An immigration judge backed a green card for a Sheboygan Falls mother arrested after accidentally crossing the Canadian border, but a delayed background check prolonged her ICE detention for weeks.
Paul Kiefer / Wisconsin Watch
Paul Kiefer joined Wisconsin Watch in September 2025 as a Roy W. Howard fellow, focusing largely on immigration and data reporting. He grew up in Washington state, first setting foot in a newsroom as a teenage producer-in-training at a Seattle public radio station. He went on to cover criminal justice in Washington for both the Seattle news site PubliCola and InvestigateWest. He headed east in 2023, finding work as a state politics reporter for Delaware Public Media before receiving a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and interning with the Washington Post’s metro desk.
Posted inCommunity, Economic Development
As energy-hungry data centers loom, Wisconsin ratepayers owe $1 billion on shuttered power plants
Obsolete power plants continue to cost ratepayers. Now, the push to generate unprecedented amounts of electricity for data centers risks creating another $1 billion in “stranded assets.”
Posted inCriminal justice
Wisconsin Supreme Court to weigh sheriffs’ cooperation with ICE
The ACLU sued on behalf of the immigrant rights group Voces de la Frontera. The lawsuit challenges detention practices in Brown, Kenosha, Marathon, Sauk and Walworth counties.
Posted inCommunity, Criminal justice
Courts left with loose ends when ICE detains criminal defendants
When defendants sit in ICE custody, their criminal cases generally continue without them — sometimes with no explanation of their absence to the court.
Posted inCriminal justice, Government
‘So sudden, so jarring’: Immigration ruling streamlines deportations to countries asylum seekers barely know
A Board of Immigration Appeals decision makes it easier for federal officials to toss thousands of asylum cases and send applicants to a “third country” where they have never lived. But the mechanism is being used inconsistently.
Posted inCriminal justice
ICE arrests of asylum seekers in Milwaukee show shifting tactics
A Venezuelan couple arrested during a routine immigration check will try to continue their asylum cases while detained hundreds of miles away from each other.
Posted inCriminal justice
Rapid deportation push leaves immigrant families in the dark
The pace of the Trump administration’s crackdown and lack of transparency have disoriented affected families and overwhelmed immigration attorneys.
Posted inCommunity, Government
What you need to know about immigration trends in Wisconsin
Immigration hearing and arrest data illustrate where new immigrants to Wisconsin originated, where they settled and how they’ve fared in immigration court.
Posted inCommunity, Inside the NNS Newsroom
Help shape our immigration reporting
Introducing Paul Kiefer, who will report on immigration issues during a yearlong fellowship.