. The anger has to become something. The sign making, the marching, the protest, it has to become something. It has to become more votes. It has to become more bodies in the street. It has to become voices at the school board and has to become candidates on the ballot who are actually committed to the community that they serve our organization,” Mitchell said. “It has to mean something because they’re asking us to build something that is different in our world.”

 — Baylor Spears

 Thousands fill Milwaukee’s Washington Park bandshell for No Kings protest

No Kings demonstrations took place across the Milwaukee area Saturday, from the inner city to surrounding suburban communities. In Washington Park, a bandshell meant to accommodate 8,000 people was filled up with residents of all ages, races and creeds. Holding homemade signs, with some people clad in costumes, the crowd voiced its collective discontent with the war in Iran and the  policies of the Trump administration.

Near Washington Park, cars jostled for any parking they could find in the surrounding neighborhoods, as curious neighbors watched people stream past. Several local activist groups had established tents and tables, offering free information or the opportunity to join their organizations. Food trucks were parked nearby, and rally organizers encouraged people to grab a bite to eat before a planned two-mile march. Campaign workers for Francesca Hong and Sara Rodriguez, two Democratic hopefuls running in the primary to replace Gov. Tony Evers combed the crowd for potential supporters. 

Local Milwaukee rap artists and bands entertained the crowd before a short line-up of speakers took the stage, blasting the Trump administration’s policies on immigration, the wars in Iran and Gaza, military action against Venezuela, immigration, reproductive access and the rising cost of living.

Marchers filled the streets, forming a long stream that  stretched for block after block. Volunteer street marshals from local activist groups worked in tandem with the Milwaukee Police Department to block off roads and redirect traffic as the march worked its way through  neighborhoods. 

As the marchers passed, drumming and chanting, onlookers cheered. “Say it once and say it twice, we will not put up with ICE!” the protesters yelled in unison. “No Trump, no KKK, no Fascist USA!” “Raise your voice, take a stand, no war in Iran!” 

The protest march was so large that different sections of the march had separate, simultaneous chants. “From Palestine to Mexico, these border walls have to go!” “From Mexico to the Phillipines, let’s end the U.S. war machine!” “No Kings, no wars, we won’t take it anymore!” Once the massive march returned to Washington Park, it took several minutes for the end of the stream of people to arrive. 

No Kings demonstrations were also organized on Milwaukee’s East Side. The surrounding suburbs of Greenfield and Shorewood also had protests, as did the more conservative communities of Waukesha, Brookfield, and Oconomowoc. 

— Isiah Holmes

3rd Congressional District’s No Kings protests continue to grow 

Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District hugs the state’s border with Minnesota along the Mississippi River from Grant County in the far southwestern corner of the state up to Pierce County in the shadow of the Twin Cities. 

At No Kings protests in La Crosse and Viroqua on Saturday, area residents said they were motivated to raise their voices to support their neighbors in nearby Minnesota who were targeted by a violent immigration crackdown, and to express their displeasure with Republicans — especially Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, a vocal ally of President Donald Trump who has represented the district since 2023. 

The campaign to unseat Van Orden in the 3rd CD is a closely watched contest for a swing district seat Democrats might be able to flip as they attempt to win back a majority in the House of Representatives in 2026. 

On Saturday in La Crosse and Viroqua, protesters asked about Van Orden responded with eye rolls, name calling and, in one case, a fart noise. While people who came out for the No Kings protests said they were excited for the chance to vote Van Orden out of office this fall, most said they had not yet made a decision about who to support in the district’s Democratic primary. 

In Viroqua, a community focused on art and organic food that has developed into a hippie outpost in the midst of bright red Vernon County, dozens of protesters packed the corners of the busy intersection at Main Street and Decker Street. A brass band played “This Land is Your Land” as  passers-by honked in support. 

Mark Larson, a 28-year U.S. Army veteran, said the large crowd at the Viroqua protest was a reflection of how the community feels about the president. 

“I’m optimistic the Republicans are going to be unseated, we’ll see some change,” he said. “We’ll have someone in Congress who will stand up and say no to the president. Van Orden is a disgrace.” 

Kim, a Viroqua resident who would only give her first name, moved to the area with her husband Bruce from rural Minnesota nearly three years ago to find a more inclusive place to live. 

“Being here is an antidote to despair,” she said of joining other rural residents who came out on a chilly spring morning to air their grievances with the federal government. 

Maggie Van Alstyne, a resident of nearby Westby who arrived at the protest with her face painted green and dressed as the Statue of Liberty, said she’s attended protests on all three No Kings days and feels like they’ve grown each time. 

“It’s awesome people are starting to not be afraid,” she said. “More people are for this cause than against.” 

Van Alstyne complained about the Trump administration reducing people’s freedoms while making things more expensive and lamented the effect Trump’s policies have had on farmers. She said Van Orden, who sits on the House agriculture committee, is a “blowhard” who only “talks from his barstool.” 

In the larger city of La Crosse, hundreds of people lined the streets up and down the intersection of Losey Boulevard and State Road. People flying flags and singing karaoke filled the empty parking lot of a shuttered K Mart store. The honking from supportive motorists was constant. 

Lindsay Fischer, a La Crosse resident originally from the Twin Cities area, said she’d been feeling “hopeless” about her inability to do anything about the Trump administration’s ICE operations in her home town. But the protest Saturday was a way for her to voice her support for her friends and family at home who had been directly involved in resisting federal efforts. 

“We will not let tyrants take over,” she said. 

La Crosse residents Joe and Sue Anglehart said they’d been to every No Kings protest in the community. 

“We need to support citizens’ right to freedom,” Sue said. “Our country is a mess.” 

— Henry Redman

In Dodgeville, defiant cheer, chants and music even when times ‘are more dire’

In the city of Dodgeville, a community of about 4,000 people an hour west of Madison, some 450 people showed up for a three-block march and a two-hour rally. 

There was music and chanting and a poem read by its author, one time Madison police chief turned Episcopal priest David Couper.

“The more noise we make the more we make our elected officials nervous. The more they cannot ignore us,” said rally emcee, Lex Liberatore.

It was Dodgeville’s third No Kings rally. Liberatore is a United Church of Christ pastor in nearby Platteville and a member of the Dodgeville Indivisible chapter. He has helped with the previous Dodgeville No Kings events, but it was his first time on the stage.

“I thought this was a lot more energy than the previous rallies,” he told the Examiner.

The rally itself had a defiantly cheerful tone. A series of folky music performers and bands performed, with playlists that included “Solidarity Forever” and the 1960s song “For What It’s Worth.”

Liberatore told the crowd that after the October 18 No Kings rally, organizers got feedback that they wanted fewer speakers, more music and chants.

His wife, Amy Liberatore, helped lead the chanting. “I never went to boot camp, but I saw ‘An Office and a Gentleman,’” she reassured the audience.

“I don’t know but here’s the thing,” she declared in military cadence count call-and-response style. “We did not elect a king!”

The chants included mockery of Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida resort and home. She namechecked ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her top aide, Cory Lewandowski; nodded to the Epstein files and some of those named in them, particularly Trump

Couper’s contribution was a poem he wrote, he said, in the middle of the night after the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis. The confessional-style piece spoke of his years training police officers, the history of lynchings and slavery and the violence carried out in the immigration enforcement raids of the last year.

“God is nauseous. He spits us out. I feel the disgust for spiritual cowardice, for those who run from the winnowing fire, those who are neither hot nor cold, but spittle,” Couper read.

The nearly 10-minute long work concluded, “We will overcome this great evil. We will be the people we have always wanted to be. We will be heroes. Let this be true.”

Organizer Myra Enloe said that while the October rally in Dodgeville was nearly twice the size, some attendees had splintered off as surrounding communities  held separate rallies in their towns and villages.

Despite the cheerful atmosphere, “I think the circumstances are more dire,” Enloe told the Examiner after the event was over. “Now we’re at war. And we’ve seen the brutality of, the cruelty of, this administration more clearly.”

The  Indivisible chapter that organized Saturday’s rally in Dodgeville had its roots in Mineral Point, a  one-time mining town south of Dodgeville that is now  a center for artists and artisans.

“There were actually some young women in Mineral Point that invited me to a meeting back in November 24 after Trump won and said, ‘What do we do?’” Enloe recalled.

A retired nurse, Enloe and some friends knew about Indivisible and decided to form a Dodgeville chapter. 

For the first No Kings rally last June, 500 people showed up at the courthouse. “We had billed it as a rural day of defiance, and so I think people from around the whole area” turned out, Enloe said.

Now more groups are forming in surrounding communities such as Spring Green, Platteville, Darlington and Mount Horeb. “All have groups that are organizing and doing more to really raise our voices in defiance of what’s happening nationally,” she said.

The group helped organize a benefit concert at the Mineral Point Opera House to raise $3,000 for the Southwest Community Action Program to use in support of immigrants.

Members are also engaging in voter education.

 “The last election, in 2024, we had 87 million people that didn’t vote,” Enloe said. “So [we’re] trying to make sure that we educate the public about what their choices are in voting, and the importance of voting. And we need everybody to get out there and make their voices heard.”

— Erik Gunn

 

In Green Bay, protesters mourn Alex Pretti

No Kings protesters gathered at St. James Park in Green Bay and began their march on Saturday, with chants including “Minneapolis to Green Bay, immigrants are here to stay” and “up, up with liberation! Down, down with deportation!”

State Representative Amaad Rivera-Wagner (D-Green Bay) noted the city’s connection to Alex Pretti, a high school graduate from the area.

Protesters chanted during a march in the northeast Wisconsin city where Pretti graduated from Green Bay Preble High School long before he was killed by Border Patrol in a highly scrutinized shooting in Minnesota. 

Speakers identifying with organizations including Citizen Action of Wisconsin, the Green Bay Anti-war Committee and the Northeast Wisconsin Democratic Socialists of America, raised concerns on issues ranging from the Iran war to data centers.

“And if we’re serious about this struggle, then we don’t just protest, we organize our workplaces,” a speaker with the Wisconsin Labor Party said. “We don’t just march, we build connections in our neighborhoods at home. And we don’t just resist would-be kings, we replace their power with our own.”

— Andrew Kennard

Large crowds gather in two small communities of northwest Wisconsin

Two small communities in northwest Wisconsin – Spooner in Washburn County and Siren in Burnett County – had large No Kings protests on Saturday.

In both communities, many of the demonstrators were retired people, and several noted that they had participated in other protests against the Trump administration. A few even mentioned they had protested against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdown in Minneapolis this winter.

In Spooner, a city of 2,450, more than 300 people gathered at the intersection of Hwys. 63 and 70. A well-known retired WOJB radio morning host and Vietnam War Veteran, Eric Schubring, said he “was deeply troubled” by what he called a “very bad administration.” He was also troubled about the possibility of Trump deploying Marines to the Persian Gulf in the war against Iran.

Nancy Olson of Spooner said she was demonstrating because “the country is in bad shape and we have a president who acts like he has dementia, and he thinks he is above the law, and I’m against the war.”

Jesse Gronning of Shell Lake joined the Spooner crowd as a counter-protester, advocating for the Trump administration. He received some angry looks from others, but he was polite. He said that President Trump “is not a king, not a fascist and not a dictator” but was “operating under constitutional authority.”

Standing near Gronning were Jeff and Lydia Lewis of Minong, who offered a different perspective. “I am here because of the many outrageous (actions) Donald Trump has perpetrated on the American people. I am most angry about this war in Iran, particularly in light of his failure to support Ukraine,” said Lydia. Jeff said he had numerous reasons to be protesting and expressed a desire to see the full Epstein files.

With a sign hanging around her neck that said: “Fascism has arrived. Resist,” Jodi Harold of Sarona said she had participated in at least three other protests in the past and was out on Saturday because “this administration is doing everything wrong.”

In Siren, in a village of a few hundred, more than 200 people gathered for a protest along Hwys. 70 and 35.

Michael Summers held a cartoonish figure of Trump wearing a king’s crown being flushed down a toilet. Summers said he was inspired by so many people coming out in a small community.

A group of retired residents from Voyager Village joined the protest for a variety of reasons. “I’d like to get our democracy back,” said Susan. “I felt the need for some of us to show America that some of us want to preserve democracy,” said Patty.

Gary Thill of Webster was trying to engage passing drivers with a sign reading “Flip Me Off if You Voted for Pedophile.” He counted over 21 who gave him the finger. “I’m here today to voice my frustration with the administration and with all the corruption and with everything the current administration stands for,” said Thill.

— Frank Zufall

WASHINGTON — Large crowds took to the streets Saturday in the nation’s capital for the third No Kings protest, rallying with others across the United States against what organizers say is an unprecedented expansion of power by President Donald Trump.

Thousands of people carrying signs and playing music began the day at Memorial Circle below Arlington National Cemetery. Crowds exiting the cemetery Metro stop clogged exit gates as they flowed toward Arlington Memorial Bridge into the district.

A dense crowd already was packed around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool by late Saturday morning. Hundreds moved to the National Mall near the U.S. Capitol by late afternoon for a separate Remove the Regime rally, where numerous speakers, including former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, urged Congress to impeach the president. Dunn, who is running for Congress in Maryland in 2026, was on duty during the Jan. 6, 2021 riot.

No Kings day in Washington, D.C. (Video by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

No Kings day national organizers anticipated more than 3,000 demonstrations across the United States, in every congressional district, and worldwide marches were organized on six continents, according to Logan Keith, a No Kings day organizer and national communications coordinator for the advocacy group 50501. Organizers said Saturday night at least 8 million people participated  

No notable instances of violence or conflict with counter-protesters were reported by late Saturday afternoon, though a bomb threat at the Hawaii Capitol disrupted the Honolulu rally, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported.

The previous national No Kings demonstration in October drew millions of Americans to the streets, and Saturday’s protests were expected to as well. States Newsroom’s live blog from Saturday includes reports and photos from across the nation.

In St. Paul, Minnesota, site of the nation’s flagship event, tens of thousands were gathering around the state Capitol, the Minnesota Reformer reported. Streets were clogged, buses packed and parking scarce well more than a mile away as throngs — dressed in layers and carrying homemade signs with messages like “No War” and “1776” — streamed toward the Capitol.

Headliners and speakers were expected, such as Bruce Springsteen — who will sing his new song “Streets of Minneapolis” — as well as U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Joan Baez, Maggie Rogers, Jane Fonda, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and more.

In the months since the previous No Kings rallies, the Trump administration sent thousands of federal agents into Minneapolis, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen, on Jan. 7. 

Just over two weeks later, Customs and Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti, also 37 and a U.S. citizen. 

Robin Eller, who is from Minneapolis but was protesting in New York City, said it was necessary for her to be part of the demonstration.

“We’ve seen two of our neighbors shot and killed for no reason other than trying to do what’s right for other humans in our community,’’ she said. “So we just feel like whenever we have the chance to be part of, numbers that help bring accountability, that’s what we want to do.’’

In recent months, many high-profile violent encounters between federal law enforcement and the public circulated widely on social media and in news reports. One notable video captured ICE agents violently pulling Bangladeshi American Aliyah Rahman from her vehicle as she told the officers she was disabled, according to her testimony before lawmakers on Capitol Hill in February. 

Other high-profile arrests have occurred across the country, including in Nashville, Tennessee, where ICE agents arrested the 35-year-old journalist, Estefany Rodriguez Florez, despite her pending asylum application. Florez and her husband, a U.S. citizen, had just dropped their 7-year-old child at school before the arrest. 

Bigger crowds 

Crowds at the Washington, D.C., No Kings march noticeably were larger compared to October’s march. Rallygoers carried signs protesting Trump’s mass deportation campaign, increases in health care costs and the administration’s heavy redactions of the Epstein files.

A speaker rallying the crowd at the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge urged participants to vote in the upcoming 2026 midterm elections that will determine control of Congress.

“Let’s get our march on, let’s fight,” he said.

Across the country, messages against Trump’s monthlong war in Iran also featured prominently. The president launched joint operations with Israel on Feb. 28 that has since spread across the Middle East and caused an oil shortage crisis worldwide. 

So far 13 American service members have died, and more than 300 have been injured, including 15 wounded Friday after an attack on a U.S. base in Saudi Arabia.

In the Washington, D.C. march, Robyn Abshire Sims, 52, of Virginia, carried a sign reading “Impeach. Remove. Convict. 25th Amendment Now.”

“I am here to be in solidarity with the masses. They have no idea how many of us there are,” she said. “Donald Trump needs to be removed, right now.”

Ezra Bermudaz, who is in his 40s and lives in northern Virginia, said the administration is “unprofessional” and that it is alienating Americans from their government.

“A real good politician, make us feel like we’re part of it. Right now, it feels like we’re not part of it,” he said. “…  I don’t activate, I’m not a protester, but it really does suck.”

David Landolfi attended the D.C. march dressed in his U.S. Marine fatigues bearing his name. The retired veteran of 26 years deployed with the 2nd Marine Division to Vietnam at the end of the war, and later to Lebanon.

“I wanted all the other people here to know that I was in the military, and the military do support a lot of things that I’m supporting today,” said Landolfi, 72, of Annapolis, Maryland.

“Most military men and women are not in support of war. And that was a promise that (Trump) made, that we wouldn’t be in any more wars. And, well, that’s not happening,” he said.

IN THE CITIES

Beyond the district, protests in other big cities drew large crowds Saturday.

In Chicago, Saturday’s demonstration was larger than previous rounds, which were responses to the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement in Chicago and other Democratic-led cities. Some first-time protesters Saturday said they were motivated by the war in Iran, rising prices and persistent unaffordability, and the current government shutdown that hamstrung airline employees and travelers. 

Many people blamed Trump for their feelings of anxiety and a sense of the country backsliding.

“Never in my 70 years did I think I would still be out here fighting for basic human rights. Or that I’d be fighting to not be ruled by a king,” said Valerie Butler-Newbern, 70.

In New York City, crowds packed Times Square.

Giuseppe Palazzolo said he is a former MAGA supporter who became disillusioned with the Trump administration because of the war with Iran. He said he thinks that it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars and not what the American public wants. The Staten Island man said Trump broke campaign promises that he would not start wars and would bring peace to the Middle East.

 

The White House released a statement ahead of Saturday’s rally criticizing the event and the media. President Donald Trump was at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, on Saturday. According to the traveling press, he visited his golf club nearby but made no public statements.

“The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in the written statement to media Friday.

IN THE STATES

Minnesota

The Twin Cities rally that included A-list performers was expected to draw 100,000, the Minnesota Reformer reported.

The Minnesota event was a nationwide focus after the Trump administration’s Operation Metro Surge, which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security called its largest immigration enforcement operation ever. Minnesota was the site of a plethora of documented violations of civil and constitutional rights, including the deaths of Good and Pretti.

Arkansas

In more rural, Republican-leaning areas, the demonstrations gave some protesters a sense of community.

“It feels almost unreal when you live in a community that is so red, and then you see everyone come together like this,” first-time protester Nadia Washburn of Stuttgart, Arkansas, told the Arkansas Advocate. “It makes you feel like your feelings are valid.”

Michigan

Democratic elected officials took part in several events, including U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib in Detroit. Her emotionally charged speech criticized not only the actions of Trump and ICE but also Democrats who have not done enough to protect the community, the Michigan Advance reported.

Indiana

A rally at the Indiana Capitol attracted lifelong Democrats, former Republicans and independent voters who are disaffected with the two-party system in general and Trump in particular, the Indiana Capital Chronicle reported.

Tennessee

In Nashville, which was the center of an ICE operation last year, several organizers spoke and mostly delivered strong messages against the immigration enforcement agency, the Tennessee Lookout reported.

Kansas

A demonstration in the Kansas City suburbs of Johnson County stretched 6 miles down a thoroughfare, the Kansas Reflector reported.

Pennsylvania

In addition to massive rallies in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, dozens of smaller demonstrations took place across the commonwealth, the Pennsylvania Capital-Star reported.

Several hundred Pennsylvanians gathered in Reading, where ICE is planning to establish a 1,500-bed detention facility.

Nebraska

Many protesters in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, held anti-Trump signs or American flags, while others wore costumes, the Nebraska Examiner reported. Volunteers from different groups gathered signatures for ballot initiatives and at least one candidate.

New Hampshire

Crowds across the Granite State protested the administration and the war in Iran, the New Hampshire Bulletin reported.

Janet Adams, a former middle school science teacher from Woodstock, New Hampshire, said she attended her first rally Saturday because of concern for the young people in her life. At 74, she was frustrated with what she saw as a lack of progress, and cited the Iran war and “hate” in national politics as part of what made her concerned for the futures of her 10 grandchildren.

Iowa

Thousands of Iowans gathered at the state Capitol, protesting against Trump and Iowa Republicans for issues like the war in Iran, ICE action and discrimination against transgender Americans, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported.

Maine

Many attendees at the Portland, Maine, protest expressed anger at Trump’s ongoing war on Iran, and his deportation efforts — which became much more real for many in Maine during a weeks-long surge in January — as well as the lack of action from Congress to deter him, the Maine Morning Star reported.

South Dakota

About 200 people showed up in South Dakota’s capital city of Pierre, one of a dozen rallies in the small, Republican-led state, including places such as Aberdeen, Vermillion and even White River, a town of just over 500 people, South Dakota Searchlight reported.

Idaho

Many speakers at the protest in Boise localized their frustrations with the Republican-dominated state Legislature over the latest in a wave of anti-LGBTQ+ bills and years of not changing the state’s strict abortion ban, even as doctors have left the state, the Idaho Capital Sun reported.

North Carolina

Opposition to the Trump administration’s use of military force in Iran and Venezuela and threats against Cuba and Greenland dominated the protest, which lasted around three hours and blocked off traffic in downtown Durham, North Carolina, for much of the morning, NC Newsline reported.

West Virginia

A sea of protesters holding signs and American flags filled the space in front of the state Capitol in Charleston. They lined both sides of the street and chanted, “This is what democracy looks like.” Some drivers honked their support as they passed by, West Virginia Watch reported. 

Illinois

A month after the death of prominent Chicagoan and civil right leader Rev. Jesse Jackson, a rainbow coalition of protesters — angered by the Trump administration’s policies and actions — flooded into Chicago’s Grant Park.

Kathy Tholin, chair of Indivisible Chicago, a progressive group that has been one of the chief organizers of the Chicago events, said the energy at the demonstrations needs to translate to votes at the midterms.

“The midterms are not just critically important to sending a message to those in power. But it’s one of the ways that we can actually get something done,” Tholin said. “We’re all building to that and voters are seeing that. There’s an election going on almost every month, and those elections show that people are coming out and tuning in.”

But not everyone who was in Grant Park Saturday is at odds with the Trump administration. Paul Chavez of Albuquerque, New Mexico, said he is a proud lifelong Democrat who “no matter what” he supports the president.

Chavez, a 57-year-old TSA employee, said people should unite around the unpaid airport workers at jam-packed hubs across the country. Funding TSA is the most nonpartisan thing that people can advocate for at the rallies, he said.

South Carolina

At the top of protesters’ minds in Columbia, South Carolina, were the war in Iran, the files released detailing the activities of Jeffrey Epstein, who died in jail while awaiting trial for sex trafficking charges, and voting rights, especially with the proposal of the SAVE Act, which would create photo ID requirements nationwide for voters to prove they’re citizens, the South Carolina Daily Gazette reported.

Rhode Island

Rhode Island Secretary of State Gregg Amore, who is being sued by the Trump administration for refusing to turn over the state’s voter rolls, defended that move to a crowd of about 20,000 in Providence, the Rhode Island Current reported.

Oregon

An estimated 30,000 people — down from the 40,000 who turned out in Portland for the second No Kings protest in October — were in downtown Portland on Saturday. More protests, not affiliated with No Kings, were expected later in the evening near the ICE facility south of downtown, the Oregon Capital Chronicle  reported.

Florida

No Kings marches attracted crowds even in conservative areas of the Sunshine State, the Florida Phoenix reported. The crowds appeared in cities with strong military presences like Pensacola and Jacksonville, and even deep-red Polk County, where Trump won by 21 points in the 2024 presidential election, saw an enthusiastic crowd of at least 2,000 people at Freedom Park in downtown Lakeland.

Montana 

Following weeks of uncertainty as to whether the state would allow another large No Kings rally on the Montana Capitol steps, more than 1,000 people stood on the lawn as they protested what they said is creeping authoritarianism in the United States, the Daily Montanan reported. Event organizers scrambled as the state Department of Administration went back-and-forth on a blanket ban of weekend events at the Capitol that was eventually nixed after pressure from legislators and the public.

Alabama

Many protesters in cities and towns throughout Alabama cited Trump’s immigration policies and ICE’s detaining and deporting large numbers of people, the Alabama Reflector reported. Others expressed concerns about cuts to social safety net programs that were codified under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed last year. The legislation imposed about $186 billion in funding cuts over the next decade to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program meant to aid people by providing food.

Washington

Many of the thousands gathered in Olympia, Washington, waved signs touting a number of criticisms against the Trump administration: unlawful immigration enforcement, the war with Iran, the president’s appearance in the Epstein files, the death of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of immigration agents and anti-trans legislation, the Washington State Standard reported. 

Fewer than 100 gathered at a counterprotest against Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson and a new income tax on those who earn more than $1 million.

New York

Smokey Sims of the Bronx said the protest “proves that America is tired of Trump’s stuff.”

Palazzolo, the former MAGA supporter from Staten Island, who became disillusioned with the Trump administration because of the war with Iran, said Trump had had gotten the country “knee-deep in this illegal war.”

He hasn’t found the congressional approval,” he said. “We’re further from peace and closer to catastrophe than ever before. I feel so betrayed.”

New Jersey

Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill appeared briefly at a rally in Princeton, N.J., the New Jersey Monitor reported. Trump’s immigration crackdown was top of mind for many protesters, with Saturday’s demonstrations coming just three days after Sherrill signed three new laws to strengthen protections for immigrants in the state and six weeks after she limited immigration enforcement operations on state property.

Kentucky

Jefferson County, Kentucky, Clerk David Yates, a Democrat who in March intervened in a federal lawsuit in hopes of blocking the U.S. Department of Justice from gaining access to Kentuckians’ sensitive voter data, told a Louisville crowd: “I will not be bullied; I will not be intimidated,” the Kentucky Lantern reported. 

Stateline reporters Robbie Sequeira and Shalina Chatlani contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — A host of celebrities outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Friday kicked off a weekend of protest against President Donald Trump’s expansion of executive power and his administration’s pressure on freedom of expression — from theater programming in the nation’s capital, to late-night television.

More than a dozen activist performers and creators rallied for Artists United for Our Freedoms, an event organized by the advocacy group Committee for the First Amendment. 

Anti-Vietnam War movement icons Jane Fonda and Joan Baez, actors Billy Porter and Sam Waterson, musicians Maggie Rogers, Crys Matthews and Kristy Lee, and authors Ann Patchett and Bess Kalb were among the lineup who delivered performances and speeches. 

The speakers focused on what they called Trump’s hostility to First Amendment principles, including his Federal Communications Commission pressuring stations to take late-night host Jimmy Kimmel’s show off the air. The speakers also said the administration pressured CBS to take Stephen Colbert’s show off the air as a condition for approving a merger related to Paramount, CBS’ parent company. 

Under Trump, the Defense Department also booted reporters it considered unfriendly out of the Pentagon’s media workspace. And the administration is fighting The Associated Press in court over  White House access after the news organization declined to use Trump’s preferred Gulf of America name for the Gulf of Mexico. 

No Kings preview

The event came one day ahead of the third No Kings day, a nationwide protest movement that last drew millions of Americans to the streets in October to rally against a lengthy list of Trump’s actions since beginning his second term.

Fonda, one of the leading members of the Committee for the First Amendment, encouraged the crowd to attend Saturday’s demonstrations.

“Tomorrow we’re gonna see a great example of community building — the No Kings protests. Don’t just go, bring five people,” Fonda said.

The actor and activist revived the committee in late 2025 along with hundreds of artists. Her actor father, Henry Fonda, created the organization during the notorious “Red Scare” in the U.S. during the late 1940s and into 1950s. 

At the time, Wisconsin Sen. Joseph McCarthy led a campaign to smear actors, musicians and other public figures based on their political leanings, launching numerous false allegations of Communism.

At Thursday’s event, notable moments included Baez and Rogers performing Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’” and Porter delivering a dramatic reading of artist and athlete Paul Roberson’s 1956 testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee.

“It’s time to break your silence and stand tall against authoritarianism that is taking a hold and consolidating very fast. We know that when fear strikes, silence spreads, and we cannot let that happen,” Fonda said.

“While the war in Iran is not a focus of the Committee for the First Amendment, I want to say that the First Amendment suffers greatly in times of war as the government works to crush internal dissent,” Fonda added, alluding to the war Trump launched in conjunction with Israel just over one month ago.

Kennedy Center cuts

The two-time Academy Award winner also called out to Kennedy Center employees in the crowd who learned Friday of layoffs. The Washington Post first reported the cultural center shedding employees ahead of its two-year closure for renovations.

The legendary performing arts center, now bearing the name of Trump on its facade, will close for renovations on July 4, the president announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, in February. 

Trump installed himself as chair of the Kennedy Center board shortly after taking office again in 2025.

Country musician and Alabama native Kristy Lee told the crowd she withdrew from performing at the Kennedy Center.

“I’m not gonna lie, I was looking forward to the opportunity. But playing at that center after what happened would cost me my integrity, and that’s worth more than any paycheck,” Lee said.

Media mergers

Several speakers decried the administration’s support for massive media mergers, including between Paramount Global and Skydance Media, owned by David Ellison, son of billionaire Larry Ellison, Oracle CEO and a major Republican Party donor who worked with Trump to gain a large stake in TikTok.

Paramount-Skydance is now on track to take over Warner Bros. Discovery, which currently owns CNN and HBO.

“The Trump regime has sought to quash dissent and demonize the vulnerable, to consolidate the media into the hands of friendly oligarchs. These moves are right out of the authoritarian playbook,” said Jessica Gonzalez, co-CEO of Free Press, a media watchdog advocacy group.

Logan Keith, a No Kings day organizer and national communications coordinator for the advocacy group 50501, told the crowd “We show up, we speak out, we refuse to be silent.”

“We will gather in the millions in cities, towns large and small. … We will declare in one unified voice ‘America has no kings.’”

In response to the rally, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said, “President Trump is in the process of making the Trump-Kennedy Center the finest performing arts facility in the world for all Americans to enjoy. No one cares what Jane Fonda has to say. Her awful acting has traumatized people enough.”

With the third national group of No Kings rallies scheduled for Saturday to call out the policies of President Donald Trump, participants and organizers are hoping for a larger-than-ever response.

Organizers have crafted a succinct message for the event, found on virtually every announcement and flyer.

“NO KINGS is a nonviolent national day of action and mass mobilization in response to the increasing authoritarian excesses and corruption of the Trump administration,” the message states.

“President Trump is governing through fear, intimidation and hoarding power that isn’t his — the opposite of democracy,” it continues. “While families are crushed by the rising costs of groceries, housing and healthcare, the administration has supercharged funding for ICE to terrorize our communities.”

Organizers emphasize the goal of nonviolence for the day: “When communities stand together in nonviolent action, fear loses its power. History is clear: people-led movements, not force, is how we end repression.”

The first “No Kings” event took place June 14, 2025 — scheduled as counterprogramming to a military parade that Trump commandeered for his birthday. Organizers reported events in some 1,500 communities around the country.

The second, Oct. 18, 2025, drew millions across the country and tens of thousands throughout Wisconsin, dwarfing the June protests.

On Saturday cloudy skies and temperatures — mostly in the 40s and low 50s — that are cooler than those that prevailed over the October rally will greet participants. Weather Channel forecasts around the state don’t call for rain, however.

The mobilize.us website used by national coordinators lists 97 Wisconsin communities with events, including start times and details, ranging from Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay to Ladysmith, River Falls and Prairie du Chien.

Milwaukee alone has two — one at a West Side bandshell and the other on the city’s East Side — although that one is scheduled to last for just half an hour. Others are planned in four adjoining suburbs. 

In Madison marchers will gather at Brittingham Park at 12:30 and proceed to  the state Capitol, where Everett Mitchell — who is both a Dane County circuit court judge and a Baptist preacher — will deliver the keynote address. Several suburban groups are planning events of their own.

Elsewhere, local supporters are directing interested participants to nearby events. A network of political progressives in Oregon, 10 miles south of Madison, sent out advisories encouraging like-minded community members to join the Madison event.

Organizers are putting their own spin on things.

In Kenosha, the Hands Off Kenosha team has planned “a democracy procession honoring figures and movements that defended democracy” as well as  a sing-along and a theatrical performance. They’re also holding a food drive; organizers say that such mutual aid events are a central part of their agenda.

In Dodgeville, former police-chief-turned-Episcopal-priest David Couper will address a crowd after a march from the Iowa County courthouse to a green patch three blocks away. Participants will also hear from a teenage speaker.

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Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a handful of Republican education bills Friday including one that would have put limits on school districts’ ability to seek property tax increases at the ballot box by requiring that the districts submit financial documents on time before going to referendum. 

As Wisconsin school districts continue to rely on property tax increases sought through referendum to keep up with costs, Republican lawmakers have been seeking ways to put up roadblocks to those efforts.

AB 457 would have required the Department of Public Instruction to certify that schools are in compliance with requirements to submit financial information to DPI before they could seek a referendum. If a district is not in compliance, the school board would be prohibited from adopting a resolution to hold a referendum and any resolutions adopted or referendum passed without the certification would be void.

Republican lawmakers introduced the bill in reaction to the passage of Milwaukee Public Schools $252 million recurring operating referendum in April 2024 and the news that broke afterward, in May 2024, that the district was months late in submitting required financial reports. 

Evers said in his veto message that he objected to lawmakers encroaching on local decision-making and trying to limit referendum requests. He noted that Wisconsin has limits on the books already including restrictions on the dates and frequency with which districts can seek a referendum and blocking districts with a failed referendum from accessing increases to the per-pupil “revenue ceiling” provided by the state for three years.

In April, 74 referendum requests, which, combined, come to more than $1 billion for operational costs, will be on ballots across the state. The requests come as Wisconsinites have become increasingly concerned about rising property taxes with the most recent Marquette Law School poll finding that 58% of Wisconsinites say they are more concerned about property taxes, while 41% are more concerned about funding for K-12 public schools.

Evers noted in his message that he has sought billions in state funding to help with general school aid, special education, mental health supports and other education issues with lawmakers often rejecting his proposals. Evers and lawmakers have also been discussing providing additional funding to schools as well as property tax relief, though they have not yet come to an agreement.

“Funding our schools is a responsibility that the state and local partners share; local property taxes go up when the state fails to do its part to meet its obligation. If the Legislature is purportedly concerned about the rate at which communities across our state are going to referendum and families are being forced to raise their own property taxes to keep their school doors open, it should start by approving the investments in our schools that our kids need and deserve.” 

Disruptive students

Funding also came up in Evers’ veto of AB 614, which would have created expanded definitions in statute for the types of behavior that would have allowed for the removal of students from class due to disruption or violence. The bill would have also required that all parents in a classroom be notified if a student was removed and that the situation that cut into classroom time be described to them. 

GOP lawmakers said the bill would have helped teachers by giving them clarity on what they could do when there are serious disruptions happening in the classroom, though Democratic lawmakers and disability rights advocates criticized the bill, saying the definitions in the bill were too broad and the provisions included could stigmatize and ostracize students.

Evers said lawmakers should have invested additional resources in behavioral and mental health supports to ensure that students and teachers have the help they need in school. 

“Our kids are struggling perhaps now more than ever — the solution is not to micromanage schools with unfunded mandates from Madison, it is to invest in ensuring schools across our state have the resources they need to support our kids,” he said in his veto statement. 

Evers also vetoed AB 518, which would have created a carve-out for private choice schools to allow them to hire someone with a short-term substitute teaching permit issued by the Department of Public Instruction even if the employees do not hold at least a bachelor’s degree. Employees at private choice schools do not need a DPI license, but they are required to have at least a bachelor’s degree.

Evers said he was vetoing the bill because he objects to “further lowering educator credential requirements, especially in private choice schools, where professional requirements for the individuals charged with educating our kids are already much lower than their public school district counterparts.” 

Authors of the legislation had said the bill would help with hiring challenges that the schools face.

“Our state’s challenges recruiting, training and retaining talented educators cannot be solved by lowering state standards for the individuals entrusted with educating, empowering and inspiring our kids,” Evers said.

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Gov. Tony Evers signed legislation Friday defining antisemitism under Wisconsin law, a bill that was endorsed by Republicans, opposed by a number of Democratic-aligned organizations and divided Democratic lawmakers as well as Jewish advocates in Wisconsin.

A supporter of the measure expressed confidence a week ago that the bill would be signed following negotiations with lawmakers during its movement through the Legislature.

Opponents argued that the legislation could lead to the punishment of speech critical of Israel that is not antisemitic — a claim that advocates rejected.

The bill, AB 446, now 2025 Act 143, codifies in Wisconsin law a definition of antisemitism that was adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance in 2016.

The definition is to be applied when agencies investigate allegations of discrimination. It also would be applied in assessing enhanced criminal penalties for people accused of targeting victims due to their perceived race, religion, color or national origin.

The definition states: “Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

The Milwaukee Jewish Federation, which helped organize advocates for the bill, praised Evers for signing it. There are 37 other states and the District of Columbia that have adopted the definition in their laws, the federation said in a statement.

“By signing this legislation, Governor Evers has ensured Wisconsin has a clear, non-binding state definition of antisemitism to serve as a critical tool for fighting Jew hatred. With antisemitism at historic levels, we needed a historic effort to try to combat it,” the federation statement said.

Opponents of the measure argued that some of the examples used by the IHRA in support of the definition conflated political criticism of Israeli government actions with antisemitism — exposing people to being accused of antisemitism, or possibly facing criminal penalties, for criticizing Israel’s response to the Palestinian population or advocating on their behalf.

Supporters of the legislation have described it as a necessary response to an upsurge in antisemitic attacks on Jews in the U.S. and elsewhere, and argued that language in the bill specifying that the bill must not be construed to infringe on constitutional rights under the First Amendment protects free speech.

On the day the bill passed the Assembly, its author, Rep. Ron Tusler (R-Harrison) successfully amended it to include an additional disclaimer — that the legislation could not be construed “to create any additional civil or criminal penalty” on activities, including those protected by the First Amendment at “any public school in this state or at any University of Wisconsin System institution or technical college.”

Critics of the bill have argued that neither disclaimer would be enough to prevent the new law from being used to target a person for speech that wasn’t antisemitic.

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The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed in court Thursday that it is sharing sensitive voter data with the Department of Homeland Security in a search for noncitizen voters. But a DOJ lawyer denied the department is building a national voter database.

The Justice Department has demanded states provide full copies of their voter lists, including sensitive personal information, such as driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. It has sued 29 states and the District of Columbia for refusing to turn over the data. At least a dozen other states have provided their lists.

During a hearing in the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking Rhode Island’s voter data, DOJ attorney Eric Neff said the information would be shared with Homeland Security. U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy had asked whether the Justice Department could send the list to Homeland Security with instructions to search for noncitizens.

“Yes, and we intend to do so,” Neff said.

He added that the Justice Department and Homeland Security already have a “use agreement” in place for such sharing.

Three federal judges have so far rejected the Justice Department’s demands for state voter data, and no judge has sided with the department. DOJ has appealed those decisions and oral arguments are scheduled for later this spring after the Trump administration pushed for quick decisions ahead of the midterm elections.

The Justice Department has said it needs the voter data to determine whether states are complying with federal voting rights laws that require states to regularly update and clean their lists. The department has voiced particular determination to root out non-citizen voting, which is extremely rare.

In September, Homeland Security told Stateline in an unsigned statement that the Justice Department was sharing voter data with the agency in a collaborative effort.

But Neff’s courtroom statement on Thursday appeared to mark the first on-record acknowledgment of the data sharing. CBS News also reported on Thursday that the two agencies were nearing a final agreement on sharing voter data for immigration and criminal investigations.

The Justice Department and Homeland Security didn’t respond to requests for comment from Stateline.

In recent weeks, a Justice Department lawyer sidestepped a question about whether voter data would be used for immigration purposes. On March 3 during a hearing in a lawsuit over Minnesota’s voter roll, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Menendez asked DOJ lawyer James Tucker whether there was intention to use the data for immigration enforcement.

“Not to my knowledge, no, your honor, not with the data we are getting,” Tucker said, according to a transcript. But he added that some federal prosecutors were working with Homeland Security.

During a federal court hearing in Maine on Thursday, Tucker said the Justice Department was not creating a national voter database. At the same time, he didn’t rule out voter data being checked against federal databases.

“Again, that’s something that’s been routine the United States has done in the past,” Tucker said.

Since President Donald Trump took office last year, Homeland Security has refashioned an online program previously used to verify whether immigrants qualified for government benefits into a tool that can verify U.S. citizenship. Called SAVE, the program is capable of checking millions of voters against federal databases for citizenship information.

DHS has encouraged states to run their voter lists through the program. Some Democratic state election officials have expressed concerns about the program and point to instances where SAVE has wrongly flagged a voter as a potential noncitizen.

“They are initiating litigation in states all around the country, seeking the same information in sort of this cookie-cutter way,” Jonathan Bolton, an attorney in the Maine Attorney General’s Office, said during Thursday’s federal court hearing in Maine.

“Which suggests that the purpose is not to investigate specific concerns about specific states, but it is to compile this sort of national voter registration database,” Bolton said.

Bolton was representing Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows in the Justice Department’s lawsuit for Maine’s voter roll.

Rhode Island Current reporter Alexander Castro contributed reporting. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

New U.S. Environmental Protection Agency goals call for an all-time high volume of biofuels to be blended into gasoline and diesel, the agency said in a Friday news release following President Donald Trump’s announcement at the White House.

The EPA’s Renewable Fuel Standard for 2026 and 2027 will set the volume of biofuels at the highest level in the program’s 20 years, the agency said in a statement released shortly after Trump touted the move in a speech to farmers gathered at the White House South Lawn.

The president framed the new standards as a move away from regulations based on radical environmentalism.

“What they’ve done to you — and the country, what they’ve done to the country — is just incredible,” he told the farmers. “The environmentalists, I mean, they are terrorists. They were terrorists.”

Trump added that the standards will generate over $10 billion of rural economic benefit in rural areas and create an estimated 100,000 jobs. Biofuels are primarily produced from corn and soybean crops, with corn-derived ethanol by far the most common biofuel in the country.

Trump and top administration officials said the new standards would help provide more domestic energy sources. The standards would reduce the demand for foreign oil by approximately 300,000 barrels per day, the EPA release said.

“For 20 years, this program has diversified our nation’s energy supply and advanced American energy independence,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in the release. “EPA is proud to deliver on this mission and to do so at historic levels.”

The standards will require a roughly 60% increase in biofuel and renewable diesel production over 2025 levels, the EPA estimated. That production would translate directly to a major economic boost for farmers, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said.

“With President Trump and Administrator Zeldin’s leadership, these historically high volumes are expected to create a $3 to $4 billion dollar increase in net farm income,” she said in the EPA release. 

While biofuels groups commended the new standards, the Fueling American Jobs Coalition, an advocacy group that represents independent oil refiners, said the goals were “too aggressive” and did not reflect what could realistically be blended into transportation fuels.

“Unfortunately, with today’s announcement, it’s clear that our efforts to advocate for achievable volumes were ignored, and this will now likely result in even higher prices at the pump for consumers,” the group said.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education is moving out of its Lyndon B. Johnson headquarters building, the department announced Thursday, in another step toward dismantling the agency. 

The Education Department said its “chronically underutilized” building is roughly 70% vacant and estimated the relocation — slated for August — would save taxpayers approximately $4.8 million a year in operating costs. 

The move marks the latest action from President Donald Trump’s administration to do away with the 46-year-old department as part of the president’s quest to send education “back to the states.” Much of the oversight and funding of schools already occurs at the state and local levels. 

The Education Department will move roughly one block away to a building the U.S. Agency for International Development previously occupied.

The Department of Energy will move out of its James V. Forrestal building nearby and take over Education’s headquarters building. 

“Thanks to the hard work of so many, we have made unprecedented progress in reducing the federal education footprint, and now we are pleased to give this building to an agency that will benefit far more from its space than the Department of Education,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. 

‘Next on the chopping block’

Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, rebuked the relocation efforts as “one of the most overt actions by Secretary McMahon to dismantle the Department of Education (ED) and disregard the law, federal courts, and Congress.”

“Leaving the Lyndon B. Johnson headquarters building does not cut bureaucracy — it rearranges it,” the Virginia Democrat added. “This decision to close the Department’s physical building is not just a symbolic move — it reflects a broader effort to reduce the federal government’s role in ensuring people have equal access to a quality education.”

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, blasted the announcement in a Thursday statement. 

“The message the Secretary’s announcement sends to our staff and the American public is clear — education is next on the chopping block,” Gittleman said. 

“But after more than a year of fighting back against this unlawful and unprecedented gutting of a Congressionally created agency, we know that the will of the people, congressional intent, and the law is on our side,” she added. 

Interagency agreements 

The announcement came just days after the administration said the Treasury Department would take over Education’s responsibility for collecting on defaulted federal student loan debt — the first step in a multiphase process toward Treasury taking on Education’s entire, roughly $1.7 trillion federal student loan portfolio.

Prior to the agreement with Treasury, Education had announced nine other interagency agreements with the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Interior and State that transfer several of its responsibilities to those agencies. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court in July 2025 temporarily greenlit mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department ordered earlier that year. 

That plan was outlined in a March 2025 executive order, where Trump called on McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of her own department.

WASHINGTON — The two chambers of Congress, both controlled by Republicans, were at odds Friday over how to fund the Department of Homeland Security, prolonging the shutdown that began in mid-February. 

The Senate voted before dawn to approve a funding bill that would have reopened every agency within the department impacted by the funding lapse. But that legislation didn’t include additional money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol.

House GOP leaders, infuriated by their colleagues’ decision to leave out that money, didn’t put it on the floor for a vote. They chose instead to take up an eight-week stopgap spending bill for the department, which has little chance of moving through the Senate.

The House bill passed on a 213-203 mostly party-line vote. Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, North Carolina Rep. Donald Davis and Washington Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, all Democrats, voted with all Republicans present. The Senate bill passed by voice vote, with Democratic support. Both chambers are now out of session for a two-week spring break. 

The development reduces hope for the tens of thousands of federal workers within DHS who have gone without a full paycheck since the stalemate began when Senate Democrats demanded new constraints on immigration enforcement after federal officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection have been largely exempt from the impacts of a shutdown since Republicans approved tens of billions for their operations in their “big, beautiful” law. But federal workers throughout other DHS agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration, haven’t been in the same situation. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced in the afternoon the House would not even consider the Senate-passed funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security, and would instead vote on a temporary measure that would run through May 22.

“We’re going to send that over to the Senate and we hope that they’ll accept that,” Johnson said.

President Donald Trump hasn’t weighed in publicly on whether he would sign either of the bills, if they ever reach his desk, and the White House did not respond to a request for comment. But Johnson said Trump backs House Republicans over the Senate. 

“I spoke to the president a few moments ago,” he said. “He understands exactly what we’re doing and why, and he supports it.”

Trump signed an order Friday that would provide pay for TSA workers, which a senior administration official said would come from Republicans’ signature tax and spending bill. A DHS spokesperson, in an email, said that TSA workers should see paychecks as early as Monday.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a social media post that any stopgap bill to fund DHS “that locks in the status quo is dead on arrival in the Senate, and Republicans know it.”

“We’ve been clear from day one: Democrats will fund critical Homeland Security functions—but we will not give a blank check to Trump’s lawless and deadly immigration militia without reforms,” Schumer wrote. 

Overnight Senate vote

The Senate approved a modified DHS spending bill by voice vote around 2:30 a.m. Eastern after a week of mounting pressure on lawmakers to end the stalemate that has led to hourslong wait times in airport security lines.

The Senate-passed DHS bill didn’t include funding for ICE or Border Patrol. GOP lawmakers signaled ahead of the vote they’ll try to pass another boost in funding for immigration enforcement and deportation in a second party-line package later this year.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during brief floor debate that funding DHS through a “piecemeal” approach wouldn’t have happened if Democrats handled negotiations differently.  

“They wanted reforms to Immigration and Custom Enforcement, and Republicans offered to give that to them,” he said. “The White House made offer after offer putting forward a robust list of additional reforms. And Democrats just kept moving the goal posts, and today they just walked away.”

Democrats, he said, “might think twice before” before they tried to use this as a campaign issue during November’s midterm elections, when voters throughout the country will decide whether Republicans keep both chambers of Congress.

“We could be standing here right now passing a funding bill with a list of reforms, if Democrats had made the smallest effort to actually reach an agreement, but they didn’t, because it’s now clear to everyone, Democrats didn’t actually want a solution,” he said. “They wanted an issue, politics over policy, self-interest over reform, pandering to their base over actually solving a problem.” 

Schumer said the bill to fund most of DHS “could have been accomplished weeks ago if Republicans hadn’t stood in the way.” 

“Democrats held firm in our opposition that Donald Trump’s rogue and deadly militia should not get more funding without serious reforms, and we will continue to fight for those reforms,” he said. 

More money for immigration deportations pledged

Missouri Sen. Eric Schmitt said he and other Republican lawmakers would seek to bolster funding for immigration and deportations through budget reconciliation, the complex process the party used last year to approve its “big, beautiful” law.

That, he said, would allow Republicans to move funding through the Senate with just a simple majority vote, skipping the procedural steps that would otherwise require 60 senators to end debate on a bill. 

“To my Democrat colleagues, this bill is the moderate option. What’s coming next is going to supercharge deportations,” he said. “To my Republican colleagues, let this be a rallying cry every time the Democrats obstruct the safety of American families, the wall gets 10 feet higher and ICE gets another $100 billion.”

New Jersey Sen. Andy Kim said Democrats have been clear for months they would “not support providing more funding for ICE without also including common sense reforms to rein in the abuses we have seen in Minnesota and elsewhere, particularly after two Americans were shot and killed.” 

“All we’ve been demanding here is what the American people are demanding — body-worn cameras; no masks; keeping ICE agents out of our hospitals, schools and churches; and ensuring ICE follows the same practices and procedures as local law enforcement,” he added. 

‘Republicans have relented’

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, wrote in a statement that earlier negotiations included “proposals to expand the use of body-worn cameras; limit civil immigration enforcement in sensitive areas such as schools and hospitals; increase oversight of detention facilities; and implement visible officer identification.”

“While Republicans worked in good faith to try to reach agreement, Democrats remained intransigent and unreasonable with their list of demands,” she wrote. 

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement that since “Republicans have relented” lawmakers were “on track to fund the areas we agree on and get TSA agents paid, get our airports moving again, and fund important disaster relief and cybersecurity work.”

“But it is a shame that instead of working with Democrats to land the plane on several common-sense reforms to ICE and Border Patrol that the White House had already agreed to, Republicans walked away from constructive conversations and ultimately rejected some basic steps to reform these agencies,” she wrote. “I will keep fighting to secure real, meaningful steps to help rein in these rogue agencies—we just need Republicans to join us.”