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• Reporter Natalie Yahr spoke to Matt Kures, who researches state labor and demographic trends as a community development specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension.

• The current labor market is good for people who have a job right now, but challenging for those looking for a job, Kures says. 

• Wisconsin’s working-age population is projected to keep declining into 2030, before leveling off in the subsequent decade, fueling challenges for certain industries. 

• Industries with particularly large shares of older workers include: real estate, transportation, warehousing, wholesale trade, manufacturing and public administration.

Wisconsin Watch is starting a new beat called pathways to success, exploring what Wisconsin residents will need in order to build and keep thriving careers in the future economy — and what’s standing in their way. 

To learn more about the jobs Wisconsin will most need to fill in the coming years, we spoke to Matt Kures, who researches state labor and demographic trends as a community development specialist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Extension.

The following interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

What numbers do you think best tell the story of Wisconsin’s labor market and what’s coming?

Unemployment rates are still near historic lows, but despite that, we’re still not seeing a large number of people being hired. The hiring rate has slowed down. We’ve also seen fewer people being laid off. So more businesses are actually retaining employees that maybe they wouldn’t have otherwise. There’s still some hangover from the pandemic and ability to hire people, so they’re a little bit hesitant to let them go. 

The number of job openings has ticked down as well. We’re still seeing some uncertainty from a lot of businesses in terms of what’s going to happen with inflation, interest rates, tariffs and just the broader U.S. economy. 

Those numbers put together tell of a labor market that’s good for people who have a job right now, but maybe a little bit challenging for people looking for a job.

And how about when it comes to long-standing trends in Wisconsin’s labor market or demographics? Are there numbers you like to bring up that you think people don’t tend to know?

If you look at the working-age population declining from 2020 to 2030, and then kind of leveling off from 2030 to 2040, we’re just not going to have strong growth in the number of individuals who are working age in the state. That’s mostly true across the state, although there are some counties that will be projected to grow, like Dane and Eau Claire. 

And then also, the combination of individuals of retirement age or nearing retirement age that are going to either leave the labor force or change the types of work they’re doing. If we look at the manufacturing sector, for instance, we have almost 131,000 individuals in that industry who are aged 55 or older, or almost 28% of that industry. So in those large employment sectors in the state, how do we think about replacing the workforce or augmenting the workforce going forward due to retirements or just shifting abilities due to the aging population?

How are the challenges or opportunities different in different parts of the state, say in urban areas versus more rural areas?

Certainly many of the non-metro areas do have an older population and will continue to have an older population going forward, so they will most likely face some of the bigger challenges in terms of some of the population shifts by age group. In some of those areas too, you have some of the bigger challenges in developing housing … to try and attract a new labor force. So those challenges are a bit twofold.

Would you describe Wisconsin as having a labor shortage?

The labor shortage is probably not as significant as it was, say, two or three years ago. But with our structural population distribution in terms of our age groups, we’re going to face challenges going forward. We’re going to have fewer individuals of working age. 

What are your thoughts on how Wisconsin could fix that?

There’s a lot of strategies out there, and not one is going to be the sole key to solving labor problems going forward. Those strategies include thinking about ways to attract new individuals to our communities, creating quality places that people want to reside in, thinking about housing availability and affordability, and creating ecosystems where people can start a business. 

So those are community-based strategies that people or communities can think about. But it’s also going to require improving productivity, and that could be through AI, automation, other capital investments and equipment, and thinking about new production techniques. 

Can you tell me about some of the fastest-graying industries in Wisconsin, the ones where the most workers are aging out?

So we can look at this in two different ways: by numbers or percent. Some industries, on a percentage basis, have a very high share of individuals who are aging out of the workforce, but some of those are not the largest sectors in the state of Wisconsin. 

For instance, in agriculture and natural resources, 31% of employees (covered by unemployment insurance laws) are age 55 or older, but there’s only about 8,400 of them. (Federal agriculture census data shows around 65,000 Wisconsin farmers in that age group, most of whom are not covered by unemployment insurance laws.) 

But if you look at real estate, transportation, warehousing, wholesale trade, manufacturing and public administration, those are some of the biggest industries that have the highest share of individuals aged 55 or older, with manufacturing certainly being the largest in terms of total numbers with an estimated 131,000 employees aged 55 or older. That’s not surprising given that it’s a very large employment sector in the state. 

You can also look at, say, health care and social assistance. They’re below the state average for their share of individuals aged 55 and older, but there’s almost 99,000 of them in that age category. So that’s an industry sector that, as we age as a state, will probably face even greater labor demands. 

Of those graying industries, are there any that you’re particularly worried about?

I don’t know if “worried” is the term I would use because different industries will respond in different ways. For instance, manufacturing can probably rely a bit more on things like automation, while other industries might be able to have some of their jobs done remotely. But health care and manufacturing are two very large cornerstones of our economy, and they are going to face challenges with labor availability going forward.

When you say remotely, you mean they might use workers in other states?

Yes. But in an industry like health care, for the most part, that’s probably not going to be an option.

Can you tell me about a few of the fastest-growing industries in Wisconsin?

To be honest, I haven’t looked at any of the recent numbers on a sector-by-sector basis. I can say that health care and social assistance has been one of the largest growing sectors in the state, and that’s also true nationally.

Regardless of the industry, we’re seeing growth in demand for digital skills across all industry sectors. Especially in professional and technical services, we’re seeing a higher demand for digital skills, but across all industries, a lot of job postings require some sort of knowledge in terms of digital skills, which may be anything from software development all the way down to just being able to work with social media or operate word processing.

Anything else you want to talk about?

Thinking about the aging workforce, there are a lot of opportunities for businesses to make sure they capture and transfer a lot of the knowledge that those individuals may have gained over their careers. As new employees or younger employees come into those firms, are there opportunities to match up younger and pre-retirement workers to share all that knowledge and make sure that it benefits the organization going forward? 

Also, with the aging workforce, are there opportunities to help those who may want to change their occupation or career trajectory going forward? Maybe they’ve done construction labor for a long time and now they want to try something different because they just physically can’t meet the demands anymore. There are a lot of opportunities.We can take advantage of the knowledge, skills and abilities that those individuals have or may want to have going forward. 

Have a question about jobs or job training in Wisconsin? Or want to tell a reporter about your struggle to find the right job or the right workers? Email reporter Natalie Yahr nyahr@wisconsinwatch.org or call or text 608-616-0752‬.

Wisconsin’s workforce is aging. How can communities and employers prepare for the future? 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.

People demonstrate in support of federal workers outside the main campus of the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention on April 1, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Fired federal probationary workers saw setbacks this week, as the U.S. Supreme Court and an appeals court dealt blows in two separate cases, leaving the newly hired or recently promoted employees hit by the administration’s mass firings once again in limbo.

In a case that affected up to 24,000 fired probationary employees across 17 federal agencies, the U.S. Appeals Court for the 4th Circuit on Wednesday blocked a lower court order requiring the government to rehire the workers.

A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 to stay the order, writing that the Trump administration is “likely to succeed in showing the district court lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims.”

Judge Allison Rushing, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019, directed the order, with Judge James Wilkinson, a President Ronald Reagan appointee, concurring. Judge DeAndrea Benjamin, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2023, dissented.

The case centered on a lawsuit filed by the Democratic attorneys general for 19 states and the District of Columbia, who allege economic harm because the federal government did not provide legally required warning ahead of an influx of unemployed state residents.

Federal Judge James Bredar for the District of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction on April 2 requiring the government to rehire thousands of workers who either lived or reported to work only in the 19 plaintiff states and the District of Columbia while the case moved forward. They included:

• Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

The affected agencies included:

• The departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense (civilian employees only), Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The case marked the first time the government provided the number of probationary employees fired at each agency.

Bredar required the figures from the government to show compliance with his mid-March emergency order that the agencies reinstate the workers. The documents showed that the majority of the employees were not recalled to active duty, but placed on administrative leave.

Supreme Court action

In the second case bearing on fired federal workers, the Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a lower court order mandating the federal government reinstate the jobs of 16,000 fired probationary federal workers across six agencies.

The unsigned two-page order stated the nine nonprofits that brought the case do not have legal standing. The justices did not address the question at the center of the lawsuit: whether the firings were illegal.

The Trump administration had escalated the case to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket after the U.S. Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit denied the government’s request to block the agencies from rehiring the employees.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup for the Northern District of California extended his temporary emergency order on March 13, mandating the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs reinstate employees who were fired under a directive from the Office of Personnel Management as part of an agenda by President Donald Trump and adviser Elon Musk to slash the federal workforce.

As the case continues on the lower court track, lawyers for the American Federal of Government Employees, AFL-CIO faced the Trump administration in court Wednesday before Alsup, a Clinton appointee. Alsup ordered both to provide more information by the end of the day Friday, including a comprehensive list of those fired and statements about economic harms. 

People demonstrate in support of federal workers outside the main campus of the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention on April 1, 2025, in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Fired federal probationary workers saw setbacks this week, as the U.S. Supreme Court and an appeals court dealt blows in two separate cases, leaving the newly hired or recently promoted employees hit by the administration’s mass firings once again in limbo.

In a case that affected up to 24,000 fired probationary employees across 17 federal agencies, the U.S. Appeals Court for the 4th Circuit on Wednesday blocked a lower court order requiring the government to rehire the workers.

A three-judge panel ruled 2-1 to stay the order, writing that the Trump administration is “likely to succeed in showing the district court lacked jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims.”

Judge Allison Rushing, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2019, directed the order, with Judge James Wilkinson, a President Ronald Reagan appointee, concurring. Judge DeAndrea Benjamin, appointed by President Joe Biden in 2023, dissented.

The case centered on a lawsuit filed by the Democratic attorneys general for 19 states and the District of Columbia, who allege economic harm because the federal government did not provide legally required warning ahead of an influx of unemployed state residents.

Federal Judge James Bredar for the District of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction on April 2 requiring the government to rehire thousands of workers who either lived or reported to work only in the 19 plaintiff states and the District of Columbia while the case moved forward. They included:

• Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

The affected agencies included:

• The departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense (civilian employees only), Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The case marked the first time the government provided the number of probationary employees fired at each agency.

Bredar required the figures from the government to show compliance with his mid-March emergency order that the agencies reinstate the workers. The documents showed that the majority of the employees were not recalled to active duty, but placed on administrative leave.

Supreme Court action

In the second case bearing on fired federal workers, the Supreme Court on Tuesday blocked a lower court order mandating the federal government reinstate the jobs of 16,000 fired probationary federal workers across six agencies.

The unsigned two-page order stated the nine nonprofits that brought the case do not have legal standing. The justices did not address the question at the center of the lawsuit: whether the firings were illegal.

The Trump administration had escalated the case to the Supreme Court’s emergency docket after the U.S. Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit denied the government’s request to block the agencies from rehiring the employees.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup for the Northern District of California extended his temporary emergency order on March 13, mandating the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs reinstate employees who were fired under a directive from the Office of Personnel Management as part of an agenda by President Donald Trump and adviser Elon Musk to slash the federal workforce.

As the case continues on the lower court track, lawyers for the American Federal of Government Employees, AFL-CIO faced the Trump administration in court Wednesday before Alsup, a Clinton appointee. Alsup ordered both to provide more information by the end of the day Friday, including a comprehensive list of those fired and statements about economic harms. 

Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland speaks at a rally in support of federal workers outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in Maryland late Tuesday ordered federal agencies across 19 states and the District of Columbia to reinstate thousands of probationary workers who were fired as part of White House adviser Elon Musk’s government-slashing agenda.

U.S. Judge James Bredar for the District of Maryland issued the preliminary injunction mandating 20 federal departments and agencies rehire the new or recently promoted employees whose duty stations or residences prior to termination were in the following states:

• Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

The lawsuit is among dozens brought against President Donald Trump’s second administration over deep cuts to the federal workforce and funding, sweeping arrests and deportations of immigrants, Musk’s access to Americans’ sensitive data, and press access in the White House.

Trump and Musk have repeatedly criticized federal judges who have ruled unfavorably, even calling for their impeachment.

Republicans have assumed the mantle on the issue, criticizing wide-reaching injunctions from U.S. district courts.

“Although our Founders saw an important role for the judiciary, they didn’t design a system that made judges national policymakers,” Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, said in his opening statement at a hearing Wednesday.

The Democratic attorneys general who brought the lawsuit against the federal agencies had requested a nationwide injunction, arguing the mass firings were illegal and harmed states financially, but Bredar only applied the order to the plaintiffs’ jurisdictions.

Bredar has previously issued a temporary emergency order mandating agencies reinstate employment for all 24,418 fired probationary workers, according to government figures, but expressed reluctance at a March 26 hearing to extend his order nationwide. The breakdown of fired probationary employees by state is unclear and the total number could be from the states involved in the lawsuit or other states or both.

Departments and agencies named as defendants in the lawsuit must now return the probationary workers’ jobs to status quo by 2 p.m. Eastern on April 8, Bredar ordered. The agencies also “shall not conduct any future reductions in force (“RIFs”) — whether formally labeled as such or not” involving the affected probationary employees unless the process follows the law, Bredar wrote.

The enjoined defendants include:

• The departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense (civilian employees only), Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Office of Personnel Management, Small Business Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The order will remain in place while the case is pending.

The states allege the mass firings led by Trump and Musk harmed them because the federal government did not provide the legally required advance notice that gives states time to prepare “rapid response activities” — including unemployment and social services — ahead of an influx of unemployed residents.

Bredar highlighted in a memorandum opinion accompanying his order Tuesday that 31 states did not join the lawsuit, writing that nationwide injunctions are required in “rare” instances, and that “this case is not one of them.”

“The Court’s injunction is not national in scope because it is possible to substantially stop the harms inflicted on the states that did sue without extending judicial authority over those that didn’t,” Bredar wrote. 

Samriddhi Patankar, a 19-year-old undergrad at George Washington University and the daughter of two researchers, attended a rally in support of federal workers outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

BALTIMORE — A federal judge in Maryland said Wednesday he will briefly extend his temporary order requiring the Trump administration to reinstate federal jobs for 24,000 fired probationary employees while he considers whether to make it last until the case is decided.

U.S. District Judge James Bredar in the District of Maryland told the plaintiffs and government he will need more details by 10 a.m. Eastern Thursday before he can decide whether the case merits a preliminary injunction to stop all firings and require reinstatements. Such an action would likely last until a final judgment in the case is reached.

The temporary restraining order affecting the fired federal workers expires Thursday night, but Bredar told the parties he expects to extend it briefly while he considers new information.

President Donald Trump and White House adviser Elon Musk began directing agencies in early February to fire tens of thousands of federal workers who were in the first year or two of their positions, or had been recently promoted.

Wednesday’s hearing in Baltimore centered on a lawsuit filed March 6 by Democratic attorneys general in 19 states and the District of Columbia, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

The attorneys general argued the mass firings led by Trump and Musk harmed states because the federal government did not provide the legally required advance notice that gives states time to prepare “rapid response activities” ahead of an influx of unemployed residents. 

The states have asked Bredar to issue a preliminary injunction to prohibit the government from conducting any further reductions in force, also referred to as RIFs.

‘Great reluctance’ to grant preliminary injunction

But Bredar had tough questions Wednesday for lawyers representing the states and U.S. Department of Justice.

Bredar asked Virginia Williamson, counsel for the state of Maryland, why he should issue a nationwide preliminary injunction when the “majority of states have not joined this lawsuit.”

“That’s the issue that has to be faced,” he said.

Bredar expressed a preference for a more narrow injunction and ordered Williamson to submit more information within 24 hours that proves the need for a broader request.

“This court has great reluctance to issue a national injunction. You’re going to have to show me it’s essential to remedy harms (for your clients),” he said.

Eric Hamilton, representing the federal government, testified that the states lack standing, and that their argument is “unusual” in that their grievance is lack of warning about the firings — but they seek a remedy of giving employees their jobs back.

Bredar replied that the problem wouldn’t exist if the workers were returned to their status quo of being employed.

“If there’s no fire, there’s no need for the fire department to respond,” he told Hamilton.

Hamilton also argued that burdens placed on the government for having to rehire thousands of employees “are so much greater” than any financial injuries the firings caused for the states.

Bredar snapped back that the firings were “sudden and dramatic.”

“It’s not appropriate to flip that around. If you were worried about that, you shouldn’t have done it in the first place. I’m not buying that one,” the judge said.

When Bredar asked Hamilton why rehiring employees is precluded as a remedy, Hamilton argued there’s “not much precedent” for federal courts to issue orders to agencies about personnel decisions.

Second judge to order rehiring

Bredar issued a temporary restraining order March 13 immediately reinstating employment for just over 24,000 federal probationary workers across dozens of federal departments and agencies.

Agencies affected by the order included Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Small Business Administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development, according to court filings.

Bredar was the second federal judge on that date to order the Trump administration to rehire fired federal workers.

The government has appealed both rulings to their respective circuit courts.

In a status report due to Bredar on March 17, representatives for the federal agencies detailed the “substantial burdens” of rehiring the employees. At the time of the report, the agency heads placed almost 19,000 out of the 24,418 fired on paid administrative leave rather than placing them back on active duty status.

The required court filings marked the first time the government had provided a comprehensive list of the federal workforce downsizing that spanned February into March.

The agency representatives submitted updated status reports to Bredar Tuesday, reaffirming that many of the employees remain on paid administrative leave.

‘No secret of their contempt’ for civil service

In their original complaint, the attorneys general argued that Trump and administration officials “have made no secret of their contempt for the roughly 2 million committed professionals who form the federal civil service. Nor have they disguised their plans to terminate vast numbers of civil servants, starting with tens of thousands of probationary employees.”

The firings have subjected communities across the U.S. “to chaos” and will cost the states money in lost tax revenue and social services for unemployed residents, they wrote. 

“These costs arise in the administration of programs aimed at providing connections to social services, like health care and food assistance,” they argued.

The government responded that the 19 states and District of Columbia have no standing in the case and ultimately can’t prove irreparable harm. They also maintained that the executive branch has the right to fire probationary employees.

“The action has no hope of success, because third parties cannot interject themselves into the employment relationship between the United States and government workers, which is governed by a comprehensive statutory scheme that provides an exclusive remedial avenue to challenge adverse personnel actions,” the government argued.

Bredar was appointed to the U.S. District Court bench by former President Barack Obama in 2010 and confirmed by voice vote in the Senate.

Before beginning his legal career in Colorado, Bredar worked as a National Park Service ranger, according to his biography published by the U.S. courts. Bredar worked as a prosecutor in Moffat County, Colorado, then as an assistant U.S. attorney and assistant federal public defender in Denver.

In 1992, he was appointed federal public defender for the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. He was appointed a U.S. magistrate judge in 1998.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland speaks at a rally in support of federal workers outside the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has begun the process of reinstating tens of thousands of fired federal workers, though most are just being placed on administrative leave as the government cites the “burdens” of rehiring, court filings reviewed by States Newsroom show.

The documents also show, agency by agency, the wide swath of firings that swept across the federal government in February and early March.

A federal judge in Maryland last week ruled the recent terminations of probationary employees were illegal and ordered the administration to reinstate the workers across 18 federal agencies by 1 p.m. Eastern Monday. Nineteen Democratic attorneys general and the District of Columbia sued the administration over the firings.

The mass firings began in early February as part of President Donald Trump’s U.S. DOGE Service cost-cutting agenda. Elon Musk, a White House adviser and top donor to Trump’s reelection, is the face of the temporary DOGE project, though the administration maintains he has no decision-making power.

According to the court filings late Monday, the agencies have returned almost 19,000 employees to administrative leave out of the 24,418 fired. The filings provided the most comprehensive list to date of the federal workforce downsizing that spanned February into March.

Judge James Bredar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland ordered the agencies on Tuesday to provide a progress update by early next week. Bredar was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2010 and confirmed by a Senate voice vote.

The lawsuit was filed March 6 by Democratic attorneys general in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Workers on leave, some ‘until further notice’

Some agencies, like the departments of Commerce and Transportation, indicated that employees would only be on paid administrative leave temporarily until paperwork and other procedures were finished.

Others, including the U.S. Agency for International Development, have given employees paid administrative leave status “until further notice.”

The government argued that reinstating the terminated employees to full duty status “would impose substantial burdens” on the agencies and cause “turmoil for the terminated employees”

“[T]hey would have to be onboarded again, including going through any applicable training, filling out human resources paperwork, obtaining new security badges, reinstituting applicable security clearance actions, receiving government furnished equipment, and other requisite administrative actions,” according to the filings from several department representatives.

But “nonetheless,” the agency representatives said they began complying with Bredar’s order even as the cancellation of terminations was a “very time and labor intensive process,” wrote Mark D. Green, deputy assistant secretary for human capital, learning and safety at the Department of the Interior.

“The tremendous uncertainty associated with this confusion and these administrative burdens impede supervisors from appropriately managing their workforce. Work schedules and assignments are effectively being tied to hearing and briefing schedules set by the courts. It will be extremely difficult to assign new work to reinstated individuals in light of the uncertainty over their future status,” Green continued in his legal declaration required by Judge Bredar.

The agency representatives also wrote “employees could be subjected to multiple changes in their employment status in a matter of weeks” if an appellate ruling reverses the lower court order.

The Trump administration appealed the district court ruling Friday to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

California judge issues warning

The March 13 temporary restraining order out of Maryland was the second on that date mandating agencies rehire terminated workers. A federal judge in California separately ordered the government to reinstate thousands of employees at six federal agencies.

District Judge William Alsup in the Northern District of California warned in a court filing late Monday that the agencies must comply by fully returning employees to their jobs.

“The Court has read news reports that, in at least one agency, probationary employees are being rehired but then placed on administrative leave en masse. This is not allowed by the preliminary injunction, for it would not restore the services the preliminary injunction intends to restore,” Alsup wrote, requesting a status report Tuesday. Alsup was appointed by former President Bill Clinton in 1999 and confirmed by a Senate voice vote.

The Trump administration quickly appealed the California ruling last week to the U.S. Appeals Court for the 9th Circuit.

A three-judge panel for the 9th Circuit Monday ruled 2-1 to deny the Trump administration’s emergency request to block the workers’ reinstatement.

Employees new on the job

Probationary employees were targeted by the Office of Personnel Management on the first day of Trump’s second presidency, according to court documents.

The employees, who are within one or two years of being hired or beginning a new position, have “extremely limited protections against termination,” agency representatives wrote.

The Office of Personnel and Management sent emails Jan. 20 to department heads stating that “agencies should identify all employees on probationary periods” and “should promptly determine whether those employees should be retained at the agency,” according to the court filing.

Agency by agency list

Department and agency representatives detailed the following termination numbers in the Monday filings (not all agencies provided total numbers of probationary employees):

• Health and Human Services: 3,248 of its 8,466 probationary workers were placed on administrative leave between Feb. 15 and March 13 (and remain on extended leave); 88 were subsequently fired and placed back on leave as of Monday.

• Environmental Protection Agency: 419 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 14 and Feb. 21. “Most” were returned to paid administrative leave Monday. Some who were in “unpaid leave status” were returned to that status.

• Energy: 555 were terminated “on or around” Feb. 13 and Feb 14. All 555 were returned Monday to retroactive administrative leave status “that will continue until their badging and IT access are restored, at which time they will be converted to an Active Duty status.”

• Commerce: 791 of the agency’s roughly 9,000 probationary employees were terminated up until March 3. Twenty-seven were reinstated soon after, and 764 were placed back on paid administrative leave Monday. The agency plans to move them to full duty status within a week, according to the filing.

• Homeland Security: 313 employees were terminated through March 14. With a few exceptions of employees who resigned or declined to return, DHS placed 310 back on paid administrative leave.

• Transportation: 788 employees were terminated between Feb. 14 and Feb. 24. DOT informed 775 that they’ve been placed on paid administrative leave until Wednesday. “The Department of Transportation will coordinate the specifics of their return, including the restoration of their government equipment and Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card,” according to the filing.

• Education: Without providing specific dates, the department terminated 65 of its 108 probationary employees before Judge Bredar’s March 13 order. All have now been placed on paid administrative leave.

• Housing and Urban Development: The agency terminated 312 of its 549 probationary employees on Feb. 14. About 299 are being brought back “temporarily” on administrative leave.

• Interior: As of Monday night, Interior had reinstated roughly 1,540 of the 1,710 workers fired on Feb. 14.

• Labor: 170 were terminated but reinstated before March 7.

• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: 117 employees were terminated between Feb. 11 and Feb. 13. All were notified Sunday that they “will be immediately placed on administrative leave status while the CFPB continues to act to comply with the TRO and/or employees are to be assigned work by management/supervisors,” according to the filing.

• Small Business Administration: 304 of the SBA’s 700 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 11 and Feb. 25. The agency was unable to notify seven employees about reinstatement. Roughly 164 were returned to non-pay intermittent status, while the rest were returned to paid administrative leave.

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation: 156 of its 261 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 18 and 19; 151 were placed on paid administrative leave as of Monday.

• USAID: 270 of the agency’s 295 probationary employees were fired March 7. All have been reinstated to paid administrative leave.

• General Services Administration: 366 of its 812 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 13 and March 7. While two declined reinstatement, 364 were placed Monday on paid administrative leave.

• Treasury: 7,605 of Treasury’s 16,663 probationary employees were fired between Feb. 19 and March 7. All have been reinstated to paid administrative leave status.

• Agriculture: 5,714 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 13 and 17. The department is “working diligently” to restore employees to active duty status, according to the filing. The employees have been returned to paid or unpaid leave as of March 12.

• Veterans Affairs: 1,683 of the VA’s roughly 46,000 probationary employees were terminated between Feb. 13 to 24. All were placed on paid administrative leave.

USAID ruling

In a separate case against Trump and DOGE’s workforce-slashing agenda, a federal judge in Maryland on Tuesday ruled Musk likely violated the Constitution when orchestrating the shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID.

Judge Theodore David Chuang for the U.S. District Court in the District of Maryland demanded Musk and any personnel working for DOGE refrain from any further action related to dismantling USAID.

Chuang also ordered Musk and DOGE to reinstate computer and email access for all current USAID employees and contractors within seven days. Additionally, he ordered Musk and DOGE to strike an agreement within 14 days that would reopen the former USAID headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Musk’s DOGE personnel forced their way into the humanitarian agency’s headquarters in early February ahead of the mass firings.

The shuttering of U.S. humanitarian missions around the world sparked protests in the nation’s capital.

Chuang, an Obama appointee, was approved by the Senate in 2014 in a 53-42 vote.

The White House slammed the court order Tuesday, alleging that “rogue judges are subverting the will of the American people in their attempts to stop President Trump from carrying out his agenda.”

“If these Judges want to force their partisan ideologies across the government, they should run for office themselves. The Trump Administration will appeal this miscarriage of justice and fight back against all activist judges intruding on the separation of powers,” said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly in an emailed statement.

Earlier Tuesday, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement following Trump’s morning social media attack on federal judges, calling for their impeachment.

“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”

U.S. Capitol at sunset on March 8, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate cleared a stopgap spending bill Friday that will fund the government through the end of September, sending the legislation to President Donald Trump.

The White House said on Saturday afternoon that Trump had signed the measure, avoiding a partial government shutdown. 

Trump’s signature, a day after the 54-46 Senate vote, will keep the federal government mostly running on autopilot under spending levels and policy similar to what Congress approved about a year ago when lawmakers passed the full-year appropriations bills for the last fiscal year. But the stopgap bill does slightly boost defense spending while reducing domestic funding authority.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul was the only Republican to vote against passage. Maine independent Sen. Angus King and New Hampshire Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen voted to approve the bill, the only ones backing it besides Republicans. 

Senate approval followed days of debate among Democrats over whether to support moving forward with the GOP-authored bill or see a shutdown begin that Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said would allow Trump to take even more power over the government.

Debate on the House-passed stopgap spending bill was more complex than usual. A majority of Senate Democrats believe the continuing resolution shortchanges important federal programs and doesn’t do enough to reinforce Congress’ constitutional authority over spending in light of Trump’s efforts to remake the size and scope of the federal government.

Many of those actions are on hold as dozens of lawsuits move through the federal court system. But Democrats who opposed the bill felt that lawmakers must make their voices heard as well.

Other Democrats argued a partial government shutdown would give Trump more leeway to make funding decisions and further harm federal workers.

Republicans largely supported the stopgap spending bill. However, many lamented that the House and Senate didn’t do more to reach agreement on the dozen full-year government funding bills.

‘Inherently a failure

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, said the stopgap spending bill wasn’t her first choice for funding the government, but that it was the only option on the table to prevent a funding lapse.

“Government shutdowns are inherently a failure to govern effectively and have negative consequences all across government,” Collins said. “They inevitably require certain government employees — such as Border Patrol agents, members of our military and Coast Guard, TSA screeners and air traffic controllers — to report to work with no certainty at all on when they will receive their next paycheck.”

Washington state Democratic Sen. Patty Murray, ranking member on the Appropriations panel, rebuked House Republican leaders for drafting the stopgap spending bill on their own and then expecting Democratic votes.

“Let me be clear, in my time in Congress, never, ever has one party written partisan full-year appropriations bills for all of government and expected the other party to go along without any input,” Murray said.

The stopgap spending bill, she said, cuts overall spending on domestic programs, a choice Democrats never would have agreed to had GOP leaders tried to negotiate with them.

“We are talking about a nearly 50% cut to life-saving medical research into conditions affecting our service members,” Murray said. “It is a giant shortfall in funding for NIH. It is a massive cut in funding for Army Corps projects and $15 billion less for our domestic priorities.”

“This bill will force Social Security to cut staff and close offices and make it harder for our seniors to get the benefits they spent their careers paying into the system to earn,” Murray added. “It creates a devastating shortfall that risks tens of thousands of Americans losing their housing. So this bill causes real pain for communities across the country.”

Murray also criticized House Republicans for releasing their stopgap spending bill just days before the deadline and then leaving for a recess right after voting to send the measure to the Senate. The move prevented the Senate from amending the CR in any way if Congress wanted to avoid a shutdown.

The Senate voted to reject amendments from Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, Illinois Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth, Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Paul before approving the bill.

Schumer’s decision

Schumer said he voted to limit debate to avoid giving Trump, Elon Musk and U.S. DOGE Service the authority to determine which federal employees would have been exempt from the effects of a shutdown and which would have essentially been furloughed. Under federal law, both categories of federal workers receive back pay once the shutdown ends.

“In a shutdown, Donald Trump and DOGE will have the power to determine what is considered essential and what is not — and their views on what is not essential would be mean and vicious and would decimate vital services and cause unimaginable harm to the American people,” Schumer said.

The Democrats who voted to advance the stopgap spending bill, Schumer said, wanted to keep attention on Trump’s actions as president and not divert focus to the wide-reaching repercussions of shutting down the government.

“A shutdown will be a costly distraction from this all important fight,” Schumer said.

The stopgap spending bill, he noted, doesn’t change the Constitution or the laws that say Congress controls spending and that the president must implement those laws.

“The CR does not change the underlying law, making the Trump administration’s impoundments and mass firings illegal,” Schumer said. “Nothing in the CR changes the Impoundment Control Act, the foundation of Congress’ appropriations authority. And the authorization laws that require USAID and other agencies to exist and to operate the programs Congress has assigned to them. Nothing changes Title 5, governing the civil service, the Administrative Procedures Act and so on.”

Senate rules require at least 60 lawmakers vote to cut off debate on a bill. The GOP holds 53 seats at the moment and needed Democratic buy-in to proceed with regular bills. That procedural vote was 62-38.

Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Dick Durbin of Illinois, John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Gary Peters of Michigan, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, King, Schumer and Shaheen voted to limit debate.

Delays on spending bills

Congress was supposed to draft, debate and approve the dozen annual appropriations bills by the start of this fiscal year on Oct. 1, nearly six months ago.

The bills fund the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Justice, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans’ Affairs.

They also provide funding for Congress, the Supreme Court and numerous smaller agencies, like NASA and the National Science Foundation.

The House Appropriations Committee approved all 12 of its bills on party-line votes and the House was able to pass five of those across the floor last summer without broad Democratic support.

The Senate panel approved 11 of the bills in July and August with broadly bipartisan votes, but none of the measures came up on the floor for debate.

The House and Senate have regularly negotiated final versions of the spending bills, even if they didn’t receive floor approval, and could have begun that conference process in September, or even during their August recess.

But congressional leaders opted to focus their attention on the November elections and used a stopgap spending bill to keep the government running through mid-December, an expected and rather predictable move.

After Republicans won unified control of government, Congress used a second continuing resolution to keep the government funded through March 14. GOP leaders and Trump wanted to hold over negotiations on the full-year bills until they were in office.

The leaders of the Appropriations committees spent the last couple months trying to get bipartisan, bicameral agreement on the total spending level for the current fiscal year. But that ended this weekend when House Republicans released a stopgap spending bill to fund the government through September.

The House voted 217-213 on Tuesday to send the continuing resolution to the Senate. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie was the only GOP lawmaker to vote against it and Maine Rep. Jared Golden was the only Democratic member to support the bill in that chamber.

‘Congratulations to Chuck Schumer’

Trump had said he would sign the stopgap spending bill, according to a Statement of Administration Policy issued Tuesday.

“H.R. 1968 includes a focused set of critical funding anomalies to ensure the Administration can carry out important programs and fulfill its obligations, including veterans’ healthcare and benefits, pay raises for junior enlisted servicemembers, operations of our air traffic control system, along with nutrition and housing programs,” the SAP states. 

“The bill also provides the Department of Defense with the resources and flexibility necessary to align funding to current priorities in consultation with the Congress and responds to emerging threats by allowing for ‘new starts,’ including other key provisions.”

Trump took to social media ahead of the procedural vote to thank Schumer for announcing he’d vote to limit debate.

“Congratulations to Chuck Schumer for doing the right thing — Took ‘guts’ and courage! The big Tax Cuts, L.A. fire fix, Debt Ceiling Bill, and so much more, is coming. We should all work together on that very dangerous situation,” Trump wrote. “A non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights. Again, really good and smart move by Senator Schumer. This could lead to something big for the USA, a whole new direction and beginning! DJT”

People hold signs as they gather for a "Save the Civil Service" rally hosted by the American Federation of Government Employees outside the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 11, 2025. Efforts by President Donald Trump and White House adviser Elon Musk to downsize the federal workforce have sparked backlash and legal challenges. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — A second federal judge ordered late Thursday that President Donald Trump’s administration reinstate probationary federal workers who were fired as part of the president’s and billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s government downsizing agenda.

District Judge James Bredar for the District of Maryland issued a temporary restraining order mandating nearly 20 federal departments and agencies to reinstate new or recent hires by Monday at 1 p.m. Eastern. The order from Bredar came hours after a similar one from a federal judge in California.

The lawsuit was filed March 6 by Democratic attorneys general in 19 states and the District of Columbia, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Bredar’s order reinstates just more than 23,500 probationary positions across the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, as well as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, General Services Administration, Small Business Administration and U.S. Agency for International Development, according to figures in the original complaint.

A hearing is scheduled for March 26 in Baltimore. The temporary mandate expires the evening of March 27.

Bredar’s order did not include the nearly 5,500 employees fired from the Department of Defense and National Archives and Records Administration.

The emergency decision out of Maryland followed an earlier ruling Thursday from a California federal judge who extended a previous temporary order immediately reinstating probationary jobs at the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Science Foundation and Small Business Administration, as well as the departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense.

The Trump administration quickly appealed the decision out of the Northern District of California. That suit was brought by more than a dozen plaintiffs, including unions representing hundreds of thousands of federal workers.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt slammed the California decision, saying in a statement Thursday “a single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch.”

Musk, a senior White House adviser, is the face of Trump’s rapid-fire workforce downsizing. The top donor to Trump’s reelection bid has posted numerous times on his social media platform, X, about the need to slash federal workers.

In February at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington, D.C., Musk waved around a chainsaw gifted to him from Argentine President Javier Milei and declared, “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy.”

Demonstrators outside the U.S. Senate buildings on Capitol Hill protest billionaire Elon Musk's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development on Feb. 5, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration to immediately reinstate thousands of jobs for probationary federal workers fired as part of billionaire Elon Musk’s campaign to slash the federal workforce.

Judge William Alsup ruled Thursday morning that tens of thousands of workers must be rehired across numerous federal agencies, including the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Energy, Interior, Treasury and Veterans Affairs, extending his previous temporary emergency order issued Feb. 28.

Alsup, appointed in 1999 by former President Bill Clinton to the Northern District of California, ruled in favor of numerous plaintiffs that brought the suit against the Trump administration’s Office of Personnel Management.

Alsup’s order also prohibits OPM from advising any federal agency on which employees to fire. Additionally, Alsup is requiring the agencies to provide documentation of compliance to the court, according to the plaintiffs who were present in the courtroom.

The Trump administration appealed the decision just hours later.

Unions bring suit

The plaintiffs, which include the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO and other unions representing thousands of federal workers, sued in February over OPM’s “illegal program” terminating employees who are within the first year of their positions or recently promoted to new ones.

Everett Kelley, AFGE’s national president, said in statement Thursday that the union is “pleased with Judge Alsup’s order to immediately reinstate tens of thousands of probationary federal employees who were illegally fired from their jobs by an administration hellbent on crippling federal agencies and their work on behalf of the American public.”

“We are grateful for these employees and the critical work they do, and AFGE will keep fighting until all federal employees who were unjustly and illegally fired are given their jobs back,” Everett said.

The AFGE was among more than a dozen organizations who sued the government. The plaintiffs were represented by the legal advocacy group State Democracy Defenders Fund and the San Francisco-based law firm Altshuler Berzon LLP. Washington state also joined the case and was represented by state Attorney General Nick Brown.

Trump administration ‘will immediately fight’

The White House said prior to filing the appeal that “a single judge is attempting to unconstitutionally seize the power of hiring and firing from the Executive Branch.”

“The President has the authority to exercise the power of the entire executive branch – singular district court judges cannot abuse the power of the entire judiciary to thwart the President’s agenda. If a federal district court judge would like executive powers, they can try and run for President themselves. The Trump Administration will immediately fight back against this absurd and unconstitutional order,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

The unions argued in a Feb. 19 complaint that Congress “controls and authorizes” federal employment and spending, and that lawmakers have empowered federal agencies, not OPM, to manage their own employees.

OPM, which administers employee benefits and essentially serves as the government’s human resources arm, “lacks the constitutional, statutory, or regulatory authority to order federal agencies to terminate employees in this fashion that Congress has authorized those agencies to hire and manage,” according to the complaint.

“[A]nd OPM certainly has no authority to require agencies to perpetrate a massive fraud on the federal workforce by lying about federal workers’ ‘performance,’ to detriment of those workers, their families, and all those in the public and private sectors who rely upon those workers for important services,” the complaint continues.

Musk role

Musk, a Trump special adviser, has publicly and repeatedly touted the terminations as a means to cut federal spending.

Mass firings began in early to mid-February and continued as recently as Tuesday when the Department of Education announced it would cut about 50% of its workforce.

The terminations sparked numerous lawsuits and public outcry.

Musk, who the White House claims has no decision-making authority, has posted on his social media platform X about emails sent to federal workers offering buyouts and demanding they justify their jobs.

Musk has also published dozens of posts attacking federal judges who’ve ruled against his workforce downsizing as “evil” and “corrupt.”

U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) addresses union members at a weekend rally in support of federal workers whose jobs are on the line under the administration of President Donald Trump. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner)

Moves by the Trump administration to cut the federal workforce have caused chaos and fear inside agencies ranging from the U.S. Forest Service to the Social Security Administration, advocates for federal employees say.

Some two dozen Forest Service employees in Wisconsin returned to work Monday, five weeks after receiving termination notices and being walked out, as a result of a court order March 13 holding the termination notices issued on Valentine’s Day were illegal.

Wisconsin is home to some 18,000 federal workers, U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Black Earth) said at a rally in Madison Saturday — workers whose jobs are on the line under orders from Washington, D.C.

“I am getting record numbers of calls in our office, literally thousands of calls every single week,” Pocan said. “People are pissed. They’re upset about cuts to the Veterans Administration. They’re upset about what’s happening with the Social Security Administration. They’re upset about Medicare and Medicaid potential cuts. They’re upset about cuts to agriculture and education.”

At the Social Security Administration, the acting Social Security commissioner has announced plans to close regional offices and cut 7,000 jobs “through buyouts, layoffs, resignations and terminations,” said Jessica LaPointe, president of American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Council 220, who joined the Saturday rally at the headquarters of the South Central Federation of Labor. The council represents Social Security field office employees.

Social Security operations have been “historically understaffed,” LaPointe said, and the planned reductions “will lead to longer service delays, systems failures, and even inevitably benefit disruptions.”

In an interview with the Wisconsin Examiner during a Wisconsin visit in October, Martin O’Malley, Social Security commissioner at the time, said staff at the agency’s Madison field office has dropped by 40% since 2019. O’Malley said he told members of Congress they should increase staffing at the agency to restore “at least an adequate level of customer service.”

The cuts the agency has announced are “exacerbating the chaos, confusion and anxiety felt by workers under siege,” LaPointe said Saturday. She added that the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s project to slash operations across the federal government “are destroying the public’s ability to access timely and effective service from the Social Security Administration, with the intent — let’s be real about their intent — of turning the American people against Social Security.”

William Townsend, president of the AFGE local at the Department of Veterans Affairs VA hospital in Madison, said the department’s plan to cut 80,000 or more positions nationwide would be detrimental to the health care of veterans counting on the agency.

AFGE also represents employees at the Transportation Security Administration. The union and the Biden administration signed a new contract in 2024, but Trump administration TSA leaders told the union last month they were canceling the contract and would no longer recognize the union.

Nevertheless, said TSA worker and AFGE Local 777 president Darrell English, the union will continue to stand up for its members’ rights while conducting a legal battle to restore their union contract. “We know it’s going to be a long fight, but we’re here,” English said at Saturday’s rally.

At the U.S. Forest Service, 24 Wisconsin employees were fired on Feb. 14 — part of a wave of thousands of “probationary” employees let go, said Carl Houtman, a union official.

Houtman works at the Forest Service Products Laboratory in Madison and is president of the National Federation of Federal Employees union local there. He is also the national negotiation chair for the union’s Forest Service Council. In an interview Monday, he stipulated he was speaking strictly as a union leader, not as a Forest Service representative.

About 170 of the Forest Service’s 672 Wisconsin employees work at the laboratory, researching the use of wood as a building material and wood chemistry for papermaking and in a variety of new applications. Most of the other Forest Service employees in the state are associated with the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest in northern Wisconsin.

After a series of legal challenges, a federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration to reinstate the fired probationary workers, ruling that Trump administration officials hadn’t followed required procedures.  

The fired workers returned Monday, said Houtman, including a colleague who was among those who had been dismissed.

“It’s crazy the inefficiency that has caused,” he said Monday. “They walked her out the door, took her computer and her door card, and they basically had to hire her back. In this intervening month she could have been reasonably doing her job, but the agency was forced” by the federal Office of Personnel Management, now under the Trump administration’s control, “to fire these people.”

The federal judge’s ruling requires the administration to follow the legal procedures for reducing the federal workforce. Houtman said federal workers and their unions involved in the February firing expect to learn more about the administration’s intentions in the next month.

“We anticipate about the middle of April getting an idea about what’s going on,” he said. “It’s possible that a large number of people in Wisconsin will get wiped out — we just don’t know.”

Houtman said there are concerns among employees that “this administration wants to wipe out the science arm of the Forest Service” and possibly sell most or all federally owned forest land, harming the nation’s natural resources.

Established in 1910, the forest products lab remains a vital source of research, he said. Its findings help shape codes and standards for building as well as for product manufacturing — such as a project currently underway to develop a consistent test for how recyclable consumer packaging is.

The lab also plays a role in training new scientists, he added.

“Most of the probationary employees were new hires, starting to learn wood science from us,” Houtman said. “You basically have wiped out the next generation of scientists. It’s going to do irreparable harm.”

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Sunrise over Orizaba, Mexico, seen from the Cerro del Borrego nature preserve. | Photo by Mercedes Falk. Courtesy Puentes/Bridges

In Tlaquilpa, a mountain village in the clouds, women wearing long skirts and colorful blouses walked to mass. Outside a colonial church with bright orange and yellow walls, a crowd of people holding Baby Jesus dolls celebrated Candelaria, the February holiday that combines Catholic and pre-Hispanic traditions, marking the end of the Christmas season and the beginning of spring.

Shuan Duvall, a retired Spanish teacher from Alma, Wisconsin, and her husband Jamie, a retired judge, rolled past the church on Feb. 2 with a truckload of other U.S. visitors and stopped in front of a small restaurant. The owners, Maximino Sanchez and Gabina Cuaquehua, have two sons in Minnesota, who’ve been away from home for more than 20 years. Shaun got to know the sons when she was working as a translator on dairy farms in western Wisconsin and Minnesota. Later, she and Jamie became godparents to their U.S.-born children. 

Sanchez and Caquehua greeted the Duvalls in their living area downstairs from the restaurant and performed an impromptu ceremony, lighting incense and hanging flower leis around the Duvalls’ necks while reciting prayers.

“We thank you because you are like second parents for my grandchildren,” Cuaquehua said. “You help them and accompany them on the path of life.”

“I ask that over there you take care of our children as if you were their parents,” said Sanchez. “You’re there in person, not like a video call or a cellphone call, which isn’t the same.”

The Duvalls were surprised and moved, still wearing the flower leis around their necks and wiping tears from their eyes when they met up with the rest of the group outside the restaurant.

Shaun Duvall described the experience as an honor. By becoming a godparent to the family’s children, she said, she hoped to honor them, too, for “all the things they go through, the struggles and sacrifices and also the joy, because there is real joy.”

The same motivating idea drives Puentes/Bridges, the nonprofit she started while working as a translator, to help build cultural understanding between Midwestern dairy farmers and the families of their Mexican workers.

Duvall has helped a lot of people, fostering better communication and better relationships between farmers and the immigrants they employ, connecting workers with medical care and helping them get away from abusive bosses and partners, and sharing her appreciation of the people of Mexico with a whole generation of Midwesterners who have had life-changing experiences going on the trips she organized for two decades, before she retired a few years ago from the organization she founded.

“I don’t think what I did was that big. I helped people out when they needed help – who wouldn’t do that?” she said. “It’s some kind of connection that goes beyond helping people — [to say] you are a treasured, precious person in my life.”

That spirit of warmth on Duvall’s part, and on the part of Mexican families who’ve put their trust in her and in the Midwestern dairy farmers who employ their loved ones, shines like a beacon in our current political moment, when the ostentatious cruelty of the Trump administration threatens to stomp out the quiet virtues of compassion and human connection.

The most remarkable thing about the relationship between Midwestern dairy farmers and the Mexican immigrants who work on their farms is not the economic ties that bind these two groups of rural people, or the astounding amount of money the workers contribute to the economies of both Mexico and the U.S. Instead, it’s the realization that getting to know and care for each other can transform and enrich our lives. 

Carrie Schiltz has had that transformative experience. Her Lutheran congregation in Rushford, Minnesota helped put Octavio Flores — a relative of the same family that honored the Duvalls — through forestry school. Schiltz learned of Flores through his sister, who is a member of her congregation, which has made it a mission to build relationships with immigrants in the area. 

During the Puentes/Bridges trip, Flores shared what he’d learned with Schiltz and the rest of the group, taking them to see the dramatic Cascada de Atlahuitzia waterfall and explaining his work on a project to restore biodiversity in the national park around the Pico de Orizaba volcano and with the Sembrando Vida program, a reforestation effort through which the Mexican government pays farmers to plant trees and preserve local plant species.

Part of the goal of Sembrando Vida (“sowing life”) is to help people in rural areas stay in Mexico, instead of migrating to the U.S. to support their families.

Mexican economist Luis Rey says there is a need for more such efforts to to help keep Mexican families together. “There is no value, in Western economics, placed on the grief of a mother whose children go to the U.S. to work and leave her alone. Her loss means nothing in mainstream economic terms.” Rey, who teaches at the University of Oaxaca, has students from rural villages who work on projects to preserve local culture in their communities, including recording local, indigenous songs and dances in order to preserve them. That form of cultural wealth and community cohesion should be valued as much as monetary earnings, he believes. But staying in your village in Mexico can also mean living in poverty. 

One of Rey’s students worked to convert an abandoned building in his town into an arts center, where he offered music lessons. The community center he created was a triumph, giving local musicians, dancers and artists a place to share and pass on their art. For his final project, the student gave a performance, Rey recalled, “And I noticed he had used a black marker to color in his socks so no one would notice the holes in his shoes.” 

José Tlaxcala, a builder who worked in Oregon framing houses for several years, returning to Mexico after he injured his spine, said something nagged at him from his time working in the U.S. “When I was helping to clean out and demolish houses in Oregon, three times we cleaned out houses where elderly people lived, and they died horribly, all alone. The houses were full of garbage, alcohol bottles, rotten food. That’s not how I thought people ended their lives in the U.S. I think of people there having a higher standard of living. But the young people had moved away and left these older adults, who died all alone in horrible conditions. Here, older people live with their families. What do you think about that?”

There is no one right answer to the question of how to live a good life. But the hollow triumphalism of the current president of the richest nation on Earth, proclaiming the supremacy of wealth and power by terrorizing immigrants and threatening to inflict maximum suffering on the most powerless people among us is a sure sign that we have lost our way.

In her many years of work building bonds between rural people in the U.S. and Mexico, Duvall has come to see the human relationships she’s watched develop as “sacred” — although she feels a bit self-conscious about using that word.

“Mexican traditional culture can be deeply sacred,” she said, reflecting on the moving ceremony binding her to the grandparents of her Mexican godchildren. “Those bonds are so important — way more important than money.” But there is also plenty of cruelty to be found in Mexico, she added. It’s a profoundly unequal society. The U.S. is quickly moving in the same direction.

People everywhere have the capacity for both good and evil, Duvall said. “Maybe the challenge in life is to really emphasize the sacred aspects of ourselves, so we can kind of evolve away from the cruelty.”

This story is Part Four in a four-part series. Read Part One: Amid Trump’s threats to deport workers, Wisconsin dairy farmers travel to Mexico Part Two: A deceased farmworker’s son finally returns to Mexico to meet his father’s family and Part Three: Deportation threats give people pause, but not for long, Mexican workers say

José Tlaxcala worked framing houses in Salem, Oregon, until he sustained a spinal injury and moved back to San Juan Texhuácan. People will continue crossing the border to work in the U.S., regardless of what politicians say, because of 'economic necessity' he says. | Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner

VERACRUZ, MEXICO — President Donald Trump’s threats to deport millions of Mexicans who are working in the U.S. without authorization does not have a large number fleeing the U.S. in fear, nor will it stop Mexican citizens from crossing the border to find work, according to many residents who shared their stories with the Wisconsin Examiner.

“Yes, it has put the brakes on things a bit, I know people who were thinking of going and now they’re waiting,” said Fatima Tepole, who worked on a dairy farm in Minnesota for four years, earning money to build her house and start a school supply store in San Juan Texhuácan. “Of course it caused people to pause. It now costs $15,000 to cross the border. If they send you back? Of course you are going to stop and think about that.”

But, she added. “They are going to try again when things calm down. It’s inevitable.”

Tepole’s friend Blanca Hernández, a teacher at a bilingual Spanish/Nahuatl school, agreed. She crossed the border to work in the U.S. three times, smuggling herself in the trunk of a car and nearly suffocating on her way to take a factory job in North Carolina and returning two more times to milk cows in Wisconsin. She saved enough money to build her house and buy a car before returning home. “Yes, there are people who are afraid now,” she said. “But Mexicans are stubborn. They are going to keep immigrating.”

José Tlaxcala says no politician in either country has changed the underlying drivers of immigration. “People in Mexico continue to think about going to the U.S. to work because of economic necessity,” he said.

In his opinion, that’s the Mexican government’s fault. “The Mexican government isn’t doing enough. There’s not enough good work for the people,” Tlaxcala said. In the area where he lives, around San Juan Texhuácan, most people work in agriculture, growing coffee and corn, partly for subsistence and partly to sell. But the prices for agricultural products are very low. “It’s not enough to support a family,” Tlaxcala explained

A Stateline analysis of U.S. Census community survey data in 2018 found a sudden drop in the Mexican immigrant population in the U.S. between 2016 and 2017. More than 300,000 people went home that year, which experts attributed to deportation threats in the first Trump administration as well as improving job prospects in Mexico. Mexicans still represent the largest group of immigrants living in the U.S., but their numbers have been declining for more than a decade, from a peak of 11.7 million in 2010 to 10.91 million in 2023.

It’s too soon to tell if the second Trump administration, with its even more aggressive focus on rooting out immigrants, pushes down those numbers more.

But anecdotally, at least among dairy workers in the Midwest, that doesn’t seem to be the case — at least for now. 

“The concern was significantly more in the last Trump administration,” says Wisconsin dairy farmer John Rosenow, who has 13 employees from Mexico. “Especially people with families were afraid of being deported and separated from their children. Farmers were typically running three or four people short … I haven’t seen that this time.” 

High-profile immigration raids in the second Trump administration have so far focused on major cities, including Chicago, New York, Denver and Los Angeles. Some people who worked in restaurants have been deported, and have been able to return to the villages Rosenow recently visited in rural Veracruz.

“I have a friend who was deported,” said Tepole. “He went to get food one day and they grabbed him and sent him back, just like that, after eight years. Luckily, he had already built his house.”

As Rosenow traveled among mountain villages, meeting family members of his dairy workers, he stopped to see a large cement house one of his current employees was building. Guadelupe Maxtle Salas was plastering a wall inside. He showed us the attached garage where Rosenow’s employee intends to set up shop as an auto mechanic when he finally returns. 

Maxtle Salas worked in the U.S. from the age of 14 until he was 19, he said. He milked cows on a dairy farm not far from Rosenow’s. He is thinking about going back to the U.S. after he finishes helping to build the house. He had applied for a work visa and then, when Trump took office, the app that allowed him to get the visa was abruptly cancelled. “I lost my chance,” he said. Now he thinks he might go illegally. “If I get there, I’ll look for you,” he told Rosenow.

Tlaxcala, 30, won’t be going back because of an injury that prevents him from resuming the heavy labor he did when he was in the U.S. He came back home one year ago. He was working in construction in Salem, Oregon, framing houses, when a beam fell on his back, fracturing two disks in his spine. 

He had been working abroad for five years, sending home money to support his family in San Juan Texhuácan. After the accident, he decided it was time to come home. 

He doesn’t blame his employer for what happened.

“After I hurt my back I couldn’t work. That’s the risk I took,” he said. “Unfortunately, I was working without insurance – illegally. My employer was not going to be responsible if I was hurt. I knew that.”

His employer paid the hospital bill. But Tlaxcala wasn’t eligible for unemployment benefits. Since returning home, he  hasn’t been able to afford medical attention to deal with continuing problems with his spine.

Immigrant workers who don’t have authorization in the U.S. are barred from receiving unemployment benefits even though they pay into the system through tax withholdings. According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, workers without authorization paid $1.8 billion into unemployment insurance, a joint federal and state program, in 2024. During the COVID-19 pandemic, 12 states created programs to temporarily provide unemployment benefits to excluded workers. Only Colorado has made its program permanent.

Asked if the risk he took to work without protection in the U.S. was worth it,  Tlaxcala laughed. “Maybe yes, maybe no,” he said.

“It depends on your situation. If you’re lucky nothing happens to you.”

It cost Tlaxcala $11,000 to cross the border, he said. “Obviously it was a big risk. You have to deal with organized crime in the north of the country to go through the desert. The cartels are still in control. Every person who crosses the border puts his life in the hands of the organized crime syndicates. It seems necessary to us. I know a lot of people who have died trying to cross.”

Like Tepole and Hernández, he doubts the deportation threats will have a big impact on Mexican workers. 

“It’s just politics,” he said. “It’s the same as in Mexico. Politicians say lots of things they don’t follow through with. Mexicans understand that.” For example, he said, for generations, Mexican politicians have said they are going to end poverty. “They don’t,” Tlaxcala said.

“When I was growing up I felt that I didn’t have things that I needed.” he added. “I had to go to school in broken down shoes. Sometimes I didn’t have shoes. I didn’t have a backpack, and I wore old, worn out clothing – for lack of money. I was determined to do something about that.”

Before he went to the U.S., Tlaxcala worked as a truck driver in Mexico. But the only way to get ahead, he said, is to start a business and it was all he could do to come up with the initial investment to get his store going. “I had to use all of the money I earned to pay off the bank. By working in the United States, little by little I could get ahead.”

After working abroad for five years, he was able to afford to pay off his debts, buy a house and finance his business, a small store. “Bank loans, credit — you can’t cover those things with a regular salary here,” he said.

Another reason Tlaxcala doesn’t believe millions of Mexicans will be deported, he said, is the sheer number of immigrants he saw when he was living in the U.S. “In Salem 30-40% of the population is Latino. I’d go to Walmart and see people from my village,” he said. “Plus, it’s very heavy work — construction, roofing — and it doesn’t pay well. They need people.”

In the U.S., 1 in 4 construction workers is an immigrant, according to a National Association of Home Builders report that emphasizes the industry’s reliance on immigrant labor as well as a significant labor shortage. “The concentration of immigrants is particularly high in construction trades essential for home building,” the report found, including plasterers and stucco masons (64%) drywall/ceiling tile installers (52%), painters, (48%) and roofers (47%).

By building houses in the U.S. so they can send home money to build houses in Mexico, Mexican workers are fueling the economies of both countries.

“I understand that there are people who do bad things and those people should be sent back,” said Tepole. “But the manual labor force that is strengthening the country? Most of them are Mexicans.”

This story is Part Three in a series. Read Part One: Amid Trump’s threats to deport workers, Wisconsin dairy farmers travel to Mexico and Part Two: A deceased farmworker’s son finally returns to Mexico to meet his father’s family

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After a long flight and a rugged overland journey, Julio Hernandez and dairy farmer Stan Linder approach the Hernandez family home in Mexico. | Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner

TEPANZACUALCO, Mexico — Julio Hernandez wasn’t even a year old when he first visited this tiny mountain village in the Mexican state of Veracruz. 

He doesn’t remember the trip he took with his mom, to attend his father’s funeral.

At the end of January, the 21-year-old finally returned. This time his mom stayed at home and he was accompanied by Stan Linder, 83, a dairy farmer his father Federico once worked for in Pepin County.

For the last 24 years, Linder has made an annual trek to Tepanzacualco to visit the Hernández family, which has sent a procession of relatives up North to work on Linder’s farm. This year he was determined to bring Julio along.

Like most dairy farmers in Wisconsin and Minnesota, Linder relies heavily on Mexican workers. The decades-long relationship of interdependence between rural Midwesterners and rural Mexicans has fostered not just economic but also social ties. Nowhere is the strength of those ties more visible than in the life of Julio Hernandez. 

Julio’s father, Federico, met and married Julio’s mother, a local woman whose family had lived in Wisconsin for generations, while he was working for Linder. One day in 2003, Federico went swimming with some friends in Lake George and drowned. It was Linder who showed up to tell Julio’s mother that her husband was gone. 

Fawn Hernandez, 42, remembers when Linder came to her door. “He said, ‘I got some news,’ and I was like, ‘What? Is Federico in trouble?’ And he said, ‘No, he passed away — drowned.’”

“I was married, widowed and had a kid all at the age of 21,” Fawn said.

Federico Hernández’ brothers and cousins chipped in to have his body sent home. Fawn remembers the difficulty of getting to the funeral. “They had to carry the casket down a hill on a goat trail, because the road washed out just before we got there.”

For the last 20 years Fawn has worked at the same McDonald’s restaurant in Menominee, raising Julio and taking care of her mother, both of whom live with her in a mobile home in Cedar Falls. Julio went to high school in nearby Colfax. He attended the community college in Chippewa Falls for three months before dropping out. Now he works summers on a crew pouring cement for the Pember Company in Menominee.

He knows some of his father’s family members who’ve put down roots in Wisconsin, including his cousin Emanuel Montalvo Tzanahua, who married a U.S. citizen and runs a successful barbershop in Arcadia. Another cousin still works on Linder’s farm and has two teenage sons both born in the U.S. (who plan to go to college in Minnesota). But he was nervous about the trip to meet his family in Mexico. It was the first plane ride he remembered, and the steep mountain roads alarmed him. In the back of the pickup truck on the rugged ride up the mountain to Tepanzacualco on a winding dirt road, he started to panic. 

“I’m not comfortable. I want to get out and walk. I don’t like this,” he said. Linder pounded on the truck until the driver stopped and dairy farmer John Rosenow came back and switched places with Hernandez, so he could ride the rest of the way in the front.

In Tepanzacualco, Hernandez and Linder hiked the last half mile up a steep footpath to the family home. The view was spectacular, with the sun shining on the valley below, cows and burros grazing in the fields and huge bunches of calla lilies sprouting along the path, as if plucked from a Diego Rivera painting.

As they drew close to the house, Julio’s grandmother, Paula Montalvo Cervantes Hernández, came out to embrace her grandson. “Mi hijo, mi hijo,” (My son, my son) she said, taking Julio’s face in her hands to gaze at him and then hugging him over and over.

One of his aunts said he looked just like his father.

Inside the house, a sign on the wall said “Bienvenidos” (“welcome”). Julio’s aunts and cousins were preparing a big meal, patting out handmade tortillas and cooking them on a wood-burning stove, alongside breaded fried chicken, green salsa and Spanish rice.

Julio sat at the table next to his grandmother and put his head on her shoulder. “My son, thank you for remembering us,” she said in Spanish.

“How could I forget?” he replied in English.

One of his aunts, Aurelia Hernández, commented approvingly, “His hair is very black. He doesn’t look like  a gringo.”

Her husband, Juan, came in and greeted Linder. He had worked on Linder’s farm for four years.

Julio handed his grandmother and aunt a baby picture of himself. They produced a large, framed photo of him from when he was a toddler and passed it around.

Julio said to everyone: “I’m glad to meet you and grateful to be part of your family.”

Linder translated.

“Gracias, gracias — mucho thank you!” said Julio’s grandmother, smiling broadly and patting his arm.

Julio began to cry. “Why is he sad?” his grandmother asked. 

“I feel like I’m home. I’m with my family,” Julio said through his tears.

Everyone listened to the translation, then responded in a chorus, “Awwww!”

When Julio asked if the family had anything of his father’s, one of the cousins went to another room and fetched an enormous suitcase Federico had used when he traveled to the U.S.

Julio and each of the family members took turns posing for pictures with the suitcase. 

Arnulfo, Julio’s 86-year-old grandfather, who came up to the house when Julio arrived from working in the fields, said, “Tell him I’ll give him some land to build his house, just choose where.”

“You can send money and they’ll build it for you,” Linder told Julio. That’s what many family members have done, saving up from their U.S. jobs and sending money home to build houses on the family’s property.

For Julio, who works during the summers in Wisconsin at his construction job, the idea of building a house to spend at least part of the year in the place where his father grew up, though surprising, didn’t sound that far-fetched. He turned it over in his head for the rest of the trip.

A house in Mexico can cost between $25,000 and $35,000 to build, workers told the Examiner. That’s a lot more reachable than in Wisconsin, where, according to the Wisconsin Realtors Association, the median home price in January was $293,000.

But the most striking thing for Julio about his trip, he said, was the unexpected feeling of being so welcomed by his father’s family. “I didn’t think they’d love me so much,” he said.

After lunch the family went outside and took photos in front of the ruins of an ancient pyramid which sits directly behind the house on the family’s land, never excavated by the Mexican government. Then Julio and Linder walked down the mountain to a house being built by Julio’s cousin who still works for Linder. She has been building it for the past two decades. In a couple of years, when her sons graduate from high school, Linder said, she intends to finally move back to Mexico. “That’s when I’ll retire,” he said.

Recently, Linder brought her sons down to meet the family for the first time. Like Julio, they were warmly embraced. 

Since he didn’t speak a word of Spanish, Julio relied on Linder and a translation app on his phone, to help him communicate during his visit.  “I feel like I’m missing a part of myself because I can’t speak the language,” he said.

On the second day of his visit, the whole family took a trip to the cemetery in San Juan Texhuacán where his father is buried. Julio laid flowers on the grave. 

Julio returns 

After three days with his family, Julio and Linder met up in Zongolica with the rest of a group from the U.S. led by Mercedes Falk, a translator on dairy farms in Wisconsin and Minnesota and director of the nonprofit Puentes/Bridges, which organized the trip. The whole extended family came along for a protracted, tearful goodbye.

“The thing I learned the most is they like it the way they have it,” Julio said, reflecting on the visit. “They care so much about family, they want to stay where they are. They’re willing to live on top of each other just to be with family. And for me, to be part of it? It’s something that will change my life forever.”

He wants to bring his mom to visit next year.

After taking a tour of the town and learning about the pre-Columbian history of Zongolica, Julio marveled, “They’ve been here for so long. Like longer than the United States – I like that.” He wished he’d asked more questions about the pyramid behind the Hernández family home.

Back in Wisconsin, after the trip was over, Julio was starting to lift weights to get in shape for the construction season. It’s hard work, he said. But now he has a new sense of purpose. After working summers in construction, he’d like to spend winters in Mexico.

He’s been staying in touch with his cousins on WhatsApp and using DuoLingo to try to learn Spanish. “I honestly thought about giving up, it’s been so difficult,” he said. “But I know I have to do it to be able to communicate with my family.” 

This story is Part Two in a series. Read Part One: Amid Trump’s threats to deport workers, Wisconsin dairy farmers travel to Mexico.

 

Mercedes Falk, executive director of the nonprofit Puentes/Bridges, which takes Midwestern dairy farmers to Mexico to meet their workers' families, talks with Teresa Juarez Tepole in her home | Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner

VERACRUZ, MEXICO — John Rosenow climbed into a pickup truck in Zongolica, a small city in rural southern Mexico, squeezing into the front with several friends and relatives from Wisconsin and Minnesota. In the back of the truck, six more people crowded onto benches, holding onto each other as the truck bounced over rutted dirt roads, climbing into the clouds as it traveled among little mountain villages in the state of Veracruz. The truck slowed down for a girl herding goats across the road and passed tiny wooden houses perched on the steep mountainside, with chickens in the yard and a few cows tied up by their horns.

“This never gets old,” said Rosenow, a 75-year-old dairy farmer from Waumandee, Wisconsin, who has made the same trip every winter since 2001, often joined by other dairy farmers who come to visit the families of their Mexican workers. He warned the group he might cry when he met up with some of his former employees. One current employee he’s particularly close to, Roberto, was contemplating moving home in December, but decided against it. “Man, that was the best Christmas present,” he said.

Along the way, the group saw wooden shacks with no indoor plumbing, dirt floors and tin roofs sitting next to big brick houses with shiny tile floors — the bigger houses built with money sent home by Mexican workers laboring in the U.S.

Economic interdependence and decades-long relationships have long bound dairy farmers in Wisconsin and nearby Minnesota to Mexican workers and their families. 

Of Rosenow’s 18 employees, 13 are from Mexico. That’s not unusual. Latin American workers, most of them from Mexico, perform an estimated 70% of the labor on Wisconsin dairy farms. The money they send home has lifted many of their families out of poverty. And without them, dairies like Rosenow’s would go belly-up. Yet almost all of the immigrant workers who milk cows in the U.S. lack legal status. That’s because, while the U.S. government provides visas for migrant workers who pick seasonal crops and for immigrants with specialized technical skills, there is no U.S. visa program for low-skilled labor in year-round industries like dairy.

In San Juan Texhuacán, about an hour up the mountain from Zongolica, Rosenow and the group visited Fatima Tepole, 42, who milked cows on a farm in Minnesota for four years, from 2012 to 2016, saving enough money to build a house next door to her parents and siblings and to start her business, a little school supply store. 

“Here the average worker can make 300 pesos a day,” (about $15) she said. “There you can make that much in an hour.” (Her estimate is close to what Mexican government data shows: Mexico’s average monthly salary is the equivalent of $297 U.S. dollars, or about $15 per day for a five-day workweek. Subsistence farmers in rural Veracruz generally make less and work longer hours.)

The visitors from the U.S. gathered in Tepole’s parents’ kitchen to learn how to make tortillas on a wood-burning stove. Then Tepole and her family served them a feast – meat stewed in green chili sauce with fresh tortillas and cheese and bean tostadas. Tepole had hosted many other Bridges groups over the years, including the farmer she worked for in Minnesota. “You’re the first Americans deported by Donald Trump!” she joked. 

Building a house — ‘our biggest dream’

Tepole’s sister-in-law, Celeste Tzanahua Hernández, 31, stood near the stove while the group ate. “We thank you for visiting us,” she said. “It’s good that other people know that we’re not all bad people — that people know and can value the work and sacrifices we are making.”

Tzanahua Hernández’s husband, who previously milked cows and now works at a sawmill, has been away from his two children, ages 5 and 12, for the last three and a half years while working in the U.S., she said. They expect him to return in a few months.

Waiting for him has been “a heavy emotional burden,” she said. But with the money he sends home, supplemented with her earnings as a preschool teacher, they’ve been able to build a home — a spacious, open-plan living area and modern kitchen attached to the compound where the extended family lives — buy a used car and afford school tuition, music lessons, tae kwon do, dental work and doctor’s appointments for the children.

When he comes home, her husband is planning to buy some equipment and set himself up in business as a builder.

Lately the family has been worried about Trump’s deportation threats.

“My husband saw ICE at a restaurant. It scared him a lot. That would not be the best way to have to come home,” Tzanahua Hernández said. “He has a car there. He wants to sell it. My dad is worried about what will happen if he goes to jail, or if he has to leave with no money — and how they treat immigrants on the border.”

The family has urged him to send home his valuables: “If he has some good shoes, good things, start sending them home so he doesn’t lose them,” Tzanahua Hernández said.

“He comforts us by saying that the situation is not so dangerous,” she added. “But we see the news reports — the young men who had recently arrived and now have been deported. … He says he feels better knowing that now our house is built, which was our biggest dream.”

Tepole and other Mexican workers estimated that it costs $25,000 to $35,000 to build a small house — the goal of many who are sending home money from jobs in the U.S. The strength of the dollar means the money people earn in the U.S. goes much farther in Mexico.

“For the first year you work there, you pay off your debt to cross the border,” Tepole said. Border crossings can cost between  $11,000 and $15,000, workers told the Examiner. “If you work really hard you can do that in seven or eight months,” Tepole said. “After another year, you have enough to start building. But you are also covering expenses for your family. So it depends on those expenses how far you get. After that, in two or three more years you can finish your house if you give it your all.”

“Young people can do it faster,” she added. “It takes more time if you are paying expenses for your kids.”

Money sent home to Mexico by workers in the U.S. is the country’s largest single source of foreign income — more than Mexico brings in from tourism, exports of manufactured products or petroleum sales. In 2023 Mexico received $63.3 billion in remittances from its citizens who labor in the U.S. — about 4.5% of total GDP — according to a recent report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Mexico ranks second only to India for the size of the contribution made by people working abroad to their home country’s economy. And the amount of money sent home by Mexican workers in the U.S. has increased dramatically in recent years, by roughly 32% between 2019 and 2023, according to the same report. Beyond covering families’ basic expenses, remittances drive economic development, “providing households with the means to save money and make investments in education, upskilling, and community improvement,” the report found.

On the U.S. side, undocumented workers pay about $97 billion in total taxes, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. About $26 billion of that goes to fund Social Security and $6 billion for Medicare — programs from which those workers are excluded. “We shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking immigrants are taking money out of the pot,” says David Kallick, director of the Immigration Research Initiative in New York. His group has done a lot of research over the years “to show how immigration is a big contributor to the overall economic success of this country,” Kallick adds. “But the economic damage done by tearing people away from their jobs is even bigger.” 

“You’re talking about 19% of the labor force and $4.6 trillion in economic output,” Kallick says of immigrant workers’ overall contribution to the U.S. economy. Deporting the estimated 11 million workers in the U.S. without legal status would have devastating ripple effects from the loss of farms, restaurants, construction projects, home health care and child care, he says. “We have a broken immigration system that has made it possible for people to become very much part of the economy across the board, and yet to be trapped in the lowest wage jobs in every sector.” 

“The reality,” he adds, “is there are not enough U.S.-born people to take the place of millions of people doing these jobs who are undocumented.”

One unintended consequence of the militarization of the U.S./Mexico border is that workers without authorization who would otherwise go home to Mexico have stayed in the U.S. for longer stints in recent years, knowing that once they go home they might never be able to cross the border again to come back.

‘When they go, it’s sad’

Up the hill from Fatima Tepole’s house, her friend Teresa Juarez Tepole, age 48, has four adult children between the ages of 26 and 33 who are working in the U.S, while she takes care of their children. Mercedes Falk, a translator on about 20 dairy farms in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and the director of the nonprofit group Puentes/Bridges, which organized the trip to Mexico, told Teresa that the farmer one of her sons works for in Minnesota is “an incredible person,” who wants to give her son special training so he can advance in his job. Teresa was glad to hear it. “He has confidence in my son,” she said, smiling.

When her children were very small their father died, Teresa said, and she barely scratched out a living by taking in washing and making tortillas. Sometimes the family was hungry.

She couldn’t afford to send the children to school beyond the early grades. From the time they were little, they helped with the washing and making tortillas. Her oldest son started working in a bakery as a teenager. “They’d give him four or five loaves of bread and he would bring them home, because I couldn’t afford to buy bread,” she said.

Now they’ve all gone to the U.S. “to see their kids grow up, to give them an education, too, because here there’s no money.”

Her granddaughter is in secondary school. “I can’t read or write well, but I tell my granddaughter she has to study hard because her mother is suffering so she can study,” she said. 

Teresa’s 30-year-old daughter has been in the U.S. for the last three and a half years. She picked fruit for the first year and a half and for the last two years has been milking cows on a dairy farm in Minnesota.

“When they go, it’s sad,” Teresa said. “You don’t know how long it will take them, when they’ll arrive, how they’ll be treated … I cried a lot.”

Even though she is proud of her children, she misses them, she said. “When they were growing up, at dinner time we always sat down together.”

And now, on top of the loneliness, there is more worry, she said. “With the president there, I start thinking of my kids and, my God, there they are and what if he throws them out? What if they’re mistreated? … There’s nothing to do but put ourselves in God’s hands, may he protect us.”

Hoping there aren’t mass deportations

At each stop on the Puentes/Bridges trip, people asked about Trump’s planned deportations.

Rosenow told several families that Brooke Rollins, Trump’s agriculture secretary, has said that deportations won’t hurt dairy farms. Rollins testified during her confirmation hearings that she supported Trump’s plan for mass deportations but that she would work with the administration to “make sure none of these farms or dairy producers are put out of business.”

“I’m counting on that,” Rosenow said. During the trip, his wife called with another worry: Trump’s tariffs were reportedly about to wreak havoc with exports of butter to Canada and drive up the price of the peat moss they import to make the compost they sell on their farm.

At a stop outside the little town of Astacinga, the conversation again turned to deportation. Rosenow stopped to visit the family of his favorite employee, Roberto, 45, and Kevin, Roberto’s 21-year-old son, who came North a few years ago to work with his dad on the farm. 

In the kitchen, Rosenow told Roberto’s mother, Concepciona Acahua Macoixtle, 62, , with Falk translating, “Roberto is my best friend. He gets along with anybody. And he has become a better golfer than me.” The two men golf together every week during the season, and Roberto has become something of a local celebrity on the golf course in Buffalo County.

Rosenow got out his phone to show a picture of Roberto playing golf.

Roberto’s wife, Veronica, asked how her son Kevin was behaving. Assured by Rosenow that he was “a delight,” she then turned to her other worry. “Is there a lot of immigration enforcement up there?” she asked.

“There are a lot of rumors, but I have a lot of confidence in the secretary of agriculture,” Rosenow said, once again explaining that he’s relying on Rollins’ assurance that farms won’t go out of business because of immigration enforcement. 

“If not, tell my husband to come home,” Veronica said. “Or his boss should get him a visa.”

“I’d do it in a moment,” Rosenow said, as Falk translated.

Falk explained that six-month visas are for seasonal work and dairy farmers can’t apply for them for their workers. Roberto’s mother nodded. “You have to work every day.”

“Some people are getting grabbed by immigration,” she said. Restaurant workers from nearby Astacinga were deported to tent cities in the north of Mexico, she said, adding, “that’s why we’re worried about our children.”

Veronica’s son Aaron, 15, wanted to go up North, too, but Kevin calls and lectures him about staying in school, his mother told the group. Now he’s going to high school in Astacinga and will graduate in a couple of years, Veronica said. 

Concepciona’s grandchildren have vastly different lives from her own life growing up, or that of her children. Her mother died when she was 4 and she never went to school. Instead she tended the family’s sheep when she was young and met her husband at 18, when both were working in the fields cutting sugar cane.

When they were raising their children, Concepciona said, “We all lived together in one kitchen room. Sometimes there wasn’t enough food. They didn’t have shoes sometimes. They didn’t always have tortillas.”

As a teenager, Roberto went to work and took care of his little siblings, sending home money from jobs in Mexico City and later Kentucky, so they would have enough to eat. He first went to the U.S. when he was 16, but returned several times — the last time was when Meagan, 10, was born. He hasn’t been home since she was 3 months old.

“I told him to come home, but he doesn’t,” Concepciona said. “It’s not that he doesn’t want to. The problem is here there’s no money. There, he can earn money to help with his kids’ education. Ten years he’s been there.” She began to cry. 

“My mother- in-law has lost all five of her sons. They’re all up there,” said Veronica. 

During the years Roberto has spent in the U.S., he has built a home for his parents, and Veronica has overseen the excavation and building of their own two-story home with a carport, which looks like it was transplanted to the mountainside from a U.S. suburb. Brick pillars frame a heavy metal gate, behind which a manicured grass lawn is surrounded by a low rock wall and a garden full of fruit trees, palms and rose bushes. 

Veronica and Roberto also purchased more land nearby, where they keep a flock of sheep. With some of his earnings Roberto has helped his nieces go to college. One is finishing up studying to be a teacher and lives with Veronica, she said.

Meagan, a fifth grader, has always gotten good grades, Veronica said proudly. Meagan gave the U.S. visitors an impromptu performance of the Mexican national anthem in Nahuatl — she’d been practicing for a competition at her bilingual Spanish/Nahuatl school.

As the Puentes group got ready to leave, Concepciona said, “Tell my boys to take care. Ask when they are coming. They always say August, December. Then the next December comes and they don’t arrive.”

“The problem is the risk if they don’t have papers,” said Veronica, “so they can’t come back.”

This article is Part One in a series. In Part Two, the U.S.-born son of a deceased Mexican dairy worker meets his extended family in Mexico for the first time. 

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In Wisconsin, undocumented immigrant workers contribute significantly to the workforce, performing labor that often goes unseen. But the exact number has proven difficult to determine. 

From outdated and cautious estimates to a lack of monitoring by state agencies, it is difficult to say for certain how many immigrants without legal status work in each industry. Quantifying the undocumented population through surveys and studies is also a challenging task. The U.S. Census doesn’t ask about or estimate the number of undocumented immigrants. The Department of Homeland Security estimates the U.S. total at 11 million as of 2022.

An estimated 70,000 undocumented immigrants live in Wisconsin, about 47,000 of whom are employed, according to the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.  About two-thirds of those had lived in the U.S. for 10 years or more. But that information is now over five years old.

The top industries that employ undocumented workers in the state are: 

Manufacturing — estimated 11,000 workers. 

Professional, scientific, management, administrative and waste management services — estimated 8,000 workers.

Accommodation and food services, arts, entertainment and recreation — estimated 5,000 workers.

Construction — estimated 5,000 workers. 

Agriculture — estimated 5,000 workers.

A 2023 UW-Madison School for Workers survey found that over 10,000 undocumented workers perform around 70% of the labor on Wisconsin’s dairy farms. “Without them, the whole dairy industry would collapse overnight,” the researchers concluded.

This finding sparked a public debate in the wake of stricter immigration policies over the unseen, yet essential work that immigrants without legal status provide to the state’s major dairy and farming industries. 

“Obtaining accurate counts of undocumented populations is inherently challenging due to their non-legal status and potential reluctance to participate in official surveys,” said Alexandra Guevara, spokesperson for Voces de la Frontera, a Wisconsin-based immigrant rights organization. 

To complicate matters, state agencies like the Department of Administration and the Department of Public Instruction don’t keep records of the number of undocumented immigrants and workers in the state. DPI lacks this data because public schools do not ask about immigration status. 

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

Undocumented workers make up a large percentage of the workforce in child care and domestic housework. They tend to make up a smaller portion of health care employees and are mainly employed in roles like housekeeping or janitorial and food service in both nursing homes and hospitals, according to Guevara. 

National estimates suggest that undocumented workers make up between 30% and 50% of the meatpacking workforce, according to the University of Michigan. Guevara said it is probable that Wisconsin, a major hub for meat and cheese production, follows this trend.

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

How many undocumented people live and work in Wisconsin? is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

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Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining for most Wisconsin public employee unions, has saved taxpayers billions of dollars.

The 2011 law could be reviewed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court because of a recent judge’s ruling.

The law achieved savings mainly by shifting costs for pension and health benefits for public employees to the employees.

The nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum found in 2020 that state and local governments saved $5 billion from 2011 to 2017 in pension costs alone.

PolitiFact Wisconsin reported in 2014 that public employers saved over $3 billion on pensions and health insurance.

Getting rid of Act 10’s pension, health insurance and salary limits would raise annual school district costs $1.6 billion and local government costs $480 million, the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty estimated in September.

However, the recent court ruling doesn’t invalidate Act 10’s higher employee contribution requirements, said attorney Jeffrey Mandell, who represents unions in the pending case.

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

Sources

• Wisconsin Legislative Council: 2011 Wisconsin Act 10
• Dane County Circuit Court: Decision and order in Case No. 2023CV3152
• Wisconsin Policy Forum: Bridging the Pension Gap
• PolitiFact Wisconsin: Scott Walker says union reform law that brought massive protests has saved taxpayers $3 billion
• Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty: Back to the Past: The Fiscal Threat of Reversing Act 10 for Local Governments
• Wisconsin Watch: Did Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford try to overturn Act 10?
• Jeffrey Mandell: Email 12/11/24

Has Wisconsin’s Act 10 union law saved taxpayers billions of dollars? 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.