GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs pleaded no contest Thursday to misdemeanor charges of battery and criminal damage to property stemming from a May altercation with his girlfriend during which she said he threw her to the ground.
Jacobs must pay a $1,000 fine plus court costs for the battery charge. Under an agreement with prosecutors, the criminal damage charge can be dismissed in a year if he fulfills terms that include staying out of trouble, avoiding the victim in this case, submitting to supervision, completing counseling and paying restitution to the victim.
“I fully understand the seriousness of the situation, and I take full responsibility,” Jacobs said during an appearance in a Brown County court.
Jacobs was arrested May 26, three days after Hobart-Lawrence police officers came to his Wisconsin home to investigate a disturbance. According to police, the woman told them that Jacobs grabbed her and threw her to the ground as she was trying to exit a garage door, causing her to hit her head. Police said Jacobs also took her phone from her while she was on the ground.
Police said they noticed redness on her face and neck and could feel a bump on the back of her head.
According to a criminal complaint, the woman’s statement was corroborated by surveillance footage from the camera system in the garage where the incident occurred.
Jacobs was charged in late August and the NFL subsequently placed him on the commissioner’s exempt list, which prevents the three-time Pro Bowl running back from playing or practicing but allows him to keep receiving a paycheck. Players on the commissioner’s exempt list may be allowed at team facilities for meetings, individual workouts, therapy and rehabilitation and other non-football activities.
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said Thursday that the league is monitoring the case, which is being reviewed under the league personal conduct policy, and Jacobs remains on the exempt list. The Packers had no immediate comment.
Jacobs could face a league suspension.
David Chesnoff, one of the lawyers representing Jacobs, said the running back already has begun counseling.
“This plea reflects Josh’s acknowledgement of his actions and his acceptance of responsibility for these actions," Chesnoff said. “There are significant consequences for Josh, and he intends to meet all the requirements the court imposes under these negotiations.”
According to the criminal complaint, Jacobs’ girlfriend told police she had been looking through Jacobs’ phone and saw he was talking to other women, and that she threw his phone in anger without breaking it. She told police that Jacobs had her phone and she told him he could look through it.
Police said the woman indicated she tried to retrieve her phone from Jacobs, but he grabbed her arm. They left the home in separate vehicles but eventually returned, and the woman later grabbed a second phone from a duffle bag. That led to the events in which she was trying to exit a garage door.
Jacobs entered his plea three days before the Packers open the season at Minnesota.
He is coming off a 2025 season during which he rushed for 929 yards and 13 touchdowns. That followed a 2024 season in which he ran for 1,329 yards and 15 touchdowns while earning his third Pro Bowl selection.
Green Bay has no other running backs who rushed for more than 106 yards last season.
The only other running backs currently on Green Bay’s 53-man roster are MarShawn Lloyd, Chris Brooks and Kaleb Johnson. The Packers acquired Johnson from Pittsburgh the day that Jacobs was placed on the commissioner's exempt list.
Lloyd is a 2024 third-round pick who has played just one game over the last two seasons due to a variety of injuries, but he is healthy now.
See AP’s full NFL coverage here
FILE - Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs stands on the field before a NFL preseason football game against the Arizona Cardinals, Aug. 28, 2026, in Green Bay, Wis. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr, File)
MIAMI (AP) — A deadline for the Trump administration to decide whether about 200,000 immigrants from El Salvador can remain protected from deportation has passed without any public announcement, raising hopes among many for another six-month extension while also sowing confusion.
The Department of Homeland Security has been quiet about its plans, leaving attorneys and advocates scrambling to decipher what might happen next to Salvadorans who have been raising families in the U.S. for decades.
On Thursday, Homeland Security issued a statement saying the department would make an announcement “at an appropriate time” and that Temporary Protected Status for El Salvador would stay in effect until then. The department issued the same statement Wednesday.
“Let’s be clear: this is not an official extension or decision by DHS as to the fate of TPS for El Salvador,” Ben Johnson, who directs the American Immigration Lawyers Association, posted Wednesday on social media. The Trump administration is leaving TPS holders, their families and their employers in limbo, he said.
Some attorneys are cautioning that the administration could eliminate the protections without making a public statement, or announce a decision at any time.
The absence of an announcement has raised hopes that Salvadoran immigrants might be spared the fates of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from other countries whose protected status has ended during President Donald Trump’s second term. But the lack of clarity is also harrowing.
“Facing this uncertainty is frustrating and painful," said Doris Landaverde, who was 21 when she crossed the U.S. border illegally in December 2000, seeking better job opportunities. A few months later, she obtained TPS status and has worked legally ever since, mostly cleaning at Harvard University, she said.
Now a 47-year-old single mother, Ladaverde said she and her two U.S.-born daughters all consider this country home. The housing and health care of these American citizens depends on her income, and without TPS she could lose her job, she said.
"We have lived here legally for decades, and that is hard to erase,” she said. “I feel angry; we have done everything we were told to do legally.”
In Trump’s second term, Homeland Security has ended TPS for more than 1 million people from more than a dozen countries, including Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, Nicaragua, Afghanistan and Syria. In addition to the Salvadorans, about 103,000 people, from Ukraine, Sudan and Lebanon, remain protected from deportation under TPS.
The Trump administration notched a major victory when the Supreme Court ruled in June that it acted within its authority by ending TPS for about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians.
Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar” who has advocated for ending TPS, said Tuesday that the El Salvador decision rests with Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
“If it expires, it’s up to the secretary,” Homan said. “Temporary protected status means temporary. Let’s face it, El Salvador is a much safer country than it’s ever been now with a new president up there.”
TPS was created by Congress in 1990 to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife.
TPS allows people already in the country to remain, with work permits, for renewable periods of up to 18 months, if the homeland security secretary determines conditions are unsafe for their return. Under immigration law, the status is automatically extended for six months if the government takes no action.
It was granted to El Salvador following two devastating 2001 earthquakes that left hundreds of thousands of people homeless. Just before leaving office, President Joe Biden extended it for El Salvador for 18 months, expiring Sept. 9, 2026.
El Salvador, once one of the most violent places in the world due to organized crime, has become one of the safest countries in the Americas since Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele cracked down on gang members in 2022. But human rights advocates have denounced mass and arbitrary arrests, torture, and disappearances in its prison system.
Bukele has supported Trump’s deportation campaign and his government was among the first to receive deportees, holding them in a mega prison known as CECOT. But mass deportations of his own citizens from the U.S. could shock El Salvador's economy. Salvadorans in the U.S. sent home $9.9 billion in remittances last year, representing 24% of El Salvador's gross domestic product, its central bank said.
Trump and Bukele have met twice in Washington since last April. In 2019, during the first Trump administration, Bukele asked Trump to extend TPS. Bukele has not said publicly if he has requested another extension.
Associated Press contributors include Rebecca Santana in Washington and Rodrique Ngowi in Boston.
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam, D-Va., speaks during a news conference on the Temporary Protected Status of Salvadorans on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
Maria Teresa McPha speaks during a news conference on the Temporary Protected Status of Salvadorans on Capitol Hill, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)
FILE - President Donald Trump greets El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele, left, at the Shield of the Americas Summit, March 7, 2026, at Trump National Doral Miami in Doral, Fla. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
