OurTupelo

Republican lawmakers are dealing with tensions between local elected officials and the Trump administration over moves to transform warehouses in their districts into immigrant detention centers.

Reps. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania and Paul Gosar of Arizona said they will spend their recess week meeting with leaders in their districts taken aback by the Department of Homeland Security’s purchase of three warehouses in the two states totaling $277 million. Republican lawmakers in Georgia and Mississippi, too, have been lobbying the administration to change its plans.

Meuser, who served as the Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania co-chair, told NOTUS he’s been speaking with DHS officials every day about local concerns that the two facilities the agency purchased in Berks County and Schuylkill County could put a strain on public infrastructure, security and jobs.

“We’re going to work it out to make it as nonnegative of an impact and, hopefully, a very positive impact on my district,” he said.

READ MORE: Byhalia ‘ICE warehouse’ deal is canned after chat with Noem, Wicker tweets

DHS’s push to expand its detention footprint through warehouses, with plans to hold between 1,500 and 8,500 people in the GOP districts, has been met with local opposition.

During county commission meetings, officials of the Schuylkill County township, where DHS has purchased a 1.3-million-square-foot warehouse, said the sewer system can’t handle an influx of thousands of people. In a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania wrote that his constituents are also concerned about the economic impact; the federal government’s purchase of the two warehouses translated to a combined loss of $1.6 million in tax revenue per year for the counties, Fetterman said.

“I don’t know if it’s the right location or if there’s a better location, they did all the analysis there,” Meuser said. He said he planned to visit the sites next week.

The situation has put Republican lawmakers in a tenuous yet somewhat familiar position, as they attempt to seek information and changes from the Trump administration while maintaining public support for the president’s agenda. Republican lawmakers found themselves doing the same thing when the administration’s cuts to federal funding and the federal workforce hit home. This time, however, their concerns are regarding the administration’s biggest priority: deportations.

Trying to get answers from the agency hasn’t been straightforward for all lawmakers. Gosar told NOTUS that he had given DHS officials six days as of last Tuesday to respond to his questions about the scope of the 1,500-bed processing center in Surprise, Arizona.

“I’ll climb the ladder, even talking to the president about it,” Gosar said of his next steps if DHS doesn’t respond to his list of questions about the potential strain on local infrastructure.

The Surprise city government released a statement on Jan. 30 that said its officials hadn’t been notified about the $70 million purchase of a 418,000-square-foot property.

“My thing is: ask for permission, don’t ask for forgiveness,” Gosar said.

Ultimately, Gosar said he didn’t know if he supported the warehouse in his district.

“I don’t know that. I want to see the process,” he said.

One Republican has already gotten federal officials to reverse course. In Mississippi, Sen. Roger Wicker’s opposition to a proposed 8,500-bed detention center in Byhalia led to the homeland security secretary “agreeing to look elsewhere,” the senator said in a statement on X last week, following a letter from Wicker and subsequent phone call.

A DHS spokesperson said the agency had no detention centers to announce in Mississippi.

“I relayed to her the opposition of local elected and zoning officials as well as economic development concerns,” Wicker wrote.

Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia, who is running for Senate, is in a similar situation. DHS purchased a warehouse in his district in the city of Social Circle that would house double the city’s population.

Collins, an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, “shares the same concerns as the residents and leaders of Social Circle that the city may not have the facilities or infrastructure this development would require,” his spokesperson told NOTUS in a statement.

“He has brokered communication between ICE and city officials so these concerns can be addressed,” the statement continued.

In a Facebook post on Feb. 4, Collins wrote that following a briefing from ICE on the proposed facility, although he was “aligned with the mission of ICE,” he had “asked DHS to continue evaluating the impacts that the facility would have on Social Circle and to ensure we can accomplish the mission without negatively impacting the community.”

A DHS spokesperson said the Social Circle detention center would bring 9,800 jobs to the area.

Democrats with proposed warehouses in their districts have been rallying against them for months, with multiple lawmakers telling NOTUS that it’s been almost impossible to get information from DHS, even after repeated requests.

At the end of January, Rep. Yassamin Ansari of Arizona told NOTUS that in response to a letter asking about rumors of a proposed new detention center in her district, DHS told her office that “they would not be sharing any plans whatsoever about what they have in the works or anywhere else in the country,” even if the plans involved her distinct.

“To what we know, there’s nothing right now, but again, we don’t really know,” Ansari said.

When asked about the concerns from GOP officials, the DHS spokesperson said in a statement: “Secretary Noem has stated that she is willing to work with officials on both sides of the aisle to expand detention space to help ICE law enforcement carry out the largest deportation effort in American history.”

Editor’s note: This essay is part of Mississippi Today Ideas, a platform for thoughtful Mississippians to share fact-based ideas about our state’s past, present and future. You can read more about the section here.

On Jan. 1, Mississippi took an important step forward for working families. For the first time, state employees welcoming a new child have access to paid parental leave. That matters.

It matters for mothers recovering from childbirth. It matters for fathers and partners learning how to care for a brand-new life. It matters for adoptive parents building trust and connection in those first fragile weeks. It matters for babies because those early weeks are when pediatric checkups, screenings and follow-up care happen, and when parents need the time and stability to actually get their children to those appointments. And it matters for Mississippi’s workforce, which has long struggled with retention, recruitment and deep economic inequities.

The Mississippi State Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, which went into effect on Jan 1, did not happen by chance. It reflects years of advocacy, organizing and bipartisan leadership that recognized a simple truth: No parent should have to choose between caring for a new child and keeping a paycheck. As a social worker, a mother and someone who has spent decades organizing alongside Mississippi families, I know how rare and meaningful that recognition is.

But while Jan. 1 is a milestone worth celebrating, it should also be a moment of honesty.

This policy is a first step, not the finish line.

This new law provides paid leave following the birth or adoption of a child, and for the state employees who qualify, it can be life-changing.

But the reality is stark. In Mississippi, paid family leave protects only 1 in 5 workers. The other 80% – disproportionately low-wage workers and workers of color – are left with no guaranteed time to heal, no paycheck to rely on and no protection when their families need them most.

And even for those who are covered, the protections are limited.

For example, the new law does not cover workers recovering from serious illness, childbirth complications or mental health crises. It does not protect those caring for an aging parent, a partner undergoing cancer treatment or a child with ongoing medical needs.

It does not reach the majority of Mississippi workers employed outside of state government. And it ignores a simple truth: Caregiving does not end after a few short weeks, and neither does the need for time to heal.

As a result, caregivers drain their savings, exhaust their sick time or leave the workforce entirely – and too often, they leave Mississippi in search of jobs and states that better support working families. These choices are not failures of personal responsibility; they are failures of policy.

Mississippi is already paying the price. We rank near the bottom nationally in workforce participation and rank at the bottom for maternal and infant health outcomes.

Paid leave goes beyond being a personal or family issue; it’s an economic issue. Paid family and medical leave delivers a strong return on investment for businesses, with studies estimating up to $2.57 in value for every $1 invested, driven by reduced turnover costs, higher productivity and stronger employee retention while communities benefit from healthier families and a more stable workforce.

In a state struggling to retain workers and compete for talent, paid leave is not a cost Mississippi can’t afford. It is an investment Mississippi can’t afford not to make.

Jan. 1 shows what is possible when we focus on families and practical solutions.

Now, lawmakers should build on this progress by expanding paid family and medical leave protections, ensuring that all workers – not just state employees – can care for themselves and their loved ones without risking financial ruin. Employers should view this policy as a model, not a ceiling. And communities must continue to uplift the lived experiences of caregivers who know firsthand what it means to fall through the cracks.

Mississippi families deserve policies that reflect the reality of their lives.

We took an important step forward this January. Let’s not stop walking.

Cassandra Welchlin is executive director of the Mississippi Black Women’s Roundtable. A licensed social worker, advocate and mother, she has spent more than 20 years advancing policies that strengthen economic security and health for Mississippi women and families.

Teneshia LeBran’s journey to get her associate degree hasn’t been easy. 

LeBran first enrolled at Hinds Community College in August 2019 to study early childhood education technology. She’s a young, single mother raising five small children — with another baby due in June. She has experience volunteering for Head Start committees in Hinds County, which provides free-early childhood education, nutrition and services to low-income families. She has also had to navigate federal food assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Women, Infants, and Children. 

“I want to open my own day care one day,” LeBran said. 

Different personal challenges led to her starting and stopping her education at Hinds. 

Now, she’s participating in The Learning Circle, or TLC, a pilot program Hinds Community College launched in January to lower barriers students like LeBran face to earning an associate degree or a career or technical certificate. On Tuesday nights, the Learning Circle provides child care and dinner for students. On Thursday nights, students can access tutoring and a computer lab through the program. 

If the pilot is successful, The Learning Circle will continue to expand to the community college’s five other satellite campuses, said Tiffany Moore, dean of students at Hinds’ Jackson campus. 

The college’s Jackson campus is located off Medgar Evers Boulevard and Sunset Drive, in an area Moore described as “surrounded by blight.”

The Learning Center “symbolizes a beacon of hope for many students residing in and around the neighborhood,” Moore said. “It could give one parent the support they need to move forward in life.” 

‘It takes a village’ 

The launch of The Learning Center at Hinds coincides with a time when Mississippi lawmakers and higher education officials are seeking ways to encourage more residents to obtain a degree or credential, which would boost the state’s workforce. 

Nationwide, more than 37.6 million 18- to 64-year-olds have some college but no degree as of July 2024, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. In Mississippi, 349,410 residents — or roughly 12% of the state’s population — have some college but no degree, according to the research center. 

The state’s workforce development agency launched Ascent to 55% in 2023, a plan to get more than half of Mississippi residents the training or education needed to earn a college or degree certificate by 2030. 

As of this month, 48.8% of Mississippians ages 25 to 64 had a degree, credential or industry certification beyond high school, which is slightly lower than the nation’s average of 54.8%, according to the Lumina Foundation.

Research suggests some adult students face obstacles like financial resources, time constraints and work and family obligations when it comes to completing their education. A 2023 report from the nonprofit American Institutes for Research notes that parents who are also adult learners “must consider family expenses in addition to college expenses and make tough decisions about how to spend their time across their academic, work, and family responsibilities.”

Colleges across the country provide wraparound services such as child care, financial support, food and transportation assistance, emergency funding and mental health support, said Maria Cormier, senior research associate at Columbia University Community College Research Center.

“There’s the saying ‘It takes a village,’” Cormier said. “Colleges are now saying, ‘We want to be a part of your village and help students succeed.’” 

Across Mississippi, universities such as Mississippi State, Alcorn State and Jackson State provide resources including on-campus child care for students, faculty and staff. The child care centers operate as educational, licensed facilities for students studying early childhood development. 

Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College’s Harrison County campus, Itawamba Community College and Northeast Mississippi Community College also provide low-cost child care for its parent students. These colleges also have food pantries and service programs students can access through campus and student life offices. 

“I feel it is important that the people in the Jackson community know that we see them and understand their needs and that we will do anything possible to provide them with the same opportunity that people from other areas have,” said Tiffany Gaskins, dean of career and technical education at Hinds Community College, Jackson campus. 

‘It’s convenient for me and my life’ 

This is LeBran’s third time enrolling at Hinds. With only four classes left to finish her associate degree, she hopes to graduate this spring. 

“This program was only supposed to take two years, and here I am, you know, constantly, just starting, stopping, starting, stopping,” LeBran said. “But, I love that I never lost my drive to want to go back.” 

When Tuesday nights roll around, LeBran can feel at ease.

Before participating in The Learning Circle, LeBran took classes online. It was difficult to find babysitters — trusted neighbors or family — to watch her children while she focused on her education.

Now, licensed childcare teachers at The Learning Circle care for her youngest sons on Tuesday nights, which frees up LeBran to attend in-person classes.

“I am someone who has to ask a lot of questions and it’s difficult when you’re doing online classes or thinking about who is going to watch them,”  LeBran said. “Knowing that I am able to bring them with me to class, that is really beneficial. Plus, when class is over, I can just go home and put them to bed.”

Calvin Harris said he was drawn to Hinds’ Learning Circle Series program because he could take courses in welding and cutting technology at night. 

Between 3 a.m to 4 p.m., Harris, 45, works as a sheet metal fabricator and fitter for Steel Service, a manufacturing company in Flowood. After working in the welding industry for 25 years, Harris said the introduction of new machinery and technology like robotics and lasers made him want to brush up on relevant skills. 

“It’s just convenient for me,” Harris said. “You can’t limit your mindset on just being a welder.” 

The Learning Center classes also allow him to impart wisdom to new recruits who enter into his company, he said. 

“The industry is dying out, and it’s hard to get recruits or new candidates to pick up the trade,” Harris said. “But I tell the ones who do come in, they can make a lot of money and travel. This job and these classes can be a way to get their foot in the door to a better life path.” 

By day, Gwen Green works as a substitute teacher in the Vicksburg Warren School District. She drives 30 minutes from Vicksburg every Tuesday to attend a business management technology class at The Learning Center. For Green, 63, the classes are a way to plan for her future and earn a new income after she retires.

She’s learning how to use computer software like Microsoft Word and Excel. She’s also close to retirement and wanted to earn a certificate to start a home-based business filing income taxes for neighbors and write up life insurance as an agent with Prime America. 

“Everyone deserves a second wind at life and this program and these classes help me do that,” Green said. “And my motto is: If you want something, you have to go get it.”

CHICAGO — The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson, a protege of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and two-time presidential candidate who led the Civil Rights Movement for decades after the revered leader’s assassination, died Tuesday. He was 84.

As a young organizer in Chicago, Jackson was called to meet with King at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, shortly before King was killed, and he publicly positioned himself thereafter as King’s successor.

Santita Jackson confirmed that her father, who had a rare neurological disorder, died at home in Chicago, surrounded by family.

Jackson led a lifetime of crusades in the United States and abroad, advocating for the poor and underrepresented on issues, including voting rights, job opportunities, education and health care. He scored diplomatic victories with world leaders, and through his Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, he channeled cries for Black pride and self-determination into corporate boardrooms, pressuring executives to make America a more open and equitable society.

And when he declared, “I am Somebody,” in a poem he often repeated, he sought to reach people of all colors. “I may be poor, but I am Somebody; I may be young; but I am Somebody; I may be on welfare, but I am Somebody,” Jackson intoned.

It was a message he took literally and personally, having risen from obscurity in the segregated South to become America’s best-known civil rights activist since King.

“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” the Jackson family said in a statement posted online. “We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family.”

Fellow civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton said his mentor “was not simply a civil rights leader; he was a movement unto himself.”

“He taught me that protest must have purpose, that faith must have feet, and that justice is not seasonal, it is daily work,” Sharpton wrote in a statement, adding that Jackson taught “trying is as important as triumph. That you do not wait for the dream to come true; you work to make it real.”

Despite profound health challenges in his final years, including the disorder that affected his ability to move and speak, Jackson continued protesting against racial injustice into the era of Black Lives Matter. In 2024, he appeared at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago and at a City Council meeting to show support for a resolution backing a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war.

“Even if we win,” he told marchers in Minneapolis before the officer whose knee kept George Floyd from breathing was convicted of murder, “it’s relief, not victory. They’re still killing our people. Stop the violence, save the children. Keep hope alive.”

Calls to action, delivered in a memorable voice

Jackson’s voice, infused with the stirring cadences and powerful insistence of the Black church, demanded attention. On the campaign trail and elsewhere, he used rhyming and slogans such as “Hope not dope” and “If my mind can conceive it and my heart can believe it, then I can achieve it,” to deliver his messages.

Jackson had his share of critics, both within and outside of the Black community. Some considered him a grandstander, too eager to seek the spotlight. Looking back on his life and legacy, Jackson told The Associated Press in 2011 that he felt blessed to be able to continue the service of other leaders before him and to lay a foundation for those to come.

“A part of our life’s work was to tear down walls and build bridges, and in a half century of work, we’ve basically torn down walls,” Jackson said. “Sometimes when you tear down walls, you’re scarred by falling debris, but your mission is to open up holes so others behind you can run through.”

In his final months, as he received 24-hour care, he lost his ability to speak, communicating with family and visitors by holding their hands and squeezing.

“I get very emotional knowing that these speeches belong to the ages now,” his son, Jesse Jackson Jr., told the AP in October.

A student athlete drawn to the Civil Rights Movement

Jesse Louis Jackson was born Oct. 8, 1941, in Greenville, South Carolina, the son of high school student Helen Burns and Noah Louis Robinson, a married man who lived next door. Jackson was later adopted by Charles Henry Jackson, who married his mother.

Jackson was a star quarterback on the football team at Sterling High School in Greenville, and he accepted a football scholarship from the University of Illinois. But after reportedly being told that Black people couldn’t play quarterback, he transferred to North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, where he became the first-string quarterback, an honor student in sociology and economics, and student body president.

Arriving on the historically Black campus in 1960 just months after students there launched sit-ins at a whites-only lunch counter, Jackson immersed himself in the blossoming Civil Rights Movement.

By 1965, he joined the voting rights march King led from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. King dispatched him to Chicago to launch Operation Breadbasket, a Southern Christian Leadership Conference effort to pressure companies to hire Black workers.

Jackson called his time with King “a phenomenal four years of work.”

Jackson was with King on April 4, 1968, when the civil rights leader was slain. Jackson’s account of the assassination was that King died in his arms.

Sharpton said he “always wondered how much trauma that must have been” for Jackson to witness King’s death. “He never would talk about it too much, but it drove him,” Sharpton said Tuesday. “He said, ‘We’ve got to keep Dr. King’s legacy alive.’”

With his flair for the dramatic, Jackson wore a turtleneck he said was soaked with King’s blood for two days, including at a King memorial service held by the Chicago City Council, where he said: “I come here with a heavy heart because on my chest is the stain of blood from Dr. King’s head.”

However, several King aides, including speechwriter Alfred Duckett, questioned whether Jackson could have gotten King’s blood on his clothing. There are no images of Jackson in pictures taken shortly after the assassination.

In 1971, Jackson broke with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to form Operation PUSH, originally named People United to Save Humanity. The organization based on Chicago’s South Side declared a sweeping mission, from diversifying workforces to registering voters in communities of color nationwide. Using lawsuits and threats of boycotts, Jackson pressured top corporations to spend millions and publicly commit to hiring more diverse employees.

The constant campaigns often left his wife, Jacqueline Lavinia Brown, the college sweetheart he married in 1963, taking the lead in raising their five children: Santita Jackson, Yusef DuBois Jackson, Jacqueline Lavinia Jackson Jr., and two future members of Congress, U.S. Rep. Jonathan Luther Jackson and Jesse L. Jackson Jr., who resigned in 2012 but is seeking reelection in the 2026 midterms.

The elder Jackson, who was ordained as a Baptist minister in 1968 and earned his master’s of divinity degree in 2000, also acknowledged fathering a child, Ashley Jackson, with one of his employees at Rainbow/PUSH, Karen L. Stanford. He said he understood what it means to be born out of wedlock and supported her emotionally and financially.

Presidential aspirations fall short but help ‘keep hope alive’

Despite once telling a Black audience he would not run for president “because white people are incapable of appreciating me,” Jackson ran twice and did better than any Black politician had before President Barack Obama, winning 13 primaries and caucuses for the Democratic nomination in 1988, four years after his first failed attempt.

His successes left supporters chanting another Jackson slogan, “Keep hope alive.”

“I was able to run for the presidency twice and redefine what was possible; it raised the lid for women and other people of color,” he told the AP. “Part of my job was to sow seeds of the possibilities.”

U.S. Rep. John Lewis said during a 1988 C-SPAN interview that Jackson’s two runs for the Democratic nomination “opened some doors that some minority person will be able to walk through and become president.”

Jackson also pushed for cultural change, joining calls by NAACP members and other movement leaders in the late 1980s to identify Black people in the United States as African Americans.

“To be called African Americans has cultural integrity — it puts us in our proper historical context,” Jackson said at the time. “Every ethnic group in this country has a reference to some base, some historical cultural base. African Americans have hit that level of cultural maturity.”

Jackson’s words sometimes got him in trouble.

In 1984, he apologized for what he thought were private comments to a reporter in which he called New York City “Hymietown,” a derogatory reference to its large Jewish population. And in 2008, he made headlines when he complained that Obama was “talking down to Black people” in comments captured by a microphone he didn’t know was on during a break in a television taping.

Still, when Jackson joined the jubilant crowd in Chicago’s Grant Park to greet Obama that election night, he had tears streaming down his face.

“I wish for a moment that Dr. King or (slain civil rights leader) Medgar Evers … could’ve just been there for 30 seconds to see the fruits of their labor,” he told the AP years later. “I became overwhelmed. It was the joy and the journey.”

Exerting influence on events at home and abroad

Jackson also had influence abroad, meeting world leaders and scoring diplomatic victories, including the release of Navy Lt. Robert Goodman from Syria in 1984, as well as the 1990 release of more than 700 foreign women and children held after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. In 1999, he won the freedom of three Americans imprisoned by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

In 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded Jackson the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor.

“Citizens have the right to do something or do nothing,” Jackson said, before heading to Syria. “We choose to do something.”

In 2021, Jackson joined the parents of Ahmaud Arbery inside the Georgia courtroom where three white men were convicted of killing the young Black jogger. In 2022, he hand-delivered a letter to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago, calling for federal charges against former Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke in the 2014 killing of Black teenager Laquan McDonald.

Jackson, who stepped down as president of Rainbow/PUSH in July 2023, disclosed in 2017 that he had sought treatment for Parkinson’s, but he continued to make public appearances even as the disease made it more difficult for listeners to understand him. Last year, doctors confirmed a diagnosis of progressive supranuclear palsy, a life-threatening neurological disorder. He was admitted to a hospital in November for nearly two weeks.

During the coronavirus pandemic, he and his wife survived being hospitalized with COVID-19. Jackson was vaccinated early, urging Black people in particular to get protected, given their higher risks for bad outcomes.

“It’s America’s unfinished business — we’re free, but not equal,” Jackson told the AP. “There’s a reality check that has been brought by the coronavirus, that exposes the weakness and the opportunity.”

___

Associated Press writers Amy Forliti in Minneapolis and Aaron Morrison in New York contributed to this report, as well as former AP writer Karen Hawkins, who left AP in 2012.

More Mississippi children could face prison time under proposed legislation that state law enforcement officials, including Attorney General Lynn Fitch, say is aimed at quashing statewide gang violence.

Senate Bill 2710 and House Bill 1165 would lead to harsher punishment for an unknown number of children in the state by creating new avenues for prosecutors to charge minors as adults.

Under current state law, most minors accused of crimes in Mississippi are placed into the youth court system where the primary goal is rehabilitation, not punishment. 

Only when children commit felonies that carry a life sentence or execution, or felonies involving the use of a deadly weapon, do they end up in circuit court, where they face the same punishment as adults.

The proposed legislation would create a new carveout so that a child who possesses a gun while committing or attempting to commit a violent felony would also be charged as an adult – even if the child did not brandish the weapon during the crime.

The Senate bill would go further, punishing children as adults for committing any felony – even nonviolent offenses – while possessing a firearm that is stolen. It would also add bringing a gun to school among the crimes for which children could be imprisoned.

These provisions are particularly worrisome to criminal justice advocates, who note that children in Mississippi grow up in a state with one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the country. 

“You’re going to catch a lot more kids in the net,” said Andre de Gruy, the state public defender. “These aren’t high-risk kids with serious problems and they would be better served in youth court.” 

Once a child has been convicted in circuit court as an adult, they can never be tried in youth court again. For children 15 years or older, de Gruy added that there will be no way for circuit court judges to move their cases back to youth court if the bill is passed, due to existing state law. He said the difference in courts is not a legal quirk – it is a matter of facing a few months in a juvenile detention center versus years in Parchman. 

Proponents of the legislation – including the Mississippi Prosecutor’s Association and the Mississippi Sheriff’s Association – say that gang members target youth to commit crimes on their behalf, knowing children will receive more lenient punishment than adults. 

But so far, they have not offered data to support that assessment. The attorney general’s office did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today by publication time.

“There are more than 200 gangs in Mississippi, and they recruit minors to do a lot of their dirty work, knowing that punishment is often disproportionate to the severity of the crime,” Fitch said in the press release. “We are taking on this problem by making the penalty fit the crime, both making juvenile recruitment less attractive to gangs and getting criminals off the streets.” 

The bills would also make it a crime to shoot into a group of people, conduct that current state criminal code does not directly address, and create harsher sentences for adults who give firearms to children. Each bill passed out of their respective chambers last week with no floor debate. 

The Republican representatives who authored the House legislation, Jansen Owen from Poplarville and Dana McLean from Columbus, did not respond to requests for comment by the time of publication. 

Sen. Joey Fillingane, a Republican from Sumrall who authored the Senate legislation, told Mississippi Today that mayors across the state want to see the Legislature take action after shootings during football games claimed the lives of at least nine Mississippians last year. 

“If the current situation isn’t working, if we’re having a proliferation of youth crimes using deadly weapons, then we’ve got to try something different and see if we can get a different result,” he said. 

But de Gruy and other advocates argue this bill represents more of the same: More incarcerated people in a state with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world. 

“To the claim that youth crime is on the rise and it’s being driven by gangs, there is no evidence of that,” he said. “I don’t care how many times they say it, that doesn’t make it true.”

Nationally, police are arresting youth for violent crime far less than they did three decades ago, according to FBI data. But in Mississippi, creating a statewide assessment of the same trend is difficult, as many police departments do not report crime numbers to the FBI. 

In the state youth courts, weapons offenses consistently account for a fraction of delinquency cases. Annual reports from the Mississippi Department of Human Services, which oversees services and programs for delinquent juveniles, show that youth weapons offenses recently rose, from 479 in 2019 to a high of 846 in 2023. Weapons offenses fell in 2024 to 780.

De Gruy noted this increase occurred during an overall spike in crime corresponding with the coronavirus pandemic.

As for the shootings at football games cited by Fillingane, de Gruy noted that most of the 19 people arrested during a particularly deadly October weekend were adults. Law enforcement agencies have not released the names and ages of all suspects, but a review of news reports show that of the 13 people whose ages were confirmed, only one was a minor. 

In Heidelberg, the minor was arrested along with six others who were 18 or 19 years old and whose cases would not be tried in youth court. It is not known if they had a history in youth court.

“Youth court judges for right or for wrong look at the youth as somebody who could be saved,” Sen. Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, a former youth court prosecutor, said during a Senate committee hearing last month. “When you get into the adult system, the bottom line is you’re pretty much done and you’re not saved.” 

Wiggins has introduced legislation to bring more transparency to youth courts, which are secret in Mississippi — another fact that prosecutors bemoaned at the hearing. 

“These youth that are committing these violent crimes have no visibility,” said Gregory Austin, the deputy director of the attorney general’s policy division. “They’re getting before the circuit court for the first time with nobody knowing their records because the youth court records are sealed.”

Prosecutors’ surprise can quickly turn into frustration upon learning they had unsuccessfully tried to persuade a youth court judge to transfer a juvenile’s case to circuit court. 

“They’re causing all this bedlam and mayhem and all this other stuff,” said Bryan Buckley, the president of the Mississippi Prosecutors Association, but youth court judges are “like, ‘No, we’re going to try to work with them some more,’ and it happens a few months later.”

If children face harsher punishment, Fillingane told Mississippi Today he envisions them turning on gang leaders or deciding not to follow orders. 

“I think that’s the thought and the hope,” he said. 

But researchers are mixed at best about whether more prison time can deter violent crime, with widely accepted studies finding that lengthy sentences are especially ineffective if the targeted population doesn’t understand the potential punishment of a particular crime. That is especially likely to be the case with youth, whose decision-making faculties are still developing. 

Fillingane said he was aware of this research. 

“I think there are also probably studies out there that argue the other way,” he said. “I think the bottom line is the public is tired of youth offenders committing particularly violent crimes especially with firearms.” 

After speaking with Mississippi Today, Fillingane asked the attorney general’s office and the prosecutors’ association to provide data on youth crime. 

“The perception around the state at least seems to be that these folks are not getting the punishment that they ought to get, and we’re just slapping wrists and saying, ‘oh well, because they’re only 15 or 16, that that’s all we can do, we really can’t do anything else with these folks’ and hope for the best,” the senator said. “That mentality seems to be out there and the citizenry is just not happy about it all.”

Secretary of State Michael Watson discusses his push for lawmakers to enact campaign finance reform, including transparency and searchability of reports for the public. Watson says he knows such legislation is a tough sell with lawmakers.

Evan Turnage, an attorney with ties to top congressional Democrats who is aiming to oust Rep. Bennie Thompson in Mississippi’s 2nd District, rolled out a new ad on Tuesday.

The ad, which a spokesperson for Turnage’s campaign told Mississippi Today was part of a “six-figure” purchase across broadcast and digital platforms, hits the airwaves with less than a month to go before the state’s March 10 primaries for congressional offices.

Turnage, 33, said the 2nd Congressional District — which stretches from the Delta through much of Jackson and along the Mississippi River — has remained “the poorest district in the poorest state in the country” for the entirety of Thompson’s tenure.

“That was true when I was one, when our congressman was first elected, it’s true today,” Turnage said. “If our congressman’s 33 years in office had helped build up this district, built wealth and health in this district, there’d be no need for change. But if life has gotten harder and less fair for you and your neighbors like it has for so many Mississippians, then I ask for your support to bring new ideas and new leadership back to the halls of power.”

A spokesperson for Thompson did not respond to a request for comment about the ad or a question about his closing message to voters. In recent media appearances, Thompson has lambasted the Trump administration for its immigration crackdown, and his campaign has touted endorsements from leading politicians in his district, such as Jackson Mayor John Horhn.

Turnage is a former aide to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Senate Conference Vice Chair Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts. His close ties to two of the U.S. Senate’s leading Democrats made his decision to challenge Thompson notable, as the longtime incumbent Thompson has typically sailed to re-election since entering office in 1993 without facing a pedigreed Democratic challenger in a primary.

Turnage lived briefly in Cleveland as a child before returning to Jackson, attending Murrah High School in the Jackson Public Schools system. His parents, Ellis and Ellie Turnage, are both attorneys. He attended Yale Law School and went on to work for Warren, helping her draft legislation aimed at curbing corporate power. He also worked for Schumer as a top lawyer handling Democratic leadership priorities. He currently leads the Southern Justice Project at the Open Markets Institute

Thompson has represented the 2nd Congressional District covering Jackson and the Delta since 1993. Thompson, a civil rights leader and former chair of the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6th Capitol attack, is a towering figure in state and national politics. He previously told Mississippi Today he believes his record would “speak for itself.”

Turnage officially entered the race on Dec. 17. He unveiled a policy platform that includes a “Come Home” agenda to reverse brain drain through student debt relief, housing support and remote federal work. He has also touted support for a Working Families Tax Credit, a policy he said would counter the realities underlying the state’s welfare scandal. He supports more funding for maternal health care, where outcomes in the Delta lag behind most of the country and programs to increase broadband access.

Turnage has also attempted to draw a contrast between himself and Thompson on the issue of campaign finance, saying Thompson has received money from private prison companies.

The latest round of campaign finance reports from the Federal Election Commission, which run up to Dec. 31, 2025, shows Thompson with $1.6 million in cash on hand. Thompson received a $5,000 donation in 2025 from GEO Group, a company that invests in private prisons, the FEC reports show.

Turnage’s fundraising records show he raised $65,464 between when he launched his campaign on Dec. 17 and Dec. 31, 2025, the latest date for which FEC reports are available.

On the Republican side, Adams County Supervisor Kevin Wilson is challenging Ron Eller, who is running again for the GOP nomination after losing to Thompson by nearly 25 points in 2024. Wilson raised about $55,000, besting Eller’s roughly $11,000 haul in the latest FEC numbers. An independent, Bennie Foster, is also running for the seat.

Jackson’s mayor and a majority of the City Council gave their support Monday to a proposal advancing at the Capitol that would put long-term control of the city’s water and sewer systems under a separate utility authority. Residents, though, offered concerns during a crowded town hall meeting that included tense confrontation between officials.

House Bill 1677 would create a “Metro Jackson Water Authority” led by a nine-member board who would appoint a president to run daily operations. The bill passed the House last week and awaits action in the Senate. The Jackson City Council called a meeting Monday to hear residents’ thoughts on the idea.

Several Jacksonians also backed the bill, arguing this was as good a deal the city would get. In previous legislative sessions, lawmakers have only introduced bills that would give a majority of the board appointments to state officials.

“From my perspective, we’re caught between a rock and a hard place,” said John Byrd, vice president of the Association of South Jackson Neighborhoods. “It’s problematic we’re in this situation, but we’ve got to get out of this situation. This is a way to ease out of the burden and hopefully get back onto sound ground.”

Jeffrey Taylor, a resident who used to work for the Jackson Fire Department, called the proposed authority “the lesser of other evils.”

HB 1677 would give the city input on a majority of the nine seats. Those positions would include: Jackson’s mayor; two at-large appointees selected by the mayor; one recommendation each from Byram’s and Ridgeland’s respective mayors, who would then need approval from Jackson’s city council; and the president of the Greater Jackson Chamber of Commerce. The governor would have two at-large appointees and the lieutenant governor would have one.

The new authority would kick in once a federal judge releases third-party utility JXN Water from control of the water and sewer systems. JXN Water manager Ted Henifin has projected that to happen by 2027, although U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate has the final say.

While five of the nine seats would go through elected Jackson officials, residents on Monday said they were worried that having unelected people run the water and sewer systems would dilute the democratic process.

“ When authority to manage a public utility is moved from elected officials and entrusted to an appointed board, the public loses its direct avenue for accountability at the ballot box,” said Nsombi Lambright-Haynes, representing the Jackson NAACP.

Lambright-Haynes and others also said the bill should include a process for the water and sewer systems to come back under the city’s direct control once they’ve been stabilized.

The city council voted 4-2 for a resolution backing the House proposal, while also advocating for the water authority to have a fair billing dispute process. Ward 5 Council Member Vernon Hartley and Ward 2 Council Member Tina Clay voted against the bill. Ward 3 Council Member Kenneth Stokes was absent.

Hartley panned lawmakers for not having public forums to discuss the bill earlier in the process.

“I do have a message for our politicians out there: How dare you bring something to us without going to the public?” he said. “They’re the ones paying the bills.”

Hartley also said it felt like lawmakers were pressuring the city to rush into a decision when there could be other options.

Rep. Justis Gibbs, a Democrat from Jackson, was in attendance. While agreeing with residents’ concerns with the bill, Gibbs said the Democratic-led city would likely not get a better offer from the majority-Republican Mississippi Legislature.

“ We really have to manage our wishes and our expectations with the amount of votes that we can influence in the state Legislature,” he said.

Ward 7 Council Member Kevin Parkinson pushed back on suggestions that the city would have less control under the proposed authority.

“We now have 0% control of the system,” Parkinson said.

Tensions ran high earlier in the meeting, when Parkinson repeated to Henifin a common sentiment locals have expressed about JXN Water: While the utility has made major infrastructure improvements, it hasn’t done as well with its billing and customer service. Henifin took exception to the remark.

“I take offense,” Henifin said. “Everyone likes to say, ‘Oh you’ve done a great job with the infrastructure.’ We’re doing a great job with the billing system. It’s just painful. People don’t want to pay their bill. There’s been a culture here of folks …”

Groans from the crowd immediately drowned out his voice, to which Henifin responded, “Whatever, I’ll take the heat.”

Mayor John Horhn, a former state senator, said forming a water authority would help the city manage its $197 million in debt associated with its water and sewer systems. If the bill passed, the debt would transfer from the city to the authority. Horhn said the move would make lenders more willing to restructure the debt payments. A water authority would also be able to borrow more money, which JXN Water currently can’t do.

While the city would be involved with a majority of the board appointees, some potential actions under HB 1677 would require more than just a majority vote. Rate increases or expenditures over $5 million would require agreement from three-fourths of the board, which is more than the five seats the city would have direct control over.

During the town hall, Byram Alderwoman Roschelle Gibson said the bill wouldn’t give her city fair representation on the board because the Jackson City Council could reject their nominees. JXN Water serves about 4,200 customers in Byram.

Weeks after the death of his school choice bill in the Senate, House Speaker Jason White told a crowd in downtown Jackson on Monday that a special session to push the issue forward is “certainly not off the table.”

Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has the sole authority to call a special session, and has vocally supported the House school choice proposal. But Reeves has not indicated he plans to call such a session, and White has stopped short of directly calling on him to do so. White’s bill barely passed the House even with the speaker pushing for it, and a substantial number of his Republican caucus voted against it.

School choice, policies aimed at giving parents more say over their children’s schooling that often divert state funds toward private schools, has been White’s signature issue this legislative session. The Senate Education Committee killed House Bill 2, the House’s omnibus education bill that included its school choice proposals, earlier this month.

A special session “would finally maybe drive this conversation a little bit more,” White told attendees on Monday at the Stennis Capitol Press Forum. “So certainly that would be an option. We’re not afraid of that option.”

A special session, which would suspend legislative deadlines and put more pressure on lawmakers, might be the simplest path forward for White with his school choice proposal. His bill received a lukewarm welcome in his own chamber and an even colder reception in the Senate, where it was killed after less than 90 seconds of deliberation.

White now only has a few options. He could try to insert his school choice proposal — education savings accounts, or ESAs, which give parents state dollars to spend on their child’s education however they wish — in a similar bill. 

READ MORE: The House’s education bill is dead, but school choice isn’t. What happens now?

But he admitted on Monday that not many viable options remain. 

“We’re currently evaluating vehicles that are available in the House that have come from the Senate that might be amendable, if you will, and not violate any of our rules and keep this conversation alive,” he said. “A quick look doesn’t show that many are available on that issue.” 

White spent the bulk of his time at the podium, nearly an hour, talking about his school choice agenda and disappointment in the media’s coverage and Senate’s stance on the issue. He said that he was surprised that the two chambers, elected by the same Mississippians, were so far apart on school choice and chalked it up to “leadership.”

Senate leaders, including Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, have made clear that they’re not interested in a program like education savings accounts that would allow public dollars to go toward private school tuition.

“We are disappointed that the Senate did not engage in real meaningful discussion and debate on the issues in House Bill 2 and instead opted for what can only be described as a theatrical committee performance to kill the bill a full month before the committee deadline,” White said. “There’s no reason for that … You have to read into some meaning there.”

He said the Senate Education Committee’s lack of discussion at the meeting about House Bill 2 was a “disservice to taxpayers, to parents, to students and future generations of Mississippi.” 

“We never said House Bill 2 was perfect,” he said. “We begged for the back-and-forth conversation and dialogue on the issue. But it does take two to dance or tango or whatever you want to say. The Senate had every opportunity to make that bill better.”

Many of the other initiatives in House Bill 2 have been proposed by the Senate in individual bills, such as a bill that would loosen regulations for students to transfer from one public school district to another. Referred to as portability or open enrollment, it’s a form of school choice. 

But White said Monday those Senate bills, including portability, were largely due to pressure from the House and a “reaction” to its education proposals. 

“Whatever gets them there, we’ll see where that gets us … but that doesn’t fix it,” he said. “The lieutenant governor, he’s made no bones about where he is on school choice. Again, that’s his business. He’ll face his voters, I guess, now he’s running for governor on that issue.”

Reeves’ office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the likelihood of the governor calling a special session over school choice. Hosemann has indicated he is considering a run for governor, but has not announced such a decision.

National school choice advocates descended on Jackson last week, encouraging the governor to call a special session, but Reeves has only called lawmakers into special session to deal with economic development projects and to pass a budget.

At surface glance, people seem more connected than ever in the information age, from social media networks to the myriad pathways for instant communication. But, those threads look barer than ever deeper down on a human-to-human level, where it really counts. Where it could really help.

New Stage Theatre’s newest production, “Primary Trust,” opening Tuesday for a two-week run through March 1, taps the core of the country’s epidemic of loneliness in a simple, elegantly touching way.

Playwright Eboni Booth was awarded the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for “Primary Trust,” the intimate story of a man whose isolated, small-town life, cemented in routine for nearly two decades, is suddenly disrupted by change. The courage that Kenneth, 38, musters to reach out, and the big impact that even small steps and kind gestures make in his world, resonate in a moving work that vividly illustrates the power in human connection.

“‘Primary Trust’ is the second-most produced play in the country right now, so this is the play for such a time as this,” Director Sharon Miles said. “This play specifically addresses the idea of building a life that is secluded and isolated and being comfortable in that. And then, there’s a shift that happens in his world, and it’s shaken up. What do you do? How do you pivot? How do you respond?

“But it also is a play that reminds us that we need connection, we need community, because we all want to be seen,” Miles added. “We all need human connection. That’s really what the heart of the play is.”

Kenneth is a bit odd, but functions well enough in his quiet and simple, highly circumscribed life. He works at a bookstore and frequents his favorite restaurant, Wally’s Tiki Bar, for mai tais with his best friend. “Primary Trust” is his own story of a job loss and brave steps that open up his world to friendship and new possibilities. The story is handled gently, with heartbreaking revelations but also humor and glimmers of hope for the richer life within his grasp. 

A small, tight cast of five (two, playing multiple characters) bring the story to life onstage. Chicago actor Kevin Aoussou, who plays Kenneth, recalled his tears when he read the script for a Chicago audition last year, and in the theater when he went to see it.

“Then when we do it here, those same exact moments, I’m crying again and again,” Aoussou said, shaking his head with a chuckle. Kenneth’s words about his mother, about how she is his everything, echo deeply with him. “That is the thing that pulls on my heart every single time I do this play. … That’s the thing that draws me to him.”

Herman J.R. Johnson of Terry, portraying Kenneth’s best friend, Bert, finds compelling resonance in the careful life Kenneth builds. “For someone who is struggling in life and still manages to grasp onto people that are patient with him and mean well, and let him be himself – I think that means a lot.”

The “Primary Trust” cast also includes: Alicia Thomas of New York, playfully dubbed “shape shifter” by Miles for her versatility as Corinna and 28 others, including multiple members of Wally’s waitstaff; New Stage veteran John Howell in several roles, including Kenneth’s bookstore boss, Sam; and Jackson musician Andrew Dillon as the Musician.

Howell finds the play a good fit for this theater, and others now. People need comfort and connection as various crises and other forces threaten to pull us apart, he said. “This is a good play to get us grounded.”  

Dillon dons a Hawaiian shirt as the piano player at Wally’s Tiki Bar, and he also supplies original music throughout to set the tone and express Kenneth’s experience. “I’m kind of like his emotional support musician,” Dillon said.

They inhabit a set resembling a tiny neighborhood, where characters loom larger than the buildings in their midst. “Mister Rogers Neighborhood” sprang to mind when Miles read the play.

“‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood’ makes it all of our neighborhood,” she said. “It makes it all of our hometown. All of the things he goes through, and how he deals with them, with loss and love and friendship, it just makes it more universal.”

New Stage Theatre partners with NAMI Mississippi (National Alliance on Mental Illness) during the show’s run, with resources in the lobby for more information on the grassroots organization and on mental health. NAMI Mississippi Program Director Savanah Hicks saw parallels in their “Hearts and Minds” presentation, which touches on social interaction. 

“Humans are wired for that connection. We need it,” Hicks said. “And then, once we get that connection, it also gives us something else essential, which is a different perspective. … We need that different perspective, for us to be able to see things clearly.”

New Stage will also host Tiki Bar Bingo during the run of “Primary Trust.” The activity starts a half-hour prior to each performance, sparking interactions with fun questions and a prize of 2026-27 season tickets at stake.

“The whole point is, interact with another human, meet a friend, be brave,” Miles said. “That’s Kenneth’s story. That’s our story. I feel like that’s what this play is asking. Also what this moment is asking. Meet someone. See someone. Build your community.

“It just feels like the moment to do this play is now.”

“Primary Trust“ performance times are 7 p.m. Feb. 17-21, 24 and 26-28, and 2 p.m. Feb. 22 and March 1. For tickets, $35 adults and $30 seniors/students/military, visit newstagetheatre.com or call 601-948-3533 ext. 223.