Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson had been prominently outspoken in his opposition to the 2025 reconciliation tax and spending bill passed by the U.S. House, that is until he met with President Donald Trump and softened his tone — the senator described his stance on the proposal. The Milwaukee Common Council came out in solidarity for two immigrants whose cases came to the public’s attention, with its President José Pérez explaining why alders unanimously signed on to statements of support.
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson
(R) Wisconsin

• As the U.S. House was debating and immediately after it passed a reconciliation tax and spending package titled “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” Sen. Johnson said he couldn’t be pressured by President Trump to change his position that the proposal spends too much and increases the federal budget deficit and national debt. Having met with the president, though, Johnson is emphasizing how he wants to change measure while still touting the elements he supports.
• Johnson: “Let me point out the good parts of the bill. Would take away, eliminate a massive automatic tax increase on virtually every American that pays tax — it’s certainly avoids default. The House had done some pretty good work at looking at programs, trying to eliminate the waste, fraud, and abuse of the Obamacare portion of Medicaid. That’s necessary to do so we can protect the benefits for the vulnerable, for disabled children, pregnant women, the people that Medicaid was actually designed for — not single, able-bodied, working-age childless adults. So again, the House has done a lot of good work. You know, my main beef is the debate in the House. Pretty lacking in terms of looking at the numbers we really need to be looking at.”

Alderman José Pérez
District 12 and President, Milwaukee Common Council

• The immigration cases of two Milwaukee residents have captured both local and national attention. One is Ramón Morales Reyes, who was wrongfully accused of writing letters threatening to assassinate President Donald Trump. Morales Reyes, who has a pending visa application, was set to testify against a man as a victim of a crime, the alleged letter-writer who was intended to get him deported before he could testify. As the details of the set-up were still being investigated, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security publicized the letter and detained Morales Reyes at an ICE facility in Dodge County. Local investigators quickly uncovered the hoax, but the federal agency did not retract its inaccurate claims about Morales Reyes. The Milwaukee Common Council issued a statement about the case that declared the agency’s “false statement continues to fuel the anti-immigrant sentiment” at a national level. On its website, the agency states Morales-Reyes “entered the U.S. illegally at least nine times between 1998-2005. His criminal record includes arrests for felony hit and run, criminal damage to property and disorderly conduct with a domestic abuse modifier.” In another case, ICE instructed Yessenia Ruano, a public school teacher’s aid and mother, to self-deport to El Salvador. Ruano has a pending visa application as the victim of human trafficking and no criminal history. Her deportation is on hold for now. Perez said both Ruano and Morales-Reyes are caught in a broken immigration system.
• Pérez: “We have Milwaukeeans that aren’t sending their children to school, aren’t showing up for work, that have done nothing wrong or are waiting on the system, feeling that it’s coming after them. And the Latino community has been — the Latino and immigrant communities had a huge impact on the economics in Milwaukee, have stabilized the population growth. We’re cranking out young people, educated, going to college, and yet It doesn’t feel like the sense the rate of return or the investment back in the Latino immigrant community is making any sense. So it’s created fear. It’s created a sense of not wanting to participate. And we need — public safety is very important. We need our immigrants to always contact the police, to have all the confidence that the system is working. And when they’re in fear or living in fear in the shadows, it’s difficult to do that.”

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