The federal courthouse in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Testimony from federal agents continued into the second day of Milwaukee Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan’s federal trial, where Dugan faces charges of obstructing immigration officers and concealing a man they were trying to arrest outside her courtroom in April. Prosecutors repeatedly asked agents about Dugan’s tone when she spoke with them, which they described as upset, angry, direct and stern. A colleague of Dugan’s, Judge Kristela Cervera, who was with Dugan when she confronted agents in the hallway outside her courtroom, also testified that Dugan’s demeanor during the encounter made her uncomfortable.

On Tuesday, FBI agent Jeffrey Baker testified about his encounter with Dugan as part of the six-man arrest team that entered the Milwaukee County Courthouse in April in search of Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old Mexican-born man who was in the country without legal authorization.

During Baker’s testimony, details emerged about a woman the agents encountered in the hallway whom they believed was a public defender and who noticed them and began taking  pictures of the agents before Dugan arrived and spoke with them. Images of a Signal Chat used by the arrest team which had been named the “Frozen Water Group,” a reference to ICE, revealed that agents texted that the woman had “been around for more than one of these before.” Another message stated “she was talking sh*t about us with another attorney about how we are not very covert.” 

The prior arrests the agents were referring to had occurred at the courthouse from late March to early April, fueling concern among Milwaukee County judges about how to ensure the courthouse remained a safe and orderly place to conduct business. Testimony and text messages suggest that the prior arrests had all been made by the same team Dugan spoke with on April 18. 

Defense attorneys highlighted the agent’s choice of profile images for the “Frozen Water Group” chat. One agent had chosen an image of a skull over a pill bottle crossed by two syringes with a thin blue line flag in the background. Brian Ayers, a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent, who said that this was his account in the Signal chat, testified Tuesday that the logo belonged to the DEA opioid task force. Another showed a man licking the barrel of a handgun. Ayers testified that he followed Flores-Ruiz down the hall, and rode the elevator down with him and his lawyer without revealing that he was a federal agent. 

FBI agents Phillip Jackling, Customs and Border Protection agent Joseph Zurao, and ICE deportation officer Joseph Vasconcellos, who were all part of that Signal chat, described Dugan coming out to ask whether they were there to attend court hearings, and pointing them down the hall to Chief Judge Carl Ashley’s office. Jackling described Dugan as “very direct, and she seemed upset,” and said that leaving the rest of the arrest team in the hall “caused me to have a little bit of uncertainty about what was going to happen next.” Zurao said that Dugan told the agents to “get out” or “leave”. 

Vasconcellos said that he was unnerved by the attorney photographing them, and that because he’d been stabbed, shot, and suffered nerve damage in his neck over the course of  his career, he had concerns that their plan to use the courthouse as a “safe place” to arrest people had gone south. “I was honestly concerned that we had had our pictures taken and the staff knew who we were,” Vasconcellos testified. He’d texted in the group chat, speaking of the public defender photographing them, “this is going to be a pain in the d-ck.”

Vasconcellos described Dugan as “very stern and upset,” and said when Dugan told them to leave the hall and go to Ashley’s office, “I told her no.” Vasconcellos eventually went into the chief judge’s office, where he and other agents waited to get connected to Ashley over the phone. Ashley discussed the courthouse draft policy governing immigration enforcement in and around the building at length with the agents. When Vasconcellos left Ashley’s office, the rest of the arrest team had already followed Flores-Ruiz outside and arrested him. 

Vasconcellos testified that he was aware that judges could speak  sternly and that he was not familiar with Dugan and didn’t know if that tone was normal for her. Defense attorneys highlighted that only DEA Special Agent Ayers told FBI investigators that he heard Dugan yelling at the team, something none of the other task force agents described in their testimony. Ayers also refuted testimony from Zuaro, who claimed to have told Ayers to “get your ass out in the hallway in case he comes out,” an assertion that was not  documented in reports and interviews conducted by investigators. Nile Hendrix-Whitmore, a victim witness advocate with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office, also testified that she did not hear any yelling or arguing when Dugan spoke with the agents. 

Judge testifies about discomfort with Dugan

Later in the day, Judge Cervera took the stand. Cervera recalled that she had a busy schedule on April 18, and had arrived to court early to begin working on her cases. She’d left the building to move her car and as she walked back she ran into Dugan who was presumably doing the same. Not long after she arrived back to her courtroom, Cervera testified that Dugan came in and beckoned her over. “I thought something bad had happened,” said Cervera. “It was embarrassing to be summoned in that way.”

Cervera testified that Dugan gave the impression that  “it was urgent” and that Dugan “seemed irritated.” When Cervera began to remove her robes, she testified that Dugan told her to keep them on, which she did because Dugan was a more senior judge. “I didn’t want to walk into the hallway with my robe,” Cervera testified, though she said she didn’t tell Dugan that she was uncomfortable. 

When the two approached the agents and Dugan asked whether they had a judicial warrant, Cervera said that “her irritation seemed to progress into anger.” Cervera said that Dugan was “expressing her views to the officer” and that she thought Dugan “could have been a little more diplomatic.” Nevertheless, Cervera testified that the interaction was “pretty straightforward and quick,” and that she had her own questions about the kind of warrant the agents had. Dugan told them that a judicial warrant signed by a judge, not an administrative warrant signed by an ICE officer, would be needed, Cervera testified.

Cervera escorted the agents to Ashley’s office and recalled looking back and not seeing Dugan follow them. “I felt abandoned,” she said on the stand. “I thought she left me.” As Cervera looked over the warrant herself, she noticed other agents coming into the hall leading to the chief judge’s office. When Cervera took a short cut through Dugan’s court to get back to her own room, Cervera noticed that Dugan was hearing cases. “I was irritated at that point,” she said, repeating that she felt “abandoned” by her fellow judge. 

Bits and pieces of what happened then made it to Cervera, including Flores-Ruiz being arrested outside, and attorneys pumping their fists telling her, “You go, Judge,” and saying, “Judge, you’re ‘goated’ now,” a reference to the term “Greatest Of All Time.” Cervera testified that one attorney, the same who took pictures of agents in the hall, told her, “We knew what you guys were trying to do.” The next day, she heard that the FBI would be getting involved. “I was shocked” and “mortified,” she testified. “Judges shouldn’t be helping defendants avoid arrest.”

Sometime after April 18, Cervera recalled running into Dugan in an elevator. “I didn’t want to run into her at this point,” Cervera testified. Dugan allegedly told Cervera that she was “in the dog house with Carl,” referring to the chief judge. “She seemed eager to tell me about what happened on Friday,” Cervera said. 

Defense attorneys questioned Cervera about whether she knew ICE agents were waiting outside her courtroom as well, which she denied. When she got home on April 18, she Googled Vasconcellos’ name, and warned her sister — who is also an attorney who had cases with clients at the Milwaukee courthouse coming up — that ICE was more active in the building. Defense attorneys noted that when she was called to a grand jury, Cervera did not reveal that she had warned her sister about the federal operations. 

Cervera said on the stand that she was talking to her sister about what appeared to be “sweeping arrests” happening around the country, and that she’d never heard of ICE arrests at the courthouse prior to March. Multiple members of the arrest team testified that they had only been transferred to ICE Emergency Removal Operations (ERO) duties in early 2025, after President Donald Trump took office. 

Judge Hannah Dugan leaves court in her federal trial, where she faces charges of obstructing immigration officers. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

The gallery was packed shoulder-to-shoulder Monday morning as Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan entered the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman not as a judge, but as a criminal defendant. Dugan is accused of obstructing federal agents in their efforts to arrest a Mexican-born man who was in the country without legal authorization, and who appeared in Dugan’s misdemeanor criminal court back in April. If convicted in what Adelman signaled would be no more than a week-long trial, Dugan could face six years in prison.

Attorneys on both sides of the trial painted very different pictures of Dugan during their opening statements, which can include statements which do not have to be demonstrated by evidence. 

Opening statements from prosecutors lasted nearly an hour, with the lawyers saying that Dugan “knew what she was doing was wrong.” Repeatedly, prosecutors pointed to courtroom audio transcribed by the FBI which captured Dugan saying, “I’ll get the heat,” when talking to her courtroom staff about how to respond to the fact that immigration agents were waiting in the hallway to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a man appearing before her on misdemeanor charges of battery and domestic violence. 

Prosecutors called the Milwaukee County Courthouse “a safe place where arrests are routine,” allowing federal agents to confront targets who have passed through security screening and are unarmed. An arrest team of six federal agents from the FBI, DEA, Border Patrol, and ICE wearing plain clothes and carrying concealed weapons were attempting to blend into the normal hustle and bustle in the courthouse. Prosecutors said that an FBI agent told a Milwaukee sheriff’s deputy, who was serving as a bailiff for Dugan’s courtroom, that they were there to arrest Flores-Ruiz. “Everything was proceeding in a routine way,” prosecutors told the jury, until the court clerk told Dugan that agents were in the hallway for an immigration arrest. 

Jurors watched mute video compiled from security cameras showing Dugan, accompanied by fellow Circuit Court Judge Kristela Cervera, walking down the public hall in their judge robes to find out what the agents waiting outside the courtroom wanted. Both judges can be seen pointing to the chief judge’s office, with agents then following Cervera to consult with Chief Judge Carl Ashley. 

When Dugan returned to her courtroom she called Flores-Ruiz first out of the at least 33 cases she had on the docket, setting a court date and telling Flores-Ruiz he was welcome to attend remotely over Zoom. After that, prosecutors allege that Dugan and her court staff directed Flores-Ruiz to an exit in the courtroom which led to a non-public hallway. At the end of the hallway Flores-Ruiz could either take a staircase leading down to the fifth floor, or go through a door which led back out to the public hallway where agents were waiting. 

Flores-Ruiz and his attorney exited through the door and walked  right past the federal agents. Some of the agents trailed Flores-Ruiz to the elevator, while the rest of the arrest team left Ashley’s office. Cameras outside the courthouse captured agents running down a sidewalk after Flores-Ruiz and his attorney. 

Dugan is accused by prosecutors of “dividing” the arrest team by directing them to the chief judge. They say that Dugan had “strongly held views” about immigration enforcement in courts which led her to “cross the line,” and that the now-suspended judge had “orchestrated” Flores-Ruiz’s “escape from federal law enforcement.” 

Prosecutors claimed Dugan told Cervera to keep her robes on during the interaction, and that Cervera and Flores-Ruiz’s defense attorney Mercedes De La Rosa were both uncomfortable with Dugan’s wishes to confront the agents. 

Dugan’s defense team emphasized that the door Flores-Ruiz used to exit the courtroom was just 11 feet from the courtroom’s main entrance. They also discussed the upheaval the Trump administration’s deportation operations had caused at the Milwaukee County Courthouse before the interaction with Dugan. ICE arrests had occurred in late March and early April, alarming county judges. The defense displayed emails from courthouse personnel they said demonstrated the “paranoid” atmosphere at the courthouse and which described concerns about people not showing up to court and suspicious vehicles parked outside that looked like they belonged to federal law enforcement. 

Courthouse was developing a policy on ICE

At the time of Flores-Ruiz’s arrest, Chief Judge Ashley was drafting a policy on how to respond to immigration enforcement coming inside the courts. Judges had been invited to a training presentation on the matter which Dugan was unable to attend, but she had been briefed on its main points. 

The draft policy noted that administrative warrants of the type federal agents presented to arrest Flores-Ruiz are not treated the same way as judicial warrants. Whereas a judicial warrant would give the agents full access to the building, administrative warrants limit them to the public areas of the courthouse. Court staff were also instructed to direct immigration officers to their immediate supervisors, which Dugan appeared to be doing by directing them to Ashley, her attorneys said, adding  that the chief judge needed to be notified if a warrant is executed. 

Ashley had also issued a press release after the rash of ICE arrests saying in part that “the court must remain a safe haven,” Dugan’s attorney Steven Biskupic noted, as images of courthouse emails, messages, and press releases were presented  to jurors on two screens. Dugan did not obstruct the agents, or give direction to anyone else to do so, her attorneys argued. 

Federal agents testify

Three federal agents took the stand Monday and gave lengthy testimony, starting with Erin Lucker of the FBI. Lucker was not involved with the immigration arrest, but helped gather and analyze video and evidence to charge Dugan. Using audio from courtroom microphones, Lucker created a transcript and timeline of events from the time Dugan first approached the agents until Flores-Ruiz was arrested outside. 

The audio was very poor in places, and Judge Adelman reminded the jury that the audio is evidence, not the transcript, and that if they could not understand what is said on the audio, they were not allowed to rely on the transcript instead. In a portion of the audio, Dugan can be heard talking to court staff about the exit to the hallway, with a voice saying “down the stairs,” though some of what’s being said was inaudible. Prosecutors also said that the alleged victims of the domestic violence and battery charges Flores-Ruiz faced were kept waiting in the courtroom to wonder what happened after he left. 

In response to questions from Dugan’s defense attorneys, Lucker said she had no firsthand knowledge of the courthouse itself or what business there usually looks like. She had not participated in an arrest team like the one assembled for Flores-Ruiz, she said. She also responded to the defense that she wasn’t aware that before January 2025 immigration enforcement officers did not, as a matter of policy, target people for arrest at courthouses. 

Defense attorneys also pointed out that a video Lucker helped produce shows a walkthrough of Dugan’s courtroom and the non-public hallway outside ends with the filmer walking down the stairs, not taking the entrance to the hallway which Flores-Ruiz took. Lucker said she hadn’t walked down those stairs, and was unaware that to get out of the building you’d need to pass by multiple security checkpoints. 

Testimony revealed that federal agents had been surveilling Flores-Ruiz at his home and followed him to the courthouse. Defense attorneys questioned why a traffic stop wasn’t made. The task force agents used an encrypted Signal chat which they’d named the “Frozen Water Group” to communicate about the ICE operation. 

FBI Special Agent Jeffrey Baker,  one of the plain-clothes agents on the arrest team, testified that he  had only been on the ERO team since February when the team came for Flores-Ruiz in April. Baker said Dugan “divided” the arrest team by leading members into the chief judge’s office, and that when he talked to Dugan “she seemed to be angry at that point.” When he went to Ashley’s office, Baker said he wasn’t told where he was going or why. He was informed that Flores-Ruiz had left the building either by a text or phone call from another agent.

On Tuesday, Baker will be questioned by defense attorneys.

People gather to sing and show support for Judge Hannah Dugan ahead of her federal trial. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

A federal jury will begin hearing the case against Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan, 66, on Monday in a lawsuit that has drawn national attention, weighing how far the Trump administration can go in squashing resistance to its nationwide crackdown on immigrants. 

The case revolves around events in  April, when Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant who had  been charged with battery, appeared in Dugan’s courtroom. Federal agents also arrived at the courtroom that day, seeking Flores-Ruiz, whom they said entered the country illegally over a decade ago. 

Dugan confronted  the federal agents as they waited outside her courtroom. Later, she led Flores-Ruiz  and his attorney out of her courtroom through a side door which led  into the same hallway where the federal agents were waiting. Flores-Ruiz was followed into the elevator and outside by the agents, who chased and then arrested him. 

Days later, Dugan was arrested and handcuffed by FBI agents and charged with obstruction and concealing an individual. FBI Director Kash Patel posted photographs of Dugan in handcuffs and celebrated her arrest, writing on X, “No one is above the law.” 

In early April, prior to Flores-Ruiz, ICE arrested two other people at the Milwaukee County Courthouse. Officials expressed concerns that the arrests were causing defendants, witnesses and victims to avoid coming to court or cooperating with law enforcement. 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley objected to what he characterized as intimidation tactics in enforcing its immigration crackdown and wielding the power of the state against  “anyone who opposes these policies.” In a statement, Crowley said, “we have an obligation to administer our courts in a safe, efficient manner that delivers due process for anyone.” 

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera, said that the Trump officials  “basically want to be unleashed to do whatever they want to commit these raids in courtrooms across the country.” Milwaukee-area Democratic Sens. Chris Larson and Tim Carpenter and Reps. Christine Sinicki, Darrin Madison, Supreme Moore Omokunde, Angelito Tenorio, and Sequanna Taylor issued a joint statement calling the county courthouse “a sanctuary for justice and peace where the accused come forward willingly in a fair an unbiased process”, and warned that “arresting people out of a courtroom will lead to a breakdown of civil society.” 

At the end of April, the Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Dugan with pay. Her case catalyzed protests outside the Milwaukee FBI Office, and was repeatedly mentioned at the summer’s No Kings protests. In July, Republican lawmakers introduced a bill to withhold pay for suspended judges. 

“In these rare circumstances, these judges’ actions and alleged misconduct rose to such a level that suspension was warranted,” the bill’s authors, Sen. Cory Tomczyk (R-Mosinee), Assembly Majority Leader Tyler August (R-Walworth) and Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) wrote in a memo.  “Simply put, Wisconsin taxpayers must be protected from the misconduct and/or commission of a crime by rogue judges.”

If convicted, Dugan, who has pleaded not guilty, faces six years in prison. Her legal team initially attempted to have the case thrown out,  t arguing that Dugan is covered by  judicial immunity. That argument was rejected by U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph of the Eastern District of Wisconsin, who wrote that judges have civil immunity for official actions, but not criminal immunity, and that the case should go forward.

“As she said after her unnecessary arrest, Judge Dugan asserts her innocence and looks forward to being vindicated in court,” Dugan’s defense attorneys said in a statement.

On Thursday night, a crowd gathered outside the federal courthouse to support Dugan. 

Therese Heeg, 66, told the Wisconsin Examiner that she felt a responsibility to attend the rally to “protect our democracy for my children, my grandchildren, my son-in-law who’s unable to live in the U.S. because he’s from Africa, my best friend’s children who are Hispanic who are afraid for their lives, even though they’re citizens.” Heeg said she’s worried about immigration enforcement coming to the city to take people away. “Every single day there’s more and more atrocities happening right here,” said Heeg. “We are trapping people in camps…I used to wonder what it was like to live under the Nazis, and now I know, I’m living it. It’s shocking, it’s hard to comprehend at the same time that it’s happening every single day. 

Jury selection on Thursday was  closed off from the public and media by U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman, who is hearing the case. Adelman was responding to concerns from both the prosecution and defense that public questioning would taint the jury. An audio feed allowing media to listen to the jury selection process was restored following a legal   challenge by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Sister Barbara Pfarr, who is among the leaders of the faith-based social justice group MICAH, said that the national attention on Dugan’s case shows that the judge struck a nerve by standing up to the  Trump administration. Pfarr was disturbed by the effort to restrict press access during jury selection, and wondered whether anything similar would happen during the trial. “That’s the other big reason that I’m here, we’ve lost our democracy.”

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.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development headquarters. (Photo by HUD Office of Public Affairs)

Update: On Monday, Dec. 8, the federal government withdrew the funding notice cutting Continuum of Care funds.

A proposed budget from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that cuts funds which have meant the difference between shelter and homelessness for about 170,000 people nationwide has left communities scrambling. In Wisconsin, the cuts are projected to cause the loss of permanent housing for 2,379 people according to a report by the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The loss of funds would hit early in the new year, leaving local governments to absorb the fallout in the middle of winter. 

Korey Lundin, senior staff attorney at the National Housing Law Project and former staff attorney with Legal Action of Wisconsin, told the Wisconsin Examiner that the grants that HUD cut —  known as Continuum of Care (CoC) funds — “help thousands of people. That includes folks who have been recently unhoused.” In Wisconsin, 52% of permanent housing funding is covered by the CoC program. 

The people the CoC program serves, Ludin said, include “families, children, seniors, veterans, those who are survivors of domestic violence,” and others who are “not just the stereotypical image that people get when they think of a homeless person.”

In Milwaukee County, over $12 million in CoC funds covers direct rent payments to help provide housing for vulnerable county residents. The investments help support thousands of people across more than 20 housing programs. 

CoC funding in Milwaukee County supports housing for:

• over 770 children;
• 154 young adults between 18 and 24 years old, 
• 560 working-age residents from 25 to 44 years old, 
• 590 people between the ages of 45 to 64,
• 826 people with no income at all, 
• 347 who earn only $500-$1000 a month,
• 1,049 people diagnosed with mental health disorders,
• 321 people with physical disabilities,
• 123 with co-occurring substance use disorders,
• 549 people who’ve remained in housing for over five years,
• and 610 people who’ve maintained housing for 1 to 2 years. 

HUD has also proposed capping permanent housing support at 30%. In Milwaukee County 89% of CoC funds are dedicated to permanent housing beds. The picture isn’t much different for Dane County (where 78% of CoC funding goes to permanent beds), or Racine County (where 80% of CoC funding supports permanent beds). 

HUD announced the cuts saying they will help fulfill President Donald Trump’s “Ending Crime and Disorder on America’s Streets” executive order. HUD claimed that cutting support for permanent housing beds across the country will restore “accountability to homelessness programs” while promoting “self-sufficiency among vulnerable Americans.” 

The Trump administration has been criticized for policies that essentially criminalize homelessness, jailing and displacing unhoused people in an effort to beautify cities. Lundin sees the HUD cuts as part of that effort. He told the Wisconsin Examiner, “They want to round up and warehouse the unhoused. They want to incarcerate the unhoused. The solutions they’re talking about are solutions that exacerbate homelessness.”

HUD Secretary Scott Turner has said that restricting and cutting permanent bed funding is “ending the status quo that perpetuated homelessness through a self-sustaining slush fund.” In a press release announcing the cuts, HUD criticized “the failed ‘Housing First’ ideology, which encourages dependence on endless government handouts while neglecting to address the root causes of homelessness, including illicit drugs and mental illnesses.”

Housing First is an approach to addressing homelessness that prioritizes placing individuals in permanent and stable housing. One 2022 study — which noted that chronic homelessness in the U.S. costs up to $3.4 billion — found that the economic benefits of implementing Housing First programs outweigh the costs of the programs. In 2023, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs published a research brief highlighting that “strong evidence exists that the Housing First model leads to quicker exits from homelessness and greater housing stability over time compared with treatment as usual.” It also stated that studies on the Housing First Model — four of which were reviewed to compile the research brief — show that the model “results in greater improvements in housing outcomes for homeless adult populations in North America.” 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who credits the county’s Housing First approach for a sharp reduction in homelessness, told the Examiner, “I am deeply concerned about the Trump administration’s move to slash permanent housing funding. This decision will destabilize housing for people across the country and it threatens the real progress we have made in Milwaukee County through our Housing First program.” Crowley noted that Milwaukee County has been recognized for having the lowest number of unsheltered homeless residents count per capita in the country, “and we are looked at as a national leader in this space. As someone who knows what housing insecurity feels like, I will pull every lever I can to protect working families and expand access to permanent housing so we can keep our state moving forward.” 

Especially in the winter, the HUD cuts could have troubling consequences. “We don’t have any state protection that prohibits people from being evicted in winter,” said Lundin, who lives in Wisconsin. “If this goes through it would be happening in the worst time here in Wisconsin in the middle of the winter.” 

Lawsuits are already being filed by cities, states and nonprofits. Lundin also said that Congress could intervene by appropriating funding for the HUD programs the administration plans to cut in 2026. In a statement to the Examiner, U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) called CoC funding and homeless programs “vital to many organizations in Wisconsin and in Milwaukee who help the unhoused and keep people housed.” 

Moore said in the statement, “as per usual with this administration, it is the most vulnerable, like domestic violence survivors and LGBTQ youth, who would be hit the hardest. The Trump Administration’s proposal disregards Congress’s intent and would be catastrophic, putting 170,000 Americans at risk of homelessness. I am pleased to have joined my colleagues on several letters opposing these changes. House and Senate Members on both sides of the aisle have also pushed back because they recognize what it would do: Move us backward in the fight to end homelessness.”

Advocates are urging members of Congress to support a final HUD spending bill that increases funding for housing vouchers and protects CoC funds for permanent housing. The House and Senate version of a bill to fund HUD’s affordable housing, community development, and homelessness services programs differ by billions of dollars as the two chambers work to hammer out a year-end spending deal. 

A drone watching a protest. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

“It is a unique bill that has a lot of emotion and nuances to it,” said Rep. Chuck Wichgers (R-Muskego), describing a bill to give local law enforcement the power to disable or destroy drones. Speaking to the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety on Wednesday, Wichgers said that the bill would give “the bare minimum protection” for both the public and police as global drone technology continues to rapidly evolve.

Although current state law prohibits the use of weaponized drones, the devices are not actually defined in statute. Wichgers’ bill would define a weaponized drone as one which “is equipped with a taster, firearm, flamethrower, chemical, or explosive device.” 

Wichgers cautioned that “we can easily complicate this bill,” especially given the growth of drone technology around the world. Over the last two decades, drones have gone from being scarcely heard of outside military settings to becoming household objects. The U.S. military’s infamous Reaper and Predator drones, some of which are the size of small planes, have long been used in combat for reconnaissance and lethal strikes. Today, however, the same small and cheap quad-copter drones used by photographers, landscapers and children are being outfitted with explosives for kamikaze-style attacks on armored vehicles on Russian and Ukrainian battlefields, where an estimated 70-80% of casualties are caused by drones.

“It’s beyond fascinating,” Wichgers  said of “this is a big and global issue.” Wichgers told committee members that “we need to start getting language in statute,” since only certain federal agencies currently have the authority to down weaponized drones. “This bill allows Wisconsin law enforcement to mitigate a threat posed by a weaponized drone by detecting, tracking and identifying the drone and then intercepting, disabling, or in a worst case scenario, destroying the drone.” 

In order to protect public safety,  Wichgers said  that “these powers should be extended to local law enforcement.” He added that the federal government provides grants to help mitigate drone threats, as well as $500 million set aside for fiscal year 2026-27, as part of the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” “The difficulty is that law enforcement should not have to waiver if there is an immediate threat for a drone that is weaponized or carrying a load that is harmful to the public,” said Wichgers. “Our airspace needs to be safe, just like we’re safe on our roads.” 

A quickly moving goalpost 

The bill was requested by the Police Chief Association of Waukesha County, Wichgers said. “State law must be enacted that is responsive to current and future needs as best as we can determine them in order to prevent harm and protect our communities,” he added. 

Committee members chimed in with a variety of questions. Rep. Shae Sortwell (R-Two Rivers) joked about farmers using weaponized drones to eliminate sandhill cranes consuming crops. Wichgers brought up  his own examples, including nervous neighbors calling the police to check out roofers who might be using drones for survey work, or a drone being used at a concert to drop fentanyl on people who then overdose in the crowd. “Right now the police would say, ‘Sorry, the Wisconsin Legislature is dragging their feet on passing a law that gives me permission to disarm that drone that’s a threat, we’ll have to wait till next session,” said Wichgers. 

Dan Thompson, chief of the Waukesha Police Department, told the committee,  that “drones carry contraband, surveillance equipment or worse, weaponized payloads” and that the technology can “present a unique danger that demands an immediate intervention.” 

The chief’s comments prompted Rep. David Steffen (R-Howard) to seek clarification that under the proposed bill a drone does not, in fact, need to be weaponized, and that law enforcement only need to “reasonably suspect” that it could pose a public safety threat in order to shoot it down. Sortwell said that the bill’s language seemed broad. 

Sortwell questioned whether as the bill is written, shooting down a drone could be justified at any time. Legislative counsel said, “I don’t know that I can really answer that.” Sortwell shot back, “The fact that you can’t say ‘no’ is troubling.”

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.

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.” 

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. 

“‘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.”

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.”

Hemp plant at a farm in Minnesota. (Photo by Baylor Spears)

When Jacob Diener first heard that the status of hemp could be reviewed, he wasn’t too concerned. With his company, A Good Plug, the 32-year-old expected to continue producing small batch hemp products like gummies, brownies, and cheesecakes. 

“It seems around this time it happens every year that they want to re-assess the Farm Bill,” Diener told the Wisconsin Examiner. But 2025 was different and Diener, like others across the industry, was caught off guard when what amounted to a prohibition on his livelihood was discreetly attached to a deal to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. “It’s just weird and scary,” he said. 

Hemp businesses were allowed to flourish after the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized the production and distribution of hemp products with no more than 0.3% THC on a dry weight basis. But under new rules that were included in the stopgap spending bill ending the federal government shutdown last week, products must contain no more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container. 

Steve Hampton, owner of the Eau Claire-based company Steve’s Hemp, says that standard is biologically impossible to meet. “[The] hemp plant struggles to grow to meet that guideline before it’s even harvested,” Hampton told the Wisconsin Examiner. “So, we’re seeing upwards to 99% of the industry get wiped out from this.” 

THC is the primary psychoactive compound in the cannabis plant. Although hemp and the psychoactive variety commonly known as marijuana are the same plant species, they have different chemical compositions. Many cannabis varieties are cultivated with high levels of THC for markets in states where the plant has been legalized medical or recreational. 

Hemp, with far lower concentrations of THC, is mostly used for rope, paper and industrial products. It is also offered in states that do not have legal cannabis markets as an alternative — a source for  products containing delta-9 THC, THCa, THCp and other derivatives. 

The law reopening the government, however, effectively bans those products and gives the industry until next November to adapt or fizzle out. Erin Kelly, owner of the Wauwatosa-based hemp goods store Kelly’s Greens, told TMJ4 that even CBD products contain trace amounts of THC which make them effective medicine, and that the new rules would render that medicine ineffective. Wisconsin’s hemp industry is estimated to be valued at $700 million and accounts for at least 3,500 jobs, according to the Wisconsin State Journal. 

“Everybody’s frantic, you know, we’re all worried,” Hampton told the Examiner. Without an amendment to the new rules or legislative intervention, Hampton says the nation’s $28.4 billion hemp industry won’t survive, and that most of his own store’s inventory would be banned. 

More than just a cash crop

When he was a teenager in Fond du Lac, Diener was introduced to cannabis through his grandmother, who used it to manage her pain and chronic illnesses. He began using it to help with his stress and the early signs of Crohn’s disease he was experiencing

After years of working in the restaurant industry, Diener realized he wanted more out of life. “And so I started to get permission from my chef to start making candy in the kitchen behind the scenes, just learning the basics, but with the intentions that I wanted to make infused candy, gummy worms, stuff like that,” he said. “Stuff that I didn’t see on the market at the time.”

Hampton also became involved in hemp after experiencing the medicinal value of the plant. “I was a college student at the time,” he said, “and was looking for some relief with some back pain, some sore muscles from the gym. And my dad had actually bought me some CBD oil to test out for my birthday. And it was from a local farm up here in northern Wisconsin. That helped me a ton with what I needed it for.” 

Hampton realized that there were not many such products marketed to younger people like him. He grew his business online before opening a storefront during Small Business Week in 2021. Today Hampton, 29, owns and operates his business alongside his wife and five employees. People of all ages come into his store. “In-store, we have a lot of customers who come in just looking for relief,” he said. Many of the customers are seeking a remedy for anxiety, as well as “a large handful of customers that have chronic pain,” he said. 

Steve’s Hemp carries flowers, vapes, gummies, candies, topical ointments and other products. Diener, who specializes in culinary cannabis products, makes everything from Nerds-covered gummies (a popular product he calls “Stoney Bites”) to other sweets. Diener describes his customers as “such a community of oddballs and people who have unique personalities. And that’s what I’ve always hoped for, and that’s kind of what I come from and who I am a person. People authentic to themselves.” 

The cost of  prohibition

Before the federal ban on THC-derived hemp products was added to the bill to reopen the government, Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin were already working on bills to restrict or prohibit the industry in the state. Representatives Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls), Jim Piwowarczyk (R-Hubertus) and others introduced what they called “a common-sense corrective bill” to close the “loophole” that allowed what they called “dangerous, psychoactive THC-laced products to proliferate in Wisconsin.” 

The lawmakers pointed to health advisory warnings issued by federal agencies about the use of delta-9 THC, and issues with unregulated markets across the country. In Wisconsin, hemp products from CBD to delta-9, HHH, THCa, and others can either be found at dispensaries where employees are often knowledgeable about their products, or at gas stations and smoke shops where customers don’t receive information and guidance. Wisconsin lawmakers have raised an alarm about emergency room visits and poison center calls linked to delta-8 THC and similar compounds, as well as concerns that children could easily purchase the products. 

Hemp business owners say they often applaud common sense regulation. They also support fully legalizing cannabis in Wisconsin —  ending prohibition. To address concerns about health consequences and children’s access to cannabis, “what would really help that is regulation, not prohibition,” Hampton said.

Everything from clear packaging guidelines to age restrictions, lab testing and education about where the product comes from and what it does could be part of a legal regulatory structure, Hampton argued. Rather than allowing any gas station to carry hemp products, Hampton would like to see licensed facilities staffed by people who care about what they’re doing. “Our main goal with this business was to educate our customers, and know what’s in our product, and recommend what would work best for our customer,” he said. 

One 2024 study analyzing national poison data systems found that between 2021 and 2022, reports of exposure to delta-8 THC increased by 79%. The study also found that poison center calls for delta-8 were significantly lower in places where either delta-THC was banned, or where cannabis use was already legalized. “Consistent regulation of delta-THC across all states should be adopted,” the study recommended. Other poison center data shows that since 2022, exposures to delta-8 THC have plummeted, a trend which has continued into 2025. 

Prohibition also creates economic stagnation,  advocates contend. Tim Frey, of Ignite Dispensary and Cigar calls it “Wisconsin’s half a billion dollar loss.”

Frey lobbied against state Republican bills to restrict hemp, and he argues that hundreds of millions are essentially handed over to Michigan and Illinois every year when Wisconsinites make the sometimes difficult decision to travel across state lines to obtain cannabis. 

“Now that Minnesota is opening up, with the largest border, we’re probably going to be losing approximately up to $200 million,” Frey told Wisconsin Examiner. “And then if they came up with a small tax on hemp-derived stuff, that’s easily $100 million there, if not more, give or take. So it’s going to be around half a billion dollars that Wisconsin could use to give to law enforcement, get fentanyl off our streets, reduce property taxes, invest in roads” and other uses. 

Hampton fears that now customers will go to the black market or risk being pulled over after driving to a neighboring state. “I just don’t understand why they thought that prohibition would be the right answer,” he said. 

As some Wisconsin legislators are working to enact a new prohibition on hemp products, others are trying to legalize medicinal THC cannabis in the state. Earlier this year, two-thirds of registered voters polled by Marquette Law School said that cannabis should be legalized in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers have introduced what would be one of the country’s most restrictive medicinal cannabis programs. 

Frey is cautious of the medical-cannabis-only approach, however, “because it’s very hard to qualify with some ailments,” he told the Wisconsin Examiner. He added that if Wisconsin passed a restrictive medical cannabis program, then it would open the door for the state’s indigenous tribal communities, as sovereign nations, to open their own recreational programs. “So then we would be a recreational state without the control, or the revenue,” he said.  

Diener said that when conservative lawmakers talk about cannabis, they sound at least 10 years behind the times. “I think that right now there’s such extreme viewpoints on it that are outdated, and really just don’t line up with today’s market or today’s values with the plant,” he said.

Frey believes that it’s past time Wisconsin had a serious discussion about legalization. “Limit the licenses,” he declared. “Control this, tax it, get licenses out there to responsible people that are going to do things the right way —  that card people, that do truth-in labeling, that care about the quality of their products.”

In addition to strict regulation, Diener said parents can protect their children from hemp products instead of the government banning them. “You have the responsibility just the same as if you have a gun in the home to keep your things in a safe space that your children cannot access,” Diener said. “You wouldn’t have your alcohol bottle sitting just, like, within reach or in a cupboard that your kids know they can access. Even growing up as a teen, when my mom knew that I was starting to go to parties and stuff, she would start to hide her alcohol.” 

After the federal hemp laws were changed, Piwowarczyk, in a television interview, said unsympathetically of hemp business owners that “you guys took a gamble when you decided to open up your hemp business.” 

Hampton counters that lawmakers like Piwowarczyk should “open their eyes, and look around, and actually meet with the constituents of their districts” who are the consumers driving the industry. 

Uneasy months ahead

For now, hemp distributors and their allies have until next November to adjust to the new federal restrictions. Frey said Wisconsin could provide some protection for the industry by enacting its own regulations for hemp products, similar to the way states have legalized cannabis industries despite the ongoing federal prohibition. 

There are already state-level legislative responses in the works, he said. One bill, AB 503, would redefine the definition of hemp to prohibit THC-derived products. Another, AB 606, would add hemp to the responsibilities of the agency in the Department of Revenue that regulates alcohol. A bill authored by Senate Democrats, SB 644, would create a regulated framework and age limits for hemp products, though it lacks Republican co-sponsors. Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) is circulating a draft bill for co-sponsorship that also regulates hemp products. 

“That bill is probably the best, most common-sense written bill that I’ve seen,” Frey told the Wisconsin Examiner. While the Democratic bill would be promising, he said, he thinks it won’t gain Republican support. 

“It’s more crucial to protect this industry in Wisconsin than it is to craft the most perfect bill,” said Frey, adding that he thinks the hemp industry will get behind Testin’s bill “full force”. 

At the same time, however, Frey wonders whether the federal regulations will change by next November. He points out that the new law gives the industry a year to adapt instead of imposing a ban immediately. 

Frey thinks that if Wisconsin passes hemp regulations but the federal laws remain the same, then the hemp industry would risk losing its federal task deductions and also lose the ability to conduct interstate commerce. 

If there is no change to save the hemp industry, a cascade of effects will ripple out. Earlier this year, Hampton  opened a new manufacturing facility just down the street from the Steve’s Hemp storefront. In the middle of next year, he will likely have to close that as well, he said. 

Once the new law takes effect, “our hands are pretty much tied,” said Hampton. “My wife and I will have to find new jobs for each other, continue to make ends meet. And then those families that work for us — those employees that work for us — will have to do the same.” Until then, Diener said, “I am going to continue to serve the people who need us the most and work to continue growing this dream and keeping this dream alive.” 

Hampton and his employees “are obsessed and passionate about this industry,” Hampton said. “We started this industry with hopes to run a legal dispensary out of Wisconsin, and hopefully transition into that. Now that plan is crushed. And so we don’t know what we’re going to do. We’re just going to try to keep our hopes up, and try to fight as much as we can to keep [hemp] legal, and if that isn’t possible, get recreational cannabis pushed through the state of Wisconsin.”

Protesters march outside of a new ICE facility being constructed in Milwaukee. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Activist groups and community members gathered Saturday morning to denounce the construction of a new federal immigration enforcement detention facility on Milwaukee’s Northwest Side. Renovations at the property, located at 11924 W Lake Park Drive, were clearly underway, with construction equipment sitting behind new fencing, piles of dirt and stacks of building materials visible through the building’s dark windows. Outside, protesters marched in the street and delivered speeches. 

The 36,000-square-foot detention and processing center is planned to serve as a central hub for southeastern Wisconsin, holding people before deportation or transfer to other detention centers.

“You may be here, but you are not welcome here,” said Ald. Larresa Taylor — who represents the district where the facility will be located. Although the city cannot prevent ICE from taking over the facility, Taylor said that this “doesn’t mean that we are going to accept it laying down.” 

Activists from Voces de la Frontera, Comité Sin Fronteras, the Milwaukee Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Never Again Action–Wisconsin, the Party for Socialism & Liberation, and the Wisconsin Coalition for Justice in Palestine picketed outside the building for close to two hours. Towards the end of the event, a drone was seen flying overhead, which was not operated by any of the activist groups who held the rally. In a empty parking lot nearby, several deputies appeared to be packing away equipment in the trunk a Milwaukee County Sheriff’s vehicle. The Sheriff’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment on whether its drone team was flying over the Saturday protest. 

Opponents of the facility say that its opening moved forward without community input or consent, and that it will perpetuate troubling uses of force and arrests in cities nationwide including Chicago. The facility will be used to  process ICE detainees, as well as immigrants who must come in for regular check-ins.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, applauded Taylor, calling her “the first person to sound the alarm months ago about the expansion of this detention center, and to call attention and condemn what was happening in our city.”  The building is privately owned by Milwaukee Governmental LLC, which originally requested modifications to the property (something Taylor learned about in December). The LLC is linked to the Illinois-based WD Schorsch LLC, which owns properties leased to federal government agencies. 

“It’s not an accident what is happening, where this facility is being chosen to be built,” said Neumann-Ortiz. “It’s part of a long-term pattern of discrimination and marginalization, and criminalization of working class people of color.” Neumann-Oritz said that instead of spending “millions” on the facility, “that money should be used to pay for FoodShare, BadgerCare, and our public schools.” 

 Angela Lang, executive director of Black Leaders Organizing Communities (BLOC), said, “We are not free, until we are all free.” Lang added that Black communities “know what it’s like to be ripped away from our families and locked away,” and that people are concerned about federal agents’ behavior in cities like Chicago. “And we have been worried for months, if not years, ‘is this going to happen to Milwaukee?’” 

Over recent months months, videos have suggested an escalating patter of force from federal agents including shooting people in the head with pepper balls, placing protesters in chokeholds, deploying tear gas in crowded neighborhoods in broad daylight, arresting and attacking journalists, arresting parents in front of their children, and having unprofessional verbal exchanges with citizens. 

Although Milwaukee hasn’t seen protest-related clashes, ICE stirred anxiety and condemnation earlier this year after arresting members of families with mixed-immigration status at the Milwaukee County Courthouse as they attended court hearings. Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was also arrested and criminally charged after the federal government accused her of attempting to hide a person sought by ICE who’d attended a hearing in her courtroom. Dugan is expected to go to trial in federal court in December. Other high profile arrests and deportations of community members have also occurred in Milwaukee during the first six months of the second  Trump administration. 

Conor Mika, a student activist at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) condemned what he said is a lack of transparency and accountability for his  school’s relationship with ICE, which has been using a university building for operations in Milwaukee. “It’s time MSOE takes a stand. It’s on MSOE to slow down ICE’s operations, and protect its students by removing ICE from this building, and refusing any future collaborations with these agencies conducting mass deportations in our city.”

Leah Janke and Tanya Brown both attended the rally Saturday, and told the Wisconsin Examiner that it was important to make their voices heard. “I think it’s important that people here know that we don’t want this,” said Brown. “It’s not just a small community that doesn’t want it, it’s everybody. We don’t want it.” Janke said. “It’s 2025, and this is completely unacceptable to be running an ICE facility like this, and be deporting people illegally, without due process. This is insanity. It doesn’t feel right in any way.” Janke added, “I’ve seen a lot happening in Chicago, and that’s my fear…that’s my biggest fear.”

Besides attending rallies, Janke has been making “whistle kits” filled with whistles and information about reporting ICE, or alerting the community if an arrest is happening. “Be safe out there,” said Janke. “Because honestly, it’s scary and people are getting  hurt.”

Raúl Ríos, an activist with both Comité Sin Fronteras and Party for Socialism and Liberation, said it was important to rally people on Saturday both on the North and South Sides of Milwaukee, especially since the city is one of the most segregated in America. “Most people that I’ve heard, not only today but previously, had said that they had no idea that this was even being constructed, and that it’s going to be used as the main facility for southeast Wisconsin,” Rios told the Examiner. 

Advocates and lawmakers attend a listening session on social justice issues hosted by WISDOM. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)

Advocates and lawmakers packed a room at the Capitol Wednesday for a listening session hosted by WISDOM, a statewide network of faith-based social justice organizations, to discuss immigration, criminal justice, housing and environmental policy. Participants said they hoped hearing personal stories would move lawmakers beyond “political posturing” and inspire change.

“It’s been almost nine years since I was last charged with anything,” said Jessica Jacobs, a formerly incarcerated woman who was one of the first to speak. “I’ve rebuilt my life, I’ve stayed in recovery, and I’ve dedicated myself to helping others do the same. But my criminal record still follows me, especially when it comes to finding a place to live.” Jacobs said that every time she pays a non-refundable fee only to fail a background check for housing, she’s reminded “that society hasn’t fully forgiven me, even though I’ve done everything I can do to make things right.”

When Jacobs was released from prison in 2010, she was placed in a transitional living program. It should have been a second chance, but it wasn’t because that apartment complex was in the very same neighborhood where she would get the substances she used. “It was a setup for failure,” said Jacobs, adding that women and men all over Wisconsin have similar experiences. “Imagine being locked up, and all you can imagine is being with your children again. You count the days dreaming about that reunion. But when you’re finally released, you find out that you can’t get housing that will allow your children to live with you. The pain doesn’t just stop with the mother, the children suffer, too. Families stay separated not because of lack of love or effort, but because there’s nowhere safe and stable for them to go home to.”

Jacobs finally found a landlord who was also in recovery, and could empathize with her situation. “No one’s success story should depend on luck,” she said. “When people don’t have housing, we see the same cycles of recidivism repeat and repeat. Without a place to live, it’s almost impossible to look for a job, maintain recovery, or reunite with your children and family. We say that we want people to come home and be better. But how can they if we won’t give them a place to call home?”

Crystal Keller, a member of the group My Way Out, shared  the struggle incarcerated mothers have in Wisconsin. Keller’s daughter is locked up at the Taycheedah Correctional Institution, where she will be for two years. Keller pointed to a 1991 Wisconsin law that says that incarcerated mothers should be housed with their babies until they turn 12 months old. Yet Keller’s daughter has never been offered access to that program, despite having a two-month-old when she was sentenced. “The program was allocated $198,000 per year,” Keller said. “Where is that money? That’s $6.7 million in the 35 years that they’ve never offered it.” 

Keller said that the Department of Corrections claims to offer the program for women who are out in the community. “That’s a lie,” said Keller. “…when are they going to start complying with the law?” Keller said that when her daughter was sent to Taycheedah, she was placed in restrictive housing for the first six months. “And it took them a month to pick her up from the county jail,” said Keller. “She was not allowed to hold her son for seven months, from two months old until just last month.” Keller’s family would travel from Milwaukee to Fond du Lac just to do hour-long video visits. “Often, visits would get cancelled…Why do I even need to go there?” 

Just last Sunday during a visit, Keller said that another family was told by a correctional officer that they weren’t allowed to even play hand-clapping games with their children. “It’s disgusting, it needs to stop, and DOC who punishes people for breaking the law has been breaking the law for 35 years.” 

Attendees drew attention to other conditions endured by people held in Wisconsin’s prisons and jails. Randy Gage, a member of WISDOM’s Solitary & Conditions of Confinement Task Force, who also has a background in psychology and experience working in prisons in both Georgia and Wisconsin. “Segregation is not the best way to go,” said Gage. “We went through a long period starting around the 1980’s of ‘get tough on crime’. Enough already with getting tough on crime! Enough!” Gage said that when he was growing up in Milwaukee, he didn’t have to worry about things like gun violence. “That didn’t happen, and that was before ‘get tough on time’. Since ‘get tough on crime’ all of this is going on? Don’t tell me it works. No, it doesn’t work.” 

Advocates also discussed Act 196, a bipartisan law that favors short-term sanctions for probation and parole violations like a weekend stint in jail, treatment program or community service over total revocation back to prison. “For more than a decade, the DOC has resisted implementing this law that could’ve reduced and stabilized our prison population,” said Tom Gilbert, a member of MOSES. “Finally in June of this year, the DOC issued proposed rules, but they are an extreme disappointment.” Although the proposed rules adopted some features of the law, they do not establish “a system of short-term sanctions,”, said Gilbert, saying that the DOC is choosing to keep a system that “sabotages” people’s chances of returning home rather than promoting healing. “It would save millions of taxpayer dollars spent on needless incarcerations,” said Gilbert. “Those dollars could be re-directed to proven, successful programs such as treatment programs and diversions.” 

Others pushed for restoring voting rights to formerly incarcerated people, which is already law in 25 states. Jeremy Dings, a formerly incarcerated member of WISDOM’s Post-Release Issues Task Force, said that he has not been able to vote in eight election cycles because even though he has been  back in the community for 13 years. Dings said that democracy is strongest when it includes everyone’s voice, and that such a policy change would help people transition and feel like active, valued members of the community. 

Restoring drivers licenses for immigrants was also discussed by immigrant rights advocates and dairy farmers. People in mixed-status families take great risk to perform simple tasks like driving to work, or dropping their children off at school, they said. “This is not just about paperwork,”  said Grace Mariscal, a student at St. John’s Northwestern Academies. “This is about parents being able to drive their children to school safely, or go to a doctor’s appointment, without fear.” 

Mariscal said that 19 other states have passed laws that allow members of mixed-status families to have drivers licenses, policies which reduce hit-and-run accidents, increase state revenue, and reduced law enforcement costs. “These reforms would also strengthen Wisconsin’s economies,” said Mariscal. “Our dairy farms, our factories, our restaurants, our food processing plants all depend on immigrant labor. By allowing workers to drive legally, we help businesses maintain stable workforces, and ensure that the industries that feed and sustain our state continue to thrive.”

The rights of nature was also discussed, with advocates pushing for laws that establish personhood for natural habitats, rivers, forests and other ecosystems. “It really comes out of Indigenous values,” said Bill Van Lopik, a member of ESTHER. “It is an international movement.” Van Lopik pointed out that in America, even corporations are given personhood. So why not the ecosystems and natural environments that all things, human or otherwise, depend on? Van Lopik also advocated for policies to require sulfide mines to prove that they won’t be harmful to the environment before digging begins, and new protections for Devil’s Lake State Park. “Wisconsin has a long history of environmental stewardship”, said Van Lopik, pointing out that former Wisconsin Gov.  Gaylord Nelson was the founder of Earth Day. 

Advocates also discussed closing the prison in Green Bay, and granting parole to older incarcerated people who were sentenced when they were young. Some in the room condemned Gov. Tony Evers for using his veto power to remove a deadline to close Green Bay Correctional, and pointed to the fact that the Lincoln Hills juvenile prison is still open despite plans to build new prisons to replace the aging and controversial facility. 

Several lawmakers including Reps. Darrin Madison (D-Milwaukee), Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee), and new legislators including Amaad Rivera-Wagner (D-Green Bay) and Karen DeSanto (D-Baraboo) said  hearing stories like those shared Wednesday are crucial for their work.

“Remember the folks that are not here,” said Madison, who told an emotional story about his brother and friends who struggled with mental illness, suicidal thoughts, and incarceration. “Give your anger to those folks, channel your grief towards those folks, because it’s a damn shame that they’re not here.” 

This article has been edited to correct the names of Bill Van Lopik and WISDOM’s Post-Release Issues Task Force.

Surveillance cameras monitor traffic on a clear day | Getty Images Creative

The Greenfield Police Department has been engulfed in controversy since its chief was charged with felony misconduct in public office earlier this month. Chief Jay Johnson is accused of having a pole camera, owned and operated by the police department, installed at his Racine County home in late 2024. A 15-page criminal complaint states that Johnson put up the camera for personal use while he was in the process of divorcing his wife. 

The complaint also states that Johnson’s alleged personal use of the camera  violated the wishes and advice of Greenfield’s mayor, city attorney and members of the police department. In July, special agents from the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) attended a meeting held at Greenfield City Hall to discuss a months-long investigation with city officials. 

According to the complaint, the special agents “were advised that during an internal investigation of Chief Johnson, which was conducted earlier in 2025, investigators uncovered actions they deemed as possibly criminal in nature. Outside agencies were later contacted to investigate potentially criminal violations committed by Chief Johnson.” 

Interviews with Greenfield’s human resources director, mayor, city attorney and police department staff turned up statements  that Johnson wanted to use a tax-payer funded, police department-owned pole camera at his home in Wind Lake because of  “safety concerns stemming from his divorce,” according to the complaint. Mayor Michael Neitzke said Johnson claimed to have been attempting to get a restraining order against his wife “in part because she was dating a felon,” the complaint states. Johnson claimed to have experienced harassment including a white rose being left in his driveway. The chief’s restraining order was denied, the complaint states, after which he asked the mayor about installing a pole camera. “Mayor Neitzke advised agents that he did not understand the type of camera Chief Johnson was talking about and believed it was equivalent to a trail camera or Verizon-type camera,” the complaint states. 

The mayor gave Johnson the go-ahead to install the camera, but later began to reconsider the decision. Neitzke contacted city attorney Christopher Geary, who said Johnson shouldn’t install the camera “citing legal issues with its use for personal reasons.” Geary then contacted Johnson stating that “his divorce is not related to his job,” the criminal complaint states. Johnson’s reaction was reputedly bombastic, “‘I think it’s f-ing ludicrous,’ was the exact quote,” Geary wrote in an email to the mayor. 

Johnson tried to argue that what he wanted was no different from the security former Gov. Scott Walker received during the Act 10 protests, and that a prior Greenfield police chief also had home security. “I tried to explain the difference is that the threats in those situations stemmed from the person’s public employment and/or public policy positions, whereas this is, as I understand it, an entirely personal situation,” Geary wrote in the same email, which is featured in the criminal complaint. “He didn’t appreciate the distinction.” 

The mayor said he thought that was where the issue ended, and that Johnson hadn’t installed the camera. In December 2024, however, Greenfield Police Department  Captain Chuck Fletcher was asked by Johnson about installing the pole cameras, according to the complaint. Fletcher told the DCI special agents that he had known Johnson his entire career and “considers him a close friend.” Fletcher stated that he also knew Johnson’s wife, and didn’t consider her to be an angry or violent person. Johnson allegedly told Fletcher that he wanted to keep the camera installation “low key” and discrete. Fletcher then assigned Detective Scott Simons to handle the installation, and told investigators that he did not know that the city attorney had advised against it. 

The complaint states that Fletcher communicated the chief’s desire to be “low key” and quick about things to Simons. The detective said he was asked to “change the password for logging onto the camera, as all pole cameras have a general username and password,” according to the complaint. “The camera that was to be installed at the Defendant’s residence would have a unique username and password.” Although Greenfield’s pole cameras are owned and monitored by the police department, they are installed by We Energies technicians. A camera was taken down “from a closed drug investigation,” according to the complaint. Simons told another detective that it was “being installed in another county for another investigation.” The camera was eventually installed across the street from the chief’s home. 

Some time later, Greenfield Police Association president and detective Aaron Busche “found out by accident” about the chief’s personal camera. Busche keeps track of the department’s four pole cameras, which are listed on a whiteboard by number and location. Busche realized that the camera at Johnson’s home had no documented location. “Detective Busche was told by Detective Scott Simons that the camera was loaned to an outside agency for their investigation,” the complaint states. “Detective Busche was not told what agency the camera was loaned to.”

In the spring of 2025, Busche heard that there was video feed from the mystery camera, but then realized he couldn’t log in because the password had been changed. Busche then used a “backdoor process” to access the camera feed, and realized it was the chief’s home. During a meeting with acting chief Eric Lindstrom, Simons was asked to take the camera down. 

Johnson is accused of violating Greenfield PD’s standards of conduct by using department equipment for personal gain, and omitting or even falsifying information given to staff who carried out the camera’s installation. The criminal complaint also accuses Johnson of threatening behavior towards law enforcement. In late August, it states, a person attempting to disguise their voice called the police department saying, “Hello you f-ing pigs, revenge is sweet!” The dispatcher and Busche both recognized the voice as Johnson’s. 

Acting Chief Lindstrom had also filed a complaint against Johnson with the Oak Creek Police Department, accusing Johnson of threats and harassment over Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram. One email copy says: “He’s on board, hold on tight!!!! Idiot and the ice princess will pay dearly. JJ DOJ is the man! Boom. God is good.” Another message says: “KL is on board. Friday meet with us. Ughhh. So unnecessary but he’s all in for me rn. HR and MN GOING DOWN!!!! EL is dirty so stay tuned. TY owe you!!!!” The criminal complaint states that “EL” is a reference to Eric Lindstrom who, like Busche, has also served on the Milwaukee-area team which investigates civilian deaths by police. 

The controversy raises questions about oversight of police surveillance technology, accountability for officers, and how problematic police officers climb the ranks. Community members in Milwaukee County have pushed for Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) local ordinances, which would provide more oversight and control of police surveillance tools.

Fox6 reported that a string of disciplinary issues going back to 2013 followed Chief Johnson. The news outlet obtained documents which described Johnson, who was a captain at the time, as having issues with “failing to own decisions and initiatives by administrative staff” or “engaging in inappropriate conversations with officers.” Johnson had been accused of sharing management-level discussions or information related to subordinates, and planning a “booze cruise” and other organized parties. 

A 2015 memo stated that “he can’t be allowed to supervise,” and in 2017 he signed a settlement to become Greenfield’s emergency management coordinator with the fire department, before becoming chief. Asked by Fox6 how Johnson became chief, Mayor Neitske redirected blame to the city’s Police and Fire Commission.