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We asked readers what questions they had about the Mississippi welfare scandal. Author of The Backchannel series Anna Wolfe answered ten questions. Find the answers below.

Q: How many struggling families did not receive TANF money due to the greed of the people implicated?

A: This is a great question, though it is hard to quantify. I can say that, according to the data dive I published last fall, between the four years of the scandal 2016-2020, the state welfare department received 59,785 applications from families seeking cash assistance and only approved 10,136. This was even more pronounced during 2016, during which the state received 11,384 applications and approved just 163, or 1.4%, according to the data the state submitted to the federal government.

The nearly 50,000 unsuccessful applications do not necessarily represent the number of families who missed out on the assistance, because they likely include duplicate applicants who submitted multiple applications during this time.

Also, because the state has imposed such strict eligibility guidelines for receiving TANF, many of those families would not qualify to receive the assistance regardless. So there’s not a direct correlation between the known misspending and people not receiving the benefit.

This is evident by the fact that the low approval rate did not start during the known scandal. The number of applications the state approved per month dropped significantly from 875 to 48 in a two-month period in 2010. In the five years from 2011 to 2016, the state received 73,532 applications for welfare and approved just 1,674, or 2.3%. Mississippi is not the only state where this is the case, even today. Approval rates across the nation in 2022 ranged from 4.6% in Texas to 100% in Illinois.

This data only describes the cash assistance side of TANF — which is only about 5%-10% of the overall program in Mississippi. The state spends the rest of its TANF block grant on other supposed anti-poverty programs or plugging state budget holes. The misspending from 2016-2020 occurred on the service-provider side of TANF. But the federal government only requires the state to compile data about the families receiving cash aid, not the families receiving other kinds of assistance, such as after school programs, parenting classes or workforce development. This means that if there were meaningful programs taking place before the welfare fraud scheme — before the state consolidated its grants and pushed the funding through the two now disgraced nonprofit directors — we can’t quantify the number of families who missed out on these programs during the scandal.

Q: Why does no one see the true welfare scandal? It is nearly impossible for people to actively receive tanf benefits. In Warren County, there are only 5 social workers at the MDHS office. Each worker has over 800 cases. TANF workers are used to answer phones and take messages for workers. There are no current openings on the Mississipp State Personnel Board for the Warren County MDHS office. Many cases are being closed because the workers cannot work each SNAP or TANF case in the required time period. Why are the actual law makers not being held accountable for the misappropriation of Mississippi tax dollars? Why has the Mississippi State Personnel Board been allowed to mistreat it’s staff?

A: Another great question that relates to the previous answer. I haven’t done reporting on the ground-level work being done in Warren County’s welfare office, but I’d love to hear more of these direct accounts at awolfe@mississippitoday.org.

In a story I published in February, I analyzed more than 60 pieces of legislation that could be considered part of the agenda of protecting life and helping disadvantaged families thrive, including a dozen bills aiming to reform public assistance programs. Most of them died.

State lawmakers have committed no crime that I’m aware of by imposing stringent rules on public assistance programs or cutting state budgets to an unmanageable level. The way these officials are held accountable is by the public at the ballot box.

Q: What do we know about how TANF funds are being used today? Is there any sign that more families in need are receiving assistance now vs. a few years ago?

A: In actuality, Mississippi is providing cash assistance to fewer poor families today than it was during the scandal. The state continues to push out subgrants to nonprofits and other government entities to run the same kinds of programs we have for years — after school programs, parenting initiatives, etc. — but we are leaving tens of millions unspent. You can read more about that here.

Q: Are the appropriate agencies investigating the bigger fish who allowed this to happen? If not, what can you tell us about it?

A: The FBI is still investigating the welfare fraud case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is prosecuting. The original investigator, the State Auditor’s Office, and the original prosecutor, the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office, both say they are continuing to work on the probe with their federal partners. All defendants who have been charged in the case (with the exception of a lower level MDHS employee who entered pre-trial diversion) have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with the investigation. None of them have been sentenced, which typically means that the authorities are still using them for information and as potential witnesses in their ongoing case. Gov. Phil Bryant oversaw the welfare department and his appointed director, John Davis, during the time the fraud scheme took place. At least three of the criminal defendants, Nancy New, Zach New and Christi Webb, and several civil defendants, including Brett Favre, Paul Lacoste and Austin Smith, have made statements in court or to the press alleging Gov. Bryant was aware of or sanctioned certain spending that is now the subject of the scandal. Bryant has not been charged criminally or civilly. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is currently led by an interim U.S. attorney. President Joe Biden’s nominee for the position, current Department of Justice deputy chief Todd Gee, recently received approval from Mississippi senators and is awaiting confirmation by the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

Q: Which is worse, the rich asking for and receiving federal dollars stolen from the poor, or stealing dollars from the poor and giving it to the rich?

A: I’m not sure, but it seems to me, in both cases, the effect is the same for impoverished Mississippians who were deprived of the assistance.

Q: What about Marcus Dupree?

A: Before the auditor released his audit in 2020, we broke the story about Nancy New’s nonprofit covering the $9,500-month mortgage on a Flora horse ranch, effectively purchasing the property for former running back Marcus Dupree. The Marcus Dupree Foundation, which claims to provide equestrian services to underprivileged youth, technically purchased and owned the property, but Dupree was using it as his private residence. Dupree was also earning a six-figure salary from each of the Families First for Mississippi nonprofits. Auditor Shad White issued the demand against Dupree in October of 2021 and Dupree was named in MDHS’s lawsuit in May of 2022. In his response to the civil lawsuit, he denied all allegations against him.

Q: Why didn’t Shad White’s office arrest Phil Bryant? His office has agents that arrest people all the time. This fact should be consistently broadcasted to ensure White is never elected to office again.

A: The State Auditor’s Office makes an arrest in the course of an investigation when a prosecutor, often a local district attorney, has secured an indictment against an individual. In the case of the welfare scandal, Auditor Shad White’s office turned over information to the Hinds County District Attorney’s Office that suggested Nancy New, John Davis and others had committed a crime, and when the Hinds County grand jury handed down an indictment, White’s office made the arrests. We are unaware of an indictment against former Gov. Phil Bryant.

Q: Regarding the payment made to and later refunded by Favre; did Favre make any appearances or cut any commercials? Was there evidence that he ever declined an invitation to speak or cut commercials?

A: Favre cut a radio ad for Families First for Mississippi which ran in the fall of 2018, several months after he received two payments under the contract totaling $1.1 million. The disagreement between Favre and State Auditor Shad White, who issued the 2021 demand for Favre to repay the funds, lies with the terms of that contract, which had been kept from the public for over two years until Mississippi Today published it last fall. The Scope of Work of the contract said that Favre would speak at three speaking engagements, cut a radio spot and provide one keynote speech. The auditor determined that Favre did not attend any events or deliver a keynote, and Favre has never said that he did. Favre argues that he was never scheduled for those activities, but the auditor doesn’t allege that Favre was, just that he didn’t perform the work outlined in the agreement. You can read more about that here. As the civil case has progressed, we’ve learned that the issue with the $1.1 million payment may not be whether he conducted the work or not, but the purpose for which he received the money in the first place. Text messages recently released clearly illustrate that the nonprofit funneled the money through Favre as a way to push more funding to the construction of the volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, but Favre didn’t use the money for the project, according to his spokesperson.

Q: Here we go again….

If you were being non-biased, you would have gone back and read the text messages. They have been produced. They clearly show that Favre and Nancy talked about this and…. even assuming Nancy is not lying… at best the argument she makes is that the “Wow, I just got off the phone with Governor” text is her telling Bryant about the idea, not Bryant requesting it. That quote from the pleading literally makes no sense. Does that make sense to you? I would have at least pointed out the inconsistencies in New’s arguments here which lend doubt to the credibility of this, especially given Bryant and Favre both say that is not true and all of the other texts with Nancy and Governor Bryant about this until the proposal are about having a fundraiser at the mansion. Using our brains and not our political motives… let’s just tryyyyyy to make the story sound like you are after the truth. I’m rooting for you here.

A: The paragraph you cited is a direct quote from a court filing from Nancy New. It alleges that the payment New made to Favre was both 1) intended to help pay for construction of the volleyball stadium and 2) directed by former Gov. Phil Bryant. This was relevant to include in my latest story because Favre’s team is now saying that Favre did not put any of the $1.1 million he received from New towards the volleyball stadium. He instead continued to lobby others, including other public entities, for the funds.

I think we understand there is a lot more we don’t yet know, but we also find it valuable and newsworthy to report on these allegations, especially since Bryant has objected to turning over all of his messages with the relevant figures — particularly with Brett Favre and John Davis — to the public. It’s also important to note that the text messages aren’t going to be the only source of evidence in the ongoing case. In other words, just because someone didn’t put something in writing doesn’t mean it didn’t happen (absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). These kinds of statements from key witnesses give some insight into the facts they’d be willing to testify to during a potential trial. That’s why they are, on their own, critical pieces of evidence in the case. It’s our job to make that information available to the public.

Q: When all of the truth finally comes out, will Ms. Wolfe be willing to publish an apology and correct The Backchannel articles if it turns out that she was actually wrong? I would think to save face MS Today will have to at least acknowledge the truth. I realize it’s inconsistent with the Let’s Go Brandon (Presley) effort but assuming you are actually still trying to pretend you’re a legitimate news source, I would think it would be necessary. Now that all comments have been turned off to the public, I can’t wait to see which ones Ms. Wolfe selects to answer. In the words of Willy Wonka (since MS Today appreciates the world of pure imagination), “The suspense is terrible. I hope it lasts!”

A: We do not refrain from publishing information we know to be true — including attributed allegations — for years on end until every single person involved decides to speak. If that were the standard to publish a story, we would not have published a single story on the welfare scandal in three years. We would be happy to issue a correction for any credible challenges to the accuracy of the reporting — and please send them our way. In the meantime, we will continue publishing new information as it becomes available, as we have done for the past three years.

The post Anna Wolfe answers reader questions about the Mississippi welfare scandal appeared first on Mississippi Today.

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What Mississippi and the world don’t need is another NFL mock draft. There have been hundreds upon hundreds in recent weeks. Instead, the Cleveland boys examine past New Orleans Saints drafts: the good, the bad and the downright ugly. They also look at what Mississippi guys are likely to go early, looking at you Emanuel Forbes and Jonathan Mingo.

Stream all episodes here.

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MADISON — So there was Thongpipat Rattanayan – not so easy for me to type – on the par-4 third hole at Jack Nicklaus-designed Annandale Golf Club Tuesday morning. He was exactly 82 yards from the hole and approximately 10,000 miles from his home in Bangkok, Thailand.

Rattanayan, who thankfully goes by Pat, took out his trusty lob wedge, took dead aim and took an easy, compact swing.

“I knew it was close,” he would say in perfectly good English about three and a half hours later. “I didn’t know how close because that big bunker in front of the green was blocking my view.”

Somebody behind the green hollered, “It went in the hole!”

Said Rattanayan, “I said to myself, ‘What? It went in! Really?’”

Really. The resulting eagle deuce was easily the highlight of his day as Rattanayan, a senior at Southern Miss, shot a one-over-par 73 in the second round of the Sun Belt Conference Golf Championship.

And there was Robbie Latter, on the par-5 18th at Annandale nearly 200 yards from the hole and about 1,200 miles from his Canadian home in Missauga, Ontario, after his booming 345-yard drive. Latter, another 22-year-old USM senior, laced a 6-iron second shot that never left the pin. The ball bounced once, missed by perhaps three inches, and then trickled about 10 feet past the hole. Latter sank the eagle putt to finish a round of even-par 72.

Latter, even par after 36 holes, is tied for sixth place (of 70 golfers) individually going into Wednesday’s third and final stroke play round of the Sun Belt event. Southern Miss, the tournament host, is tied for fourth in the 14-team tournament. After Wednesday’s third round, the top four teams will enter match play to determine the conference champion on Thursday.

Southern Miss needs a strong finish in the conference championship to advance to the 64-team NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.

Said Golden Eagle coach Eddie Brescher, “We’re on the bubble now, but if we have a good showing tomorrow, I believe we’ll be in.”

Ole Miss and Mississippi State are both nationally ranked and already have punched their tickets into the NCAA Tournament. State’s roster includes players from Portugal, Switzerland, England, Poland and South Africa. Two Swedes and another player from Thailand play for Rebels. College golf in Mississippi, as well most everywhere else, is an international affair.

“My guess is that if you take the entirety of Division I golf, probably 50% of the players are foreign players,” Brescher said. “In the Sun Belt, I’m not sure it’s not more like two-thirds are imports.”

On the Sun Belt leaderboard, the top 10 and ties include two Swedes and also golfers from England, Canada, South Africa and Slovenia.

“If you’re going to be competitive, you gotta get the best players you can get wherever you can get them,” Brescher said. “Three of our five players here are international. Four of the eight on our roster are international, and I can promise you we have more on the way.”

So, you might ask, how does a player named Thongpipat Rattanyan from Bangkok find his way to Hattiesburg, Mississippi? 

“In Thailand, there is no college golf,” Rattanyan said. “You either turn pro after high school or you come to the U.S. to play college golf.”

When Rattanyan was 16, he decided he wanted to come to the U.S. He flew to San Diego to play in a big international junior tournament, which Brescher attended. Said Rattanyan, “I played terrible in that tournament, but I did talk to Coach Brescher.”

Brescher liked what he heard from Rattanyan and did his homework to learn that the Bangkok teen was capable of playing much better golf than he had in San Diego. And “Pat” surely has. For four years, he has been one of USM’s steadiest players and also best students. He will graduate next month with a degree in marketing. His parents will attend his graduation, visiting Hattiesburg for the first time. Because of COVID, “Pat” has another year of eligibility, which he intends to use, and start work toward earning an MBA.

“Let me tell you something about Pat,” Brescher said. “He’s as good as gold. If you have a daughter, I promise you, you would be really happy if she were to marry Pat. He’s as solid as they come.”

Latter, one of the longest hitters in college golf, plans to play a fifth season at USM as well. “I love Hattiesburg, love everything about it,” Latter said.

He loves it so much, he enticed his younger, 6-foot-7-inch brother, Tommy Latter, a freshman, to follow him to Southern Miss. “Tommy hits is farther than I do,” he said.

And that’s not all. The Latters’ parents, Rob and Ann Latter, plan to retire to Hattiesburg in the near future. Said Robbie Latter, “My parents had always planned to retire to Florida, but that’s changed after they have been to Hattiesburg. They love the place.”

Meanwhile, Robbie Latter may well have a future in golf beyond college. Again, he hits it a mile. He finished runner-up last summer in the Canadian Amateur championship. If he can fine-tune his iron game and his putting – to go with his monster drives – he could make a living in golf.

That’s to be determined. A nice first step toward all that could come Wednesday, and perhaps Thursday, at Annandale, where golfers from all over the globe are making their mark.

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A second lawsuit has been filed challenging the legality of controversial House Bill 1020, which creates a separate law enforcement and judicial district in parts of Jackson controlled by white state officials instead of leaders elected by citizens of the majority-Black city.

The lawsuit filed Monday alleges HB 1020 violates the Mississippi Constitution. On Friday, just hours after Gov. Tate Reeves signed the legislation into law, a separate federal lawsuit was filed saying the bill violated the U.S. Constitution.

The lawsuit filed Monday claims the state constitution mandates that circuit judges, such as those provided for in the bill, should be elected rather than appointed.

The new law gives Chief Justice Michael Randolph the authority to appoint four judges to hear criminal felony cases in an existing Capitol Complex Improvement District that will be expanded to cover more of the whiter and wealthier areas of Jackson.

“We have elected our circuit court judges in Mississippi for more than 100 years. The Mississippi Constitution expressly requires us to do so,” reads the lawsuit.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of three Jackson citizens by the Mississippi Center for Justice, the ALCU of Mississippi, the MacArthur Justice Center and Legal Defense Fund in Hinds County Chancery Court.

READ MORE: Mississippi’s racial divides were on full display as HB 1020 got its final debate and passing vote

The lawsuit says that the fact that the judges will be appointed for a temporary period of time (until the end of 2026) does not mitigate the fact that HB 1020 is unconstitutional. It goes on to argue the law is unconstitutional because judges previously appointed by Randolph are currently hearing cases in Jackson.

“Under H.B. 1020’s court-packing scheme, the power of the four duly elected judges on that Court will be diluted,” the lawsuit reads. “Only half of the judges will be elected by Hinds County voters as required by the constitution, and citizens of Hinds County will be just as likely to go before a circuit judge who is not elected — and who may have no connection to the county or its residents — as one who is.”

HB 1020 also creates a separate court to hear misdemeanor cases and preliminary hearings in criminal cases. The state lawsuit claims that court is unconstitutional because judges for such courts are typically appointed by elected municipal officials or elected instead of being appointed by the chief justice.

The issue was combustible during the recently completed 2023 legislative session because Jackson has an African American population of more than 80%, making it the Blackest large city in the nation. The bill received national and international scrutiny.

The lawsuit filed last week in federal court challenges the constitutionality of HB 1020, in part because it does not allow the Black majority citizens the opportunity to vote on the judges.

There is no other jurisdiction in the state like the one established in HB 1020, the lawsuit said.

Supporters of the legislation said the bill was an attempt to help the city of Jackson with a spiraling crime problem.

In signing the legislation Friday afternoon, Reeves said, “The fact is that Jackson has so much potential. It is our capital city and the heart of our state…But Jackson has to be better. Downtown Jackson should be so safe that it is a magnet for talented young people to come and live and work and create.

“This legislation won’t solve the entire problem, but if we can stop one shooting, if we can respond to one more 911 call – then we’re one step closer to a better Jackson. I refuse to accept the status quo. As long as I’m governor, the state will keep fighting for safer streets for every Mississippian no matter their politics, race, creed, or religion – regardless of how we’re portrayed by liberal activists or in the national media.”

READ MORE: NAACP files lawsuit arguing House Bill 1020 violates US Constitution

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In her first major order in the ongoing welfare fraud case, Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Faye Peterson denied former NFL quarterback Brett Favre’s attempt to dismiss civil charges against him.

Peterson also blocked Favre’s request for a hearing on his motion, saying it was unnecessary and calling his legal arguments “unpersuasive and inapplicable.”

Mississippi Department of Human Services is currently targeting 47 defendants whom it says fraudulently transferred nearly $80 million in funds from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, or TANF.

Favre had argued that he never committed his own funds to build a volleyball stadium at the University of Southern Mississippi, a project eventually completed with $5 million in federal welfare funds, and that the state fully approved of the transfer.

“If, as MDHS falsely alleges, Favre was part of a conspiracy, it was the most public and open conspiracy in Mississippi history, it was directed and carried out by MDHS itself to transfer funds from one public state entity to another, Southern Miss, and it was vetted and approved by numerous lawyers and State officials,” his attorneys wrote in his motion to dismiss.

Peterson said in her motion Monday that Favre’s argument that MDHS “failed to allege that Favre formed an agreement with anyone to do anything unlawful” was “without merit,” effectively keeping Favre in the suit. Favre has not faced criminal charges in the U.S. Attorneys Office’s parallel criminal case, which just saw the addition of former WWE wrestler Teddy DiBiase Jr. last week.

“Obviously Brett Favre is disappointed in the court’s ruling. His legal team is exploring their options,” a spokesperson for Favre said in a statement Monday.

The judge also said that while Favre laid out a lengthy narrative with 300 pages of exhibits in his motion, under court procedure, she was not able to consider his version of facts.

The order Monday marks the first time Peterson, who wields great control over the trajectory of the civil suit, has directly acknowledged in a court filing the state’s allegations of civil conspiracy and fraudulent transfers against Favre.

“Both claims stem from allegations surrounding his involvement with and dealings to secure funding for the constriction of a brick-and-mortar volleyball facility at the University of Southern Mississippi as well as allegations surrounding his efforts to secure funds for a for-profit drug company, Prevacus,” she wrote. “Specifically, Plaintiff alleged that Favre personally guaranteed funds for the construction of a volleyball facility at USM, that he was unsuccessful at fundraising efforts, that he conducted months of negotiations and backdoor meetings with other named defendants and the University of Southern Mississippi Athletic Foundation to acquire funding, that the funding came from TANF funds and that said were used of non-TANF purposes, i.e. construction of a volleyball facility. Plaintiff further alleged that Favre, as the largest individual outside investor of Prevacus, engaged in similar meetings to assist in similar procurement of TANF funds that were, then, used to purchase stock in Prevacus, inconsistent with lawsuit TANF purposes.”

Peterson has filed 32 orders in the civil suit, which MDHS initially filed in May of last year. Until her order Monday denying Favre’s motion, Peterson had issued only procedural motions, such as granting time extensions for defendants file replies or allowing a defendant to use an out-of-state attorney.

The judge also has yet to hold a public hearing in the case.

Several other defendants have filed motions to dismiss, including Prevacus and its founder Jake Vanlandingham, nonprofit founder Nancy New, her sons Zach New and Jess New and their related companies, nonprofit director Christi Webb, former WWE wrestler Ted DiBiase Sr., former football player and fitness trainer Paul Lacoste, virtual reality company Lobaki, lobbyist and former state senator Will Longwitz, state contractor and former Attorney General’s Office employee Nick Coughlin and the former welfare director’s nephew Austin Smith. Peterson has not issued orders on their motions.

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GREENWOOD – There’s a truck parked in the gravel lot of Greenwood Community Center, muddy from a recent spring shower. 

From the outside, it’s easy to overlook. But inside, people who need it are being provided critical, hard to access health care.

Plan A operates the mobile clinic that travels the Delta, offering free family planning and reproductive health services at each of its stops. It’s become a fixture in a region of Mississippi that sees some of the state’s worst health outcomes. 

The organization does it all — their patients can get birth control, blood sugar and pressure checks, pap smears and mammograms, and even sexually transmitted diseases tests. 

And recently, they’ve added another service to their already-long list. 

Months after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned abortion rights, the organization has launched a telehealth program to make it easier for Mississippians to access emergency contraception. 

Plan A first began shipping free emergency contraception in fall 2022. After organizers learned from patients how challenging it was to access emergency contraception due to cost and availability, the organization started mailing free care packages, filled with emergency contraception, condoms, pregnancy tests and lubricant to people across Mississippi. 

The idea was to get emergency contraception to Mississippians before they need it, ensuring access immediately after unprotected sex.

But Executive Director Caroline Weinberg didn’t want to stop there.

“From the day we started shipping emergency contraception, we always knew we needed to do Ella if we were going to get people what they needed,” she said. “You can’t look at the demographics of this country and think just sending levonorgestrel is the solution, though it’s certainly a start and better than nothing.”

Ella is the emergency contraception recommended for people above 165 pounds, instead of levonorgestrel. While levonorgestrel is over the counter, Ella requires a prescription. Neither medication will harm a pregnant person or a fetus.

So, to make it easier to access, the group launched its telehealth program and started distributing Ella in January.

Plan A’s reach now extends far past the Delta, where most of its operations are housed — people call in from across the state to ask for Ella prescriptions as far away as Gulfport.

The organization currently gets 250 orders a month for both levonorgestrel and Ella. To date, they’ve shipped out 1,800 care packages. 

In April alone, Plan A has received more than 300 requests for emergency contraception. About 40% of people who request emergency contraception from the organization need Ella. 

Erin Rockwell, the organization’s evaluation and research associate, has been collecting and analyzing survey results about the state’s emergency contraception needs. 

According to Rockwell, while most people knew that there was a specific emergency contraception for people who weigh more than 165 pounds, a minority thought they’d be able to get a prescription for Ella in their community within three days, the time frame of effectiveness. Only a third of those people said they’d be able to afford a doctor’s visit for a prescription.

More than half of survey respondents said they have needed it in the past but been unable to access emergency contraception. The biggest barrier was cost, but access is a close second – many reported they couldn’t buy it anywhere. 

For the past two years, Antoinette Roby has been traveling the Delta in the clinic. She’s a driver turned community health worker, which means she’s the first person most patients will see as they enter the clinic, and the one they’ll primarily deal with. 

Roby, a daughter of the Delta herself, stressed that the clinic is judgment-free. Plan A serves clinics of all ages, background, sexual orientations and gender identities — more often than might be expected, she gets calls from cisgender men who are seeking emergency contraception for their significant others. 

Despite being on the road several days a week with the mobile clinic, Roby said the telehealth program is helping ensure no one falls through the cracks. 

“I feel like sometimes we miss people, even though we go back again,” she said. “So we got the whole telehealth program, and that was another way that we were able to reach the people in the community.”

She wishes something like Plan A would have existed when she was growing up.

“To me, it would have made a big difference,” Roby said. 

Myia Graham of Port Gibson lost her Medicaid-sponsored health insurance after turning 18, and since then, has had a difficult time consistently getting the birth control she needs to regulate her polycystic ovary syndrome. 

So when Graham, a 26-year-old graduate student at Delta State University, saw in a school-wide email last spring that the clinic would be visiting campus, she made sure to go — and after her appointment, she made all of her friends go, too.

Graham said the care Plan A provides is more important than ever.

“I hated being a Mississippi resident when we overturned Roe, because we are a state that says one thing and does another,” she said. “We say we care about women … but Mississippi is the last for everything in terms of women’s health.” 

As a Black woman, Graham said the state cares even less about people who look like her. If you’re Black, Mississippi is one of the most dangerous states in this country to give birth in.

That’s why it gives Graham some comfort to know that if she ever needs emergency contraception, she knows where to get it. 

“I wish that it was everywhere, a clinic like this,” she said.

The post This clinic is making emergency contraception easier to access in Mississippi appeared first on Mississippi Today.

Within the past several weeks, at least four people have been detained after routine check-in appointments at the Pearl U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement office, local advocates say. 

The most recent was Carthage resident Baldomero Orozco Juarez, who is Guatemalan and has been living and working in Mississippi for 14 years. He was detained April 12 during a scheduled check-in, said Lorena Quiroz, executive director of the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity. 

Since then, he has been at the LaSalle Detention Center in Jena, Louisiana, which is where many Mississippi immigrants are sent, she said. 

Orozco Juarez was deported after the 2019 ICE chicken plant raids, reentered the country and spent over a year in a detention center in Texas until the agency approved his probationary release, she said. 

“It was already determined you can do that,” Quiroz said about Juarez awaiting his court date from home instead of in a detention center.

Nearly two weeks ago, she and a dozen other community advocates went to the Pearl ICE office to ask for answers about Orozco Juarez’s detention but were not told much. Demonstrators were asked to leave the building and local police were called as they stood outside. 

With probationary release, Orozco Juarez was able to obtain a work permit, driver’s license and a Social Security card, Quiroz said. 

She said Orozco Juarez, who has been working, caring for his family and going to routine ICE check-ins, is not a flight risk. Before his recent detention, he had gone to three scheduled check-ins. 

Orozco Juarez’s wife, Sylvia Garcia, came to the immigration office once she learned her husband had been detained. With translation from Quiroz, Garcia said it will be difficult without Orozco Juarez because she is injured and unable to work. 

“They are separating our families without any reason,” Garcia said. 

She and Juarez have two children, ages 5 and 9, who were born in Mississippi. 

Dalaney Mecham, an immigration attorney in Gulfport, said officers have a lot of discretion when it comes to deciding whether to let someone into the country at the U.S.-Mexico border or whether to detain them during a check-in.  

Due to changes with processing at the border within the past several years, the agency has started issuing paperwork for people to report to an ICE office so they can get a document called a “notice to appear,” which would include a time, date and location of their next immigration court date. Previously, people were issued a notice to appear at the border, Mecham said. 

A clear picture of common arrests during check-ins in Mississippi and nationwide is not known. A spokesperson with ICE’s public affairs office in Washington D.C. did not respond to a request to access any data the agency keeps about arrests during check-ins, and data the agency does have online does not specify about these kinds of arrests. 

ICE spokesman Nestor Yglesias said the agency makes decisions about who to place in custody on a case-by-case basis regardless of nationality based on policy and factors of each case. 

But Orozco Juarez has a documented history of disregarding immigration law, which contributed to his recent detention, he said. 

“For the past two years, ICE afforded Mr. [Orozco Juarez] the opportunity to be compliant with his removal order by planning his own return to Guatemala,” Yglesias said in the statement. “He will remain in ICE custody pending his removal from the country.”

The Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity knows of three other people who have been detained in recent weeks. 

ICE had given those people a smartphone with an app that allows the agency to monitor whether they are staying in the area by taking a picture of themselves or answering a phone call when requested, Quiroz said. 

The immigrants received an email saying the app was closed and they needed to come to the ICE office, she said. When they called the office back to learn when to come, there was no answer. They went to the office to check in on their appointment and were held without explanation. 

All three of the detained people are Nicaraguan immigrants who are seeking asylum due to political instability and violence in their country, Quiroz said. They had been in the United States for a year or less, and one was transferred to the Jena detention facility.  

Orozco Juarez could be detained until his trial, which could take years, but the Immigrant Alliance for Justice and Equity and his attorney are hoping to bring him home. 

Most of the immigration court proceedings for the area are conducted in New Orleans. 

The average wait time for a case in the New Orleans court is 709 days, which is nearly two years, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse immigration backlog tracker by Syracuse University. This wait time is about two months shorter than the national case wait time of 762 days. 

As of January, there are an estimated 48,690 pending cases across all of Louisiana’s immigration courts, which include the largest in New Orleans and two smaller ones based in detention centers in Oakdale and Jena, according to the TRAC backlog tracker. 

Mecham said some people he has represented have also been taken into custody during their routine ICE check-ins. He has noticed how people seek attorneys before their appointments because they are scared and have heard stories about others being detained during their check-ins.  

“Not knowing if they are going to come home that day is scary, especially if you have kids and you’ve been here for a while,” Mecham said. 

Similar to the experience of Orozco Juarez at the Pearl office, Mecham’s client, Lenin Ramirez, went to an ICE check-in in August 2021 in New Orleans, and that resulted in a two-month detention in a Louisiana detention center. 

Mecham called the immigration office to ask why his client was detained, especially since Ramirez, who lives in Mobile, was seeking asylum from Nicaragua. The officer said he was detained because he entered the country without authorization, Mecham said. 

Mecham was able to get Ramirez out by going first to the New Orleans ICE field office, then at the federal level through ICE’s ombudsman and the Department of Homeland Security, which reviewed Ramirez’s case and issued him a notice to appear with his scheduled court date. 

Since Ramirez’s release, Mecham has filed Ramirez’s asylum application and they are waiting for his next court date in July 2025. 

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