Homeland Security’s reach in Minnesota and more news from the states

Good evening. Tonight we begin with an in-depth look at the far-reaching surveillance program launched by the Trump administration alongside an immigration enforcement crackdown in Minnesota earlier this year. 

In Oregon, the state is confronting a conflict between its commitment to transgender medical services and the federal government’s intensifying attacks on gender-affirming care. In North Dakota, oil well tax breaks — including for high-producing sites — are mounting, prompting scrutiny by lawmakers. In Washington, a bipartisan group of lawmakers condemned the Trump administration’s suspension of a ban on Russian energy imports. 

Across the country, data centers are becoming a central campaign issue. 

During Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota this winter, Homeland Security agents infiltrated groups organized to push back against the federal immigration enforcement crackdown, Minnesota Reformer reports.

Internal agency documents, which are now part of court records in the case of 15 Minnesotans charged with conspiracy to harm or impede Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, highlight the surveillance dragnet the government created: from participating in Signal chats to seeking records for every purchase of a particular winter hat from outdoor company REI. The vast effort means thousands of Minnesotans who sought to protect immigrants and others from profiling and arrest face consequences of their own — they’ve been swept into a burgeoning surveillance state.

Whether any of the surveillance was illegal could determine the outcomes for dozens of Minnesotans facing criminal charges for their anti-ICE protests — including the Minnesota 15 and the Cities Church protesters, all of whom have pleaded not guilty. 

More immigration coverage: 

Three years after Oregon lawmakers passed a law requiring insurers to cover transgender medical services, state regulators have quietly delayed their efforts to ensure the law is making a difference for a group that’s long faced barriers to care, Oregon Capital Chronicle reports. 

The paused oversight stems from financial uncertainty facing Medicaid and the Trump administration’s intensifying attacks on gender-affirming care. The delay means an incomplete picture of whether the new law has shortened wait times or removed bureaucratic obstacles for transgender patients. It’s also a departure from the urgency officials and advocates directed to the high-profile law that supporters called life-saving.

Advocates for transgender people don’t agree on how the state should respond, but they worry gender-affirming care could become harder to come by in Oregon.

Related: The long, bumpy fight for transgender healthcare protections in New Jersey

Some 120,000 power customers were still waiting for power restoration in Florida as of Monday afternoon, three days after Hurricane Isaias hit the Panhandle, Florida Phoenix reports. 

At least four deaths in Florida and Alabama have been attributed to the storm, which made landfall as a Category 2 hurricane near Destin, Florida, around 8:30 p.m. Friday.

Maine: A state task force will hold a public hearing to consider how to ensure beneficial federal laws apply to the Wabanaki Nations, as the tribal alliance continues to pursue full sovereignty. 

Florida: The state is set to execute 62-year-old James Robertson by lethal injection Tuesday, which would be the 17th execution carried out in Florida this year. The 16 executions to date are more than all other states in the country this year combined. 

Utah: Advocates lobbying for tighter restrictions on automated license plate readers say immediate intervention from state transportation officials would be faster and easier than an act from the Legislature.

Michigan: The Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory has survived the Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate it, but the lab is running at a fraction of its former capacity after purges by the Department of Government Efficiency. 

New Mexico: The U.S. Department of the Interior has canceled contracts to conduct routine maintenance and programming at national parks and downgraded nearly 1,500 more projects across the country to “low priority” status. 

Virginia: A ballot referendum to enshrine reproductive rights into the state constitution — along with the surge of states enacting bans, restrictions or protections — has prompted doctors across the nation to wade into the increasingly heated political discourse. 

Idaho: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has donated $1 million to a state political action committee, or PAC, opposing the abortion rights initiative on the ballot this November. 

Missouri: A ballot measure will ask voters whether to set aside and invest state money that could remain untouched for more than a century, with the eventual goal of generating enough earnings to eliminate state taxes.

Montana: Voters in November will decide a ballot question that aims to limit government interference in citizen ballot initiatives. 

Alabama: Voters will decide in November whether to amend the state constitution to require school boards to adopt policies on the daily recital of the Pledge of Allegiance in schools and student-led prayer, as well as the broadcast of the Star-Spangled Banner every week.

This oil well operated by XTO Energy in Williams County, North Dakota, pictured Sept. 2, 2026, is certified as a “stripper well,” or low-producing well. (Photo by Kyle Martin for North Dakota Monitor)

North Dakota is on pace to lose $66 million in tax revenue this year from more than 700 stripper wells that no longer qualify for the tax break but continue reaping the benefits, a North Dakota Monitor investigation found. 

Some of the oil wells are producing 10 times more than the eligibility criteria, but — unlike other top oil-producing states — North Dakota’s tax exemption is permanent even when a well begins producing more oil. 

More than half of the 20,000 active oil wells in North Dakota have been certified as stripper wells, qualifying for a 5% tax break. The program as a whole is on pace to reduce state revenue by an estimated $260 million this year, prompting scrutiny from some lawmakers. 

Read more from North Dakota Monitor. 

In the course of a single election cycle, the backlash against data centers has grown from an issue at local planning commission and city council meetings to become a flashpoint in state and federal races across the country, Stateline reports. 

Candidates who once touted data centers as an economic boon have backtracked, and voters in at least three dozen cities, counties and townships will consider ballot measures in November that could ban data centers in their communities. Analysts say the opposition to data centers has come from Republican and Democratic voters alike.

“The people are speaking, and they’re speaking in one voice in opposition to this infrastructure,” said Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst. “It is not something that people desire in any shape, form or fashion. This potentially could be the issue that gives you the status of a former member of a city council or a former member of Congress.”

Last month, UMass Amherst published a poll, directed by Nteta, showing that only 11% of Americans would support the construction of an artificial intelligence data center in their local community. The poll found that 65% of respondents oppose the construction of such facilities.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators said that the Trump administration’s order to allow import of Russian diesel violates a 2022 law banning Russian energy imports while the country’s war with Ukraine is ongoing, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports. 

The administration did not consult with Congress before lifting the sanctions, which is required by the 2022 law, six senators said Sunday in a statement.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking Democrat Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Republicans Susan Collins of Maine, John Curtis of Utah, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina called on Trump to “immediately reverse course.”

“Congress explicitly banned Russian energy imports in 2022 to prevent American dollars from financing Putin’s brutal war against Ukraine,” they wrote. “Congress was clear: the U.S. should not import oil from Russia until it ends its aggression against Ukraine and ceases threats against our NATO Allies.” 

Related coverage: 

Democratic leaders in the U.S. House condemned a “deeply disturbing” raid early Monday at the District of Columbia home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who has long been a target of verbal attacks by President Donald Trump and Republicans, the D.C. Bureau reports. 

The House minority leaders said the search of Omar’s home “raises serious questions about the continued corrupt weaponization of the federal government against Donald Trump’s adversaries.”

Omar, a Somali-born American and one of four Muslims in Congress, represents a deep-blue district. She was resettled as a refugee in the United States with her family at the age of 12 in 1995 and was later naturalized as a U.S. citizen.

A Department of Justice official said the raid was “part of an ongoing federal criminal investigation.”

Omar said in a post on social media Monday that she “will not be silenced.” 

More from the D.C. Bureau: Trump heads West in latest swing to bolster GOP in rocky lead-up to midterms

Most of the roughly 600 New Mexico residents who weighed in on the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s proposal to end the 2001 Roadless Rule said it should remain in place to protect watersheds and wildlife, as well as spare roughly 1.6 million acres of the state’s forestland from extractive industries, Source New Mexico reports. 

But beyond the policy itself, dozens of them, via a public comment portal on Regulations.gov, offered personal reflections about profound experiences in untamed nature, which they see as at risk if the USDA moves forward with the rule’s repeal.

“We never saw nor heard another person, vehicle or anything else manmade,” one person wrote about a backpacking trip in the Gila National Forest, of which roughly one quarter is protected under the Roadless Rule. “Instead we saw skies so lit up with stars we almost didn’t need headlamps to cook. We were woken up at night by a large herd of elk thundering past.”

“Nature is actually quite loud when it’s not drowned out by humans and our trucks, cars, heavy machinery, utility infrastructure constantly buzzing,” the commenter continued. “I dream of the Gila and hope I have the privilege to trek through its quiet loud nature again.”

The department last week closed its public comment period for the proposal to repeal the rule, which protects roughly 58 million acres of national forests from logging, road construction or other development. 

The department received more than 370,000 comments between Aug. 18 and Oct. 6. An analysis from the Center for Western Priorities, an environmental advocacy group, concluded that more than 99% of comments supported the rule.