The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded almost $5 billion less in research grants to U.S. institutions in the 2025 fiscal year than the year prior, a 13.6% reduction, according to an Association of American Medical Colleges report released in August.
The NIH committed $30 billion for research from July 2024 through June 2025, down from the $34.7 billion it obligated from July 2023 to June 2024. More than $3.5 billion of that funding difference was specifically in medical research and development while another half-billion was lost in career training for scientists.
Wisconsin’s share dropped by $84.4 million, or about 14%.
Disruptions in NIH research support have caused most states to lose tens and even hundreds of millions of dollars. They have also halted multiple clinical trials and research projects, including studies on post-tuberculosis lung disease and reducing infectious diseases spread by water.
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A student walks along the campus of Howard University, an HBCU, on Oct. 25, 2021 in Washington, D.C. Howard is an HBCU. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration said Monday it will redirect $495 million in additional funding to historically Black colleges and universities as well as tribal colleges.
The U.S. Education Department’s announcement came just days after the administration decided to gut and reprogram $350 million in discretionary funds that support minority-serving institutions over claims that these programs are “racially discriminatory.”
The department last week said it would cease funding for seven grant programs that go toward institutions that serve students who are Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and Asian, as well as initiatives for minority students pursuing science and engineering careers.
The agency argued that these programs “discriminate by conferring government benefits exclusively to institutions that meet racial or ethnic quotas.”
Charter schools, civics education
Meanwhile, the department is also diverting $60 million toward grants for charter schools, and will award a total of $500 million for these schools, which receive public funds and are a form of school choice. The umbrella term “school choice” centers on programs that offer alternatives to one’s assigned public school.
The agency also said it’s investing more than $160 million total in American history and civics grants — a $137 million increase in the funds Congress previously approved.
In its announcement, the agency said “these investments will be repurposed from programs that the Department determined are not in the best interest of students and families.”
Education Secretary Linda McMahon said her department “has carefully scrutinized our federal grants, ensuring that taxpayers are not funding racially discriminatory programs but those programs which promote merit and excellence in education,” in a statement Monday.
She added that the administration “will use every available tool to meaningfully advance educational outcomes and ensure every American has the opportunity to succeed in life.”
There was no breakdown made available Monday as to which programs or individual institutions would gain funding.
HBCU ‘godsend’
Lodriguez V. Murray, senior vice president for public policy and government affairs at UNCF, which supports historically Black colleges and universities, said the extra funding is “nothing short of a godsend for HBCUs,” in a statement Monday.
“We are grateful to have worked with the Trump Administration, Secretary McMahon, and her Department of Education team in achieving this one-time infusion of grant funding,” Murray said.
Murray noted that “HBCUs are currently and have been underfunded since their inception” and “while we are grateful for these funds, we are still under-resourced.”
The National Center for Education Statistics noted that in 2022, there were “99 HBCUs located in 19 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.”
The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C., home of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, pictured on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — A Friday lawsuit from a civil rights group accused the Trump administration of bypassing deportation restrictions on immigrants slated for removal by sending them to Ghana and having the West African nation deport them to their countries of origin, despite credible findings they could face harm there.
The move violates not only the due process rights of immigrants, but circumvents deportation restrictions placed by immigration judges who determined those immigrants could not be returned to their home country, attorneys from the Asian Americans Advancing Justice, wrote in their suit.
“Defendants know that they may not, consistent with U.S. immigration law, directly deport non-citizens to countries from which they have been granted fear-based protection,” according to the brief. “As an end-run around this prohibition, Defendants have enlisted the government of Ghana to do their dirty work.”
The Department of Homeland Security and government of Ghana did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
Ghana President John Dramani Mahama confirmed to Business Insider Africa this week that the country struck a deal with the U.S. to accept a group of 14 deportees and send some back to their countries of origin.
The attorneys argued that immigration judges granted their five plaintiffs fear-based deportation protections to their home country under the Immigration Nationality Act and Convention Against Torture.
They are asking U.S District Judge Tanya Chutkan to require the return of the plaintiffs to the U.S.
Chutkan sits on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. She was appointed by former President Barack Obama.
The plaintiffs are nationals of Nigeria and The Gambia.
Third-country removals
A deportation protection, such as a “withholding of removal,” doesn’t create blanket protections from removal. It requires the U.S. to find what is known as a third country that will accept the deportee.
Certain other requirements do apply. The government must notify the deportee of the country of removal and give them a chance to object if they fear persecution there.
The U.S. government must ensure that a third country that accepts a deportee won’t then conduct a removal to their home country, where U.S. immigration officials have found they could face harm.
The suit says that none of the plaintiffs were notified they would be removed to Ghana and instead they were placed on a U.S. military plane and none were given a credible fear interview of being sent to the West African country.
They were placed in straitjackets and remained on the plane for 16 hours, according to the suit.
The plaintiffs are referred to by initials in court documents.
One, referred to as K.S., “is hiding and fears for his life” in The Gambia.
K.S. was granted protections under the Convention Against Torture, a United Nations treaty, because he is bisexual and fears returning to The Gambia where he could face harm, according to court records. The Ghanaian government deported him to The Gambia on Wednesday, according to the suit.
Four others are detained in Ghana. They are referred to as D.A., T.L., I.O., and D.S in court documents.
Ghana is planning to remove them to their countries of origin by Friday, according to court records.
“The comments by U.S. officials on the plane on the way to Ghana, combined with news reports about Ghana’s involvement in a deal with the U.S. about repatriating non-citizens to their countries of origin in Africa, indicate that the U.S. is deporting people to Ghana with the intention that they be deported to their countries of origin,” according to the suit.
File photo of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, which is among the nation's largest Hispanic-serving institutions. Hispanic-serving institutions and other colleges and universities serving students of color will lose funding under a recent U.S. Education Department decision. (Photo by Hugh Jackson/Nevada Current)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education announced it will withhold $350 million of congressionally approved funds to minority-serving colleges and universities and divert the funds elsewhere, saying that the institutions’ admissions quotas are discriminatory.
The move eliminated fiscal 2025 discretionary funding for institutions that serve students who are Asian, Black, Indigenous and Hispanic, as well as a program for students of color pursuing careers in science and engineering. It’s consistent with President Donald Trump’s longstanding objective to eliminate programs that center on diversity, equity and inclusion.
“To further our commitment to ending discrimination in all forms across federally supported programs, the Department will no longer award Minority-Serving Institution grants that discriminate by restricting eligibility to institutions that meet government-mandated racial quotas,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.
McMahon cited a July opinion from the U.S. Justice Department that it was unconstitutional for federal funds to go to Hispanic-serving institutions based on the student body makeup.
That opinion reversed a decades-long record of the federal government setting aside funding for higher education institutions that have a significant portion of students from racial or ethnic minority backgrounds.
The schools affected by Wednesday’s announcement are Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions; Black institutions; Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institutions; Native American-serving nontribal institutions; and institutions receiving Minority Science and Engineering Improvement grants.
The announcement was vague about where the money would go instead, saying only it would be diverted “into programs that do not include discriminatory racial and ethnic quotas and that advance Administration priorities.”
Up to 800 schools affected
Democrats swiftly condemned the move, which is likely to face legal challenges.
Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the ranking member on the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee, said in a statement that the move undercut efforts to help students of color reach financial stability.
“These institutions are effective engines of economic mobility because they meet students where they are and are dedicated to educating the whole person,” Scott said in a statement.
Roughly 5 million students are enrolled in the more than 800 minority-serving institutions across the country. The schools aim to help students of color and students from low-income backgrounds pursue higher education.
Most of the minority-serving schools receive funding based on racial quotas, except for Black institutions and tribal colleges, whose designations are based on their historical missions to educate Black or Native American students.
The Department of Education will also reprogram funds from a program to develop Hispanic-serving institutions and from a program promoting postbaccalaureate opportunities for Hispanic Americans.
McMahon argued that because most minority-serving institutions require that a percentage of the student body reflect the racial background the institutions serve, it violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protections.
Administration cites equal protections
McMahon pointed to the Justice Department’s July memo saying it would not defend a suit brought by the state of Tennessee against Hispanic-serving institutions.
The Supreme Court has explained that ‘[o]utright racial balancing’ is ‘patently unconstitutional,’” U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson.
“And its precedents make clear that the government lacks any legitimate interest in differentiating among universities based on whether ‘a specified number of seats in each class’ are occupied by ‘individuals from the preferred ethnic groups,’” Sauer wrote.
The U.S. Supreme Court case that Sauer cited in his letter to Johnson is the 2023 decision to strike down affirmative action in college admissions that found two prominent universities’ consideration of race in acceptances violated the U.S. Constitution.
David Mendez, the head of the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, an advocacy group, said in a statement that the loss in funding is “an attack on equity in higher education.”
“Cutting this funding strips away critical investments in under-resourced and first-generation students and will destabilize colleges in 29 states,” Mendez said. “The funds granted to HSIs have never supported only Latino students. These funds strengthen entire campuses, creating opportunities and resources that benefit all students, especially those pursuing (science, technology, engineering and math) fields, as well as enhancing the communities where these colleges and universities are located.”
U.S. President Donald Trump stands with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon after signing an executive order to reduce the size and scope of the Education Department during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on March 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. The order instructs McMahon to shrink the department, which cannot be dissolved without congressional approval. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s aim to shutter the Education Department faces steep hurdles in Congress, where Republicans’ legislative efforts to abolish the agency remain stalled and appropriators have rejected many of his proposed cuts to education spending.
After campaigning last year on a pledge to shut down the department, Trump came into office promising to follow through, and made some preliminary moves.
He said he wanted Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “put herself out of a job” and signed a sweeping executive order in March calling on her to facilitate the closure of the Education Department to the extent she is permitted to by law.
He won a key victory in the U.S. Supreme Court in July that temporarily cleared the way for the administration to move ahead with mass layoffs at the agency, a plan to dramatically downsize the department outlined in that March executive order and his directive to transfer certain services to other agencies.
Court documents show that the department is planning to bring back more than 260 Office for Civil Rights staff affected by those sweeping layoffs stemming from a separate legal challenge against the administration’s actions earlier this year.
But after a dizzying array of cuts and changes in the months since Trump took office looking to dismantle the agency, the GOP-controlled Congress — the only body that can abolish the 45-year-old department it created — is throwing up roadblocks to elimination.
Bills stalled
For starters, the handful of GOP bills in Congress to close down the department face a difficult path in the Senate, which requires at least 60 senators to advance most legislation.
Republicans hold just 53 Senate seats.
In the House, at least four Republicans — Thomas Massie of Kentucky, David Rouzer of North Carolina, Barry Moore of Alabama and Nathaniel Moran of Texas — have introduced bills this year to eliminate the department. Those bills were referred to the House Committee on Education and Workforce, which has not voted on any of them.
In a brief interview at the Capitol on Sept. 3, the committee’s chair, Michigan Republican Tim Walberg, said he still intended to eventually dismantle the agency, but had not committed to any particular bill.
“Our intentions are to ultimately dissolve the Department of Education — we know we have to do that in a way that makes sense and so, we’ll take a look at all bills,” Walberg told States Newsroom.
“I can’t say whether they will all come up or not, but we know that, working with the secretary of Education, we’re going to right-size it, and some things we’ll eliminate, other things we’ll shift, as we’ve done already, over to the Department of Labor to take on some workforce areas,” the Michigan Republican said.
The chair acknowledged that there would not be enough votes in the Senate to abolish the agency.
“So what we can do that seems right for our students, for our parents and for our teachers, we’ll do,” Walberg said.
GOP efforts to dismantle the department are also underway in the Senate.
Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, alongside Sens. Jim Banks of Indiana and Tim Sheehy of Montana, reintroduced a measure in April to abolish the agency.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul also reintroduced a bill in March with Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Bernie Moreno of Ohio to shutter the department. The measure is a companion bill to Massie’s legislation.
A spokesperson for Sen. Bill Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, said the Louisiana Republican is “working with the administration and colleagues on how Congress can best codify the President’s reforms into law,” in a statement to States Newsroom.
The spokesperson noted that “President Trump and Republicans are committed to returning education authority to local communities best equipped to meet the needs of students and families.”
Senate rebuffs Trump spending cuts
The administration’s attempts to dramatically scale back funding for the department in fiscal 2026 have not been met with much enthusiasm by appropriators in the Senate.
The House and Senate Appropriations committees share jurisdiction over the bill to fund the department for the coming fiscal year.
The Senate committee advanced a bipartisan bill in July, which largely rejects Trump’s proposed cuts to education spending and his attempt to dismantle the department.
The bill tightens requirements for the department to have the necessary staffing levels to fulfill its statutory responsibilities and prevents the agency from transferring certain programs to other federal agencies.
The legislation also allocates $79 billion in discretionary funding for the coming fiscal year, roughly the same as the current level, which could be seen as a slap in the face to the administration’s budget request that called for $12 billion in spending cuts at the agency.
House includes deep cuts but keeps Pell spending
Meanwhile, the House Appropriations subcommittee dealing with education spending advanced its spending proposal for the agency on Sept. 2, sending the bill to the broader panel.
The bill aligns much more with the administration’s spending cut priorities and education agenda, calling for $67 billion in discretionary funding at the department.
Part of the bill also reduces funding for Title I grants — which support school districts with high percentages of students who come from low-income families — by $5.2 billion, according to a summary from committee Republicans.
The majority notes that “despite outsized investment, America’s public schools continue to fail children and families.”
But spending proposals in both the House and Senate reject the administration’s request to significantly reduce the maximum award for the Pell Grant, a government subsidy that helps low-income students pay for college.
Instead, each proposal maintains the maximum award at $7,395.
House and Senate appropriators have several steps to go before they can even reach the negotiating phase on the bill — which also includes spending on other agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services — and get it closer to becoming law.
It’s possible there might not even be a final agreement for months as lawmakers struggle to come to an overall agreement on how much to spend in the coming fiscal year, but the Senate’s bipartisan plan might give that chamber more of an advantage if those negotiations take place.
A 3-year-old girl gets an MMR vaccine at a clinic in Texas in March. Texas was among the states with the most public funding grants canceled by the Trump administration earlier this year. (Photo by Jan Sonnenmair/Getty Images)
After the Trump administration slashed billions in state and local public health funding from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier this year, the eventual impact on states split sharply along political lines.
Democratic-led states that sued to block the cuts kept much of their funding, while Republican-led states lost the bulk of theirs, according to a new analysis from health research organization KFF.
The uneven fallout underscores how politics continues shaping health care in the United States. The nearly 700 CDC grants were worth about $11 billion and had been allocated by Congress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, state and local health departments had spent or planned to spend the money not just on COVID-related efforts, but also on prevention of other infectious diseases, support for mental health and substance use, shoring up aging public health infrastructure, and other needs.
The CDC grant terminations initially affected red and blue states about evenly, according to KFF. California, the District of Columbia, Illinois and Massachusetts — all led by Democrats — had among the largest numbers of terminated grants.
But then nearly two dozen blue states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration in April, asking the court to block the grant terminations. They argued the federal government lacked the authority to rescind funding it had already allocated.
“The Trump administration’s illegal and irresponsible decision to claw back life-saving health funding is an attack on the well-being of millions of Americans,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James in an April statement announcing the lawsuit.
“Slashing this funding now will reverse our progress on the opioid crisis, throw our mental health systems into chaos, and leave hospitals struggling to care for patients.”
A federal judge sided with the blue states and blocked the cancellations — but she limited her injunction to the jurisdictions that filed in the lawsuit.
Nearly 80% of the grant cuts have now been restored in blue states, according to the KFF analysis, compared with less than 5% in red states.
Now four of the five states with the most canceled grants are led by Republicans: Georgia, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas. California, which is dominated by Democrats, kept all of its grants that had been initially terminated.
In the West and Midwest, Democratic-led Colorado — which joined the lawsuit — had 10 of its 11 grant terminations reversed. Its Republican-led neighbors that did not sue, including Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming, lost all of their grants, according to the KFF analysis.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the photo caption. Stateline reporter Anna Claire Vollers can be reached at avollers@stateline.org
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
That includes Medicaid (low-income people), Medicare (age 65 and over) and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). And they aren’t eligible to buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) marketplaces.
Federal Medicaid can reimburse hospitals for providing emergency care to unauthorized immigrants, but that is not coverage for individuals.
Vice President JD Vance said Aug. 28 in La Crosse, Wisconsin, that health care benefits can’t be sustained “if you allow tens of millions of people” into the U.S. without authorization “and give them those benefits.”
White House spokespersons did not return requests for comment.
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The Federal Emergency Management Agency building is seen on May 15, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Democratic attorneys general have updated their complaint against the Trump administration in a lawsuit over whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency can refuse to spend pre-disaster mitigation grants approved by Congress.
The attorneys general wrote in the new filing that FEMA hadn’t made a single award to the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program between April 2 and Aug. 25.
“The BRIC program is critically important nationwide. Over the past four years, FEMA has selected nearly 2,000 projects from every corner of the country to receive roughly $4.5 billion in funding,” they wrote. “Due to the unique threats they face, coastal communities have received the largest allocations over the past four years, with California, Louisiana, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Florida, North Carolina, and Washington leading the way.
“But interior communities rely on BRIC too: Pennsylvania and Utah have received the next largest allocations, and Ohio is not far behind.”
FEMA announced in April that it was “ending” the program and “canceling all BRIC applications from Fiscal Years 2020-2023.”
Members of Congress from both political parties brought up their disagreement with that decision in May during a hearing on FEMA’s budget request and by sending a letter signed by more than 80 lawmakers.
But that didn’t appear to sway the Trump administration to reverse course and allocate the funding that had been approved by Congress.
‘Devastating’ delays in FEMA funding
Democratic attorneys general, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro filed their lawsuit in July and later called on the judge to block the Trump administration from moving money out of the pre-disaster mitigation account.
U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts Judge Richard G. Stearns, who was nominated by President Bill Clinton, issued a preliminary ruling in early August preventing FEMA “from spending the funds allocated to BRIC for non-BRIC purposes until the court is able to render a final judgment on the merits.”
The updated 83-page complaint filed Friday argues the two people President Donald Trump has installed as acting FEMA administrator did so unlawfully because they were never formally nominated to run the agency, didn’t receive Senate confirmation and didn’t meet the qualifications laid out in federal law.
It also alleges that unilaterally canceling funding approved by Congress, which holds the power of the purse, violated the separation of powers laid out in the Constitution.
“The impact of the shutdown has been devastating. Communities across the country are being forced to delay, scale back, or cancel hundreds of mitigation projects depending on this funding,” they wrote. “Projects that have been in development for years, and in which communities have invested millions of dollars for planning, permitting, and environmental review are now threatened. And in the meantime, Americans across the country face a higher risk of harm from natural disasters.”
Each BRIC grant, the updated complaint notes, “can cover up to 75% of a project’s costs, and the federal share can rise to 90% for small rural communities.”
Attorneys general from Arizona, California, Colorado. Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin filed the suit, along with the Pennsylvania and Kentucky governors.
U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (center) and tribal leaders speak to the media after a public safety roundtable on Aug. 14, 2024, in Wagner, South Dakota. With Rounds, from left, are Cheyenne River Chairman Ryman LeBeau, Lower Brule Chairman Clyde Estes, Sisseton Wahpeton Secretary Curtis Bissonette, Wayne Boyd of Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Yankton Chairman Robert Flying Hawk, Oglala President Frank Star Comes out and Crow Creek Chairman Peter Lengkeek. (Photo by Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
WASHINGTON — Tribal radio stations that are supposed to receive millions to fill the hole created when Congress eliminated funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting haven’t heard anything from the Trump administration about when it will send the money or how much in grants they’ll receive.
Unlike most government spending deals, the handshake agreement South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds negotiated with the White House budget director in exchange for Rounds’ vote on the rescissions bill wasn’t placed in the legislation, so it never became law.
Instead, Rounds is trusting the Trump administration to move $9.4 million in funding from an undisclosed account to more than two dozen tribal radio stations in rural areas of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Wisconsin that receive community service grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
But neither Rounds’ office, the Office of Management and Budget, nor the Bureau of Indian Affairs responded to emails from States Newsroom asking when the grants would be sent to those radio stations and whether the funding levels would be equal to what they currently receive.
Loris Taylor, president and CEO of Native Public Media, a network of more than 60 broadcast stations that’s headquartered in Arizona, said she’s written to Rounds and the Bureau of Indian Affairs about the handshake deal reached in July but hasn’t heard back.
“I can’t place my expectations on something that hasn’t been concretely shared with the stations,” Taylor said. “And so all I can say is that our expectations are to raise money for the stations to make sure that they have operational dollars for FY 2026, and that’s exactly where we’re placing our focus.”
Taylor pointed out that Rounds’ informal deal with White House budget director Russ Vought doesn’t cover all of the tribal stations in the network and will only last for one year, leaving questions about long-term budgeting.
An Interior Department spokesperson wrote in an email after this story originally published that “Indian Affairs has received a list of 37 stations and is working to distribute about $9.4 million in funding to support them.
“We know how important these stations are for public safety and are moving quickly to get the money out. Before we can set a timeline, we need to coordinate with the stations, tribes and other partners to ensure the funds are delivered efficiently and meet the needs of Indian Country. We will share updates when we have more to share publicly.”
The spokesperson did not provide a list of those stations or information on how the department plans to divvy up the funding.
‘The little stations like us’
Dave Patty, general manager at KIYU-FM in Galena, Alaska, said he isn’t planning to receive any federal funding during the upcoming fiscal year, in part because he hasn’t heard anything from the administration. The 2026 federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1.
“Well, I certainly can’t budget anything that I don’t know is coming, so I’m definitely not planning for it now,” he said.
President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers’ decision to eliminate all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting because of their belief of left-leaning bias at National Public Radio wasn’t the right way to address those frustrations, Patty said.
“The narrative was definitely centered around NPR and that was definitely wrong because NPR aren’t the ones in trouble,” he said. “NPR is well funded from philanthropists all over the country, and as a mothership, NPR is not going anywhere. It’s the little stations like us that are going to go away because, for instance, about 60% of our budget came from the CPB grant.”
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced in early August it will shutter most of its operations by the end of September, with some staff working through January.
NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service have made no such announcements, but local stations throughout the country have announced budget cuts since Congress approved the bill rescinding $1.1 billion in funding it previously approved for CPB. That money was supposed to cover costs during fiscal 2026 and 2027.
Lawsuit feared
Karl Habeck, general manager at WOJB in Hayward, Wisconsin, said he’s only heard “gossip” and “rumors” about how exactly the handshake agreement will work in practice but is concerned that someone may challenge the Trump administration’s authority to move money around since it wasn’t in the bill and never became law.
“What gives them the right to take these funds that were allocated for environmental projects and send them towards Native American radio stations?” Habeck said.
Typically, the administration would need sign-off from appropriators in Congress before moving large sums of money from one account to another.
Officials haven’t said publicly where exactly they plan on taking the money from and it’s unclear if the Trump administration is trying to create a new account for grants to rural tribal radio stations out of thin air, without an actual appropriation from Congress.
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, chairwoman of the Interior-Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, and Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, ranking member on the panel, didn’t immediately respond to a request for details.
Habeck said he expects WOJB will be okay financially for the next year, but that he and many others don’t know what the future will hold after that.
“It’s going to be hard,” Habeck said. “I guess people don’t understand. You know, they try to compare us to commercial radio and it’s two different things.”
Local broadcasting stations, he said, have fewer employees and are often a nexus for their communities, providing information about everything from lost dogs to emergency alerts to high school sports updates.
“That doesn’t happen everywhere. It’d be a shame to lose that,” Habeck said. “I think we’re an integral part of the community and people have come to rely on us and appreciate that. And I’m talking everybody. I don’t care what their political stance is. “
A different mission for tribal radio stations
Sue Matters, station manager at KWSO in Warm Springs, Oregon, said she reached out to one of her home-state senators, Ron Wyden, who contacted Rounds’ office to ask how the funding would be allocated and when. But Wyden was unable to share any concrete information.
Matters also spoke with someone she knows at the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who was similarly unable to provide information about how the agreement will actually work.
“I’m just assuming there’s not anything,” Matters said, adding she’s now focusing on securing a grant from the bridge fund that’s supposed to help the more at-risk public broadcasting stations.
Tribal stations, she said, often have substantially different missions than commercial stations, focusing on language and cultural programs as well as preserving their traditional life.
“That’s endangered,” Matters said. “We won’t let anything stop us. But it’s sad that for whatever reason this funding has been taken away.”
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.
The James H. Shannon Building (Building One) on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. (Photo by Lydia Polimeni,/National Institutes of Health)
President Donald Trump’s freeze on $8 billion of congressionally appropriated funding to the National Institutes of Health was illegal, the Government Accountability Office reported Tuesday.
Orders Trump signed in the early days of his return to office and related administration directives violated the Impoundment Control Act by failing to spend money that Congress, which holds the power of the purse under the Constitution, had approved, the GAO report said.
Roughly 1,800 grants for health research were held up by the administration, the report said.
Trump’s Inauguration Day order ceased funding for a variety of health research grants that related to diversity, equity and inclusion, transgender issues or environmental harms. The Department of Health and Human Services issued a memo directing its agencies, including NIH, to cease publishing notices in the Federal Register of meetings of grant review boards.
GAO, an independent investigatory agency that reports to Congress, called those meetings “a key step in NIH’s grant review process.” HHS has since restarted notices of the meetings.
From February to June, the NIH released $8 billion less than it obligated in the past two years, representing a drop-off of more than one-third, according to the GAO. The gap between 2025 spending and that of previous years continued to grow, GAO said, with NIH obligating a lower amount of grant funding each month.
Illegal impoundment
The failure to fund grant awards violated the Impoundment Control Act and the Constitution, which certified Congress as the branch of government responsible for funding decisions, said GAO.
If a law is passed by Congress and signed by a president, it must be carried out by the executive branch, the watchdog said.
“The President must ‘faithfully execute’ the law as Congress enacts it,” the report said. “Once enacted, an appropriation is a law like any other, and the President must implement it by ensuring that appropriated funds are obligated and expended prudently during their period of availability unless and until Congress enacts another law providing otherwise. … The Constitution grants the President no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation.”
There are specific circumstances that allow for a funding freeze — a rescissions law, such as the one Congress passed last month to defund public broadcasters and foreign aid, is one example — but they did not apply to this case, the GAO said.
Delays may be permissible to allow a new presidential administration to ensure grants are awarded based on its priorities. But a complete block on funding is illegal, the GAO said. There is no evidence that other grant awards — or any other type of funding at HHS — took the place of the $8 billion in unspent grant money, the report said.
“While it can be argued that NIH reviewed grants to ensure that funds were spent in alignment with the priorities of the new administration, NIH did not simply delay the planned obligations of the funds,” the GAO said. “Rather, NIH eliminated obligations entirely by terminating grants it had already awarded.”
GAO can sue the executive branch based on its findings. The report noted there is already litigation from other parties over the frozen grants.
Dems call for reinstatement
Congressional Democrats responded to the report by harshly criticizing Trump and White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought and calling for the funds’ release.
“This is simple – Congress passed and the President signed into law investments in NIH research to help find cures and treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, ALS, diabetes, mental health issues, and maternal mortality,” U.S. House Appropriations Committee ranking Democrat Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said in a statement. “But now, GAO has determined that President Trump and OMB Director Vought illegally withheld billions in funding for research on diseases affecting millions of American families—research that brings hope to countless people suffering.”
Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, said in a statement the funding freeze “dangerously set back” efforts to cure cancer, Alzheimer’s and other diseases.
“Today’s decision affirms what we’ve known for months: President Trump is illegally blocking funding for medical research and shredding the hopes of patients across the country who are counting on NIH-backed research to propel new treatments and cures that could save their lives,” Murray said. “It is critical President Trump reverse course, stop decimating the NIH, and get every last bit of this funding out.”
An HHS spokesperson deferred a request for comment Tuesday to OMB.
An agency investigated by the GAO is generally given a draft of the watchdog’s findings and asked to respond.
The HHS response, obtained by States Newsroom, said grant reviews were back on schedule, though it did not address grant obligations.
“Despite the short delay in scheduling and holding peer review and advisory council meetings to allow for the administration transition, NIH has been on pace with its reviewing grant applications and holding meetings and has caught up from the pause when compared to prior years,” the response said.
GAO’s summary of the HHS response said the department had restarted meetings of grant review boards and provided some “factual information” but did not justify the lack of grant spending or provide current status of payments for previously approved grants.
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.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy greets members of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee before the panel’s hearing on the White House fiscal 2026 budget request for the Transportation Department on July 16, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy urged patience Wednesday from Democratic and Republican members of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee who asked about a backlog of approved grants the department has yet to pay out to state and local governments.
Duffy, in his first appearance before the panel, said former President Joe Biden’s Transportation Department approved an unprecedented 3,200 grants between Election Day 2024 and President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January 2025. Duffy told the panel his department was working to send out the remaining 1,300 grants, but that the task would take time.
He added that his hope was to complete the review by late summer or early fall.
“We have been left 3,200 grants — that is a historic number — from the last administration,” he said in response to a question from ranking Democrat Rick Larsen of Washington. “I know you all want your grants, but I don’t think everyone recognizes the workload that was left to us.”
Duffy also promoted the inclusion in Republicans’ budget reconciliation law of $12.5 billion to overhaul the nation’s air traffic control system, calling it a “down payment” on a $31.5 billion need. He called on Congress to fund the remaining $19 billion.
The air traffic control system has been targeted for reforms and technical upgrades for years. Renewed urgency on the issue came this year after a deadly crash near Washington Reagan National Airport in Northern Virginia during Duffy’s first full day on the job.
‘Leaving construction jobs on the table’
Larsen pressed Duffy on the delayed grants, and several members of both parties also asked about the status of grants to projects in their districts.
“I urge you to get on with the review of the remainder of these grants, because we’re leaving construction jobs on the table without these grants going out the door,” Larsen said. “Holding up these grants stalls badly needed job training, construction investments, and we need to get them going on that.”
Duffy said the department processed more grants in the first three months of the year than previous administrations had during the same period, but acknowledged that members of Congress and state transportation departments still wanted faster movement.
“I know that’s not enough for everybody,” he said. “Everyone wants their grants right now, and so we are working diligently to do that as quickly as possible.”
But some Democrats also complained about seven grants that had been canceled outright. Six of the seven were in Democratic states, California Democrat John Garamendi said. The seventh was a grant to the University of New Orleans, he said.
The projects appeared to be targeted because their titles included words related to diversity, equity and inclusion, Garamendi said.
Duffy said those grants departed from what the department’s priorities should be, such as decreasing the 40,000 traffic deaths per year.
“The racial stuff, as opposed to keeping people safe, that’s my drive,” Duffy said.
Air traffic control modernization
Duffy noted many members of the panel did not vote for the reconciliation law that extended 2017 tax cuts while slashing spending on Medicaid and nutrition assistance programs. No Democrats voted for the law.
But he said he thought everyone on the committee would have supported the $12.5 billion for air traffic control.
Chairman Sam Graves, a Missouri Republican, praised the provision.
“This funding will allow the administration to immediately get to work to replace critical telecommunications infrastructure and radar systems, invest in runway safety and airport surveillance projects and replace antiquated air traffic control facilities,” Graves said.
That initial payment would be insufficient to the total need of the system, Duffy said.
“We are going to need more money from the Congress than this $12.5 billion,” he said. “We will need more to do it. No offense to anybody, but the way Congress spends money, we’re talking $31.5 billion to do the full project. And my hope is that we’ll have an additional conversation about how we can do that. And I think time is of the essence.”
Electric vehicles
Democrats said they wanted to restore funding, provided in the bipartisan 2021 infrastructure law, for electric vehicle, or EV, chargers.
Republicans said that money could be better spent on other priorities, such as dedicated parking spaces for truckers, an issue raised by Rep. Rick Crawford of Arkansas. Crawford, a former chair of the panel’s Highways and Transit Subcommittee, applauded the department’s recent move to redirect $275 million for truck parking.
“Our nation was not and is still not at a point where rapid rollouts of charging infrastructure is a pressing issue,” Crawford said. “In contrast, our trucking industry is certainly not in a position where transitioning to electrification is a priority, but we do need parking.”
Duffy told the panel that the Biden administration’s rules for building EV charging were part of the reason why relatively few electric vehicle chargers had been built. He told Wisconsin Republican Tony Wied and New Hampshire Democrat Chris Pappas that the previous administration’s requirements regarding social justice and climate requirements in contracts delayed construction.
“There were so many rules about how the money could be spent, and it was polluted with ideas of the DEI and all the green work, which made it really challenging for states to build,” he said.
Duffy, a former House member from Wisconsin, said he would carry out laws passed by Congress, including funding for EV charging, even though he disagreed with it. But he also said he supported Trump’s attempt to revoke funding.
Pappas told Duffy his state was ready for the new guidelines.
“We’re ready to put shovels in the ground in New Hampshire,” Pappas said.
A student draws with chalk on an outdoor court at a New York City public school in 2022. If states don’t receive billions in congressionally approved funding for K-12 education that the Trump administration is withholding, officials say programs for migrants, English-language learners and kids in need of after-school care will be at risk. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
The U.S. Department of Education’s decision last week to hold back $6.8 billion in federal K-12 funds next year has triggered alarm among state education officials, school leaders and advocacy groups nationwide over how the lack of funds will affect their after-school, enrichment and language-learning services.
The Trump administration’s decision to freeze the funding has put states in “triage mode” as they scramble to decide what programs may be cut without that funding, said Mary Kusler, senior director for the Center for Advocacy at the National Education Association. The money was approved by Congress to support education for English language learners, migrants, low-income children and adults learning to read, among others.
As of July 1, school systems are unable to draw down funding, jeopardizing summer programs, hiring and early-year planning for the 2025–26 school year.
The funding freeze affects several core programs: Title II-A (educator training and recruitment), Title III-A (English learner support), Title IV-A (student enrichment and after-school), as well as migrant education and adult education and literacy grants. Trump has proposed eliminating all those programs in his proposed budget for next fiscal year, but that proposal hasn’t gone through Congress.
State superintendents sent out missives to school districts early this week and now are scrambling to make choices.
“This is not about political philosophy, this is about reliability and consistency,” Alabama state Superintendent Eric Mackey said to Politico. “None of us were worrying about this.”
The administration says it is reviewing the programs.
“The Department remains committed to ensuring taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the President’s priorities and the Department’s statutory responsibilities,” the U.S. Department of Education wrote to states in its announcement June 30.
Historically, the department releases allocations by July 1 to ensure schools can budget and plan effectively for the coming school year. Withholding the money could result in canceled programs, hiring freezes and the loss of essential support for English learners, migrant children and other high-need populations, education and state officials told Stateline.
“America’s public school leaders run district budgets that are dependent on a complex partnership between federal, state, and local funding,” said David R. Schuler, executive director of the School Superintendents Association in a statement. “For decades, school districts have relied on timely confirmation of their federal allocations ahead of the July 1 start of the fiscal year — ensuring stability, allowing for responsible planning, and supporting uninterrupted educational services for students.”
The states facing the largest withheld amounts include California ($810.7 million), Texas ($660.9 million), and New York ($411.7 million), according to data from the NEA and the Learning Policy Institute, an education think tank.
For 17 states and territories, the freeze affects over 15% of their total federal K-12 allocations, according to the Learning Policy Institute. For smaller jurisdictions such as the District of Columbia and Vermont, the disruption hits even harder: More than 20% of their federal K-12 budgets remain inaccessible.
Colorado Education Commissioner Susan Córdova urged school districts to begin contingency planning in case funds are not released before the federal fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. California State Superintendent Tony Thurmond hinted at possible legal action, which has become a trend as states fight the second Trump administration’s funding revocations or delays.
“California will continue to pursue all available legal remedies to the Trump Administration’s unlawful withholding of federal funds appropriated by Congress,” Thurmond said in a statement.
The NEA and the NAACP have filed for a preliminary injunction, calling the administration’s delay an illegal “impoundment” — a violation of the federal Impoundment Control Act, which bars the executive branch from withholding appropriated funds without congressional approval.
Education advocates warn the recent decision by the Trump administration to withhold funding reflects a broader pattern of federal disengagement from public education.
Community nonprofits said the withholding could devastate their programming too. The Boys and Girls Clubs of America could have to close more than 900 centers — bringing the loss of 5,900 jobs and affecting more than 220,000 children, said President and CEO Jim Clark in a statement.
The 1974 Impoundment Control Act lets the president propose canceling funds approved by Congress. Lawmakers have 45 days to approve the request; if they don’t, it’s denied. Meanwhile, agencies can be directed not to spend the funds during that time.
A White House statement shared with States Newsroom this week said “initial findings have shown that many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.”
“Kids, educators, and working families are the ones losing,” said Kusler, of the NEA. “We need governors and communities to step up — now.”
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing executive orders in the Oval Office on April 23, 2025. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon look on. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has put on hold $6.8 billion in federal funds for K-12 schools, according to an Education Department notice obtained by States Newsroom.
The agency informed states on Monday that it would be withholding funding for several programs, including before- and after-school programs, migrant education and English-language learning, among other initiatives.
But the agency notified states just a day ahead of July 1 — the date these funds are typically sent out as educators plan for the coming school year.
“The Department remains committed to ensuring taxpayer resources are spent in accordance with the President’s priorities and the Department’s statutory responsibilities,” the Education Department wrote to states.
The notice, which did not provide any timeline, said the funds are under review and “decisions have not yet been made concerning submissions and awards for this upcoming academic year.”
Title II-A, on improving the effectiveness of teachers and school leaders
Title III-A, on English language acquisition
Title IV-A, on STEM education, college and career counseling and other activities
Title IV-B, on before- and after-school programs and summer school programs
Grants geared toward adult education and literacy programs
States have been on the lookout for these funds. For instance, just last week, Oklahoma’s Department of Education reported that it had yet to get money from the federal government for migrant education, English language acquisition and other programs, according to Oklahoma Voice.
‘Winding down’ the department
Adding fuel to the fire, Trump is looking to eliminate all these programs as part of his fiscal 2026 budget request. That wish list, according to a department summary, calls for $12 billion in total spending cuts at the agency.
That proposed $12 billion cut “reflects an agency that is responsibly winding down,” the document notes.
Meanwhile, a coalition of 16 states is also suing the Trump administration over the cancellation earlier this year of roughly $1 billion in school mental health grants — a different piece of school funding — to try to restore that money.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle. The states include California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington and Wisconsin.
Uncertainty created
In a Tuesday statement, Washington state U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate spending panel, urged the Trump administration to immediately release the frozen funds.
“President Trump himself signed this funding into law — but that isn’t stopping him from choking off resources to support before and after school programs, help students learn, support teachers in the classroom, and a lot more,” Murray said. “The uncertainty he has created has already forced districts to delay hiring and other initiatives to help students. The only question left now is how much more damage this administration wants to inflict on our public schools.”
“Local school districts can’t afford to wait out lengthy court proceedings to get the federal funding they’re owed — nor can they make up the shortfall, especially not at the drop of a pin,” Murray added.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, blasted the administration’s actions, saying this is “another illegal usurpation of the authority of the Congress” and “directly harms the children in our nation.”
“K-12 public school leaders across the country who should have been able to start planning months ago for the summer and the upcoming school year are instead left mired in financial uncertainty,” added Weingarten, who leads one of the largest teachers unions in the country.
Approved by Congress
Carissa Moffat Miller, CEO of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said “the administration must make the full extent of title funding available in a timely manner,” in a statement shared with States Newsroom on Tuesday.
“These funds were approved by Congress and signed into law by President Trump in March,” Miller said. “Schools need these funds to hire key staff and educate students this summer and in the upcoming school year.”
In response to a request for comment on the frozen funds, the Education Department referred States Newsroom to the Office of Management and Budget, which is responsible for administering the federal budget and overseeing the performance of departments throughout the federal government.
Administration comment
In a statement shared with States Newsroom on Wednesday, a spokesperson for OMB said “this is an ongoing programmatic review of education funding” and “no decisions have been made yet.”
The spokesperson noted that “initial findings have shown that many of these grant programs have been grossly misused to subsidize a radical leftwing agenda.”
The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee's Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., talks with ranking Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin on June 3, 2025 before Education Secretary Linda McMahon testified to the panel about President Donald Trump's budget request for the Education Department. The proposal includes a reduction in the maximum Pell Grant award. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump wants to cut nearly $1,700 from the maximum Pell Grant award as part of his fiscal 2026 budget request — a move that would leave the subsidy for low-income students at its lowest level in more than a decade.
The proposal would have a devastating effect on college affordability and drive up costs for states because they’d have to fill in the missing federal dollars, education advocates and experts say.
The request — part of the president’s wish list for appropriations in fiscal 2026 — faces steep odds in Congress, where key members of both parties responded to the proposal with alarm.
“I don’t want to cut the Pell Grant,” U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican and chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, told States Newsroom.
“I’m concerned about that — I’m hoping that we’ll get that resolved,” she said.
Opposition from Capito, whose panel writes the annual bill to fund the Education Department, makes Trump’s wish unlikely to make its way into the upcoming legislation.
The Pell Grant is a government subsidy that helps low-income students pay for college and is the foundation of federal student aid in the United States.
Catherine Brown, senior policy and advocacy director at the National College Attainment Network, said the cut would be “absolutely devastating,” noting that “college is already out of reach for millions upon millions of low-income students.”
Funding gap
The Pell Grant program is seeing a projected budget shortfall of $2.7 billion heading into the next fiscal year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The administration has cited the shortfall as a reason to decrease the maximum award.
The request calls for reducing the maximum Pell Grant for the 2026-2027 award year from $7,395 to $5,710. The last time the maximum award stood below this level was during the 2013-2014 award year, at $5,645.
Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request includes $12 billion in total cuts to the Education Department as he and his administration seek to dismantle the agency and dramatically reshape the federal role in education.
Democrats: Cut would be ‘crazy’
Democrats have raised strong opposition, while even the Republican chair of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees Education Department funding was noncommittal about pursuing Pell Grant cuts.
“We want to make sure that (Pell Grants are) serving the people they need to,” Rep. Robert Aderholt of Alabama said when asked about any concerns he has on the proposed cut.
Aderholt said he’s hearing “a lot” from his constituents about the proposed reduction, and that it’s “certainly something we’re going to look at.”
Meanwhile, the leading Democrats on the House and Senate education spending panels were quick to blast the proposed cut.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the full House Appropriations Committee and the education spending subcommittee, called the nearly $1,700 reduction “crazy.”
“People are not going to be able to do it, and that’s the tragedy of what they’re doing here is dismantling all of the constructs that are there to provide people particularly with public education and a pathway to success,” the Connecticut Democrat said.
“You take away Federal Work-Study, you lower the Pell Grant, that says to me, you want to destroy public education,” DeLauro said.
The budget request proposes slashing $980 million of Federal Work-Study funding and requiring employers to pay 75% of students’ hourly wages, with the government contributing 25%.
The program gives part-time employment to students with financial need in order to help cover the cost of college.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, ranking member of the Senate subcommittee, said she “strongly” opposes the proposed reduction.
The Wisconsin Democrat said she also recognizes that “there’s a looming shortfall in Pell funding that we need to address.”
“I am hopeful that we’ll be able to work together to do that,” Baldwin said.
Advocates, experts weigh in
Higher education advocates and experts are also sounding the alarm on the proposed reduction, both over the harm to low-income students’ access to higher education and the impact on states and colleges.
“This would just much further exacerbate that gap and drive millions of students out of pursuing post-secondary education or set them on a different path,” Brown, with the National College Attainment Network, said.
Katharine Meyer, a governance studies fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the nonpartisan Brookings Institution, described the proposed decline as “truly unprecedented.”
She added that when the Pell Grant is smaller, states have to spend more on higher education, creating a challenge for state officials potentially grappling with other cuts in federal support in the budget reconciliation package Republicans are scrambling to pass.
“States don’t necessarily have the flexibility to spend more money when they have budgets that they need to balance, and they’re facing other federal constraints, including potentially having to take on additional health care costs depending on what happens with health care negotiations in budget reconciliation,” she said.
Capito also said she thought a reduction to Pell Grants would ripple out to the state level.
At the institutional level, Meyer pointed out that if a state has a smaller bucket to allocate for higher education but wants to prioritize financial aid, it would “come at the cost of” the money appropriated to universities.
“Then institutions are not going to be able to spend as much on their operating funds,” she said. “They’re not going to be able to do capital improvement campaigns, which are often very necessary.”
Ties to reconciliation bill
House Republicans have also proposed major changes to Pell Grant eligibility as part of GOP lawmakers’ separate “big, beautiful bill.” The legislative package would slash billions of dollars in federal programs to offset the cost of other parts of Trump’s agenda, including extending the 2017 tax cuts and boosting border security funding.
GOP lawmakers are using the complex reconciliation process to move a package through Congress with simple majority votes in each chamber and avoid the Senate’s 60-vote threshold that generally requires bipartisanship.
The House narrowly passed its version of the reconciliation package in late May. That measure included a provision that would raise the minimum number of credit hours to qualify for the maximum Pell Grant award from 12 per semester to 15. The move would save $7.1 billion in federal spending over 10 years, the Congressional Budget Office estimated.
That new eligibility requirement is not included in the draft proposal for the reconciliation package that Republicans on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions released in June.
The Joint Finance Committee convened at 10:17 p.m. Friday — over 12 hours after it was originally scheduled. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Joint Finance Committee convened at 10:17 p.m. Friday — over 12 hours after it was originally scheduled — to vote on a fraction of the budget areas it had originally planned and to release part of the literacy funding that is set to expire next week.
Legislative leaders have been working behind closed doors over the last week to negotiate with Gov. Tony Evers and work out the details of the state budget as the end of the fiscal year approaches next week.
Areas of the budget still left to take up are at the center of negotiations including the University of Wisconsin system, where Republicans have considered cuts, and the Department of Children and Families, which is responsible for the state’s Child Care Counts program. Evers has said he would veto a budget without funding for the program, which will run out of federal money soon. The committee also still needs to take up the Department of Health Services, the Department of Transportation, the capital budget and more.
The committee co-chairs did not take questions from reporters ahead of the meeting, but as the meeting started Rep. Mark Born (R-Beaver Dam) said the other agencies “will be taken up at a later date.” He didn’t specify when that would be.
The budget committee did approve the budget for several state agencies including the Department of Natural Resources, part of the Department of Justice, the Higher Education Aids Board, the Department of Administration and the Tourism Department. Each action the committee did take passed along partisan lines.
Portion of $50 million for literacy released
The committee voted unanimously to release $9 million of the nearly $50 million left in funding for literacy initiatives that was first allocated in the 2023-25 state budget. The majority of the money has been withheld by lawmakers since 2023 and is slated to lapse back into the state’s general fund if not released by the end of the fiscal year on June 30.
Lawmakers said action on the other $40 million will be taken soon.
“This has taken a long time to get here. One of the things that this bill was originally about was to make it so that kids could read. We want to help kids read. We want to give schools the tools to be able to do that,” Rep. Tip McGuire (D-Kenosha) said. “Unfortunately, it’s taken this Legislature a tremendous amount of time to allocate the funds for that, and ultimately, that’s simply not acceptable.”
Born said he is glad lawmakers were releasing part of the money Friday and would have further motions on it in the future. He also said the delay on the funding was Evers’ fault. Lawmakers were holding the funding back due to a partial veto Evers exercised on a bill related to the literacy funding. The Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Wednesday that partial veto was unconstitutional and restored the original language of the law.
“We’re glad that justice has been done, and we’re here now with the proper accounts and able to do these two separate motions here in the next couple of days in the committee to get this program that was a bipartisan program moving along,” Born said.
Certain projects funded in DNR budget, Knowles-Nelson not
Noticeably missing from the Republicans’ Department of Natural Resource motion was funding for the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant program, which allows the agency to fund the purchase of public land and upkeep of recreational areas.
Rep. Deb Andraca (D-Whitefish Bay) said lawmakers were missing an opportunity by not funding the program in the budget.
“There’s a lot of individual pet projects in here that seem to be of interest to individual legislators, but there aren’t a lot of park projects that are of interest to Wisconsinites, particularly Knowles-Nelson,” Andraca said.
The committee approved funding in the budget for an array of projects including $42 million to help with modernization of the Rothschild Dam, $500,000 to go towards the repair of a retaining wall for the Wisconsin Rapids Riverbank project, $2.2 million environmental remediation and redevelopment of Lake Vista Park in Oak Creek, $70,000 for a dredging project in Manitowoc River in the Town of Brillion, $1.75 million for dredging the Deerskin River and $100,000 for assistance with highway flooding in the Town of Norway in Racine County.
Rep. Tony Kurtz (R-Wonewoc), who is the author of a bill to keep the program going, said lawmakers are working to ensure it handles the program in the best way, which is part of why the funding is not in the budget as of now.
“We actually have until 30th of June of 2026 to work on this. It’s something that Sen. [Patrick] Testin and I have been working on along with our staff over the last six months. It’s something that is a bipartisan effort. We’ve met with so many different stakeholders, so many different groups, so many fellow legislators on getting this done,” Kurtz said. “We are committed to get it done.”
Kurtz said that the hearing on the bill was “good” and there will be “a lot more coming up in the future” when it comes to Knowles-Nelson.
The committee also approved raising nonresident vehicle admission sticker fees, nonresident campsite fees and campsite electricity fees.
Office of School Safety, VOCA grants get state funding
The Department of Justice’s Office of School Safety will get 13 permanent staff positions and $1.57 million to continue its work. That’s about $700,000 less than what the agency had requested, but is about what Evers had proposed for the office.
The office serves as a resource for K-12 schools — helping them improve security measures by providing training on crisis prevention and response, grants for safety enhancements, threat assessment training and mental health training. It also operates the Speak Up, Speak Out tipline where students can anonymously report safety concerns.
The Wisconsin DOJ will also get help filling funding gaps for Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grants left by federal funding cuts.
Wisconsin’s federal allocation for VOCA grants has been cut from $40 million to $13 million. Domestic violence shelters and victim services organizations along with the state DOJ have been navigating the limited funding for over a year. The organizations that receive VOCA grants help people who are the victims of a crime by assisting them with finding housing, providing transportation to and from court appearances and navigating the criminal justice system.
The Republican-approved motion will provide $20 million to cover the federal funding loss. It will also provide $163,500 for two staff positions, which will expire in July 2027. The Wisconsin DOJ had requested an additional $66 million in the budget to make up for the funding gap.
McGuire noted the funding would be significantly less than what the state agency had requested and would essentially create a two-year program rather than an ongoing one.
“[This] maintains the Legislature’s level of input, but it doesn’t actually maintain the same level of service because of the declining revenues as a result of the federal government,” McGuire said. “While we can’t fix all the things that are the result of what the federal government is doing wrong … this is something that will have an impact on communities across the state. It’s going to have an impact on people who’ve had the worst day and the worst week in the worst month of their life. It’s gonna have an impact on people who have been harmed by violence who have been in toxic, abusive relationships. It’s going to have an impact on people who desperately need services through no fault of their own. These are really vulnerable people and they should receive our support.
Wisconsin Grants to get slight infusion, UW budget postponed
The committee did not take up the budget for the University of Wisconsin system. It’s been one of the key issues for debate as Republican lawmakers have considered cuts, while Evers and UW leaders have said the university system needs $855 million in additional funding. Evers has said that in negotiations he and lawmakers were discussing a “positive number.”
The committee did take up the Higher Educational Aids Board, which is the agency responsible for overseeing Wisconsin’s student financial aid system, investing in the Wisconsin Grant Program. The program provides grants to undergraduate Wisconsin residents enrolled at least half-time in degree or certificate programs.
The Wisconsin Grants program would receive an additional $5.6 million in 2025-26 and $11.9 million in 2026-27 under the proposal approved Friday. The UW system, private nonprofit colleges and Wisconsin Technical College System would receive equal dollar increases. It also includes a $75,000 increase for tribal college students.
Evers had proposed 20% increases for the Wisconsin Grants for the state’s public universities, private nonprofit colleges and technical colleges — a total $57.7 million investment.
The Wisconsin Technical Colleges System had requested $10.8 million in each year of the biennium, saying there has been a waitlist for the grants for the first time in 10 years and that list is projected to grow.
The committee also approved $3.5 million in 2026-27 in a supplemental appropriation for emergency medical services training costs to reimburse training and materials costs.
“Recruiting volunteer EMS personnel is a challenge all over the state of Wisconsin — certainly is in my Senate district,” Sen. Howard Marklein (R-Spring Green) said. “We believe that this will remove one barrier to recruitment of volunteers in our EMS units all across the state.”
Other portions of the budget approved Friday evening include:
$30 million to the Tourism Department for general marketing, and an additional $1 million in the second year of the budget, as well as about $113,000 for state arts organizations and two staff positions and funding for the Office of Outdoor Recreation. The motion includes $5 million for Taliesin Preservation Inc. for restoration projects at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin home located in Spring Green supporting private fundraising for an education center, the restoration of visitor amenities and the stabilization of some buildings.
$193,700 to the Wisconsin Elections Commission with over $150,000 of that going toward information technology costs and the remaining going towards costs for the Electronic Registration Information Center.
$20.9 million and 147 positions for 12 months of personnel related costs for a Milwaukee Type 1 facility, which is meant to serve as a portion of the replacement of youth prisons Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake, which the state had been working to close for years. The 32-bed facility in Milwaukee has a planned completion date in October 2026.
The WisconsinEye endowment received $10 million to continue video coverage of the Legislature.
The committee also approved $11 million for grants to nine of Wisconsin’s 11 federally-recognized tribes. The committee has been excluding two tribes — the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa — from the grant funding for several years due to disputes over roads. The exclusion “strikes me as inappropriate,” McGuire said. He added that it’s “an insult to those people.”
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.
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