Ron Kinney hopes California’s student injury data in school bus crashes serves as a blueprint for the rest of the U.S. to adopt lap/shoulder seatbelts.

When California became the first state in the nation to implement lap/shoulder seatbelts on school buses in 2004, many in the industry viewed the occupant restraints as unnecessary luxury items. But 20 years of data now tells a much more compelling story, resulting in injury declines and calmer school bus interiors for drivers.

Kinney, who served as state director of school transportation for the California Department of Education from 1983-1997, compiled 30 years of crash data from the California Highway Patrol’s annual “School Bus Crash and Pupil Passenger Injury Summary Report.” Kinney tracked the 10 years prior to and 20 years after the state law went into effect in 2002 that requires all newly purchased school buses after July 1, 2025 be equipped with lap/shoulder seatbelts.

The law led to the development of the current FMVSS 222 requirements for lap/shoulder seatbelts in all Type A school buses nationwide.

Kinney’s data calculates a 74.5 percent decrease in the absolute number of school pupil passenger injuries since 2004. In terms of passenger injuries “per million vehicle miles” traveled, the report tracked a 45.5 percent decrease over the past 20 years.

Meanwhile, the data finds that as the percentage of California school buses equipped with lap/shoulder belts increased incrementally since 2004, “it is reasonable to believe that school pupil passenger injuries will continue to decrease as more school buses equipped with lap/shoulder belts are added to the state fleet.”

Nine of the 10 years prior to the implementation of lap/shoulder seatbelts, student passenger injuries ranged between 425 and 760 per school year, with the height of injuries being 1,112 in the year 2000. There was no information on why the injuries spiked. But 2000 also saw the most school buses on the road (26,291) and the highest number of miles traveled (367,893,624) during that 10-year period before seatbelts.

Meanwhile, in the 20 years after the lap/shoulder seatbelt law went into effect, injuries declined. In 2005, 400 students were injured. During the 2013-2014 school year, 266 injuries were reported. Injuries dropped to 136 the following year. However, the 2015-2016 school year saw a spike to 313 injuries, with the most school buses on the road (28,982) and miles traveled (283,812,564) in the 20-year span. Those resulted in the most school bus crashes (1,886) as well. The 2023-2024 school year, the most recent data collected, saw 131 passenger injuries.

The report states that several factors need consideration when attempting to draw conclusions from the data. These include lap/shoulder belts having a positive impact in reducing pupil passenger injuries per million miles, California’s reduction in regular education home-to-school transportation, and expansion of special education home-to-school transportation.

Additionally, the report cites the increased number of California school buses equipped with lap/shoulder belts and the number of pupil passengers wearing lap/shoulder belts. Kinney writes that the reduction of driver distractions from pupil passengers who are now belted in and less able to misbehave has led to a reduction in driver turnover. The reduction in disciplinary problems and driver distractions also reduces the risk of crashes caused by driver errors.

“This also contributes to reduced driver turnover by creating a safer, less stressful and more rewarding work environment,” the report states. “By physically containing students, these belts address the primary stressors that lead drivers to leave the profession.”

The report also touches on the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the 2014 Anaheim, California school bus crash, which resulted in a school bus leaving the roadway and striking a concrete light post after the driver fell unconscious. The bus continued up an embarkment and struck an uprooted tree.

NTSB crash simulations found that students sitting in row eight, where the tree intruded into the school bus cabin, would have experienced greater injuries had they not been wearing lap/shoulder seatbelts.

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Related: NTSB Calls for Seatbelt Polices, Procedures Following Texas School Bus Crash
Related: Illinois Bill Advances to Require Lap/Shoulder Seatbelts on New School Buses
Related: Evolution of Thought

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Kinney’s report also addresses the increased cost of a school bus with lap/shoulder seatbelts.

“Based on the large reduction in pupil passenger injuries revealed in this report since the implementation of lap/shoulder belts in all new California school buses, the cost-benefits of lap/shoulder belts clearly tip the scales in favor of installing lap/shoulder belts on all new school buses across the nation,” it states, adding that in the 20 years since lap/shoulder seatbelts were required California saw no student fatalities. “…the reduction in pupil passenger injuries more than justifies the few thousands of dollars initial cost.

“When spread over the average 20-year life cycle of a California school bus, the cost is around $500.00 per year. And, if you consider the number of trips per school year and the number of pupils transported each day, the cost is pennies per child per day. The litigation costs, not to mention the costs of settling a court case, can easily be measured in millions of dollars. The financial litigation risks, along with the pain and suffering of a pupil passenger and their family, is something to consider when drawing conclusions on the results and use of this report.”

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A 5-year-old boy was killed Thursday morning after being struck by a school bus in Rockland County, New York, reported CBS News.

According to the news report, the crash happened around 8:35 a.m. in the Village of New Square. Police said preliminary evidence indicates the school bus struck the child and then run over him.

The boywas rushed to Westchester County Medical Center, where officials said they were pronounced dead at approximately 12:15 p.m. The child’s name has not been released.

Investigators said the school bus driver did not initially realize the child had been struck and continued driving until being flagged down, at which point the driver returned to the scene.

The Ramapo Police Crash Investigation Unit responded and is reportedly conducting an extensive investigation, which involves coordination with partner agencies, interviews, scene measurements, data analysis, and vehicle inspections.

Police told local news reporters that the bus company is cooperating with the investigation, and the vehicle will be inspected by the New York State Department of Transportation.

No charges or additional details have been announced as the investigation remains ongoing.

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Related: Wisconsin Teen Injured After Being Struck by Pickup While Boarding School Bus
Related: 4-Year-Old Girl Killed After Being Struck by School Bus in New York
Related: 11-Year-Old Struck by School Bus in Utah, in Stable Condition
Related: Louisiana Student Struck and Killed by School Bus

The post N.Y. Child Struck, Killed by School Bus appeared first on School Transportation News.

Police took a teenager suspected of vehicle theft into custody after a brief pursuit ended in a collision with an Aldine Independent School District school bus near Houston, Texas, reported Fox News.

According to the news report, the incident began around 4:22 p.m. Jan. 27, when a FLOCK license plate camera alerted authorities to a possibly stolen vehicle in northeast Harris County. Sheriff’s deputies located the vehicle and attempted a traffic stop. The driver fled, prompting the pursuit that lasted approximately five minutes.

The pursuit reportedly ended near Homestead Road and U.S. 59, after the suspect ran a red light and struck the Aldine ISD school bus on its right-rear side.

Aldine ISD said 28 Aldine Middle School students were on board at the time of the crash. Four students were transported to a hospital for evaluation, though authorities did not release details on their conditions.

Investigators said the suspect, believed to be around 17 years old and not named due to their age, was taken into custody at the scene of the crash. The teen was evaluated by EMS, refused treatment and was transported to the Joint Processing Center.

The teen could face felony charges related to possession of a stolen vehicle and firearm, which Sheriff’s deputies also recovered. The investigation remains ongoing.

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Related: Teen Arrested After Allegedly Hitting Student Waiting for School Bus in New York
Related: Teen Charged in Pennsylvania School Bus Shooting, 3 Others Wanted
Related: Maryland Teen Charged as Adult for Attempted Murder on School Bus
Related: Texas Student Arrested Following Alleged Sexual Assault on School Bus

The post Teen Arrested After Stolen Vehicle Pursuit Ends with School Bus Crash appeared first on School Transportation News.

(Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Gracias, Minnesota.

Gracias, America.

While Minnesota is where much of the resistance has been happening, my gratitude spills beyond its borders because the resistance has been virtually everywhere ICE brutality occurs.

Even before two citizens were killed by immigration authorities in Minneapolis recently, the country responded with a collective “ugh” to federal agents’  tactics.

It hasn’t escaped notice that this purge’s purpose, according to abundant evidence from the Trump administration, is to prevent the “civilizational erasure” white supremacists believe will be triggered by non-white immigrants. 

The deportations have gone far beyond the stated mandate of removing undocumented immigrants who have committed serious crimes. Undocumented immigrants with no criminal records, legal immigrants and citizens have been routinely ensnared as if relentless quotas are at work.

The U.S. Supreme Court gave immigration authorities permission for their campaign of terror against all immigrants, whether they are in the country legally or not. Justice Brett Kavanaugh undid an order by a lower court that barred immigration authorities from using ethnicity as cause to arrest and detain. This is now appropriately called the Kavanaugh Stop.

Americans, even those who believe immigration really is a problem, are saying, enough.

Protests and polling tell us as much. 

Trump supporters are turning on key architects of the purge, advocating a purge of their own. They are urging throwing Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem under the bus to appease voters as the congressional midterm election begins in earnest. The administration sent the guy who led the crackdown in Minneapolis, Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino, packing and replaced him with Border Czar Tom Homan.

This is progress.

Gracias, America, but the work won’t be done until Trump and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller are effectively neutralized. They created and cheered on pedal-to-metal deportations that feature traumatizing children to deport them.

Other features of this purge:

• Harsh mass detention used as a cudgel to get immigrants to stop their claims for lawful stays.
• Inviting undocumented immigrants married to U.S. citizens and who are pursuing legal status to come in for interviews where they  are then arrested and detained for deportation.
• And the jack-booted tactics generally of masked immigration agents who trample rights and deny due process.

The protests grew after immigration agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti, white U.S. citizens who  had empathy for the scores of non-white victims of this purge.

They didn’t have to step up. And they haven’t been alone. 

Minnesota doesn’t have a large undocumented immigrant population relative to other states such as California, Texas, New York and Florida, but its citizens, armed only with whistles and cellphone cameras, have put themselves on the frontlines.

Empathy lives.

Enter hope.

U.S. history’s lesson: When injustices have been overcome, it is because people who don’t directly bear the brunt of the injustice have risen up. Good and Pretti were two of them.

More than 77 million people voted to reelect Trump in 2024. They knew exactly who and what they were getting.

It’s difficult to not give in to despair when your fellow Americans reelect venality and cruelty, Trump’s trademarks.

No, despair doesn’t quite capture the feeling. It is a gnawing pain in the soul that makes one feel so desolately alone. Cynicism and hopelessness beckon.

Gracias, America, for giving me and others hope that MAGA may not ultimately speak for America.

But, for now, it is a hope that requires nurturing. We’ve been disappointed before.

The midterm election and then the 2028 election will tell the tale. The first could make Congress a truly co-equal branch of government with the power to check this imperial presidency. The second will send an even stronger message if candidates who follow Trump’s playbook of nativist division are trounced at the polls.

It will take both those events to signal course correction.

Undocumented immigrants live in the crosshairs. It is part of their existence. They’ve always known that arrest, detention and deportation could happen. They’ve always known the risk but brave it to escape persecution and poverty in their native countries and to secure brighter futures for their children.

What’s different now is the brutality.

The broadening pushback is a signal that America may be at yet another turning point – that the direct targets of injustice are not alone, that others stand and fight with them because humanity counts and citizens feel called to stand up when they see American values betrayed.

From the son of people who were once undocumented, a heartfelt gracias.

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Pedestrians walk through the streets of the Little Haiti neighborhood on June 06, 2025 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Monday blocked the termination of temporary protections for roughly 350,000 Haitians from taking effect, a move that prevents the Trump administration from acting to deport them as litigation continues. 

In a searing 83-page order, District of Columbia federal Judge Ana C. Reyes found that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem does not have “unbounded discretion” to terminate Temporary Protected Status for Haiti and rejected the Trump administration’s arguments that ending the status is  in the public interest. 

“Secretary Noem complains of strains unlawful immigrants place on our immigration-enforcement system. Her answer? Turn 352,959 lawful immigrants into unlawful immigrants overnight,” Reyes wrote. “She complains of strains to our economy. Her answer? Turn employed lawful immigrants who contribute billions in taxes into the legally unemployable. This approach is many things—in the public interest is not one of them.”

The decision came the day before hundreds of thousands of Haitians were at risk of losing their work permits and deportation protections, opening them up to removal. 

The Trump administration has moved to strip the legal status of immigrants, as many as 1.5 million, by ending the TPS designation and revoking humanitarian protections initially granted under the Biden administration. So far, Noem has ended TPS for 12 countries.  

Other judges found Noem overreached

Reyes said the Trump administration would face no harm by allowing TPS recipients from Haiti to keep their legal status while they challenge Noem’s move to end their status. 

Last year, Noem initially tried to remove extended protections for TPS holders from Haiti granted under the Biden administration, which meant protections would end by August. But several judges found that move from Noem an overreach of her authority. 

TPS is usually granted for 18 months to nationals who hail from a country deemed too dangerous to return to due to violence and instability. 

In her order, Reyes cited contradictions by the Trump administration in its attempts to end TPS for Haiti. She pointed to Noem’s argument that conditions in Haiti have improved, but at the same time the State Department has a “do not travel” advisory for Haiti because of violence. 

There has been escalating gang violence in Haiti since the assassination of the country’s president in 2021. 

“There is an old adage among lawyers. If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table,” Reyes wrote. “Secretary Noem, the record to-date shows, does not have the facts on her side—or at least has ignored them. Does not have the law on her side—or at least has ignored it. Having neither and bringing the adage into the 21st century, she pounds X (f/k/a Twitter).”

Reyes was nominated by former President Joe Biden.

‘Hostility to nonwhite immigrants’

Reyes added that one of the arguments from the plaintiffs – Haitian TPS recipients – that Noem “preordained her termination decision and did so

because of hostility to nonwhite immigrants,” is likely substantial.   

Reyes also pointed to the 2024 presidential campaign, where President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance spread false rumors claiming Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, ate residents’ pets. 

In her order, she said Trump referred to those Haitians with TPS as being in the country without legal authorization, despite their legal status, and recalled how the president vowed to revoke “Haiti’s TPS designation and send ‘them back to their country.’”

There are five Haitian TPS recipients who are plaintiffs in the case. They argued that Noem violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the process of how agencies issue regulations, by ending TPS for Haiti. 

Those recipients include Fritz Emmanuel Lesly Miot, who is a neuroscientist researching Alzheimer’s disease who has had TPS since 2011; Rudolph Civil, a software engineer at a national bank who was granted TPS in 2010; Marlene Gail Noble, a laboratory assistant in a toxicology department who’s been a TPS recipient since 2024; Marica Merline Laguerre, an economics major at Hunter College and a TPS holder since 2010; and Vilbrun Dorsainvil, a full-time registered nurse and TPS holder since 2021.

A reprieve

This is not the first time the Trump administration has tried to end the TPS designation for Haiti, but the courts blocked those attempts in 2018.

Monday’s decision came as a brief relief for immigrants and advocates in Springfield, Ohio. 

“This 11th hour reprieve is, of course, welcome,” Ohio Immigrant Alliance Executive Director Lynn Tramonte said in a statement. “But people can’t live their lives like this, pegging their families’ futures to a court case. The least this country can do is honor their strength and contributions by giving them a permanent home.” 

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem at a roundtable discussion with local ranchers and employees from U.S. Customs and Border Protection on Jan. 7, 2026 in Brownsville, Texas. (Photo by Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Monday that body cameras would be given to federal immigration agents across the country, starting in Minneapolis, where two U.S. citizens were shot and killed by agents in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

“As funding is available, the body camera program will be expanded nationwide,” she wrote on social media. “We will rapidly acquire and deploy body cameras to DHS law enforcement across the country.”

Noem did not specifically say agents would be required to wear the cameras.

President Donald Trump said he was supportive of the move, according to White House pool reports.

“It wasn’t my decision,” he said. “I leave it to her. It tends to be good for law enforcement, because people can’t lie about what happened.”

The announcement comes amid a partial government shutdown by congressional Democrats who are pushing to change immigration enforcement operations across the country. One of those proposed policy changes is a requirement for federal immigration officers to wear body cameras. 

Democrats have also called for Noem to resign or be impeached after a second Minneapolis resident was shot and killed on Jan. 24 by federal immigration agents, 37-year-old intensive care unit nurse Alex Pretti. On Jan. 7, Renee Good, a poet and mother of three, was killed by federal immigration agent Jonathan Ross. 

Even without approved funding in the Homeland Security appropriations bill, the agency still has roughly $175 billion in funding for immigration enforcement from the massive tax cuts and spending package passed last year. 

In the fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill for Homeland Security, $20 million was set aside for body cameras for immigration agents. That measure would be the subject of two weeks of negotiations under the spending package under consideration in the House.

A Planned Parenthood clinic in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, July 31, 2024. (Photo by McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday closed the lawsuit Planned Parenthood filed last summer after Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law blocked Medicaid patients from visiting its clinics for any health care appointments for one year. 

Planned Parenthood filed notice with the court Friday that it had dismissed “without prejudice all claims against” the Trump administration in the case. Massachusetts District Court Judge Indira Talwani issued an electronic order Monday closing the case “Pursuant to Plaintiffs’ Notice of Voluntary Dismissal without Prejudice.”

The law prevents people on Medicaid from being seen at Planned Parenthood facilities through early July, when the one-year period would expire.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America President and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson wrote in a statement released last week that President Donald Trump “and his allies in Congress have weaponized the federal government to target Planned Parenthood at the expense of patients —  stripping people of the care they rely on. 

“Through every attack, Planned Parenthood has never lost sight of its focus: ensuring patients can get the care they need from the provider they trust. That will never change. Care continues, as does our commitment to fighting for everyone’s freedom to make their own decisions about their bodies, lives, and futures.”

The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment from States Newsroom. 

Talwani originally ruled for Planned Parenthood in the case, temporarily blocking the defunding provision from taking effect. But an appeals court later overturned that decision, allowing the Trump administration to legally withhold Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood. 

Talwani was nominated by former President Barack Obama.

The provision in Republicans’ “big, beautiful” law that blocks all Medicaid funding from going to Planned Parenthood was originally slated to last for a decade, but the final version covered one year. 

Federal law for decades has barred spending from covering abortions with limited exceptions for rape, incest, or the woman’s life. 

So the new language prevented Medicaid patients from scheduling appointments at Planned Parenthood for other types of health care, like annual physicals, cancer screenings, or birth control appointments. 

Shireen Ghorbani, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Association of Utah, which filed the lawsuit along with Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts and Planned Parenthood Federation of America, wrote in a statement that its health care providers would “continue to see patients and deliver on our mission to provide high-quality care and education to everyone who needs it, no matter where they live or how much money they make.” 

A Planned Parenthood spokesperson, who did not want to comment on the record, said that certain clinics may choose to cover the cost of treating Medicaid patients, even though the clinic will not receive reimbursement from the federal government under the law. 

Angela Vasquez-Giroux, vice president of communications at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, wrote in a statement that the organization’s “health centers initially shielded the overwhelming majority of patients who rely on Medicaid from the harm of this cruel law. Unfortunately, the consequences for patients will worsen considerably over time as health centers close, costs rise, and access to their trusted provider is pushed further out of reach.”

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education exhausted millions in taxpayer dollars trying to eliminate a chunk of its Office for Civil Rights, a government watchdog found in a report released Monday.  

The department spent between roughly $28.5 million and $38 million on the salaries and benefits of the hundreds of Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, employees who were not working between March and December 2025, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

OCR employees — tasked with investigating civil rights complaints from students and families — were targeted in March as part of a larger Reduction in Force, or RIF, effort at the department and placed on paid administrative leave while legal challenges against President Donald Trump’s administration unfolded.

Amid a mounting backlog of discrimination complaints, the department said in December it would be bringing back the affected employees. The agency moved to rescind the RIFs against the OCR employees in early January while legal challenges proceeded.   

Complaints resolved

The department resolved more than 7,000 of the over 9,000 discrimination complaints it received between March and September, GAO, an independent, nonpartisan body that reports to Congress, said.

However, roughly 90% of the resolved complaints were due to the department dismissing the complaint, the watchdog found. The dismissal rate ranged from 49% to 81% during academic years in the 2010s, GAO found in a 2021 report.

The department “has not made complete information publicly available about potential costs and has not made any information available about potential savings associated with its OCR RIF actions,” GAO said, calling on the agency to provide those estimates and document its analysis. 

Trump has taken significant steps to try to dismantle the 46-year-old department as part of his quest to move education “back to the states.”

In response to a draft of the report, Kimberly Richey, the assistant secretary for OCR, said the matter is rendered “moot” because the agency brought OCR employees back to work in December and rescinded the RIFs. 

“We do not concur with the recommendation,” Richey wrote. 

‘Unacceptable’

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who requested the GAO report, blasted the millions of dollars the department spent as “unacceptable” in a Monday statement. 

“Every child in America should be able to get a good education no matter where they live, what their religious beliefs are or whether or not they have a disability,” said the Vermont independent, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 

“Instead, the Trump administration fired half of the Education Department employees working to protect the civil rights of students and wasted as much as $38 million in taxpayer dollars by preventing investigators from doing their jobs,” he added. 

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, said that “instead of following court orders and federal law, the Trump Administration chose to keep these civil rights professionals on paid administrative leave rather than letting them do their jobs, while students, families, and schools paid the price.” 

Gittleman added that Education Secretary Linda McMahon “has made clear that she would rather play politics than uphold her responsibility to protect students’ rights,” and “her actions have undermined the Department’s mission, harmed families, and subjected dedicated federal employees to needless uncertainty, abuse, and harassment.” 

The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. 

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., answers reporters’ questions after holding a press conference on Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House is expected to vote as soon as Tuesday on the government funding package that will end the ongoing partial government shutdown once it becomes law. 

The Senate voted Friday evening to approve the legislation after President Donald Trump and Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., brokered a deal to remove the full-year appropriations bill for the Department of Homeland Security and replace it with a two-week stopgap. But the partial shutdown began early Saturday morning because the House had not yet acted on the same measure.

The additional time is supposed to give Republicans and Democrats more leeway to broker a deal on constraints to immigration enforcement after federal officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota within the last month. 

Trump wrote in a social media post that lawmakers in the House need to accept the package cannot change further. 

“I am working hard with Speaker Johnson to get the current funding deal, which passed in the Senate last week, through the House and to my desk, where I will sign it into Law, IMMEDIATELY!” Trump wrote. “We need to get the Government open, and I hope all Republicans and Democrats will join me in supporting this Bill, and send it to my desk WITHOUT DELAY. There can be NO CHANGES at this time. We will work together in good faith to address the issues that have been raised, but we cannot have another long, pointless, and destructive Shutdown that will hurt our Country so badly — One that will not benefit Republicans or Democrats. I hope everyone will vote, YES!”

House Speaker Mike Johnson said during a Sunday interview on the Fox News show “Fox and Friends” that he was confident lawmakers would approve the funding package Tuesday. 

“I don’t understand why anybody would have a problem with this, though. Remember, these are the bills that have already been passed, we’re going to do it again,” the Louisiana Republican said. 

The House voted in January to approve two separate bundles of appropriations bills and to pass the full-year Homeland Security bill before sending all six government funding bills to the Senate as one package. 

The other six annual government spending bills have already become law. 

Johnson added during the interview that negotiations between the president and Senate Democrats were an important step. 

“I think there’s some healthy conversations in good faith that’ll be had over the next couple of days, and I look forward to that,” he said. 

Some of those policy negotiations that Senate Democrats are unified on include the banning of unidentified and masked federal immigration agents, requiring the use of body cameras and the end of roving patrols, among other things. 

But House Democrats on the Homeland Security Committee on Sunday issued a letter, urging their caucus to reject funding for DHS.

“Democrats must act now to demand real changes that protect our communities before Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) receive another dollar in funding,” they wrote. “This is what our constituents elected us to do – to hold ICE and this administration accountable when they fail to adhere to the Constitution or follow the law.”

In the letter, House Democrats are pushing for the Trump administration to end the months-long immigration operation in Minneapolis and requiring immigration agents to get judicial warrants, among other things.

U.S. House Democrats, from left, Kelly Morrison, Ilhan Omar and Rep. Angie Craig, all of Minnesota, arrive outside of the regional Immigration and Customs Enfrocement headquarters at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis on Jan. 10, 2026. (Photo by Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday temporarily blocked a Trump administration policy that prevented members of Congress from making unannounced oversight visits at facilities that hold immigrants.

The temporary restraining order from U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb of District of Columbia federal court blocked a seven-day notice requirement that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem established earlier this month. The order allows congressional Democrats to access facilities that are central to the national debate over President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

“The Court’s decision today to grant a temporary restraining order against ICE’s unlawful effort to obstruct congressional oversight is a victory for the American people,” Colorado Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse, who is the lead plaintiff in the case, said in a statement. “We will keep fighting to ensure the rule of law prevails.”

Noem issued the policy Jan. 8, one day after federal immigration officer Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis, the site of an aggressive immigration operation for nearly two months. 

A second Minneapolis resident, 37-year-old Alex Pretti, was shot and killed by a Customs and Border Protection officer and Border Patrol agent on Jan. 24. 

Following the Jan. 7 shooting, U.S. House Democrats from Minnesota tried to conduct unannounced oversight visits at a Department of Homeland Security facility that held immigrants, as allowed under a 2019 appropriations law. Democrats have argued the notice policies issued by Noem violate that appropriations law. 

Noem argued the notice policy was acceptable, despite the spending law, because the facilities were funded through the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” not an appropriations law, and were therefore exempt from the unannounced oversight visit policy.

Cobb rejected that argument, for now, while the case continues, saying the administration had not shown how the department could effectively separate the funds from each law. Cobb said the argument raised “practical challenges.”

“Perhaps reflecting that difficulty, Defendants have not seriously attempted to argue that DHS and ICE ensured that only OBBBA-funded resources were used before promulgating and first implementing the January 8 policy,” she wrote. 

A dozen Democratic lawmakers brought the suit in July, after DHS created a seven-day notice policy to visit a facility where immigrants are detained. In the filing, lawmakers argued that DHS overreached its authority in creating the policy and that it violated a 2019 appropriations law.

Cobb in December also issued a temporary block on that policy.

The House Democrats who sued include Neguse, Adriano Espaillat of New York, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, Robert Garcia of California, J. Luis Correa of California, Jason Crow of Colorado, Veronica Escobar of Texas, Dan Goldman of New York, Jimmy Gomez of California, Raul Ruiz of California, Bennie Thompson of Mississippi and Norma Torres of California.

WisconsinEye livestreamed a press conference on Monday morning. (Screenshot via WisEye)

WisconsinEye, the state’s nonprofit that livestreams and archives government meetings and legislative sessions, restarted its coverage Monday after lawmakers approved a $50,000 cash infusion for the short term and as they continue to work on a longer term deal. 

The organization, which has been providing streaming services in the Capitol for nearly two decades, halted its coverage about seven weeks ago due to financial and fundraising difficulties. Its leaders turned to state lawmakers for help. The Legislature and Gov. Tony Evers had already set aside $10 million for WisconsinEye, but with a fundraising match requirements the service was unable to meet.

WisconsinEye is now back online, broadcasting a Monday morning press conference and with plans to stream Tuesday legislative activity after the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization (JCLO) voted unanimously via paper ballot to provide $50,000 to the organization to resume its February coverage. According to a memo on the vote results, the costs will be divided equally between the Senate and the Assembly.

“WisconsinEye Public Affairs Network is operational for the month of February. We invite you to enjoy the benefits of State Capitol coverage and the program archive,” a message on the website states.

An Assembly committee is also preparing to consider a bill Tuesday that would provide a longer term solution for the organization. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester) and Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-Racine) announced that they had found a bipartisan legislative solution, which had yet to be considered by the Senate, about two weeks ago.

Under the Assembly proposal, the match requirements for the $10 million would be eliminated and would go to establishing an endowment fund for WisconsinEye. The interest from the endowment would help pay for the organization’s operational costs. Lawmakers said that since the interest won’t cover all of its costs, WisconsinEye will still be responsible for raising some money for its operational costs.

According to the bill draft, WisconsinEye would need to add four additional members to its board of directors who would be appointed by each legislative caucus leader, focus its coverage primarily on official state government meetings and business, provide free online public access to its live broadcasts and digital archives as well as submit an annual financial report to the Legislature and the Joint Finance Committee. The board appointees would not be allowed to be current legislators.

The bill also states that if WisconsinEye ceases operations and divests its assets, then it must pay back the grants and transfer its archives to the Wisconsin Historical Society.

The Assembly State Affairs Committee plans to consider the bill during a public hearing Tuesday afternoon and is scheduled to vote on it immediately following the hearing.

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A Flock camera on the Lac Courte Orielles Reservation in SawYer County. (Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner)

On Wednesday, work to remove a set of AI-powered, license plate reading Flock cameras from the City of Verona is expected to begin. Until then, local officials have chosen to physically cover the cameras, blocking their ability to monitor passing traffic. 

A lack of public trust not in the police department, but in the company Flock Safety, fueled the decision. Despite the Verona Common Council vote last fall not to renew the city’s contract with Flock, and the contract lapsing in December, the cameras have remained in place. 

Mayor Luke Diaz said the police department had made several requests to Flock for the cameras to be removed. “They weren’t removing them,” Diaz told the Wisconsin Examiner. “We kind of looked at the contract, talked it over amongst staff, and the thing we felt most comfortable with was just covering them so they could stop spying on people.”

“I’m 100% certain that they were still working,” Diaz said, adding that some other communities have had similar experiences with Flock refusing to remove unwanted cameras. “It could have been an accident, it could have been an oversight on their part, but I think it was deliberate,” Diaz told the Examiner.“Because I think that they want to keep the cameras up, whether they have permission or not.” 

Concerns about Flock cameras, which are equipped with AI-powered automatic license plate reader technology, are on the rise nationwide. The cameras take pictures of passing vehicles, storing them for up to 30 days in a database which organizes the images based on identifiable license plates and vehicle descriptions. Law enforcement agencies are able to search Flock’s network of images, including those captured in other parts of the country. 

Any Flock network could contain thousands or even millions of compiled law enforcement searches. Exactly why those searches are being done, however, isn’t always clear. An analysis of Flock audit data by the Wisconsin Examiner found that from January to May of 2025, Flock’s network was searched by 221 unique local and state law enforcement agencies. The most common search term turned out to be “investigation” without other context to determine the reason for  the search.

Some agencies used even vaguer terms such as “cooch,” “hunt,” or just “.”  After the Examiner’s first report on Flock, a Waukesha police officer who repeatedly used only a period to label Flock searches underwent re-training on proper use of the system. By contrast the West Allis Police Department, which used “.” to search Flock more than any other Wisconsin law enforcement agency from January to May 2025, admitted no wrongdoing and asserted that its officers are properly trained on the Flock system. Recently, 404 Media reported that law enforcement officers in some parts of the country have been advised to be as “vague as permissible” when entering reasons for using Flock’s network.

Other cases have also emerged involving officers outright misusing the Flock system. A Menasha police officer is currently facing charges of felony misconduct in public office for using Flock’s network to track a vehicle belonging to a private person while off duty. In Kenosha County, a sheriff’s deputy was accused of using Flock and a squad car tracking system called Polaris to stalk one of his co-workers. Similar cases of officers using Flock to stalk love interests or others have also surfaced, as well as at least one use of Flock by a Texas sheriff’s office in an abortion-related case. 

There are also fears about how the cameras can be used by the federal government to monitor local communities, especially for immigration enforcement. Those sorts of questions led Verona city officials to take a closer look at what their own police department’s Flock data revealed. In Minneapolis, immigration and border patrol agents have been involved in numerous clashes with local residents, raising concerns about monitoring of protesters and legal observers.

Just before Verona voted not to renew its contract with Flock, Verona Police Chief Dave Dresser tried to ease some of the public’s concerns. “The data’s only stored for 30 days, which is actually very restrictive,” said Dresser. “After 30 days, the data is purged. I believe there is misinformation that the data’s held for months and months or years, it’s not. It’s purged.” Dresser added, “we’ve opted out of sharing data with federal agencies, we understand the concerns there. We have revoked automatic access to our data from out of state agencies to address some of the privacy concerns.”

In a document outlining her own review of Verona’s Flock data, Ald. Beth Tucker Long stressed that “I am not against participation in the Flock network because I think our officers are doing anything inappropriate.” In fact, Tucker Long wrote, “I am very proud of our police force and I know that our officers conduct themselves with honor and integrity.” Tucker Long said that “Flock is not operating with integrity,” and focused on the federal government’s level of access. 

Within Verona’s Flock network there were 974 searches tagged as “federal” in October 2025, Tucker Long said, despite federal access to Flock having allegedly been cut off months before. Another 1,628 searches were done by organizations “self-identifying as ICE,” according to Tucker Long. “This does not include organizations that did not disclose that the searches were for ICE.” Over 5,700 Flock searches were done for “other image search,” which means that law enforcement did not search for a license plate, but rather used AI to search the full contents of an image. Tucker Long also pointed to nearly 1,100 searches which were logged as “Outside Assist,” implying that information was shared with another organization whose identity was not recorded in the system. 

When Flock first came to Verona, Diaz explained, there wasn’t much debate. Although Diaz couldn’t remember everything, he believes it was handled administratively as the sort of equipment request from the police department which wouldn’t necessarily come before the common council for approval. “I don’t think there was the awareness of the abuses the company Flock has made, and I think there’s a lot of stuff happening at the national level where it’s clear and obvious that we have a federal government that doesn’t believe in the Fourth Amendment, or the First Amendment, or the Fourteenth, and the Fifth. And that this Supreme Court isn’t going to stand up for the Constitution either, and so I think that’s created a lot of angst and awareness. And that people are looking around at these Flock things and saying these aren’t benign. They aren’t just like a helpful tool for the local police department. They’re a way for the feds to spy on our communities.” 

A Verona police spokesperson told the Examiner that the department is “committed to exploring other alternative tools and strategies” which will maintain the high standards city residents have come to expect. The spokesperson added that the department was encouraged that the decision to remove Flock was due to a lack of confidence in the multi-billion dollar company, and not the police department. 

This article has been edited to correct the name of Ald. Beth Tucker Long.

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