Wisconsin Right Now

At the northern border, Border Patrol agents continue to arrest Iranians and weapons traffickers and are helping seize record amounts of fentanyl.

While illegal border crossings are down at the northern border under the Trump administration, Border Patrol agents in the busiest northern border Swanton Sector are continuing to interdict crime. The sector includes all of Vermont, six upstate New York counties, and three New Hampshire counties.

Earlier this month, Border Patrol Agents from the Champlain Station in New York responded to a report of suspicious activity near Mooers Forks, New York. Upon arrival, they located a minivan occupied by five Iranian citizens and two Uzbekistan citizens – all adult men in the country illegally.

Border Patrol agents then determined all seven men “had previously illegally entered the United States at various locations along both the U.S./Mexico border and the U.S./Canada border,” Swanton Sector Chief Border Patrol Agent Robert Garcia said. They were detained and are being processed for removal.

“Border security is national security and directly correlates to public safety,” Garcia said, adding that “Swanton Sector agents remain vigilant and committed to protecting our borders and enforcing immigration laws.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are also arresting Iranians in the country illegally, including Revolutionary Guard soldiers, after more than 1,500 Iranians illegally entered the U.S. under the Biden administration, with more than 700 released into the U.S., The Center Square exclusively reported.

In another instance, Border Patrol agents notified the New York State Police about a suspected driver of a vehicle allegedly involved in smuggling activity in upstate New York. State troopers responded, located and stopped the vehicle near Albany, Garcia said. A subsequent vehicle search resulted in a seizure of roughly 4.7 pounds of powdered fentanyl, enough to kill more than one million people.

“This seizure is a powerful reminder of why strong partnerships between federal, state, and local law enforcement are vital to our national security and public safety,” Swanton Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia said.

In another instance, Border Patrol agents helped ATF federal partners apprehend a criminal foreign national wanted for weapons trafficking. Honduran national Yubert Yasiel Lopez-Lopez, 31, was arrested in North Attleboro, Mass., after he illegally reentered the country after he was previously deported.

He was first apprehended in 2014 after illegally entering the U.S. in Hidalgo, Texas, under the Obama administration. A federal immigration judge in Houston ordered his removal, which occurred four years later under the first Trump administration. In 2022, he again illegally entered the country in Yuma, Arizona, under the Biden administration. It took another three years to arrest him, this time in Massachusetts, with authorities learning he was wanted in Honduras on weapons trafficking charges. A federal grand jury indicted him last month in Vermont, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Vermont announced. He faces up to two years in prison if convicted and removal from the U.S. for a third time.

“We continue to enforce federal immigration laws and seek maximum consequences against those who violate them,” Garcia said.

Garcia also regularly thanks members of the public for supporting Border Patrol efforts, sometimes acting as the eyes and ears for agents in rural areas by calling in sightings of illegal border crossers or suspicious activity. He continues to encourage members of the public to report suspicious border activity in the Swanton Sector by calling 1-800-689-3362.

The sector was hit hard under the Biden administration with illegal border crossings from Canada reaching record levels, totaling nearly one million, according to CBP data and gotaway data exclusively reported by The Center Square. The greatest number ever reported in U.S. history in the sector was in fiscal 2024 of nearly 200,000, excluding those who evaded capture, The Center Square reported.

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin state legislators have started circulating a bill to repeal Gov. Tony Evers’ 400-year school funding veto.

Evers’ veto in July 2023, which turned a temporary $325 per student K-12 funding increase – originally slated for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years – into a permanent increase through the year 2425, was recently upheld by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April, The Center Square previously reported.

However, the court’s ruling suggested lawmakers could still draft legislation as a recourse to the governor’s partial veto, and Republicans are seeking to do just that.

“The pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock 402 years before this veto. It is hard to justify locking in a funding increase for just as long into the future,” the bill’s four co-authors said in a cosponsorship memo circulating at the state Capitol, WPR reported.

The bill would effectively reverse Evers’ 400-year veto, eliminating the $325 per pupil adjustment in the school district revenue limit formula beginning with the 2026-27 school year.

“One man locked in a tax-raising mechanism that no one voted for and no one approved,” the cosponsorship memo reads. “Evers’ move bypassed both the elected Legislature and the hard-working people who pay the bills.”

However, if the bill passes both chambers of the Legislature, it would ironically require Evers to not veto it in order to become law.

While the Senate had voted to override Evers’ original veto in September 2023, the Assembly never held a vote on the override, so the effort failed and the veto stood.

Will Flanders, the research director at Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, previously wrote, “The Governor is not a king, even if the state Supreme Court says he is. Given this increase, the legislature should fight hard against any further increases for public schools that are now set up for a boondoggle.”

(The Center Square) – Wisconsin saw the June unemployment rate go down in 24 of the state’s largest 35 cities over the month while the rates lowered in 63 counties and stayed the same in eight more, according to new numbers from the state’s Department of Workforce Development.

Wisconsin’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate went down to 3.2% in June, less than the 4.1% national rate.

Wisconsin’s labor force participation rate went down to 65.1% in June while the national rate decreased slightly to 62.3%.

Wisconsin saw 10 of its largest metropolitan areas show unemployment decreases while three of those areas remained the same. Twelve of the metropolitan areas saw unemployment decreases over the year while the rate in Sheboygan remained the same.

Menominee, meanwhile, was the only county that saw a month over month increase in unemployment rate while the rate increased in just four counties year over year.

Federal officials have released more documents indicating a Democratic-led intelligence community politically targeted President Donald Trump by claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin influenced the 2016 presidential election to help Trump win.

U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified a 2020 House Intelligence Committee report Wednesday that “exposes how the Obama Administration manufactured the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment that they knew was false.”

“The Russia Hoax was a lie that was knowingly created by the Obama Administration to undermine the legitimacy and power of the duly elected President of the United States, Donald Trump,” Gabbard posted on X.

Notably, the report found that the majority of the intelligence community’s judgements on Russia’s confirmed attempts to meddle with the 2016 election were “sound,” including its findings that Putin ordered “conventional and cyber influence operations” to undermine faith in the U.S. democratic process and the legitimacy of an expected Hillary Clinton presidency.

However, further judgments from the intelligence community alleging that Putin “developed a clear preference for candidate Trump” and “aspired to help his chances of victory” were not only false but also the result of apparent bad faith, the oversight investigation reveals.

To reach their conclusion that Putin had attempted to help Trump win, top intelligence officials cherry-picked inconclusive information that supported the narrative, omitted or suppressed information contradicting the narrative, and based their “high confidence” assumptions on untrustworthy and dishonest sources.

The report builds upon other documents that Gabbard declassified over the weekend showing that Obama, along with his senior advisors, reportedly pressured the intelligence community to contrive evidence that Russia intended to manipulate the vote count in Trump’s favor.

The Trump administration believes these efforts amounted to a “coup” meant to delegitimize the results of the 2016 election and cast doubts on Trump’s presidency.

Rep. Rick Crawford, R-Ark., said Wednesday that the “Russia hoax will go down as one of the most troublesome events in U.S. history” that caused the country to become “more polarized than ever before.”

“A President of the United States was falsely accused, and a nation had to endure lies fabricated by rogue personnel within their own Intelligence Community,” Crawford said on X. “There are still Americans who passionately believe the fabricated narrative. That is why releasing this document to the public has been so important.”