Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a Nashville press conference on July 18, 2025. An appeals court on Aug. 21, 2025, said it will allow Noem and the Trump administration, for now, to move forward with ending temporary protections for 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua. (Photo by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
WASHINGTON — An appeals court late Wednesday said it will allow the Trump administration, for now, to move forward with ending temporary protections for 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.
It means that Nepali immigrants with Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, will lose their legal status – including work permits and deportation protections – immediately. Honduran and Nicaraguan holders will lose their status by Sept. 8.
The judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — Michael Daly Hawkins, Consuelo M. Callahan and Eric D. Miller — did not give a reason for their decision. Former President Bill Clinton nominated Hawkins, former President George W. Bush nominated Callahan and President Donald Trump nominated Miller in his first term.
Wednesday’s decision pauses a late July ruling from California District Judge Trina Thompson that found Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to end deportation protections for those nationals to be rooted in racism.
Instead, Thompson extended TPS for nationals from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua until Nov. 18 while the case proceeded through the courts.
“The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That is all Plaintiffs seek,” Thompson wrote in her 37-page ruling. “Instead, they are told to atone for their race, leave because of their names, and purify their blood. The Court disagrees.”
As the Trump administration aims to carry out its plans of mass deportation of immigrants in the country without legal authorization, DHS has also moved to end the temporary legal status many immigrants have held.
Noem has acted to halt TPS for nationals from Haiti and Venezuela and end humanitarian protections for those from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The Supreme Court has allowed, for now, many of those moves by the Trump administration.
DHS praises decision
DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin in a statement called the decision from the appeals court a victory for the Trump administration.
“TPS was never meant to be a de facto asylum system, yet that is how previous administrations have used it for decades while allowing hundreds of thousands of foreigners into the country without proper vetting,” McLaughlin said. “This unanimous decision will help restore integrity to our immigration system to keep our homeland and its people safe.”
Certain nationals are granted TPS because their home country is deemed too dangerous to return to due to war, disaster or other unstable conditions.
Immigrants who are granted TPS go through vetting by DHS, including a background check, and have to re-apply roughly every 18 months to keep work permits and have deportation protections. A misdemeanor could result in the loss of TPS status for an immigrant.
‘Fear and uncertainty’
“I am heartbroken by the court’s decision,” Sandhya Lama, a TPS holder from Nepal who is a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement.
“I’ve lived in the U.S. for years, and my kids are U.S. citizens and have never even been to Nepal. This ruling leaves us and thousands of other TPS families in fear and uncertainty,” Lama continued.
Many immigrants are on TPS for lengthy periods due to their home country’s condition. Those from Nepal had TPS for more than 10 years and those nationals from Honduras and Nicaragua were on TPS for more than 26 years, attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union, which is one of the groups that filed the suit, said.
“This administration’s attack on TPS is part of a concerted campaign to deprive noncitizens of any legal status,” Emi MacLean, an attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California said in a statement. “(Wednesday’s) ruling is a devastating setback, but it is not the end of this fight. Humanitarian protection–TPS–means something and cannot be decimated so easily.”
Organizations that filed the suit include the ACLU Foundations of Northern California and Southern California, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law and the Haitian Bridge Alliance.
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Responding to an order from President Donald Trump, several federal agencies are seeking to block undocumented immigrants and some immigrants with legal status from accessing programs that provide literacy classes, career education, medical and mental health care, substance abuse treatment, free preschool and more.
A range of institutions — including colleges, government agencies and nonprofits — manage the affected programs.
The order has caused widespread confusion about which organizations must check immigration status of the people they serve and how they could do that. Parts of the order appear to conflict with federal law.
Wisconsin joined 20 other states in a lawsuit challenging the new restrictions.
A group of federal agencies announced in July that at least 15 federally funded health, education and social service programs would exclude undocumented immigrants and some who are living in the country legally.
Responding to President Donald Trump’s February executive order to “identify all federally funded programs currently providing financial benefits to illegal aliens and take corrective action,” the departments of Education, Health and Human Services, Justice and Labor listed programs that provide literacy classes, career education, medical and mental health care, substance abuse treatment, free preschool and more.
In Wisconsin alone, the state Department of Justice estimates the new federal restrictions “put at risk more than $43 million each year in substance abuse and community mental health block grants that fund services in all 72 counties, 11 Tribal nations, and approximately 50 nonprofit organizations.”
Wisconsin Watch contacted more than a dozen Wisconsin organizations, government agencies and national experts to learn about the new policy’s effects. But we found more questions than answers. Most are unsure who is subject to the new rules or how to comply.
While we were reporting this story, Wisconsin joined 20 other states in a lawsuit challenging the new restrictions. That suit is still pending, but the parties have agreed to a deal that would delay most of the restrictions in those states until September.
Confusion created by the guidance could have serious consequences, experts say. Some providers might delay or cancel programs unnecessarily out of an abundance of caution, while some immigrants may avoid services for which they remain eligible, such as health care and education.
While much remains unclear, here’s what we know so far.
Which immigrants would be barred?
A 1996 law already prohibited certain immigrants from receiving 31 “federal public benefits,” including Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security and cash assistance. The Trump administration’s new guidance bars the same immigrants from additional programs, according to the National Immigration Law Center.
Those ineligible include:
People with Temporary Protected Status (TPS).
People with nonimmigrant visas, such as student visas, work visas and U visas for survivors of serious crimes.
People who have pending applications for asylum or a U visa.
People granted Deferred Enforced Departure or deferred action. This includes Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients — those who entered the country as children.
Undocumented immigrants.
Lawfully present immigrants who don’t fall into categories below.
People in the following groups would remain eligible:
Lawful permanent residents (green card holders).
Refugees.
People who have been granted asylum or withholding of removal.
Certain survivors of domestic violence.
Certain survivors of trafficking.
Certain Cuban and Haitian nationals.
People residing under a Compact of Free Association with Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands.
Why the confusion?
A range of institutions — including colleges, government agencies and nonprofits — manage the affected programs. Many did not previously check the immigration status of the people they serve; creating a process to do so may add costs and logistical challenges. It could prove especially daunting for organizations like soup kitchens and homeless shelters, which provide urgent services to people without easy access to documents.
Meanwhile, entities that administer these federal funds include nonprofits and federally funded community health centers, which operate under laws that conflict with the guidance.
Health and Human Services said its settlement with the suing states “will permit the agency to consider, as appropriate, whether to provide additional information” about the restrictions it announced.
How would the changes affect health care in Wisconsin?
Wisconsin has 16 federally qualified community health centers serving patients at 217 sites. They receive money from Congress to provide primary care to all, regardless of their ability to pay. Nationally, such clinics serve more than 32 million patients, making up 1 in 10 people in the United States and 1 in 5 people in rural America, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers.
Aside from emergency rooms, they are often the only care options for undocumented immigrants or those with limited English proficiency, said Drishti Pillai, director of immigrant health policy at KFF, a national nonprofit providing information on health issues.
Federal law requiring those clinics to accept “all residents of the area served by the center” contradicts the Trump administration guidance.
Layton Clinic is shown on May 9, 2018, in Milwaukee. Wisconsin has 16 federally qualified community health centers serving patients at 217 sites. New Trump administration rules seek to bar certain immigrants from such services, but they appear to contradict federal law. (Andrea Waxman /Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service)
The national association said in a July 10 statement that it’s working with experts and legislators to understand the impact of the new rules and ensure centers “have the information and resources needed” to continue serving their patients.
Access Community Health Centers, a nonprofit that provides medical, dental and mental health care at five south central Wisconsin clinics, will make “adjustments” if further federal guidance comes, CEO Ken Loving said.
“We don’t have the information we need to understand how this is going to impact us and how we can adapt to help our patients,” he said.
How would the changes affect education in Wisconsin?
The Wisconsin Technical College System has followed 1997 guidance that said public benefit restrictions did not apply to such educational services, spokesperson Katy Petterson said. She’s not sure how the updated guidance might affect the system, which will “wait to learn the impact of the lawsuit.”
If community-college-operated programs begin checking immigration status, ineligible immigrants may remain able to take federally funded classes through nonprofits that are subject to different rules.
A textbook lies on a table during a Literacy Network of Dane County English Transitions class at Madison College’s Goodman South Campus on July 9, 2025, in Madison, Wis. Some adult education services are on the list of federally funded programs that the Trump administration is targeting for immigration status checks, but the effects of the new rules are unclear. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
The nation’s 1,600 Head Start agencies, which provide free early childhood education and family support services for low-income families, fall under the restrictions announced in the Department of Health and Human Services notice. But the document doesn’t say whether Head Start staff must verify the immigration status of children, parents or both.
“It’s very ambiguous about who this impacts. … If you read the language, it’s 26-plus-ish pages of legal jargon, and it’s shifting,” said Jennie Mauer, executive director of the Wisconsin Head Start Association, which supports the state’s roughly 300 Head Start service sites.
One thing Mauer wants families to know: Children already enrolled in Head Start won’t be forced out.
“We want to follow the rules, but Head Start is not required to redetermine eligibility,” Mauer said, noting it has never been required to do so in 60 years. She’s been telling the center directors to sit tight, even as worried parents ask questions.
One entity that won’t start checking immigration status: K-12 schools. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that denying education to undocumented students violated their constitutional rights.
Must nonprofit providers start checking immigration status?
Probably not. The 1996 law restricting public benefits says nonprofit charities are not required to “determine, verify, or otherwise require proof of eligibility of any applicant for such benefits.”
At Literacy Network, a nonprofit offering a variety of free ESL and basic education classes in Madison, staff aren’t planning changes based on the new rule.
“It could certainly impact many of our students in other areas of their lives and therefore their ability to participate in our programs, but not who we can serve,” spokesperson Margaret Franchino said.
Still, guidance from the Department of Education is vague. It states that the exemption for nonprofits is “narrowly crafted,” and “the Department does not interpret (it) to relieve states or other governmental entities … from the requirements to ensure that all relevant programs are in compliance.”
Ryan Graham is the homeless systems manager at Wisconsin Balance of State Continuum of Care, a nonprofit that supports agencies responding to homelessness across most of the state.
As his agency discusses updates with partner agencies, it is preparing for an “increased administrative burden on already stretched staff.”
“We don’t yet know whether there will be delays caused by having to check or validate someone’s citizenship status, especially in emergency situations where time is critical,” Graham said.
When do the new rules take effect?
The notices published in July took effect immediately, though some federal agencies said they would likely not enforce them for about a month. The Trump administration later agreed to pause enforcement until Sept. 3 in the 21 states that sued.
The Department of Health and Human Services, meanwhile, has voluntarily stayed enforcement of its directive in all states until Sept. 10.
What is the basis of legal challenges?
The multistate lawsuit argues the Trump administration failed to follow proper procedures in implementation and that it can’t retroactively change the rules after states accept grants to administer programs. Requirements to check the immigration status of every person served would unreasonably burden program staff and possibly force programs to close, the states argue.
Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul speaks at a press conference at the F.J. Robers Library in the town of Campbell, outside of La Crosse, Wis., on July 20, 2022. Kaul joined 20 other states in a lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to require more federally funded programs to check clients’ immigration status. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
States “will suffer continued, irreparable harm if forced to dramatically restructure their social safety nets and render them inaccessible to countless of the States’ most vulnerable residents,” the plaintiffs wrote.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Head Start groups nationwide had already sued before the Trump administration published new guidance. That suit argued staffing cuts, funding delays and bans on diversity efforts threatened to destabilize Head Start — a long-standing, congressionally mandated program. A hearing in that suit was held Aug. 5 on a request to temporarily block the Health and Human Services notice.
What does the Trump administration say?
The 1996 public benefits ban exempted federal programs that offered services available to all people on the grounds that they were “necessary for the protection of life and safety.”
Trump calls that exemption too broad.
“A surge in illegal immigration, enabled by the previous Administration, is siphoning dollars and essential services from American citizens while state and local budgets grow increasingly strained,” the White House said.
Citing studies from congressional committees and groups that seek to severely curtail immigration, the White House argues that allowing broad access to federal resources incentivizes illegal immigration and costs U.S. taxpayers. The recent federal spending package also eliminated access to Medicaid, Medicare and food stamps for some authorized immigrants, including refugees and asylees.
Experts worry the confusion about the new rule could have a chilling effect, leading even eligible immigrants to stop using services.
Pillai of KFF noted that the restrictions on community health centers, alongside congressionally approved changes “that limit health coverage to a smaller group of lawfully present immigrants,” will likely make immigrant families even more reluctant to seek health care and social services.
The changes “may increase their reliance on emergency room care, which can be more costly in the long term,” she added.
Graham, the homeless systems manager, believes the Trump change will create “a direct barrier to safe and stable shelter for undocumented individuals and mixed-status families” and qualified immigrants or citizens who “may not have identification or the means to attain identification after fleeing a dangerous situation or crisis.”
It could also prompt administrators of some programs not covered by the rule to start screening participants as a precaution, or shut down programs to avoid screening challenges.
That has happened before. When Trump issued an executive order in January saying the administration would no longer “fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support” gender-affirming health care for people under 19, some providers stopped offering those services even though state law protected them.
Braden Goetz, who worked for more than 20 years in the U.S. Department of Education and now works as a senior policy adviser at the New America Foundation’s Center on Education and Labor, said it’s unusual for federal guidance to be so sparse and ambiguous.
“Maybe that’s the intention: to confuse people and chill services to people who are not citizens or not legal permanent residents, and scare people,” Goetz said.
Five things to know about the new public benefits rule
The rule bars some immigrants with legal status, as well as all undocumented immigrants. That includes people with TPS, DACA, guest worker visas or pending asylum applications.
Children already enrolled in Head Start can continue attending, regardless of their immigration status. That’s because Head Start programs aren’t required to redetermine eligibility, according to Wisconsin Head Start Association executive director Jennie Mauer.
Nonprofit charitable organizations appear to be exempt from the new requirement. That means immigrants barred from services under the new guidelines may still be able to get services through nonprofit organizations.
Community Health Centers are required by law to accept all people in their area. It’s not clear how the new rules, which state that these federally funded health centers should only be available to “qualified immigrants,” will work with that law.
The new rules do not affect access to K-12 education, which the U.S. Supreme Court has found to be a right of every child regardless of immigration status.
Natalie Yahr reports on pathways to success in Wisconsin, working in partnership with Open Campus. Sreejita Patra is statehouse reporting intern for Wisconsin Watch.
Federal law prohibits students in the country without authorization from receiving federal financial aid.
Two Clinton-era laws — the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act — require all students to provide a valid Social Security number or otherwise demonstrate lawful-presence status to receive federal aid.
The Federal Student Aid website confirms that unauthorized students — including DACA recipients — are ineligible for federal student aid. However, it notes that unauthorized immigrants can still seek financial support through other channels, such as state grant programs, institutional aid, and private scholarships.
The American Journal of Economics and Sociology points out that although there are alternative avenues, they are often limited and inconsistent. Even when available, it is last-dollar aid, covering only remaining costs after all other aid is applied. As a result, this rarely meets the total cost of tuition, fees, and living expenses.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Minister of Justice and Public Security Héctor Villatoro, right, accompanies Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, center, during a tour of the Terrorist Confinement Center (CECOT) on March 26, 2025 in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — House Democrats sent a letter Thursday to the heads of Homeland Security and the State Department seeking more information about the financial agreement between the United States and El Salvador to detain more than 200 men at a notorious megaprison.
“Congress has the right and the obligation to conduct oversight over the executive branch and determine what deals our government has struck with a foreign dictator to imprison individuals seized in the United States in an effort to place them beyond the reaches of our court,” according to the letter by California’s Robert Garcia, Maryland’s Jamie Raskin, Mississippi’s Bennie Thompson and New York’s Gregory Meeks.
In March, the Trump administration flew several planes to El Salvador containing 238 men removed either under an 18th-century wartime law, known as the Alien Enemies Act, or because they are immigrants who had final orders of removal and are citizens of El Salvador. The men arrived at the notorious prison known as CECOT.
The letter challenges the Trump administration’s position publicly and in courts that any individuals removed to El Salvador to be detained are no longer in U.S. custody and any court order to facilitate the return of wrongly removed immigrants cannot be fulfilled.
According to court documents filed last week, testimony from Salvadoran officials noted that those individuals removed and detained at CECOT were considered in the jurisdiction of the U.S. government.
“The actions of the state of El Salvador have been limited to the implementation of a bilateral cooperation mechanism with another state, through which it has facilitated the use of the Salvadoran prison infrastructure for the custody of persons detained within the scope of the justice system and law enforcement of that other state,” according to the court document submitted by the American Civil Liberties Union.
That document was submitted in a court case that relates to the Trump administration’s use of the wartime law, and whether or not officials violated a federal judge’s order to return the planes to the U.S. The planes still landed in El Salvador.
“Court filings last week suggest the Administration misled federal judges, Congress, and the American people about the legal status of individuals the U.S. government has spirited away to El Salvador and who are being held in torture prisons like Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo (CECOT),” the Democrats wrote.
The Democrats addressed the letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, asking to see the agreement between the U.S. and El Salvador to accept non-Salvadoran citizens and information on the men detained at CECOT.
“This document indicates that the Department of Justice has misled federal courts in assertions regarding the agreement with El Salvador,” wrote the Democrats, who sit on House committees on Homeland Security, Foreign Affairs, Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform.
$15 million payment to El Salvador
The State Department is paying up to $15 million to house immigrants removed from the U.S. at CECOT, but the agreement has not been made publicly available. Former State Department officials and foreign policy aides have raised concerns that the State Department payments violate a human rights law.
The Leahy Law bars financial assistance to “units of foreign security forces” — which can include military and law enforcement staff in prisons — facing credible allegations of gross human rights violations, such as CECOT.
The State Department has denied any wrongdoing.
The Trump administration has resisted court orders to return wrongfully deported men from CECOT, such as in the high-profile deportation case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and a separate case out of Baltimore, Maryland concerning another wrongly deported man sent to the megaprison. Abrego Garcia detailed how he experienced physical and psychological torture while at CECOT.
Noem visited CECOT earlier this year, and said the prison would be one of the Trump administration’s tools amid its aggressive immigration crackdown.
Unauthorized immigrants arenoteligible for traditional, federally funded Medicaid, which helps cover medical costs for low-income people.
They havenever been eligible. A 1996 welfare reform law signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton also requires most authorized immigrants to waitfive years for eligiblity.
President Donald Trump has proposedreducing federal Medicaid funds to those states. That would cause 1.4 million people to lose coverage, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated.
Medicaid costs nearly $900 billion annually, two-thirds from the federal government and one-third from the states.
In Wisconsin, Medicaid serves 1.28 million people, more than a third of them children. Among adults, 45% work full time, 28% part time. The annual cost is $12.1 billion, $4.2 billion of it in state spending.
While unauthorized immigrants can’t get Medicaid in Wisconsin, they can apply to receive emergency care covered by state Medicaid.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, speaks on the Senate floor on June 17, 2025, about how he was forcibly removed from a press conference with the secretary of Homeland Security. (Screenshot from Senate webcast)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who was forcibly removed from a press conference with the secretary of Homeland Security, said Tuesday that his home state is the testing ground for President Donald Trump’s push to deploy the military within the United States.
Trump is using immigrants in the country without legal status as scapegoats to send in troops, said Padilla, who in a speech on the Senate floor choked up as he related how he was wrestled to the ground by law enforcement officials. “I refuse to let immigrants be political pawns on his path toward fascism,” Padilla said.
It’s the first floor speech the senior senator from California has given since the highly publicized incident in Los Angeles last week. The Secret Service handcuffed Padilla after he tried to question Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was defending to reporters Trump’s decision to send 4,000 National Guard members and 700 Marines to LA.
Trump sent in the troops following multi-day protests over Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and against California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s wishes. An appeals court Tuesday is hearing arguments on a suit by California contending that the president unlawfully took control of the state National Guard.
“He wants the spectacle,” Padilla said of the president. “To justify his undemocratic crackdown and his authoritarian power grab.”
The LA protests were sparked after ICE targeted Home Depots, places where undocumented day laborers typically search for work, for immigration raids.
Arrests, confrontations
The Padilla incident, widely captured on video, was a stark escalation of the tensions between Democratic lawmakers and the administration over Trump’s drive to enact mass deportations.
A Democratic House member from New Jersey is facing federal charges on allegations that she shoved immigration officials while protesting the opening of an immigrant detention center in Newark. And on Tuesday, in New York City, ICE officers arrested city comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander while he was escorting an immigrant to their hearing in immigration court, according to The Associated Press.
In a statement to States Newsroom, DHS Assistant Secretary of Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said Lander “was arrested for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer.”
“No one is above the law, and if you lay a hand on a law enforcement officer, you will face consequences,” McLaughlin said.
The president late Sunday directed ICE to conduct immigration raids in New York, LA and Chicago, the nation’s three most populous cities, all led by elected Democrats in heavily Democratic states.
“We will follow the President’s direction and continue to work to get the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens off of America’s streets,” McLaughlin said.
‘They opened the door for me’
Padilla in his Senate remarks gave an account of the events that led to him being handcuffed and detained last week.
On June 12, he had a meeting scheduled with General Gregory M. Guillot, commander of the U.S. Northern Command, to discuss the military presence in LA.
Padilla, the top Democrat on a Judiciary panel that oversees DHS and immigration policy, said his meeting with the general was delayed because of a press briefing across the hall with Noem.
Padilla said he has tried to speak with DHS because for weeks LA has “seen a disturbing pattern of increasingly extreme and cruel immigration enforcement operations targeting non-violent people at places of worship, at schools, in courthouses.”
So Padilla said he asked to attend the press conference, and a National Guard member and an FBI agent escorted him inside.
“They opened the door for me,” he said.
As he listened, he said a comment from Noem compelled him to ask a question.
“We are not going away,” Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, told the press. “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”
Padilla said her remarks struck him as “an un-American mission statement.”
“That cannot be the mission of federal law enforcement and the United States military,” he said. “Are we truly prepared to live in a country where the president can deploy the armed forces to decide which duly elected governors and mayors should be allowed to lead their constituents?”
Padilla said before he could finish his question, he was physically removed and the National Guard member and FBI agent who escorted him in the room “stood by silently, knowing full well who I was.”
As he recounted being handcuffed, Padilla paused, getting emotional.
“I was forced to the ground, first on my knees, and then flat on my chest,” he said.
Padilla said a flurry of questions went through his head as he was marched down a hallway, and as he kept asking why he was being detained: Where are they taking me? What will a city, already on the edge from being militarized, think when they see their U.S. senator being handcuffed just for trying to ask a question? What will my wife think? What will our boys think?
“I also remember asking myself, if this aggressive escalation is the result of someone speaking up about the abuse and overreach of the Trump administration, was it really worth it?” Padilla asked. “If a United States senator becomes too afraid to speak up, how can we expect any other American to do the same?”
Padilla-Noem meeting
In a statement, DHS, said that the Secret Service did not know Padilla was a U.S. senator, although video of the incident shows that Padilla stated that he was a member of the Senate.
“I’m Sen. Alex Padilla and I have questions for the secretary,” he said as four federal law enforcement officers grabbed him and shoved him to the ground.
Noem met with Padilla after he was handcuffed, his office told States Newsroom.
“He raised concerns with the deployment of military forces and the needless escalation over the last week, among other issues,” according to his office. “And he voiced his frustration with the continued lack of response from this administration. It was a civil, brief meeting, but the Secretary did not provide any meaningful answers. The Senator was simply trying to do his job and seek answers for the people he represents in California.”
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson has suggested that the Senate take action against Padilla, such as a censure. Johnson criticized the senator’s actions and accused him of charging at Noem, which Padilla is not seen doing in the multiple videos of the incident.
“I’m not in that chamber, but I do think that it merits immediate attention by other colleagues over there,” the Louisiana Republican said. “I think that behavior, at a minimum, rises to the level of censure. I think there needs to be a message sent by the body as a whole.”
Senate Democrats have coalesced their support around Padilla. During a Tuesday press conference, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer praised Padilla for his speech on the Senate floor.
“It was basically a strong plea for America to regain the gyroscope of democracy, which has led us forward for so many years and now we’re losing it,” the New York Democrat said. “It’s a wake-up call to all Americans.”
Just hours after Minnesotans learned that Democratic House leader Melissa Hortman had been assassinated, right-wing influencer Collin Rugg, who has 1.8 million followers on X, posted a report that hinted that she’d been killed because of a recent vote on ending undocumented adults’ ability to enroll in MinnesotaCare, a subsidized health insurance for the working poor.
Mike Cernovich, another right-wing influencer who has 1.4 million followers on X, took Rugg’s post and amped it up, but in the “just asking questions” style of many conspiracy theories:
“Did Tim Walz have her executed to send a message?”
They were deeply ignorant about the MinnesotaCare issue.
Walz and Hortman — who was instrumental in passing legislation allowing undocumented people to sign up for MinnesotaCare as speaker of the House in 2023 — negotiated a compromise with Republicans in the Minnesota Legislature to end eligibility for adults, but keep it for children. They did so to win necessary Republican support in the 67-67 House to pass a state budget. Without it, state government would have shut down on July 1.
Both Hortman and Walz signed the compromise agreement in mid-May. This week, Hortman spoke tearfully about how difficult the vote was for her, but she was bound to vote yes on the issue because of the prior agreement.
Rugg and Cernovich’s posts were shared widely and just the start of the disinformation.
Once law enforcement sources began revealing a suspect, right-wing influencers ran with an insignificant detail: That Vance Luther Boelter was a “Walz appointee.”
Like many states, but even more so here, Minnesota is home to hundreds of nonpartisan and bipartisan boards and commissions, which are composed of thousands of people who typically win the appointment by simply volunteering. There are currently 342 open positions on Minnesota boards and commissions. Boelter was appointed to the Workforce Development Council by Walz’s predecessor Gov. Mark Dayton and reappointed by Walz.
It was the equivalent of calling a Sunday school volunteer an “appointee of the bishop.”
No matter, the Murdoch media machine, specifically the New York Post, had their headline: “Former appointee of Tim Walz sought….”
“The Vice President candidate for the Democrat party is directly connected to a domestic terrorist, that is confirmed, the only question is whether Tim Walz himself ordered the political hit against a rival who voted against Walz’s plan to give free healthcare to illegals.”
Walz had no such plan. He had signed an agreement to end eligibility for undocumented adults.
Joey Mannarino, who has more than 600,000 followers on X, was more crass:
“Rumor has it she was preparing to switch parties. The Democrats are VIOLENT SCUM.”
It was a ridiculous “rumor.” One of the last photos of Hortman alive was an image of her at the Democratic-Farmer-Labor’s big annual fundraising event, the Humphrey-Mondale dinner, which took place just hours before her assassination.
No matter, Cernovich wanted his new friends in federal law enforcement to act:
“The FBI must take Tim Walz into custody immediately.”
The suspect’s “hit list,” according to an official who has seen the list, comprised Minnesotans who have been outspoken in favor of abortion rights. CNN reported that it also included several abortion clinics, which doesn’t sound like the work of “the left.”
Right-wing influencers marred Hortman’s death and smeared Walz on a pile of lies.
In a different, saner world, they would be humiliated and slink away. But the smart money is that during the next moment of national crisis and mourning, they will again lie for profit.
Minnesota Reformer is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Minnesota Reformer maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor J. Patrick Coolican for questions: info@minnesotareformer.com.
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