A small memorial of flowers and an American flag outside the Farragut West Metro station in Washington, D.C., near where two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot on Nov. 26. (Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)
The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced Friday it has charged the man who allegedly shot two National Guard members earlier this week with first-degree murder after one of the soldiers died as a result of her injuries.
Other charges include three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.
The attack shocked the country and has led to a renewed discussion about immigration policy as well as the war in Afghanistan and how the country withdrew during the Biden administration.
President Donald Trump announced late Thursday night he intends to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries,” though he didn’t specify which countries would be included or exactly how such an order would be implemented.
Trump wrote on social media he plans to “remove anyone who is not a net asset to the United States, or is incapable of loving our Country, end all Federal benefits and subsidies to noncitizens of our Country, denaturalize migrants who undermine domestic tranquility, and deport any Foreign National who is a public charge, security risk, or non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
The post came just hours after U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from injuries she sustained during a Wednesday shooting a couple of blocks from the White House. The other victim, U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remained hospitalized in critical condition. Both were West Virginia National Guard members.
The alleged shooter, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan national who worked with United States forces, entered the country on Sept. 8, 2021, as part of Operation Allies Welcome, according to a statement from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
No details of immigration proposals
The White House press office declined to say Friday which countries would have their residents barred from entering the United States under the new order, referring back to the president’s social media posts, which did not include a list.
“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump wrote. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a Thursday afternoon statement the administration would pause immigration applications for Afghan nationals.
“Effective immediately, processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals is stopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols,” she wrote.
The Trump administration will also review “all asylum cases approved under the Biden Administration,” McLaughlin said, saying those cases required more vetting.
Biden Afghanistan policy blamed
In a separate post, Trump blamed former President Joe Biden for allowing the alleged shooter into the country.
McLaughlin echoed that sentiment.
Lakanwal “was paroled in by the Biden Administration. After that, Biden signed into law that parole program, and then entered into the 2023 Ahmed Court Settlement, which bound (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) to adjudicate his asylum claim on an expedited basis. Regardless if his asylum was granted or not, this monster would not have been removed because of his parole.”
The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, following two decades of war that began as a result of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has been widely criticized.
Many of the Afghan nationals who aided the United States and allied countries were left behind as the Taliban quickly regained control.
The nonprofit #AfghanEvac, formed in August 2021 to help resettle Afghan refugees, criticized the administration’s proposal to indefinitely halt the processing of immigration requests from Afghans.
“Our allies are under attack today because of the actions of one deranged man. Those actions should not be ascribed to an entire community,” the organization posted on social media late Thursday.
In a lengthier statement issued Wednesday following the shooting of two National Guard members, the organization’s president, Shawn VanDiver, said #AfghanEvac “expects and fully supports the perpetrator facing full accountability and prosecution under the law.”
VanDiver continued: “AfghanEvac rejects any attempt to leverage this tragedy as a political ploy to isolate or harm Afghans who have resettled in the United States.”
Motive unknown
Lakanwal had been residing in Washington state and drove across the country before the shooting, according to Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia.
Officials investigating the shooting have yet to release a possible motive.
Lakanwal was granted asylum in the U.S. in April, according to reporting by many media outlets, including NPR.
The Department of Homeland Security did not confirm for States Newsroom the date Lakanwal was granted asylum.
As red sand filled the cracks along the sidewalks in front of the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education on the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus, community members stood in quiet solidarity as drums beat.
The pouring of red sand marked another year of remembrance and healing for missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives, referred to as MMIWR.
The symbolic act of pouring sand was part of the HIR Wellness Institute’s ninth annual Community Activated Medicine & Red Sand Events on Nov. 14.
The Electa Quinney Institute was founded in 2010 to support the Native American community on campus.
Started in 2017, the event has provided a sacred space for community grief and collective healing in honor of MMIWR through art, storytelling and community care.
Each year, the HIR Wellness Institute collaborates with the Red Sand Project to host the event. The Red Sand Project was designed to raise public awareness about human trafficking and modern slavery, using the red sand to represent those who have fallen through systemic cracks.
A person walks down a path in between posters that have statistics about missing and murdered Indigenous women. One poster stated that 45.6% of American Indians/Alaska Native women in Wisconsin have experienced sexual violence.
Analia Ninham, a member of Daughters of Tradition, an Indigenous youth group at the HIR Wellness Institute, offers attendees a cleansing sage.
Malia Chow blows into a conch shell in all four cardinal directions as part of a Native Hawaiian tradition.
The RedNationBoyz, a Milwaukee-based youth and community drum group, performs.
Marla Mahkimetas, a Menominee water educator and artist, speaks about losing her daughter-in-law to human trafficking and her family’s healing journey since.
“Trauma is not a life sentence.”
Marla Mahkimetas
Dr. Jeneile Luebke, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing, speaks to attendees about her research on gender-based violence in the Indigenous community.
“We got to cry and say her name.”
Malia Chow
Malia Chow, community healer with the HIR Wellness Institute, speaks about losing her twin sister to violence.
Shanna Hickman and her daughter, Ziraya Sunn, listen to a woman tell the story of how their sister was killed due to domestic violence.Hanna Jennings, an intern with the HIR Wellness Institute, hands out a bag containing red sand, tissues and community resources.The RedNationBoyz, led by one of the founders, Isiah Nahwahquaw (second from left), performs.
Monique Valentine writes the name Anacaona, a ruler of Jaragua (modern day Haiti), who was executed by the Spanish in 1503 and has become a symbol of Indigenous resistance.
Flower Harms pours red sand from the Red Sand Project, which was started by Molly Gochman in 2014 to bring awareness to human trafficking and modern slavery.
Red sand fills a crack during the ninth annual Community Activated Medicine & Red Sands Event.Rachel Fernandez, co-chair of the Wisconsin Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Relatives Task Force, pours red sand along a crack in the sidewalk.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
Tim Scott was shocked when he was laid off in May as the executive director of Nearby Nature, an organization that works to reconnect Black people to nature by offering nature education classes and introducing residents to new outdoor experiences.
Instead of letting the sudden change deter him, he doubled down on his commitment to help Milwaukee residents experience the outdoors.
Scott is opening Urban Nature Connection, a community-based nonprofit dedicated to reconnecting Black and Brown communities with nature.
The organization’s mission is to promote the physical, spiritual and mental health of outdoor activities such as birding, gardening, biking, hiking and fishing.
Finding a new purpose
According to Scott’s wife, Theresa Scott, he has always been an outdoorsman.
“He has always enjoyed walking or spending time in the park or outdoors,” Theresa Scott said.
Tim Scott spent most of his career in construction work.
He’s also done some coaching and marriage counseling but said he found a new purpose when he took the role at Nearby Nature.
“This is my passion, this is my healer, I owe nature my life to tell you the truth,” Scott said.
His wife agrees.
“I think this is a great second career for him,” she said. “It’s better for his mind and his body.”
Scott said he now knows the importance of pushing nature as a healing mechanism, especially for those who don’t have access to mental health services.
“We all experience trauma in different ways,” Scott said. “But we don’t all have access to the same mental health services. Being out in nature really saved me when I was experiencing my own crisis.”
By connecting people with nature, Scott hopes to help others find their own healing.
In addition to outdoor activities, the organization will focus on indoor gardening, programming and advocacy of green space.
Over the next few months, the focus will be on getting people outside even during the colder months.
“A lot of our work will be advocacy,” he said. “So, we will center advocacy through every season.”
Scott says he plans to partner with other agencies to host wellness events, community discussions and group walks.
To keep up with Urban Nature Connection, you can follow its Facebook page here.
“What he wants to do here is truly a movement,” Theresa Scott said.
Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.
A federal court has granted a northern Wisconsin ski resort’s request to continue operating after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection as it struggles to survive amid lacking snow in recent years.
This honor, presented as part of National Philanthropy Day, recognizes leaders whose work advances Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) in the philanthropic and nonprofit community.
NNS was celebrated alongside other changemakers on Nov. 20 during a special event that spotlighted individuals whose generosity, leadership and commitment are shaping a stronger, more connected southeastern Wisconsin.
In the nomination, the writers highlighted NNS’s mission-driven journalism that amplifies underrepresented voices, deepens public understanding and builds bridges across Milwaukee’s most diverse neighborhoods.
NNS has continued to model what equitable, community-centered journalism looks like in practice: reporting that listens first, collaborates deeply and informs with heart and integrity.
Smith, the executive director of NNS, is an award-winning journalist who served as the managing editor for news at USA TODAY before returning to Milwaukee.
Smith also worked as the deputy managing editor for daily news and production at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where he oversaw the breaking news hub and production desks and was the key point person for print story selections and workflow.
Morgan Geyser agreed not to contest her transfer from jail in Cook County, Illinois, to Wisconsin during a hearing Tuesday. Wisconsin authorities now have 30 days to pick her up.
A California Highway Patrol officer holds an evidence bag after taking a suspect into custody during a stop in Oakland, Calif. Many factors can influence a police agency’s clearance rate, including how quickly evidence is processed by crime labs. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Police departments’ “clearance rates” — the percentage of cases they declare closed — are one of the most widely cited benchmarks for how effectively they combat crime. Lawmakers reference clearance rates in hearings, mayors cite them during police budget debates, and community members often use them to judge how well their local department is functioning.
But the figures can be confusing — and in some cases misleading.
State lawmakers are pushing to better understand and improve clearance rates, as crime remains top of mind for many Americans and a defining issue in statehouses nationwide.
Efforts to help solve more crimes and support victims have become a rare area of bipartisan agreement. This year, lawmakers in Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Pennsylvania and Texas have considered or enacted measures that would boost police investigative capacity or improve crime data and clearance rate reporting.
A new law in Illinois will require all law enforcement agencies to publish routine clearance data on nonfatal shootings and homicides starting in July 2026.
Missouri enacted a similar law, which will go into effect in 2026, that directs the state’s Department of Public Safety to publish clearance rates statewide and create a new grant program to help police departments solve violent crimes. And Texas lawmakers established a pilot program to set up rapid DNA testing facilities in two counties.
Lawmakers and police officials in some of these states say raising clearance rates is both a public safety priority and a matter of providing closure for victims and families. Research suggests that the likelihood of being caught is one of the strongest deterrents to committing a crime — making clearance rates a closely watched indicator of how well the justice system is working.
Clearing crimes is critical for public safety because it takes repeat offenders off the streets, helps resolve cases that never made it into official reports, delivers justice for victims, and strengthens the community trust that helps police solve future cases, said Thaddeus Johnson, an assistant professor of criminal justice and criminology at Georgia State University. Johnson, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice, also served as a police officer in Memphis, Tennessee, for a decade.
“Clearance rate reflects police actions, but also the vibe and how the community feels –– the confidence and faith they have in the police,” Johnson said.
Across the country, clearance rates for violent crimes — including homicide, rape and aggravated assault — have declined for decades. The national homicide clearance rate, for example, has fallen from 72% in 1980 to 61% in 2024, the most recent year with FBI data available.
The decline is similar across other major crime categories. In 1980, police cleared 49% of rapes and 59% of aggravated assaults. By 2024, those figures had fallen to 27% and 49%, respectively. Robbery clearance rates also shifted over time, rising from 24% in 1980 to 30% in 2024.
But those figures reflect national averages. At the local level, clearance rates vary widely, with some departments solving a large share of cases while others struggle with consistently low numbers.
Police departments in Vermont, Delaware and Idaho had the highest violent crime clearance rates in 2024, while New Mexico, Georgia and Mississippi had the lowest, according to a 50-state crime data analysis by the nonpartisan, nonprofit Council of State Governments Justice Center.
Some experts say there are several reasons clearance rates can swing in either direction. Chronic staffing shortages, overwhelmed detective units, rising caseloads and strained community relationships can push rates down. Strong victim and witness cooperation, better investigative technology and clearance of older backlogged cases can push them up.
At the same time, clearance rates — like most crime statistics — have limitations and can be difficult to understand.
Clearance rates, explained
A clearance rate is meant to show how often police solve reported crimes in a given year. The formula is simple — cleared cases divided by reported cases — but the definition of “cleared” is broad.
Under federal rules, cases can be cleared either by arrest or by “exceptional means.” Arrest clearances are straightforward: Police make an arrest, file charges and hand the case to prosecutors.
Exceptional clearances apply when police say they have enough evidence to arrest someone but cannot do so for reasons outside their control — for example, when a suspect has died, fled the country, is being held in another jurisdiction that won’t extradite, or when prosecutors decline to bring charges or victims choose not to move forward.
Since agencies have wide discretion in using exceptional clearances, similar cases may be counted as “solved” in one community and remain open in another. High exceptional clearance rates can give the impression that more arrests have been made than actually have.
Timing also complicates the statistics. Clearances are counted in the year a case is closed, not the year the crime occurred. For crimes that routinely take months or years to investigate, such as homicides or sexual assaults, this is common.
As a result, departments that focus on long-term investigations or suddenly receive new evidence may clear a batch of older cases, making their current-year rate look higher even though more recent cases remain unresolved.
Most agencies do not publicly break down how many of their annual clearances involve older cases, but that doesn’t mean they are intentionally manipulating their statistics.
National reporting isn’t airtight either. The FBI’s crime reporting program is voluntary, and some police departments may submit crime data but skip clearance data altogether.
Other measures of effectiveness
A clearance does not guarantee that prosecutors filed charges or that a case resulted in a conviction — outcomes that often matter most to victims and their families. It also doesn’t capture whether the right person was apprehended.
“It’s an imperfect metric for the performance of our criminal justice system,” said Marc Krupanski, the criminal justice policy director at Arnold Ventures, a philanthropic research organization.
It’s an imperfect metric for the performance of our criminal justice system.
– Marc Krupanski, criminal justice policy director at Arnold Ventures
Clearance rates also say little about investigative quality, how consistently police update families, how quickly officers respond or whether residents feel comfortable coming forward with information in the first place.
For these reasons, experts recommend looking at other measures, including prosecutorial outcomes, police response times, victim satisfaction and levels of community trust.
Some experts say clearance rates are most meaningful when analyzed over time — ideally 10 to 20 years — and adjusted per capita or per 100,000 residents. Breaking out clearances by arrest and exceptional means also adds important context, as does examining how many arrests lead to charges or convictions.
These outcomes, experts say, reflect both police work and community cooperation — from gathering witnesses to processing crime scenes and maintaining evidence — offering a clearer picture of investigative effectiveness.
Michigan’s proposal
Just last month, Michigan lawmakers introduced bipartisan legislation aimed at boosting the state’s clearance rates. Last year, Michigan police solved 48% of violent crimes, according to the Council of State Governments Justice Center’s analysis.
The House and Senate versions of the Violent Crime Clearance Act are sponsored by Republican state Rep. Sarah Lightner and Democratic state Sen. Stephanie Chang. The legislation would create a statewide grant program for police departments, allowing them to use the funds to hire and train investigators or crime lab personnel, upgrade evidence-collection equipment or record-management systems and support witnesses in violent crime investigations. It would also establish strict clearance rate reporting requirements.
“Regardless of where you sit on the political spectrum, I think there’s just a general belief that we want crimes to be solved,” Chang told Stateline.
Rural police departments, which often have fewer staff and limited investigative resources, sometimes face challenges in solving certain types of cases. To help address this, the bill would require that grants be distributed across the state, and that no single agency receive more than 20% of the total program funding in a given year.
Supporters, including Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard, say the legislation would provide much-needed help for overburdened departments.
“These aren’t just statistics. These are people. … They were dragged into the criminal justice system as a victim, and so for us, each case — and trying to find and bring closure, whether it’s an armed robbery, a rape or a murder — is critically important,” Bouchard said.
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.
Former FBI Director James Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee in the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on June 8, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
A senior federal judge dismissed charges Monday against two public officials with long-running public disputes with President Donald Trump, saying the controversial appointment of the president’s former personal attorney as a prosecutor doomed the cases.
Senior U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie, whom former President Bill Clinton appointed to the bench in South Carolina, wrote in a Monday order that Attorney General Pam Bondi did not have the authority to make Lindsey Halligan the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia.
The judge said the deadline for an interim appointee to that position had lapsed.
Because that process was invalid, the prosecutions against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, both of whom had investigated or prosecuted Trump, must be dropped, Currie wrote.
Currie dismissed the indictments without prejudice, meaning they could be revived. But at least in Comey’s case, in which charges were brought on the eve of the statute of limitations expiring, that appeared unlikely.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday the administration would appeal the ruling.
“Lindsay Halligan was legally appointed, and that’s the administration’s position,” Leavitt said. “There was a judge who was clearly trying to shield Leticia James and James Comey from receiving accountability.”
120-day clock
U.S. attorneys are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but the attorney general can appoint someone on an interim basis for 120 days. After that, the judges in the district are responsible for appointing an interim prosecutor.
“Ms. Halligan was not appointed in a manner consistent with this framework,” Currie wrote.
Bondi appointed Erik Siebert as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in January, while his confirmation was pending in the Senate. After 120 days, the judges in the district allowed him to continue.
Siebert resigned in September, reportedly under pressure from Trump and Bondi to bring charges against Comey. Bondi then named Halligan, at the time a White House aide who had also worked for Trump in a private capacity, as the interim U.S. attorney.
But Bondi could not do that because, after 120 days, the responsibility for naming an interim U.S. attorney fell to the district court judges, Currie wrote.
“The 120-day clock began running with Mr. Siebert’s appointment on Jan. 21, 2025,” she wrote. “When that clock expired on May 21, 2025, so too did the Attorney General’s appointment authority. Consequently, I conclude that the Attorney General’s attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid and that Ms. Halligan has been unlawfully serving in that role.”
Quick indictment
Halligan, after gaining office in September, quickly secured a two-count indictment against the former FBI chief from a grand jury in Alexandria. Comey was accused of lying to Congress about whether he had authorized a press leak of information related to an FBI investigation of Russian actors’ involvement in Trump’s first presidential campaign.
However, U.S. District Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick wrote last week that issues with evidence, testimony and statements to the grand jury in the case outweighed the usual heavily guarded secrecy of proceedings. He said “profound investigative missteps” could result in the dismissal of Comey’s indictment.
James won a civil case against Trump related to business fraud, though a state appeals court later overturned the sentence as overly punitive.
Trump has publicly blasted James and Comey as using the mechanisms of legal proceedings to persecute him.
In an extraordinary public message to Bondi just before Halligan replaced Siebert, Trump complained that the prosecutions against both were not developing faster.
The Justice Department did not respond to a message seeking comment Monday.
The Waukesha County Sheriff Department. An audit of the department's use of data from the Flock surveillance camera system shows inconsistent reporting the reasons on the reasons investigators access the information, a problem common among police agencies. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Like other Wisconsin law enforcement agencies, the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department (WCSD) uses Flock cameras for many reasons, though department personnel don’t always clearly document what those reasons are. Audit data reveals that staff most frequently entered “investigation” in order to access Flock’s network, while other documented uses are raising concerns among privacy advocates.
Flock cameras perpetually photograph and, using AI-powered license plate reader technology, identify vehicles traversing roadways. Flock’s system can be used to view a vehicle’s journey, even weeks after capturing an image, or flag specific vehicles for law enforcement which have been placed on “Be On The Lookout” (BOLO) lists.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
As of March 2025, the company Flock Safety was valued at $7.5 billion, with over 5,000 law enforcement agencies using its cameras nationwide. At least 221 of those agencies are in Wisconsin, including the city of Waukesha’s police department as well as the county sheriff . The Wisconsin Examiner obtained Flock audit data from the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department through open records requests, covering Flock searches from January 2024 to July 2025, and used computer programming to analyze the data.
Over that period of time, more than 6,700 Flock searches were conducted by WCSD using only “investigation”, as well as abbreviations or misspellings of the word. The searches, as they appeared in the audit data, offered no other context to suggest why specifically Flock’s network had been searched. Lt. Nicholas Wenzel, a sheriff’s department spokesperson, wrote in an email statement that “investigation” has a broad usage when Flock is involved.
“A deputy/detective using Flock for an investigation is using it for a wide range of public safety situations,” Wenzel explained. “Flock assists in locating missing persons during Amber or Silver Alert by identifying their vehicles and has proven effective in recovering stolen cars. Investigators use Flock to track suspect vehicles in serious crimes such as homicides, assaults, robberies, and shootings, as well as in property crimes like burglaries, catalytic converter thefts, and package thefts. The system also supports traffic-related investigations, including hit-and-run cases, and enables agencies to share information across jurisdictions to track offenders who travel between communities.”
Widespread use of vague search terms
Dave Maass, director of investigations at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that terms like “investigation” are too vague to determine whether or not Flock was used appropriately. At least some responsibility falls on Flock Safety itself, Maass argues. “They’re setting up a system where it’s impossible for somebody to audit it,” he told the Wisconsin Examiner. “And I think that’s the big problem, is that there’s no baseline requirement that you have to have a case related to this…They say you have to have a law enforcement purpose. But if you just put the word ‘investigation’ there, how do you know? Like, how do you know that this is not somebody stalking their ex-partner? How do you know whether this is somebody looking up information about celebrities? How do you know whether it’s racist or not? And you just don’t, because nobody is checking any of these things.”
The audit also stored other vague search terms used by WCSD such as “f”, “cooch”, “freddy”, “ts”, “nathan”, and “hunt” which Lt. Wenzel would not define.“The search terms are associated with investigations, some of which remain active,” he wrote in an email statement. “To preserve the integrity of these ongoing investigations, no further description or clarification of the terms can be provided at this time.”
A Flock camera on the Lac Courte Orielles Reservation in Saywer County. | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner
In August, Wisconsin Examiner published a similar Flock analysis that also found agencies statewide entering only the word “investigation,” with no other descriptor, in order to access Flock. At nearly 20,000 searches (not including misspellings and abbreviations), the term “investigation” was in fact the most often used term in that analysis, which relied on audit data obtained from the Wauwatosa Police Department.
While data from the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department appeared in that first Flock story, that analysis focused on broad trends which appeared among at least 221 unique agencies using Flock in Wisconsin. This more recent analysis focuses specifically on the Waukesha County Sheriff Department’s use of the camera network.
The August report found that the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department appeared among the top 10 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies that used Flock the most. The report also found that some agencies also only entered “.” — a period — in the Flock system field to indicate the reason for using the system. The West Allis Police Department led Wisconsin in this particular search term, followed by the Waukesha Police Department and the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office.
In response to an inquiry from the Wisconsin Examiner, a Waukesha Police Department spokesperson said that an officer who’d conducted nearly 400 Flock searches using only “.” as the reason had been provided extra training, and that the officer’s behavior had been corrected after the Wisconsin Examiner reached out. The West Allis Police Department, on the other hand, did not suggest that its officers were using the Flock network improperly.
Use of vague search terms is chronic across Flock’s network, Maass has found. He recalled one nationwide audit that covered 11.4 million Flock searches over a six-month period. Of those some 22,743 “just dots” appeared as reasons for Flock searches. Searches using only the word “investigation” made up about 14.5% of all searches, he said.
“So yeah, that’s a problem,” Maass told the Wisconsin Examiner. Reviewing a copy of Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department audit data, Maass saw the same vague search terms that have been reported by the Examiner. Although some terms can be reasonably guessed — such as “repo” perhaps meaning repossession, or ICAC, which usually stands for Internet Crimes Against Children — others aren’t so easy.
Surveillance cameras monitor traffic on a clear day | Getty Images Creative
“‘Hunt’ can mean anything,” said Maass, referring to a term which appeared 24 times within the Waukesha Sheriff’s data. Maass points to the search term “f”, which the Wisconsin Examiner’s analysis found WCSD used to search Flock 806 times.
Maass highlights that each search touches hundreds or even thousands of individual Flock networks nationwide. “If I’m one of these agencies that gets hit by this system, how am I to know if this is a legitimate search or not?” Maass said. “Now, maybe somebody at Waukesha is going through their own system, and like questioning every officer about every case. Maybe they’re doing that. Probably not.”
Wenzel of the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department said that although some searches appear vague, deputies and detectives are required by department policy to document their use of Flock in reports. Although a case number category does appear in the audit data, this column was rendered blank, making it impossible for Wisconsin Examiner to determine how often Flock searches had case numbers, or whether those case numbers corresponded with specific investigations the sheriff’s department had on file.
“The Sheriff’s Office understands the concerns surrounding emerging technology and takes very seriously its responsibility to protect the privacy and civil rights of the community,” Wenzel said in a statement. “The use of Flock license plate recognition technology is guided by clear safeguards to ensure it is only used for legitimate law enforcement purposes.”
The department’s policy, Wenzel explained, “prohibits any use outside of legitimate criminal investigations.” He said that deputies undergo initial and ongoing training to use the camera network. “All system activity is logged and subject to review,” said Wenzel.
Maass says the department can’t back-check the searches conducted by other agencies using the Waukesha Flock network, however. “Because when we’re talking about millions of searches coming through their system, you know, every few months…like hundreds of thousands at least every month…how are they actually quality controlling any of these?” Maass told the Wisconsin Examiner. “They’re just not.”
An eviction notice posted on a door as the lock is changed. (Stephen Zenner | Getty Images)
Wenzel said that “the technology is not used for general surveillance, traffic enforcement, or monitoring individuals not connected to an investigation.” The Wisconsin Examiner’s analysis, however, detected 43 searches logged as “surveillance” and 30 searches logged as “traffic offense.” The audit data also contained at least 357 searches logged as “suspicious” or variations of the word, as well as another 14 logged as “suspicious driving behavior,” 52 searches for “road rage” and 36 logged as “identify driver”.
There were also 62 searches related to evictions, which privacy advocates contend go beyond the public safety roles that the cameras were originally pitched to serve.
“Evictions can be unpredictable and potentially dangerous situations,” said Wenzel. “The removal of individuals from a residence often creates heightened emotions, uncertainty, and sometimes resistance. For this reason, safety is the top priority for both the residents being evicted and the deputies carrying out the court order. Flock is utilized to determine if the former tenants have left the area or could possibly be in the area when the court order is being carried out.”
Jon McCray Jones, policy analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin, said in a statement that the Waukesha Sheriff’s use of Flock has extended “far beyond the public safety justifications for which these tools were originally sold.” McCray Jones told the Wisconsin Examiner, “These systems were introduced to the public as a means to reduce violent crime and aid in solving serious investigations. However, when they are used for non-criminal purposes, such as evictions, they cross a dangerous line.”
Waukesha’s uses for evictions were particularly concerning for McCray Jones. “What’s happening here is surveillance technology, operated by taxpayer-funded public servants, being weaponized at the behest of private landlords and corporations,” he said. “That is exactly the kind of mission creep communities are most worried about when it comes to police surveillance. If Flock cameras can be repurposed to target tenants today, what stops law enforcement tomorrow from using facial recognition to track people who fall behind on rent, or phone location data to monitor whether workers are ‘really sick’ when they call off? We’ve seen documented cases where law enforcement misused surveillance systems to track down romantic interests. Once the floodgate is opened, the slide into abuse is fast and quiet.”
Wenzel said that access to the Flock network is limited to personnel who are properly trained and authorized to use the software, and the department’s policy is regularly reviewed by those personnel.
“Searches are limited to legitimate law enforcement purposes per department policy,” he wrote in an email statement. The department has conducted its own Flock audits, Wenzel explained, and no sheriff department staff have ever been disciplined or re-trained due to Flock-related issues. Although the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department is part of the federal 287(g) program, in which local law enforcement agencies participate in federal immigration enforcement, Wenzel said that Flock is not used as part of the program, and the Wisconsin Examiner didn’t find any clear examples of immigration-related uses by the sheriff’s department.
McCray Jones considers the Waukesha Sheriff’s use of Flock to be an example of why “surveillance technology in the hands of law enforcement must be tightly limited, narrowly defined, and rigorously transparent.” He stressed that every use “must be clearly logged and justified — not with vague categories like ‘investigation’ or ‘repo’, but with meaningful explanations the public can actually understand and evaluate. Without strict guardrails, audits like this reveal how quickly tools justified in the name of ‘safety’ turn into instruments of convenience or even private gain.”
With the growth of surveillance technologies and the civil liberties implications they raise, McCray Jones said that the public “deserves clear proof that it is being used only to reduce crime — particularly violent crime — and not to serve the interests of landlords or corporations. Accountability and transparency aren’t optional add-ons; they are the bare minimum to prevent abuse.”
A Rivian R1T owner faced a massive bill after a low-speed parking incident.
Insurance estimated $1.7K but later refused to pay the certified shop’s bill.
Owner paid out of pocket, fought insurance, and recovered only part of it.
Rivian owners take on a risk that many may not fully appreciate when they buy one of these trucks. It’s not just about the company being young, or its future still being written. Those are expected gambles.
The real hidden concern and surprise comes when something goes wrong, and not mechanically, but physically. Damage that would be a quick fix on a Ford, a Toyota or most other legacy carmakers can turn into a financial nightmare with a Rivian, sometimes severe enough to write off the vehicle altogether.
It’s becoming an increasingly common problem, and the ordeal one owner continues to face shows just how complicated it can get.
When Simple Damage Isn’t Simple
Back in May of this year, the employee of a Rivian R1T owner backed into his electric truck. The damage appeared quite straightforward in the rear quarter panel. However, this is a Rivian R1T, so “straightforward” doesn’t really apply in this case.
The rear quarter panel is part of one giant piece that actually includes the roof. In other words, fixing a dent in it, especially a large one, isn’t a simple job. We’ve seen instances of paintless dent repair (PDR) being a savior in some cases. This isn’t one of them.
The owner of the R1T says that his employee’s insurance company initially quoted just $1,700 for the repair. Considering that many of these situations end up in the five-figure range, he knew that was potentially problematic. To that end, he contacted Rivian, and things only got worse from there.
The True Cost of Rivian Repairs
The automaker explained that there was only one certified repair shop within 300 miles (about 480 km), and their estimate came in at a whopping $16,000. Given the huge gap, the owner started asking PDR shops for help, but none would touch the R1T.
That said, the owner decided to go ahead and go with the certified repair shop, hoping that the final bill would come in lower than the estimate. Instead, the shop found additional damage once the truck was in the building.
The total came to $22,000 after a seven-week repair process. The ordeal wasn’t even over after all that because insurance refused to pay that amount.
Instead, it offered $13,000 and said that the certified repair shop’s rates were excessive. Faced with either paying the $9k himself or entering arbitration that would delay pickup indefinitely, the owner paid the difference, retrieved the truck, and launched an appeal.
His letters were ignored. A second, more forceful letter outlining what he considered an unfair settlement? Also ignored. Only after filing a complaint with his state’s Secretary of State did the insurer finally respond, this time offering an additional $5,100 to make the issue go away.
The state recommended accepting the offer, and the owner did. “I really enjoy this truck, but this is bonkers,” he says. “I hope Rivian improves design to allow for less expensive repair costs for common dings.”
No doubt, plenty of other Rivian owners hope the same thing.
One in five cars in Germany failed annual roadworthiness inspection.
VW’s Golf, Touareg, and T-Roc dominated rankings across segments.
Mercedes led long-term quality with lowest defects among older cars.
Germany’s car-check watchdog has crunched the reliability numbers and once again, Tesla finds itself parked at the very bottom of the heap. The 2026 TÜV-Report, covering annual roadworthiness inspections of approximately 9.5 million vehicles between July 2024 and June 2025, found that Tesla EVs occupied the two bottom spots in the league table.
The Model 3, which was the worst-ranked car for the two previous years was found to have a defect rate of 13.1 percent, meaning one in every 7.6 cars in the two-to-three-year-old ages group failed the Hauptuntersuchung safety check.
Why Is The Model Y So Troubled?
But the Model Y was even worse. It had a defect rate of 17.3 percent, versus 3.5 percent for a Mini Cooper SE, making it the worst TÜV has seen in this age group in a decade. The biggest defect culprits were the axle assembly, suspension, brakes and lighting.
Pulling back to look at the bigger picture covering cars of all ages reveals that 21.5 percent, or one in five cars failed the inspection due to a “significant” or “dangerous” defect, an increase of 0.9 percent on last year, ADAC reported. And the proportion with minor defects rose 0.8 percent to 12.3 percent.
Other reliability villains include the BMW 5-series and 6-series in both the 4-5-year-old and 8-9-year-old age groups, the Dacia Duster in the 6-7 and 10-11 age groups and the Renault Clio among 12-13-year-old cars.
But with every list of losers there has to be a list of winners, and for cars that have passed their fourth birthday, this one is headed by Volkswagen.
The VW Golf wagon and T-Roc scored well in the 4-7-year-old categories and the automaker’s Touareg was top of the oldies. The Mazda CX-3 and Mercedes B-Class were also commended.
Looking at the 2-3-year-old group, Fiat’s 500e toped the small car category, proving to Tesla that EVs can be reliable, the Mazda 2 and BMW 1-series were the top-rated small car and compact, and the C-class took the mid-range award (if you’re reading from the US, those classifications will look kinda messed up).
The T-Roc popped up again to take best SUV, and the B-class bagged most reliable nearly-new minivan.
One big change in this year’s study is the introduction of an award for long-term quality, handed out to brands whose vehicles, aged 10+ exhibit the lowest average defect rate for safety-related faults and stand for quality, durability, and good service.
Mercedes took gold with an 18.5 percent defect rate – almost matching that of a 2-3-year-old Model Y – Audi was second with 19.2 percent and Toyota snuck onto the podium’s last step with a 22 percent defect rate.
Madison police say a woman who stabbed a sixth grade classmate in order to appease a fictional horror character known as Slender Man cut off her ankle monitor and hasn't returned to a group home in the city.
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ICE records list more than 130 arrests at county jails in Wisconsin between January and July 2025. Nearly 40% were awaiting a ruling in their first criminal case.
While defendants sit in ICE custody, their criminal cases generally continue without them — sometimes with no explanation of their absence.
That leaves defendants without their day in court, victims without a chance to testify and thousands of dollars in forfeited bail paid by family and friends.
Stacey Murillo Martinez arrived at the Fond du Lac County courthouse in June to pay a $1,500 cash bond for her husband, Miguel Murillo Martinez, as he sat in jail facing drunken driving, bail jumping and firearms charges.
Scraping the funds together was no small feat. Stacey lives on a fixed income, so Miguel’s boss chipped in. She expected the court to eventually return the $1,500. Bond is meant to serve as collateral to incentivize defendants to show up for their court dates, as she believed Miguel would.
She did not know U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would wait inside the Fond du Lac County Jail later that day to take Miguel, an immigrant from Honduras, into their custody.
Five months later, Miguel still sits in an ICE facility near Terre Haute, Indiana. His detention caused him to miss a court date in September, prompting the Fond du Lac County judge to issue a bench warrant for his arrest.
“They didn’t tell me, ‘You’re guilty’ or ‘You’re not guilty,’ ” he said, his voice muffled and distorted by the facility’s phone system.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Stacey said in early November, referring to the fate of her husband and the bail money – three times the monthly rent for the couple’s double-wide in a Fond du Lac manufactured home park.
ICE records list more than 130 arrests at county jails in Wisconsin between January and July 2025. Nearly 40% were awaiting a ruling in their first criminal case.
While defendants sit in ICE custody, their criminal cases generally continue without them — sometimes with no explanation of their absence to the court. As ICE ramps up its enforcement efforts nationwide, Wisconsin courts are increasingly left with loose ends: defendants without their day in court, victims without a chance to testify and thousands of dollars in forfeited bail paid by family, friends and employers.
“If I get out, I’m going back to my house, and then I have to appear in county court,” Miguel said.
Miguel is not the only recent example: ICE picked up his nephew, Junior Murillo, at the Fond du Lac County Jail in October as he faced charges for disorderly conduct and domestic abuse.
The Fond du Lac County Jail has transferred 10 people into ICE custody this year, Sheriff Ryan Waldschmidt said. His county is among 15 Wisconsin local governments to have signed agreements with ICE to assist in identifying and apprehending unauthorized immigrants. These are often called 287(g) agreements, referencing the section of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act authorizing the program.
Fond du Lac is also among the more than two dozen Wisconsin counties participating in the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, through which the Department of Justice partially reimburses incarceration costs for agencies that share data on unauthorized immigrants in their custody. Fond du Lac County received nearly $25,000 through the program in fiscal year 2024, according to Waldschmidt.
Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney said ICE has been “very easy for us to communicate and work with,” and his prosecutors inform judges if a defendant is arrested in the courthouse. Waldschmidt noted that while his office communicates with prosecutors about inmates in county custody with ICE holds, it lacks a written policy requiring them to notify prosecutors of handoffs to ICE.
Criminal and immigration courts collide
Wisconsin courts do not consistently track whether a defendant has entered ICE custody, but multiple Wisconsin defense attorneys told Wisconsin Watch that immigration authorities frequently arrest defendants shortly after they post bail.
“The judge will issue a $500 cash bond, somebody in the family will post it before I’m able to tell them, ‘please don’t,’ and the client will get transferred into immigration custody, where they’re really not able to make the appearance in circuit court,” said Kate Drury, a Waupaca-based criminal defense and immigration attorney.
In rare cases, prosecutors work with ICE to extradite defendants from detention centers in other states – or, even rarer, from other countries. Doing so is complicated and expensive, especially for smaller counties.
Toney said his office can’t justify expenses for bringing any out-of-state defendant back to prosecute lower-level cases, such as driving without a license.
Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne is similarly reluctant to spend thousands to extradite defendants from faraway detention facilities. “If it’s a misdemeanor retail theft (charge), let’s say, and the person is in California, that extradition cost may be $5,000,” he said. “We’re probably not going to spend $5,000 or bring that person back.”
Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been responsive to his office’s questions when defendants in criminal cases face immigration enforcement. He is shown at the 1st District GOP Fall Fest, Sept. 24, 2022, at the Racine County Fairgrounds in Union Grove, Wis. (Angela Major / WPR)
Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne says he is reluctant to spend thousands of dollars to extradite criminal defendants from faraway detention facilities. He is seen in Dane County Circuit Court in Madison, Wis., in December 2019. (Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)
Defendants in ICE custody can sometimes appear for Wisconsin court hearings via video call, though some attorneys report struggling to schedule those from immigration detention centers.
“Jails and private prisons that operate immigration detention facilities aren’t super focused or motivated in helping defendants make their scheduled court appearances,” Drury said.
When a defendant misses a court date, Toney’s office typically requests a bench warrant and moves to schedule a bail forfeiture hearing — regardless of whether ICE detention caused the absence, he said.
Making exceptions for ICE detainees would mean “treating somebody differently because of their immigration status,” Toney said. Still, attorneys in his office can exercise their own discretion when deciding whether to seek a warrant or bail forfeiture, he added. The prosecutor responsible for Junior Murillo’s case, for instance, did not request that the court forfeit his bail after his ICE arrest.
Ozanne argued against forfeiting defendants’ bail if they miss a court date while in ICE custody.
“It wasn’t their unwillingness to show up” that prevented them from appearing in court, he said, adding that his office would be willing to return bail money to whomever posted it on the defendant’s behalf.
“The problem is that we don’t necessarily know” whether a person is in custody, Ozanne added. While he, like Toney, has reported no difficulties communicating with ICE, the agency doesn’t proactively inform his office when it arrests immigrants with active cases in Dane County.
ICE did not respond to emailed questions from Wisconsin Watch.
Mindy Nolan, a Milwaukee-based attorney who specializes in the interaction between criminal cases and immigration status, said judges generally issue warrants for defendants in ICE custody to keep their criminal cases alive if ICE releases them or they return to the country after deportation.
“Over the years, what I’ve heard from judges is (that) if the person is present in the United States in the future, they could be picked up on the state court warrant,” she said.
Hearings without defendants
Wisconsin law gives courts at least 30 days to decide whether to forfeit a defendant’s bail.
“The default assumption seems to be that the immigrant could appear and the statute places the burden on the defendant to prove that it was impossible for them to appear,” Drury said. “But how does the defendant meet that burden when they’re being held in immigration custody, transferred all over the country, potentially transferred outside the United States?”
Wisconsin courts have held more than 2,700 bail forfeiture hearings thus far in 2025, though the state’s count does not provide details on the reasons for defendants’ absence. If the defendant misses the hearing, the defendant’s attorney or those who paid the bail can challenge the forfeiture by demonstrating that the absence was unavoidable.
On a Friday morning in late October, a Racine County judge issued a half-dozen bail forfeiture orders in just minutes. The court had scheduled a translator for most of the cases, and she sat alone at the defense table, occasionally scanning the room in case any defendants slipped in at the last minute.
“The problem is getting someone at the bond forfeiture hearings to assert those arguments on behalf of clients,” Drury said. Public defenders are often stretched thin, and family members may be unaware of upcoming hearings. Court records indicate Miguel Murillo lacks a defense attorney assigned to his case in Fond du Lac, leaving only Stacey to argue against bail forfeiture.
Such hearings tend to be more substantial when attorneys are present, boosting the likelihood of bail money being returned.
Fond du Lac County Jail is shown in Fond du Lac, Wis., Nov. 8, 2025. (Paul Kiefer / Wisconsin Watch)
Miguel Murillo’s case does not involve an alleged victim, meaning forfeited bail would go to Fond du Lac County. Court costs typically exceed the value of forfeited bail, Toney said.
When cases involve alleged victims, Wisconsin law requires that courts use forfeited bail for victim restitution – even without a conviction.
What’s missing are judicial findings that the defendant is responsible for the alleged actions and caused suffering to the victim, Drury said.
“Without a conviction, I don’t understand how you maintain that policy and the presumption of innocence, which is such an important constitutional cornerstone of this country.”
Immigration arrests often throw a wrench in the gears of the criminal justice system, Ozanne said.
“It’s most problematic for us when the person hasn’t gone through their due process,” he said. “We have victims… who don’t really get the benefit of the process or have the ability to communicate with the courts about what they think should happen.”
“In a sense,” he added, “that person has a get-out-of-jail-free card.”
Months in ICE detention
Miguel Murillo left Honduras a decade ago, initially settling in Houston. While in Texas, he says he survived a shooting and sought, but never obtained, a U-visa, which provides temporary legal status to victims of certain crimes.
The shooting prompted him to head north to Wisconsin, where he found construction work and married Stacey, a lifelong Wisconsinite. Court records mark occasional run-ins with law enforcement and misdemeanors over the last five years, culminating in the April 2025 charges that preceded his ICE arrest.
Stacey, who is receiving treatment for breast cancer, relied on her husband to keep their household afloat. In his absence, she said, “I have to beg, plead, and borrow to get any assistance.”
“Right now, as I go through this situation… there’s no one to take care of her,” Miguel told Wisconsin Watch. The couple hope that argument will sway a Chicago immigration court judge to release him from ICE custody. The court held its final hearing on his order of removal case in late October, Stacey said, but has yet to issue a ruling.
Junior’s case progressed far more quickly. After his arrest in October, he spent just over a week in ICE custody before immigration authorities put him on a plane to Honduras.
Miguel, on the other hand, has spent roughly five months in various ICE detention facilities. He was scheduled to appear by video in Fond du Lac County court Thursday morning. He never joined the call.
“I don’t know what happened,” he wrote to Wisconsin Watch afterwards. “I was waiting and (facility staff) didn’t call me.”
Stacey couldn’t attend the hearing for health reasons, and Miguel has yet to secure an attorney for his Fond du Lac case. Court records do not indicate whether the prosecutor requested forfeiture of his $1,500 bail.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
Federal agents patrol the halls of immigration court in New York City in October. While arrests at federal immigration courts have received widespread attention, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have also arrested individuals at state courthouses, prompting some Democratic states to impose restrictions. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
A day after President Donald Trump took office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a new directive to its agents: Arrests at courthouses, restricted under the Biden administration, were again permissible.
In Connecticut, a group of observers who keep watch on ICE activity in and around Stamford Superior Court have since witnessed a series of arrests. In one high-profile case in August, federal agents pursued two men into a bathroom.
“Is it an activity you want to be interfering with, people fulfilling their duty when they’re called to court and going to court? For me, it’s insanity,” said David Michel, a Democratic former state representative in Connecticut who helps observe courthouse activity.
Fueled by the Stamford uproar, Connecticut lawmakers last week approved restrictions on civil arrests and mask-wearing by federal law enforcement at state courthouses. And on Monday, a federal judge tossed a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice that had sought to block similar restrictions in New York.
They are the latest examples of a growing number of Democratic states, and some judges, pushing back against ICE arrests in and around state courthouses. State lawmakers and other officials worry the raids risk keeping people from testifying in criminal trials, fighting evictions or seeking restraining orders against domestic abusers.
Is it an activity you want to be interfering with, people fulfilling their duty when they’re called to court and going to court? For me, it’s insanity.
– David Michel, a Democratic former Connecticut state representative
The courthouse arrests mark an intensifying clash between the Trump administration and Democratic states that pits federal authority against state sovereignty. Sitting at the core of the fight are questions about how much power states have to control what happens in their own courts and the physical grounds they sit on.
In Illinois, lawmakers approved a ban on civil immigration arrests at courthouses in October. In Rhode Island, lawmakers plan to again push for a ban after an earlier measure didn’t advance in March. Connecticut lawmakers were codifying limits imposed by the state Supreme Court chief justice in September. Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont is expected to sign the bill.
States that are clamping down on ICE continue to allow the agency to make criminal arrests, as opposed to noncriminal civil arrests. Many people arrested and subsequently deported are taken on noncriminal, administrative warrants. As of Sept. 21, 71.5% of ICE detainees had no criminal convictions, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data research organization.
Some states, such as New York, already have limits on immigration enforcement in courthouses that date back to the first Trump administration, when ICE agents also engaged in courthouse arrests. New York’s Protect Our Courts Act, in place since 2020, prohibits civil arrests of people at state and local courthouses without a judicial warrant. The law also applies to people traveling to and from court, extending protections beyond courthouse grounds.
“One of the cornerstones of our democracy is open access to the courts. When that access is denied or chilled, all of us are made less safe and less free,” said Oren Sellstrom, litigation director at Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based group that works to provide legal support to immigrants, people of color and low-income individuals.
But in addition to challenging the New York law, the Justice Department is prosecuting a Wisconsin state judge, alleging she illegally helped a migrant avoid ICE agents.
“We aren’t some medieval kingdom; there are no legal sanctuaries where you can hide and avoid the consequences for breaking the law.
– U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin
“We aren’t some medieval kingdom; there are no legal sanctuaries where you can hide and avoid the consequences for breaking the law,” U.S. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement to Stateline. “Nothing in the constitution prohibits arresting a lawbreaker where you find them.”
Some Republican lawmakers oppose efforts to limit ICE arrests in and near courthouses, arguing state officials should stay out of the way of federal law enforcement. The Ohio Senate in June passed a bill that would prohibit public officials from interfering in immigration arrests or prohibiting cooperation with ICE; the move came after judges in Franklin County, which includes Columbus, imposed restrictions on civil arrests in courthouses.
“The United States is a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of law and order. To have a civilized society, laws must be respected, this includes immigration laws,” Ohio Republican state Sen. Kristina Roegner, the bill’s sponsor, said in a news release at the time.
Roegner didn’t respond to Stateline’s interview request. The legislation remains in a House committee.
Knowing where a target will be
Courthouses offer an attractive location for ICE to make immigration arrests, according to both ICE and advocates for migrants.
Court records and hearing schedules often indicate who is expected in the building on any given day. Administrative warrants don’t allow ICE to enter private homes without permission, but the same protections don’t apply in public areas, such as courthouses. And many people have a strong incentive to show up for court, knowing that warrants can potentially be issued for their arrest if they don’t.
“So in some respects, it’s easy pickings,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island.
In June, ICE arrested Pablo Grave de la Cruz at Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal in Cranston. A 36-year-old Rhode Island resident, he had come from Guatemala illegally as a teenager.
“They pulled up on him like he was a murderer or a rapist,” friend Brittany Donohue told the Rhode Island Current, which chronicled de la Cruz’s case. “He was leaving traffic court.”
An immigration judge has since granted de la Cruz permission to self-deport.
McLaughlin, the Homeland Security assistant secretary, said in her statement that allowing law enforcement to make arrests “of criminal illegal aliens in courthouses is common sense” — conserving law enforcement resources because officers know where a target will be. The department said the practice is safer for officers and the community, noting that individuals have gone through courthouse security.
Agents “should, to the extent practicable” conduct civil immigration arrests in non-public areas of the courthouse and avoid public entrances. Actions should be taken “discreetly” to minimize disruption to court proceedings, and agents should generally avoid areas wholly dedicated to non-criminal proceedings, such as family court, the directive says.
Crucially, the directive says ICE can conduct civil immigration arrests “where such action is not precluded by laws imposed by the jurisdiction.” In other words, the agency’s guidance directs agents to respect state and local bans on noncriminal arrests.
Trump administration court actions
But the Trump administration has also gone to court to try to overcome state-level restrictions.
The Justice Department sued in June over New York’s Protect Our Courts Act, arguing that it “purposefully shields dangerous aliens” from lawful detention. The department says the law violates the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause, under which federal law supersedes state law.
New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James argued the state law doesn’t conflict with federal law and sought the lawsuit’s dismissal.
U.S. District Court Judge Mae D’Agostino, an appointee of President Barack Obama, on Monday granted James’ motion. The judge wrote that the “entire purpose” of the lawsuit was to allow the federal government to commandeer New York’s resources — such as court schedules and court security screening measures — to aid immigration enforcement, even though states cannot generally be required to help the federal government enforce federal law.
“Compelling New York to allow federal immigration authorities to reap the benefits of the work of state employees is no different than permitting the federal government to commandeer state officials directly in furtherance of federal objectives,” the judge wrote.
The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The department is also prosecuting Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan, who prosecutors allege helped a person living in the country illegally avoid ICE agents in April inside a Milwaukee courthouse by letting him exit a courtroom through a side door. (Agents apprehended the individual near the courthouse.) A federal grand jury indicted Dugan on a count of concealing an individual and a count of obstructing a proceeding.
In court documents, Dugan’s lawyers have called the prosecution “virtually unprecedented and entirely unconstitutional.”
Dugan has pleaded not guilty, and a trial is set for December.
Lawmakers seek ‘order’ in courthouses
Rhode Island Democratic state Sen. Meghan Kallman is championing legislation that would generally ban civil arrests at courthouses. The measure received a hearing, but a legislative committee recommended further study.
Kallman hopes the bill will go further next year. The sense of urgency has intensified, she said, and more people now understand the consequences of what is happening.
“In order to create a system of law that is functioning and that encourages trust, we have to make those [courthouse] spaces safe,” she said.
Back in Connecticut, Democratic state Rep. Steven Stafstrom said his day job as a commercial litigator brings him into courthouses across the state weekly. Based on his conversations with court staff, other lawyers and senior administration within the judicial branch, he said “there’s a genuine fear, not just for safety, but for disruptions of orderly court processes in our courthouses.”
Some Connecticut Republicans have questioned whether a law that only pertains to civil arrests would prove effective. State Rep. Craig Fishbein, the ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, noted during floor debate that entering the United States without permission is a criminal offense — a misdemeanor for first-time offenders and a felony for repeat offenders. Because of that, he suggested the measure wouldn’t stop many courthouse arrests.
“The advocates think they’re getting no arrests in courthouses, but they’ve been sold a bill of goods,” he said.
Stafstrom, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said in response that he believed the legislation protects many people who are in the country illegally because that crime is often not prosecuted.
“All we’re asking is for ICE to recognize the need for order in our courthouses,” Stafstrom said.
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.
The legal arm of Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce is mounting another challenge against the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, seeking to bar the agency from enforcing the state's spills law against innocent landowners.
The Waupun Correctional Institution, the oldest prison in Wisconsin built in the 1850s, sits in the middle of a residential neighborhood (Photo | Wisconsin Examiner)
Under scrutiny over prison deaths and living conditions, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections has received recommendations that aim to improve life in adult prisons, including solitary confinement, suicide watch, mental health care and basic corrections practices.
The Wisconsin Examiner’s Criminal Justice Reporting Project shines a light on incarceration, law enforcement and criminal justice issues with support from the Public Welfare Foundation.
The study was conducted by Falcon Correctional and Community Services Inc. experts partnering with the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC). The department said it is planning to contract with the consulting firm to create a framework to implement recommendations.
“While the report affirms that DOC is moving in the right direction, it also shows that there is more work to be done,” Corrections Secretary Jared Hoy said in the department’s press release.
In a statement, the advocacy group Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO) said the report “confirms what directly impacted people and advocates have said for years: Wisconsin’s prisons are dangerously overcrowded, under-resourced and in desperate need of healing-centered reform.”
Many of the suggested changes will affect the entire correctional system, the agency said. Consultants and staff will work to “reimagine existing space, create new processes and training at five pilot sites.”
In a letter dated July 9, 2024, Hoy told a state Assembly committee that the department planned on bringing on Falcon for an outside review. News of criminal charges against staff at Waupun Correctional Institution over prisoner deaths had broken just weeks before Hoy wrote the letter. The same day, the committee heard testimony about the toll of solitary confinement and other issues in the prison system.
The department and Falcon signed a contract in November 2024, and the Examiner reported in January on details of the partnership obtained through public records requests. Criminal justice reform advocates expressed hope the report would be beneficial but have called for independent oversight of the Department of Corrections. Last week, the department published the 137-page final report, which lists strengths for the department to build on as well as recommendations for improvement.
The report states that while all recommendations are made based on Falcon’s overall review of the adult prison system, “we understand that the majority of recommendations will require funding, often requiring budget approval.”
Susan Franzen of the prison reform advocacy group Ladies of SCI expressed concern about whether overcrowding and staffing shortages will affect DOC’s ability to effectively carry out recommendations.
“Legislators need to help the DOC out by giving them a fighting chance to make these changes,” Franzen wrote in an email to the Wisconsin Examiner.
The report states that the study involved working with DOC officials, gathering data, reviewing policies, statutes and prior studies and conducting virtual workshops with DOC experts and others, including formerly incarcerated people and advocates.
It also included visits to 15 facilities, such as the Waupun and Green Bay prisons, and interviews with staff and incarcerated people.
Suicide watch
Preventing suicide is a pressing concern, the report states in a section that summarized information from mental health-related discussions with staff during mental health workshops and site visits.
One concern is that observation cells are typically in restrictive housing units; in addition, “individuals on observation status are not allowed therapeutic items, visits, phone calls, or recreation,” the report states.
People who pose threats to themselves, or who pose threats to others because of mental illness, may be put on observation.
The report recommends housing people in observation in “more appropriate environments that support therapeutic care and patient safety.”
Over the last 15 years, 59 people died by suicide in Wisconsin prisons, an average of four deaths per year. Suicide watch placements reportedly rose from 1,200 to 1,500 per year to about 2,500 in 2024. In June, the Examiner reported on Victor Garcia, who died due to an attempt to hang himself while he was on observation in a Wisconsin prison.
Psychological services staff decide what items a person can have access to while they’re on clinical observation. Department policy provides a list to use as a starting point, including items like soap, toilet paper and suicide-resistant clothing.
The report described the list as “very limiting,” and the security mat or mattress was observed to be inadequate for most people on suicide precautions. Later on in the report, it suggests replacing small sleeping mats with suicide-resistant mattresses.
Solitary confinement
The Falcon report includes priorities and steps to take on “restrictive housing” in state prisons, where incarcerated people experience “very limited” out-of-cell programming and recreation time, such as:
Giving people in restrictive housing at least two hours of recreation and/or programming each day, not including out-of-cell time for necessary activities, such as showers
Reviewing the status, programming and needs of people in restrictive housing every week instead of every 30 days
Improving cleanliness and removing all graffiti
Establishing units that are alternatives to restricted housing for people with serious mental illnesses
Incarcerated people in Wisconsin prisons can be put in restrictive housing as a punishment for a violation or when having the person live with the general population would create a serious threat.
An average stay in disciplinary separation — a punishment for committing a violation — decreased from 39.7 days in January 2019 to 27.4 days in April 2025, the report notes. However, this varies by facility, and the latest average published online for Green Bay Correctional Institution is 48.7 days.
The department has begun to address the number of people in restrictive housing and how long they spend there, the report states. However, the number of people placed in restrictive housing has not changed significantly over the last five years.
“High rates of substance use and mental illness among individuals placed in restrictive housing was noted, often contributing to a ‘revolving door’ for this population,” the report stated in the section about mental health insights from staff.
Solitary confinement has potential effects of physical harm, health issues and negative effects on mental health, the report notes.
Solitary confinement is also associated with increased risk of violence towards oneself and suicide, and research shows that solitary confinement as a tool does not reduce institutional misconduct or violence or the risk of recidivism, the report states.
There were 950 people in restrictive housing as of September, 863 of whom were placed there due to a rule violation, according to online Department of Corrections data.
Under a policy that went into effect last May, a placement of over 120 days has to be approved by the assistant administrator for the division of adult institutions, the report noted.
An overcrowded system
All medium and maximum-security facilities in Wisconsin except for Waupun Correctional Institution are over capacity, as of January, the report states. Facilities for men were at 130% of capacity, while women’s prisons were at 166% of capacity. People are living at security levels that don’t fit their classification — for example, a person sentenced to medium-security being held in maximum security, or a person sentenced to minimum-security being held in medium security.
The state building commission took an initial step toward updating the aging and overcrowded prison system last month, when it agreed to create plans for a revamp.
Inconsistency in the department
Leaders and staff at the facility level of the agency felt a lack of autonomy in their day-to-day jobs, the report found. They believe there is “significant and often excessive and unnecessary scrutiny from outside entities.”
But the study also found a problem with “a general lack of uniformity across facilities,” which is creating challenges relating to monitoring, oversight and accountability. It recommends “system-wide alignment” on areas including basic security practices, incident reporting and investigation processes.
The report recommends that the agency take an approach that involves both oversight and collaboration. The goal would be to carry out the strategy of DOC leadership with both efforts from leadership and “input and innovation” from frontline staff, stakeholders and incarcerated people.
A central part of a section called “Back-to-Basics in Correctional Practices” recommends a three to five-day training for all staff about basic corrections practices, such as searches, use of force and out-of-cell time for people in restrictive housing.
The department “has experienced a great deal of staffing changes, with a significant number of the current staff hired during or after the COVID19 pandemic,” the report found.
Strained mental health care
Mental health services were described as strained, according to the section of the report about mental health-related discussions with staff.
That section of the report suggests that an “unsustainable” number of people have been assigned to receive mental health care at least once every six months, and that this interferes with treatment for people who need more intensive care.
Nearly half of all incarcerated people in adult prisons had been classified as needing mental health care as of May 20. It’s a much higher rate than other state correctional departments see, the report states.
Department data shows the agency isn’t fully staffed in psychological services, with a vacancy rate of 19.7%.
About nine in ten incarcerated women were on the mental health caseload. The report also noted that the population of maximum security facilities has a higher percentage of incarcerated people with mental health needs than medium or minimum security facilities.
Other recommendations in the report address medical practices, investigations and intelligence practices, data management and human resources and staffing.
American Civil Liberties Union lead attorney Lee Gelernt holds a press conference outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after a March 21, 2025, hearing on deportation flights that occurred despite a court’s restraining order in place. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — U.S. District Judge James Boasberg said Wednesday he will proceed with his inquiry on whether there is sufficient evidence to charge officials in the Trump administration with contempt for violating his order to return deportation flights to the United States.
Following an appeals ruling last week, Boasberg has the ability to resume a contempt investigation against the Trump administration relating to his March 15 order, which required several deportation planes that contained hundreds of Venezuelan men removed under an obscure wartime law to return to the U.S. Instead, the planes landed in El Salvador, and 137 men were detained at the mega-prison known as CECOT.
“I certainly intend to find out what happened that day,” Boasberg said.
He ordered the Department of Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit against the government, to submit by Monday filings on how to proceed with the inquiry, such as potential witnesses and hearings as well as sworn declarations to the court.
An attorney on behalf of the Department of Justice, Tiberius T. Davis said the Trump administration doesn’t believe Boasberg should move forward with the inquiry.
Boasberg cited several appellate judges who have ruled that he has the ability and jurisdiction to continue his fact-finding inquiry into the events of March 15.
“Justice requires me to move promptly,” he said.
Boasberg told Davis that he wants to get to the bottom of which official, or officials, gave the order to ignore his temporary restraining order to turn the planes back toward U.S. soil while they were in the air.
Removals challenged
Additionally, Boasberg heard arguments from ACLU lead attorney Lee Gelernt on a request to require the Trump administration to give the 137 Venezuelan men the opportunity to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The men removed under the law remained at CECOT for several months until they were returned to Venezuela in a prisoner exchange.
Gelernt said that a majority of that group want the opportunity to challenge their removal under the wartime law, in the form of a habeas petition, which immigrants use to challenge their detention. He said the ACLU has been able to reach about one-third of the group members and they wish to pursue their claims either back in the U.S. or through a virtual hearing.
“They are still very, very traumatized about what happened,” Gelernt said, adding that many fear being returned to CECOT if they come back to the U.S.
Remote hearings?
Davis argued that if the men want to continue with their habeas claim, then they would have to be detained in the U.S., rather than make the challenge virtually.
“To fulfill a habeas, they have to be in our custody one way or another,” Davis said.
He said they would likely be taken to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but said that was not definite.
Gelernt said the federal government should provide a plan in order for the men to make their due process claim.
“Some may want to know if there is a remote option, if they found a sufficiently safe hiding place within Venezuela,” Gelernt said.
Boasberg agreed, and said the U.S. Supreme Court also agreed when it ordered the Trump administration to facilitate the return of the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia as part of a due process case.
Abrego Garcia was also taken to CECOT and detailed the physical and psychological torture he experienced there.
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