Colorado AG sues to stop ICE detention center and more news from the states

Welcome to Wednesday! We’ve got a busy lineup this morning, starting with news out of Washington, D.C.

In case you missed it, the U.S. Supreme Court granted, for now, the Trump administration’s request to continue rapid third-country deportation of immigrants to countries not their own, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports.

In Rhode Island, a federal judge struck down the Trump administration’s attempts to restrict federal grants for organizations serving victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. The judge ruled that the U.S. Department of Justice failed to adequately explain its decision to condition grants on certain restrictions.

And in Tennessee, a federal court ruled in favor of Metro Nashville and five other cities and counties, striking down the Trump administration’s effort to withhold anti-terrorism funds unless they adopted election-system policies to check citizenship.

Arizona: A Maricopa County Superior Court judge has dismissed a lawsuit from two Green Party candidates who sought to block the Citizens Clean Election Commission from ordering them to repay millions in public campaign funds they’re accused of fraudulently obtaining. 

Pennsylvania: A bill that would allow independent and third-party voters to cast ballots in state primary elections passed the state House. The legislation attracted opposition from both sides of the aisle from lawmakers who argued the primaries are the exclusive domain of the parties to nominate candidates for the general elections. 

National: The federal government has begun supplying COVID-19 vaccines to states to be used as part of a free immunization program for low-income children, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services confirmed.

New Jersey: Thirty people who say they endured sexual abuse while incarcerated as minors sued the state for negligence, accusing officials of hiring, training and supervision failures that created a decades-long “culture of abuse” in New Jersey’s youth prisons.

Indiana: No retailers have been fined since the state banned the purchase of candy or soda using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits. Indiana is one of 18 states approved by the USDA to test restrictions on the use of SNAP benefits to buy unhealthy foods.

Minnesota: A council tasked with documenting the harms of — and resistance to — the federal government’s immigration crackdown held its final public meeting. Democratic Gov. Tim Walz established the Minnesota Truth Council by executive order in March.

See the rest of the news of the day from all 50 states, plus our D.C. Bureau and Stateline, on News From The States.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser sued the federal government in an effort to stop or delay the opening of a new immigration detention facility in Hudson, alleging that the agencies in charge failed to perform a statutorily required environmental review or provide information to the public before finalizing the plan, Colorado Newsline reports.

The lawsuit is similar to one filed last week by two advocacy organizations over concerns that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ignored requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act before entering into a contract with The GEO Group to open and operate the new detention center. 

The state also alleges that the agencies violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Weiser’s office wants a judge to cancel the contract and stop any ongoing preparations for the detention center’s opening until the Trump administration completes the required analysis.

Weiser is the Democratic gubernatorial nominee and has led or joined dozens of lawsuits challenging actions by the Trump administration over the past two years.

Maryland school officials celebrated a sharp drop in chronic absenteeism since the pandemic, despite uneven results across school districts and not reaching their goal of cutting post-pandemic rates in half, Maryland Matters reports.

The Maryland Department of Education announced earlier this month that nearly 23% of students were chronically absent during the 2025-26 academic year, down from almost 32% in the 2021-22 academic year.

But data released during Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting showed rates ranging from 41.4% in Baltimore City to 15.4% in Harford and Howard counties. The state considers a student who misses 10% of the school year, or 18 days of the 180-day school calendar, as chronically absent, whether the absences were excused or unexcused.

On a school-by-school basis, most saw a decline in absenteeism since the pandemic, but 14% did not.