A family shares their decision to self-deport and more news from the states

Good evening. Tonight we begin in New Jersey, where a couple shared their agonizing decision to separate, with the husband choosing to “self-deport” to Mexico, a rising phenomenon amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Across the country, tens of thousands of Salvadorans are awaiting the administration’s decision on whether to renew temporary protected status, which is set to expire at midnight. 

In Wisconsin, more communities are opting to cancel or scale back their use of Flock license plate readers. In Missouri, court cases are still swirling over which map to use for the November election, with the secretary of state fighting a contempt proceeding at the state Supreme Court. 

Voters are casting ballots in Rhode Island today, including in a contentious Democratic primary that could see the current governor ousted. We'll have all the latest on News From The States tonight and Daybreak in the morning. 

As the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown continues, more immigrants are choosing to self-deport, some leaving family behind in the U.S., New Jersey Monitor reports. 

Julie Moreno’s husband, Nef Juarez, left for Mexico soon after President Donald Trump was reelected because they both feared where he might end up if picked up by immigration agents.

Their story has become an increasingly common one across New Jersey and the nation, as families agonize over whether to wait out the enforcement surge, hide in the shadows, or leave on their own terms before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement decides to come for them. 

Moreno works with American Families United, a national nonprofit organization representing U.S. citizens in mixed-status marriages, an estimated 1.5 million households across the country. The organization is pushing for the passage of the American Families United Act, a bill in Congress that would create a waiver process allowing couples like Moreno and Juarez to petition for immigration relief on a case-by-case basis. It has not moved forward.

Experts and advocates note that people who opt for voluntary departure are not necessarily doing so because they want to leave. Some have legal avenues to remain in the U.S., but dismal detention conditions and the steep uphill battle of finding legal representation for court proceedings have pushed them toward departure. 

The Vera Institute of Justice found that monthly voluntary departures surged from a few hundred at the end of the Biden administration to over 9,000 in a single month by March 2026. In all, immigration judges issued over 80,000 voluntary departure orders between January 2025 and March 2026 — a 600% jump from the final 15 months of the Biden administration, according to Vera Institute data reviewed by the Washington Post. And that doesn’t include people like Juarez who decided to leave before getting involved in the judicial system. 

More immigration coverage: 

City workers in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, began covering over Flock license plate reader cameras this week, while local elected leaders determine whether they can cancel their Flock contract altogether, Wisconsin Examiner reports. 

Several other communities have also recently canceled Flock contracts, are considering it or have covered up their cameras. Sheboygan broke ties with Flock after the company reportedly attempted to sell the city back traffic data it was unaware the multi-billion dollar surveillance company was even collecting. 

“Reports are surfacing all over the country about the system being misused by municipal and state employees who have access to the data,” said Stevens Point Mayor Mike Wiza in a press release. 

A few of those cases have played out in Wisconsin courts, police departments and sheriff’s offices. Four officers across Wisconsin have been charged with misconduct in public office and other offenses for misusing Flock cameras. 

In Milwaukee, where an officer pleaded guilty to misconduct in office for misusing the system to track a former romantic partner, Flock operations on county property are paused until new transparency and oversight measures can be developed. 

In the latest Missouri redistricting wrinkle, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins asked a federal judge to block the state Supreme Court from holding a contempt hearing over his decision to implement a congressional map the state court barred him from using, Missouri Independent reports. 

The Missouri Supreme Court issued an unusual late-night order Tuesday demanding that Hoskins appear in person to explain why he isn’t following its injunction on the congressional district map that will govern the Nov. 3 elections. The order gave Hoskins until noon Wednesday to respond in writing and set his hearing for 10 a.m. Thursday.

Hoskins filed his response just a few minutes after the deadline and, at the same time, filed a request to U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark seeking an order blocking the state Supreme Court hearing.

The state Supreme Court order capped a day of conflicting actions over which congressional map Missouri must use in November, which included the U.S. Supreme Court declining to consider the issue. 

New Hampshire: Democratic U.S. Rep. Chris Pappas will face off in November against Republican former Sen. John E. Sununu to be U.S. senator, after the two candidates prevailed in their respective primaries Tuesday. Polls suggest the race could be close. 

New Mexico: The state’s trial against Facebook for its role in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal, when Facebook users’ data was harvested to use in political campaigns, is underway. 

Nebraska: The state Supreme Court decided to expedite and hear oral arguments in a lawsuit seeking to disqualify a ballot measure that would cement sex-separate school sports requirements in the Nebraska Constitution.

Florida: The state chapter of the American College of Physicians wants a formal hearing on the DeSantis administration’s latest effort to weaken vaccine requirements for schoolchildren.

New Jersey: Staffing levels at many nursing homes remain inadequate and state inspections are frequently delayed, weaknesses that increase the risk to residents, a new state audit warns.

South Dakota: A state agency requests an average of 249 driver’s license suspensions per month as part of its efforts to collect debts owed to state government, from fines to court costs to unpaid tuition. 

North Dakota: The only fair housing organization in the Dakotas has furloughed some of its staff due to the delay of a crucial federal grant.

Washington: A quarter-million state residents who get their insurance through the state’s exchange under the Affordable Care Act face another year of double-digit rate increases. 

Alaska: A Republican-aligned group filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission against GOP U.S. Senate candidate Dan J. Sullivan, who is challenging incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Dan S. Sullivan in November.

Two chairs for city council members in Burgin, Kentucky, sit empty after the council couldn’t proceed with business at a special meeting Tuesday evening. (Photo by Liam Niemeyer/Kentucky Lantern)

Melinda Wofford, a council member for the small Mercer County community, walked out of the meeting at the city’s fire department, stopping a vote that could have restarted efforts to annex land for a proposed hyperscale data center. The project has been under local scrutiny for months. 

More than a hundred people packed into the engine bay, some of them voicing strong concerns about the potential project. After the meeting, a few attendees thanked Wofford for walking out. 

The city doesn’t have its own planning and zoning regulations, which is part of the development debate. A representative from the developer, Panattoni Data Centers, noted that Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, issued an executive order that seeks to mitigate the impacts of hyperscale data centers looking to locate in the state.

Read more from Kentucky Lantern. 

More data center coverage:

Tens of thousands of immigrants living in the United States are on edge as temporary protected status for 170,000 Salvadorans is set to expire at midnight Wednesday, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports. 

But the Department of Homeland Security said protections will remain in place until the Trump administration makes a decision to extend or terminate El Salvador’s designation, in place since 2001.

“An announcement on El Salvador’s TPS will be made at the appropriate time,” a DHS spokesperson said in an email to States Newsroom. “Until such announcement is made, Salvadoran individuals present in the U.S. under TPS retain protection.”

Based on the temporary protected status statute, if a determination to extend or terminate a country’s protections is not made by the government by the expiration of the deadline, then TPS is automatically extended for six months.

If the Trump administration does make a determination to end protections, then Salvadorans will have 60 days to leave the United States.

If TPS is terminated for nationals for El Salvador, they will be the latest large group of immigrants to lose their legal status in the country as President Donald Trump has sought to dismantle the program Congress created for people who hail from countries deemed too dangerous for return. 

Related: (D.C. Bureau) Trump administration aims to exclude many noncitizens from the census

The Democratic-led states and voting rights groups suing to block enforcement of President Donald Trump’s executive order to restrict mail-in voting warned in briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday that the policy would have disastrous consequences for the upcoming midterm elections if it is allowed to move forward, the D.C. Bureau reports.

Less than two months before the Nov. 3 elections, at least two states have already begun sending ballots to voters, and officials in several others have voiced serious concerns that complying with the U.S. Postal Service rule this election cycle is impossible, opponents said.

The Democratic attorneys general of 23 states, the District of Columbia and the governor of Pennsylvania told the high court they strongly object to the Trump administration’s request that justices allow the rule to move forward.

“Whatever else may be said of USPS’ new rule, it would wreak havoc on States and their voters if it takes effect at this late point—when some States, including North Carolina and Wisconsin, have already begun to mail out ballots,” they wrote.

Related coverage:

President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with Canada is creating headaches for Republicans ahead of November’s midterms as high prices remain a top concern among voters, Stateline reports.

Responding to Trump’s increased tariffs, Canadian officials have said they’re deliberately targeting goods from states where there are close elections. And GOP candidates in Kansas, Maine and Ohio among others have been forced to balance supporting Trump with defending local manufacturers.

Trump has repeatedly targeted Canada, traditionally a close American ally, since returning to the White House last year. But his August move to impose 50% tariffs on billions of dollars of Canadian imports has heightened tensions, pushing Canada to retaliate with its own tariffs on hundreds of American-made products that went into effect Tuesday.

Related: Ohio farmers need help after tariffs, foreign competition bring big struggles

Former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, thinks voters should be assured of the safeguards that produce accurate election results and of the professionalism of those responsible for correct counts. To that end, McCrory is the North Carolina leader of a group called RightCount, NC Newsline reports. 

On a tour of the inner workings of the Wake County Board of Elections this week, McCrory said transparency and education will help counter misinformation and build trust in results for both the public and candidates. 

McCrory said transparency and education will help counter misinformation and build trust in results for both the public and candidates. 

McCrory is speaking from experience. The former long-time mayor of Charlotte and North Carolina’s latest Republican governor was on the losing end of a close election when Democrat Roy Cooper defeated him by about 10,000 votes in his bid for a second term in 2016. McCrory led the vote count until ballots from Durham were added late on election night. 

At the time, McCrory claimed voter fraud, saying that election errors and illegal voters had changed the outcome of his election. But 10 years later, he says suspicion about how the process works hurts democracy. 

“We need to bring back confidence in our democracy. And that comes from someone who was declared the winner one night and then…” McCrory said, before trailing off. 

“We need to overcome that suspicion for our democracy to be sustainable,” he said. “And that’s very important to me because I want to encourage people to vote and have confidence in their vote, and I want to encourage people to run.”