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Marshall Jones is a good test case for your opinion about the state’s revived commutation process. 

In April, Gov. Tony Evers announced he was restarting the commutation process – a form of clemency that allows governors to change prison sentences for incarcerated people. 

In a statement, Evers said he was trying to move Wisconsin’s “justice system into the 21st Century by reforming our criminal justice and corrections systems to improve public safety, reduce the likelihood that individuals will reoffend when they enter our communities and save taxpayer dollars in the long run.”

Some supporters of Evers’ decision say people can change after decades in prison and that remaining there no longer serves any beneficial purpose. 

However, critics question whether people convicted of serious violent crimes should ever be released early.

Jones sits at the center of these views.

He was sentenced in 2004 to two consecutive terms of life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to two counts of first-degree intentional homicide. 

He said he fully acknowledges his crimes, which occurred during an armed tavern robbery in Racine, and continues to have remorse over them. 

“No amount of right I have done would ever erase the wrong I have done to my victims and their families, and I understand that perfectly,” Jones said. “I also know that I am a transformed man, and I am rehabilitated.”

Applying for commutation

Jones said he decided to apply for a commutation the moment his wife, Jessica Jones, told him about Evers’ announcement.

There are two commutation tracks: a general commutation process for people convicted as adults and a separate process for some sentenced as juveniles.

Jones, who was 22 when he was sentenced to life and is now 44, qualifies for the first track. 

Applicants qualify for this track if they are: incarcerated on a Wisconsin conviction, have more than one year left on their sentence, have served at least half their incarceration term or at least 20 years of a life sentence. 

They also cannot be serving sentences for sex offenses, have unresolved criminal charges or warrants, or have committed violent misconduct in prison within the past five years.

Individuals who apply must provide information about the crimes for which they are seeking commutation, prior interactions with law enforcement, prison disciplinary history, rehabilitation efforts, and reentry plans. 

Applications also require certified court records as well as letters of support. 

“Emotionally, a person has to remain calm,” Jones said. “There is a sense of urgency that will be overwhelming at times.”

He said coming up with a clear plan has been vital to overcoming his panic.

 “One box at a time. One task at a time,” he said.

For and against

Nationally, many politicians associated with “tough-on-crime” policies have opposed sentence reductions for people convicted of violent crimes, arguing rehabilitation cannot outweigh the harm caused.

In Wisconsin, it has become a hotbed issue in the race for governor. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany’s gubernatorial campaign told NNS that he would rescind the executive orders that allow murderers, including those serving life sentences, to be released back into the community after 20 years. 

“He is making a commitment as governor that he will not release violent criminals early and will ensure victims and their families receive the full measure of justice,” said the Tiffany campaign.

Diego Rodriguez, coalition coordinator for Justice Forward Wisconsin, an advocacy coalition focused on criminal justice reform, said he understands the concerns people have but believes they are based on misunderstandings of the process. 

Commutation is far from automatic, he said. The approval process includes multiple reviews, eligibility restrictions and detailed reentry planning requirements. 

“These are pretty thorough applications,” Rodriguez said. “If somebody still poses a threat to the community, they’re not going to let them out.”

Shannon Ross, a criminal justice advocate who works with Justice Forward to support the commutation application process, said people in prison who have genuinely transformed often have clear ways of showing that to be the case.

“If you’ve been doing the work, if you’ve been spending your time constructively, this is your moment,” Ross said.

Impact of victims

The impact of a commutation on victims and survivors will be part of how applications are evaluated, according to Executive Order #287.  Also evaluated will be the potential impact on public safety, applicants’ prison conduct and their personal growth and development since conviction. 

“What commutations allow is for the governor to come in and to step in and to identify people who have made changes,” Rodriguez said.

If someone is truly remorseful, has accepted responsibility and demonstrated long-term change, prison no longer serves any meaningful rehabilitative purpose, he said.

Rodriguez also said that commutations could improve public safety by helping reduce overcrowding inside Wisconsin prisons.

Wisconsin prisons have long faced overcrowding and staffing shortages.

“Far more people are incarcerated than we even have space for,” Rodriguez said. 

Under these conditions, Rodriguez said, prisons become less safe and less effective at rehabilitation.

“It makes our community less safe when we have overcrowded prisons because they’re not getting the same quality of treatment,” Rodriguez said.

Accountability

During a commutation application webinar organized by Justice Forward Wisconsin, former Wisconsin Parole Commission Chair John Tate II said accountability is central to the process.

“The thing that I would emphasize the most when we’re talking about a discretionary mechanism within the criminal legal system is accountability, accountability, accountability,” Tate said. 

“Any minimization of what their role in that (crime) was is often seen as a lack of accountability,” he added.

Jones said his accountability starts with fully acknowledging the harm he caused and what kind of person he once was.

“I was a horrible person, and I took lives without mercy,” Jones said.

But Jones said decades in prison changed him.

His wife, Jessica, who met him while working at the New Lisbon Correctional Institution in Juneau County, said her views on rehabilitation have changed by getting to know people who are incarcerated. 

“Most of the general public believes that all people in prison are horrible people, incorrigible and worthless,” she said. “I used to be one of those people. I believed everyone in prison could be nothing more than their worst day. Then, I worked in the prison and learned how wrong I was.”  

She said she met many men in prison who shouldn’t be there anymore. She believes her husband is one of them. 

“He does more good than many free people I know,” she said. “He does not let his sentence or crime define him even though it’s a daily reality.”

Open questions

Major questions about the process still remain, including how quickly applications will be processed and how many people could ultimately receive commutations. 

There is also uncertainty surrounding the future of the process itself. NNS reached out to the governor’s office to ask whether the commutation process could change under new leadership but did not receive a response. 

“This is a governor’s last term,” Rodriguez said. “When it comes to executive orders, those can be changed in an instant.”

Gov. Tony Evers’ commutation process draws support, criticism as applicants seek release 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.

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Elvira Benitez Suarez stepped out of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office in downtown Milwaukee on Monday to cheers from a crowd of supporters — her first time leaving the building without handcuffs.

The 51-year-old Sheboygan Falls woman left U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody last week on bond; her daughter picked her up outside the northern Kentucky detention facility where she had spent the previous two months. 

“I didn’t see daylight for 17 days, so I was very, very heartened and excited that I saw my family,” she said. 

The Monday morning check-in in Milwaukee was her first interaction with immigration authorities since returning to Wisconsin. She arrived with her family, attorney and two members of the Milwaukee Common Council in tow. 

Nearly a dozen other immigrants wove through the crowd to line up behind Benitez for their own check-ins; some picked up contact information from her attorney while they waited to enter the building. 

Benitez’s time in Kentucky was her second stint in ICE custody in the past year. Benitez, who emigrated from Mexico as a teenager and lived without legal status for over three decades, first landed in detention after a wrong turn on a family road trip took her across the Canadian border in July 2025. U.S. immigration authorities arrested her when she reentered the country. Benitez had no prior interactions with law enforcement or the federal immigration court system. 

In her absence, Benitez’s two adult daughters, both U.S.-born, took in their school-age siblings and helped manage their parents’ painting and cleaning business. 

A federal district court judge in Ohio ruled last fall that Benitez is eligible for a green card, citing — among other factors — the hardships her children experienced in her absence. After waiting a month for immigration authorities to complete her background check, Benitez returned to Wisconsin in December, only to be arrested again during a check-in at the Milwaukee DHS office in March while the agency appealed the judge’s ruling. 

“We checked in, everything went fine, and we were actually walking out the door when they stopped us,” recalled her attorney, Marc Christopher. 

After stops in Chicago and Indianapolis, Benitez landed in a cell at the Campbell County Detention Center, a northern Kentucky jail that contracts with ICE to hold immigrants facing deportation proceedings. Benitez recounted finding fellow Wisconsinites in her unit; nearly two dozen other immigrants detained in Wisconsin have passed through Campbell County within the last year.

But a recent decision by an Ohio-based federal appeals court opened a door for Benitez to again return to Wisconsin. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last month that a year-old Trump administration policy requiring detention for most immigrants in deportation proceedings amounts to a violation of due process rights, joining federal appellate courts in New York and Georgia. Appellate courts in Louisiana and Missouri have sided with the Trump administration, and the appellate court based in Chicago remains divided on the issue.

The 6th Circuit holds jurisdiction over Kentucky, and its ruling allowed Benitez to file a bond motion in immigration court — an option once available to most immigrant detainees that largely vanished after the Trump administration introduced its mandatory detention policy last year. An immigration court judge in Memphis granted her bond motion on May 21, setting her bond amount at the minimum allowed under court rules: $1,500.

As a condition of her bond, Benitez will continue checking in at the Milwaukee DHS office.

Benitez’s Monday morning check-in was brief and straightforward. Like other immigrants granted bond, she was directed by immigration officers to download a tracking app that will prompt her to take a photograph of her face once a week to compare against booking photos.

DHS is still appealing last year’s ruling that set Benitez on track to secure legal permanent residency. That appeal, currently in the hands of the federal Board of Immigration Appeals, is still pending. 

“I would never put anything past the Board of Immigration Appeals,” Christopher said during a press conference on Monday, alluding to the board’s recent tendency to side with the Trump administration on immigration court rule changes. Nevertheless, Christopher added that he believes Benitez’s case is strong enough to defy the odds.

Benitez herself is still recovering. “I can’t sleep,” she said, recounting the grim details of her latest stint in custody — fellow detainees whose pregnancies ended in miscarriages, late-night bus trips with erratic drivers and no seat belts, and harassment from nonimmigrant inmates with whom she shared a cell in Kentucky. Benitez noted that she is in contact with the families of several fellow detainees who remain in Kentucky.

Her eldest daughter, Crystal Aguilar, also needs time to bounce back. In her mother’s absence, “my life was on hold,” she said. A return to normality still seems far away, she added.

Freed on bond, Sheboygan Falls woman returns to Milwaukee immigration office amid legal limbo 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.

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Track Wisconsin’s prison population 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.

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• Wisconsin’s women’s prisons are 78% over capacity compared to its men’s facilities, which are 30% over capacity. 
• The issue isn’t new, but despite decades of overcrowding, the system is approaching a record number of prisoners. 
• Wisconsin Watch created a tracker that shows how the population of each prison has changed over time and how far it is above that facility’s design capacity.

As Wisconsin’s prison population nears a record high, the state’s already-full prisons are getting even more crowded — especially for women. The state’s three women’s prisons collectively house 18 women for every 10 they were designed for, making them the most crowded of all state facilities.

One reason: While growth in the women’s prison population has far outpaced growth in the men’s system, Wisconsin prison officials shrank the facilities that housed them — to make more space for men.

Now, to make room for women, prison officials have set up beds in gyms and offices.

“They just cram us in wherever they can, it’s sad,” wrote Sarah Buckingham, who is currently incarcerated at Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional Center, a minimum-security facility in Racine County that now houses more than twice as many people as it was designed for.

Across the system, the rising number of prisoners and a shortage of staff have strained resources. Prisoners often wait months or years for limited spots in treatment, education and work programs, the very programs designed to prepare them for release. That, advocates say, could mean people wait longer to get out, or even end up returning to prison — making facilities even more crowded.

A new data tool from Wisconsin Watch allows anyone to track the population of the system and of each facility for free. The dashboard, which shows weekly population and capacity counts going back to 2006, updates automatically when prison officials post the latest figures. 

The data makes it clear: Overcrowding is not new. Wisconsin’s prisons have held thousands more people than intended for at least the last 20 years. The population dipped during the COVID-19 pandemic but is now heading toward an all-time high. More than 23,600 people are in state custody, according to the latest figures available from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. That’s about 200 shy of the record 23,826 set in 2019.

The dashboard can’t show how the trends could soon change. In April, Gov. Tony Evers announced the state would soon commute prison sentences for the first time in 25 years, though it’s not yet clear how many people may be eligible or how long the process will take.

Women’s prisons are the most crowded

Female prisoners bear the brunt of the state’s overcrowding predicament. While the state’s male facilities are about 30% over capacity in total, its female facilities are 78% over capacity. That’s according to the department’s latest data, which shows population and capacity as of May 22. 

Taycheedah Correctional Institution, the state’s only maximum-security women’s prison, is designed to house 653. On May 22, it housed 1,039. 

Prison officials have raised alarms about conditions at Taycheedah for at least a decade. 

“The increased population at TCI has detrimental effects on the prison,” they wrote in a 2016 budget request, when the population was 873. Crowded conditions could cause security problems, they wrote, as each correctional officer must supervise more prisoners. They also noted the steep competition for access to programs for treatment or training. 

“There is also decreased programming availability to inmates, and programming has been shown to help reduce recidivism,” the authors wrote.

Since then, the facility has added nearly 170 women. 

“(Taycheedah) has already undergone conversions to turn spaces into living areas that were not originally meant to be used as living areas due to a problem with overcrowding,” said Daniel Cromwell, an administrator for the state’s corrections department, in an April court filing.

Wisconsin Watch heard from six currently incarcerated women who watched the women’s prison population balloon. They described sharing already overcrowded bathrooms with more women and competing for treatment and employment resources. 

Department of Corrections spokesperson Beth Hardtke confirmed that beds have previously been set up in the gym at Taycheedah but said no one is living in the gym now. Taycheedah staff are currently converting a “former property room” into a dormitory to house 20 women, Hardtke said.

The issue isn’t isolated to Taycheedah. The Milwaukee Women’s Center is at 255% capacity. Robert E. Ellsworth Correctional is now at 219% of its capacity.

Fifteen years ago, the state’s women’s prisons had nearly enough space, not just because there were fewer prisoners, but because there was a fourth women’s minimum-security prison. John C. Burke Correctional Center in Waupun, designed for 186 prisoners, housed women from 2000 to 2011, when it was converted into a men’s minimum-security prison. 

The move dropped the capacity of the women’s system — just as the number of female prisoners spiked. In the 15 years since, the women’s prison population has grown nearly 29%, more than four times as fast as the men’s population.  

Now, state officials are making plans to turn Burke back into a women’s prison, part of a $500 million prison reorganization Gov. Tony Evers proposed last year.

Overcrowding limits education, training 

Overcrowding doesn’t just mean getting an extra roommate or waiting longer for a shower. It also means prisons need extra staff — staff they often struggle to find. In 2023, prison officials locked down Waupun — canceling programs and confining prisoners to their cells for the better part of several months — because they didn’t have enough officers to conduct normal operations, Wisconsin Watch reporting revealed.

While the staffing shortage has eased since, the system is still short about 620 full-time correctional officers and sergeants, the latest DOC figures show. 

Those shortages can mean prison programs get cut or canceled, said Shannon Ross, founder and executive director of the Milwaukee-based nonprofit The Community, which helps incarcerated people pursue education and develop as leaders.

“If you have too many people to watch per staff member, now, ‘Oh, we can’t have classes tonight because we need to have more people over here watching more people that are incarcerated,’” Ross said. 

Ross, who earned a bachelor’s degree while serving a 17-year sentence in Wisconsin prisons, said when prisons are packed and money is tight, prison officials scale back vocational training and higher education to focus on the basics: food, housing, security, court-ordered programming and services prisons are legally required to provide.

“Anything beyond that is going to become superfluous,” he said. That’s a problem, he said, because more than 90% of Wisconsin’s prisoners will one day be released. “Who do we want them to be?”

How we got here

Wisconsin isn’t the only state struggling to find room for all its prisoners. Across the country, prison populations spiked in the 1980s and 1990s as states adopted harsher punishments and “truth-in-sentencing” legislation. The latter requires most prisoners to spend their full sentence behind bars, without the possibility of parole. 

Suddenly the flow of people out of prison slowed, while as many as ever flowed in. Lots also flowed back, returning to prison for allegedly violating the terms of their release.

In Wisconsin, the prison population peaked in August 2019 at 23,826, then dropped sharply beginning in March 2020 as courts shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In just over a year, the number of people in prison fell by nearly 20% to 19,381, the lowest figure in the last two decades. 

As the state’s courts reopened, they began working through a backlog of cases — and sending more people to prison. In a 2023 report, the Legislative Fiscal Bureau said that if the prison population continued growing as fast as it was, it would set a record of 24,800 by July 2025. 

The authors predicted that wouldn’t happen, and they were right. 

“While recent growth patterns have been sizable, it is likely that the updated growth rate is too high to continue for the duration of the 2023-25 biennium, and that the recent rapid growth is likely temporary,” the authors wrote, noting that “at some point, the courts will catch up and prison populations will level out and grow at a slower rate.”

Still, the numbers have kept rising, and the growth has gotten faster, not slower. In the last year, that growth has been fueled entirely by a surge in women prisoners: While the male population fell slightly between May 2025 and May 2026, the female population rose by more than 4%.

What’s the solution?

Policymakers and prisoner advocates disagree about the answer to Wisconsin’s crowded prisons. 

In the major revamp he proposed last year, Gov. Evers called for, among other things:

• Closing the nearly 130-year-old Green Bay Correctional Institution.
• Transforming Waupun Correctional Institution into a “vocational village.” 
• Converting the troubled Lincoln Hills School from a juvenile prison to an adult prison.
• Converting Burke into a women’s prison.
• Expanding a program that allows some people incarcerated for nonviolent crimes to qualify for early release by completing treatment for substance use. 

Together the changes would reduce the state’s prison capacity by 700. The plan drew criticism from Republican lawmakers, who pointed to the state’s crowded prisons as a sign that the state needs more space in its prisons, not less.

State Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine, said the answer is “right-sizing” the number of prisoners by “adding additional beds, reducing overcrowding and making facilities safer for not only our inmates, but for our staff,” Wisconsin Public Radio reported. 

In October, the State of Wisconsin Building Commission released $15 million to plan for Evers’ proposed changes. 

Ross of The Community calls that proposal a “marginal improvement.”

“It’s not getting us the level of change that everybody would need to see and want to see … You’ve got to get past marginal improvements at some point to really have something different,” Ross said. “Otherwise, it’s just a different version of the exact same problem every year we’re facing.”

One way to do that, he said, is to repeal truth-in-sentencing laws to reduce the number of people behind bars.

“Stop having a system in which people cannot get back out if they’re ready,” Ross said.

That, like other major prison changes, would require legislative action. But lawmakers in the Republican majority have stymied reform for years, Evers’ spokesperson Britt Cudaback said. 

“Gov. Evers has repeatedly worked to comprehensively reform our state’s justice system and corrections statutes to save taxpayers and reduce overcrowding, invest in evidence-based alternatives to incarceration, and improve public safety in our communities while reducing the likelihood that someone may reoffend once they have completed their sentence,” Cudaback said in an email. 

But Evers can’t make those changes unilaterally, Cudaback said, and lawmakers in the Republican majority have “refused nearly every effort to address these challenges over the last nearly eight years.”

In April, with nine months left in office, Evers announced he would use one of the few tools available for single-handedly easing overcrowding: commutations. It’s the first time in 25 years that incarcerated people in Wisconsin can request to have their sentence shortened. 

Advocates across the state are still trying to determine how many of Wisconsin’s nearly 24,000 prisoners may be eligible, and they’re working to help as many eligible people as possible apply. 

The first meeting of the Commutation Advisory Board will take place in June, and the first commutations will be issued some time after that. With Gov. Evers leaving office in January, it will be up to the next governor to decide whether the process continues.

Wisconsin Watch reporter Addie Costello contributed to this report.

Wisconsin’s prison population is heading toward a record high. Track the trend here. 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.

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Los Angeles International Airport customs officers took Everlee Wihongi aside for questioning in April. Her family hasn’t seen her since.

Wihongi, a longtime resident of Hortonville, Wisconsin, was passing through Los Angeles during a return trip from her native New Zealand. The 37-year-old green card holder had made the same trip at least a half-dozen times, even after pleading no contest to a felony marijuana possession charge in Fond du Lac County in her mid-20s. 

But with the White House’s nationwide immigration enforcement crackdown in full swing, customs officers took a new approach to the felony on her record. After a few uneasy hours in a secluded screening room, Wihongi left the airport in shackles en route to an immigration detention center in a desert valley northeast of Los Angeles.

Wihongi is one of hundreds of legal permanent residents federal immigration authorities have detained since President Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, often while they passed through airports and other ports of entry. Most — like Wihongi — had prior criminal convictions.

Those convictions generally make immigrants “inadmissible,” meaning they cannot freely re-enter the U.S.

Customs officers have “a lot of discretion at the port of entry” when deciding whether to allow green card holders with convictions like Wihongi’s to re-enter the country, Madison-based immigration attorney Aissa Olivarez said. “They have given none lately.”

“Possessing a green card is a privilege, not a right,” a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson wrote in an email to Wisconsin Watch. “Our government has the authority to revoke a green card if our laws are broken and abused,” the spokesperson added, and to detain legal permanent residents while they await a decision in their removal case. 

The sharp increase in arrests of green card holders doesn’t stem from a policy change, but immigration attorneys say cases like Wihongi’s are yet another sign that federal immigration authorities are reshuffling their priorities.

Old conviction is grounds for detention

Wihongi has held a green card since childhood, when her father’s career as a locomotive engineer brought the family to northeast Wisconsin. “As the years went by, it was just cheaper to renew (her) green card,” her mother, Betty Wihongi, recalled.

Her 2014 conviction was not grounds for deportation, said Marc Christopher, a Milwaukee immigration attorney representing Wihongi. “She can remain here and become a U.S. citizen,” he said, “but once she crosses the border, she’s governed by the rules of admissibility.”

But family vacations to New Zealand passed without incident over the decade following Wihongi’s conviction. “Normally, they will just look at, look at your passport, look at your green card, you know, ask you, where you’ve been?” her mother said. “And usually it’s like two, three minutes, not even that.” 

“I just don’t think they made an issue of it” in the past, Christopher added. “They weren’t going to detain her for two to three months,” he said, in part because detaining and prosecuting a green card holder is an expensive undertaking. As of May 2025, DHS reported that the average cost to arrest, detain and deport an immigrant was roughly $17,000, though costs vary widely from case to case.

DHS detention records point to a sudden shift in practice after the Trump administration resumed control of immigration enforcement operations last year. Immigration authorities detained an average of at least 100 legal permanent residents each month between January 2025 and February 2026 — five times the monthly average in the final two years of the Biden administration, the only portion of his term for which data is available. 

At least 75% of legal permanent residents detained during the latter half of the Biden administration had prior criminal convictions, compared with at least 66% of those detained since Trump returned to office. 

Only a tiny fraction of detainees’ records from either period list marijuana possession as their most serious criminal charge, though immigration enforcement officers arrested more legal permanent residents with prior marijuana possession convictions in the first year of the Trump administration than in the previous two years combined. 

Wihongi is the second Wisconsin green card holder in ICE custody to join Christopher’s caseload since January 2025. His previous client, also blocked from re-entering the country because of a prior marijuana possession conviction, spent five months in detention before Christopher secured his release. 

Olivarez, the Madison-based immigration attorney, offered another recent example from her own caseload: a legal permanent resident and longtime Milwaukeean detained while returning from his wife’s funeral in Egypt because of a prior felony. That client eventually accepted a deportation order to avoid a lengthy stint in custody.

A stricter standard

The growing cohort of green card holders in ICE custody is still vastly outnumbered by the tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants detained alongside them. 

Federal immigration authorities have arrested more than 400,000 people since January 2025, including roughly 1,700 in Wisconsin. 

Just over half of all immigrants arrested by ICE in Wisconsin during the second Trump administration had prior criminal convictions, as was the case in the latter years of the Biden administration. But the criminal histories of more recent arrestees suggest that the stricter standards that landed Wihongi in custody are reshaping other corners of the immigration enforcement apparatus.

ICE officers in Wisconsin arrested 82 immigrants with prior traffic offense convictions in the first full year after Trump returned to office, up from 19 in the last full year of the Biden administration.

In years past, Christopher said, federal immigration authorities were less inclined to begin removal proceedings solely based on traffic offenses like driving without a license, instead prioritizing immigrants convicted of more serious offenses. 

Immigrants who come into contact with Wisconsin courts after a traffic offense now face a far higher risk of landing in federal custody, Christopher added. 

He attributes the shift in part to dramatic additions to DHS’ budget in the past year and a half. Those funding boosts, including a $170 billion increase last year, lowered the financial barriers that previously made federal immigration prosecutors wary of spending resources on immigrants with lower-priority criminal histories, Christopher argued. 

The U.S. Senate is currently considering an additional $72 billion in new funding for DHS.

Transferred without warning 

Wihongi was the only legal permanent resident in the 46-person cell in Adelanto, California, where she spent her first month in detention, her mother told Wisconsin Watch.

Her visa doesn’t spare her from the unpredictability of the federal immigration detention system. When money disappeared without notice from her commissary account on a Friday in early May, Wihongi called her mother in a panic. “Inmates all know that if that happens to your commissary,” her mother explained, “that means they’re getting ready to transfer you.” 

She resurfaced that Sunday in a detention camp outside El Paso, Texas, reaching her family by phone that evening to recount two mostly sleepless days of travel, including hours spent in shackles. 

Wihongi has since transferred again to a federal contract facility in Eloy, Arizona. An internet outage Thursday pushed her first scheduled court appearance back a week. Meanwhile, Christopher has filed a motion in Fond du Lac County to vacate her 2014 conviction.

Decade-old marijuana conviction prompts ICE detention of Wisconsin green card holder after family trip 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.

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This article was produced by the nonprofit journalism publication Bolts, which covers the nuts and bolts of power and political change, from the local up.

The Dane County Sheriff’s Office will stop using dozens of AI surveillance cameras posted up across Madison and surrounding towns, after the county Board of Supervisors pulled funding from a contract with Flock Safety, the latest setback in this state for the Atlanta-based tech company.

Flock has swiftly grown a sprawling, nationwide network of cameras that photograph passing cars and use AI to track their movements with precision, with thousands of law enforcement agencies installing Flock cameras in exchange for access to the company’s database. But many local governments are now breaking off their agreements with Flock after numerous instances where the cameras were misused and breached, or where the data they collected ended up in ICE’s hands. 

Within Dane County, the cascade started when the city of Verona pulled its three automated license plate readers from the Flock network in November, after police officers elsewhere in the country accessed Verona’s cameras on behalf of immigration agents. Bolts previously reported that Flock ignored demands by Verona officials to take down the cameras for months after they ended the contract, and the city eventually covered the surveillance cameras with black plastic bags to protect residents’ privacy. Verona Mayor Luke Diaz told Bolts at the time that the county government’s contract with Flock was “the next big domino” to fall in Wisconsin.

Verona’s representative on the Dane County Board, Supervisor Chad Kemp, then proposed defunding the sheriff’s agreement with Flock, and the board voted 32-1 in April to strip $80,000 from the budget allocated to paying for the cameras. Sheriff Kalvin Barrett’s office confirmed to Bolts via email on April 30 that he will abide by the board’s wishes and cease using Flock. 

Other Wisconsin cities have dropped their Flock contracts since Dane County’s vote, including Monona, a suburb of Madison, and Oshkosh, in Winnebago County, where the police chief not just ended the contract but also covered cameras in plastic bags after Flock allegedly misrepresented how its data was used.

Diaz is heartened by this ongoing domino effect that’s rocking Wisconsin. “If police chiefs are bailing on it, that really shows momentum,” he said in a follow-up interview this month. “I feel like, at least politically, it is a sign that we’re winning.”

“It really shows that local activists can make a really big difference,” he said. “Small communities can be laboratories of democracy, and we can stand up to be an example for other communities.”

Now privacy activists are pushing to remove Wisconsin’s remaining Flock cameras, including those operated by the Milwaukee Police Department and by the University of Wisconsin-Madison police.

But beyond targeting any specific Flock contract, they’re also pressuring local officials across the state to set proactive guardrails around AI surveillance technologies. 

They hope to stop law enforcement agencies from responding to their wins against Flock by just turning to Flock’s competitors to install similar systems of automated license plate readers (ALPRs).

A spokesperson for the Dane County Sheriff’s Office told Bolts that the office is already exploring other vendors to replace Flock.

Law enforcement agencies often deploy invasive technologies like ALPRs without notifying the people being spied on and without approval from elected officials, said Jon McCray-Jones, a policy analyst with the ACLU of Wisconsin. He warns that, without robust protections limiting what police can do, residents will be “playing a game of Whack-A-Mole with surveillance companies” as police seek lesser-known companies like Motorola.

“We’re starting to miss the forest for the trees, where the conversation has been about how bad Flock is,” McCray-Jones told Bolts. “Sure, the headline changes with a slightly better company. But the innate issues around ALPRs don’t. You still have similar cameras, similar databases, similar mass, warrantless tracking. You just have a different logo on the contract.”

The Dane County sheriff was able to install the Flock system initially without getting approval from the board since it was paid for by a $68,750 grant funded by a separate surveillance company, Axon Enterprise. Axon used to have a partnership with Flock but has since severed it. The sheriff’s spokesperson ruled out seeking outside funding again.

Jade, a Madison resident and privacy advocate who created Deflock Dane, a project that maps the cameras that watch over the area, warns that a new technology could just as easily be installed to replace the Flock cameras without any public input. (Jade agreed to talk using only their first name for privacy concerns.)

“Some regulation has to be put in place,” Jade said. “Reacting to whatever secretive contract is signed in the future might work, but it is not ideal to have a revolving door of surveillance companies.”

In the absence of state restrictions, the ACLU of Wisconsin is advocating for local governments to adopt ordinances that give elected officials oversight over police surveillance. A model policy endorsed by the ACLU called Community Control Over Police Surveillance, or CCOPS, would require law enforcement to get approval from a city council or county commission before using new surveillance tools, as well as develop use policies and provide annual reports on them. 

According to the ACLU, 26 jurisdictions nationwide already have a CCOPS ordinance in place, but the city of Madison is the only one in Wisconsin. (Madison police currently have no ALPR contract.) Dane County has no such ordinance, which gives the sheriff a lot more discretion. 

Supporters say CCOPS ordinances allow cities to better vet the vendors that are hired, while also allowing residents to weigh in on what level of surveillance and risk they are willing to accept before the technology is used on them. McCray-Jones says elected officials can make informed decisions “instead of having to look into these technologies on their own and after the fact, in the aftermath when the damage is already done.”

But efforts to curtail AI surveillance in this way are hitting a wall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s most populous city, which became a cautionary tale for Flock when a police officer repeatedly used the cameras to stalk a romantic partner. The police chief quickly revoked most officers’ access but the city is continuing to use Flock cameras at this time. 

In March, four members of the common council wrote a letter calling on the city to adopt a CCOPS policy. They also demanded other checks on surveillance, such as a requirement for officers to list a case number to justify searching the network, routine civilian hearings and independent audits, and a ban on ALPRs being used for immigration.

Even as they push for stronger oversight, though, a 2023 state law known as Act 12 has sharply limited Milwaukee’s ability to regulate police surveillance. 

Though primarily a tax bill aimed at stabilizing pension debts, Act 12 forced Milwaukee to abandon civilian oversight in exchange for the funds. It stripped the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission of its oversight authority, gave the police chief broad control over department policy and restricted the city council’s ability to set new rules. 

Until then, the commission had offered a relatively strong model of civilian control, like when it banned officers from using chokeholds and no-knock warrants, putting it in the crosshairs of the local police union. Act 12 made it into a “rubber stamp” for the police.

Several council members told Bolts that Act 12 also interferes with their ability to forbid the Milwaukee Police Department from using Flock cameras, enact a CCOPS policy or set standards for how the city uses surveillance technology. 

“We cannot propose that law here,” said Ald. Alex Brower, who cosigned the letter endorsing CCOPS. “It was extremely frustrating to find that out. There is less democratic control than there should be.”

Another council member who signed the letter, Sharlen Moore, echoed Brower’s concern, saying, “We do not have a lot of power and say-so around how they spend their budget.” 

Moore and Brower are hopeful that the state could eventually restore some level of outside control over Milwaukee police; voters this fall are electing a new governor and Legislature, and Democrats hope to win control of the state government for the first time since 2010. But until the state takes action, the council members say they’ll have to rely on the police to voluntarily restrict their use of surveillance. 

Local activists were able to convince Milwaukee police leadership to ban facial recognition technology this year after a massive show of opposition by residents at a public meeting in February.

Brower told Bolts, “The police chief would not have banned facial recognition technology on his own if it hadn’t been for the groundswell of regular people.”

Now he hopes for a similar public outcry against ALPRs and other AI surveillance. Echoing the Madison-based advocates who say they’ll keep fighting contracts in Dane County, he said, “We need an active and engaged and organized population that is fighting for their liberties.”

Foes of AI surveillance get wins in Wisconsin. But they fear they’re playing Whack-A-Mole. 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.

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Update, May 21, 2026:

An immigration court judge in Tennessee granted a $1,500 bond for Elvira Benitez Suarez on Thursday morning. Benitez will remain in custody at the Campbell County Detention Center during the 30-day window in which the U.S. Department of Homeland Security attorneys can file an appeal.

Thursday’s bond hearing came just over a week after the Ohio-based 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Trump administration’s year-old policy requiring mandatory detention for most immigrants facing removal. Benitez’s attorney, Milwaukee-based Marc Christopher, told Wisconsin Watch that the short turnaround reflected agreement among Benitez’s legal team, a federal district court judge and DHS itself that her case merited speedy consideration.

Original story, May 12, 2026:

A Sheboygan Falls woman is poised to test a new federal ruling reopening the door for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainees to seek release on bond. 

An Ohio-based federal appeals court ruled Monday against the Trump administration policy requiring mandatory detention for most ICE detainees, the latest blow to a rule adopted last summer amid an escalating nationwide immigration enforcement crackdown.  

Detainees “should have a forum to explain that their backgrounds and connections to their communities justify release on bond while they undergo their removal proceedings,” 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Eric Clay wrote in the panel’s majority decision. Denying bond hearings, he added, amounts to a violation of their due process rights. 

The court’s ruling sent Wisconsin immigration attorneys scrambling to file bond motions for their clients detained in Ohio, Michigan and Kentucky — all under the 6th Circuit. Among those now able to seek bond: Elvira Benitez Suarez, currently detained at the Campbell County Detention Center in northern Kentucky.

Benitez, 51, has now spent two stints in ICE detention, as Wisconsin Watch has reported. 

She fled an abusive household in Mexico at 15, crossing the border with a younger sibling and settling in the Midwest. Though she remained undocumented for decades, she had no run-ins with law enforcement or immigration authorities until a GPS error on a family road trip through Michigan in July 2025 led her across the Canadian border.

The incident landed her in an Ohio immigration detention facility for six months. In her absence, her two adult daughters — both U.S. citizens — took in their school-age siblings.

A major shift in federal immigration court policy last year left Benitez unable to post bond.

Since 1996, federal law has required immigration authorities to detain — without bond — anyone found crossing the U.S. border without authorization. Prior administrations applied that rule relatively narrowly, meaning immigrants arrested in the interior of the U.S. could often seek a bond hearing in immigration court.

The Trump administration cast that precedent aside in July 2025, when ICE Director Todd Lyons issued a new interpretation subjecting anyone in deportation proceedings to mandatory detention without the possibility of bond. The Board of Immigration Appeals, a panel of judges who set the rules for the federal immigration court system, signed off on the interpretation in September. 

The board has more frequently sided with the Department of Homeland Security than immigrants facing deportation for at least a decade, but the distribution of decisions is more lopsided than ever: The body has favored DHS’s position in more than 90% of decisions issued since President Trump returned to office last year, a recent NPR analysis found.

The rule change triggered an ongoing legal battle over the validity of the Trump administration’s interpretation; more than 400 federal district court judges have ruled against the White House’s position, while roughly 50 have backed the new policy. Judges in Wisconsin’s Western District Court have uniformly ruled against the mandatory detention rule, while those in Wisconsin’s Eastern District are divided.

Federal appellate courts are also split: Aside from the 6th Circuit’s Monday decision, the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and the Georgia-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled against the mandatory detention policy, whereas the Louisiana-based 5th Circuit and the Missouri-based 8th Circuit have sided with the Trump administration. 

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Illinois and with jurisdiction over Wisconsin, remains divided.

With bond off the table, thousands of immigrants in ICE custody have turned to a backup option: habeas corpus petitions, filed in federal district courts — administered separately from the federal immigration court system — to challenge their detention.

Federal district courts have received tens of thousands of habeas petitions in the past year, including more than 70 in Wisconsin’s Western and Eastern District Courts combined. 

When a federal district court approves a habeas petition, the court generally orders an immigration court judge to hold a bond hearing.

Benitez’s first habeas petition produced a more unusual victory: Judge Richard Drucker of the Cleveland immigration court, citing the emotional toll on her younger children, canceled her deportation and set her on the path to legal residency, though a delayed background check added more than a month to Benitez’s initial stay in a detention facility.

Released in late December, Benitez reunited with her family in Wisconsin while DHS appealed Drucker’s order. She continued attending mandatory check-ins at the agency’s field office in downtown Milwaukee, where ICE agents re-arrested her on March 10. After a stop at an ICE detention facility outside Chicago, the agency transferred Benitez to Campbell County, where nearly two dozen immigrants detained in Wisconsin have spent time within the last year.

Marc Christopher, a Milwaukee immigration attorney who represented Benitez during her first detention, told Wisconsin Watch in March that no statute required DHS to detain her while awaiting the outcome of its appeal. Her arrest, Christopher wrote, served “no legitimate public safety purpose.”

“It separates a mother from her vulnerable U.S. citizen children despite a federal immigration judge already recognizing the extreme hardship her removal would cause them,” he added.

Following the March arrest, an ICE spokesperson told Wisconsin Watch that “being in detention is a choice,” arguing that Benitez could leave custody by agreeing to self-deport.

Benitez’s new Ohio-based attorney filed a habeas petition on her behalf with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky in March. Judge Chad Meredith, a Trump appointee, joined the court’s bench last fall. He has received more than 80 habeas cases involving immigrants in ICE custody since his confirmation, most of which are still active; he has yet to side with an immigrant detainee, but he has denied a half-dozen habeas petitions outright. 

The 6th Circuit’s latest ruling could give Benitez a shorter route out of custody. Christopher filed a bond motion for Benitez “the minute (the ruling) came out,” he told Wisconsin Watch. “Given the unusual circumstances of her case,” Christopher added, he plans to ask Meredith to order a bond hearing on a short turnaround, rather than waiting more than a week. DHS can appeal bond decisions.

Christopher isn’t alone in his haste. Aissa Olivarez, an attorney with the Madison-based Community Immigration Law Center, filed a bond motion for another client held at the Campbell County Detention Center just after the news broke — a first since the Board of Immigration Appeals approved the mandatory detention rule last September. 

“We are now working to identify other people who have reached out in the past,” she added, “to see who might be eligible for bond now.”

Olivarez and other immigration attorneys are still awaiting a decision from the 7th Circuit; the U.S. Department of Justice filed a motion requesting expedited oral argument  on Monday. 

The issue may reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It’s up to the justices whether they want to take the case,” Christopher said, “but traditionally on cases involving immigration, cases where there’s been a clear circuit split, and where it affects literally tens of thousands of people, I think it’s going to be near the top of the issues they want to resolve.”

Sheboygan Falls mother granted bond in challenge to ICE detention rule 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.

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Editor’s note: Wisconsin Watch asked the candidates whether they would allow commutations for murder convictions. After publication, David Crowley’s campaign responded that he would not allow commutations in such cases.

The top Democratic candidates for governor plan to continue allowing commutations and pardons if they are elected in November — though two are splitting with the current governor on whether to offer commutations in murder cases — while the front-runner for the Republican nomination plans to curtail clemency. 

The contrast is sure to feature in the gubernatorial election, as Democrats rally around a national mood that has turned against President Donald Trump, while Republicans try to capitalize on lingering distaste for the Democratic brand.

Their statements, in response to questions from Wisconsin Watch, come after Gov. Tony Evers signed executive orders in early April to reestablish the state’s commutations process, with just nine months remaining in his last term as governor. 

Evers’ executive orders specifically create a commutations advisory board to consider applications from incarcerated individuals seeking to reduce their prison sentence and establish a commutations procedure for people sentenced to life in prison as juveniles. The commutations advisory board is expected to hold its first meeting in June. 

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany’s gubernatorial campaign said in a statement he would rescind Evers’ executive orders on commutations, particularly because they don’t exempt individuals convicted of murder. Under Evers’ executive order only those previously convicted of sexual assault, physical abuse or sexual exploitation of a child, trafficking of a child, incest or soliciting a child for prostitution are ineligible for commutations. 

“(Tiffany) is making a commitment as governor that he will not release violent criminals early and will ensure victims and their families receive the full measure of justice,” Tiffany’s campaign said. Tiffany’s campaign did not respond to an additional question about whether the congressman would consider commuting the sentences of incarcerated individuals who were convicted of nonviolent offenses.

The difference between Tiffany and the top Democrats suggests that criminal justice reform and executive clemency, the powers the governor has to lessen or nullify a sentence, are topics that will get attention from the candidates ahead of the general election in November. Debate on the campaign trail will happen as Wisconsin’s prisons continue to be over capacity. The population of the state’s adult prisons as of April 17 was 23,548 people, which is nearly 32% above what the facilities were designed to hold. 

Evers is not running for reelection, which leaves the commutation process created by his executive orders subject to the views of the state’s next governor. That person could rescind, suspend or revise an executive order from the predecessor, according to the nonpartisan Legislative Reference Bureau. 

Wisconsin’s governors have taken different approaches to using the office’s executive clemency powers. The last governor to commute a prison sentence was former Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson. 

Former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle approved 326 pardons as governor but no commutations. Former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, who issued no pardons or commutations in office, previously said he saw “no value” in visiting the state’s prisons. 

Evers reinstated the pardons process after taking office in 2019 and has since issued 2,000 pardons, according to his office. In early 2025, he released a prison restructuring plan with a “domino series” of projects that include closing the Green Bay Correctional Institution, converting the Lincoln Hills juvenile prison into an adult facility and transitioning the Waupun Correctional Institution into a vocational village with job training for inmates. 

Evers’ plan caught pushback from Republicans, who said they were not included in the process and objected to any reductions to the capacity of the prison system. There have been no updates since the state building commission voted in October to release $15 million to fund a design report for projects in the governor’s proposal. 

Diego Rodriguez, the coalition coordinator for Justice Forward Wisconsin, which advocates for a more equitable criminal justice system, emphasized that “broad, blanket statements” about incarcerated individuals don’t reflect a person’s remorse or growth over time.

“Democrats and Republicans have historically used clemency to make sure that we honor when people grow, we honor changes in development and changes in people,” Rodriguez said. “That is something that I think our nation is rooted in, this idea that people can grow and develop, and that redemption is a real thing.” 

What Democratic candidates said 

The seven top Democratic gubernatorial candidates who responded to questions from Wisconsin Watch said each of their approaches to executive clemency would attempt to take into account the growth of inmates and the needs of victims, although specifics differed between each candidate.  

Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes would work with an independent commission to guide decisions on pardons and commutations, campaign spokesperson Cole Wozniak said. Also, unlike Evers, he would exclude those convicted of murder. He was the only Democratic candidate to make that distinction without being asked specifically about that issue. Wisconsin Watch asked the other candidates about that particular issue Friday afternoon and didn’t receive any responses before this story published Monday morning.

“Lt. Gov. Barnes will work to keep Wisconsinites safe — ensuring the justice system rehabilitates those who’ve served their time and pose no threat, while requiring individuals convicted of murder, sexual assault, or other violent crimes stay behind bars and serve their sentences,” Wozniak said.

Asked why Barnes differs from Evers on commutations for murder convictions, Wozniak said “for those already convicted, he believes the existing appeals process offers sufficient relief.”

Joel Brennan, the former Department of Administration secretary, said Evers “did the right thing” in restoring commutations. 

“The ability to pardon and commute sentences is one of the most consequential tools a governor has,” Brennan said in a statement. “I’d take that seriously, listen to the people closest to these cases, review them on the merits, and act where it makes sense.” 

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley said he would work with the Legislature to “institutionalize” Evers’ commutations process. After this story published, Crowley’s campaign responded to the follow-up question about murder commutations, saying he “would not allow commutations of murderers.”

“I believe clemency is an important tool to correct past wrongs, especially in cases where sentences were excessive, laws have changed, or individuals have demonstrated real rehabilitation,” Crowley said in a statement. “At the same time, it must be handled with care, consistency, and respect for victims and communities.” 

Madison state Rep. Francesca Hong said she supports Evers’ decision to restore commutations and would work with stakeholders to build a “fair and safe” process. 

“My approach to executive clemency actions would be to build a senior advisory council and pardon board with diverse representation of lived experiences and leadership in the carceral reform sector,” Hong said in a statement. 

Missy Hughes, the former CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., said in a statement she is supportive of Evers’ executive orders to restore commutations. In response to a follow-up question, her campaign spokesperson said she would offer pardons only to “nonviolent offenders who have paid their debt to society and only after a thorough and transparent review process.” He added that she “would take her commutation power seriously and use it only to ensure proper justice is delivered,” but didn’t specifically diverge from Evers on commuting murder sentences.

“I believe it is an important tool to have at the governor’s disposal to ensure we have fairness in our criminal justice system,” Hughes said. “As governor I would keep this executive order in place so that we have a mechanism for those who have paid their debt to society, and pose no threat to the public, can have their freedoms restored through an open and transparent process.”

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez said in a statement that Evers has established a “thoughtful approach” to commutations. She criticized the Republican Legislature for not taking “a serious approach to criminal justice and corrections reform.” 

“As governor, I would continue the restored commutations process and carefully review it with input from stakeholders, including victims’ advocates, law enforcement, corrections professionals, and criminal justice reform organizations,” Rodriguez said. “We need to be guided by preventing crime, reducing recidivism, and keeping our communities safe.”

Madison state Sen. Kelda Roys said in a statement that “public safety and justice” will be the focus of her criminal justice policy. 

“As an attorney, I know that our judicial system is imperfect, and clemency can be an important safeguard so long as the process is fair, thorough, and transparent,” she said.

Correction: Missy Hughes’ campaign spokesperson responded before publication that she would only pardon nonviolent offenders. A previous version said the spokesperson didn’t respond. Wisconsin Watch regrets this error.

Tony Evers revived commutations, but what will Wisconsin’s next governor do? 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.

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Track immigration court cases across the US 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.

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Brenda Hines still likes to refer to her son, Donovan Hines, as her “favorite son,” the same way he liked to refer to himself before he was killed on Nov. 13, 2017. 

Donovan was driving near North 29th Street and West Hampton Avenue in Milwaukee when he was struck by a stray bullet and crashed through a fence and into a home in the 4700 block of North 29th Street.

In the months that followed, Brenda Hines said she sank into such a deep, dark grief that she cried daily, unable to eat or work. She even contemplated taking her own life. 

“It took me a while to get out of the state of shock,” Hines said. “It was very difficult, spiritually, for me to come back.”

Now, almost a decade later, she has turned that pain into hope by building The Donovan Hines Foundation of Exuberance Co., a Milwaukee nonprofit that offers consistent, community-based support for families grieving violent loss.

“Exuberance means vibrant. And that’s what Donovan was. He always came out with a smile on his face,” Hines said.

After the unexpected loss of her son, Hines connected with the Medical College of Wisconsin’s Project UJIMA, a collaborative, multidisciplinary program geared to stop violent behavior patterns and reduce the number of children hurt by violence. Meeting with Project UJIMA once a month was helpful and inspired Hines to begin her own grief group that met more frequently. 

“Being a person of color, we don’t seek therapy, and we have so much trauma, so much violence going on,” Hines said.

Hines hosted her grief group weekly for about a year, with the support of the late Bishop Sedgwick Daniels of Holy Redeemer Institutional Church of God in Christ.

“That was the beginning of my healing process,” Hines said. “Not only listening to someone else, but being there for myself.”

Seven months after her loss, Hines was asked to continue her work with The Salvation Army Chaplaincy Program, in partnership with the Milwaukee Police Department. She was asked to serve as a chaplain on a case that hit close to home, helping a family who had just lost their son, who was the same age as Donovan, to suicide. 

“It gave me something to hope for,” Hines said. “That’s when I started coming back out and decided to start having empowerment groups and transformation stuff for grief.”

Ever since then, she’s kept going, growing her nonprofit in any way she can, whether it be through the Summer Meal Program for children, the emergency food pantry or stockboxes for older adults.

“I just kept going and going. I was like, ‘OK, I’m still not doing enough,” Hines said. “The more I help others, it seems like, the more it helps me.”

Hines, along with several other Milwaukee nonprofits, hosted a survivor-led candlelight vigil to join a National Moment of Remembrance in December. The vigil centered on healing and the belief that everyone deserves the freedom to live.

On the hardest days, what keeps Hines going is “God first, my family and the foundation.”

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

Turning pain into purpose: How Brenda Hines works through her grief by supporting Milwaukee families 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.

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There are millions of Americans who have seriously considered harming others with a firearm but never acted on these thoughts, according to research from the University of Michigan published in March. 

Researchers say this means there could be a critical but often overlooked window for intervention.

It also suggests there is a group of people who can be targeted for various forms of novel intervention, the authors of the study conclude. 

Those more likely to report thoughts of shooting others were individuals who are younger, male, Black, living in the Midwest and in urban areas, according to the study. 

For Vaun Mayes, a community organizer who also does violence interruption for the city of Milwaukee’s Department of Community Wellness and Safety, the study’s conclusions ring true. 

“There are definitely usually signs of escalation prior to the results we see,” Mayes said. “Young people most definitely give notice before violence, and Black folks specifically culturally do as well.”

Millions report thoughts about shooting someone

The study found that roughly 8.5 million people said they had seriously thought about shooting someone in the year before being asked. Over a lifetime, that number rises to more than 19 million.

Although most never acted on their thoughts, the study estimated that 1.5 million U.S. adults had brought a gun to a specific location with the intention of shooting someone.

Fewer than 1% temporarily handed their firearm over during a time of crisis. 

The study found that gun owners are not the only people who are at risk of using a firearm, but those in the vicinity of gun owners as well. 

In other words, access to a firearm, rather than ownership, is a key predictor.

A temporary crisis and fatal outcome

James Bigham, a clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health, pays a lot of attention to when and how firearms are accessed, especially during times of poor mental health or mental health crisis.   

Access to a gun can turn a temporary crisis into a fatal outcome, Bigham said. 

“If we could shift our culture where it’s normal … to transfer firearms during a time of crisis, we could really reduce the rates of death,” Bigham said.

Mayes said it’s because of the gap between consideration and action that violence interrupters can intervene to deescalate a situation.

The authors of the study suggest this is especially true in states with red flag laws.

Red flag laws, also known as Extreme Risk Prevention Orders, allow judges to issue court orders to temporarily restrict access to guns by individuals who could pose a threat to themselves or others.

More than 20 states have a version of a red flag law, but Wisconsin does not. 

Wisconsin also has weaker gun storage laws than most other states. 

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Resources

For those who are interested in places to safely store a gun, the Wisconsin Gun Shop Project’s “Live Today – Put It Away” program partners with participating gun shops – including several in Milwaukee County – to provide firearm safety information and temporary off-site storage options, often for a low fee. 

People can also go to the city of Milwaukee’s website to learn more about local violence interruption efforts.

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

Should gun violence intervention efforts start earlier? These researchers think so 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.

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A loosely formed coalition of about 60 federal litigators is working with immigration attorneys in Wisconsin who represent clients being detained and facing deportation.

Gabriela Parra, an immigration attorney and partner at Layde & Parra S.C. in Milwaukee, said immigration policies are constantly changing, which adds new challenges. 

Many cases now involve both immigration proceedings and federal civil rights issues, she said.

“If you haven’t done this, it’s a learning curve,” Parra said. 

Federal litigators and immigration attorneys are working together to help meet this demand in Wisconsin.

Surge in overall need

The need for legal representation has grown as immigration enforcement has expanded.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement held an average of 69,600 people per day in detention in December 2025 – a 78% increase compared with the year before, according to an analysis by the Vera Institute of Justice, a national nonprofit working on issues related to mass incarceration and immigration. 

But more than half the people in the immigration court system are fighting the government alone, according to immigration court data analyzed by Vera. 

“There is a due process crisis right now happening in our immigration system,” said Elizabeth Kenney, associate director of Vera’s Advancing Universal Representation Initiative. 

While people have the right to obtain an immigration attorney, the government does not have to provide one, said Timothy Muth, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin.

Kenney said not having legal representation has major consequences. 

People who have attorneys are up to 10 and a half times more likely to get successful outcomes, Kenney said.

More complex cases

Parra said policy changes have added a federal civil rights dimension to many cases – changes that include how the Board of Immigration Appeals has interpreted immigration law.

The board sets binding rules for immigration judges and has authority over appeals in immigration cases.

Parra said there have been more than 80 decisions by the board since January 2025 that have affected immigration policy.  

One Board of Immigration Appeals decision, known as Yajure Hurtado, requires immigration judges to treat many as subject to mandatory detention. The decision has significantly limited people’s access to bonds.

“Now you have individuals in detention unless you can file a habeas petition in federal court,” Parra said. 

A habeas petition is used to argue that a person’s detention is unlawful. 

Habeas petitions vary widely depending on a person’s situation, said Elisabeth Lambert, a federal civil rights attorney working with the network.

Some involve people who have lived in the United States for years and seek release on bond while their cases proceed. Others involve people who entered through legal processes but are later detained and denied bond.

There also are other barriers that make it harder for people to defend themselves, requiring different support in federal court.

For example, Lambert said, immigrants facing deportation don’t have a right to discovery. This means that the only way to get the records is through a specific type of federal records request. 

A right of discovery allows defendants to access information that could be used against them from a prosecutor ahead of trial. 

Lambert said records can face various delays and other barriers and may arrive after the deportation proceeding has already happened.

Why federal court is different

Lambert said the two court systems – immigration court and federal court – operate very differently.

Each of these legal spaces has its own sets of rules, norms and procedures, she said. 

“It’s just a lot to learn very quickly in a very high-stakes situation,” Lambert said. 

It works the other way, too.

“I couldn’t go into immigration court,” she said. “I don’t have the knowledge or the experience.” 

In one case Lambert and Parra worked on together, a judge issued a restraining order barring ICE from moving ahead with a client’s removal proceeding until a Freedom of Information Act issue was resolved, she said.

Lambert anticipates similar litigation in the future.  

“We think that this is going to be a pretty common issue – of the government withholding people’s immigration records as part of this effort to stack the deportation process against people who are seeking immigration relief.”

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

Wisconsin attorneys team up with federal litigators as deportation cases grow more complex 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.

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Steady arrests, shifting targets: Explore latest data on ICE activity across Wisconsin 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.

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His impact is seen everywhere on South Cesar E. Chavez Drive. From the street signs and murals bearing his name to a life-sized statue in the parking lot of Nuevo Mercado El Rey — Cesar Chavez was revered by many on Milwaukee’s South Side.

That’s what made news of sexual abuse allegations so shocking. Many today see union activist and civil rights leader Chavez, who died in 1993, in a new light after a bombshell New York Times article published Wednesday — as a sexual predator. 

The story detailed allegations of sexual abuse and grooming of women and girls as young as 12. 

Reaction across Milwaukee has been swift. 

The city’s Cesar Chavez Day celebrations were canceled. 

And the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts shut down a student contest and event honoring him. 

Ald. JoCasta Zamarripa and others have begun discussions about potentially renaming Cesar E. Chavez Drive, a stretch of South 16th Street from West Greenfield to West Pierce.

What the Chavez Drive business community is saying

Olivia Villarreal, the wife and business partner of El Rey co-founder Ernesto Villarreal, said she was devastated to see the news reports about Chavez. 

“Makes me just cry hearing these developments,” she said. 

Villarreal said her father came to the U.S. as a bracero, working the cotton fields in Texas and Alabama. Her husband’s dad came to California from Mexico to pick fruit. Both came to the country in the 1950s. 

“They saw what the labor movement did and lived it,” she said. 

The movement, which Chavez became the face of, impacted millions, she said. 

She said the statue of Chavez that stands on the western edge of their parking lot in a small plaza, does not belong to El Rey, although the store has been maintaining it. It was commissioned by Journey House and paid for by donations. 

Villarreal said her understanding is that members of the Cesar E. Chavez Business Improvement District will meet and decide the future of the statue and discuss the renaming of the street.

She said she’s open to the BID’s suggestion of taking down the statue and also changing the name of the street. 

The Chavez Drive BID issued a statement calling for accountability and thoughtful action.

“Cesar E. Chavez has long been recognized as a symbol of labor rights, dignity and collective organizing for farmworkers and Latino communities,” it read. “At the same time, we recognize that history is not one-dimensional. It requires us to confront the full scope of a person’s legacy, including the parts that are in contradiction to what we have known.” 

The BID board of directors is actively examining next steps, according to the statement.

‘Get rid of everything’

Elena Rosales, who works at Agencia de Viajes Mexico, 1016 S. Cesar E. Chavez Drive, said she was shocked when she heard the news about Chavez. 

“Get rid of everything, take the statue down, change the street,” she said. 

As a woman, she said, she’s on the side of the victims. Still, she acknowledged, with Chavez long dead, we’ll never hear his side. 

“He’s not here to defend himself,” Rosales said. 

Maria Romo, a manager at Reliable Staffing Solutions, 1215 S. Cesar E. Chavez Drive, said that although she thinks the voices of the victims should be heard, she doesn’t think changing the name of the street will help much. 

“They’ve already been harmed. What will changing the name of the street do to change that?” she said. 

‘Why now?’

Alma Flores, owner of Nuevo Imagen, a beauty shop at 1219 S. Cesar E. Chavez Drive, said she doesn’t think that the street should be renamed or that Chavez’s legacy should be forgotten. 

“He did so much for the agricultural workers,” she said. “What will they do, remove his name from everywhere? Because it’s all over.” 

Flores said she questions some of the allegations against him and wonders why they took so long to become public. 

“I don’t understand. Why now when everyone celebrates him,” she said. 

Fernando Barajas, manager of Taqueria Los Comales, 1306 S. Cesar E. Chavez Drive, said he has mixed feelings about the sexual abuse allegations against Chavez. 

“He’s been dead for so long,” said Barajas, who’s worked at the restaurant for nearly 23 years. “We all have different points of view.” 

Barajas, a former farmworker in California in the ’80s and ’90s, said that Chavez did a lot of good for people. Still, he said, he understands the severity of what he’s being accused of and understands if people want to take action as a result. 

“If the people want the name of the street to change, that’s fine,” Barajas said. 

What residents are saying

Juan Salazar, a former farmworker, also has mixed feelings about Chavez.

“That’s the first thing people go to nowadays, the worst parts, not the good parts,” said Salazar while walking along Cesar E. Chavez Drive on Thursday morning. 

He admits the news about Chavez left him at a loss for words but wants more investigation into the allegations before changes are made.

Nyia Luna is a local artist who painted a mural of Dolores Huerta on Cesar E. Chavez Drive with her mentor Girl Mobb. 

Huerta co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Chavez and went public Wednesday as one of his victims. 

Luna said she painted a mural of Huerta because she knew of Huerta’s huge role in the farm workers movement. 

“Not many of my counterparts in high school did,” she said. 

She called the news about Chavez a tragedy, and said she’s glad that Huerta and the others were able to share their stories. 

“Brings light to what goes on behind closed doors to a lot of women,” Luna said. 

Many other residents who were asked about Chavez on Thursday said they had seen the headlines on social media about him but were not fully aware of the allegations or didn’t want to share their stories publicly.  

What Milwaukee leaders are saying

County Supervisor Juan Miguel Martinez, who represents the South Side, wrote on Facebook that he had no problem saying goodbye to Chavez’s legacy and condemning him for his actions. 

“Too often, men of status abuse their power and use it for heinous acts towards women, and especially toward defenseless children,” he wrote. 

He wants Cesar E. Chavez Drive to be renamed in honor of Huerta. 

Zamarripa, who represents a section of the South Side, said she’s devastated about the news on Chavez.

“We know community leaders who marched with him, and the devastation is so real,” she said. 

She issued a statement in solidarity with his alleged victims on Wednesday. 

“These women carried enormous pain for decades because they feared that speaking the truth would cost the movement everything they had sacrificed to build. That is an impossible burden, and they should never have had to carry it,” she wrote. 

Zamarripa said the legacy of the farmworker movement belongs to the people, while saying she will be part of a broader conversation about renaming the street that bears his name. 

“I am committed to being part of that discussion in the coming weeks,” she said. “To any survivor who is carrying something heavy today: You are believed, and you are not alone.” 

Zamarripa said she and other stakeholders, including representatives of the Cesar E. Chavez BID, will meet soon to discuss next steps. 

“We want to get input from a wide cross-section of people,” she said. “But I am heartbroken.”

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

A legacy reconsidered: Cesar Chavez allegations ripple across Milwaukee’s South Side 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.

Reading Time: 3 minutes

After nearly 30 years in prison, Derek Williams appreciates the progress he’s made in his pursuit of parole. 

NNS previously reported that Williams’ 180-year sentence for a string of armed robberies was reduced after he protected a correctional officer during a stabbing. 

The sentence reduction made him eligible for parole decades earlier than he would have been otherwise. 

He said he’s been doing all he can to go from parole eligibility to freedom.

Right now, he’s housed at the Sturtevant Transitional Facility, a minimum-security prison. 

Five days a week, he is transported to the Racine Correctional Institution for his job in the gatehouse. 

“I walk around freely,” Williams said. “I see every staff member and every visitor that comes through.”

But what he wants is work release, something fundamentally different. 

Williams, 51, said he has always understood that a key way to demonstrate readiness for parole is doing work release – in which the Wisconsin Department of Corrections allows incarcerated people to leave a prison for a job in the community and return after their shift. 

Williams said his pursuit of parole hit a major setback because his pursuit of work release has hit one. 

In February, the Wisconsin Parole Commission deferred Williams’ parole for six months and withdrew its endorsement for work release, citing concerns that he was dishonest during his January parole hearing. 

It is a setback driving Williams, his wife and other loved ones crazy.  

“I’m literally being held in prison because the prison is not letting me out to do work release,” he said.

A Wisconsin Watch investigation found that work release opportunities in the state were limited and that prison officials weren’t tracking participation rates.

Accusation of dishonesty

The commission said Williams falsely claimed during his January hearing that at a previous hearing a commissioner had discussed initiating a pre-release investigation. 

A pre-release investigation is conducted by correctional staff to verify housing, employment and public safety before parole is granted.

After reviewing the audio and transcript from the earlier hearing, the commission wrote that there was no mention of a pre-release investigation. 

Williams’ “willingness to be dishonest during a parole review (and about another parole commissioner) heightens the commissioner’s stated reservations,” the Wisconsin Parole Commission said in its Feb. 2 decision.  

Williams disputes this characterization, saying he was attempting to explain prior discussions, not mislead the panel or manipulate the parole process.

He also said he was not provided an opportunity to clarify his comments before the Wisconsin Parole Board made its decision.

‘Not an entitlement’

Despite the different claims about what happened, the effect on Williams’ prospects is clear. 

Robert Miller is the warden of the Racine Correctional Institution, who oversees off-site authorizations for people housed at Sturtevant. Miller told Rikki Williams in an email that because the Parole Commission no longer endorses work release, her husband’s anticipated release date could be “significantly in the future.” 

Beth Hardtke, director of communications for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, said in an email that work release decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. 

“Work release placement decisions and approvals may vary based on the individual and the types of conviction(s),” Hardtke said. “The individual’s conduct and work history … may be considered.”

In its decision, the Wisconsin Parole Commission also cited Williams’ criminal history and public safety concerns but did not elaborate on them.

A spokesperson for the commission previously told NNS that “a parole grant is not an entitlement.”

For now, Williams remains in the gatehouse.

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

What do you do when the Parole Commission says you’re lying? Following up with Derek Williams 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.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Editor’s note: This story was updated March 13 to include a comment from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers arrested a Sheboygan Falls woman during a routine check-in this week, taking her back into custody just months after an immigration court judge canceled her deportation order and began the process of securing her a green card.

Elvira Benitez, 51, spent six months in ICE custody last year after accidentally crossing the Canadian border during a family road trip in Michigan. Benitez fled an abusive home in Michoacán, Mexico, as a teenager and lived without legal status for 35 years, her family said. She first entered the immigration court system after last year’s arrest. 

She was among more than 25,000 people arrested by ICE in July 2025 alone. Roughly a third of immigrants arrested by the agency nationally between January and mid-October 2025 had neither a prior criminal history nor pending criminal charges, including Benitez. 

In her absence, her two adult daughters — both U.S. citizens — took in their school-age siblings. Judge Richard Drucker of the Cleveland immigration court cited her younger children’s struggles during Benitez’s initial detention as a reason to cancel her deportation and set her on the path to legal residency. 

Drucker initially signaled a willingness to grant Benitez relief in early November, but the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) delayed her background check — necessary for her path to a green card — for over a month, eventually releasing her in mid-December. 

The agency soon appealed Drucker’s order, stalling Benitez’s green card process. She continued attending mandatory check-ins at the Milwaukee DHS office, where ICE agents arrested her Tuesday morning before transferring her to a holding facility outside Chicago.

ICE arrested at least 107 people at the DHS office in downtown Milwaukee between January and mid-October 2025 — more than at any other Wisconsin site named in ICE arrest records. Three-quarters of those immigrants  had no pending criminal charges or past convictions, compared with just 17% of all immigrants arrested by ICE in Wisconsin during the same period.

Benitez had no other run-ins with law enforcement that could have triggered her recent arrest, said Crystal Aguilar, her eldest daughter. In Aguilar’s view, the arrest calls into question “whether families who follow the rules can rely on the decisions made in immigration court,” she added.

She complied with all requirements following her initial release, including attending every ICE supervision appointment, according to her attorney, Marc Christopher. DHS was not legally required to arrest her while its appeal is pending, he added. 

Benitez’s detention serves “no legitimate public safety purpose,” Christopher wrote in a Tuesday press release. “It separates a mother from her vulnerable U.S. citizen children despite a federal immigration judge already recognizing the extreme hardship her removal would cause them.”

An ICE spokesperson told Wisconsin Watch that Benitez will remain in custody “pending further immigration proceedings.”

“Being in detention is a choice,” they added, suggesting that undocumented immigrants should self-deport or face arrest and a permanent ban on re-entering the U.S.

ICE re-arrests Sheboygan Falls mother after judge halted deportation and cleared green card path 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.

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The nonprofit Center for Self-Sufficiency closed in September as federal investigators audited its use of $750,000 in government funding. 

The organization focused on supporting residents reentering society from the criminal justice system and strengthening families. Services included financial and employment coaching, parenting support and restorative justice. 

The center was based for years out of the Community Advocates headquarters at 728 N. James Lovell St. before moving to the YWCA building on King Drive in May. 

The government audit found that the use of $749,000 of the federal funds was unsupported by documentation.

“It’s kind of shocking because it’s portrayed as if there was no information that backed up spending, and that definitely wasn’t the case,” said Maudwella Kirkendoll, chief operating officer of Community Advocates and former vice president of the Center for Self-Sufficiency’s board of directors. 

Despite the audit, two former employees who were working at the center when it closed said the main reason the organization dissolved was a gradual dwindling of funding opportunities. 

Kirkendoll agreed. 

“The funding,” Kirkendoll said, “was just drying up.”

The employees asked to remain anonymous to avoid any negative impacts to future work opportunities.

The federal audit

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs oversees Second Chance Act grants, which are generally meant to support people as they reintegrate after incarceration and help reduce recidivism. 

The Center for Self-Sufficiency was awarded nearly $750,000 to provide case management and employment services to men returning to Milwaukee after incarceration from 2021 to 2024, its third time receiving the grant. 

The office approved an extension to continue the grant with no additional funding until September. 

The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General launched an audit in May into the center’s program. The office conducted a site visit, interviewed staff, reviewed policy and procedures and requested accounting and financial records.

The audit, which was released in September, indicated the Center for Self-Sufficiency could not demonstrate compliance with certain grant requirements because it did not provide the accounting documentation needed to show how funds were spent to support its program performance. 

“While we determined that a majority of (Center for Self-Sufficiency’s) policies aligned with important conditions of the laws, regulations, guidelines, and terms and conditions applicable to the award, we found critical issues with (Center for Self-Sufficiency’s) grant financial management,” the report reads. 

The audit also found the grant’s financial activity was mixed together with activity from other sources in the organization’s accounting records for most of the time frame that was examined. 

The report recommended that the Office of Justice Programs review and “remedy” the spending, find a better use for the remaining $1,000 that was not used and make sure the Center for Self-Sufficiency has proper systems in place to track how it spends grant money before receiving any future funding. 

According to the report, the center notified the office that it was considering dissolving in July and that its board ultimately voted to close the organization by Sept. 30, 2025.

What former staff and board member are saying

Kirkendoll and the two former employees said the Center for Self-Sufficiency did not misallocate any funds.

It could verify grant program expenses with receipts and paper and computer records, but it had a past accounting system that was not clear, they said. 

When Dafi Dyer became president and CEO of the Center for Self-Sufficiency in late 2022, she and the board implemented a review of the center’s outside accounting firm after noticing some problems and switched to a new accounting firm and system in mid-2023, according to Kirkendoll.

During the audit, the center provided the records from its updated system, as well as the records from the previous accountant, according to Kirkendoll and the former employees. 

“So all that stuff is substantiated, it was there, it just wasn’t in the format that they would have expected from the accounting firm,” Kirkendoll said. 

The audit also reported that the center did not complete single audits for 2021, 2022 and 2023.

The Department of Justice Office of Public Affairs did not respond to questions about the services and documentation provided by the Center for Self-Sufficiency. 

The Office of the Inspector General did not attempt to collect the spent money, according to the former employees and Kirkendoll.

Shutting down

Kirkendoll said the board was having conversations with the center’s leadership about potentially dissolving the organization in the first quarter of 2025. 

As limited-term grants ended, according to Kirkendoll and former employees, leadership and the board were not sure if the organization would be able to receive enough funding from other grants to support its operations. 

“When we dug deeper, it just got to a point where, as a board, we decided having even one or two grants remaining just didn’t make sense,” he said. 

The center moved out of the Lovell Street building into the YWCA Southeast Wisconsin building at 1915 N. Martin Luther King Drive in May.

The Center for Self-Sufficiency made efforts to downsize by reducing employee hours and salaries, according to a former employee. It cut its staff of 10 in half in June.

The organization’s total public support dropped from $3.46 million in 2015 to $2.2 million in 2019 to $1.3 million in 2023, according to the center’s tax filings.

It also did not have much private funding – in 2023, it reported $55,054 in other gifts or contributions. 

Kirkendoll said concerns about grant funding are not specific to the Center for Self-Sufficiency. 

“Over the course of the last five-plus years, I think this funding overall for organizations that are doing the work has decreased substantially,” he said.

Impact

Both former employees said the center had a great working environment and a staff dedicated to the people they served. 

One former employee said success stories from past clients, such as staying at a job for two years or having relationships with their children or families that they couldn’t maintain before, might not be reflected in data reports but can make a big difference in a person’s life. 

Another former employee said they gave their contact information to the final participants in the reentry program and still tries to connect them with other resources. 

“They did great work, and this is the nature of nonprofits,” Kirkendoll said. “It’s, of course, always my hope that the work continues, whether it be with another organization, because there’s definitely a need in the community.” 

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Meredith Melland is the neighborhoods reporter for the Milwaukee Neighborhood News Service and a corps member of Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities. Report for America plays no role in editorial decisions in the NNS newsroom.

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

Milwaukee’s Center for Self-Sufficiency closes after federal audit finds unsupported grant documentation 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.

Reading Time: 6 minutes

Credibility is central to the criminal justice system.

Who is telling the truth? Who do jurors and judges believe? 

A year ago, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 News and Wisconsin Watch published the Milwaukee County district attorney’s list of law enforcement officers with integrity violations, allegations of dishonesty or bias, and past criminal charges. 

It was the first time the full list had been made public. 

Prosecutors must share information about witness credibility, including that of police officers, with defense attorneys. Then the attorneys decide if they want to try to raise those credibility concerns in court. 

Often called the “Brady/Giglio list” because of landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases, the list is meant to help ensure people get a fair trial and prevent wrongful convictions. 

Since the list was published last year, local defense attorneys say they’ve noticed prosecutors giving more frequent Brady notifications. But they argue that Milwaukee County’s criteria of what gets an officer on the list remains too narrow – excluding officers who should qualify – and that there is still too much inconsistency among county prosecutors about when and how they share Brady material. 

District Attorney Kent Lovern said his office has always fulfilled its legal and ethical obligations, but he acknowledged making changes to improve the list’s accuracy. The most significant was appointing two executive staff members to help maintain the list.

The first list his office released to reporters in September 2024 had inaccurate, incomplete and outdated information.

Some examples: an officer wrongly described as involved in a custody death, another listed for a criminal case that had been expunged, and others listed with the wrong agency. A handful of officers were deceased.

A new list, released in October 2025, did not have those kinds of problems.

“We put more eyes on the list that were beyond my two eyes,” Lovern said, adding: “We think that’s enhanced, at least, the information, making it as current as possible.” 

In the last year, the District Attorney’s Office added 13 officers and removed two. Most of those officers were added because of internal, not criminal, investigations, and about half remain employed with their agency, according to public records. 

For Caitlin Firer, a defense attorney, the public list has served as a backstop.  

“If I’m watching a body camera and it’s striking me as something’s not right, I will run that officer’s name on the Brady list,” she told TMJ4 News, later adding: “It’s a resource now where we see those names, and we know they’re on the Brady list.” 

Last year, the city’s largest police union, the Milwaukee Police Association, criticized the district attorney’s decision to release the list and news organizations’ decision to publish it. Others in policing praised the transparency. 

“We’re given so much more credibility and respect when we take the stand as opposed to the average citizen,” said David Thomas, a Maryland-based policing consultant and expert.

The Brady list, he said, “goes to the very question of integrity.” 

District attorney’s office using same strict criteria to add officers to the list

What has not changed is the strict criteria used to get an officer on the list. 

Officers are added only if they have a pending criminal charge, a past conviction or an internal investigation “that brings into question the officer’s integrity.” 

Experts told the Journal Sentinel last year the policy appeared improperly narrow and omitted other potential Brady material, including when a judge finds an officer not credible. 

Lovern stood by that practice. His office still does not track those judicial decisions, commonly known as adverse credibility rulings. 

“Credibility determinations, which are frequently made by courts, don’t constitute judgments of untruthfulness,” he said in a recent interview. 

When prosecutors are weighing whether to call an officer to testify, it makes sense to distinguish between overt dishonesty and credibility rulings, said Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, in an interview last month. 

But an officer who was found not credible in court still belongs on the Brady list, she said.

“An officer who has misstated information in his police report, that’s exculpatory regardless of whether the officer intended to do it,” Moran said.

With long internal investigations, it can be years before an officer lands on the list

If an officer is referred to prosecutors for a potential criminal charge, he or she is placed on the Brady list immediately. 

But when it comes to internal investigations, police departments often notify prosecutors at the end of the process, if an officer is found to have broken any department rules.

That can leave a gap. 

Milwaukee police officer Eian West was added to the list in 2025, two years after he and three other officers came under investigation for their response to two domestic violence calls days apart that involved the same couple.  

The officers were accused of failing to make mandatory arrests or file prompt reports, despite the woman saying the man had threatened her with a gun and tried to set her on fire, according to department records. 

West and another officer went to the second call, on April 11, 2023, after two witnesses reported a man beating a woman in a front yard. The officers called her an ambulance.

Later that day, the woman woke up in the hospital and called Police District 4, prompting a sergeant to send two different officers to reinterview the woman and file a report.

Two days after that, the woman had a miscarriage.

Internal affairs asked West why he waited until his next shift, on April 12, after the other officers had been dispatched, to write his report. West’s report also listed the woman as the suspect and did not document the fact that she lived with the man, which is one of the elements of domestic violence, according to a summary from internal affairs.

West maintained he “was not trying to cover up that he was sent to a battery (domestic violence) and did not file it,” police records show.

Still, the officer agreed that he had violated the core value of integrity because he was not completely honest and accurate about all relevant facts in the case, the records say. 

The domestic violence calls took place in April 2023. Internal affairs interviewed West that July. But the internal investigation did not end until 2025, and only after that was West added to the Brady list.

During those two years, prosecutors did not know his integrity was under question in an investigation that ultimately resulted in a 20-day suspension. 

Since prosecutors did not know, they could not disclose it to defense attorneys. 

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman acknowledged it sometimes takes years to complete internal investigations, depending on the complexity. 

“We are not trying to delay for delay’s sake,” Norman said in an interview. “It is unfortunate that we have a number of investigations on our plate.”

More urgent internal investigations, such as police shootings, can take priority, and the department must respect the officers’ due process and collective bargaining rights, the chief said.

Angel Johnson, a regional attorney manager with the State Public Defenders Office in Milwaukee, said that the office’s clients also have rights. 

“If there’s an officer that has credibility issues and they’re going to testify in a proceeding against my client, (my clients) have the same right to due process,” she said. 

Why some officers were removed from the Brady list

The Brady list is fluid. 

As officers come on, others come off. 

Kenton Burtch and Elric Erving, both of the Milwaukee Police Department, were removed in the last year. 

Erving was investigated for disorderly conduct in 2019. No criminal charges were filed, and his name came off the list, Lovern said. 

Burtch was accused of improperly filing his time card and claiming an estimated $1,700 he was not owed. He was demoted from sergeant and suspended for six days.

He appealed to the city’s Fire and Police Commission, which found the situation was a mistake related to the officer’s remote work arrangement and confusion over how to handle it. The commission overturned his discipline, finding “no indication or evidence of intentional misconduct,” and restored his rank. 

Because of that, Lovern said, his name came off the list. 

In the past, Lovern has removed officers who complete deferred prosecution agreements or who win appeals to get their jobs back. 

Some defense attorneys have argued that officers should only rarely, if ever, come off the Brady list.  

“Once you’re placed on the Brady list, if you continue to testify in court, you should not be removed,” Johnson said. 

As of September 2025, the list had 217 entries involving 190 individual officers. The district attorney’s office released the list in October in response to a public records request. Reporters filed records requests to gather more information about new individuals on the list. Some of those requests remain pending. 

In the months since, the list continues to change. For example, the district attorney’s office added a Milwaukee officer recently charged with accessing sensitive license plate data for personal reasons, despite tagging the purpose of his searches as “investigation.”

It was not the first time the officer, Josue Ayala, had been accused of dishonesty on the job, with one defense attorney even telling a federal prosecutor that Ayala exaggerated so much that it seemed to be a “compulsion,” the Journal Sentinel previously reported. Ayala has since resigned.

Defense attorneys continue to rely on media reports, decisions from the city’s Fire and Police Commission and civil lawsuit judgments to identify officers with questionable credibility – and that’s a problem, Johnson said. 

“It should be happening from the DA’s office, but we are still finding ourselves doing that legwork and it’s not our obligation or ethical duty to do so,” she said.

This story is part of Duty to Disclose, an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, TMJ4 News and Wisconsin Watch. The Fund for Investigative Journalism provided financial support for this project.

Milwaukee County’s list of officers with integrity issues became public. What’s happened since? 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.

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Click here to read highlights from the story

• After a federal appeals board barred most detained immigrants from seeking bond, court filings challenging their confinement have surged in Wisconsin and nationwide.

• Over the past six months, dozens of immigrants held in Wisconsin jails awaiting deportation have asked federal judges to review the legality of their detention — a legal strategy rarely used here in recent years. Judges have ruled in their favor in more than half the cases.

• Two forces are driving the influx: an ICE enforcement surge in neighboring Minnesota and a ruling that makes nearly all unauthorized immigrants in ICE custody ineligible for bond.

• A federal judge in California has since invalidated that bond restriction everywhere except Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — states in the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the rule. Immigration attorneys are now working to keep clients’ cases in Midwestern courts and out of the South, home to some of ICE’s largest detention facilities.

Update: March 9, 2026:

A panel of judges in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday paused a federal judge’s February order overturning the Trump administration’s mandatory detention policy in most of the country.

The Trump administration is appealing Central District of California Judge Sunshine Sykes’ order, and the pause applies while the appeal is pending. Multiple federal appellate courts are considering challenges to the administration’s policy, which bars detained immigrants from seeking bond; the 7th Circuit, which includes Wisconsin, heard arguments in a related case last month.

Wisconsin immigration attorneys who hurried to file bond motions for their detained clients last month are now in a holding pattern.

Original story, March 6, 2026

Over the past six months, dozens of immigrants held in Wisconsin jails awaiting deportation have challenged their detention in federal court. Judges ruled in their favor in more than half the cases, pushing back on new federal immigration enforcement practices.

Wisconsin’s federal courts have not seen comparable volumes of immigration-related habeas corpus petitions, which challenge the legality of a person’s detention, in at least a decade. More than a third of the petitions heard in Wisconsin since 2016 were filed in the past six months.

Two forces are driving the influx: the Trump administration’s effort to halt bond for virtually all detainees and its enforcement surge in neighboring Minnesota. 

The U.S. Department of Justice’s Board of Immigration Appeals ruled last September that all unauthorized immigrants in ICE custody are ineligible for bond, meaning they must remain in custody while their case plays out.

The ruling reversed a long-standing practice that previously enabled many immigrants to continue their cases while out on bond. In its wake, habeas petitions became one of few remaining paths to an exit.

Wisconsin’s growing tally of habeas petitions pales in comparison to national figures. Federal district courts nationwide have received more than 24,000 habeas petitions from detained immigrants since January 2025, with numbers surging after the Board of Immigration Appeals decision, overwhelming federal prosecutors tasked with defending the legality of ICE detentions.

Soon after the board’s ruling, the Trump administration targeted Minnesota in its immigration crackdown, deploying thousands of federal agents to patrol the Twin Cities and nearby rural communities. The White House claimed in early February that the campaign resulted in the arrests of more than 4,000 immigrants.

Since January 2025, ICE has transferred at least 108 immigrants from Minnesota to the Douglas County jail in Superior, Wisconsin. The sheriff’s office contracts with ICE for detainee housing, as do three other Wisconsin counties.

At least 15 immigrants held in Douglas County have filed habeas petitions in Wisconsin’s Western District Court since September 2025. Judges have thus far sided with immigrants four times, including two Ecuadorian men arrested in a raid on a construction site in a Minneapolis suburb. Five of the cases remain pending.

Those detained in the Douglas County jail made up two-thirds of the Western District’s immigration-related habeas petitions between September 2025 and February 2026. 

While arrest locations were not available for every case, available data indicates that 60% of immigrants who passed through the Douglas County jail between January and October 2025 were arrested in Minnesota.

The Madison-based court had not previously handled an immigration-related habeas case in over a decade. 

Habeas petitions in the recent past were a “hodgepodge,” said Milwaukee immigration attorney Benjamin Crouse, and were often dismissed or denied by judges in Wisconsin’s Eastern District.

Prior to last September, many habeas petitions challenged the legality of detaining immigrants for months at a time without a clear end date. A Colombian man transferred into ICE custody after a drug arrest in 2014 filed a habeas petition after spending more than 20 months at the Dodge County Detention Facility in Juneau, arguing his detention had stretched beyond reasonable time limits. 

Judge William Griesbach denied the man’s petition in 2016. Griesbach has ruled on 17 habeas petitions in the past decade, granting only one: a 2018 petition filed by a Mexican asylum seeker who spent more than two and a half years in the Kenosha County Detention Center without a bond hearing.

In some cases, Griesbach and other federal judges had no choice but to deny or dismiss habeas petitions: In at least 10 cases filed in Wisconsin’s Eastern District Court since 2016, federal immigration officials deported immigrants before the court could fully consider their petitions. 

Nearly as many immigrants left ICE custody through other routes, including community supervision and asylum, before a judge could rule on their habeas petitions.

Despite the influx of new cases in the Western District, the Eastern District has still heard roughly two-thirds of the immigration-related habeas petitions filed since September. 

Most federal district court judges who have considered habeas petitions since September have ruled against the Board of Immigration Appeals’ decision prohibiting bond hearings for detained immigrants. 

Wisconsin’s Eastern District judges are split. Griesbach called the board’s position “persuasive” in December, rejecting a habeas petition filed by a Venezuelan man arrested alongside his wife during a routine check-in at the Department of Homeland Security’s downtown Milwaukee office earlier that year. That man, Diego Ugarte-Arenas, left ICE custody after receiving asylum in January.

Judge Brett Ludwig also sided with the Trump administration’s position on detaining immigrants without bond. Trump appointed Ludwig to the Eastern District bench in 2020; then-President George W. Bush appointed Griesbach to the court in 2002. 

Eastern District judges Byron Conway, a Biden appointee, and Lynn Adelman, a Clinton appointee, have both criticized the board’s ruling. “Courts have nearly universally rejected the conclusion of the Board,” Conway wrote in an October order granting the habeas petition of a Nicaraguan man arrested during an incidental run-in with ICE agents.

Western District judges have uniformly ruled against the Board of Immigration Appeals’ bond decisions.

Keeping cases in courts like Wisconsin’s Western District is a high priority for attorneys representing detained immigrants.

“It’s less about jurisdictions where you’re successful and more about avoiding jurisdictions where it’s more problematic,” said St. Paul immigration attorney Solomon Steen, who has represented two clients detained in the Douglas County jail.

Many of ICE’s largest detention facilities are in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi — states within the jurisdiction of the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which last month backed the Board of Immigration Appeals’ bond eligibility decision.

When a client arrested in Minnesota lands in a Wisconsin jail, Steen said, attorneys can find them within “hours or days.” Tracking clients’ locations becomes tougher once they are transferred to larger detention facilities elsewhere, he added.

With thousands of immigrants now bouncing between distant detention centers, Steen said many face pressure to give up on their legal cases. “You won’t know if you’ll be able to contact a lawyer if you get detained,” he said. “So wouldn’t it be easier to just take a voluntary departure or take a removal order in immigration court just so that you will know where you are and what’s happening?” 

Steen and other attorneys are now working to keep clients’ cases in Midwestern courts — and out of the 5th Circuit’s jurisdiction — even when their whereabouts are unclear, preserving their chances of a successful habeas petition.

Even before the Board of Immigration Appeals blocked most detainees from seeking bond, voluntary departures — wherein an immigrant leaves the U.S. to avoid a deportation on their record — increased 21-fold between January and September of last year. 

Meanwhile, an order from a federal district court judge in California has opened the door for many of Wisconsin’s current ICE detainees to request bond for the first time in months. 

Judge Sunshine Sykes of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California initially ruled in November that the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of denying bond hearings to most immigrant detainees ran afoul of federal law. 

DHS didn’t budge, maintaining that the Board of Immigration Appeals’ rulemaking authority takes precedence over a ruling in federal district court. Chief Immigration Court Judge Teresa Riley, a Department of Justice employee, later directed judges in immigration courts nationwide to continue denying detained immigrants’ requests for bond hearings. 

Sykes doubled down last week, rebuking DHS for ignoring her earlier order. 

“It is not the executive department’s province and duty to say what the law is,” she wrote. 

Sykes vacated Board of Immigration Appeals bond rules in all states outside of the 5th Circuit, which still leaves most immigrants in ICE’s largest detention centers unable to request bond hearings. 

Crouse recently observed one Chicago immigration court judge notify immigrants about Sykes’ latest order.

 “They’re taking this a little more seriously now, but we still don’t know exactly what this looks like,” he said. 
He and other Milwaukee-area immigration attorneys are again filing bond motions for their clients. “We’re getting hearings,” he added.

Aissa Olivarez, an attorney with the Community Immigration Law Center in Madison, confirmed that immigrants detained in Dodge County are receiving notice that they are eligible for bond. So far, she said, there is no indication federal immigration authorities are rushing to move Wisconsin detainees to holding facilities farther south.

Immigrants fight ICE detention in federal court — and increasingly win 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.

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A federal lawsuit filed Feb. 23 by the legal nonprofit group Protect Democracy alleges the Department of Homeland Security used facial recognition technology unlawfully to track legal observers and label them domestic terrorists. 

In Milwaukee County, law enforcement representatives are addressing facial recognition technology-related fears from residents. They’re concerned about a potential collaboration with a company called Biometrica, which provides access to facial recognition search results.  

In August, Milwaukee County Sheriff Denita Ball signed an “agreement of intent” to enter into a contract with Biometrica, said James Burnett, director of public affairs and community engagement and acting chief of staff at the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office. 

“But the contract is still considered to be in draft form – not fully signed, executed or valid – and has to proceed, like any other proposed contract, through the county’s statutory signing process,” Burnett said. 

There currently are no services or technology being provided by Biometrica, and Biometrica does not have access to any sheriff’s office data, Burnett said.

County Supervisor Sky Capriolo, member of the county’s Judiciary, Law Enforcement and General Services Committee, said she and residents have serious concerns.  

“It warrants more consideration, education and discussion,” Capriolo said. “I certainly am not ready to green-light a contract.”

Capriolo said she’s waiting to hear whether the contract will go to her committee again. 

Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman took a different step and banned the use of facial technology by his department in early February. 

On Feb. 24, Norman announced the suspension of MPD officer Josue Ayala for the improper use of a different tracking tool, the Flock camera system, to track a dating partner and a former partner. 

“I am extremely disappointed to learn about the incident and expect all members, sworn and civilian, to demonstrate the highest ethical standards in the performance of their duties,” said Norman in a statement.

Ayala was charged by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office with one count of attempted misconduct in public office. Norman said he immediately directed MPD to create additional auditing mechanisms.

Concerns remain high

Social justice and civil rights advocates have expressed grave concerns about the use of the technology by both agencies, citing evidence of inaccuracies, racial bias and privacy violations. 

Facial recognition technology uses artificial intelligence to identify someone by comparing a photo of an unknown face to some database of images of known faces, said Katie Kinsey at the Feb. 5 Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission meeting during a presentation by the NYU Policing Project. 

The image databases can include mug shot collections, driver’s license records or images found on the internet, Kinsey said.

Facial recognition technology and local law enforcement

In spring, MPD acknowledged it used outside agencies’ licenses for facial recognition search results for two to three years without a written department policy.

The department also announced it was considering an agreement with Biometrica – an agreement that would have provided access to facial recognition technology to the department in exchange for approximately 2.5 million Milwaukee County Jail booking photos.

This proposal prompted months of public pushback before the announcement by Norman in February that the department would no longer pursue the technology.

ACLU preaches vigilance

The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin welcomed Norman’s announcement but also expressed concerns about MPD’s past decision making.  

It is “extremely concerning that MPD secretly used FRT (facial recognition technology) searches for years without any standard operating procedure – or any written guidelines – in place,” an ACLU spokesperson said in an email to NNS.

The organization is urging Milwaukee residents to remain vigilant.

“Countless Milwaukee residents and community leaders have engaged in thoughtful community education, spent hours upon hours in public meetings and contacted their local elected officials to voice their unequivocal opposition to the use of (facial recognition technology), and they will still be watching,” the spokesperson said. 

The MPD spokesperson told NNS the department could revisit the issue in the future when a policy is in place that aligns with both public safety benefit and public concerns.

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

Milwaukee law enforcement faces growing scrutiny around facial recognition technology use 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.