A lawsuit has been filed against municipalities in Waukesha County over their use of Flock Safety's license plate reader camera system.

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Wisconsin U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Milwaukee) traveled to Leavenworth, Kansas, on Wednesday to visit an immigration detention facility where two Milwaukee women are being held, interview them and check on their welfare. Reyna Elizabeth Garcia and Estenderly Marte Polanco were both arrested during a surge of arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in early July. 

Their arrests were described as excessive and violent by advocates from Voces de la Frontera, who monitored the surge and who joined Moore on the Kansas visit. Moore said that the Leavenworth ICE facility currently holds 450 people but  is designed to hold more than 1,000. She said she saw signs of rapid expansion. Moore fears that the facility will quickly fill up with more people. “They are building so they can fill this thing up with twice as many detainees,” she said. 

Garcia and Polanco told Moore that they are being treated as human beings, Moore said. Detainees are allowed to leave their cells and be in a common area during the day, and the facility has plans for an area where detainees will be able to exercise and get access to sunlight. Moore observed various meals being prepared including kosher and vegetarian options, indicating that the facility is making an attempt to meet dietary needs, although  the food appeared to be  of  low quality. 

Most of the people held at Leavenworth are not criminals, Moore said. Still, she said, “it is a very depressive setting, it is definitely a prison, and they are aggressively building.”

Officials at the facility denied any medical neglect, Moore said, and the detention center has  doctors on call, but no full-time medical staff within the facility itself. 

“We had some hard questions for the ICE officials,” Moore said. “We were very curious to see where the murders and rapists were, and they were unable to show us that.” 

Garcia was arrested in late May along with her brother and fiance after ICE agents in unmarked vehicles followed them as they were leaving  a local grocery store in Milwaukee. Her fiance, Galo Suárez, was later released and told by ICE agents to walk away and to not look back or else he’d face consequences, he said during a Voces press conference after the arrest. Polanco was arrested the same weekend while driving with her 11-year-old son, who was in the back seat when ICE agents pulled her out of her car. During the arrest, agents split Polanco’s lip, threw her to the ground, and at one point placed her in a position where she couldn’t breathe, she said. In both arrests, agents were described by witnesses as mocking and insulting the people they were arresting. 

After her visit, Moore described Garcia as extremely depressed. Polanco checks on her, Moore said, adding that Polanco has a strong faith in the power of prayer and uses this to help lift Garcia’s spirits.

While Garcia’s fiance was released the same day he was arrested, Moore said that the family later learned that her brother had been deported. Polanco said that she told the agents that she was scared about what  would happen to her child, who was born prematurely. He remains  traumatized after witnessing her arrest, Moore said, and blames himself for his mother’s detention. 

Garcia told Moore that she left Nicaragua because “the politics put me in danger,” only to find herself in a similar situation in the U.S. 

Moore criticized the historic level of funding for ICE in recent budgets — more than $120 billion — and said her Democratic colleagues worked together to stop further allocations in the most recent budget reconciliation bill.  At Leavenworth, she said, she wondered where all the money was going. “I was looking for the sauna,” she joked. The privately run facility is operated by CoreCivic, which sold the facility to the federal government for $238.4 million — about $300,000 per bed. Moore said it is comparable to other prisons that don’t bring in  nearly as much money. 

Stevens Point, Winnebago County, Fond du Lac County and Sheboygan are among the Wisconsin communities that have recently moved away from Flock license plate reader cameras. On Tuesday, city staff in Stevens Point began covering the cameras while local elected leaders determine whether they can cancel their Flock contract altogether. 

Meanwhile Sheboygan broke ties with Flock after the company reportedly attempted to sell the city back traffic data it was unaware the multi-billion dollar surveillance company was even collecting. Flock cameras capture images of vehicles and their license plates on the roadways. Law enforcement officers can search the data to see where a vehicle has traveled. 

Investigative reporting has shown that the cameras can also recognize human features. Over 5,000 agencies had Flock contracts in late 2025, creating a network of tens of thousands of cameras that can be queried simultaneously. Police often say that the technology has been invaluable in solving crimes including carjackings, kidnappings, homicide, drug trafficking and gun violence. The cameras are also used for less serious reasons such as for traffic enforcement and in policing evictions. 

“Reports are surfacing all over the country about the system being misused by municipal and state employees who have access to the data,” said Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza in a press release late last week. 

A few of those cases have played out in Wisconsin courts, police departments and sheriff’s offices. Four officers across Wisconsin have been charged with misconduct in public office and other offenses for misusing Flock cameras. 

Josue Ayala of the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) was given a year of probation and avoided jail time earlier this year after misusing Flock. Cristian Morales of the Menasha Police Department was sentenced to six months in jail and three years probation for a similar infraction. In Kenosha County, former sheriff’s deputy Frank McGrath was charged with misconduct in public office last month for misuse of the surveillance technology. In July, Milwaukee police detective Tehrangi Chapman — who worked the internal affairs investigation into Ayala’s Flock misuse — was charged with misusing the system to track someone he had been monitoring since 2019, years before Flock came to Milwaukee. Chapman and McGrath are still going through court proceedings. 

Ayala, Morales and McGrath all used Flock to monitor their current or former romantic partners. The exact relationship Chapman has to the people he allegedly monitored is not mentioned in available court records. McGrath used Flock and a squad car tracking system called Polaris to monitor his girlfriend, who was also a Kenosha County Sheriff’s deputy. Chapman allegedly employed both Flock cameras and car-mounted GPS trackers. McGrath was caught after a supervisor noticed some suspicious Flock searches in an audit, while Ayala and Chapman were both reported to police by the victims themselves. 

Numerous other officers have been investigated or charged with misusing Flock around the country. In Racine County, the district attorney admitted that a few unnamed officers have been investigated for their use of Flock cameras. 

The rash of misuse is not the only thing motivating local communities to drop Flock. When the city of Verona decided to cover its cameras in February, Mayor Diaz said that while the community trusted its police department, it no longer trusted Flock Safety. At that time the first cases of misconduct were beginning to emerge in Wisconsin, and many people had expressed fears about how the federal government — especially immigration enforcement — could leverage local Flock networks for its own priorities. Trust was also broken in Oshkosh months later, after the police chief learned that the cameras could create heatmaps of vehicle movements, contrary to what a company representative had said. 

The sheriffs and police departments in Fond du Lac County recently announced they will cancel their contracts because out of state agencies had used open records requests to obtain audit data the sheriff said was confidential and in some cases linked with ongoing investigations. Journalists and other citizens nationwide had begun requesting Flock audit data from local police departments to learn how the cameras were being used. 

In 2025, a Wisconsin Examiner analysis showed that at least 221 law enforcement agencies were using Flock in Wisconsin. Many of the searches used vague search terms such as “investigation,” “suspicious,” or non-law-enforcement terms such as “cooch,” or single characters such as “.” or “s”. Some of these vague search terms have appeared in confirmed misconduct cases. Officers in other parts of the country have also  used Flock for controversial reasons, such as tracking women suspected of traveling out of state to get an abortion. 

Flock Safety has struggled to adapt to canceled contracts and misconduct investigations. Although the company has released new features including requiring case numbers when searching the database, fixed options for search terms, and the ability to flag suspicious searches, it has also worked to hide information in the audit data such as officers’ names. Flock Safety has claimed that people have used the audit data to identify undercover officers. However, the information which Flock is making harder to view is also the very information that allowed citizens and journalists to detect instances of misconduct.

Winnebago County, Neenah, Menasha, and Chetek have each canceled a Flock contract, are considering it or have covered up their cameras. In Chetek, the police chief responded to public criticism of Flock cameras by threatening to run background checks on citizens who disagreed with his use of the cameras. Other Wisconsin communities including Kaukauna, Sturgeon Bay, Appleton, Dane County, Stoughton and Manitowoc which have also canceled their Flock contracts. 

Other communities have chosen to heighten oversight of their Flock cameras In Milwaukee, County Executive David Crowley asked that all Flock operations on county property be paused until new transparency and oversight measures could be developed.

Milwaukee County Sup. Justin Bielinski, who is also chairman of the Committee on Judiciary, Law Enforcement, and General Services, has also called on the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office to disable its Flock network. “Residents should not have to wait for another disclosure before we act,” said Bielinksi. “Even if you have confidence in the Sheriff’s Department’s use of Flock, the question remains: do we trust Flock itself with this information?”

The Milwaukee Police Department has restricted its Flock network from other local agencies, limited access to the system to supervisors only, and launched a new Flock transparency portal. The portal notes that data captured by Flock cameras in Milwaukee is only retained for seven days, and that there were 983 “search sessions” over the last 30 days. It also keeps track of the number of “hot list hits” over the last 30 days. Hot lists are lists of vehicles which law enforcement have flagged in the system. When a camera sees the flagged vehicle, a notification goes out to police in the area. The Milwaukee police transparency portal  does not track the number of vehicles detected, unlike a transparency portal released by the Green Bay Police Department.

“This effort underscores the commitments MPD has made in partnership with the Mayor to establish appropriate guardrails for the use of this technology while providing greater public understanding of how Flock [Automatic License Plate Reader] technology is used to support public safety,” the Milwaukee department said in a press release. “MPD remains committed to transparency, accountability, and the responsible use of technology. Through this new resource, MPD is continuing its efforts to provide the public with meaningful information about the tools we use to support the safety of the Milwaukee community.”

People in the community continue to push back against the cameras. Last Thursday, dozens of residents filled a Fire and Police Commission meeting to capacity in Milwaukee. An overflow room was opened to accommodate all the people who showed up to testify, unanimously rejecting Flock and calling for the city to cancel its contract. Speakers argued that Flock is a form of indiscriminate mass surveillance which can and has been used in abusive ways by police. Many of the speakers expressed deep frustration with the commission, city government and police, saying that they’d called for an end to Flock for months only to see some of their fears realized. 

Napoleon Jones, 32, was one of those people. Although Jones is from Sussex, he came to the Milwaukee FPC meeting to describe his  experience of Flock surveillance. Jones, a Navy veteran, was stopped by a Waukesha County Sheriff’s deputy after filming a traffic stop. Jones was arrested and taken to jail, only to be released without charges. When he filed a complaint about the deputy’s conduct, according to a federal lawsuit, Jones became the target of a  Flock search by that deputy, who was  directed by his supervisor to conduct the searches. 

“When I first found out I was just super surprised,” Jones told the Examiner. “I never thought it would happen to me. And when I found out and I got the records and seen how many different searches there were, I was at a loss of words because it’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of searches and the network is so big on these Flock cameras.” Jones added that “I drive all around. If this guy really wanted to put together a timeline of where I’m at, or who I know, or whose house I’m at, he could have done it.”

He added, “I drive past these things all the time. Everyone does.”

Women on parole report higher rates of housing instability, poor health and serious mental health and substance use disorders than men on parole and women who weren’t on parole, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan think tank Council on Criminal Justice.

For people leaving prison, parole is a period of transition that can involve finding housing and work, reconnecting with family and accessing health care while also meeting the conditions of supervision. How well those pieces come together can shape whether someone successfully settles back into the community — a key part, some argue, of reducing future involvement with the criminal justice system and promoting public safety.

The council’s latest report examined nationally representative 2021-2023 data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, comparing women who reported being on parole both with women who were not on parole and with men who were on parole.

About 13% of women on parole reported moving three or more times in the previous year, compared with 2% of women who were not on parole and 6% of men on parole, according to the analysis.

Women on parole also were more likely to report poor health. About 29% rated their overall health as fair or poor, compared with 16% of women not on parole and 17% of men on parole.

About 24% of women on parole met the criteria for a severe mental health disorder, compared with 7% of women not on parole and 10% of men on parole, according to the council’s report. About 25% of women on parole also reported experiencing a major depressive episode during the previous year, compared with 10% of women not on parole and 12% of men on parole.

The analysis found that substance use disorders were common among people on parole, but severe disorders were more prevalent among women. About 32% of women on parole met the criteria for a severe substance use disorder, compared with 24% of men on parole and 3% of women not on parole.

The disparity was especially large for opioid use. About 18% of women on parole met the criteria for a severe opioid use disorder, compared with 5% of men on parole and 0.4% of women not on parole.

Health and housing can make the demands of reentry harder to manage, including maintaining employment, attending treatment and supervision appointments, and managing family responsibilities, according to the report.

Women on parole also were more likely than men on parole to report living in a household with minor children. About 29% of women on parole lived in a household with at least one child under 18, compared with 19% of men on parole and 30% of women who were not on parole.

The survey, however, did not indicate whether respondents were parents, caregivers or financially responsible for the children, according to the report.

Health insurance coverage also differed among the groups. About 11% of women on parole reported being uninsured, compared with 7% of women not on parole and 20% of men on parole, according to the analysis.

The report’s authors wrote that the findings point to the need for reentry planning that goes beyond supervision requirements to address housing, health care, mental health and substance use treatment and family responsibilities. The authors could not determine whether the conditions preceded or resulted from criminal justice involvement, but the findings strongly suggest women on parole face distinct reentry challenges.

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

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Christian Castro, who is accused of shooting Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis through the closed door of a Minneapolis home in January, turned himself in to federal authorities on Thursday, the Associated Press and other outlets reported. 

Castro was indicted by a federal grand jury this week on six charges of making false statements related to the shooting, according to the indictment which was unsealed on Friday. 

Matthew Evans, the assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota in charge of the case, was pursuing hefty civil rights charges against Castro, but was instructed by Justice Department officials in Washington, D.C. to downgrade the charges.

Evans was fired, CBS News reported Thursday, citing four unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

By charging Castro only with making false statements, the DOJ will not have to litigate whether the shooting was justified.

The Jan. 14 shooting followed a car chase between Castro and Alfredo Aljorna, who lived in the same duplex as Sosa-Celis. The chase ended at the men’s duplex, as Aljorna exited his car and tried to get inside the house. Aljorna slipped, and Castro jumped on top of him. 

Sosa-Celis dropped the shovel he was holding to help Aljorna up, and both men ran inside. Castro’s shot passed through the door and hit Sosa-Celis in the leg before coming to a stop in the wall of a child’s bedroom. 

Castro accused Sosa-Celis and Aljorna of assaulting him with a broom and a snow shovel before Castro opened fire, leading to assault charges against the two men that were dropped after surveillance footage proved Castro’s statements false.

The six charges in the indictment stem from six specific lies Castro told FBI investigators after the shooting. Four of the counts are related to Castro accusing Sosa-Celis, Aljorna and a nonexistent third man of hitting him with a broom or shovel. One count is for Castro stating that a physical altercation between the three men lasted three minutes, and another count is over Castro’s statement that he was on the ground when he fired his gun. 

According to surveillance footage no one hit Castro with a broom or shovel. The physical altercation between them lasted 11 seconds, not three minutes. There was no other man present besides Castro, Aljorna and Sosa-Celis, and Castro was standing when he fired at the front door of the house. 

Castro worked for the U.S. Border Patrol for eight years before joining ICE in September, according to the indictment. 

Castro is also charged in Minnesota with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime. He was arrested in May by Texas Rangers, a state law enforcement agency, and held in a Texas county jail for 90 days. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blocked Castro’s extradition to Minnesota, prompting a lawsuit from Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, which failed to stop Castro’s release from jail last week. 

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty released a statement Thursday saying Castro is expected to appear first in a federal court in Texas, and a date will be set for his appearance in a Minnesota federal court. 

“Despite Gov. Abbott’s best efforts to shield Mr. Castro, we will see him soon,” Moriarty said. 

Months after Ramón Morales Reyes was falsely accused by the Department of Homeland Security of penning letters threatening to assassinate President Donald Trump, his children Ana and Antonio say that their family continues to live in fear while awaiting the outcome of their father’s deportation case. 

“My dad was framed for something that he did not do, and DHS knew exactly what they posted beforehand,” Ana Morales, 25, said at a press conference Friday at the Milwaukee office of Voces de la Frontera. “As a daughter, seeing my dad being framed for something he did not do was very heartbreaking,” she added.

Attorney Mark Thomsen said the family is seeking $5 million in damages caused by the federal government’s accusations against Morales Reyes, which the agency has yet to retract. Thomsen was joined by immigration attorney Cain Oulahan, Morales Reyes’ children, Voces de la Frontera Executive Director Christine Neumann-Oritz, and Milwaukee Turners Executive Director Emilio de Torre. 

Accused of something he didn’t do

In May 2025, Morales Reyes, then 54, was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, leaving his unoccupied vehicle on the roadside. Voces de la Frontera received a hotline call reporting the arrest. 

Born in Mexico, Morales Reyes has lived in the United States since 1986. His family described him as a hard worker and proud family man, who worked as a dishwasher.

His arrest came as the Trump administration ramped up arrests and deportations in 2025, the deadliest year in two decades for people being detained by ICE. Trump pledged to go after “the worst of the worst.” 

Morales Reyes had two encounters with law enforcement, both dating back to 1996, according to NPR. One was a hit-and-run incident in which he was arrested but not charged. The other was a disorderly conduct and property damage ticket relating to a dispute with his wife.

Former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem posted a statement on her agency’s website calling Morales Reyes an “illegal alien who threatened to assassinate President Trump.” 

DHS also released images of a letter, handwritten in English, that said: “we are tired of this president messing with us Mexicans” and stating “I will self deport myself back to Mexico but not before I use my 30 yard 6 to shoot your precious president in is head — I will see him at one of his big ralleys .” The reference to “30 yard 6”appears to be an incorrectly written reference to the high caliber rifle round .30-06.

Morales Reyes couldn’t have written the letter, however, his family, attorneys, and advocates said, since he could not speak English and did not read or write proficiently even in Spanish. 

Morales Reyes had applied for a U-visa, granted to victims of crimes, after he was  assaulted during an armed robbery in September 2023. Detectives from the Milwaukee Police Department were actively investigating whether someone was trying to frame him when ICE agents arrested him and publicized the  accusation that he was a would-be assassin. It was later determined that a man who had been arrested for assaulting Morales Reyes had written the letter in an effort to get him deported before he could testify in court.

Lasting harm

In June 2025, Morales-Reyes was released from ICE custody on bond. Yet he continues to face deportation proceedings, with a hearing expected in December in which a judge may make a decision on whether Morales Reyes can remain in the country. The family has received online harassment and threats since Morales Reyes was accused of writing the letter, Ana Morales said.

“He’s been going through depression, anxiety,” she said during the Friday press conference. “He doesn’t like going out anymore because he feels like everyone knows him due to what he was framed as. And ever since, it has taken a lot from us.” 

Ana’s brother Antonio Morales took over the mic when  his sister began to cry. “They really wanted to make this hurt us as much as possible, inflict as much pain, and they knew what they were doing intentionally,” he said of the Homeland Security arrest and accusations against his father.

“It was hard seeing your dad all over social media posted as some sort of, you know, some sort of assassin almost,” he added. “And that’s just not who my father is. Anyone who knows my father knows that isn’t him. It was just really scary seeing all those comments online, the fear that it caused my family seeing how everybody just…threatening us online over something that was just a false accusation. And I really think DHS knew that. I really think that they knew what they were doing. They wanted to do this to us. They want to do this to more immigrants, and they really want to keep terrorizing the community going forward.”

Thomsen asked members of the public to “imagine learning on social media that your father, or your grandfather, or your uncle, or your brother, or your sister was being accused of attempting to kill the president of the United States.” He added, “Imagine what that means, and then imagine that the person that is saying it is the strongest government in the world. … This was a lie, and they knew it was a lie. The lie is still up.”

Gesturing to Ana and Antonio Morales, he said, “Check it out folks, these are two young people with the courage to stand up to the biggest government on the planet, the most powerful government on the planet, and say, ‘Do the right thing America.’ If these two young folks can do it, everybody sitting at home safely can do it.”

Looking ahead

Although DHS has said in subsequent statements that Morales Reyes is no longer under investigation for threatening the president, the agency has continued to call for his deportation. Noem’s original press release accusing him of the assassination threat is still up on the government website. The Wisconsin Examiner reached out to DHS asking specifically whether the agency plans to remove the post and correct the record. The agency has not responded. 

Oulahan said that although Morales Reyes has a hearing in December, if a judge decides to deport him, he could remain in the country while his case is appealed. Thomsen said that the federal government has six months to respond to the family’s claim for compensation under the federal Tort Act, after which filing a civil lawsuit would be an option. Thomsen stressed, however, that avenues of recourse against the federal government are limited and that the second Trump administration has shown a willingness to violate or disregard court orders. 

De Torre said the federal government is “deceiving the public about everyday people.”

“They’re disrupting us emotionally, as you can see from Ana and Antonio. … It is disrupting our economy. It is disrupting our ability to attend houses of worship, go to school, and bring home food for our families. And on top of this, they then deny that they are doing this. Telling us that what we see is not real. How we feel and how we’re suffering is an illusion. And I’m sitting here today to say this is not so.”

Asked to describe some of her favorite memories of her father, Ana recalled how he would take her to the park and bike riding, one of his favorite activities. “I remember as a little kid on his days off I would always want corn, I’m obsessed with corn even to this day,” she said. Despite working second shift her father would always make time, she said. 

Antonio described his father as fond of video games. “He definitely made me a gamer,” he said. Occasionally Morales Reyes would let his son play. “I was just so amazed by these games,” he recalled, smiling. “It was really fun.”

Stanley Pophal, who previously pled guilty to defrauding 190 investors out of $14.25 million dollars, has been sentenced to eight years in prison.

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A Dane County judge says Wisconsin's Department of Corrections is complying with a 2025 ruling that ordered the prison system to implement a program for incarcerated moms and their infants.

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Milwaukee is tightening the leash around Flock automatic license plate reader cameras, with elected leaders calling for more oversight and restrictions as investigations into misuse by officers continue. 

Flock cameras utilize AI-powered technology to identify vehicles and license plates that pass within their view on roadways. The data is stored for several weeks or longer, allowing law enforcement officers from anywhere across the country to search for specific vehicles as long as their agency has a contract with Flock. 

An analysis by the Wisconsin Examiner found that at least 221 Wisconsin law enforcement agencies searched the Flock network during the first half of 2025, and that officers often used vague search terms to query the system. That same year, the multi-billion dollar Flock Safety company spent $102,000 lobbying the state government for grants to allow law enforcement agencies to acquire license plate reader cameras, though the Republican-backed bills were unsuccessful. 

On Tuesday, a directive went out from the office of Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley to county departments and the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office to limit Flock-related operations on county property, and to work towards adopting new transparency and accountability standards. 

“Public safety partners should have the right tools to keep Milwaukee County safe, but unchecked surveillance isn’t the answer,” said Crowley, who is running against Republican Tom Tiffany to become Wisconsin’s next governor, in a statement. “We have seen what can happen when this technology operates without clear rules, transparency and accountability. Protecting our residents’ privacy and maintaining the public’s trust is a responsibility I take seriously. That is why I am directing all County departments to limit the usage of all Flock camera systems and establish safeguards proactively, before a breach of public trust can occur.”

Crowley is calling on the Office of Corporation Counsel and the Information Management Services Division to evaluate current policies governing the use of any surveillance tech and to develop binding standards for its use. The standards will determine how surveillance technology can be used, how long data is kept, who can access that data and why, and limit when data is shared with an emphasis on prohibiting use for federal immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant, a county press release stated. These standards would also establish independent audits and enforceable consequences when surveillance technology is misused. 

Crowley is also calling on other local elected leaders to look closely at their own use of Flock cameras and adopt similar policies. Ultimately, these efforts could result in the adoption of a consistent standard across the county for Flock. 

In April Tiffany said he had never heard of Flock cameras, when he was asked about controversy around their use. “I’m going to sound ignorant on this, what are Flock cameras?” Tiffany said during a virtual question-and-answer session. 

More recently, Tiffany said that “government should not be building an AI surveillance network that tracks law-abiding Wisconsinites everywhere they drive.” Tiffany said that he would pause state funding for Flock and create a task force to establish stronger protections, penalties for misuse, limits on data sharing, and safeguards against foreign adversaries. Tiffany criticized Crowley for “repeatedly” seeking to install “more red-light cameras, speed cameras, and massive funding increases for automated license plate readers.” 

Police departments often acquire Flock cameras through non-competitive sole source contracts which bypass a public bidding process, keeping local councils and residents from even knowing that the technology has been acquired.

The changes in Milwaukee County come after the Milwaukee Police Department announced on Monday that it will be further restricting its Flock network. In a Monday press release the department said that it “supports the use of technology to assist in solving crimes that cause harm to our community,” and that new technology can help solve cases more quickly than traditional methods for investigations. 

“With that, we recognize that the use of such technology, like Flock technology, comes with great responsibility,” the department said in the press release. “These tools must always be used to prevent and reduce harm, not create more.” The department acknowledged the growing discontent and angst over Flock technology in the community, saying that “we do not dismiss these opinions.” The department went on to say that it “acknowledges the harm that former department members have caused that has damaged the trust we work so hard to build” and that it “acknowledges the human error that comes with the use of technology” and that the department is “working tirelessly to reduce error as much as we can.”

The Milwaukee police  announced that access to Flock has been restricted to supervisors only, and that the department will no longer share its Flock data with neighboring jurisdictions. Furthermore, the cameras may only be used for “Part I crimes” such as homicide, rape, robbery, aggravated assault including non-fatal shootings, burglary, larceny, motor vehicle theft, arson, human trafficking, as well as for critically missing people and investigating drug trafficking organizations. 

Earlier this year, the department began revamping its auditing procedures and limited the number of officers with access to Flock cameras to an “as needed basis,” risk manager James Lewis told the Examiner in June.

“MPD will continue to robustly audit its Flock systems,” the department’s Monday press release reads. “We are better together!”

The changes were followed on Tuesday by a statement from Mayor Cavalier Johnson that while technology can help law enforcement, “it is essential that we recognize the limitations and dangers associated with these tools.” Johnson added that “I recognize the benefits of the Flock cameras system.” He said that “on multiple occasions this tool has located critical missing persons and helped apprehend violent criminals in Milwaukee. The technology has also been misused in several notable instances, both locally and nationally, compromising the rights of individuals.” 

Several of those cases played out in Milwaukee and elsewhere in Wisconsin. Josue Ayala of Milwaukee, Cristian Morales of Menasha, and Frank McGrath of Kenosha County were all charged with either misdemeanor or felony misconduct in public office after using Flock to surveil their current or former romantic partners. Ayala was given a year of probation and avoided incarceration, whereas Morales was sentenced to six months in jail and three years of probation while avoiding prison time. McGrath’s case is still ongoing. 

In July, Tehrangi Chapman, a Milwaukee police internal affairs detective who was involved in investigating Ayala’s misuse of Flock, was also charged with using the cameras and car-mounted GPS devices to keep tabs on someone who he’d surveilled since 2019, before Flock even arrived in Milwaukee. Chapman has been charged with felonies, and his case is still ongoing. On Aug. 26, Chapman pled not guilty, and is expected back in court for a scheduling conference on Oct. 7, according to online court records. 

Each of the officers who’ve been found to have abused their access to Flock used terms like “suspicious” or “investigation” to search the Flock network, which were common terms found in the Examiner’s 2025 analysis. Other cases have also emerged, such as that of a man who is now suing the Waukesha County Sheriff’s Department after a deputy searched him in Flock following a traffic stop, for which the man sought to file a complaint against the deputy. 

As misconduct cases have emerged, communities across the state have opted to drop their Flock cameras including Kaukauna, Sturgeon Bay, Verona, Appleton, Oshkosh, Dane County and Stoughton. 

In Oshkosh, the request to cancel the Flock contract actually came from the police chief, who told local elected officials that representatives of the multi-billion dollar Flock Safety company had misled him on whether the cameras were able to develop heatmaps depicting a vehicle’s movement patterns. 

Elsewhere, community members have packed public meetings to tell local officials that they don’t want to be placed under perpetual surveillance, expressing fears about how the cameras could be misused by both local and federal law enforcement. Police leaders have had mixed responses to the concerns from residents. The police chief in Green Bay has opted to keep the cameras, citing their usefulness in solving violent crime while also acknowledging that steps need to be taken to protect people’s privacy, while a chief in the small city of Chetek threatened to do background checks on residents who spoke against the cameras in a public meeting.

Exactly how to handle the cameras is still a question local and national leaders are trying to answer. In August,  President Donald Trump said that the cameras have “pros and cons” and that “it’s being studied right now, we’ll have an answer soon as to our views on it.” When asked whether he’d consider banning Flock cameras statewide, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said, “I don’t know what the solution is, but I think there’s people all across our country that’s talking about it.” Evers said he recently talked with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz about Flock cameras. “Whether that [banning the cameras] is the answer, all’s I know is that we need to have an answer.”

There's a record number of people currently serving time in Wisconsin prisons, according to the latest state data.

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According to Wisconsin Department of Corrections statistics, the state’s prison population hit a new record high last week. As of Aug. 28, there were 23,854 people housed across adult prisons in Wisconsin. The figure surpasses the last record, set  in 2019, and raises questions about whether and how the state will take steps to address its chronically overcrowded prison problem. 

The record high was first reported by Wisconsin Watch, which noted that the prison system was designed to hold nearly 6,000 fewer people than it currently does. In some prisons, such as the three prisons housing women in Wisconsin, gyms and office spaces have been  converted into dorm space. Meanwhile, the DOC struggles with staffing shortages among correctional officers, medical and psych workers. 

Wisconsin is an outlier, with some of the highest rates of imprisonment for Black and brown people in the country. The state has also struggled to finally close the troubled Lincoln Hills juvenile prison, despite bipartisan agreement that it needs to shut down what has been one of the largest facilities of its kind in America.

Shannon Ross, a member of Justice Forward Wisconsin has watched the prison population rising again after dropping after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. “It’s been going up steadily every year,” Ross told the Wisconsin Examiner. “And it’s a confluence of the fact that we have too many ways for a person to get sent to prison — we just have a lot of crimes …  we have a lot of high penalties for crimes, and we have a lack of ways for people to come home early.” 

Emily Curtis, a member of the group Ladies of SCI, told the Examiner  Wisconsin “continues to rely heavily on incarceration without putting enough emphasis on what actually reduces incarceration over the long term.” 

While excessive sentences keep people in prison for as long as possible, Curtis added that “there are still not enough meaningful rehabilitation opportunities within the prison system that are accessible to everyone who could benefit from them.” She stressed that “education, job training, treatment, reentry preparation, and other programs need to provide people with real tools and realistic avenues for success when they return to their communities. If we want to reduce recidivism, rehabilitation cannot simply exist on paper. It has to create an actual path toward successful reentry.” 

The DOC says incarcerated people have access to various programs aimed at rehabilitation and education. Earlier this year, for example, the University of Wisconsin college system graduated its first incarcerated bachelors degree students in over 50 years. The students graduated as a result of a partnership program between the DOC and UW. 

The state agency has also pushed back against criticisms of the rising prison population, stating that it has limited authority to grant early release and that it’s up to the state Legislature to craft laws dealing with the pressing challenges faced by many DOC facilities. Although Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has proposed reforms in multiple state budget drafts, including closing aging prisons and establishing greater oversight, these ideas were rejected by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Meanwhile controversy has grown around exceptionally old prisons including in Waupun and Green Bay, where reports of deaths due to negligent medical care, violence, alleged drug smuggling by staff, extensive lockdowns restricting access to programming, and use of solitary confinement (what the DOC calls restrictive housing), and other problems have surfaced. Lawsuits and investigations targeted prison leaders for these problems. The population at Waupun plummeted from over 1,000 people to as low as 694 people in July 2024, which brought the population within the prison’s designed capacity, according to data compiled by Wisconsin Watch. As of Aug. 21, however, the population had risen to nearly 1,000 people. 

Ross, of the advocacy coalition Justice Forward, a formerly incarcerated person himself, said that in Wisconsin “the criminal justice system is used as a political football, and neither side is really moving what they know clearly in front of them should happen, because they don’t want to fully give up on the tough-on-crime claim that they can make.” The politics of crime and punishment, he says, results in elected leaders either not doing enough to institute reforms, or doubling down on a culture of punishment. “That creates this dynamic where everyone is trying to be seen as protecting society, meanwhile no one’s actually protecting society because it doesn’t make us healthier as a society having a large prison system.”

Curtis added that it’s important to “broaden the conversation about what rehabilitation actually means.” 

“Programs are important, but so is the environment a person lives in every single day. The daily interactions incarcerated people have with correctional staff can either reinforce rehabilitation or work directly against it. When the culture focuses primarily on catching mistakes, writing conduct reports, handing out punishment, or viewing positive behavior and accomplishments with suspicion, it becomes extremely difficult to create an environment where genuine change is encouraged.”

What drives the prison population to climb is a complicated formula. Part of it, many advocates say, is the system of revoking parole, probation and other forms of community release and sending people back to prison. Missing an appointment with a probation officer or a baseless accusation without thorough investigation can send someone on release back to prison. 

That’s what happened to Dennis Simmons, who was nearly sent back to prison in 2025 due to false accusations, and a probation agent who tried to revoke Simmons despite having evidence that the accusations against him were false. Simmons was housed in the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility while the case played out. He described the facility as overcrowded and short staffed. Simmons eventually beat the accusations, but said that the episode crushed his hopes of change after being in and out of the system most of his life. Simmons was later arrested in a different case, and the DOC recommended he be sent back to prison. Over 8,100 people were sent back to prison in 2025. 

Talking to people who’ve worked on the prosecution-side of the criminal justice system, Ross said he learned of many cases where people were sent  back to prison because prosecutors decided it was  a simpler, quicker, more cost-effective route than filing new charges against the person. Yet, at the root of the overpopulation issue is the lack of ways for people to come home early, Ross said.

Right now, there are people who’ve been incarcerated for decades who are going before the state’s commutations board to ask the governor to shorten their sentence. In April, Gov. Evers signed executive orders to revive the board, changing a pattern lasting decades of Wisconsin governors choosing to not use their power to alter prison sentences. The commutation process has been a target of attack for right-wing pundits, who frame efforts to shorten sentences as being soft on crime and releasing droves of criminals. The attacks are similar to those against probation, parole, and the bail system.

Marianne Oleson, co-executive director of Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO) said in an emailed statement that the revival of the commutations board is “an important and long-overdue step.” Oleson cautioned, however, that “commutations alone cannot resolve a crisis of this magnitude,” adding, “Wisconsin needs broader sentencing and supervision reform, expanded opportunities for earned release and ‘second look’ review, greater use of alternatives to incarceration, and substantial investment in housing, treatment, employment and community-based reentry support.”

“Wisconsin cannot incarcerate its way out of every social problem,” she said.

Ross told the Examiner that he understands why people might be skeptical of incarcerated people’s assurances that they’ve genuinely changed and deserve to be released. 

“I’m sympathetic to that because those things do happen, but they happen in life, period,” said Ross. Still, in his view, prison is one place where it’s hard to disguise bad character traits. “Those of us that have done time, we know that the fish bowl of prison is place that, if you can genuinely be changed and show people you’re changed there, then you very clearly are not who you were at one point.” 

Ross said people who apply for and meet the standards for commutation are demonstrating not only that they’ve done the bare minimum of educating themselves and getting therapy, but that more importantly, they are making connections with other people. “You can see folks that have built up support networks,” said Ross. “You see folks that have reference letters and have people in their corner. You can see folks in the way that they carry themselves, in the way they talk, it’s very humble. It’s very aware and accountable to the things that they’ve done.”

He added that “people show you who they are if you’re paying attention, and if you know how to look.” Ross said that he wants the state to get to a point where people are able to see through sensationalism about the criminal justice system, and understand the nuances of the issue and  people’s individual stories.

Curtis said something similar. “I would like to see state leadership take a comprehensive look at sentencing practices, revocation policies, rehabilitation, institutional culture, and reentry rather than treating the record prison population simply as a capacity problem,” she wrote. “Building or expanding facilities may address where people are housed, but it does not address why the population continues to grow or why people return.”

WASHINGTON — A federal judge over the weekend allowed the Trump administration to force-feed the man charged with shooting two National Guard members, killing one and injuring another, in the District of Columbia in November.

For months, Rahmanullah Lakanwal has refused to eat while incarcerated. 

The Aug. 29 order from U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta of the District of Columbia gives the go-ahead for medical staff at the Bureau of Prisons to conduct several types of nonconsensual feeding methods “to preserve defendant Rahmanullah Lakanwal’s life or to prevent a foreseeable deterioration in his condition that if not treated is likely to lead to death; replacement, maintenance, and care of defendant’s feeding tube when medically necessary; and lab work relating to the administration of nutrition.”

The order will allow for a feeding tube through Lakanwal’s nasal passage and into his stomach to provide nutrients; feeding through veins; or feeding through an already established tube connected to his stomach. The order does not allow for a tube to be established through his stomach, usually done via surgery. 

The Department of Justice charged Lakanwal with first-degree murder in the shooting of 20-year-old U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom and with the attempted murder of U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe. Lakanwal has pleaded not guilty to all 17 DOJ charges. 

He is an Afghan national who came to the United States under a humanitarian program after the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from the country. Following the shooting, the Trump administration paused all immigration processing for nationals from Afghanistan. A federal judge later reversed that move.  

The two West Virginia guard members last year were shot on Thanksgiving eve while stationed blocks from the White House as part of the president’s crackdown on crime, despite a continued decrease in violent crime.

Mehta, who was nominated by former President Barack Obama, has in the past considered but turned down the Trump administration’s requests for a court-ordered nonconsensual nutrition supplement, noting that Lakanwal has refused meals and medical treatment. 

In several hearings in federal court before Mehta, Lakanwal has appeared gaunt and has used a wheelchair. 

Mehta’s order will remain in effect until Oct. 28 and will allow the DOJ to request an extension if needed. 

The city of Sheboygan could be the latest Wisconsin community to cut ties with Flock Safety, the company behind a license plate reader camera system.

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A settlement announced yesterday between the social media giant Meta and dozens of states will lead to Meta paying billions of dollars, including more than $200 million to Wisconsin, and setting new protections for users under 18. A child development specialist provides tips for parents seeking to improve their children’s relationship with social media.

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Green Bay Packers star running back Josh Jacobs is facing misdemeanor criminal charges related to a domestic violence arrest in May.

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Flock Safety, the multibillion-dollar producer of Flock automatic license plate reader cameras, spent $102,000 in Wisconsin last year lobbying for state legislation to increase its nationwide surveillance network. That’s according to a report by OpenSecrets, which found that the controversial company dedicated over $2 million on lobbying efforts across the country in 2025.

The findings come as communities continue pushing back against Flock cameras. Some areas have cancelled contracts and removed the cameras altogether, while others have opted to increase oversight and auditing of how the cameras are used by police.

Flock cameras work by photographing every vehicle and license plate that passes by their view. The images and information are stored in a database that can be searched by law enforcement officers who work at agencies with Flock contracts. In many cases, police officers may query tens of thousands of cameras at once to determine whether any have sighted a vehicle sought by law enforcement. Using the captured data, police departments can also use Flock to keep track of a vehicle’s regular movement patterns.

In Wisconsin, Flock spent the $102,000 lobbying for a pair of Republican bills, Assembly Bill 300 and Senate Bill 299, which would have provided grants to allow local law enforcement agencies to obtain and install automatic license plate reader cameras. The legislation failed to pass in 2025.

Police departments have defended Flock cameras as valuable tools to combat crime from homicides to car theft. Critics, however have pointed to cases of officers searching Flock’s network for questionable or illegal reasons. Some departments have used Flock for immigration enforcement as the Trump administration ramped up its plans to carry out mass deportations. One sheriff’s deputy in Texas used Flock to locate a woman who’d recently had an abortion, fueling fears that local law enforcement were working to criminalize reproductive healthcare following the overturning of Roe v. Wade. In many other cases, male officers used Flock to monitor or stalk people, particularly current or former romantic partners.

Several of these cases have played out in Wisconsin. Earlier this month, former Menasha officer Cristian Morales was sentenced to six months in jail and three months probation for misusing Flock to stalk his ex-girlfriend. Meanwhile, new felony charges have been levied against former Kenosha County sheriff’s deputy Frank McGrath, who was found to have used Flock and a squad car tracking system to monitor his girlfriend, also a Kenosha sheriff deputy. 

Josue Ayala, a former Milwaukee officer, was charged for the same behavior. Ayala avoided jail time and instead received a year of probation after taking a guilty plea. More recently, Milwaukee Detective Tehrangi Chapman was charged with using Flock to monitor someone he has been accused of stalking since 2019, years before Flock came to Milwaukee. Chapman was one of the internal affairs detectives who investigated the allegations of Ayala’s Flock misuse. 

Each of the officers in these cases were charged with felony misconduct in public office, except for Ayala, who was charged with a misdemeanor. 

Questions around how the cameras are used have led to a distrust of the Flock Safety technology itself. Wisconsin communities including Kaukauna, Sturgeon Bay, Verona, Appleton, Oshkosh, Dane County and Stoughton have all cancelled their Flock camera contracts. 

Despite having several officers charged with misusing Flock and sustained calls from the public to stop using the technology, Milwaukee has retained its Flock contract. The police department has cited it as an asset in quickly developing leads and solving crimes. On Tuesday, however, 12 of Milwaukee’s 15 common council members signed a letter asking both the Fire and Police Commission and Police Chief Jeffrey Norman to review the department’s use of Flock cameras and to consider additional safeguards before the city begins to shape its 2027 budget — three times the number of alders who signed a similar letter in March. 

The council is asking for more information on how the Flock system is used, including a list of every agency that shares license plate reader data with the Milwaukee Police Department, and every agency with which the department shares its own data. The council is also demanding a complete accounting of searches by outside agencies using Milwaukee’s Flock network, as well as those conducted by the department on behalf of another agency. The letter also is requesting a list of all system users and their searches. 

In June, as controversy over Flock grew, the Milwaukee Police Department took steps to increase auditing procedures to flag suspicious searches, and restrict the number of officers who had access to the Flock system. The department also said that it shares its Flock network with state partners, but not with federal agencies. 

But the common council letter asks for more, including for case numbers and specific justifications for every Flock search, automated misuse detection, independent auditing, prohibitions on using Flock for immigration enforcement without a judicial warrant and regular public reporting to both the Fire and Police Commission and council. 

The letter also urges that, as discussions begin over the 2027 city budget, the city examines how Milwaukee’s Flock camera network has been funded over recent years, including how the contracts were granted multiple waivers as they were renewed. The city’s waivers, along with the use of sole source contracts with Flock, has made it possible for Milwaukee’s camera network to grow without  approval from the council. 

In response to the letter, MPD said in a statement that it will work with the commission and council to respond to concerns, and that it is committed to transparency and dialogue. 

 

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Meta agreed Wednesday to pay $17 billion and add stronger child-safety measures to its Facebook and Instagram platforms as part of a landmark legal settlement that ended a trial over teen social media addiction and settled claims filed by 47 states.

Wisconsin would receive at least $219 million and up to $313 million if conditions involving other social media companies are met, through what state Attorney General Josh Kaul called the “largest Big Tech settlement in the history of the country.”

The settlement resolved a pivotal case years in the making that sought to hold the tech giant accountable for the role its platforms played in undermining children’s mental health. The effort targeted features designed to hook young people’s attention.

“For years, Meta intentionally deceived the public about the addictive and harmful design features that have wreaked havoc on youth mental health,” Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones said. The settlement “will put an end to these dangerous practices and deliver meaningful relief that will protect children from online harm.”

“This resolution provides for several changes that prioritize kids’ well-being over Meta’s profits — as it should have been all along,” Kaul said in a statement. “This is a monumental step in changing the role of social media in kids’ lives for the better.”

Speaking at a Wednesday press conference, Kaul listed a variety of potential uses for the money, including school district grants for mental health programs, youth crisis intervention, after-school programs, digital wellness instruction or training for medical providers on the effects of interactive media use and body dysmorphia.

If approved by the court, the deal will stop an avalanche of litigation by states against Meta, although the company still faces lawsuits from individuals and school districts across the U.S. For the states, the settlement delivers money for programs to benefit kids’ mental health, including after-school or summer activities and digital literacy counselors.

Advocates cheered the new protections, including default time limits and the disabling of features such as “like” counts.

But “we cannot truly protect all children and teens until these protections are required on every platform and are permanent — that’s something only Congress can do,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of The Tech Oversight Project.

The settlement also includes payments resolving claims arising from Meta’s sharing of nonpublic Facebook user information with third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, ahead of the 2016 election.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the money would be paid out over 10 years, with the state getting at least $1.5 billion. New Jersey expects to receive at least $525 million. Massachusetts said it was in line for at least $366 million. Virginia’s share is worth $353 million.

Meta urges rivals to adopt similar safety measures

Meta said in a blog post that it was “building on our longstanding efforts to empower parents and support teens.”

“Ensuring teens have a safe and productive experience on our platforms is an absolute imperative for Meta,” the company said. “We want to get this right for parents and teens, and that’s why we partnered with state attorneys general to set a new industry standard.”

The company urged rivals TikTok and YouTube to adopt similar safety measures.

The $17 billion settlement is a fraction of Meta’s 2025 revenue of $201 billion.

The agreement cuts short an ongoing court case involving California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey, which were among 29 states that sued Meta in 2023. CEO Mark Zuckerberg was among those expected to take the stand before a jury in federal court in California.

The lawsuit accused Meta of contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features that addict children to its platforms and hiding them from the public. The case also argued that Meta violated federal laws by routinely collecting data on children under 13 without their parents’ consent.

The trial kicked off last week in Oakland, California, with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers overseeing the proceedings. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, began his testimony late Tuesday and defended Meta’s record and progress on child safety and privacy.

The cases in other states had been expected to go to trial later. In addition, nine attorneys general filed lawsuits in their respective states.

New features to include time limits and curbs on push notifications

Under the proposed settlement, Meta agreed to adopt a series of safety features, including a “hard cap” on daily time limits and pauses for children using Instagram and Facebook.

It will eliminate push notifications during weekday school hours and bring in “robust” age-assurance measures and “age-appropriate” content controls to prevent bullying and harmful material about eating disorders and self-harm.

There will be stronger and more user-friendly parental controls and limits on social comparison features such as “like” counts.

An independent auditor will assess how Meta is implementing the safety features and how effective they are.

Meta put the settlement at $18 billion, a figure that apparently includes a large award for Texas.

The company said 30% of that amount — about $5.3 billion — will be released to states only if rivals YouTube and TikTok meet two conditions: implementing similar safety features, including a one-hour daily time limit, a nighttime block and age-assurance measures; and paying the same amount, split between the two companies.

Neither YouTube owner Google nor TikTok responded immediately to requests for comments.

Wisconsin part of bipartisan coalition

The federal lawsuit was the result of an investigation led by a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general. It followed newspaper reports, first by The Wall Street Journal in 2021, that found that the company knew about the harm Instagram can cause teenagers — especially teen girls — when it comes to mental health and body image issues.

Meta has since added a host of safety features to Instagram, including separate accounts for teenagers with stronger protections around messaging and privacy, along with content restrictions.

But child safety experts, along with some former Meta employees, have long contended that the features are little more than window dressing.

Arturo Béjar, a former Meta engineering director, said during his testimony last week that Meta consistently prioritized profits over safety in designing its products, focusing on how often and for how long people used them, even if it was detrimental to their mental well-being.

“If you step away from the product, they are not going to make any money,” he said.

While the four states in the Oakland trial did not officially say how much they had been seeking, Meta said in a court filing that financial penalties in the case could amount to as much as $1.4 trillion — a figure legal experts said was unlikely, if not impossible.

Jim Malewitz of Wisconsin Watch contributed reporting.

Wisconsin to receive up to $313 million in landmark Meta settlement 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.

Billionaire Elon Musk will not face criminal charges related to a social media post he made offering $1 million to people who voted in the 2025 state Supreme Court race, the La Crosse County District Attorney’s Office announced Tuesday.

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The Beloit City Manager is defending the police chief as the department faces severe staffing shortages since she took over the job.

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As more states seek ways to limit immigration enforcement, a Stateline analysis shows one tactic has had an effect: making it more difficult for local law enforcement to hand over people they are holding in city or county jails to federal immigration authorities.

The analysis found that states with strict non-cooperation policies — Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York and Washington state — have the lowest rates of immigration arrests in jails.

The highest rates were generally in states that limit or bar so-called sanctuary policies. Those states include Wyoming, West Virginia, Mississippi and Alabama.

New Mexico, a border state, also was one of the five states with the highest local jail arrest rate despite having some statewide policies limiting cooperation. The state ethics commission sued the state corrections department in July charging violations of a state law banning most cooperation.

However, early threats from the Trump administration to target sanctuary states for more street arrests had uneven results through March 10, the latest data released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and obtained by the California-based Deportation Data Project. The analysis includes arrests since Jan. 20, 2025, the first day of the second Trump administration.

President Donald Trump announced March 5 he would replace high-profile Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, and that Markwayne Mullin would take over March 31. Mullin has pledged a more low-key approach to ramping up immigration enforcement.

Stateline’s analysis doesn’t reflect a new wave of arrests starting in June that has pushed arrests to new highs, or new airport arrests in recent months cracking down on people with expired visas. But the data does show an administration struggling to get arrest numbers up everywhere, said Jacob Kang-Brown, a criminologist who did a similar analysis in October for the Prison Policy Initiative, a Massachusetts-based think tank that seeks to reduce incarceration.

Last year border czar Tom Homan said he would “flood the zone” with extra street enforcement in sanctuary cities. States without sanctuary policies, such as Florida, would be treated differently, he said.  “We don’t have that problem in Florida, where every sheriff is working with us,” Homan said.

But Kang-Brown said cooperative states did not get a break from street operations and raids.

“They don’t stop doing stuff in the community just because they can get in the jails. It was very widespread arrests around the country, even in states that collaborated enthusiastically and were pushing ICE for even more enforcement, like Florida.” Kang-Brown said.

In the Stateline analysis, Florida’s rate of street arrests ranked 40th, about the same as Washington state, which has restrictions on immigration arrests at jails, and higher than Connecticut, which has similar restrictions. Connecticut Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont rejects the sanctuary label, calling the restrictions “clear rules for cooperation with federal immigration authorities.”

Some states with policies restricting jail transfers to ICE did see high rates of street arrests last winter amid attacks on what the administration often calls  “sanctuary politicians”  in those states. Maine, Minnesota and the District of Columbia were among  the 10 states with the highest rates of street arrests as a share of noncitizens, and many of those arrested did not have criminal records.

Operation Metro Surge, concentrated in Minnesota’s Minneapolis-St. Paul over the winter, ended in two killings by federal agents and hundreds of millions of dollars in business losses.

But cooperative states also saw high rates of street arrests: Seven of the 10 states with the highest rates of street arrests as a share of noncitizens were ones with cooperative policies. The very highest was West Virginia, where there were only 17,100 noncitizens counted in 2024 but hundreds were arrested in a single “surge team” operation in January.

After criticism from the Trump administration, some states have backed off some of the more far-reaching sanctuary policies, but others have been emboldened by the unpopularity of Trump’s mass deportation agenda.

Stateline’s analysis underscores the fact that local jails, and how they handle ICE detainer requests to hold inmates for immigration arrests, are a powerful tool.

ICE often criticizes cities and states with sanctuary policies for releasing violent criminals, but only a small fraction of arrestees are violent criminals and a large number have only immigration violations.

“Generally if someone poses a real threat to safety, public safety or national security, that detainer is generally respected,” said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an associate policy analyst for the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank specializing in immigration research.

But, she added, “if someone got a ding on a speeding ticket and otherwise has a clean record, then there are some places that are not going to hand that person over or hold that person for ICE.”

Report disputes claims about recent ICE arrests in WV, says 75% of immigrants had no criminal record

ICE made a record 51,000 arrests in July but hasn’t released detailed information by state since March.

For all ICE arrests combined, the highest rates were in Wyoming, West Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama and New Mexico, all having more than 300 arrests per 10,000 noncitizens through March.

The street arrests pulled in more people without criminal records — 81% of the Washington, D.C., street arrests were for immigration-related offenses only and the share was about two-thirds or more in 14 other states with statewide sanctuary policies.

Some states have tried to strike a balance, allowing jail transfers to ICE for a list of crimes, including charged crimes as well as convictions, and for court orders of removal, which can be issued for some immigration offenses.

In New Jersey, the state legislature backed off some proposed changes that would have made it harder for ICE to make arrests in local jails. The law as signed in March maintained controversial exceptions for immigrants with removal orders and for immigrants facing charges and well as convictions among a list of serious crimes.

Passage of the law came after the Trump administration in March highlighted the case of a New Jersey man charged with sex crimes against a child younger than 15 years old, calling it a “New Jersey nightmare” and claiming the man might have qualified for release under state policies at the time, despite a detainer request. Court records indicate the man was never released and remains in an Ocean County jail after pleading guilty pending sentencing in September.

In some states, including Maryland, the Trump administration and local sheriffs have challenged policies against extending local jail time or responding to immigration detainers. Courts have ruled that such detainers are voluntary requests that states and cities may turn down legally, and there are preliminary injunctions in California and Washington state against withholding some or all federal funding because of it. Those injunctions are under appeal.

A similar lawsuit by the administration against New Jersey cities was dismissed in June.

That hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from hectoring state and municipalities it sees as overly lax on detainer policies.

“Sanctuary policies continue to disregard U.S. immigration law and put communities at risk by releasing illegal aliens prone to criminal activity into our communities,” said Robert Guadian, the Washington, D.C., field office director for ICE’s enforcement and removals office, in an Aug. 6 statement. Guadian complained that two young men had been released from a Maryland jail in Prince George’s County after criminal charges were dismissed. They were later arrested by ICE in separate traffic stops.

Delaware’s legislature in June approved a bill, now awaiting Democratic Gov. Matt Meyer’s signature, with exceptions only for certain crime convictions.

New Mexico State Ethics Commission sues state Corrections secretary over probation ICE referrals

Even as the Trump administration has been frustrated by legal attempts to force more compliance with detainers, it’s been more successful with encouraging participation in the 287(g) program that allows local officers to investigate immigration themselves and help turn prisoners over to ICE. The programs are in 39 states, but are heavily concentrated in Texas and Florida.

“ICE is actually paying the salaries of some local sheriffs or law enforcement, and that’s a huge savings for their jurisdictions,” said Putzel-Kavanaugh, of the Migration Policy Institute. “For a local town or sheriff that could be huge.”

The tension between federal immigration authorities and local jail authorities has been around for decades, noted Graber, of the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. Local and state authorities have the best possible awareness of local crime, she noted, and fingerprints from their arrest get transmitted automatically to immigration authorities to choose candidates for arrest and deportation.

“ICE has been pursuing the local law enforcement’s broad reach into communities and their ability to surveil the public at a much greater level for a long time,” Graber said. “That’s why they want instant information about every person who’s arrested.”

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