There were 105 immigration arrests in October at a horse racetrack in Wilder, Idaho. Idaho saw one of the country’s largest increases in immigration arrests this year through mid-October compared with the same period in the Biden administration. (Photo Courtesy of ACLU of Idaho)

Immigration arrests under the Trump administration continued to increase through mid-October, reaching rates of more than 30,000 a month. But, rather than the convicted criminals the administration has said it’s focused on, an ever-larger share of those arrests were for solely immigration violations.

In 45 states, immigration arrests more than doubled compared with the same period last year, during the Biden administration. The largest increases: There were 1,190 arrests in the District of Columbia compared with just seven last year under the Biden administration. Arrests were also more than five times higher in New Mexico, Idaho, Oregon and Virginia.

“The result stands in contrast to the administration’s objective of arresting the ‘worst of the worst,’” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. Heightened enforcement is likely increasing “collateral” arrests of people found during searches for convicted criminals, he said.

Comparisons between the Trump and Biden administrations were calculated by Stateline in an analysis of data released by the Deportation Data Project, a research initiative by the universities of California at Berkeley and Los Angeles. About 93% of arrests could be identified by state.

While more people were arrested this year, a lower percentage are convicted criminals.

The share of arrested immigrants who had been convicted of violent crimes has dropped from 9% in January to less than 5% in October. The share under Biden was consistently between 10% and 11% during the same period in 2024.

The same trend applies to people arrested solely on immigration violations: Immigration violations alone were behind 20% in April, then rose to 44% of arrests in October, according to Stateline’s analysis.

In some states and the District of Columbia, a majority of arrests were for immigration violations alone: the District of Columbia (80%), New York (61%), Virginia (57%), Illinois (53%), West Virginia (51%) and Maryland (50%).

States with high immigrant populations also saw the most arrests this year. The largest numeric increases were in Texas (up 29,403, triple last year’s figure), Florida (up 14,693, a fourfold increase) and California (up 13,345, a fourfold increase).

The two states with the largest arrest rate increases have responded very differently to President Donald Trump’s deportation mission.

“We’re going to resist like all of the Democratic states,” New Mexico Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said in an interview with The Santa Fe New Mexican after last year’s election, referring to mass deportation plans. She proposed legislation to ban U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in the state. The legislation failed this year, but Lujan Grisham urged the state legislature to reconsider next year. The state has three privately run ICE detention centers with the capacity for 2,000 people.

Idaho’s Republican governor, Brad Little, is helping ICE under a 287(g) agreement by transporting what his office calls “highly dangerous illegal alien criminals” from county jails to federal custody. The 53 men pictured on the governor’s website have charges ranging from drug possession to sexual assault.

In a news release, the office says the program is intended to take people “after the completion of their sentences,” though an October review by the Idaho Capital Sun found some were transported despite dismissed or still-pending charges.

Nationally, arrests have increased this year from around 17,000 in February, the first full month of President Donald Trump’s current term, to more than 30,000 in September and October. The share of convicted criminals has dropped from 46% to 30%, though the number of convicted criminals arrested still has been higher each month than under President Joe Biden.

Some of the policies that have fed increased arrest numbers face new court battles. This month, a federal judge blocked the administration from making immigration arrests in the District of Columbia without warrants or probable cause.

In August, a federal court blocked the administration’s expansion of expedited removal, which itself allows fast deportations without judicial review. The administration has appealed, arguing that immigrants who have been in the country for less than two years without legal authorization are not guaranteed due process.

Such fast deportations could be used on 2.5 million people, according to a Migration Policy Institute estimate published in September, including 1 million people released at the border with Mexico with court dates and 1.5 million people with temporary protections such as humanitarian parole.

This fall, the share of arrested immigrants with criminal convictions continued to decrease just before and during the federal government shutdown, with only 3% of those arrested and detained having convictions between Sept. 21 and Nov. 16, according to national information analyzed by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a data research organization at Syracuse University.

“While ICE is detaining more and more individuals, targeting has shifted sharply to individuals without any criminal convictions,” the TRAC report noted.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify a reference to October detention statistics analyzed by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.

Federal and local law enforcement officers arrest a man in Washington, D.C., in August. The number of arrests nationwide fell sharply in 2020 and have stayed down since then, according to a new report from the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice. (Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)

Arrests in the United States have fallen to levels not seen in decades, according to a new report that reconstructs national arrest trends in the absence of federal data.

The Council on Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank, on Thursday released the first comprehensive national analysis of arrests since federal authorities stopped publishing detailed arrest statistics in 2020.

Arrests plunged during the first year of the pandemic and have remained low, according to the analysis. The national arrest rate in 2024 was 30% below the 2019 level and 71% lower than the peak in 1994. 

Drug arrests have fallen even faster, with adult and juvenile drug-offense arrest rates dropping to about half of what they were in 2019.

In 1980, juveniles made up nearly a fifth of arrests nationwide, but by 2018, their share had fallen to 7%. While adult arrest rates declined 7% between 2020 and 2024, juvenile rates rose 14% over the same period.

Gender patterns have shifted as well. With arrests of men falling more steeply over time, women now account for a larger portion of arrests. Adult women’s share nearly doubled between 1980 and 2020, rising from 14% to about 27%. Girls’ share of juvenile arrests grew from 18% to roughly 31%.

Between 2020 and 2024, arrest rates for Black and Asian juveniles surged 48% and 45%, respectively, compared with an 11% increase among white youth. Rates for American Indian and Alaska Native juveniles fell 4%. 

Among adults, arrest rates increased by 12% for Black people and 18% for Asian people, but declined by 10% for white adults and 17% for American Indian and Alaska Native adults.

Stateline reporter Amanda Watford can be reached at ahernandez@stateline.org.

The federal trial against Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan begins Monday. It pits the authority of a local judge against President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.

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A hearing in the felony case against a key figure in Wisconsin's false electors scheme will proceed Monday — even as allies of President Donald Trump have ramped up pressure to stall the proceeding.

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Voters at the Wilmar Neighborhood Center on Madison's East Side cast their ballots. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Thursday denied a demand from the U.S. Department of Justice for the state’s full voter registration list, including personally identifiable information such as dates of birth, driver’s licenses and Social Security numbers. 

At a special meeting Thursday afternoon and in a letter sent in response to the DOJ demand, WEC stated that Wisconsin law explicitly prevents the commission from sharing the personal information of voters. 

“The U.S. DOJ is simply asking the commission to do something the commission is explicitly forbidden by Wisconsin law to do,” commissioner Don Millis said. 

This is the second time this year the DOJ has requested Wisconsin’s voter database. Both times, the department has been informed that Wisconsin state law requires that the commission charge a fee to obtain the list. 

Since the summer, the DOJ has requested the voter databases of several states — raising concerns over why the department is seeking massive amounts of voter data, especially as President Donald Trump has remained fixated on conspiracy theories that his 2020 election loss was rigged. 

In its demand for the data, sent Dec. 2 as a “confidential memorandum of understanding” the department said it was seeking the data to check if Wisconsin is properly complying with the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.

VRLData Sharing Agreement DOJ-WI

“The Justice Department is requesting your state’s [Voter Registration List] to test, analyze, and assess states’ VRLs for proper list maintenance and compliance with federal law,” the memo states. 

However the WEC response questions the authority with which DOJ is asserting its right to the records. For one, Wisconsin is exempt from the NVRA because it offers same-day voter registration at polling places. Also, WEC wrote in its response letter that HAVA does not grant the DOJ access to confidential voter data. 

Compliance with HAVA and the thoroughness of states’ compliance with voter list maintenance requirements have become regular talking points among Republicans who say they’re concerned that there are thousands of people who have active voter registrations when they should be ineligible to vote because they’ve moved, died or otherwise are unable to cast a ballot. 

The sources of those complaints include the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, a right-wing law firm that in October sent a letter to the DOJ asking for the department to assess Wisconsin’s compliance with HAVA. 

WEC has said repeatedly that the commission and Wisconsin’s municipal election clerks are properly maintaining the voter rolls. They’ve also noted that the concerns are often overstated because even if a voter is ineligible and their file is deactivated in the database, their name will still appear in the system.

WEC Letter – Resp to 12.2.25 DOJ Correspondence

“The joint effort between state and local election officials enhances the integrity of the system by ensuring responsibilities are distributed across thousands of officials in every city, village, and town, rather than concentrated among a small handful of state employees in the Capitol,” the WEC response letter states. “The vast majority of list maintenance work consists of routine updates, and the processes also serve to identify attempts at wrongdoing. Each year, Wisconsin election officials at all levels of government identify and refer to criminal prosecution: felons attempting to vote, double voters, non-citizens, and others trying to circumvent election law.” 

In the WEC decision to deny DOJ’s request as well as to release the DOJ memo and the response letter, Republican commissioner Bob Spindell was the lone vote against. Spindell pointed to a provision of state law that allows WEC to share restricted information in the voter database with law enforcement agencies. Spindell has often used his role on the commission to indulge conspiracy theories and cast doubt on the security of the election system. 

“This is a highly, highly controversial issue throughout the country at this point in time, and my point of view is that this information can be released,” Spindell said. “I believe that through the HAVA Act, the federal government has the appropriate ability to see if we’re doing everything that’s correct and OK. I’ve talked forever about we need to have, in the state of Wisconsin, an independent audit, or whatever, of the registration list to satisfy the many individuals and groups and so forth that question it. And all HAVA is doing here, the federal government is asking for a chance to take a look at us.” 

But commissioner Mark Thomsen said there is no way that a provision meant to help law enforcement find information about suspects in criminal investigations could be interpreted to mean WEC can give the personal information of every Wisconsin voter to the federal government. 

“Our rights as commissioners are limited by the Fourth Amendment, by state law itself,” Thomsen said. “Mr. Spindel is just flat out wrong that this one provision that he relies on would allow us to legally give Wisconsin citizens’ private information off to someone for some unknown reason. It’s not just a person that’s suspected of a crime, it’s everybody, and Wisconsin has never stood for the proposition that any government is entitled to all this data anytime someone asked. So I think Bob, you’re just making up the law there.”

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Jury selection took place Thursday in the case against Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan, who's accused of helping a man evade U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

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Three Wisconsin Department of Corrections staff members are on administrative leave as the department investigates Morgan Geyser's escape from a group home.

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Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball (right) sits beside Chief Deputy Brian Barkow (left) during a meeting of the Milwaukee County Board. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Dozens of people filled a room in Milwaukee’s courthouse complex Tuesday morning, listening as representatives from the sheriff’s office pushed for adopting facial recognition technology and answered questions about the Flock camera system. The Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office hopes to equip its booking room cameras with facial recognition software from the company Biometrica, a move that was not well received by some county residents.

For over an hour, Chief Deputy Brian Barkow and other sheriff’s office staff attempted to quell residents’ fears. During the Tuesday meeting of the Committee on Judiciary, Law Enforcement and General Services, board members listened to a lengthy presentation from the sheriff’s office differentiating various camera systems, and highlighting aspects of a proposed policy governing facial recognition technology. 

In June, the county board unanimously voted to call on the sheriff’s office  to work with community members to create such a policy. Residents had increasingly expressed concern after the Milwaukee Police Department signaled that it was exploring an agreement with Biomentrica to provide 2.5 million images, booking records and other information in exchange for access to facial recognition software. As concerns mounted about  the police department contract, the public learned that the county sheriff’s office  was also exploring a similar agreement with Biometrica. 

During the Tuesday committee meeting, Barkow ran through the various camera systems the sheriff’s office uses. From Genetec, a video management platform that can detect motion and loitering, to general purpose security cameras used from the zoo to the courthouse, cameras installed in police vehicles, camera trailers, body cameras, and AI-powered Flock cameras used to identify vehicle license plates. 

A sprawling network of Flock cameras has been erected by over 5,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide, including at least 221 in Wisconsin. The cameras perpetually photograph and identify vehicles using license plates, storing that data for a period of time and allowing law enforcement to search Flock’s network for that data. The cameras can be set up to notify officers of when specific vehicles are spotted, sending more notifications as they pass Flock cameras installed in one neighborhood or another.

Barkow and Sheriff Denita Ball said that saying that this practice amounts to “tracking” is a misrepresentation. “When you say ‘tracking’,” Barkow told the Wisconsin Examiner, “most people think of I’m like, live tracking you. And so an alert occurs, right, but it occurs after that vehicle has already been someplace.” Ball underscored the point. “What it says is the car is here at this time,” said Ball. “Now because it has alerted the police officer, the deputy sheriff, what they’re going to do now is follow that car.” Barkow added in such situations a deputy could “respond to that area to attempt to locate the vehicle.” It may then pass in front of another Flock camera at some point, or it may not, Barkow added. 

None of these systems use facial recognition software, Barkow and other sheriff’s office  staff said. Rather, the sheriff’s office sees its booking room cameras — used to photograph people during the intake process at the jail — as good candidates for Biometrica’s software. A PowerPoint presentation produced by the sheriff’s office states that these cameras can capture high-quality images of scars, marks, tattoos, and other distinctive characteristics. 

The presentation states that the sheriff’s office  is evaluating how facial recognition could be used to compare booking images against law enforcement databases. No biometric information or data would be accessed, stored, or transmitted, the PowerPoint stated, and all searches would be both private and logged, nor would the data be sold to third parties. 

Facial recognition software could be used to identify people linked to active investigations, missing persons, witnesses, victims, mitigating “imminent threats” like terrorism and violence, and assisting forensic processes. Sheriff’s office staff would be prohibited from using it for mass surveillance or indiscriminate tracking, automated real-time identification without human oversight, targeting people based on race, gender, religion, or other protected traits, or relying on facial recognition as the sole reason for an arrest or for pursuing a search warrant. 

Committee members peppered Barkow and company with a variety of questions. They raised concerns about the adoption of surveillance technologies in the current political climate, particularly when it comes to actions by the Trump administration. There were questions about whether agencies like immigration enforcement could access the accumulated data of Flock or facial recognition cameras, and who exactly in the sheriff’s  chain of command would be making decisions about how the technology is used and who accesses it. Some expressed concerns that facial recognition has been shown to have higher failure rates for non-white faces. Sheriff’s office staff  and representatives from Biometrica countered that although early models of the technology did have those issues, advancements have all but eliminated those concerns, though no specific improved detection rates were provided. 

Sup. Justin Bielinski, who chairs the committee, set a strict two-minute limit on speaking time because of the large volume of people waiting to comment

Calling Sheriff Ball a “liar” who had failed to respond to community concerns about the jail, Ron Jansen, the first member of the public to speak, said, “this department cannot be given additional power, period.” Jansen said that sheriff’s office  staff could run screenshots through facial recognition software applications, or request other law enforcement agencies to do it for them. Jansen pushed back against the sheriff’s claims that running a photo through facial recognition technology is similar to putting a picture out in the news. “Great!” Said Jansen. “I would encourage them not to waste our money on [facial recognition] technology and instead to continue running photos in the news, and asking for public support. It’s cheaper and probably a lot more effective.” 

One person after another  expressed doubts about the Milwaukee sheriff’s  push to adopt facial recognition technology, and also questioned the use of Flock cameras. Several referred to a recent scandal involving the Greenfield police chief, who is facing felony charges after having a department-owned pole camera installed at his home to monitor his wife during a messy divorce. Others compared the capabilities of Flock and facial recognition technology to World War II-era European countries where secret police photographed and identified targeted individuals. 

Many, including members of the committee, echoed fears about federal agencies accessing the data collected by the Milwaukee sheriff’s tools. “I haven’t heard one community member today say that they support this,” said Angela Lang, executive director of Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC). “All of the folks that we have been talking to in the community say if we actually want to get to the root causes of crime, we invest in things like mental health and health care and affordable housing.”

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Update, Dec. 10, 2025:

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release Dailin Pacheco-Acosta from custody on Wednesday, less than a day after an immigration court judge in Chicago granted asylum to Pacheco-Acosta and her husband, Diego Ugarte-Arenas. 

Pacheco-Acosta did not immediately leave Campbell County Detention Center in Kentucky, which contracts with ICE to hold detainees facing immigration charges. The couple’s attorney, Ben Crouse, told Wisconsin Watch he filed a new bond motion for Pacheco-Acosta on Wednesday afternoon, and she will return to Madison once the immigration court approves her bond. 

But her husband will remain in custody in the Dodge County Jail while awaiting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s potential appeal of the couple’s asylum claim. 

If DHS appeals and Ugarte-Arenas remains in custody, their next legal phase could take another 6 months. But Crouse noted another lawsuit winding through federal courts could reopen the more straightforward path for immigrants in ICE custody to be released on bond. That case sits in the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction includes Wisconsin.

If ICE releases Ugarte-Arenas from the Dodge County Jail, the couple’s case would shift to the immigration court system’s “non-detained docket,” Crouse said, where cases move far slower than those of immigrants in custody.

Original story, Dec. 9, 2025:

A Chicago immigration court judge has granted the asylum request of a Madison couple who U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested during a routine check-in at the agency’s Milwaukee office in October.

Judge Eva Saltzman sided with Dailin Pacheco-Acosta and Diego Ugarte-Arenas on Tuesday afternoon, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – ICE’s parent agency – reserved the right to appeal.

The ruling does not automatically free the couple from ICE custody. 

“It’s not over,” said Ben Crouse, the couple’s Milwaukee-based attorney. 

Ugarte-Arenas remains in the Dodge County jail, which contracts with ICE to hold immigrants facing deportation, and Pacheco-Acosta sits in a county jail in northern Kentucky. A recent Trump administration policy has prevented them from posting bond and continuing their asylum case from Madison, where they settled in 2021 after fleeing Venezuela. 

The couple crossed the U.S.-Mexico border without a visa, but because of a clerical error by Customs and Border Patrol officers they encountered near Eagle Pass, Texas, they did not initially land before an immigration court and were instead able to file for asylum with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services upon reaching Wisconsin. The couple refiled for asylum with the immigration court in Chicago after their arrests in October. Neither has a past criminal conviction nor a pending criminal charge.

As they await the next step in their legal battle, the Trump administration is defending the policy that has kept the couple in custody for more than a month, even after a federal judge in California challenged its legality. How higher courts rule will determine whether thousands of immigrants in ICE custody can post bond for the first time in months.

Trump officials seek ‘mandatory detention’

Reversing decades of precedent, DHS announced in July that most immigrants in ICE custody would be ineligible for bond and are instead subject to “mandatory detention.” The Board of Immigration Appeals, a body within the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) that sets rules for immigration courts, sided with DHS in September. 

But a Nov. 20 ruling by U.S. Judge Sunshine Sykes of the Central District of California gave the Madison couple and ICE detainees nationwide a moment of optimism. 

Sykes partially ruled on the side of four undocumented immigrants ICE picked up during a June immigration raid in Los Angeles. The four immigrants, represented by attorneys from multiple immigrant rights organizations, had filed a class action lawsuit challenging the rule after they were denied bond. 

But both DHS and DOJ, which oversees immigration court judges, argue Sykes’ decision doesn’t apply to all immigrants in similar positions nationwide. Many immigration court judges, including in Chicago, the court with jurisdiction over most immigrants detained in Wisconsin, have continued to deny bond hearings for immigrants in custody, citing the administration’s reasoning. 

DOJ spokesperson Kathryn Mattingly said department leaders are not instructing immigration judges to specifically reject bond motions.

“Immigration judges are independent adjudicators and decide all matters before them on a case-by-case basis,” Mattingly wrote in a statement to Wisconsin Watch.

Next steps for Madison couple

Crouse, the couple’s attorney, filed motions seeking the Madison couple’s bond before the California ruling. Their motions, even if futile, could help clarify the scope of Sykes’ ruling, he said. 

Crouse and other attorneys are separately testing the last remaining pathway to release: filing “habeas petitions” asking judges to rule on the lawfulness of their clients’ detention. A district court judge in Milwaukee denied a petition for Ugarte-Arenas on Monday, and Pacheco-Acosta is still awaiting a decision from a judge in Kentucky. If Pacheco-Acosta’s petition is successful, she will receive a bond hearing. 

Back in Chicago, Judge Saltzman is preparing a written order outlining her reasoning for granting the couple asylum. DHS signaled plans to challenge her decision before the Board of Immigration appeals. It has 30 days to do so after Saltzman releases her written order. 

Though Crouse called the couple’s case strong — not least because of mounting U.S. military actions in Venezuela —  he noted that recent board decisions siding with DHS mean nothing is assured. 

After asylum win, judge rules ICE must release Madison woman who fled Venezuela. Her husband will remain detained. is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Community leaders in Milwaukee are raising concerns about the proposed use of facial recognition technology by the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office.

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Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday that he has signed 34 bills into law, including a bill requiring judges to sentence offenders to at least 10 years in prison if convicted of a human trafficking crime and 15 years for a child trafficking crime. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers announced Tuesday that he has signed 34 bills into law, including a bill requiring judges to sentence offenders to at least 10 years in prison if convicted of a human trafficking crime and 15 years for a child trafficking crime. 

“Crimes of this nature — most especially when it comes to our kids — should be punishable by the full extent of the law,” Evers said in a statement. “With this bill, we are helping ensure that we’re protecting some of our most vulnerable youth and holding predators accountable, most especially when they prey on our kids.”

The bill includes increases to the maximum amounts of prison time a person can receive for human and child trafficking crimes, and it allows more time for prosecution of human trafficking crimes. 

Human trafficking involves using force, fraud or coercion for labor, services or a commercial sex act. Trafficking of a child can involve a knowing attempt to recruit a child for commercial sex acts. Wisconsin trafficking law also bans benefiting from trafficking or knowingly receiving compensation from the earnings of debt bondage, a prostitute or a commercial sex act. 

Last month, the Wisconsin Examiner reported on lawmakers’ reasons for supporting the bill, such as preventing human traffickers from doing further harm. Rep. Jerry O’Connor (R-Fond Du Lac) cited cases that appeared to have taken place in other states in which people convicted of sex trafficking received between six and eight years in prison. 

The Examiner reported on criminal justice advocacy groups and attorneys’ criticisms of the mandatory minimums, including a concern from attorneys that judges would sentence people who are trafficking victims themselves to the mandatory minimum punishment without being able to consider whether the person deserved a lighter sentence because their trafficking crime was influenced by their trafficker. The bill didn’t contain an exception to the mandatory minimum for that type of situation. While Wisconsin law allows a defense in court for people who committed a crime as a “direct result” of trafficking, that didn’t allay critics’ concerns.

The anti-sex trafficking organization Shared Hope International gave Wisconsin law failing grades on multiple categories relevant to survivors of child sex trafficking: “protection from unjust criminalization,” “legal relief” and “survivor-centered supports.” The analysis was based on laws enacted as of July 1. 

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Then-U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman announces charges against Jeffrey Epstein on July 8, 2019 in New York City.  (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A Manhattan federal judge granted an order Tuesday to unseal grand jury records in the case of Jeffrey Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of sex trafficking minors among other offenses in 2021.

Federal Judge Paul Engelmayer wrote in a 24-page order that unsealing the documents fell within the scope of a new law passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump. The law compels the U.S. Department of Justice to release nearly all investigative files in the government’s case against Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

The U.S. Department of Justice asked the court to release the records after Congress overwhelmingly passed the legislation last month requiring disclosure of “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in its possession that relate to Epstein or (co-conspirator Ghislaine) Maxwell.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi must release the material by Dec. 19 in accordance with the law, which lawmakers dubbed the Epstein Files Transparency Act. 

Law covers grand jury material

Engelmayer described the act’s language as “strikingly broad” and wrote Congress was “undeniably aware” that grand jury materials in Maxwell’s case were in possession of the U.S. attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York.

“Its decision not to exclude grand jury materials despite knowledge as to their existence, while expressly excluding other categories of materials (such as classified information), indicates that the Act covers grand jury materials,” Engelmayer wrote.

The order comes days after a Florida federal judge reached a similar conclusion Friday and ordered the unsealing of federal grand jury materials related to the government’s investigation of Epstein from 2005 to 2007.

Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge for soliciting a minor for prostitution but avoided a federal probe when then-U.S. Attorney Alexander Acosta cut a deal with state prosecutors. Acosta was later appointed secretary of Labor during Trump’s first administration.

Florida interview

Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence. The Trump administration recently transferred the sex offender to a minimum security prison shortly after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche interviewed her in a Tallahassee, Florida, facility as pressure to release the Epstein files ramped up in Congress and among Trump’s base.

According to transcripts, Maxwell told Blanche, Trump’s former personal defense attorney, that she “never witnessed the president in any inappropriate setting in any way. The president was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

Trump had a well-documented friendship with Epstein but denies any involvement with Epstein’s alleged crimes. The president has said that he kicked Epstein out of his private Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, because Epstein had poached young female staffers from the club.

Maxwell was convicted in December 2021, after a one-month jury trial, of conspiracy to entice minors to travel to engage in illegal sex acts, conspiracy to transport minors to participate in illegal sex acts, transporting a minor to participate in illegal sex acts, sex trafficking conspiracy, and sex trafficking of a minor.

The Justice Department maintains Epstein had over 1,000 victims.

A new state grant program will hand out $10 million for violence prevention work across Wisconsin.

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Wisconsin’s state crime labs received fewer total cases in 2024 than in 2023, but took longer on average to turn around DNA casework and toxicology, according to a new report from the state Department of Justice. 

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A police officer in Superior was shot early Sunday near Superior Middle School.

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Doctors and health influencers are always telling us that drinking tons of water is the secret to clearer skin, sharper minds, strain-free poops and longer lives. But if there’s one group that absolutely should not stay hydrated, it’s modern electric vehicles, because a few drops could leave them with a massive medical bill.

Just ask Reddit user u/raging_onyx who leased a Lucid Air and saw his Thanksgiving week turn into a $15,000 lesson in why electric cars and water should never meet.

What Happened?

The disaster started with a perfectly innocent trip to a grocery store to refill a water container. But a pothole encountered on the way back tipped that container over, causing a catalog of faults that eventually rendered the vehicle completely immobile.

Also: $4,900 For A Taillight? Lucid’s Ridiculous Lease Charges Are Scaring Off Buyers

Within seconds of the spill happening the dash lit up like Times Square, the EV jumped into limp mode, regen braking tapped out, and the driver got a warning to pull over. When he found a local residential area to stop and tried to reboot the system, the Air wouldn’t shift out of Park.

A Very Expensive Lesson

Lucid customer support, in an impressive display of holiday cheer, suggested two things: call insurance, and brace for the possibility the car was totaled. Happy Thanksgiving!

Also: Insurance Offered $1,700 For This R1T Mishap, Rivian Wanted A Fortune

There was more bad news when the first tow truck driver arrived and said he couldn’t move the sedan, since the Air wouldn’t shift into neutral. Fortunately, by the next day, neutral was found and a second truck was able to tow the stranded car.

Finally, the EV reached a service center, where the advisor initially estimated the repair at under $1,000. Bearable, right? This turned out to be off by roughly the price of a used Corolla.

The real number, the rep later confirmed, was about $15,000, and it wouldn’t be covered by warranty, because the spill was technically the driver’s fault.

More: A $2 Water Bottle Just Cost This Hyundai Driver Nearly $12,000

As of the Reddit post, the driver was still waiting to find out whether his insurance would step in to cover the costs. You’d think the answer would be yes, but that’s not always how these things always play out.

Just last month, we reported on a similar incident involving a Hyundai Ioniq 5. A small water spill in the rear footwell damaged the car’s wiring, and neither the manufacturer nor the insurance company was willing to cover the $11,882 repair bill.

Source: Reddit

Christine Neumann Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, speaks at a press conference on the Wisconsin Supreme Court case challenging the legality of Wisconsin law enforcement agencies' cooperation agreements with ICE | Photo via Voces de la Frontera Facebook video

In Wisconsin we have been watching in horror as President Donald Trump’s lawless immigration crackdown terrorizes communities in our neighboring states of Minnesota and Illinois. 

Here at home, so far, things are mostly quiet. Farmers in western Wisconsin report no ICE raids on the dairies where 60% to 90% of workers are immigrants without legal status. There have been a few high-profile arrests and deportations in Milwaukee, Madison and Manitowoc, but nothing like the scenes of chaos in the streets of Chicago and Minneapolis, where masked federal agents are aiming guns at civilians, smashing out car windows and dragging parents from their children, hustling them off to detention centers to be fast-tracked out of the country without due process.

One of the most disturbing things about this campaign of terror is that it seems to be directed by the president’s whim. In a Thanksgiving post full of invective and schoolyard insults directed at Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, Trump denounced the Somali community he claimed was “completely taking over the great State of Minnesota.” One week later, CBS News confirmed that ICE operations were underway targeting Somali immigrants in the Twin Cities.

Since we can’t count on the federal government to stay inside the bounds of reason or the law, it is critical that local and state leaders stand up to the racist, unconstitutional and unAmerican assault on immigrants. 

It was good news when, on Wednesday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court accepted a case filed by the state chapter of the ACLU on behalf of the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, contending that Wisconsin law enforcement agencies do not have the authority to make arrests or keep people in jail on detainers based solely on ICE’s administrative warrants.

Tim Muth, the ACLU of Wisconsin’s senior staff attorney, said hundreds of people throughout the state are being illegally held for days.

“It is extremely important for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to determine whether any law enforcement in Wisconsin has the legal authority to put or keep people in jail when they have not committed a crime and when no judge has issued an arrest warrant,” Wisconsin immigration attorney Grant Sovern wrote in an email to the Examiner. “Anyone in Wisconsin would want dangerous people to be kept from the public. But ICE is currently making no determinations about dangerousness or the likelihood to show up for a hearing if a summons is issued. A summons is a perfectly rational and legal way to address a civil legal question like someone’s immigration status. Jailing people before any independent adjudicator determines someone to be dangerous is against the Constitution and not the Wisconsin way.”

At a press conference Wednesday, Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces, told the story of a landscaper in Green Bay who was picked up for driving without a license (immigrants without legal status are barred by a 2007 state law from obtaining driver’s licenses). He was sent to county jail and then handed over to ICE. “He was a grandfather, very active in his church,” Neumann-Ortiz said, describing him as “someone who does not represent any kind of threat to society at all” and who, on the contrary, is a pillar of his community and beloved by his family. 

Voces helped fight the deportation in a case that is still working its way through the courts. “At least he’s out and together with his family,” Neumann-Ortiz said. “But that’s an example of how people can be impacted by this.” 

As it scrambles to meet arbitrary deportation quotas, ICE sends detainers even for people who have never been convicted of a crime and have only minor charges pending in Wisconsin courts. 

Voces has been fighting at the local level since the first Trump administration for local law enforcement to refuse to collaborate with ICE unless there is a judicial warrant for someone, meaning that person is being sought in connection with a serious crime. As a result of Voces’ efforts, that is now the standard in Milwaukee County. The state Supreme Court case is an effort to establish the same standard statewide.

Neumann-Ortiz said she’s grateful the Supreme Court justices recognized the urgency of the issue in agreeing to take the case on an expedited basis, “given the current level of abuse that we’re seeing happen, and which will only escalate.”

And, she added, “We certainly very much anticipate Milwaukee being one of the cities that will be targeted for militarized occupation with these aggressive sweeps.”

Whether or not Wisconsin communities can protect people from the kind of violence we’ve been seeing in other states depends on the courageous actions of state and local officials, advocates and informed community members. It begins with recognizing that the Trump administration’s actions are wrong and then standing up.

At the press conference, a reporter asked about ICE’s assertion that the agency doesn’t have room for everyone in its detention facilities and therefore needs space in county jails. Muth responded: “Detain fewer people.”

Neumann-Ortiz added some clarifying context. “They are profiling people, they are just grabbing people without any probable cause. So it’s a very racist program that is using violence against people and is trying to hijack, through bribery and through threats, local law enforcement to be part of this mass deportation machinery,” she said. 

“We’re seeing, at the local level, community come together,” she added, “to reject these efforts to undermine local law enforcement — which is supposed to play a public safety role — into just this arm of deportation driven by xenophobia and racism. And which is making a lot of money for the for-profit prison industry.”

This year, communities across the state have pushed back on 287g partnership agreements between local law enforcement and ICE that turn sheriff’s departments into an arm of the federal immigration agency. Palmyra, Ozaukee and Kenosha counties rejected ICE’s offers of money to transform their sheriffs into agents of federal immigration enforcement.

The Kenosha sheriff’s office made its decision not to participate after the ACLU and Voces had already named it in the Supreme Court lawsuit, along with Walworth, Brown, Sauk and Marathon counties. Palmyra also reversed a decision to accept a large payment from ICE to participate, responding to public outrage.

“Resistance is happening, it’s successful, it’s building community,” Neumann-Ortiz said. “But we do need state protections to uphold our rights.”

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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will move its Milwaukee processing operations from a downtown building owned by the Milwaukee School of Engineering to a site on the Northwest Side, an ICE spokesperson said in an email to NNS.

ICE has been using the university-owned building at 310 E. Knapp St. as a processing center, a presence that has drawn weekly protests from students and community members since June. 

A spokesperson for the General Services Administration, the real estate arm of the federal government, said the GSA “remains focused on supporting this administration’s goal of optimizing the federal footprint, and providing the best workplaces for our federal agencies to meet their mission,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement to NNS.

Demonstrators have been calling on the university to cut ties with the agency.

MSOE officials say the university inherited the federal lease when it purchased the building in 2023 and does not have the legal authority to remove ICE.

Alan Madry, professor emeritus at Marquette University Law School, said there is no question the federal government has eminent domain authority in such situations. 

The federal government has the legal power to take or use property for public purposes even if a private landowner or local government objects.

A ‘phased’ transition

In a statement to NNS, ICE said the transition “will follow a phased approach to ensure a smooth and efficient process” and that the agency “remains committed to maintaining continuity of operations as the office becomes fully operational.”

Processing centers are typically used to conduct interviews and sometimes hold people for the short term rather than overnight detention. 

The ICE spokesperson did not provide a timeline for the move, but said the new location at 11925 W. Lake Park Drive will operate as a processing center, not a detention facility.

In a statement, Jeremy McGovern, spokesperson for the Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services, said the city has no additional inspections scheduled for the Lake Park Drive site and that the certificate of occupancy is already in place. 

Because the federal government is not subject to local zoning and permit requirements, McGovern said, the city cannot determine when the site becomes active and has limited knowledge about the federal timeline.

Protests continue

The university says it intends to use the Knapp Street building for academic purposes once ICE leaves. But Noah Dinan, a sophomore studying software engineering at the school, said the lack of clarity about the move raises troubling possibilities. 

The transition could take years, or ICE could expand its Milwaukee operations rather than relocate, said Dinan, who is a member of the university’s chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America.

The organization has circulated petitions, contacted alumni and joined the weekly Friday protests. 

Dinan also pointed to the financial incentives of leasing to ICE. 

According to the General Services Administration’s September 2025 lease inventory, the federal government is paying the university about $2.1 million per year to occupy the Knapp Street site through April 2028.

Despite the news that ICE has plans to transition from Knapp Street to its new property, Dinan said he and other students plan to continue protesting. 

“Our campaign is one of sanctuary,” Dinan said.

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Jonathan Aguilar is a visual journalist at Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service who is supported through a partnership between CatchLight Local and Report for America.

ICE plans to leave Milwaukee School of Engineering facility is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

A settlement is pending in the state’s case against a Marinette manufacturer of firefighting foam over alleged violations of the state’s spills law for failing to report PFAS contamination.

The post Settlement nears in Wisconsin lawsuit against Tyco, Johnson Controls over PFAS appeared first on WPR.

A Moncks Corner school bus driver is behind bars after being arrested in connection with an Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) investigation, reported Live 5 News.

Allan Bladorn, 39, was reportedly taken into custody Nov. 20, after Berkeley County investigators identified him as a suspect during an undercover online operation. The Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office arrested Bladorn and placed a hold on him until he was transferred to Chesterfield County the following day.

According to the news report, authorities confirmed that Bladorn was employed as a public-school bus driver with the Berkeley County School District at the time of his arrest. Investigators seized his cellphone, which will undergo forensic analysis as part of the ongoing case.

Bladorn is currently being held at the Chesterfield County Detention Center, where he awaits a bond hearing. The sheriff’s office stated that the investigation remains active, and that additional charges may be filed as evidence continues to be reviewed.

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