Michigan Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib, left, speaks at a press conference hosted by immigrant youth, allies and advocates outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — In the crucial last month before President Joe Biden leaves office, immigrants and allies on Tuesday urged the president to offer protections for immigrant communities before Donald Trump is inaugurated.

The president-elect has promised the largest deportation in U.S. history, stoking fear and uncertainty among undocumented immigrants and immigration advocates over a sweeping platform that marked the core of Trump’s GOP presidential campaign.

Speaking near the U.S. Capitol, the “Home is Here” campaign featured immigrant youth, allies and advocates demanding Biden take executive action.

The national coalition, which fights to protect immigrant communities, also urged Congress not to boost funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection during the lame-duck session in a way that would aid Trump in carrying out mass deportations. Members of Congress are expected to vote this week on a stopgap spending bill that would fund the government through mid-March.

Immigrant youth, allies and advocates traveled to Washington, D.C., from across the country, including states such as Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, New York and Utah, to rally and meet with members of Congress about their demands.

Claudia Quiñonez, organizing director of United We Dream, the nation’s largest immigrant youth-led network, said “before the keys to the White House are handed over to Trump, before a new Congress takes office, this lame-duck period is (a) critical window for our members in Congress and President Biden to leave it all on the field.”

Quiñonez, who is also a co-chair of the Home is Here campaign, said there is “no underestimating the length Trump is willing to go to fulfill his pledges for mass deportation in raiding our schools, our workplaces, our hospitals and our churches.”

U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib also voiced her concerns Tuesday over the president-elect’s immigration plans.

“We cannot underestimate, as you all know, what will unfold the moment Trump takes office in January, and we need as many people as possible working to resist this hateful agenda,” the Michigan Democrat said.

Tlaib noted that Biden “still has power to take immediate executive action to protect our immigrant communities.”

She also said “we must continue to work incredibly hard, not only to outwork the hate, but to really promote love and justice within our communities.”

Among its priorities, the Home is Here campaign aims to protect Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program recipients. A federal court will determine the program’s legal fate.

The Obama-era program was created in 2012 and designed to protect children who were brought into the country illegally from deportation.

Trump tried ending DACA during his first term.

During an NBC News interview earlier this month, Trump did not give specifics on what he intends to do about the program but said that he “will work with the Democrats on a plan.”

Immigration groups on Tuesday also expressed worry over the uncertainty of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, which allows migrants in countries with unsafe conditions to legally reside and work in the United States.

Trump sought to end TPS for multiple countries throughout his first administration. 

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto urges the Biden administration to extend protections for Dreamers and immigrants with Temporary Protected Status during a Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024, press conference. From left to right are Andrea Flores of the immigration advocacy group FWD.us and Sens. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Alex Padilla of California. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Jose Cabrera took off work from his landscaping job to join three Latino Democratic senators for a Wednesday press conference urging the Biden administration to renew protected statuses, like his, before the return of President-elect Donald Trump to the White House.

Cabrera, of Montgomery County, Maryland, has lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, and is protected from deportation and allowed work permits. His home country of El Salvador is deemed too dangerous to return, giving him a designation of Temporary Protected Status, or TPS. 

He and other immigrants living legally in the United States fear if they lose their protected status, they will be swept up as Trump implements his campaign promise of mass deportations.

Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Alex Padilla of California and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico are pressing the Biden administration to redesignate TPS for nationals from Nicaragua and El Salvador and to also designate TPS for people from Ecuador.

TPS for El Salvador ends in March and TPS for Nicaragua ends in July, after Trump takes office on Jan. 20.

“We know the incoming administration is going to try to implement chaotic immigration policies that tear our families apart,” Cortez Masto said.

The members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus also stressed that the White House should direct the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s immigration agency to speed up renewal applications for those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program.

“It’s time for this administration to ensure that we can renew their DACA status now, before they come under threat from the Trump administration,” Cortez Masto said.

The White House could not be immediately reached for comment.

Mass deportations threat

The senators stressed that the Biden administration should take action, given Trump’s vow to enact mass deportations, targeting the millions of immigrants without legal status. Deportations could easily include those with TPS if their status is not renewed.

TPS designations can last six, 12 or 18 months before they are renewed and cover more than 1 million immigrants. The status does not offer a pathway to citizenship.

So far, 17 countries have TPS designation and it’s been used in instances like Ukrainians fleeing from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Andrea Flores, the vice president on immigration policy and campaigns at the immigration advocacy group FWD.us, said that Biden should use TPS to protect those holding the status from the incoming Trump administration.

During the first Trump administration, the former president tried to end TPS for Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Sudan, but the courts blocked those attempts in 2018.

“Those people will now lose legal status in the next administration. Those people will be subject to mass deportations, and they’ll be returned to a country where they will be guaranteed to be persecuted,” Flores said.

Padilla and Luján stressed that mass deportations would not only harm communities but the U.S. economy. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Tuesday on the ramifications of mass deportations at which Republicans indicated they will be moving ahead quickly once Trump takes office.

“Mass deportations will jeopardize the safety and security of millions of mixed-status families, sowing deep (mis)trust and fear in the communities we represent, and without a doubt, destabilize the United States economy,” Luján said.

There are roughly 4 million mixed-status families, meaning family members with different immigration statuses.

Padilla said that those who have TPS and DACA all work in crucial U.S. industries.  

“By taking work authorization for hundreds of thousands of workers away, we’re gutting our own workforce,” he said.

DACA fate

Trump, who tried to end DACA during his first administration, said during a sit-down interview with NBC on Sunday that he would “work with the Democrats on a plan” to keep those recipients in the U.S., but he did not elaborate on any details.

The program is currently waiting for a federal court to decide its legal fate.

Thomas A. Saenz, the president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which along with the state of New Jersey is defending DACA in the courts, said Dreamers should still continue to apply for renewals “and not fear renewing.”

“They should continue to seek renewal even perhaps earlier than they otherwise might to try to extend the period under which they are protected,” he said in an interview with States Newsroom.

Cortez Masto said she is always willing to work to protect Dreamers, but is skeptical about Trump’s comments.

“The last time he said that, and we brought him a bipartisan bill to do something to protect our Dreamers, he killed it,” she said.

Cortez Masto was referring to a 2018 bipartisan deal that Sens. Mike Rounds, Republican of South Dakota, and Angus King, independent of Maine, struck that would have granted DACA recipients a pathway to citizenship, along with funding for a border wall.

‘The government has all of our information’

Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, deputy director of federal advocacy at the immigrant advocacy group United We Dream, said in an interview with States Newsroom that she’s concerned about Immigration and Customs Enforcement having access to information on DACA applicants through U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that processes legal immigration paperwork.

“We’re really worried that will just give ICE a list of people that they can go then (and) knock on their doors,” she said. 

Macedo do Nascimento, who is a DACA recipient herself, said her organization is asking the Biden administration to create a firewall between USCIS databases and DHS agencies like ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

“The government has all of our information,” she said. “They could potentially come get us at any point. That’s the worst case scenario.” 

Photo by Gregory Conniff for Wisconsin Examiner

If President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his pledge to deport millions of immigrants, it could upend the economies of states where farming and other food-related industries are crucial — and where labor shortages abound.

Immigrants make up about two-thirds of the nation’s crop farmworkers, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, and roughly 2 in 5 of them are not legally authorized to work in the United States.

Agricultural industries such as meatpacking, dairy farms and poultry and livestock farms also rely heavily on immigrants.

“We have five to six employees that do the work that nobody else will do. We wouldn’t survive without them,” said Bruce Lampman, who owns Lampman Dairy Farm, in Bruneau, Idaho. His farm, which has been in the family three decades, has 350 cows producing some 26,000 pounds of milk a day.

“My business and every agriculture business in the U.S. will be crippled if they want to get rid of everybody who does the work,” said Lampman, adding that his workers are worried about what’s to come.

Anita Alves Pena, a Colorado State University professor of economics who studies immigration, noted that many agricultural employers already can’t find enough laborers. Without farm subsidies or other protections to make up for the loss of immigrant workers, she said, the harm to state economies could be significant.

“Farmers across the country, producers in a lot of different parts, are often talking about labor shortages — and that’s even with the current status quo of having a fairly high percentage of unauthorized individuals in the workforce,” Pena said. “A policy like this, if it was not coupled with something else, would exacerbate that.”

Employers have a hard time hiring enough farm laborers because such workers generally are paid low wages for arduous work.

In addition to hiring immigrant laborers who are in the country illegally, agricultural employers rely on the federal H-2A visa program. H-2A visas usually are for seasonal work, often for about six to 10 months. However, they can be extended for up to three years before a worker must return to their home country.

Employers must pay H-2A workers a state-specific minimum wage and provide no-cost transportation and housing. Still, employers’ applications for H-2A visas have soared in the past 18 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a trend reflecting the shortage of U.S.-born laborers willing to do the work. The number of H-2A positions has surged from just over 48,000 in 2005 to more than 378,000 in 2023.

But agricultural employers that operate year-round, such as poultry, dairy and livestock producers, can’t use the seasonal visa to fill gaps, according to the USDA.

Farmers also employ foreign nationals who have “temporary protected status” under a 1990 law that allows immigrants to remain if the U.S. has determined their home countries are unsafe because of violence or other reasons. There are about 1.2 million people in the U.S. under the program or eligible for it, from countries including El Salvador, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Lebanon and Ukraine. Many have been here for decades, and Trump has threatened to end the program.

Support for the program

Immigration advocates want a pathway for H-2A workers to gain permanent legal status, and agricultural trade organizations are pushing for an expansion of the H-2A program to include year-round operations.

The National Milk Producers Federation says it’s too early to say how it would cope with mass deportations under the Trump administration. But the group states it “strongly supports efforts to pass agriculture labor reform that provides permanent legal status to current workers and their families and gives dairy farmers access to a workable guestworker program.”

Immigrants make up 51% of labor at dairy farms across states, and farms that employ immigrants produce nearly 80% of the nation’s milk supply, according to the organization.

“Foreign workers are important to the success of U.S. dairy, and we will work closely with members of Congress and federal officials to show the importance of foreign workers to the dairy industry and farm communities,” Jaime Castaneda, the group’s executive vice president for policy development and strategy, wrote in an email.

Adam Croissant, the former vice president of research and development at yogurt company Chobani, which has manufacturing plants in Idaho and New York, said he’s seen a lot of misinformation around immigrants’ workforce contributions.

“The dairy industry as a whole understands that without immigrant labor, the dairy industry doesn’t exist. It’s as simple as that,” said Croissant.

Tom Super, a spokesperson for the National Chicken Council, lambasted U.S. immigration policy and said the poultry industry “wants a stable, legal, and permanent workforce.”

“The chicken industry is heavily affected by our nation’s immigration policy or, more pointedly, lack thereof. … The system is broken, and Washington has done nothing to fix it,” Super wrote in an email.

Changes ahead?

But major changes to the H-2A visa program are unlikely to happen before deportations begin. In an interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” over the weekend, Trump repeated his promise to start deporting some immigrants almost immediately.

He said he plans to begin with convicted criminals, but would then move to other immigrants. “We’re starting with the criminals, and we’ve got to do it. And then we’re starting with the others, and we’re going to see how it goes.”

Some farmers still hope that Trump’s actions won’t match his rhetoric. But “hoping isn’t a great business plan,” said Rick Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association. “Our ability to feed ourselves as a country is completely jeopardized if you do see the mass deportations.”

If the deportations do happen, agricultural workers will disappear faster than they can be replaced, experts say.

“The H-2A program will not expand instantly to fill the gap. So, that’s going to be a problem,” said Jeffrey Dorfman, a professor of agricultural economics at North Carolina State University who was Georgia’s state economist from 2019 to 2023.

In Georgia, agriculture is an $83.6 billion industry that supports more than 323,000 jobs. It is one of the five states most reliant on the federal H-2A visa program, depending on those workers to fill about 60% of agricultural jobs.

Dorfman argued that even the fear of deportation will have an impact on the workforce.

“When farmworkers hear about ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] raids on a nearby farm, lots of them disappear. Even the legal ones often disappear for a few days. So, if everybody just gets scared and self-deports, just goes back home, I think that would be the worst disruption,” said Dorfman, adding that even more jobs would need to be filled if the administration revokes temporary protected status.

Antonio De Loera-Brust, communications director for the farmworker labor union United Farm Workers, said the nation’s focus should be on protecting workers, no matter their legal status.

“They deserve a lot better than just not getting deported,” he said. “They deserve better wages, they deserve labor rights, they deserve citizenship.”

And though economists and the agriculture industry have said that mass deportations could raise grocery store prices, De Loera-Brust called that particular argument a sign of “moral weakness.”

“As if the worst thing about hundreds of thousands of people getting separated from their families was going to be that consumers would have to pay more for a bag of strawberries or a bag of baby carrots,” De Loera-Brust said. “There’s a moral gap there.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.

Immigrant farm workers harvest broccoli on March 16, 2006, near the border town of San Luis, south of Yuma, Arizona. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON —  A top Republican on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that when President-elect Donald Trump takes office and the GOP takes control of the Senate, lawmakers’ first priority will be to pass a border security package through a complex process known as budget reconciliation.

Trump has promised his base his administration will enact mass deportations of people living in the country illegally. South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said at a Judiciary hearing that Senate Republicans will focus on increasing beds at detention centers, hiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and purchasing technology for enforcement at the southern border.

“It is our belief that the only way you’ll get control of the border is for deportations to start early,” he said. “If we do not have outflow, the inflow will continue.”

However, a senior fellow at the pro-immigration think tank the American Immigration Council, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, told the panel the endeavor will be expensive.

Carrying out mass deportations of 1 million people would cost about $88 billion a year for arrests, detainment and removal, he said. About 13 million people are living in the United States illegally.

Fixing a broken system

The committee hearing, led by Democrats who control the Senate now but will be in the minority next year, explored the ramifications of the Trump campaign promise of mass deportations.

“Instead of mass deportations, mass accountability,” said the chair of the committee, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. “Let’s fix our broken immigration system in a way that protects our country and honors our heritage as a nation of immigrants.”

The budget reconciliation process cited by Graham that would be used to pass border security legislation, if successful, would allow Republicans to get around the 60-vote filibuster in the Senate.

Reconciliation is generally used when one party controls the House, Senate and the White House, because it only requires a majority vote in each chamber.

Graham added that Republicans will also prevent those people who were paroled into the country through executive authority from employing another avenue for legal immigration status. The GOP has been critical of programs that allow certain nationals from Haiti, Nicaragua, Cuba and Venezuela to temporarily work and live in the United States.

“So if you’re here illegally, get ready to leave,” Graham said.

DACA program

One of the hearing witnesses, Foday Turay, is in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which is awaiting a federal court ruling on its legality after the Trump administration tried to end it.

Separately, on Monday, a federal court blocked the implementation of a final rule from the Biden administration to allow DACA recipients to have health care access under the Affordable Care Act. 

About 500,000 people are in the program, which is aimed at protecting children brought into the country without authorization from deportation. It also allows them to obtain work permits.

Turay is an assistant district attorney in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and said if he were deported it would devastate his family, as he is the primary income earner in his household.

He said his wife, a U.S. citizen, is the primary caretaker of her mother, a person with disabilities who is undergoing cancer treatments. Additionally, Turay said he would have to leave his son behind if he is deported.

Another witness, Patty Morin of Aberdeen, Maryland, told how her daughter, Rachel, was killed. The suspect, who was charged with first-degree murder and sexual assault, was in the country illegally and had a prior criminal record.

Durbin said Democrats are not opposed to ICE carrying out its duties to deport those with criminal records and stressed that Trump’s plans for mass deportations extend beyond that group and would include people like Turay.

“This man for a living is prosecuting criminals,” Durbin said of Turay. “This other individual is a clear criminal with a record. When we say ‘mass deportation,’ should we consider them the same because they’re both undocumented?”

Graham said when it comes to DACA, “hopefully we can find a solution to that problem.”

Over the weekend, Trump expressed his support for coming to an agreement with Democrats to allow DACA recipients to remain in the country, despite trying to end the program during his first term.

Use of National Guard

Durbin said he is concerned about Trump’s comments about using the National Guard to carry out mass deportations.

One of the witnesses, Randy Manner, a retired major general in the U.S. Army, said he sees problems with using the military for mass deportations.

It could affect military readiness, he said, and the military is not trained in that capacity.

“Immigration enforcement is the responsibility of federal law enforcement agencies,” Manner said.

He added that having soldiers carry out that directive would have a negative impact on morale and recruiting. Manner also said having the U.S. military involved in that kind of political messaging would erode public trust.

Cost of mass deportations

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar said not only would mass deportations be harmful to communities, but a financial strain as well.

Reichlin-Melnick said industries that would be hit particularly hard by losing employees would include construction, agriculture and hospitality.

Reichlin-Melnick also argued that ICE already focuses on arresting and conducting deportation proceedings for noncitizens with criminal records.

“The overwhelming majority of people who would be the target of a mass deportation campaign do not have criminal records,” he said. “They are people who have been living otherwise law-abiding lives in this country, living, working and, in many cases, paying taxes.”

Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn suggested that local law enforcement should be empowered to carry out deportations, even though immigration enforcement is a federal issue.

Art Arthur, a resident fellow in law and policy at the Center for Immigration Studies, a group that advocates for sharply limiting immigration, supported that idea.

“They’re going to be the people who are best able to pull those individuals out of the community,” Arthur said of local law enforcement.

President-elect Donald Trump was interviewed for the edition of NBC News’ “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker” that aired on Sunday, Dec. 8, 2024. (Photo courtesy of NBC News)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump vowed to sign an executive order on his first day in office to end the constitutional right to U.S. citizenship for anyone born in the country, during an extensive Sunday interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.”

But Trump also admitted there would be legal hurdles to carrying out his policy goal of amending the 14th Amendment. Many constitutional legal scholars have argued that Trump could not halt what is known as birthright citizenship through an executive order.

“We have to end it,” Trump told Welker. “We’re going to end that because it’s ridiculous.”

On other immigration topics, he said he is willing to make a deal with Democrats on keeping so-called Dreamers in the U.S., and he supports deporting entire families in his mass deportation plans, even if the children themselves are U.S. citizens.

But some of his most extensive comments were on birthright citizenship. “We’re gonna have to get it changed,” Trump said of the 14th Amendment.

Ratified in 1868

The U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868 and guarantees U.S. citizenship to anyone born in the country.

“All persons born or naturalised in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside,” according to the 14th Amendment.

Trump said that he will try to end birthright citizenship through an executive order, “if we can.”

Experts take issue. “There is today no serious scholarly debate about whether a president can, through executive action, contradict the Supreme Court’s long-standing and consistent interpretation of the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment,” Gerald Neuman, director of the human rights program at Harvard Law School, said in a statement in 2018 along with a group of constitutional law scholars.

Two-thirds of both the U.S. House and Senate would be required to vote to approve an amendment changing the Constitution, and three-fourths of state legislatures would have to ratify such an amendment for it to take effect. A convention could also be called by two-thirds of state legislatures.

While Republicans are set to control both chambers by January, it’s not by a margin of two-thirds.

During the interview, Trump also inaccurately claimed that the United States is the only country in the world that has birthright citizenship. More than a dozen countries bestow birthright citizenship, from Canada to Brazil.

Some countries have birthright citizenship, but with restrictions, such as France, which requires at least one parent be a citizen in order for the child to obtain citizenship.

A branch extended to Dreamers

Welker asked Trump what his plans are for the Dreamers, the more than 500,000 people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that he tried to end during his first administration. The DACA program is currently waiting for a federal court to decide its legal fate.

“These are people that have been brought here at a very young age and many of these are middle-aged people now, they don’t even speak the language of their country,” he said.

Trump said that he would “work with the Democrats on a plan,” but did not elaborate on any details.

Welker asked Trump about his mass deportation plans, a campaign pledge to deport millions of undocumented people, and how that would affect the more than 4 million mixed-status families, meaning families with different immigration statuses.

“I don’t want to be breaking up families,” Trump said. “So the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”

Welker asked if that included, “even kids who are here legally?”

“Whatcha gonna do if they want to stay with the father?” Trump said. “We have to have rules and regulations.”

Trump did not answer repeated questions as to whether he would bring back one of his harshest immigration policies, known as family separation, that separated parents from their children at the border. While most have been reunited, there are still about a quarter of children who are not with their parents.

“We don’t have to separate families,” Trump said. “We’ll send the whole family very humanely, back to the country where they came.”

A new report outlines trends in jail bookings and argues that the data shows that a punitive response to social and economic needs isn't working. | Getty Images

A recently released Prison Policy Initiative report, using data from the Jail Data Initiative, reveals that in 2023 there were 7.6 million admissions to jail, but that 1 in 4 admissions were for people previously booked in the last year, with Indigenous people/Native Americans the most likely to be booked again.

“Based on the Jail Data Initiative data, we estimate that over 5.6 million unique individuals are booked into jail annually and about 1.2 million are jailed multiple times in a given year,” the report found.  “Further analysis reveals patterns of bookings — and repeat bookings in particular — across the country: The jail experience disproportionately impacts Black and Indigenous people, and law enforcement continues to use jailing as a response to poverty and low-level ‘public order’ offenses.”

The report, prepared by Emily Widra and Wendy Sawyer, is titled “Who is jailed, how often and why: Our Jail Data Initiative collaboration offers a fresh look at the misuse of local jails.”

The Jail Data Initiative gathered information from 1,000 jails in the U.S. daily that included online jail rosters. The 1,000 jails represent approximately a third of 2,850 jails in America.

Of the 1,000 jails, 648 offered jail rosters available for a two-year window (July 1, 2021-June 30, 2023) and an additional year (out to June 30, 2024) to document those who had been booked again.

Previously, back in 2019, the Prison Policy Initiative released a report titled “Arrest, Release, Repeat: How police and jails are misused to respond to social problems.” That 2019 report reflects a survey from the National Survey of Drug Use and Health while the 2024 report reflects data collected directly from jails.

The 2024 report notes that more than 1 in 5, or 22%, in the study were booked more than once within 12 months.

Black people, who represent 14% of the population, were booked on unique charges at 32% of the total cases. 

Indigenous people, who represent 1% of the U.S. population, but are 3% of the incarcerated population, were rebooked back in jail within one year at 33%, contrasted with 23% for whites booked a second time within one year, 20% for Blacks, 19% for other people of color, and 18% for Asian American or Pacific Islanders.

The 2024 report notes that while the rates of booking and rebooking for women are similar to men in their demographic there is a growing trend of more women being incarcerated in jail.

“From 2021 to 2022, the number of women in jail increased 9% while the number of men in jail increased only 3%. The jailing of women has a devastating ‘ripple effect’ on families: At least 80% of women booked into jail are mothers, including over 55,000 women who are pregnant when they are admitted. Beyond having to leave their children in someone else’s care, these women are impacted by the brutal side effects of going to jail: aggravation of mental health problems, a greater risk of suicide, and a much higher likelihood of ending up homeless or deprived of essential support and benefits. So while women may account for a relatively small share of people booked into jails, those jail admissions have serious and long lasting consequences for the women, their families, and their communities.”

The report notes that 1 in 10 booked were older adults and roughly 7% of those older adults were rebooked within a year.

The report also notes, from 1999 to 2021, there was a growing trend of those 55 years old and older being arrested.

“Considering most older adults are arrested for low-level, non-violent offenses like trespassing, driving offenses, and disorderly conduct, it is likely that the older adults admitted to jail are in need of other systems of support outside of the criminal legal system, like substance use treatment, accessible medical care, and behavioral health services,” the report states.

In the Jail Data Initiative, there were 140 jails that shared the housing status of inmates, whether residents were homeless/unhoused or not: 4% reported they were unhoused and 42% of those unhoused were booked again within a year compared to 20% of those who had housing.

“This finding adds to the existing evidence of law enforcement’s ineffective but disproportionate and deliberate targeting of people experiencing homelessness,” the report states.

The 2024 report also compared recent charges reflected to  data collected in a 2002 Bureau of Justice Statistics  survey of inmates in local jails, based on self-reporting by inmates, and concluded there had been a noticeable decrease in drug charges since 2002 (from 25% to 14%), a smaller decrease for property charges, very little variation for violent offense charges, but a 6% increase in public order charges, such as disorderly conduct, loitering or public intoxication.

The report notes its findings support a widely accepted conclusion: “People who are arrested and booked more than once per year often have other vulnerabilities, including homelessness, in addition to the serious medical and mental health needs …”

This report has been updated to clarify how the jail admission and readmission data was reported and calculated.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Ur M. Jaddou speaks at a U.S. House Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on Dec. 4, 2024. Republican members of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement sharply questioned Jaddou on her agency's handling of immigration benefits, applications and petitions. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Republican members of a U.S. House Judiciary Committee panel scrutinized the head of the Department of Homeland Security agency tasked with processing legal pathways to immigration during a contentious hearing Wednesday about the Biden administration’s parole program that grants temporary protections for nationals from some countries.

That program temporarily grants work permits and allows nationals from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela to remain in the country if they are sponsored by someone in the United States.

Rep. Tom McClintock of California, the chair of the Subcommittee on Immigration Integrity, Security, and Enforcement, accused U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of creating “unlawful” pathways to legal immigration through humanitarian parole programs – an authority presidents have used since the 1950s.

The chair of the full Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan of Ohio, also grilled USCIS Director Ur Jaddou about if parole programs “of this magnitude” had been used before.

Since President Joe Biden launched the program in 2022, more than 500,000 people have been paroled through that authority.

Jaddou said that historically, presidents have used some kind of parole authority.

The top Democrat on the panel, Pramila Jayapal of Washington state, criticized Republicans for wanting to curtail legal pathways to immigration and argued that the U.S. workforce is reliant on immigrants.

“The truth is that we benefit from the contributions of immigrants and their families in every single field of work,” she said.

Funding structure blamed

USCIS is a roughly $5 billion agency that is primarily funded by filing fees from immigrants – about 96% – not through congressional appropriations, which make up the remaining 4% of its budget.

Jayapal defended the agency, arguing that Jaddou had to rebuild USCIS after the first Trump administration and a budget deficit from the COVID-19 pandemic that closed offices and led to fees plummeting.

The agency handles applications for naturalization, green card applications, family visas, some work visas, humanitarian programs and adoptions of children from non-U.S. countries, among other things.

Jaddou said one of the biggest challenges is that because USCIS operates on fees, if there is a funding crisis it can cause funding to freeze and puts limitations on hiring and overall efficiency.  

“We do not have effective legal immigration systems to meet the needs of the nation,” she said.

Jaddou said, for example, funding constraints limit the number of asylum officers hired.

“It limits us in our humanitarian work,” she said.

Questions about fraud

Arizona Republican Rep. Andy Biggs questioned Jaddou about fraud in the parole program, which caused a temporary pause in applications over the summer to investigate some of the U.S-based sponsors.

“The program was paused for five weeks because of fraud,” Biggs said.

McClintock asked Jaddou if she knew how many parolees had changed in their immigration status and how many paroles have been renewed since the program began in 2022.

Jaddou said she didn’t have those numbers, which frustrated McClintock.

“This is outrageous.” he said. “You were asked these questions in September, you were told in advance of this hearing that they would be asked again, and you were advised to have answers for us. These are basic questions of data.”

California Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren asked what improvements USCIS has made in light of the investigations into U.S.-based sponsors.

Jaddou answered that the agency added biometric requirements such as fingerprints and photos and allowed for automated systems to cross-check Social Security numbers. She said that employees were also re-trained and given guidance to monitor for potential fraud.

“We saw some issues, we took action,” Jaddou said.

New Jersey Republican Rep. Jeff Van Drew said he was frustrated with the agency’s backlogs and that it takes years to process green cards.

“I think you’re doing a bad job,” he said to Jaddou. “You’ve hurt legal Americans and legal immigrants and helped some folks who shouldn’t be in this country.”

Van Drew asked if USCIS has diverted its resources from processing other legal pathway applications by focusing on parole applicants.  

Jaddou said the agency hasn’t.

“Well I disagree with you,” he said. 

Transgender rights opponents and a supporter rally outside of the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices hear arguments in a case on transgender health rights on December 4, 2024 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court is hearing arguments in US v. Skrmetti, a case about Tennessee's law banning gender-affirming care for minors and if it violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

A conservative U.S. Supreme Court appeared ready to side with Tennessee Wednesday in upholding the state’s ban on gender affirming care for minors, a case likely to set legal precedent on equal protection for transgender children.

A decision from the court isn’t expected until June 2025, but Republican-appointed justices such as Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh tipped their hands on how they would rule during three hours of oral arguments in Washington, D.C.

They were countered by the court’s liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who are outnumbered 6-3.

Conservative justices appeared leery of creating a protected class, but Jackson, for instance, indicated the law clearly discriminates on the basis of sex. Jackson used the Loving v. Virginia case that allowed racially integrated marriages to show that similar arguments were made against those types of unions some 50 years ago.

Three families with transgender children and Memphis Dr. Susan Lacy sued the state, then the federal government intervened on behalf of the plaintiffs who are challenging Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy to allow minors to make a sex transition.

Thomas, for instance, asked the federal government’s attorney why the case would be a matter of age classification, as opposed to sex. Alito and Kavanaugh raised questions about the United Kingdom and European countries dialing back support for gender affirming care.

In addition, Roberts said the court is “not the best situated to address issues” such as gender affirming care and should allow legislatures to make those types of decisions.

Tennessee lawmakers passed Senate Bill 1 in 2023 following an uproar over reports by a right-wing radio commentator that Vanderbilt University Medical Center was performing surgeries and administering puberty blockers and hormone therapy to children. Vanderbilt said it wasn’t performing surgical procedures when the issue erupted.

Gov. Bill Lee says Tennessee has a “compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their sex, particularly as they undergo puberty,” and in blocking treatments “that might encourage minors to become disdainful of their sex.

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU Tennessee, Lambda Legal and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld filed suit against Tennessee, claiming the equal protection rights of transgender children were violated. The law was struck down in U.S. District Court, but that decision was overturned by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.

Tennessee’s legal strategy is based on the premise that the 2023 law prohibiting puberty blockers and hormone therapy for young people is based on “medical purposes,” not a child’s sex.

In contrast, attorneys for the plaintiffs said Senate Bill 1 created a blanket ban on gender affirming care based entirely on a minor’s desire to change sexes. They pointed out children suffering from gender dysphoria could be prone to suicide if they don’t receive puberty blockers or hormone treatments that enable them to start the transition toward a sex different from their birth sex.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs say the Supreme Court should give the matter “heightened scrutiny,” or a closer examination, because it involves discrimination against transgender children rather than review it under standard “rational basis,” which is typically used when a law doesn’t involve a constitutional right.

Elizabeth Prelogar, solicitor general for the Department of Justice, told the justices the state of West Virginia enacted a law that set up requirements for undergoing gender affirming care, whereas Tennessee passed a blanket ban affecting children seeking to transition to another sex.

Justice Kagan made the point that the law is based on “transgender status” and not sex alone. She also said Tennessee appears to want to “conform to sex stereotypes.”

Kavanaugh stuck with the argument that some transgender people want to switch back to their original sex when they get older but are physically unable to make the change.

“How do we as a court choose which set of risks is more serious when we constitutionalize?” Kavanaugh said.

Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@tennesseelookout.com. Follow Tennessee Lookout on Facebook and X.

Rep. Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz.,  speaks during a news conference regarding the separation of immigrant children at the U.S. Capitol on July 10, 2018 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Alex Edelman/Getty Images)

Raúl Grijalva, the top Democrat on the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee, will not seek to remain in that position in the next Congress, he said in a written statement Monday.

The announcement from Grijalva, an Arizona progressive who has led Democrats on the committee overseeing environmental, public lands and tribal issues for a decade, paves the way for California’s Jared Huffman to take the ranking member role.

Meanwhile, in another major development among Democrats in the House, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said he would challenge Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York as ranking member on the powerful House Judiciary Committee.

“This is where we will wage our front-line defense of the freedoms and rights of the people, the integrity of the Department of Justice and the FBI, and the security of our most precious birthright possessions: the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the rule of law, and democracy itself,” Raskin said in a “Dear Colleague” letter to lawmakers on Monday.  “I respectfully and humbly ask for your support for my candidacy.”

Grijalva to focus on recovery

Grijalva disclosed in April that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer. He returned to Congress last month. His Monday statement noted he would continue to focus on his recovery.

“After much thought, I have decided that it is the right moment to pass the torch as top Democrat” on the House Natural Resources Committee for the 119th Congress, he said. “I do not make this decision lightly, as being elected Ranking Member stands as the honor of my professional career. I will continue to focus on improving my health, strengthening my mobility, and serving my district in what is likely to be a time of unprecedented challenge for our community.”

Grijalva was reelected to the House in November. He plans to serve his full term as a rank-and-file member, a spokeswoman said.

In a statement, Huffman said if he is made ranking member, he would ask the House Democratic Caucus to give Grijalva the title of ranking member emeritus “in recognition of his distinguished career and the enduring importance of his leadership.”

Grijalva was first elected to the House in 2002. He became the Natural Resources Committee’s ranking Democrat in 2015.

Inflation Reduction Act

Grijalva chaired the committee while his party held the majority from 2019 to 2023.

The first half of his chairmanship was marked by investigations of the first Trump administration, including a criminal referral of former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt.

The second half, which occurred during the first two years of the Biden administration amid unified Democratic control of Washington, saw the passage of the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act that Democrats passed along party lines.

With hundreds of millions available in tax breaks for renewable energy projects, the law represented the largest federal investment in addressing climate change to date.

“I am so deeply proud of the progress that my colleagues and I have achieved in protecting our nation’s rich natural and cultural heritage, advancing justice for communities overburdened by pollution, elevating Indigenous voices and honoring tribal sovereignty, fighting for the decolonization of the U.S. territories, and securing a cleaner, safer climate and energy future for all Americans,” Grijalva said Monday.

Avoids race among Dems

Grijalva, who is also a chair emeritus of the Congressional Progressive Caucus after he co-chaired that group from 2009 to 2019, thanked “colleagues, tribal nations, and environmental organizations” who had supported him in his brief bid to fend off the challenge from Huffman.

Huffman, 60, said last month he would seek to unseat Grijalva, 76, a rarity among House Democrats, who do not use term limits for committee positions and normally strictly adhere to seniority.

Huffman is the top Democrat on the panel’s Water, Wildlife and Fisheries Subcommittee. He is also a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.

A statement from Huffman Monday was full of praise for the outgoing leader and said he would seek to work closely with him in the period of transition.

“For the past twelve years, Rep. Raul Grijalva has been my friend and ally on the Natural Resources Committee,” Huffman wrote. “Working alongside him, I’ve seen his grit, determination, and passion for protecting our nation’s treasured natural resources, and his iron-clad commitment to lifting up frontline and indigenous communities.  He has inspired me and countless others with his passion and the clarity of his values.”

“Future generations will benefit from all that he has fought for and accomplished during his remarkable career,” the statement continued. “Rep. Grijalva leaves big shoes to fill, and I will now dedicate myself to building on his legacy of principled and productive leadership as Ranking Member of the Natural Resources Committee.”

Grijalva’s statement did not name Huffman.

A spokesman for Chairman Bruce Westerman, an Arkansas Republican, did not immediately return a message seeking comment.

Raskin and Nadler

Raskin in his letter said he was announcing his challenge to Nadler, a longtime top member of the panel, with “respect and boundless admiration,” but also said the upcoming session of Congress would be crucial for the nation’s future and House Judiciary would play a major role.

“We face an administration that would essentially put the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 on steroids. They want to turn the Justice Department and FBI into weapons of not only mass immigrant roundup and deportation but political revenge and prosecution. They would collapse the system of separated powers into an all-powerful monarchical Executive, and convert America from being a defender of democracy and human rights to being an open collaborator with autocrats and authoritarian oppression,” wrote Raskin, a former professor of constitutional law at American University’s Washington College of Law and a member of the Jan. 6 investigative committee in the 117th Congress.

“They want to align us with Putin’s Russia, Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, Xi’s China and Orban’s Hungary. In the 119th Congress, the Judiciary Committee will be the headquarters of Congressional opposition to authoritarianism and MAGA’s campaign to dismantle our Constitutional system and the rule of law as we know it. I hope to be at the center of this fight and—as someone who has battled cancer and chemotherapy—I can tell you that I will never, never surrender.”

Nadler told colleagues last month he would like to continue in his role as ranking member of the committee, Axios reported.

People participate in a Puerto Rican Day parade in New York City. Multiracial cultures such as Puerto Rican and Dominican may pose problems for new proposed Census Bureau survey formats that ask about race and Hispanic status separately. (Stephanie Keith | Getty Images)

The U.S. Census Bureau and a growing number of states are starting to gather more detailed information about Americans’ race and ethnicity, a change some advocates of the process say will allow people to choose identities that more closely reflect how they see themselves.

Crunching and sorting through those specific details — known as data disaggregation — will help illuminate disparities in areas such as housing and health outcomes that could be hidden within large racial and ethnic categories. But some experts say the details also might make it harder for Black people from multiracial countries to identify themselves.

Racial data gleaned from the census is important because local, state, tribal and federal governments use it to guide certain civil rights policies and “in planning and funding government programs that provide funds or services for specific groups,” according to the Census Bureau.

The form will have checkboxes for main categories — current census groupings include “Asian,” “Black,” “African American” and “White,” among others — followed by more specific checkboxes. Under Asian, for example, might be Chinese, Asian Indian, Filipino, Vietnamese, Korean or Japanese. And then there will be an empty box for people to write in more specific subgroups.

Collecting more detail by allowing free-form answers, for example, will make it possible for people to identify themselves as part of more racial and ethnic subgroups — such as “Sardinian” (an autonomous region within Italy) instead of simply “Italian” — and include alternative names for certain groups, such as writing “Schitsu’umsh,” the ancient language for “Coeur D’Alene Tribe.”

And the Census Bureau will for the first time include Middle Eastern/North African as a separate racial/ethnic category for respondents with that heritage. Until now, Middle Eastern people who did not choose a race were treated as a subcategory under “white,” based on a 1944 court ruling intended to protect Arab immigrants from racist laws banning U.S. citizenship for nonwhite immigrants.

Under new federal guidelines approved in March, the bureau also will give people the option to check no race at all if they identify as Hispanic or Middle Eastern/North African.

The Census Bureau already has decided to use more open-ended questions in both the 2027 American Community Survey and the nation’s 2030 census. But the agency is seeking public comment on the way write-in responses will be categorized.

The bureau wants to hear how people are likely to identify themselves, said Merarys Ríos-Vargas, chief of the bureau’s Ethnicity and Ancestry Branch, Population Division, in a recent webinar. The agency also is interested in whether there are missing or incorrect entries in its proposed list of possible responses.

‘It’s about people’s lives’

Nancy López, a University of New Mexico sociology professor, said she and other experts in Black Hispanic culture think the census should have a “visual race” or “street race” question, so people can communicate how others see them as well as how they identify themselves. The answer might be “Black” or a yet-unrecognized racial category such as “brown.”

“A separate question on race as a visual status helps illuminate the kind of things we are interested in — discrimination in housing, discrimination in employment, discrimination in education and accessing health care in public spaces,” said López, who is the daughter of Dominican immigrants and a co-founder of the university’s Institute for the Study of “Race” & Social Justice.

“It’s about people’s lives, it’s about the future, it’s about children, it’s about access to opportunities and it’s about fairness,” she added, noting that even if the federal government doesn’t add such questions to surveys and the decennial census, state and universities can still do it on their own as they collect data for health care, student enrollment and other topics.

The NALEO Educational Fund, an organization representing Latino elected and appointed officials, supports the decision to make a race choice optional for Hispanics.

“Many Latinos did not see themselves in any of the categories for their racial identity,” said Rosalind Gold, NALEO’s chief public policy officer. “There’s a large number of Latinos who feel that identifying as Latino is both their racial and ethnic identity.”

Gold said NALEO understands the concern some have that failing to require a race designation will obscure racial information on Black Hispanics. But her group argues that the census can get what it needs by educating the public on how to respond and by including prompts on the questionnaires to guide race choices.

Black Hispanic people often see themselves as having a single racial and ethnic identity, according to several experts in Hispanic identity who spoke at a Census Bureau National Advisory Committee meeting Nov. 7.

“They conceptualize themselves as belonging to one [group],” said Nicholas Vargas, an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, speaking at the committee meeting.

“They check ‘Black’ and they check ‘Dominican’ — and don’t want to be counted as two or more,” he said.

In response, Rachel Marks, an adviser for the Census Bureau on race and ethnicity, said the bureau will consider that issue and other “feedback on how people want to be represented” before making a final decision on survey details.

The bureau may recognize a term, Afro-Latino, that could be used to indicate both Black race and Hispanic ethnicity, according to a proposed code list from the agency, as well as “Blaxican” for Black Mexican and “Blasian“ for Black Asian.

The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of civil rights groups, called the more detailed questions “a step forward” but also suggested more guidance on the forms to ensure people are categorized the way they want to be. In its comment on the changes, the group noted that in 2020, some people who wrote in “British” under the Black checkbox were categorized as partly white even if they didn’t mean that.

The group also said it is “concerned about a conflation of the concepts of race and ethnicity,” and it asked for more research to make sure people understand how to respond.

State actions

Some states are acting on their own to gather more detailed data about identity.

New Jersey is among the latest states to pass a law requiring more detailed race and ethnic data collection for state records such as health data and school enrollment.

A similar bill in Michigan would require state agencies that gather information to offer “multiracial” and “Middle Eastern or North African” as choices; the bill remains in committee.

And advocates in Oregon, which already has a law requiring detailed ethnic data collection, are asking the state for more details on Asian subgroups who face education challenges.

A December 2023 report by The Leadership Conference Education Fund identified 13 other states with laws requiring more detailed state data on ethnic and racial groups, including laws passed last year in Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts and Nevada.

The states of California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington already had such laws, the group found.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

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

No.

U.S. citizenship is required to vote in Wisconsin, but election officials generally don’t try to verify citizenship when someone registers to vote.

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, made the citizenship claim Nov. 24, 2024. 

The Wisconsin Elections Commission said Nov. 5:

• “Voters must attest to their U.S. citizenship on their voter registration form under penalty of perjury.” 
• Wisconsin and federal law don’t provide for systematically verifying citizenship “beyond the attestation.”
• Falsely claiming citizenship at registration is a felony.

There’s no evidence of noncitizens voting in elections in meaningful numbers.

Voters Nov. 5 amended the Wisconsin Constitution to limit voting to citizens. Republican supporters said it would prevent any move allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections, as some U.S. jurisdictions allow.

Over 9% of voting-age U.S. citizens (21.3 million people) cannot readily access proof of citizenship, because they do not have it or could not access it easily, a University of Maryland survey released in June said.

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

Sources

• Wisconsin Elections Commission What Are the Rules Regarding Citizens and Voting in Wisconsin?
• WISN 12 News UPFRONT: Speaker Vos 1-on-1
• Wisconsin Watch Noncitizen voting rarely happens. But Wisconsin voters are hearing a lot about it.
• Associated Press Noncitizen voting, already illegal in federal elections, becomes centerpiece of 2024 GOP messaging
• University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement Who Lacks ID in America Today? An Exploration of Voter ID Access, Barriers, and Knowledge
• Wisconsin Public Radio Wisconsin voters OK changes to constitutional language on citizens and voting
• Wisconsin Watch Has the District of Columbia adopted a law allowing noncitizens to vote in local elections?
• Ballotpedia Laws permitting noncitizens to vote in the United States

Do Wisconsin election officials verify citizenship when a person registers to vote? 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.

Lake Monona and the Peck cabin, site of Madison’s inaugural Thanksgiving meal, in 1838. (Wisconsin Historical Society: Image 2859)

The number of students in the program this year nearly doubled from 2023.

The post ‘Citizens by choice’: 36 Milwaukee Area Technical students earn US citizenship appeared first on WPR.

Hundreds of immigrant rights advocates and others participate in rally and demonstration at the Federal Building in lower Manhattan on June 1, 2018 in New York. In coordinated marches across the country people gathered outside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field offices, U.S. attorney's offices, and the Department of Justice headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Spencer Platt | Getty Images).

The week before Thanksgiving, I spoke with an immigration attorney in Madison, Grant Sovern, who helped found the Community Immigration Law Center (CILC) — part of a flurry of new services created in the wake of the 2018 ICE raids that terrorized Dane County during President-elect Donald Trump’s first administration. No one knows what the immigration crackdown Trump has promised for his second term will look like. But advocates are once again meeting to try to prepare.

Sovern told me about desperate calls from friends of his college-age daughter — students who are worried about losing their protected status under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). While he has been offering them hope that the new administration won’t start by targeting Dreamers, who grew up in this country and just want to continue to study and work here, he added that the easiest targets for mass deportation are other people who’ve followed the rules. Asylum-seekers and those with temporary protected status and work visas — like the Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, that Trump and incoming Vice President J.D. Vance falsely accused of eating their neighbors’ pets — will be the easiest to find.

What an ominous holiday season. We need the warmth of gatherings with friends and family more than ever. But it’s a weird time to be celebrating the arrival of our nation’s first immigrants and the mythical meal where they bonded with Native Americans before swiping their land and wiping them out. Talking about colonialism, genocide and how our society is built on historic injustice is quickly dismissed as “woke” and out of fashion these days. But it’s unavoidable if you’re trying to understand the rise of right-wing authoritarianism here and around the globe.

The same week I spoke with Sovern about preparations in Dane County to counter Trump’s mass deportations, Israeli peace activist Rotem Levin came to Madison with his Palestinian peace movement colleague Osama Iliwat to speak out against the war in Gaza and to discuss their vision for “a path to shared safety, justice and liberation,” according to the promotional materials from Jewish Voice for Peace, Vets for Peace and a handful of local religious groups that brought them to the Presbyterian church near my house.

I met Levin at the home of a neighbor who hosted the pair (Iliwat was resting, feeling unwell after their trip). Levin said their goal was to get people to stop being “sleepy” about the occupation and the hopelessness of the seemingly endless war on Palestinians by his country, supported by the U.S.

“We’re not like you – you genocided all the Native Americans and now they have to accept you,” Levin said with startling Israeli frankness. “We’re in the Middle East. There are Muslims all around us. The only way to guarantee safety and security is by building trust.”

Of the recent U.S. election, he said, “I want to encourage you. We have been living with dictatorship for 20 years. You will be OK.”

People who have been living comfortably with the thought that they are part of a democracy, protected by the rule of law, are not the ones who need to be afraid, he added. In the U.S., “people without papers” are the most vulnerable, like the Palestinians in Israel, he said. His parents, among other Israelis, have been shocked by his country’s rapid slide into fascism under the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu and his right-wing cabinet. For his mother, who suddenly doesn’t recognize her country, and for his father, who was beaten at a protest march, the shift to militarism and the crushing of free speech was unthinkable until recently. For his Palestinian friends, however, repression is a familiar fact of life. His message is that security depends on justice for everyone.

Levin was not keen to talk about the daunting project of finding a political solution to the conflict. He didn’t want to get bogged down in arguments about the details, he said. Focusing on the small things, building personal, humanizing connections between Israelis and Palestinians, is critically important, even if there is no big-picture solution on the horizon yet. 

The same approach applies here, on the cusp on the next Trump administration.

Community leaders and immigration attorneys have been meeting in Madison to try to figure out what to do. Local funding has dried up since the first Trump term. CILC lacks adequate resources and doesn’t have enough volunteer lawyers to respond to the crisis advocates see coming. And they don’t even know what shape that crisis will take. The prospect that the Trump administration will likely do away with its own practice, in the first administration, of not conducting raids in churches and schools “sends shivers down everybody’s spine,” Sovern said.

Mass raids like the 2018 ICE operations that shut down local restaurants could be scaled up, and could cause huge economic harm, especially for Wisconsin dairy farms where an estimated 70% of the workforce is comprised of undocumented immigrants.

But raiding isolated farms in rural areas of the state wouldn’t make the kind of news splash Trump is probably seeking. To achieve that effect, Democratic cities like Madison could be in the crosshairs. Instead of dropping busloads of migrants off in liberal northern cities, the publicity stunt gleefully executed by Republican Govs. Greg Abbot of Texas and Ron Desantis of Florida, the Trump administration could send in buses to round people up, crashing local economies by emptying out restaurants and other businesses that depend on an immigrant workforce.

According to The Hill, Texas has offered the incoming Trump administration 1,400 acres to build a mass deportation detention camp. 

In Madison, immigrant rights groups and local officials have begun trying to calm people down.

After the 2018 ICE raids, advocates hosted an information session to offer legal advice and “the only thing anyone wanted to ask was, ‘Who will pick up my kids from school if I’m deported?’” Sovern recalled.  

There is a lot to worry about, including the bill that recently passed the U.S. House allowing the federal government to designate U.S. nonprofits “terrorist supporting” organizations and strip them of their tax-exempt status.

But it’s also important to remember that, under current law, “they can’t do all the bad things they want to do all at once,” Sovern said.

He pointed to an evaluation of the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, the nation’s first public defender system for immigrants facing deportation. (CILC, in Madison, was the second such effort.) The project provided lawyers to all low-income immigrants facing deportation proceedings in New York City. Before the project, only 4% of those challenging deportation were successful. Once they were provided with attorneys, the rate of success rose to 48%. 

And despite polls showing increasing public support for mass deportations, even in the current amped-up anti-immigrant climate, most Americans (about 64%) say undocumented immigrants should be allowed to stay in the country if they meet certain conditions including applying for citizenship, working, paying taxes and not committing crimes.

People are more sympathetic if they hear the stories of real people who are affected by deportation threats, not just the lies about violent criminals who are eating pets.

It’s also important to spread the word that there are good people trying to hold up a light in the darkness. As Sovern puts it, “What we can do are little bits of tons of hard work.” 

Even if it’s impossible to solve the big problem all at once, brave people are doing their best to lead us to a better future.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem speaks at the Calvin Coolidge Foundation conference at the Library of Congress on Feb. 17, 2023 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday night he will nominate South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which will carry out Trump’s plan to conduct mass deportations of millions of people in the country without proper legal status.

“Kristi has been very strong on Border Security,” Trump said in a statement.  “She will work closely with “Border Czar” Tom Homan to secure the Border, and will guarantee that our American Homeland is secure from our adversaries. I have known Kristi for years, and have worked with her on a wide variety of projects – She will be a great part of our mission to Make America Safe Again.”

DHS is the agency primarily responsible for immigration enforcement and border security and handles temporary protections to allow immigrants to live and work in the United States. As Trump rolls out his nominees, Noem would be the first governor to get the nod for the Cabinet.

DHS has about 260,000 federal employees and a nearly $62 billion discretionary budget authority.

The news had already caused a backlash among Democrats even before Trump’s announcement, as media reports said Noem would be selected.

“With a long history of championing Trump’s draconian immigration policies, Governor Kristi Noem will carry out his cruel plans without a second thought,” Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement.

Noem said in a statement she is “honored and humbled” to be selected.

“I look forward to working with Border Czar Tom Homan to make America SAFE again,” said Noem. “With Donald Trump, we will secure the Border, and restore safety to American communities so that families will again have the opportunity to pursue The American Dream.”

Noem, a staunch Trump ally, was one of several Republican governors who sent U.S. National Guard troops to the southern border in Texas, in a rebuke to the Biden administration and its immigration policies. She’s also visited the southern border several times.

Noem served in Congress from 2011 until 2019, when she left after winning her 2018 run for governor. She’s in her second term that is set to expire in 2026.

While in Congress, she served on the U.S. House Armed Services, Ways and Means and Agriculture committees.

Noem did not sit on the committee that provides oversight for DHS, the Homeland Security Committee.

Noem joins border czar

In Trump’s second administration, Noem would join several former Trump officials who were the architects and biggest defenders of his hard-line immigration policies. The three are among Trump’s first staffing announcements.

On Monday, Trump dubbed the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the previous Trump administration, Homan, as his “border czar.” Homan backed the controversial “zero tolerance” policy that separated nearly 5,000 migrant families at the southern border.

Stephen Miller, who steered many of Trump’s first-term immigration policies, is set to join the White House as a deputy chief of staff for policy.

Vanessa Cárdenas, the executive director of the immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, said in a statement that the appointment of Miller and Homan signals that “mass deportations will be indiscriminate and unsparing.”

“The Stephen Miller and Tom Homan appointments are disturbing, if unsurprising, signals that we should take Donald Trump seriously and literally about his proposed largest deportation operation in American history and the unsparing, indiscriminate, and costly nature of what’s to come,” Cárdenas said.

Noem’s nomination to Trump’s Cabinet would have to go through Senate confirmation, where she could face questions about an anecdote in her memoir. She retracted a story about meeting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un after reporters questioned whether the meeting actually happened.

Additionally, in the same memoir, she disclosed that she shot her 14-month-old puppy, named Cricket, because of behavioral issues. The revelation drew intense criticism from both sides of the political aisle.

Vast responsibilities

DHS is a sprawling agency consisting of  U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Transportation Security Administration, U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Coast Guard, among other national security agencies.

The Secret Service is under intense scrutiny after major shortfalls in its prevention of the first assassination attempt against Trump last summer, where he sustained an injury to his ear. That first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, led to the director, Kimberly Cheatle, resigning.

Ronald L. Rowe, the U.S. Secret Service deputy director, is currently serving as the acting director, and was praised for the agency’s swift action in the second assassination attempt against Trump at his private golf course in Florida. 

Voters mark their ballots on Nov. 5, 2024 in Tryon, North Carolina.  (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Despite more Latino men shifting more Republican, a majority continued to vote Democratic in 2024, new polling released Tuesday reveals.

The findings from the 2024 American Electorate Voter Poll came a week after the historic presidential race in which Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to win his second White House term. Both heavily targeted Latino voters throughout their campaigns.

“The national exit polls are wrong about Latinos in general and Latino men in particular,” said Matt Barreto, co-founder of Barreto-Segura Partners Research, during a Tuesday media briefing on the poll’s findings.

Among voters in the poll, 56% of Latino men said they voted for Harris, compared to 43% who selected Trump.

Roughly two-thirds of Latino women voters voted for Harris, while about one-third chose Trump. 

Some exit polls, in contrast, emphasized the movement of Latino voters toward Trump.

Data scientists and polling experts at Barreto-Segura Partners Research, the African American Research Collaborative and Harvard University conducted the survey, which several national organizations sponsored.

Battleground states

Between Oct. 18 and Nov. 4, the survey targeted more than 9,000 Latino, Black, Native American, Asian American and white voters in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

The survey also provided additional data for California, Florida and Texas, given the large share of minority voters in those three states.  

“We’re extremely confident that our sample is accurate, that it is an accurate portrait of Latino men and Latino women, and that it is balanced to match their demographics, and that it was available in Spanish at every stopping of the survey,” added Barreto, who was a pollster and adviser to the Harris campaign.

“Young voters in particular of every racial and ethnic group shifted to be more Republican as compared to 2020 — this was not driven by any individual particular racial group, but all young voters shifted compared to 2020,” he added.

A shift of all groups towards the GOP

Henry Fernandez, CEO of the African American Research Collaborative, said “this election was not about one group moving towards the Republican Party, but instead a shift of virtually every group towards the GOP by relatively small but consistent margins, largely due to concerns about the cost of living.”

“While voters of color voted majority for Harris and white voters, majority for Trump, this shift towards the GOP occurred across almost all groups, even those like younger voters that the Democratic Party has relied on for its future success,” Fernandez said.

He added that “this weakening of support for Democrats occurred even as key issues championed by Democrats did extremely well, both in ballot initiatives across the country and in our poll.”

Among all Latino voters, more than 6 in 10 said they voted for Harris, compared to a little over one-third who chose Trump.

Meanwhile, more than half of all Latino voters felt that Democrats would do a better job at addressing the issue most important to them, compared to about one-third who felt Republicans would.

Inflation, health care cited

Across all racial and ethnic groups of voters surveyed, inflation, health care costs and jobs and the economy proved to be the most important issues.

Abortion and reproductive rights also proved to be an important issue for voters across all groups, followed by housing costs and affordability and immigration reform for immigrants already in the United States.

Roughly three quarters of voters across racial and ethnic groups were in support of a federal law that would “guarantee access to abortion and give women control over their own private medical decisions.”

The majority of Black, Latino, Native American and Asian American voters also expressed worry about Project 2025 — a sweeping conservative agenda from the Heritage Foundation.

Trump has sought to distance himself from the platform, though some former members of his administration helped write it. 

Former Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thomas Homan speaks on stage on the third day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 17, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump late Sunday announced he will appoint Tom Homan as “border czar” in his administration as Trump seeks to carry out his campaign commitment of mass deportations of immigrants who lack permanent legal status.

Homan is the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the previous Trump administration who backed the controversial “zero tolerance” policy that separated families at the southern border.

Homan will have authority over the southern border, northern border, the maritime border and aviation security, according to a post from Trump’s social media site, Truth Social. Trump did not in the social media post specify what exact government post Homan would occupy.

“I’ve known Tom for a long time, and there is nobody better at policing and controlling our Borders,” Trump said. “I have no doubt he will do a fantastic, and long awaited for, job.”

Another former Trump official who played a heavy role in immigration policy, Stephen Miller, will be appointed as White House deputy chief of staff for policy, according to CNN. Vice president-elect J.D. Vance congratulated Miller on X, formerly known as Twitter. 

As the incoming Trump administration plans to carry out mass deportations of people without proper legal status, Trump said Homan will be in charge of sending deported people back to their countries of origin. In order for that to happen, the country of origin must agree to accept those people the United States wants to deport.

Homan served as acting director of ICE from 2017 to 2018. In a recent interview with CBS News, he said that deportations would be targeted.

“It’s going to be a well-targeted, planned operation conducted by the men of ICE. The men and women of ICE do this daily. They’re good at it,” Homan said. “When we go out there, we’re going to know who we’re looking for. We most likely know where they’re going to be, and it’s going to be done in a humane manner.”

There are more than 14.4 million individuals who live in mixed status families, meaning that at least one member has a different legal status. During the interview, Homan was asked if mass deportations could happen without separating families.

“Of course there is,” he said. “Families can be deported together.”

Under the 2018 “zero tolerance” policy, at least 5,000 migrant families were separated. The Department of Homeland Security has reunited about 74% of those families, but there are still 998 children who have not been reunited.

Trump has previously declined to say whether he would resume family separations in a second term.

“Well, when you have that policy, people don’t come. If a family hears that they’re going to be separated, they love their family. They don’t come. So I know it sounds harsh,” Trump said during a CNN town hall in May 2023. 

People demonstrate and call out words of encouragement to detainees held inside the Metropolitan Detention Center after marching to decry Trump administration immigration and refugee policies on June 30, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Thursday struck down a White House policy that created a pathway to citizenship for people in the country lacking permanent status who were married to a U.S. citizen.

Eastern District of Texas Judge J. Campbell Barker ruled that the Biden administration overstepped its authority and the program “stretches legal interpretation past its breaking point” of U.S. immigration law. The suit was brought by Texas and other Republican-led states.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s program, called “Keeping Families Together,” would have shielded at least 550,000 immigrant spouses and their children from deportation.

With less than three months before President-elect Donald Trump is sworn into office, it’s unlikely the incoming administration will defend the program, and Trump has vowed to carry out mass deportations.

In a Thursday interview with NBC News, Trump said “there is no price tag” when it comes to mass deportations and that his administration will have “no choice” but to carry them out.

“We obviously have to make the border strong and powerful and, and we have to — at the same time, we want people to come into our country,” he said to NBC. “And you know, I’m not somebody that says, ‘No, you can’t come in.’ We want people to come in.”

Enacting mass deportations would be a costly undertaking that would require congressional approval, which could be easier if Trump is granted GOP control of Congress. Republicans are inching towards control of both chambers.  

As the former president is set to enter a second term in January, he has vowed to immediately begin carrying out mass deportations and ending programs that have granted temporary protections for immigrants such as humanitarian parole.

Trump has criticized the Biden policy that was struck down Thursday as a “mass amnesty” program.

“Mass amnesty” is a legal term that is considered an official pardon, but the program had certain requirements. The individuals considered for citizenship had to have been married to a U.S. citizen for at least a decade and undergo an extreme vetting procedure by DHS.

“This is unsustainable and can’t be allowed to continue!” Trump wrote of the program when it was announced in June. “On day one, we will SHUT DOWN THE BORDER and start deporting millions of Biden’s Illegal Criminals.”

The Texas judge, Barker, was appointed during Trump’s first term. The program was already put on hold in August when Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton led a suit against it.

The states that joined the suit are Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee and Wyoming.

Those states argued that the Biden administration overreached its authority in creating the program and that it would financially harm states if the people qualifying for citizenship were allowed to remain in the country.

The states were represented by America First Legal, an organization established by Trump adviser Stephen Miller — the architect of Trump’s hard-line immigration policies during his first term.

Ashley DeAzevedo, the President of American Families United, which represents U.S. citizens married to people without permanent status, in a statement urged the Biden administration to appeal the case.  

“District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker did not just dismantle the Keeping Families Together program, he shattered the hopes of hundreds of thousands of American families,” she said. “Families like ours deserve better than this blatant attempt to stop a legal program, and we will not stop until the courts rectify this injustice.”

It’s estimated that roughly 500,000 spouses without legal status and their children would have been eligible to apply for a lawful permanent residence — a green card — under certain requirements. About 50,000 children who do not have legal status and have an immigrant parent married to a U.S. citizen would have also been included in that benefit.

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

A woman holds a sign calling for “Mass deportation now!” at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to conduct mass deportations of millions of immigrants in the country without authorization. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom.)

WASHINGTON — Immigration advocates and civil rights groups are preparing to take on President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign promises to  crack down on immigration, from reviving controversial policies of his first term to enacting mass deportations.  

Trump has pledged to end, immediately after retaking office, parole programs that have allowed immigrants to work and live in the country legally. In those humanitarian parole programs, as of 2021, there were more than 1 million immigrants with temporary protections.

What is likely to immediately follow is the re-implementation of his previous immigration policies, such as bans on allowing people from predominantly Muslim countries into the United States and reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” policy that requires asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while they await their cases.

Immigration groups are preparing for those policies and the ones to follow ahead of Inauguration Day.

Sirine Shebaya, executive director of the National Immigration Project, laid out a sobering reality.  

“We recognize that many are feeling terrified about what the next four years will bring,” she said in a statement. “While we cannot stop all the harms from coming to pass, we say to everyone facing harm: we are here to do everything in our power to support and protect each other.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, which was at the forefront of challenging some of Trump’s harshest immigration policies during his first term, said on social media it is prepared for legal challenges beginning on Trump’s first day in office. 

Greisa Martínez Rosas, executive director of the largest immigrant youth organization, United We Dream, said in a statement that with Trump promising to plan mass deportations, they are “clear eyed about the fight ahead.”

“We will use and grow our power to new heights, building the largest pro-immigrant movement this country has ever seen, to fight back against white nationalism, and to enact a vision for the future that honors our values of a pluralistic democracy where everyone can live and thrive without fear,” Martínez Rosas said.

Deportations

Some immediate deportations could include those already in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, which was 37,395 as of September.

It could also include expanding expedited removals, which means if a person lacking permanent legal status is in the country for two years without a court hearing or any type of authorization, they can be deported without a hearing before a judge.

That type of removal is limited to 100 miles from a border. However, during the first Trump administration, that zone was expanded to the rest of the country. A second Trump administration could do that again.

The Migration Policy Institute, an immigration think tank, has estimated that “the expansion of expedited removal to the U.S. interior could apply to as many as 288,000 people.”

Tom Homan, who served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2017 to 2018, told CBS News recently that mass deportation would be targeted.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said. “They’ll be targeted arrests. We’ll know who we’re going to arrest, where we’re most likely to find ‘em based on numerous, you know, investigative processes.”

Funding

At issue would also be the cost of mass deportations.

Trump’s core campaign promise to enact mass deportations would be a costly undertaking that needs congressional approval — something that might be easier if the incoming president is granted control of both chambers.

The American Immigration Council, in a conservative estimate, found that it would cost $968 billion to remove the roughly 13 million immigrants in the country without authorization over the next ten years.

It would cost the government $89.3 billion in arrests, $167.8 billion to detain massive amounts of people, $34 billion on legal processing and $24 billion on removals, according to the analysis.

That funding would need to be appropriated through Congress.

As of Thursday morning, it was unclear if Trump would deal with a divided Congress or united GOP control. Republicans have flipped the Senate, and though there are still too many House races left to project control of the chamber, the GOP was inching toward a thin majority.

Economic impact

Economic experts have warned of the consequences of removing millions of workers.

Jeremy Robbins, the executive director of the American Immigration Council, tried to break down the economic effects of mass deportations.

“Should any president choose to pursue mass deportation, it would come at an extraordinary cost to the government while also devastating the economy,” Robbins said in a Wednesday statement.

“It’s critical that policymakers and the American public understand what this would involve: tens of billions of tax-payer dollars, already-strained industries devastated, millions of people locked up in detention, and thousands of families torn apart causing widespread terror and chaos in communities across the country.”

In 2022, households led by undocumented immigrants paid $75.6 billion in total taxes, according to the American Immigration Council. It’s estimated that about 4.8% of the U.S. workforce consists of unauthorized immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center. 

The Milwaukee Police Administration Building downtown. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)

Back in July, a lot happened while the Republican National Convention (RNC) was going on in downtown Milwaukee. Donald Trump accepted his party’s presidential nomination. Local residents protested the RNC. Out-of-state police killed an unhoused man in King Park, and the convention brought so much traffic to the gay and bisexual dating app Grindr that it crashed. Those events and more were probably followed by the Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) using a new tool to scan, scrape and search online activity. 

In April, the MPD announced that it was seeking an open source intelligence tool ahead of the RNC. Basically, anything which can be openly seen and accessed online counts as open source intelligence. Using the tool, the MPD planned to augment its online monitoring capabilities. What would have taken hours just a few years ago could be reduced to minutes. By the end of May, MPD had settled on an Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered software called Babel Street. The contract for Babel Street, which was not to exceed $43,673.50, was awarded on May 23.

A Request for Proposal (RFP) document, compiled by the Pewaukee-based technology brokerage company Abaxent, provides details on Babel Street. The document was obtained by Wisconsin Examiner through open records requests. Utilized by the U.S. Armed Forces, intelligence agencies and the federal government, Babel Street “empowers users to extend their search to the farthest corners of the globe, netting data beyond the traditional scope of [publicly available information] in a safe and secure environment,” the RFP document states. “It opens the door to enriched and standardized [publicly available information] data from over 220 countries.”

Not only can Babel Street search online content in over 200 languages, it also employs “sentiment scoring” in over 50 languages. A Babel Street glossary of terms webpage states that sentiment analysis involves determining “if a given text is expressing a positive, negative sentiment or no particular sentiment (neutral).” The RFP document also claims that Babel Street’s use of AI “accelerates investigations and uncovers connections.”  

An MPD spokesperson echoed that point, saying in an emailed statement to Wisconsin Examiner that the software has “increased the speed of investigations.” The spokesperson said that Babel Street is used by MPD’s Fusion Division. Social media investigations are a staple for Milwaukee’s Fusion Center, composed of both MPD’s Fusion Division and the Southeastern Threat Analysis Center (STAC). Originally created for homeland security, the Fusion Center serves a variety of roles today — whether that’s operating the city’s Shotspotter gunshot surveillance system, monitoring a camera network spanning Milwaukee County, conducting ballistic tests, accessing phones seized by officers, or processing information from cell towers. 

Within the Fusion Center, analysts assigned to the Virtual Investigations Unit monitor social media, investigating not only people but entire social ecosystems. Babel Street “pinpoints key online influencers, allowing investigators to explore networks from a powerful starting point,” the RFP document states. “Rapidly exposing and unlocking their web of relationships delivers crucial information in a matter of minutes.” All of that data then gets plugged into sophisticated visualizations such as maps, algorithmic scores, or graphs. “Visualized mapping unearths influencers who have the greatest impacts on organizations, senior leaders, and world events,” the document explains. “Advanced algorithms score and prioritize critical online entities to measure this influence, bringing to the forefront obscure identities that make up their network.” 

Babel Street can track the growth of online influence emanating from a person or group of interest to police. Investigators can also set real-time updates alerting them to new developments online, as well as “persistent” monitoring. “A persistent Document Search on an identified threat actor continuously monitors filtered topics the actor is publicly engaging in,” according to the RFP document. “By establishing a persistent collection via user-built filters/queries, users can not only increase their data access and insight, but they can also automate the rate aspects of analysis.”

Records from the City of Milwaukee Purchasing Division, obtained through open records requests.

Babel Street draws on a wealth of online information to gather intelligence for police. An aspect of the software known as “Synthesis” allows MPD “to understand the profile of key influencers based on attributes, such as person/organization, location, occupation, interests, areas of influence, and communication style, which are automatically tagged for millions of accounts using an AI model, while still giving the City the option of manual tagging.” Babel Street also allows MPD to pair keyword searches with geo-fencing, thus alerting the department to posts within a specific geographic area. MPD’s new open source intelligence tool also enables data to be extracted from the dark web — parts of the internet which are not indexed in search engines and require specialized internet browsers to locate.

The ability of law enforcement to map online connections between people worried privacy advocates leading up to the RNC. In early April, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Wisconsin and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) warned that using an open source intelligence tool, MPD could more effectively track and profile people who were exercising their constitutional rights. David Maass, director for investigations at the EFF, told Wisconsin Examiner that open source intelligence tools “are designed to produce ‘results’ even if there’s no evidence of a nefarious plot.” 

Many police reform activists in Milwaukee also remember the protests of 2020, when police departments heavily relied on social media to surveil protesters. All of that information, however, takes time to collect and sift, especially when a department may only have so many analysts on hand. “No longer are analysts manually checking multiple data sources to identify changes,” according to  the RFP document, “as Babel Street Insights persistently and automatically collects, ingests, and alerts users when new information is available, dramatically increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of each analyst.” 

All of that information, however, also needs to be vetted to ensure that it’s accurate. “Intelligence often requires vetting in order to determine whether it is reliable or not,” MPD’s spokesperson wrote in an email statement. “Additional investigation would be required with all intelligence.”

MPD said that it does not track Babel Street’s involvement in investigations, either during the RNC or after. There is also no standard operating procedure governing the software’s use by MPD, a spokesperson told Wisconsin Examiner. “This software is utilized to investigate crimes or to assist with mitigating threats to pre-planned large-scale events,” wrote the spokesperson in a statement. No decisions have been made yet about renewing the MPD’s one-year contract for Babel Street.