Tennessee blocks driver’s licenses for Dreamers, other immigrants and more news from the states

Good evening. Tonight we begin in Tennessee, where state officials have newly interpreted a law passed in 2025 to strip driving privileges for Dreamers and other immigrants authorized to live and work in the United States. 

In Minnesota, the parents of Alex Pretti, who was killed by federal agents in January, called for the federal government to release evidence and cooperate with state officials in an investigation into their son’s death. 

The U.S. Department of Justice plans to send election monitors to every state ahead of Election Day, expanding a longstanding practice but alarming critics. The Trump administration also continued its efforts to intervene in state ballot counting.

Tennessee is rejecting applications for driver’s licenses from immigrants who are authorized by the federal government to work and live in the United States, Tennessee Lookout reports. It’s a shift in policy that could strip thousands of longtime license-holders of the ability to legally drive, immigrant attorneys and advocates said.

The surprise change in Tennessee driver’s license rules, which lawyers and advocates said they first learned about through anxious client calls in recent weeks, could place immigrants permitted to work in the United States at risk for arrest, detention and subsequent deportation if caught driving to work, school or the grocery store without a license. 

A Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security spokesperson said the new policy is the result of a 2025 state law that took effect Jan. 1, but does not appear to have been interpreted by state officials to deny licenses to “Dreamers” and other immigrant work permit holders until recently.

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein and Attorney General Jeff Jackson, both Democrats, called on state regulators Tuesday to require prospective data center developers to shoulder more of the cost for the additional power they’ll need — or to produce more of it themselves through renewable energy, NC Newsline reports. 

The state Utilities Commission has been working on new rules for months. A proposed agreement would establish a large-load tariff on data centers and requirements that data centers pay for grid upgrades like transmission lines and substations.

Stein called the proposal “a step in the right direction,” but said it’s inadequate because it doesn’t require data center owners to help pay for any new power plants the state will have to build to supply their needs.

Related coverage: 

Every K-12 student has the legal right to receive a lunch at school in North Dakota without any stigma or shaming. But students and families who can’t afford to pay can still have long-term consequences, and some students may choose to go hungry to avoid them, North Dakota Monitor reports. 

Legislation passed in 2023 prohibits schools from identifying or stigmatizing students for unpaid meal debts, and bans certain consequences such as limiting participating in graduation or other school activities.

But more than two dozen school districts reported referring parents to debt collection agencies for unpaid lunch debt, according to a state survey. And at least one district withholds transcripts from students who haven’t paid off their account balance.

Voters will decide next week whether to approve a proposed universal school meals ballot measure.

Wisconsin: An Oshkosh middle school teacher who was recognized as employee of the year in 2025 has been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

Oregon: After an elementary school shooting, lawmakers across the political spectrum have shared their grief and personal experiences with firearm violence, but have split when it comes to policy changes. 

Missouri: Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins denied many of the accusations in a lawsuit filed by his former director of election integrity.

Tennessee: A recent report from the Southern Environmental Law Center cautions construction of a tunnel for Tesla vehicles could cause new sinkholes.

Alabama: Democrats are touting their party’s decades-long efforts to repeal the state sales tax ahead of the general election, as Republican leaders have expressed new support of the effort. 

Ohio: Cincinnati-based Kroger has received a $3 million Make America Healthy Again federal grant. Critics say it appears to be a taxpayer gift to market the company and do more customer surveillance.

Idaho: Opponents of the proposed abortion rights initiative Proposition 1 filed a lawsuit seeking to pull TV ads paid for by the Idaho Democratic Party in favor of the initiative. 

Iowa: Seventy-five of the state’s 393 nursing facilities are now subject to a reduced form of government inspection, based on the facilities’ perceived risk to residents.

New Mexico: The state won’t meet its 2030 goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, an Environment Department official told state lawmakers.

Indiana: State officials revealed a new interpretation of medical frailty, a key but contested exemption to fast-approaching work requirements for Medicaid expansion enrollees.

Alex Pretti’s parents, Susan and Michael Pretti, speak during a press conference Tuesday, Oct. 27, in downtown Minneapolis alongside their attorney Steve Schleicher, calling for the federal government to release evidence and cooperate with state officials in the investigation into their son’s death at the hands of federal agents last January. (Photo by Nicole Neri/Minnesota Reformer)

Nine months after immigration agents shot and killed Alex Pretti in south Minneapolis, his parents are publicly calling on the U.S. Justice Department to release information and evidence related to Pretti’s killing.

“We are here today begging for the Department of Justice to do what is right — to hold the men who killed our son accountable for what they did,” Susan Pretti said at a press conference in Minneapolis Tuesday. 

Customs and Border Protection agents tackled Alex Pretti to the ground, disarmed him, then shot him in the back several times on Jan. 24 during Operation Metro Surge. Six days later, Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the FBI was opening a civil rights investigation into the killing. But federal prosecutors have not charged any of the agents involved, and after much back-and-forth over evidence sharing, Minnesota law enforcement leaders said in a court filing last week that the feds are again refusing to hand over key pieces of evidence to local investigators. 

“We have not heard anything from the federal government,” Michael Pretti said. He called out the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, Daniel Rosen, by name: “(He) has stonewalled us for nine months, refusing to share a single update at any time. His only words have been, ‘I can’t tell.’”

Read more from Minnesota Reformer.

The U.S. Department of Justice plans to send election monitors to every state ahead of Election Day, expanding a longstanding practice that’s spurred concern this year among Democrats and voting rights advocates because of President Donald Trump’s push to influence elections, States Newsroom’s D.C. Bureau reports. 

The Justice Department for decades has deployed monitors across the country to watch the voting process. During President Joe Biden’s administration, the DOJ sent monitors to 64 jurisdictions across 24 states for the 2022 midterm elections.

The 2026 monitoring program is larger, with the Justice Department announcing it will have a presence in all 50 states. DOJ spokesperson Kiersten Pels told States Newsroom on Monday that about 1,000 monitors will be involved but that the department won’t disclose the full list of monitored locations until Election Day — Nov. 3.

Tens of millions of Americans have already made their way to the ballot box as early voting is underway in a midterm election that will determine control of the House and the Senate, possibly flipping one or both from Republicans to Democrats, the D.C. Bureau reports. 

As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 34 million people have voted, and the current tally is on track to surpass early voting in the 2022 midterm elections, when nearly 46 million Americans voted early, said Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at University of Florida who runs the UF Election Lab that tracks early voting.

McDonald said he’s not sure if voters will surpass record-breaking early voting of 2018.

Related: Early voting in South Carolina sets new midterm record

Meanwhile, attorneys representing the state of Alaska have asked a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit by the U.S. Department of Justice that is seeking to halt the certification of the state’s ongoing U.S. Senate election, Alaska Beacon reports. 

The lawsuit asks a federal judge to prevent the state from declaring a winner in the election unless the winner is the incumbent, Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan, an ally of the President. 

Attorneys representing the federal government have put forward a legally dubious argument stating that Alaska voters might be confused by the fact that one of Sen. Sullivan’s opponents is a man with the same first and last name — Dan J. Sullivan, who recently switched his party affiliation from Republican to undeclared.

Related: Feds allege more than 400 noncitizens vote in Washington; secretary of state disputes data

A new report found that in the first three years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion in June 2022, more than 900 women faced criminal charges for conduct related to their pregnancies, Stateline reports. 

The vast majority of the charges found by nonprofit Pregnancy Justice — 876 of 955 — were for child abuse, neglect or endangerment, most related to substance use during pregnancy.

Researchers also found 13 specific allegations related to obtaining, seeking to obtain, or researching how to get an abortion. 

The most prominent anti-abortion groups have long argued against prosecuting women for having abortions, a punishment that remains broadly unpopular. But the new report comes as a growing number of state legislators are pushing to enact such penalties.

More from Stateline: Nearly half of AAPI women lack a reproductive health provider, survey finds

From the opening to the closing of the Alaska Federation of Natives convention, speaker after speaker, information booth after information booth and placard after placard had the same message: a call for Alaska’s Indigenous people to vote, Alaska Beacon reports.

Michelle Sparck, leader of the Get Out the Native Vote, held up four fingers during her brief remarks on Thursday, the convention’s first day, to emphasize that Alaska Natives make up about a quarter of the electorate.

“If my four fingers represented all the voters in Alaska, we’re one whole finger. That’s how important we are,” she said.

Yet voter participation has nosedived since the 1980s, when almost all Native adults in villages voted, she said. In 2024, only 11% of qualified Alaska Natives cast ballots, she said.

“That’s not showing our power. That’s not owning our power,” she said. “If we’re only voting 11% out of 25%, we are not sending a clear message to politicians.”