Justice Department Sues Iowa over Immigration Law After Warning

Kim Reynolds

The Justice Department sued the state of Iowa on Thursday, after the state failed to stop a new immigration law that makes it a crime for people to be in the state if they were previously denied admission to the United States.

The lawsuit is the second legal action taken against the state over the new law, which goes into effect in July. The first was a lawsuit from a civil rights group that was filed earlier Thursday. The department warned Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds that it would sue last week if she did not stop the law by May 7.

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Nikki Haley Says New Hampshire Will ‘Correct’ Iowa Caucus Results as She Trails Trump in Polls

Nikki Haley

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said during an event Wednesday that New Hampshire voters will “get it right” and that they will “correct” the results of the upcoming Iowa caucuses.

The former governor of South Carolina is currently polling at 24.8% in New Hampshire and 16% in Iowa, trailing frontrunner Donald Trump, who is leading in both states at 46% and 51% respectively, according to RealClearPolitics. Haley was at a campaign stop in New Hampshire less than two weeks out from the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 15 and told the audience that “they have an opportunity to get this right,” according to a video from The Citizen.

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DeSantis Calls Out Biden For Ignoring His Own Granddaughter While Opposing Parental Rights

Presidential candidate and Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called out President Joe Biden for opposing efforts to protect parental rights while ignoring his own granddaughter on Saturday at the Iowa State Fair.

DeSantis slammed Democrats for seeing parents as a roadblock to “indoctrination” in the school system during his Fair-Side Chat in Iowa, making a jab at Biden for taking “four and a half years to acknowledge” his granddaughter, Navy Joan Roberts. Biden opposed Florida’s “Parental Rights in Education” bill, which bars discussions of gender identity and sexual orientation in kindergarten through third grade or “in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards,” when DeSantis signed it into law in March 2022.

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Florida Among the Handful of States Enacting New, Sweeping School Choice Legislation

So far in 2023, six states signed school choice legislation into law, giving millions of families and their children education options, including access to taxpayer-funded vouchers.

Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Utah, South Carolina and Oklahoma all signed legislation into law that makes at least some, if not all students within the states, eligible for taxpayer funded vouchers or a tax credit that can be used on education expenses such as private school tuition, textbooks and transportation. Under the legislation enacted in 2023, millions of students across the country are now able to attend schools outside their designated zip code or apply to receive funding in order to seek a private or a homeschool education.

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Iowa Governor Requests DHS Staff Salary Increases, ‘Status Quo’ on Medicaid Funding

For the first time in at least 15 years, an Iowa governor has not recommended funding changes for Medicaid.

The announcement was made by Legislative Service Agency Analyst Jess Benson as he presented Gov. Kim Reynolds’ fiscal year 2023 Department of Health and Human Services budget recommendations Tuesday.

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Gov. Reynolds Announces Funding to Train Teachers, Health Care Workers, Aircraft Techs

Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds

Several career-focused educational grants and funding opportunities were announced last week for Iowa institutions.

Gov. Kim Reynolds announced funding initiatives in her 2022 Condition of the State Address, including the first-in-the nation Teacher and Paraeducator Registered Apprenticeship Grant Program.

Through the program, current high school students can earn paraeducator certificates and associates degrees, and paraeducators can earn their bachelor’s degree while learning and working in the classroom. The program starts in the 2022-2023 school year.

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Iowa Gov. Reynolds Proposes Four Percent Flat Tax

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds on Tuesday proposed a tax cuts omnibus in her fourth Condition of the State speech.

“Under these high ceilings, next to this marble, among these columns and portraits, it’s tempting to believe that nothing good happens unless we legislate it, regulate it, or fund it. But in the small towns, around kitchen tables, in the fields and back-offices, Iowans understand that we in this building don’t fund anything. They do,” the Republican governor said. “And right now, they’re paying too much.”

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Five Governors Request Defense Department Withdraw Vaccine Mandate for National Guard

Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds is joining four other state governors in requesting the Department of Defense withdraw vaccine mandate directives to National Guard members in Title 32 duty status.

U.S. National Guard members’ deadline to be vaccinated was Dec. 2. Nearly 50,000 military members across all branches have declined to get vaccinated, Reynolds’ office’s news release said.

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