The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday it will allow, for now, the Trump administration to terminate temporary protections for a group of 350,000 Venezuelans, striking down a lower court’s order that blocked the process.

The order still means the group of Venezuelans on Temporary Protected Status — a designation given to nationals from countries deemed too dangerous to return to remain in the U.S. — will be able to continue to challenge in court the end of their work permits and the possibility of removal. But they no longer have protections from deportation. 

No justices signed onto the ruling, which is typical in cases brought before the high court on an emergency basis, but liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted she would have denied the request.

TPS status for that group of Venezuelans — a portion of Venezuelans living in the United States, not all of them — was set to end on April 7 under a move by the Trump administration.

But U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California in March blocked Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to vacate an extension of TPS protections that had been put in place by the Biden administration until October 2026.

The case is now before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Chen, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, blocked the Trump administration from removing protections for that group of Venezuelans on the basis that Noem’s actions were “arbitrary and capricious,” and potentially motivated by racism.

“Acting on the basis of a negative group stereotype and generalizing such stereotype to the entire group is the classic example of racism,” Chen wrote in his order.

Noem cited gang activity as her reason for not extending TPS for the group of 350,000 Venezuelans, who came to the United States in 2023.

A second group of 250,000 Venezuelans who were granted TPS in 2021 will have their work and deportation protections expire in September. Chen’s order did not apply to the second group of Venezuelans.

Those with TPS have deportation protections and are allowed to work and live in the United States for 18 months, unless extended by the DHS secretary.

Democrats criticized Monday’s decision, including Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet.

“Ending protections for Venezuelans fleeing Maduro’s regime is cruel, short-sighted, and destabilizing,” he wrote on social media.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington state, wrote on social media that Venezuelans “face extreme oppression, arbitrary detention, extrajudicial killings, and torture — the exact type of situation that requires our government to provide TPS.”

Monday’s order is one of several immigration-related emergency requests from the Trump administration before the Supreme Court.

Last week, the high court heard oral arguments that stemmed from an executive order signed by President Donald Trump to end the constitutional right to birthright citizenship.

And justices in a separate case, again, denied the Trump administration from resuming the deportations of Venezuelans under an 18th-century wartime law known as the Alien Enemies Act. 

The U.S. House will begin debate in committee this week on a bill that would cut Medicaid spending. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans plan to debate and approve the three final pieces of their “big, beautiful bill” in committee this week, including the tax measure, major spending cuts to Medicaid that will change how states run the program and an agriculture bill.

At least $880 billion over the next 10 years would be slashed under the piece of the bill that covers energy and health care, including from Medicaid. Republicans would add new Medicaid work requirements for some able-bodied adults; seek to penalize the dozen states that allow immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status in the program; and require states to more frequently check Medicaid enrollees’ eligibility, among other changes.

An estimate was not yet available for exactly how much that would save in Medicaid spending or how many people enrolled might lose coverage. Earlier projections of various other scenarios by the Congressional Budget Office had placed the numbers of displaced enrollees in the millions, and Democrats predicted the same effect from the newest plan.

House panels have already signed off on eight of the 11 bills that will make up the sweeping reconciliation legislation. And if all goes according to plan, that chamber should approve the entire package before the end of the month.

Debate is expected to begin Tuesday in each of the panels and last hours, possibly into Wednesday. Democrats will offer dozens of amendments seeking to change the bills and highlighting their disagreement with GOP policy goals.

Internal Republican disputes between centrists and far-right lawmakers over numerous tax proposals and funding changes to Medicaid will also likely lead to debate on GOP amendments.

With paper-thin majorities in the House and Senate, nearly every Republican needs to support the overall package for it to move through both chambers and to President Donald Trump.

If Republicans fail to reach agreement during the next couple months, it would put nearly every aspect of their agenda in jeopardy. GOP leaders would also need to negotiate a bipartisan debt limit agreement before the August recess, should the reconciliation package fall apart, since they plan to include debt limit language as well.

GOP divided over Medicaid cuts

Kentucky Republican Rep. Brett Guthrie, chairman of the committee that oversees energy and Medicaid, wrote in a statement last week announcing the markup that his panel’s measure would “end wasteful government spending, unleash American energy and innovation, and strengthen Medicaid for mothers, children, individuals with disabilities, and the elderly.”

But the bill released this weekend might not have support from far-right members in the House and seems to be running into opposition from some GOP senators as well. 

Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, of the hard right, wrote on social media that he hoped “House & Senate leadership are coming up with a backup plan…. ….. because I’m not here to rack up an additional $20 trillion in debt over 10 years or to subsidize healthy, able-bodied adults, corrupt blue states, and monopoly hospital ceos…”

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who has voiced concern for months about potential cuts to Medicaid, wrote an op-ed published in The New York Times on Monday highly critical of a “contingent of corporatist Republicans” who support lower federal spending on the program.”

“This wing of the party wants Republicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor,” Hawley wrote. “But that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal.”

The entire House package will be open to amendment if the legislation makes it to the Senate, where several GOP lawmakers are expected to rework or even eliminate entire sections.

Work requirements

The Energy and Commerce Committee’s bill is the one that would cut federal spending by at least $880 billion during the next decade including on Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower income people.

The legislation would institute work requirements nationwide for able-bodied adults between the ages of 19 and 65, with several exceptions, including for pregnant people, enrollees with certain disabilities or serious medical conditions, and parents of dependent children.

People not exempted from the requirements would need to work, engage in community service, or enroll in an education program for at least 80 hours a month.

A staffer on the panel told reporters during a background briefing Monday that Republicans tried to learn from challenges certain states had in the past when they implemented work requirements.

After discussions with current and former state Medicaid directors, the staffer said the committee wrote a bill that they are confident “states will be able to implement effectively.”

The work requirements take into account various unexpected circumstances, like if someone were to be hit by a bus and unable to complete the 80-hours-per-month requirement on time because they were hospitalized, the staffer said.

“We did try to be very thoughtful about any kind of circumstance that could happen,” they said.

Immigrant coverage, eligibility checks

The Medicaid legislation also seeks to encourage states who include undocumented immigrants in their program to stop doing so or lose some federal funding.

The federal government currently pays 90% of the cost of covering enrollees who are eligible for Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act expansion. That would decrease to 80% for the expanded population if states choose to keep covering undocumented immigrants.

The committee staffer said this would impact California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington states if they don’t change their policies regarding undocumented immigrants.

Additionally, states would need to check eligibility for all of their Medicaid enrollees every six months, instead of once a year for the expanded population. This likely would lead to some people being kicked out of the program.

Committee staff members were unable to share exactly how each of the Medicaid provisions would affect the federal budget or how many people could lose access to the program if Congress were to implement the legislation as written.

But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office wrote in a letter Monday that it estimates the Energy and Commerce Committee met its target of cutting at least $880 billion in spending “over the 2025-2034 period and would not increase on-budget deficits in any year after 2034.”

Staff on the committee said they don’t expect to have the full CBO score before the markup begins Tuesday and didn’t have an estimate for when that information will be out.

Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., wrote in a statement the GOP bill would lead to millions of people losing access to Medicaid.

“This is not trimming fat from around the edges, it’s cutting to the bone,” Pallone wrote. “The overwhelming majority of the savings in this bill will come from taking health care away from millions of Americans. No where in the bill are they cutting ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’—they’re cutting people’s health care and using that money to give tax breaks to billionaires.”

Repealing clean-energy funds

The Republican proposal would repeal more than a dozen sections of Democrats’ 2022 reconciliation law related to energy and environment programs.

The law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, included hundreds of billions in tax credits for renewable energy and energy-efficiency measures. It was considered the largest investment by the United States in tackling climate change.

The House bill would repeal sections including the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which helps finance clean-energy projects, and a $40 billion Department of Energy loan program meant to stimulate production of clean-energy infrastructure.

Sections targeting carbon emissions, air pollution, offshore wind transmission, and other programs would also rescind any unspent funds for those purposes appropriated in the Biden-era law.

The measure would allow pipeline builders to pay fees to bypass environmental review. Natural gas pipelines could pay $10 million to access an expedited approval process and liquified natural gas exports could pay $1 million for the Energy Department to deem them “in the public interest.”

Rep. Kathy Castor, the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Energy Subcommittee, said the proposal would sabotage efforts to drive down prices for consumers.

“Cleaner, cheaper energy for consumers gets left behind,” the Florida Democrat wrote in a statement. “Dismantling our landmark Inflation Reduction Act will kill jobs, hurt businesses, and drive-up Americans’ energy costs.”

Tax cuts

The Ways and Means Committee released its 28-page starter bill late last week and the full 389-page version Monday afternoon, but Republicans on the panel could add to it during the Tuesday markup.

House GOP tax writers propose making permanent the underlying 2017 tax law provisions while temporarily expanding several of them, including the child tax credit and standard deduction.

The child tax credit would increase to $2,500, up from $2,000, until 2028. The refundable amount of the tax credit per child — meaning how much taxpayers could get back — would now reach up to $1,400. Taxpayers claiming the credit would now have to provide a Social Security number, as well as the SSN of a spouse.

The standard deduction for single and married joint filers would temporarily increase until 2029 up to $2,000, depending on filing status.

Trump’s campaign promises, including no tax on tips, also made it into the proposal, though only until 2028. Those claiming the tax break on tips will also need to provide a Social Security number as well as the SSN of their spouse, if married.

Trump’s promise to eliminate taxes on car loan interest, also set to expire in 2028, would not apply to any vehicle that was not finally assembled in the U.S.

Tax writers increased but ultimately left a cap on the amount of state and local taxes, commonly referred to as SALT, that households can deduct, an incredibly contentious issue for lawmakers with constituents in high tax areas like New York and California. GOP lawmakers increased the SALT cap to $30,000, up from $10,000.

That level, however, might not have the support needed among Republicans’ extremely thin majorities and will likely lead to heated debate during markup, or on the floor.

Republicans from higher-tax states have repeatedly said they will not vote for the entire package unless they feel their constituents will benefit from raising the SALT cap.

The dispute has spilled over several times already, including in a statement last week from four New York Republicans, who wrote, “The Speaker and the House Ways and Means Committee unilaterally proposed a flat $30,000 SALT cap — an amount they already knew would fall short of earning our support.”

“It’s not just insulting—it risks derailing President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill,” they wrote. “New Yorkers already send far more to Washington than we get back—unlike many so-called ‘low-tax’ states that depend heavily on federal largesse.

“A higher SALT cap isn’t a luxury. It’s a matter of fairness.”

New York Republican Rep. Nick LaLota wrote on social media Monday afternoon: “Still a hell no.”

How much the tax proposal will cost has not yet been released, but government deficit watchdogs estimated a wholesale extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, without the enhancements, would cost north of $4 trillion over the next decade.

Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, said the proposal provides some certainty to individual taxpayers but it also adds complexity in many areas.

“You can clearly see the thinking here was probably just a straight-up extension (of the 2017 law), people wouldn’t feel like they got a tax cut because it’s just continuing. So they had to do something to make it feel like there’s a larger tax cut,” York said.

Ag cuts remain a mystery

The House Agriculture Committee, led by Pennsylvania Republican Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson, hadn’t released its bill as of Monday afternoon but was scheduled to begin the markup on Tuesday evening.

That panel is supposed to cut at least $230 billion in federal spending during the next decade, some of which will likely come from reworking elements of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Committee leaders are also planning to include elements of the much overdue farm bill, though those provisions could run into issues in the Senate if they don’t have a significant impact on federal revenue or spending.

Republicans are using the complex reconciliation process to move the package through Congress with simple majority votes in each chamber, avoiding the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster, which would otherwise require bipartisanship. 

Reconciliation measures must address federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit in a way not deemed “merely incidental” by the Senate parliamentarian. That means the GOP proposals must carry some sort of price tag and cannot focus simply on changing federal policy.

Jacob Fischler and Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden receives the endorsement of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden says he’s working on a proposal that would alter two current work authorization programs to make it easier for businesses including farms and hotels to hire immigrant workers. 

Van Orden, who sits on the House agriculture committee, told the news outlet NOTUS that he’s working with Trump administration officials on a proposal to alter the H-2A and H-2B visa programs. Both programs currently provide temporary work visas for people working seasonally. 

The H-2A program, which is targeted at seasonal farm labor, has frustrated Wisconsin dairy farmers because year-round workers, including in dairy, are not eligible for the program. Immigrant workers comprise an estimated 70% of the labor force on Wisconsin dairy farms. 

“Rocks are heavy. Trees are made of wood. Gravity is real. There’s 20 million illegal aliens here that have been floating agriculture, hospitality and construction for decades, and we need their labor,” Van Orden told NOTUS.

Van Orden said the proposal is in line with the Trump administration’s increased immigration enforcement efforts because it doesn’t offer a pathway to citizenship or encourage an increase in unauthorized crossings of the border while making it easier for people to come to the U.S. to work. 

“That’s why people come here illegally, because it’s so hard to come here legally,” Van Orden said. “We’re all working towards the goal of making sure that our economy can maintain its relevancy.”

The lobby of the Wisconsin Institutes for Medical Research, where researchers say pauses to federal grants have stifled science. (Henry Redman | Wisconsin Examiner)

Earlier this year, Dr. Avtar Roopra, a professor of neuroscience at UW-Madison, published research that shows a drug typically used to treat arthritis halts brain-damaging seizures in mice that have a condition similar to epilepsy. The treatment could be used to provide relief for a subset of people with epilepsy who don’t get relief from other current treatments.

But even as the culmination of a decade-long project was making headlines as a possible breakthrough for the 50 million people worldwide with epilepsy, Roopra’s research was put on hold because the National Institutes of Health (NIH) under President Donald Trump has stopped reviewing grant requests. 

Now, months after his funding was paused, Roopra says he is facing the choice between cutting corners in experiments to save costs or laying off research staff — which comes with its own loss of years of experience and institutional knowledge. 

“Experiments are being trimmed down,” Roopra says. “So the perfect experiment, which is what every experiment must be, we’re now trying to reanalyze and say, ‘Well, can we get by with less?’ If we do, we’re not going to have the perfect answer, and that’s always a danger.”

Roopra’s lab is currently working on an experiment comparing data from healthy mouse brains to diseased brains and, ideally, he’d have ten of each. But to save costs he now has to use three of each. The result is that the conclusions that can be made from the data are less certain, which only creates more expenses in the long term. 

“What that means is we’ll still get some data, but the confidence we have in our conclusions will be drastically reduced,” he says. “And so any experiments we then decide to do based on that will be on more shaky ground, and experiments further on that will be on even shakier ground. And so you have this propagating knock-on effect, but ultimately, the conclusions you get, they’re going to have to be interpreted cautiously, whereas, if we did the perfect experiment for which we were expecting funds, we would have robust data, robust conclusions. We could move forward, forthright into trials.”

Science is expensive, Roopra says, because results have to be replicated many times. Cutting grant funding, as the Trump administration has done, results in austerity measures at labs and universities. Those budget cuts mean experiments aren’t repeated as many times, which means data isn’t as complete and results in less work reaching the end goal — treatments that improve people’s lives. 

Roopra says that when a patient sees a doctor and is prescribed a drug, that is just the tip of an iceberg, underneath which are the thousands of hours of research and millions of dollars spent at pharmaceutical companies conducting clinical trials and university departments testing theories.

“So it’s actually going to cost everybody more money if we do it this way, because we have to go back,” he says. “And once this moves to clinical trials, which is our goal, if we don’t have the very best, the most solid foundation for doing so, if that trial goes ahead and it fails, it may never be done again. Because trials cost hundreds of millions of dollars, you’ve got to get it right the first time. So that’s what this new normal looks like.”

Roopra’s work is just one research focus in one department on one campus. Wisconsin institutions alone receive about $750 million annually from the NIH. The Medical College of Wisconsin has lost at least $5 million in research grants since Trump took office. 

The cuts affect “every lab, every department, and we’re very biomedical-research centric, but it’s also happening outside of biomedical research,” Dr. Betsy Quinlan, chair of UW-Madison’s neuroscience department, says. “It’s happening in physics and it’s happening in engineering. It’s happening to all research, environmental science.”

Researchers in Wisconsin have had at least $26.8 million in expected grant funding terminated, according to data compiled by Grant Watch, a project to track cuts to grant funding at the NIH and National Science Foundation (NSF). 

“I’ve heard a lot of panic in the community as if the support that the federal government has for science has ended and that science is no longer the priority,” NIH director Jay Bhattacharya said at an event at the Medical College of Wisconsin earlier this month. “One of the reasons I was delighted to be able to come here was to assure people that is not true.”

Nonetheless, among the terminated grants here in Wisconsin are projects to study science misinformation in Black communities, how to engage the public in water stewardship in urban areas such as Milwaukee, the effect of technology on children’s development, the cardiovascular side effects of hormone treatment on transgender men and ways to increase HIV prevention measures among gay men in rural areas. 

“It’s vital that we adopt reforms, real reforms in the research enterprise of this country, so that we depoliticize it, ground it in reality and build a culture of respect for dissent and free speech,” Bhattacharya said.

But discoveries can come from unexpected places, says Quinlan, who warns that the top-down approach to approving research grants that the administration appears to be moving toward will stifle scientific exploration. 

“If the agency says, ‘Here’s a very narrow range of things we will fund,’ it will squash all creativity and real discovery, because real discovery comes when you see something that is unexpected and you follow the unexpected lead,” she says. 

While the cuts to grants are having an immediate impact on research in Wisconsin, there are also concerns about morale among lab staff and a “brain drain” as researchers choose to leave the U.S.  or even abandon science entirely. 

“The biggest problem I think most researchers are facing is the uncertainty and decline in morale that these changes have wrought,” Jo Handelsman, director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, says. “These are extremely real and fairly devastating effects on the research community in terms of what’s already happened, almost every week there’s a wave of NIH termination. No one feels their grant is going to continue for sure. That’s a difficult way to do research.”

For decades, scientists have come from all over the world to work in the U.S. Now cuts to grants and the Trump administration’s harsh immigration policies are changing that. Last week, after decisions from a number of judges, the Trump administration walked back an effort to cancel the visas of 27 students at University of Wisconsin schools. Roopra says those fears hurt research. 

“Every minute that that researcher is worried is a minute they’re not thinking about the science,” says Roopra, whose work has also focused on breast cancer. “And so what it looks like is a continuous, chronic fear, which pushes us to think about maybe looking at other options, which we’d rather not do.”

Deported migrants queue to receive an essential items bag during the arrival of a group of deported Salvadorans at Gerencia de Atención al Migrante on Feb. 12, 2025 in San Salvador, El Salvador.  (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — Immigration attorneys are asking a Massachusetts federal judge for an emergency temporary restraining order to stop the Trump administration from removing their clients to Libya and Saudi Arabia as soon as Wednesday, in a major new development in President Donald Trump’s drive for mass deportations.

“Multiple credible sources report that flight/s are preparing to immediately depart the United States carrying class members for removal to Libya,” according to the new filings, referring to a group of migrants.

U.S. District Judge Brian E. Murphy did not grant the groups request for a temporary restraining order.  But he did issue a late Wednesday order that clarified any deportations to Libya would violate his preliminary injunction barring such removals to a third country without proper notice.

“If there is any doubt—the Court sees none—the allegedly imminent removals, as reported by news agencies and as Plaintiffs seek to corroborate with class-member accounts and public information, would clearly violate this Court’s Order,” Murphy wrote.

Murphy is also considering whether the Department of Defense should be included in his preliminary injunction “[b]ased on DHS’s representations that DoD has been conducting third country removals, allegedly without any involvement of DHS.”

Sending migrants to the North African nation is striking, as it is the site of an ongoing conflict and the State Department has a travel advisory against traveling to Libya due to “crime, terrorism, unexploded land mines, civil unrest, kidnapping and armed conflict.”

The class members the attorneys are concerned about include nationals from Laos, the Philippines and Vietnam. As the Trump administration seeks to carry out mass deportations, it’s sought partnerships with countries to take migrants, such as sending them to CECOT, a notorious prison in El Salvador.

The practice has spawned numerous ongoing lawsuits over use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and allegations the administration is ignoring due process for deportees.

In a complication, Libya’s prime minister in Tripoli, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, wrote on social media that his country would not accept migrants deported by the Trump administration.

“We refuse to be a destination for the deportation of migrants under any pretext, and any understandings made by illegal parties that do not represent the Libyan state, and do not bind us politically or morally, as human dignity and national sovereignty are not a negotiable card,” he wrote.

Injunction bars removals

Attorneys say such removals would violate Murphy’s preliminary injunction granted in April.

“Class members were being scheduled for removal despite not receiving the required notice and opportunity to apply for (United Nations Convention Against Torture) protection,” according to the filing. “This motion follows class counsel receiving multiple reports that class members and their immigration counsel have not received the required protections provided by this Court’s Preliminary Injunction.”

The attorneys are also asking that any class members removed to Libya be returned to U.S. soil.

Flights to Saudi Arabia

There are also concerns that those in the group could be removed to Saudi Arabia.

“Class Counsel has also received a report that Defendants and those working with them may be planning flights to Saudi Arabia. At least one detainee—a citizen of Laos—reported that he had been verbally informed he was to be removed imminently to Saudi Arabia on a military flight,” according to the brief.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

In April, Murphy certified the class to include all immigrants with final orders of removal who were facing deportations to a country that was not their home country.

Murphy, who was appointed by former president Joe Biden, issued a nationwide injunction to bar that group’s removal to a third country without first being provided written notice.

He also ruled that those who are being removed to such a country must “be given an opportunity to explain why such a deportation will likely result in their persecution, torture, and/or death.”

The suit was brought by the National Immigration Litigation Alliance, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project and Human Rights First.

“Libya has a long record of extreme human rights violations,” according to the court filing. “Any Class Member who is removed to Libya faces a strong likelihood of imprisonment followed by torture and even disappearance or death. Indeed, given Libya’s human rights record, it is inconceivable that Class Members from other countries would ever agree to removal to Libya, but instead would uniformly seek protection from being removed to Libya.”

Torture and abuse among human rights violations

The State Department’s 2023 human rights report on the country found human rights violations experienced by migrants who were either being held by Libya’s government or armed groups.

“The criminal and nonstate armed groups controlling extralegal facilities routinely tortured and abused detainees, subjecting them to arbitrary killings, rape and sexual violence, beatings, electric shocks, burns, forced labor, and deprivation of food and water, according to dozens of testimonies shared with international aid agencies and human rights groups,” according to the report.

The State Department’s 2023 human rights report on Saudi Arabia said it was possible migrants were killed by Saudi Arabia forces.

“There were reports that Saudi security forces along the border with Yemen killed significant numbers of African and Yemeni migrants and asylum seekers using both explosive weapons and by shooting individuals at close range,” according to the report. 

Jay O. Rothman, president of the University of Wisconsin System, speaks during the UW Board of Regents meeting hosted at Union South at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on Feb. 9, 2023. (Photo by Althea Dotzour / UW–Madison)

As Congress is considering remaking the federal financial aid program, Wisconsin higher education leaders are warning that changes could significantly affect access to its campuses. 

Universities of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman wrote in a series of posts on social media last week that he is “very disappointed” by the potential cuts that could be made to student aid. 

Congressional Republicans recently introduced a 103-page proposal that would overhaul the federal financial aid system with cuts meant to help support the extension of tax cuts. Changes would include reducing eligibility for Pell Grants by requiring students take more credit hours to qualify, capping the total amount of student loans one can take out annually and ending certain student loan programs. 

The proposed changes come alongside the Trump administration’s work to remake the system by moving the student loan portfolio from the Department of Education to Small Business Administration, even as both agencies have had significant layoffs, and seeking to eliminate loan relief for people working to support immigrants and trans kids. 

Rothman said nearly half of the 164,400 students across University of Wisconsin campuses rely on federal aid to access the schools and noted that many of the students receiving the help are first-generation college students and low- to middle-income. He said federal financial aid has helped better the U.S. economy and allowed millions of people to improve their own lives. 

“It makes no sense for the US to narrow opportunities if our country wants to win the global War for Talent. I’m dumbfounded that cutting educational opportunities would even be considered when our economic vibrancy is at stake,” Rothman wrote. “While the UWs are among the most affordable in the nation, many lower- and middle-class families rely upon federal financial aid to make these life-changing educational opportunities real.”

Rothman urged Congress to reevaluate the potential cuts in the federal budget, continuing his advocacy for keeping the UW accessible for current and future students. 

In a letter to the Wisconsin Congressional delegation last month, Rothman noted that in the 2023-24 school year, 91,000 UW undergraduate students — or 59% — received some form of financial aid. The federal government distributed $130 million in Pell grants to about 23.4%, or 26,060 undergraduate students that year, delivering an average award of $5,000. 

During that year, undergraduate and graduate students across the system received nearly $1.5 billion in financial aid, including $634 million in grants, $666 million in loans and $13 million in work-study funding.

“Programs like the Pell Grant and other federal financial aid are critical to ensuring continued access and success for students who choose to pursue higher education,” Rothman wrote to lawmakers. “Indiscriminate cuts whether to research, financial aid or programs that provide student support are ultimately shortsighted and will negatively impact the next generation of Wisconsin’s workforce.” 

Rothman is not the only leader who has expressed concerns about cuts to programs. During a hearing last month, Wisconsin Association of Independent Colleges and Universities President Eric Fulcomer told state lawmakers that “cutting the Pell Grant or eliminating the Pell Grant would be devastating for our sector.” He said private colleges could be looking at a 27% cut to enrollment.

From left to right, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attend a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump released a budget request Friday that would dramatically slash some federal spending, the initial step in a monthslong process that will include heated debate on Capitol Hill as both political parties work toward a final government funding agreement.

The proposal, for the first time, details how exactly this administration wants lawmakers to restructure spending across the federal government — steep cuts to domestic appropriations, including the elimination of dozens of programs that carry a long history of bipartisan support, and a significant increase in defense funding.

Trump wants more than 60 programs to be scrapped, some with long histories of assistance to states, including Community Services Block Grants, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities within the National Institutes of Health, and the Sexual Risk Avoidance and Teen Pregnancy Prevention programs.

Congress will ultimately decide how much funding to provide to federal programs, and while Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, regular funding bills will need Democratic support to move through the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster.

White House budget director Russ Vought wrote in a letter that the request proposes shifting some funding from the federal government to states and local communities.

“Just as the Federal Government has intruded on matters best left to American families, it has intruded on matters best left to the levels of government closest to the people, who understand and respect the needs and desires of their communities far better than the Federal Government ever could,” Vought wrote.

The budget request calls on Congress to cut non-defense accounts by $163 billion to $557 billion, while keeping defense funding flat at $893 billion in the dozen annual appropriations bills.

The proposal assumes the GOP Congress passes the separate reconciliation package that is currently being written in the House, bringing defense funding up to $1.01 trillion, a 13.4% increase, and reducing domestic spending to $601 billion, a 16.6% decrease.

Many domestic cuts

Under Trump’s request many federal departments and agencies would be slated for significant spending reductions, though defense, border security and veterans would be exempt. 

The cuts include:

• Agriculture: – $5 billion, or 18.3%
• Commerce: – $1.7 billion, or 16.5%
• Education: – $12 billion, or 15.3%
• Energy: – $4.7 billion, or 9.4%
• Health and Human Services: – $33 billion, or 26.2%
• Housing and Urban Development: – $33.6 billion, or 43.6%
• Interior: – $5.1 billion, or 30.5%
• Justice: – $2.7 billion, or 7.6%
• Labor: – $4.6 billion, or 34.9%
• State: – $49.1 billion, or 83.7%
• Treasury: – $2.7 billion, or 19%

Increases include:

• Defense: + $113 billion, or 13.4% with reconciliation package
• Homeland Security: + $42.3 billion, or 64.9% with reconciliation package
• Transportation: + $1.5 billion, or 5.8%
• Veterans Affairs: + $5.4 billion, or 4.1%

The budget request also asks Congress to eliminate AmeriCorps, which operates as the Corporation for National and Community Service; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides some funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service; the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences; and the 400 Years of African American History Commission.

What if Congress won’t act on the cuts?

Debate over the budget proposal will take place throughout the summer months, but will come to a head in September, when Congress must pass some sort of funding bill to avoid a partial government shutdown.

A senior White House official, speaking on background on a call with reporters to discuss details of the budget request, suggested that Trump would take unilateral action to cut funding if Congress doesn’t go along with the request.

“Obviously, we have never taken impoundment off the table, because the president and myself believe that 200 years of the president and executive branch had that ability,” the official said. “But we’re working with Congress to see what they will pass. And I believe that they have an interest in passing cuts.”

The 1974 Impoundment Control Act bars the president from canceling funding approved by Congress without consulting lawmakers via a rescissions request, which the officials said the administration plans to release “soon.”

The annual appropriations process is separate from the reconciliation process that Republicans are using to pass their massive tax cuts, border security, defense funding and spending cuts package.

Huge boost for Homeland Security

The budget proposal aligns with the Trump’s administration’s plans for mass deportations of people without permanent legal status, and would provide the Department of Homeland Security with $42.3 billion, or a 64.9% increase.

The budget proposal suggests eliminating $650 million from a program that reimburses non-governmental organizations and local governments that help with resettling and aiding newly arrived migrants released from DHS custody, known as the Shelters and Services Program.

The Trump administration also seeks to eliminate the agency that handles the care and resettlement of unaccompanied minors within Health and Human Services. The budget proposal recommends getting rid of the Refugee and Unaccompanied Alien Children Programs’ $1.97 billion budget. The budget proposal argues that because of an executive order to suspend refugee resettlement services, there is no need for the programs.

A federal judge from Washington state issued a nationwide injunction, and ruled the Trump administration must continue refugee resettlement services.

The budget proposal also calls for axing programs that help newly arrived migrant children or students for whom English is not a first language.

For the Education Department, the budget proposal suggests eliminating $890 million in funding for the English Language Acquisition and $428 million for the Migrant Education and Special Programs for Migrant Students.

Key GOP senator rejects defense request

Members of Congress had mixed reactions to the budget request, with some GOP lawmakers praising its spending cuts, while others took issue with the defense budget.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., outright rejected the defense funding level, writing in a statement that relying on the reconciliation package to get military spending above $1 trillion was unacceptable. 

“OMB is not requesting a trillion-dollar budget. It is requesting a budget of $892.6 billion, which is a cut in real terms. This budget would decrease President Trump’s military options and his negotiating leverage,” Wicker wrote. “We face an Axis of Aggressors led by the Chinese Communist Party, who have already started a trade war rather than negotiate in good faith. We need a real Peace Through Strength agenda to ensure Xi Jinping does not launch a military war against us in Asia, beyond his existing military support to the Russians, the Iranians, Hamas, and the Houthis.”

The senior White House official who spoke on a call with reporters to discuss details of the budget request said that splitting the defense increase between the regular Pentagon spending bill and the reconciliation package was a more “durable” proposal.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, wrote the panel will have “an aggressive hearing schedule to learn more about the President’s proposal and assess funding needs for the coming year.”

“This request has come to Congress late, and key details still remain outstanding,” Collins wrote. “Based on my initial review, however, I have serious objections to the proposed freeze in our defense funding given the security challenges we face and to the proposed funding cuts to – and in some cases elimination of – programs like LIHEAP, TRIO, and those that support biomedical research. 

“Ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse.”

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement she will work with others in Congress to block the domestic funding cuts from taking effect.

“Trump wants to rip away funding to safeguard Americans’ health, protect our environment, and to help rural communities and our farmers thrive. This president wants to turn our country’s back on Tribes—and let trash pile up at our national parks,” Murray wrote. “Trump is even proposing to cut investments to prevent violent crime, go after drug traffickers, and tackle the opioids and mental health crises.”

A press release from Murray’s office noted the budget request lacked details on certain programs, including Head Start.

House Speaker Mike Johnson R-La, praised the budget proposal in a statement and pledged that House GOP lawmakers are “ready to work alongside President Trump to implement a responsible budget that puts America first.”

“President Trump’s plan ensures every federal taxpayer dollar spent is used to serve the American people, not a bloated bureaucracy or partisan pet projects,” Johnson wrote.

Spending decisions coming

The House and Senate Appropriations committees are set to begin hearings with Cabinet secretaries and agency heads next week, where Trump administration officials will explain their individual funding requests and answer lawmakers’ questions.

The members on those committees will ultimately write the dozen annual appropriations bills in the months ahead, determining funding levels and policy for numerous programs, including those at the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, State and Transportation.

The House panel’s bills will skew more toward Republican funding levels and priorities, though the Senate committee has a long history of writing broadly bipartisan bills. 

The leaders of the two committees — House Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., House ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Senate Chairwoman Collins and Senate ranking member Murray — will ultimately work out a final deal later in the year alongside congressional leaders.

Differences over the full-year bills are supposed to be solved before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, but members of Congress regularly rely on a stopgap spending bill through mid-December to give themselves more time to complete negotiations.

Failure to pass some sort of government funding measure, either a stopgap bill or all 12 full-year spending bills, before the funding deadline, would lead to a partial government shutdown.

This round of appropriations bills will be the first debated during Trump’s second-term presidency and will likely bring about considerable disagreement over the unilateral actions the administration has already taken to freeze or cancel federal spending, many of which are the subject of lawsuits arguing the president doesn’t have that impoundment authority. 

The U.S. Capitol on March 14, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)  

WASHINGTON — Three U.S. House committees on Tuesday approved the first few bills that will make up Republicans’ massive reconciliation package after rejecting numerous Democratic amendments.

The Armed Services, Homeland Security, and Education and Workforce committees each voted mostly along party lines to send their measures to the Budget Committee, which is expected to bundle them together with the other eight bills later this month.

The additional House committee markups are scheduled to take place Wednesday and next week. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., hopes to put the entire package on the floor for a vote before the Memorial Day recess begins.

Nearly every one of the chamber’s 220 GOP lawmakers will need to vote to approve the 11-bill package in order to send it to the Senate, where Republicans will likely make changes to the legislation.

The first three markups included some of the less controversial aspects of the package for Republicans, including plans to increase spending on defense by $150 billion, a $70 billion boost to border security funding and an overhaul of federal student loans and Pell grants.

Homeland Security Chairman Mark E. Green, R-Tenn., wrote in a statement that GOP lawmakers on the panel “advanced funding to give Border Patrol agents the tools they have long requested to accomplish their homeland security mission in the field while protecting our communities.”

“Conversely, the actions of our colleagues across the aisle today proved what the American people have known for some time,” Green wrote. “Democrats would rather advocate for a radical, open-borders agenda than for the safety of their own constituents, or the CBP personnel who suffered through a historic border crisis under the Biden-Harris administration.”

The panel voted 18-14 along party lines to approve the bill. 

Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., wrote in a statement after his panel approved its bill that the measures “not only would save taxpayers over $350 billion but also bring much-needed reform in three key areas: simplified loan repayment, streamlined student loan options, and accountability for students and taxpayers.”

“I’m proud of the Committee’s work today to finally stand up and end the status quo of endless borrowing,” Walberg wrote.

That panel voted 21-14 along party lines to approve its bill.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., wrote the defense funding increase would ensure “that our national defense remains the strongest in the world and supports an agile and modern fighting force.”

That committee voted 35-21 to advance its bill, with five Democrats — Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, Eugene Vindman of Virginia and George Whitesides of California — voting with all committee Republicans in favor.

House committees are expected to release bills next week showing how Republicans plan to extend the 2017 GOP tax law as well as how they plan to cut federal funding on Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, program. 

White House Border Czar Tom Homan talks with reporters on the driveway outside the White House West Wing on March 17, 2025. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — White House border czar Tom Homan on Monday blamed the parents of U.S. citizen children the Trump administration sent to Honduras over the weekend.

At a Monday morning press conference, Homan defended the government’s actions to remove three young children from two different families alongside their mothers who were in the country without legal authorization but participated in a program that allows otherwise law-abiding migrants to stay in their communities.

“If you enter this country illegally, it’s a crime,” Homan said. “Knowing you’re in this country illegally, you put yourself in that position. You put your family in that position.”

The children, all under the age of 10, were placed on deportation flights to Honduras on Friday after their mothers checked in with a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in New Orleans as part of the Intensive Supervision Appearance Program, which allows immigrants to stay in their communities while undergoing immigration court proceedings.

An attorney for one of the children, Gracie Willis at the National Immigration Project, said the 4-year-old U.S. citizen with Stage 4 cancer was deported without access to his medication.

Homan has argued the mothers requested to be deported with their children, but attorneys for the families argue they were “denied access to legal counsel, and swiftly deported without due process.”

Due process concerns

U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty, whom Trump appointed to a seat on the Louisiana federal bench in 2018, expressed concern that a 2-year-old U.S. citizen had been deported, despite her father’s wishes she remain in the U.S., according to court filings.

Doughty scheduled a May 16 hearing because of his “strong suspicion that the government just deported a U.S. citizen with no meaningful process.”

“The government contends that this is all okay because the mother wishes that the child be deported with her,” Doughty wrote in his order. “But the court doesn’t know that.”

Willis, from the National Immigration Project, raised concerns about a lack of due process and how the deportations have separated families.

“What we saw from ICE over the last several days is horrifying and baffling,” she said in a statement. “These mothers had no opportunity to speak with their co-parents to make the kinds of choices that parents are entitled to make for their children, the kinds of decisions that millions of parents make every day: ‘what is best for our child?’”

Homan has argued the children were deported at the request of the mothers and that the Trump administration was “keeping families together.”

“What we did is remove children with their mothers who requested their children depart with them,” he said. “When a parent says, ‘I want my 2-year-old baby to go with me,’ we made that happen. They weren’t deported. We don’t deport U.S. citizens. The parents made that decision, not the United States government.”

Wisconsin judge

Monday’s remarks from Homan come the day before President Donald Trump will mark the 100th day of his second term. His early days in office have centered on carrying out his campaign promise of mass deportations of millions of people in the U.S. without permanent legal status.

Trump will sign two executive orders on immigration late Monday: one relating to border security and another to require the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to publicly list so-called sanctuary cities that do not coordinate with federal immigration law enforcement.

Homan also stood by the Trump administration’s decision to arrest a federal judge in Wisconsin on the grounds she obstructed immigration officials from detaining a man attending his court hearing. It marked an escalation between the Trump administration and the judiciary branch, raising concerns from Democrats.

The arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan was highly publicized after she was handcuffed in public and FBI Director Kash Patel bragged about the arrest on social media.

Attorney General Pam Bondi said on Fox News that the Trump administration was going to continue to go after judges who “think they’re above the law.”

“When you cross that line to impediment or knowingly harboring, concealing an illegal alien from ICE, you will be prosecuted, judge or not,” Homan said. 

A doctor holding T-shaped intrauterine birth control device. (Getty Photos) 

WASHINGTON — The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in federal court Thursday challenging the Trump administration’s decision to withhold Title X family planning grants.

The 35-page filing alleges the Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the reproductive health program with funding approved by Congress, has withheld $65.8 million over disagreements about organizations’ “opposition to racism” and “providing care to undocumented immigrants.”

“The Affected Members and their subrecipients operate hundreds of Title X service sites across these states, which together provide family planning care to hundreds of thousands of low-income patients, many of whom would not otherwise be able to afford such care,” the complaint says. 

“Depriving these individuals of the high-quality, essential health care provided by Title X-funded health centers reduces access to (sexually transmitted infection) screening and treatment, cancer screening, and contraception, threatens the health and wellbeing of the individuals who rely on Title X for care, and undermines public health.”

The lawsuit contends California, Hawaiʻi, Maine, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, and Utah have been completely cut off from Title X family planning grants, while Alaska, Connecticut, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia have had their access to the funding reduced.

The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia but hadn’t been assigned to a judge as of Thursday afternoon.

HHS did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Another suit

The lawsuit is the latest filed by organizations and Democratic state attorneys general challenging the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze funding for dozens of programs.

Some, but not all, of the cases are subject to injunctions from district courts that so far have prevented the spending cuts from taking effect while the cases proceed.

The Impoundment Control Act, a 1970s-era law that requires the president to spend the money Congress appropriates, is the subject of many of the disagreements between those filing lawsuits and the Trump administration.

The National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association wrote in the lawsuit that it represents nearly 900 members, including state, county and local health departments.

Its members “operate or administer more than 3,000 health centers that provide family planning services to more than 2.2 million patients each year.”

HHS sent letters to some of the association’s members in late March, notifying them that their Title X family planning grant funding was “being temporarily withheld based on possible violations of the terms and conditions set forth in the notice of award,” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit alleges HHS’ decision to freeze the funding stems from its members having statements on their websites “indicating support for diversity, equity, and inclusion and opposition to racism, which, HHS claims, ‘suggests’ that the Affected Members are or may be engaged in conduct that violates federal civil rights laws.”

The federal government also chose to withhold the Title X funding over “a single public statement that HHS claims gives it ‘reason to believe’ that some of the Affected Members may be providing care to undocumented immigrants, in violation of Executive Order 14218 ‘Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders.’”

The lawsuit says that HHS never actually told any of the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association’s members that they had violated federal regulations, executive orders, or the law. The letters from HHS referenced only “possible violations.” 

Do unauthorized immigrant workers pay taxes?

It’s a question that is widely misunderstood, but yes, unauthorized immigrants do pay taxes. 

While many immigrants are still paid “under the table” for their work, the majority pay income and payroll taxes on their wages, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. While an exact number is difficult to determine, a 2013 estimate from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy suggested at least half of all unauthorized workers in the United States pay income taxes.

An estimated 70,000 unauthorized immigrants live in Wisconsin, about 47,000 of whom are employed, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. About two-thirds of those had lived in the U.S. for 10 years or more. But that information, while the most recent available, is now over five years old. The Department of Homeland Security estimated that there were 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the country as of 2022.

In 2018, unauthorized immigrants in Wisconsin paid an estimated $157 million in federal taxes and $101 million in state and local taxes, totaling nearly $258 million, according to the American Immigration Council. That estimate dropped slightly to a total of $240 million in federal, state and local taxes as of 2022.

Unauthorized immigrant workers nationwide paid an estimated $97 billion in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, according to a July 2024 report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.

But how do they pay taxes without being identified by authorities? 

Unauthorized workers who lack a Social Security number can instead apply for an individual taxpayer identification number through the Internal Revenue Service — a system created in 1996 — to file their income taxes. As of December 2022, there were an estimated 5.8 million active ITINs in the United States, according to the Administration of the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number Program. 

Taxpayer ID numbers allow unauthorized workers to file tax returns. All that is required to obtain an ITIN is an application that does not require proof of work authorization or proof that you reside in the United States legally. 

ITIN holders’ tax information has historically been legally protected and could not be shared with the Department of Homeland Security or Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Unauthorized immigrant workers had been able to get one without threat of the information being shared with authorities who may find and deport them.

But on April 7, the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security struck a deal on behalf of the Trump administration to share taxpayer data on unauthorized individuals under final removal orders. The agreement faces legal challenges.

Some unauthorized immigrants provide employers with fake Social Security numbers, someone else’s number or a previously valid number. When they’re hired, most employers do not and are not required to verify the identification numbers with any government entity, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. 

But when tax return season comes around, the IRS will not accept filings that include a fake, stolen or invalid Social Security number. If unauthorized workers want to file their taxes and create a paper trail, then they will often obtain an ITIN.

The Social Security Administration may alert an employer when an employee’s name and Social Security number on a W-2 form do not match, but it cannot enforce any penalties. The IRS rarely ever investigates employers with a high number of W-2 forms that don’t match. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, this is due to limited resources and employers’ ability to simply claim they asked an employee for the correct number, which is all that is required of them by law.

The financial penalty for each W-2 discrepancy is so small that the federal government often will not investigate it. Legally, a mismatched name and number cannot be considered proof that a worker is in the country illegally.

Why would unauthorized workers decide to pay and file taxes? 

According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, many unauthorized workers choose to pay taxes in the hopes that it will eventually help them gain citizenship. Should a pathway to citizenship ever be established through a comprehensive immigration bill, a history of paying taxes can be viewed as a way to show “good faith.” 

While many unauthorized immigrants pay taxes, they do not qualify for many benefits like Social Security retirement, Medicare coverage and the federal earned income tax credit — despite contributing billions of dollars in federal payroll taxes that help fund these programs. 

If they purchase goods and services in a community, unauthorized immigrants pay sales taxes just like others do. When buying a home, they will pay state and local property taxes as well.

Wisconsin Watch readers have submitted questions to our statehouse team, and we’ll answer them in our series, Ask Wisconsin Watch. Have a question about state government? Ask it here.

How do unauthorized immigrant workers pay taxes? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

Official proof of three things — identity, age and citizenship or qualifying immigration status — is required to obtain a Social Security number.

For U.S.-born adults, required documents include a U.S. birth certificate or a U.S. passport, though most U.S.-born citizens are issued a Social Security number at birth.

Noncitizens can apply if they have U.S. permission to work in the U.S. or permanent resident status (U.S.-issued green card). Less common are nonworking immigrants, such as those issued a student visa, who need a Social Security number.

“Merely showing a bill or a school ID is not sufficient,” Kathleen Romig, a former senior adviser at the Social Security Administration, told Wisconsin Watch.

Elon Musk claimed March 30 in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that “basically, you can show … a medical bill and a school ID and get a Social Security number.”

Trump administration officials did not reply to emails seeking comment.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Social Security Administration: Original Card for a U.S. Born Adult and Noncitizen
• Paul Van de Water, Social Security expert retired from Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: Email
• Kathleen Romig, former senior adviser at the Social Security Administration: Email
• Forbes: Breaking News: Elon Musk Takes Question After Question At Town Hall Event In Green Bay, Wisconsin
• Washington Post: Musk floats falsehoods about Social Security, immigrants as DOGE seeks changes

Are a medical bill and school identification legally enough to be issued a Social Security number? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

CONCORD, N.C. — More questions than answers currently exist on what the funding future of clean school buses will look like, following program cuts, elimination of EV mandates, and executive orders from the Trump administration.

Joe Annotti, the vice president of incentives for TRC Clean Transportation Solutions, attempted to provide some clarity in “an era of deregulation” on Sunday during STN EXPO East in Charlotte. He noted that despite the belief stated by media that President Donald Trump is making unprecedented changes and reevaluations of agencies and programs, the actions are normal. Annotti relayed that presidents come in all the time, stop and relook at programs, before funds get flowing again.

He referenced 2005, when former President Goerge Bush altered federal grant structures to states by moving to “blocks,” and when former President Barack Obama immediately cut 5 percent of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) operating budget.

What is unprecedented, however, is the amount of funding being allocated to school buses, primarily clean school buses. That, by way of the Clean School Bus Program, is now in peril.

Meanwhile, Annotti said there are currently over 700 clean transportation state and local incentive programs. Of those, 124 could fund school bus projects, whereas 26 prioritize or exclusively fund school bus projects. He said $3 billion is available from the combined 124 programs, yet more than half of that ($1.8 billion) funds the 26 school bus eligible programs.

In his opinion, he said those 26 programs are the ones on the Trump administration’s chopping block.

“Gone are the days for the flat rate voucher incentives,” he said, adding there’s a renewed focus on cost-effectiveness. Federal programs covering 80 percent of the cost of the bus is probably a thing of the past.

Of the 124 programs that could fund school buses, 25 are exclusive to battery-electric and 50 of them are located in California, he added.

He discussed expectations, such as federal agencies may terminate award programs that no longer effectuate goals or agency priorities. He noted that multiple grant programs across agencies are cancelled or modified or modified.

Annotti answered attendee questions and said that in terms of the EPA Clean School Bus Program funding, rounds 3 and 4 are where he sees disruptions. Round 1, he said, is done. Round 2 awards were issued, and most are under a contractual agreement, which he said leads him to believe they are safe.

Round 3 has not yet been awarded, and the EPA has not yet issued funding decisions, which may never happen, he noted. He said Round 4, which was supposed to be announced later this year or early next, is not on his funding calendar at all.

He clarified that if the program is cut, projects would be funded up until the day that announcement is made. Any purchases made prior to a decision would still be funded.

As for the possibility of manufacturers raising their school bus prices due to the impending Trump tariffs, he said the EPA won’t allocate more award funds than called for in the original contract agreement.

Related: Blog: The State of Green School Buses
Related: Security Expert Discusses How to Understand Violent Triggers at STN EXPO East
Related: STN EXPO East Offers Sports Lessons for Transportation Leadership
Related: Study: Electric School Bus Reliability, Cost-Effectiveness Stand Up in Montana Extreme Cold
Related: GreenPower Announces First Deliveries to West Virginia under EPA Clean School Bus Program Grant

Annotti advised attendees to assess what stage in the federal reward process they are in, whether they’ve actually won award, if they’ve spent federal money, or they’re in the process of purchasing. He advised fleets to act cautiously, as money is not guaranteed, adding that when writing grants fleets need to recognize the changed priorities and tailor their message to the audience.

“Change your tune when asking for funding,” he said, noting that attendees need to consider how their proposed project is benefiting the EPA’s latest priorities. “Match with what they need to hear, not what you want to say.”

He said current unpopular topics with the feds include: Regulations, DEI/community engagement, and renewable energy. Popular topics include: Tariffs, deregulation, economic development and fossil fuels.

TRC is hosting the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo next month in Anaheim, California. School Transportation News is an official media sponsor of the event.

The post Future of Electric School Bus Funding Remains Unknown, Warns Expert appeared first on School Transportation News.

A recent study conducted for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) claims that electric school buses (ESBs) are not only viable but also advantageous in Montana’s harsh winter conditions.

The study published last September by clean energy nonprofit VEIC evaluated all 17 ESBs that are currently operating across six school districts: Bigfork, Billings, Clinton, East Helena, Fairfield, and Havre. The findings indicate significant fuel cost savings, reliable performance in subzero temperatures, and positive feedback from both drivers and transportation managers.

A Montana DEQ spokesperson told School Transportation News the agency partially funded 11 of the 17 ESBs studied. The EPA Clean School Bus Program also provided funding.

One of the primary concerns regarding electric vehicles in Montana is their performance during severe winter weather. The study found that ESBs operated effectively even when temperatures dropped to 25 degrees below zero. While vehicle efficiency decreased by up to 40 percent in such extreme cold, the buses consistently met the required daily route distances. Notably, the study said ESBs demonstrated more reliable start-up performance compared to diesel buses, which often face challenges like fuel gelling in low temperatures.

Brian Picariello, the principal consultant and clean transportation lead at VEIC, emphasized the efficiency of electric school buses in extreme weather.

“One major takeaway from the study was that, on average, the electric school buses were almost four times more efficient than the diesel alternative,” he told STN. “The buses also had sufficient range to complete their assigned routes, even under extreme cold and hot conditions. In fact, during a significant cold front, the temperature dipped more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, and the diesel buses at one agency had to be taken out of service while the electric buses continued operation, albeit with a 30- to 40-percent range reduction.”

Havre Public Schools near the U.S-Canada border launched its electric school bus program in late 2022, putting two Lion C electric buses into service by early 2023. Allen “Woody” Woodwick, the district’s fleet manager, said skepticism was high at the start of the program.

“There was a lot of people that said you couldn’t run electrics up in Montana, so that was somewhat of a challenge,” Woodwick told Montana Public Radio earlier this month. “And it looks like we’ve been proving the simple fact is yes, we can.”

He shared with STN that the Lion ESBs “have been largely problem-free,” but he added that obtaining parts and service has been an ongoing issue, largely due to Havre’s remote location in north-central Montana.

“The few service techs they had were nowhere near Montana. They were expecting to expand but other issues arose,” Woodrick continued. “So, we plan on running the buses as we have been and figure out the challenges as they come, and source our parts from the suppliers or manufacturers.”

Other Montana school districts that participated in the study include Bigfork (one Lion C), Clinton (two Lion Cs) East Helena (one Lion C), Fairfield (three Lion Cs), and Billings (eight IC Bus CEs), with all buses deployed between January 2023 and January 2024.

Related: Lion Electric Defaults on Credit Repayment, Says It is Avoiding Bankruptcy

The transition to electric buses has also resulted in notable cost savings. Each ESB averaged $1,575 in annual fuel savings compared to traditional diesel buses. Additionally, maintenance costs are expected to decrease over time due to the simpler mechanics of electric drivetrains, which have fewer moving parts and do not require oil changes or exhaust system repairs, the study noted.

However, the study highlighted that per-mile energy costs could vary, with fleets subject to utility demand charges seeing energy costs twice as high as those without such fees. This discrepancy emphasizes the role of local utility pricing structures in determining the overall cost-effectiveness of ESBs. According to VEIC’s full report, understanding these factors is critical for districts considering electrification.

Beyond economic advantages, the adoption of electric buses contributes to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants. ESBs produce zero tailpipe emissions, leading to improved air quality for students and the community. Even when accounting for emissions from electricity generation, the overall environmental footprint of ESBs is significantly smaller than that of diesel buses.

Picariello noted that even with the use of auxiliary diesel heaters in winter months, ESBs significantly reduced emissions compared to diesel buses.

“The buses in this study with auxiliary heaters, maintained efficiency and range during winter months better than buses in previous studies,” he explained, citing the example of NREL’s 2022 report on electric transit buses in Duluth, Minnesota. “Although the significance was not assessed directly, it does seem likely that the auxiliary fuel heaters allowed the buses to continue operating efficiently at extreme temperatures compared to buses that use electric resistance elements for cabin heating.”

Meanwhile, transportation managers and drivers have reported positive experiences with the new electric buses, according to the study. Drivers noted better acceleration and quieter operation, enhancing the overall transportation environment. Despite a slightly lower top speed compared to diesel buses, the performance of ESBs has met the daily operational needs of the districts.

Picariello emphasized the enthusiasm among drivers and school managers.

“We were also pleasantly surprised to hear how much drivers and school managers loved the experience once they were trained and got used to the new equipment,” he said. “It’s promising to hear that on-road performance across driving conditions met or exceeded that of internal combustion alternatives. It was also encouraging to hear all the folks who manage these fleets year after year would recommend them to other districts in the area.”

Related: New York Gov. Hochul Open to Extending Electric School Bus Mandate
Related: EPA, Treasury Disseminate Electric School Bus Tax Credit Information
Related: Montana School Bus Safety Bills Signed into Law

Regarding reliability, the study reported that ESBs were available for route service 82 percent of the time, compared to 94 percent of the time with diesel buses. The study noted that 72 percent of the out-of-service days for ESBs occurred in a single district. Excluding that district, the remaining ESBs had an availability rate of 93 percent. The primary causes of downtime were related to components outside of the electric drivetrain, highlighting the need for comprehensive maintenance training and support.

While funding is often cited as the primary barrier to widespread ESB adoption, Picariello pointed out additional challenges.

“Funding aside, the main barriers for schools are split in two categories: Infrastructure improvements and change management,” he explained. “Schools often need to work with a local electrician, charging manufacturers, and their utility to make the necessary electrical upgrades for more capacity and install charging equipment, all of which takes a lot of coordination and time and potentially cost.”

Picariello added that early collaboration with utilities is key to overcoming these challenges.

“The sooner a district can engage their local distribution utility to discuss the scope of the work, the better. From there, fleet managers, technicians and drivers need access to expert-level training and support services to help their teams get comfortable with the electric buses and charging infrastructure, like any new technology.”

He emphasized that ensuring contracts with vehicle OEMs and charging manufacturers include sufficient training and support can help districts confidently transition to electric fleets.

The post Study: Electric School Bus Reliability, Cost-Effectiveness Stand Up in Montana Extreme Cold appeared first on School Transportation News.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

There’s no readily available evidence Susan Crawford has supported stopping deportations of illegal immigrants or protecting sanctuary cities, as a Republican attack ad claims.

Sanctuary communities limit how much they help authorities with deportations.

Crawford, a liberal, faces conservative Brad Schimel in the nonpartisan April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

The attack on Crawford was made by the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national group that works to elect Republicans to state offices.

The group provided Wisconsin Watch no evidence to back its claim. A spokesperson cited Democratic support for Crawford and Democratic opposition to cooperating with deportations, but nothing Crawford said on the topics. Searches of past Crawford statements found nothing.

The ad also claims Crawford would “let criminals roam free,” referring to a man convicted of touching girls’ private parts in a club swimming pool. Crawford sentenced the man in 2020 to four years in prison; a prosecutor had requested 10 years.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• Republican State Leadership Committee: "Crazy" ad
• Ballotpedia: Wisconsin Supreme Court elections, 2025
• Wisconsin Examiner: Wisconsin Democrats seek to prohibit state and local cooperation with ICE and deportation efforts
• Reuters: Trump deporting people at a slower rate than Biden's last year in office
• Wisconsin Watch: Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford sentence a child sex offender to four years after a prosecutor requested 10?
• Republican State Leadership Committee: Email, Feb. 25, 2025
• Wisconsin Republican Party: Crawford etched in stone, she’s a pro-illegal immigration and anti-ICE Democrat

Has Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford supported stopping deportations and protecting sanctuary cities? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Wisconsin Watch partners with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. Read our methodology to learn how we check claims.

No.

Most inmates in Wisconsin’s federal prison, and in federal prisons nationally, are U.S. citizens.

Following Trump administration arrests of immigrants suspected or convicted of crimes, Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden of western Wisconsin claimed Jan. 27 that over 50% of inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Oxford, Wisconsin, are “illegal aliens.”

Oxford is a low-security prison 60 miles north of Madison that houses 1,100 male offenders.

As of Jan. 25, 59% of Oxford inmates, and 85% of federal inmates nationally, were U.S. citizens. The Federal Bureau of Prisons does not readily have data on what percentage of inmates are unauthorized immigrants.

Nationally:

U.S. citizens constituted two-thirds of recently federally sentenced individuals.

The most serious offense for 76% of noncitizens sentenced for a federal crime in recent years was immigration-related, such as unlawful U.S. entry or smuggling noncitizens (14% were drug-related).

Donald Trump’s administration has called unauthorized immigrants criminals, but being undocumented is a civil violation.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

• U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: News Releases and Statements
• X: Derrick Van Orden post
• Federal Bureau of Prisons: Email, Jan. 29, 2025
• Federal Bureau of Prisons: Inmate citizenship
• U.S. Sentencing Commission: Federally Sentenced Non-U.S. Citizens
• U.S. Government Accountability Office: Noncitizens in the U.S.: Public Information on Federal Incarcerations
• Axios: All undocumented immigrants are "criminals," Trump administration says

Did most federal prison inmates in Wisconsin and the U.S. enter the country illegally? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Fernanda Jimenez, a 24-year-old Racine resident, came to the United States from Mexico with her mother and siblings when she was just 5 years old. It’s the only home she can remember.

For almost a decade, Jimenez has been protected from deportation by the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program, launched under the Obama administration. The program allows people who came to the country illegally as children to get work permits and continue living in America.

Earlier this year, Jimenez graduated from Alverno College in Milwaukee. She currently works as a grant writer, helping nonprofits apply for funding. But she’s also in the process of applying to law school.

“I like helping nonprofits get funding to do the work that we need in our country and especially our communities, but I’m more passionate about community organizing,” she said. “I’d like to eventually use legal skills after law school for community organizing.”

Jimenez has big dreams, but she says she’s been feeling a looming anxiety since former President Donald Trump won his bid to return to the White House in this year’s presidential race.

She was still in high school when Trump was first elected in 2016, but she says she still remembers feeling “terrified” about what his election would mean for her parents who don’t have permanent legal status and what it would mean for DACA’s future.

Those fears have come roaring back in recent weeks. 

“Our community is terrified. They’re uncertain of their futures, they’re concerned for their family members who are undocumented and not protected under DACA,” Jimenez said. “A lot of naturalized citizens are concerned as well. The mass deportation threat is being taken seriously.”

On the campaign trail, Trump promised to lead the largest deportation effort in U.S. history. Shortly after the election, he announced that Tom Homan, former acting director of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would serve as his administration’s “border czar.”

In interviews with Fox News last week, Homan said he would prioritize deporting people who threaten public safety or pose risks to national security. But he also told the network that anyone in the country illegally is “not off the table,” and the administration would perform workplace immigration raids. 

Immigrant rights group plans organizing efforts

Following Trump’s reelection, Voces de La Frontera, a Milwaukee-based immigrant rights group, has been holding community meetings in Green Bay, Milwaukee and Dane County to plan next steps, according to Christine Neumann-Ortiz, the organization’s founding executive director.

She said many of the immigrants in Wisconsin without permanent legal status are fearful of the prospect of mass deportations, but she doesn’t believe they will leave the country preemptively. Rather, she said they may leave Wisconsin for states that provide more protections to immigrants.

Neumann-Ortiz said Voces is using the regional meetings to brainstorm ways it can organize around protecting immigrants without permanent legal status. She said the group plans to raise awareness through mass strikes, protests and civil disobedience. 

“We really are going to have to very strongly be a movement that stands for human decency, solidarity, and we’re going to have to do that in the streets,” she said. 

Neumann-Ortiz also said she believes most Trump voters cast ballots for him because of economic concerns, not because they wanted to see people forcibly removed from their communities.

“I do think as things unfold, there’s going to be shock waves that are going to happen that are going to have many people open their eyes, regret their decisions and see what they can do to help,” she said.

David Najera, Hispanic outreach coordinator for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, does not share the concerns about mass deportations.

“My parents came from Mexico and Texas. They came the right way, and that’s the way I’d like to see people come,” he said.

Najera said he supports Trump’s immigration policies, citing concerns about crime, infectious disease and government resources.

“The immigrants are just overwhelming the hospitals, schools and everything else, and taking our tax money,” Najera said. “I’m not saying they’re all bad, but there’s a majority of them that are just getting out of their jails over there in different countries, and coming here with bad intentions.”

Multiple studies have shown immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans. And Wisconsin’s immigrants without permanent legal status paid $240 million in federal, state and local taxes in 2022, according to the American Immigration Council.

How are Wisconsin immigration attorneys advising clients?

Marc Christopher, an immigration attorney based in Milwaukee, represents clients in federal immigration court who are facing deportation or seeking asylum. Christopher said he doesn’t expect the Trump administration’s deportation effort to be limited to people with serious criminal convictions or those who pose security concerns.

He said he expects increased targeting of individuals who haven’t committed crimes or have been charged with minor offenses, like driving without a license. Immigrants living in Wisconsin without proof of citizenship or legal residency can’t get driver’s licenses.

“What I’m telling my clients to do is make sure that you follow the law to a tee,” Christopher said. “If you do not have a driver’s license, do not drive. If you can have someone else drive you to work or drive your children to school, make sure and do that because that’s the most common way that they get thrown into the immigration court process.”

Aissa Olivarez, managing attorney for the Community Immigration Law Center in Madison, said she expects the incoming administration to expand the use of “expedited removal.” It’s a process that allows the government to deport people without presenting their case to an immigration judge if the person has been in the country for less than two years.

“I’m also advising people to start gathering proof that they’ve been here for more than two years — phone bills, light bills, leases, school information — to be able to show in case they are stopped and questioned by immigration authorities,” Olivarez said.

Second Trump term reignites fears over DACA’s future, impact on mixed-status families

Christopher and Olivarez both said the DACA program, and other federal programs giving immigrants temporary protected statuses, could end in the coming years.

Trump previously tried to end the DACA program, but it was upheld in a 5-4 U.S. Supreme Court decision with Chief Justice John Roberts siding with four liberal justices. The current court has a 6-3 conservative majority, meaning Roberts would no longer be the deciding vote.

“It’s (DACA) all but assuredly going to be found unconstitutional by the current Supreme Court,” Christopher said of the DACA program. 

Jimenez, the DACA recipient from Racine, said she’s afraid being a participant in the program will make her a target for deportation by the federal government.

“We have to provide, every two years, an updated information application of where we live, our biometrics, our pictures, and they have to be recent pictures,” she said. “They have our entire information. And that’s really where our fear is at. They know who we are. They know we’re undocumented.”

Immigrant rights advocates are also concerned that a mass deportation effort could devastate the estimated 28,000 families in Wisconsin with mixed-immigration status. Those families include households where one spouse may be a U.S. citizen married to someone who doesn’t have permanent legal status, or where the parents of U.S. citizen children lack legal status.

Jimenez said her brother is part of a mixed-status family. She says he is a DACA recipient, his girlfriend is a legal resident, and his children are U.S. citizens.

“If he is to be deported, his kids would suffer the most not having their father with them, and my parents, who I fear (for) the most, have no protection,” she said. “They have to work. They have to drive to work. They have to drive without a license.”

What could a second Trump term mean for asylum seekers in Wisconsin?

Christopher, the immigration attorney from Milwaukee, said individuals seeking asylum in Wisconsin are in the country legally as they wait to make their case to the government that they should be granted asylum in the United States. 

Under the last Trump administration, Christopher said the federal government narrowed the qualifications to be granted asylum. He said the previous Trump administration made it so those fleeing cartel or gang violence in their home country did not qualify and rolled back protections for those fleeing gender-based violence.

If Trump tightens restrictions on the qualifications on asylum again, Christopher said those new restrictions would apply to people already in Wisconsin waiting to make their case to immigration officials.

“You’re not protected by the rules at the time that you apply,” he said. “It’s going to be a major shift.”

Byron Chavez, a 28-year-old asylum seeker from Nicaragua, has been living in Whitewater since 2022. He applied for asylum and is waiting to make his case to the government. 

He said he fled government oppression and human rights violations in Nicaragua. Since coming to Wisconsin, Chavez said he’s fallen in love with Whitewater and wants to make it his permanent home.

“The community is very friendly. … You got everything you need and everything is close,” he said. “The diversity you have here, it’s what makes Whitewater a really nice place.”

If he gets an asylum hearing after Trump takes office, Chavez says he’s hopeful the government will hear him out and grant him asylum. 

“I’m a little bit more concerned because I think the immigration law will be stricter,” he said. “But other than that, I like to go by the book. I’m doing things the way they should, and hopefully that talks about my desire of being here. I want to do things the right way.”

This story was originally published by WPR.

‘Our community is terrified’: Wisconsin immigrants brace for threat of mass deportations is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.