1 of 2 | Migrants wait to surrender to the U.S. Border Patrol after crossing the border wall from Mexico near San Diego in 2024. On Thursday, people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela began receiving notices of termination of their temporary protected status.They were told to self-deport. File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo
June 12 (UPI) — People from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela on Thursday began receiving notices of termination of their temporary protected status. They were told to self-deport.
The Department of Homeland Security used email to send the TPS termination notices to inform more than 500,000 affected people that the parole and work authorizations granted by the Biden administration have been revoked with immediate effect, CBS News reported.
Those who have not obtained other lawful immigration approvals are encouraged to self-deport.
The Supreme Court on May 30 upheld the Trump administration’s cancellation of the TPS status for the affected people, which the Biden administration first used in 2022.
The program granted protected status for those from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela while they awaited the outcome of their respective immigration proceedings.
“This program was abused by the previous administration to admit hundreds of thousands of poorly vetted illegal aliens into the United States,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Thursday in a news release.
“The Biden administration lied to America,” McLaughlin said. “They allowed more than half a million poorly vetted aliens from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela and their immediate family members to enter the United States through these disastrous parole programs.”
She said the Biden administration gave them “opportunities to compete for American jobs and undercut American workers” while forcing career civil servants to promote the programs even after fraud was identified.
The Biden administration “then blamed Republicans in Congress for the chaos that ensued and the crime that followed,” McLaughlin added.
She said those affected can use the CBP Home Mobile App to obtain travel assistance and a $1,000 exit bonus upon arrival in their home countries.
The self-deport notices started going out on the same day that the House of Representatives approved a measure ending the District of Columbia’s Sanctuary Values Amendment Act, the Washington Post reported.
The House voted 224-194 to require the nation’s capital to comply with federal immigration laws, requests for information on individuals’ respective immigration status and lawful detainer requests.
Eleven Democrats voted with Republicans to approve the resolution.
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s deployment of California’s National Guard to Los Angeles and called the move illegal.
The judge’s order to return control of the troops to California Governor Gavin Newsom will not go into effect immediately and the administration has filed an appeal.
The state sued President Donald Trump on Monday over his order to deploy the troops without Gov Newsom’s consent.
Trump said he was sending the troops – who are typically under the governor’s authority – to stop LA from “burning down” in protests against his immigration crackdown. Local authorities have argued they have the situation in hand and do not need troops.
Judge Charles Breyer said the question presented by California’s request was whether Trump followed the law set by Congress on the deployment of a state’s National Guard.
“He did not,” the judge wrote in his decision. “His actions were illegal… He must therefore return control of the California National Guard to the Governor of the State of California forthwith.”
Gov Newsom posted on social media after the order was filed that “the court just confirmed what we all know — the military belongs on the battlefield, not on our city streets”.
WASHINGTON — The House narrowly voted Thursday to cut about $9.4 billion in spending already approved by Congress as President Trump’s administration looks to follow through on work done by the Department of Government Efficiency when it was overseen by Elon Musk.
The package targets foreign aid programs and the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which provides money for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service as well as thousands of public radio and television stations around the country. The vote was 214-212.
Republicans are characterizing the spending as wasteful and unnecessary, but Democrats say the rescissions are hurting the United States’ standing in the world and will lead to needless deaths.
“Cruelty is the point,” Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said of the proposed spending cuts.
The Trump administration is employing a tool rarely used in recent years that allows the president to transmit a request to Congress to cancel previously appropriated funds. That triggers a 45-day clock in which the funds are frozen pending congressional action. If Congress fails to act within that period, then the spending stands.
“This rescissions package sends $9.4 billion back to the U.S. Treasury,” said Rep. Lisa McClain, House Republican Conference chair. “That’s $9.4 billion of savings that taxpayers won’t see wasted. It’s their money.”
The benefit for the administration of a formal rescissions request is that passage requires only a simple majority in the 100-member Senate instead of the 60 votes usually required to get spending bills through that chamber. So if they stay united, Republicans will be able to pass the measure without any Democratic votes.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said the Senate would likely not take the bill up until July and after it has dealt with Trump’s big tax and immigration bill. He also said it’s possible the Senate could tweak the bill.
The administration is likening the first rescissions package to a test case and says more could be on the way if Congress goes along.
Republicans, sensitive to concerns that Trump’s sweeping tax and immigration bill would increase future federal deficits, are anxious to demonstrate spending discipline, though the cuts in the package amount to just a sliver of the spending approved by Congress each year. They are betting the cuts prove popular with constituents who align with Trump’s “America first” ideology as well as those who view NPR and PBS as having a liberal bias.
In all, the package contains 21 proposed rescissions. Approval would claw back about $900 million from $10 billion that Congress has approved for global health programs. That includes canceling $500 million for activities related to infectious diseases and child and maternal health and another $400 million to address the global HIV epidemic.
The Trump administration is also looking to cancel $800 million, or a quarter of the amount Congress approved, for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and sanitation, and family reunification for those forced to flee their own country.
About 45% of the savings sought by the White House would come from two programs designed to boost the economies, democratic institutions and civil societies in developing countries.
Democratic leadership, in urging their caucus to vote no, said that package would eliminate access to clean water for more than 3.6 million people and lead to millions more not having access to a school.
“Those Democrats saying that these rescissions will harm people in other countries are missing the point,” McClain said. “It’s about people in our country being put first.”
The Republican president has also asked lawmakers to rescind nearly $1.1 billion from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which represents the full amount it’s slated to receive during the next two budget years. About two-thirds of the money gets distributed to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. Nearly half of those stations serve rural areas of the country.
The association representing local public television stations warns that many of them would be forced to close if the Republican measure passes. Those stations provide emergency alerts, free educational programming and high school sports coverage, and highlight hometown heroes.
Advocacy groups that serve the world’s poorest people are also sounding the alarm and urging lawmakers to vote no.
“We are already seeing women, children and families left without food, clean water and critical services after earlier aid cuts, and aid organizations can barely keep up with rising needs,” said Abby Maxman, president and chief executive of Oxfam America, a poverty-fighting organization.
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said the foreign aid is a tool that prevents conflict and promotes stability, but the measure before the House takes that tool away.
“These cuts will lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, devastating the most vulnerable in the world,” McGovern said.
“This bill is good for Russia and China and undertakers,” added Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.).
Republicans disparaged the foreign aid spending and sought to link it to programs they said DOGE had uncovered.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said taxpayer dollars had gone to such things as targeting climate change, promoting pottery classes and strengthening diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Other Republicans cited similar examples they said DOGE had revealed.
“Yet, my friends on the other side of the aisle would like you to believe, seriously, that if you don’t use your taxpayer dollars to fund this absurd list of projects and thousands of others I didn’t even list, that somehow people will die and our global standing in the world will crumble,” Roy said. “Well, let’s just reject this now.”
Democratic lawmakers have expressed outrage after United States Senator Alex Padilla of California was roughly removed from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) news conference, then forced to the ground and handcuffed.
A video of the incident shows Padilla appearing to interrupt a Thursday news conference in Los Angeles held by DHS chief Kristi Noem.
“I am Senator Alex Padilla,” he said, stepping forward as Noem spoke. “I have a question for the secretary.”
But he never got a chance to ask the question. Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had already surrounded Padilla and were pushing him out of the conference room. A mobile phone video shot by a member of Padilla’s staff showed the senator yelling, “Hands off,” as he was escorted into an adjacent hallway.
Agents ultimately forced him to the ground, as Padilla protested he could not keep his hands behind his back as requested and lay his body flat at the same time. One FBI agent then stood in front of the camera and ordered the staffer to stop recording.
The senator’s office has said Padilla is currently not detained. In a statement, it explained that Padilla had hoped to question Noem and General Gregory Guillot about the US military deployment against protesters in Los Angeles.
“Senator Padilla is currently in Los Angeles exercising his duty to perform Congressional oversight of the federal government’s operations in Los Angeles and across California,” his office said in a statement.
“He was in the federal building to receive a briefing with General Guillot and was listening to Secretary Noem’s press conference. He tried to ask the Secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents.”
What just happened to @SenAlexPadilla is absolutely abhorrent and outrageous.
Padilla himself held a news conference afterwards, where he drew a parallel between his rough treatment and the immigration raids happening under the administration of President Donald Trump.
“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, I can only imagine what they’re doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day labourers out in the Los Angeles community and throughout California and throughout the country,” Padilla told reporters.
The recent protests in Los Angeles came in response to the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, which has targeted undocumented workers at places such as the Home Depot hardware store chain.
Trump has since responded to those protests by deploying nearly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 US Marines to southern California, in what critics have called an illegal use of military power against civilians.
On Thursday, Padilla’s Democratic colleagues in the Senate rushed to voice their support after the incident.
“I just saw something that sickened my stomach — the manhandling of a United States senator,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.”
Representative Maxwell Frost of Florida later shot a video showing Democrats walking to Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s office to call for action.
“There must be accountability for the detainment of a Senator. This is not normal,” Frost wrote.
On social media, however, DHS accused Padilla of engaging in “disrespectful political theatre”. It argued that the senator had not identified himself as he “lunged” towards Noem, something that appears to be contradicted by video of the incident.
DHS said Noem met Padilla after the news conference for 15 minutes.
California officials have accused Trump of provoking tensions in the state by sending the military to crack down on the protests, some of which turned violent but have already started to ease.
The last time a president deployed the National Guard in a state over the objections of a governor was in 1965, to protect civil rights protesters from violence in segregated Alabama.
Governor Gavin Newsom has since sued the Trump administration to block the use of US military might outside of federal sites, calling it a step towards “authoritarianism”.
Earlier this week, Padilla said that Trump’s immigration raids were “terrorising communities, breaking apart families and putting American citizens in harm’s way”.
Trump has suggested that he could have California Governor Gavin Newsom arrested and mused that he could declare martial law if the protests continue. He also described the protesters as “animals” and “a foreign enemy”, framing them as part of a wider “invasion” that justifies emergency powers.
“If they can handcuff a US Senator for asking a question, imagine what they will do to you,” Newsom said in a social media post that showed a picture of Padilla being held on the ground by three agents.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is looking to cancel $9.4 billion in spending already approved by Congress. That’s just a sliver of the $1.7 trillion that lawmakers OK’d for the budget year ending Sept. 30.
The package of 21 budget rescissions will have to be approved by both chambers of Congress for the cuts to take place, beginning with a House vote expected Thursday. Otherwise, the spending remains in place.
The White House is betting that cutting federal investments in public media and some foreign aid programs will prove politically popular. Republicans say if this first effort is successful, they hope more rescission packages will follow as they look to continue work by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency once run by billionaire Elon Musk.
Democrats describe the cuts as inhumane and say they would rip life-saving support from hungry and sick people across the globe. Republicans are describing the cuts as “modest” and say the U.S. will continue to play a critical role in helping the world’s most vulnerable people.
Here’s a look at some of the spending the White House is trying to claw back:
The Republican president has asked lawmakers to rescind nearly $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which represents the full amount it’s slated to receive during the next two budget years. Congress has traditionally provided public media with advanced funds to reduce political pressures.
The corporation distributes the money mostly to public television and radio stations around the country, with some assigned to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System to support national programming.
The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense.
Much of the conservatives’ ire is focused on NPR and PBS. “We believe that you all can hate us on your own dime,” said Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during a hearing in March.
But about two-thirds of the money goes to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations. Nearly half of those stations serve rural areas of the country.
“They want to punish the national guys, that’s fine,” said Rep. Mark Amodei, a Republican who said he was undecided going into this week’s vote. “But I’m trying to get a handle on what it means for my stations in Nevada, because the ability to fundraise at the national level ain’t the same as the ability to fundraise in Reno.”
The association representing local public television stations warns that many of them would be forced to close if the GOP bill passes. Those stations provide emergency alerts, free educational programming and high school sports coverage and highlight hometown heroes.
Meanwhile, local radio stations say their share of the allocation provides funding for 386 stations employing nearly 10,000 people. Dozens of stations rely on the public grants for more than half of their budget. Many others for nearly half.
Some Republicans say they worry about what the cuts would mean for local public stations but tough decisions are necessary.
Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., said South Dakota Public Broadcasting does a “really good job of covering the state Legislature” and other public affairs.
“So these rescissions are not going to be comfortable for South Dakota to deal with,” Johnson said. “That being said, we’re $37 trillion in debt.”
Funding to combat diseases
Trump’s administration is looking to claw back about $900 million from $10 billion that Congress has approved for global health programs.
That includes canceling $500 million for activities related to infectious diseases and child and maternal health and another $400 million to address the global HIV epidemic.
The administration says the $500 million rescission for infectious diseases would not reduce treatment but would “eliminate programs that are antithetical to American interests and worsen the lives of women and children, like ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health,’ LGBTQI+ activities, and equity programs.” It makes a similar assurance on the HIV funding, saying it would eliminate “only those programs that neither provide life-saving treatment nor support American interests.”
Scores of humanitarian aid groups have asked lawmakers to oppose the proposed cuts. Catholic Relief Services called on donors to contact their members of Congress to urge them to vote against the bill. Without the U.S. assistance, “countless lives are at risk, and the needs will continue to rise,” said the plea to supporters.
The importance of the United States’ contribution to the global HIV response cannot be overstated, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS. It says the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, has saved more than 26 million lives and averted almost 5 million new HIV infections since it was launched in 2003 under President George W. Bush, a Republican.
“Instead of facing a death sentence, people supported by PEPFAR are raising families, building their communities, and helping their communities grow and develop,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn.
Refugee assistance
The Trump administration is looking to cancel $800 million, or a quarter of the amount Congress approved, for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and sanitation, and family reunification for those forced to flee their own country. The program also helps vetted refugees who come to the U.S. get started in their new country.
The White House says “these funds support activities that could be more fairly shared with non-U.S. Government donors, providing savings to the U.S. taxpayer.”
Refugees International urged Congress to reject what it described as a reckless proposal.
About 45% of the savings sought by the White House would come from two programs designed to boost the economies, democratic institutions and civil societies in developing countries.
The administration wants to claw back $2.5 billion of the $3.9 billion approved for the Development Assistance program at the U.S. Agency for International Development and about $1.7 billion, or nearly half of the funds, dedicated to the State Department’s Economic Support Fund.
The administration says in its request to Congress that the Development Assistance account is supposed to fund programs that work to end extreme poverty and promote resilient democratic societies, but in practice many of the programs “conflict with American values” and bankroll corrupt leaders’ evasion of responsibilities to their citizens while providing “no clear benefit to Americans.”
U.S. leaders have often argued over the years that helping to eradicate conditions that lead to political upheaval abroad is not just the right thing to do but also the smart thing.
“By helping stem pandemics and war and helping countries become healthy, free-market democracies, we are actually helping our own country,” said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.
Republicans are rejecting the dire warnings. Rep. Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., said “ waste, fraud and abuse is what this is all about.”
Veteran correspondent for the US broadcaster, Terry Moran, had called Trump aide Stephen Miller a ‘world-class hater’.
Veteran journalist Terry Moran will not be returning to ABC News after he was suspended by the broadcaster for a social media post that called United States President Donald Trump and his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller “world-class haters”.
In a statement, the US network said on Tuesday that Moran’s quickly-deleted post on X was “a clear violation of ABC News policies”, the Associated Press news agency reports.
It added that Moran’s contract was ending, and “based on his recent post… we have made the decision not to renew”.
The post on Sunday night was primarily directed at Miller, whom Moran described as “the brains behind Trumpism”.
“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater,” Moran had said on X.
Moran, who had recently interviewed Trump in his role as Senior National Correspondent for ABC News, also described the US President as a “world-class hater”, but said that in Trump’s case, it was only a “means to an end” of “his own glorification”.
In Miller’s case, however, Moran said, “his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate”.
The Trump administration quickly condemned Moran’s post, with Vice President JD Vance describing it as an “absolutely vile smear of Stephen Miller”.
Moran, 65, had worked at ABC News since 1997. He was a longtime co-anchor of “Nightline”, and covered the Supreme Court and national politics.
During an interview with Trump that was broadcast a month ago, the president told Moran, “You’re not being very nice” in the midst of a contentious exchange about deportations.
Trump aide Steven Cheung responded to Moran’s exit on Tuesday with a post on X, simply saying: “Talk s***, get hit.”
Miller, meanwhile, has been focused on the Trump administration’s decision to send 4,000 National Guard soldiers and a Marine battalion to Los Angeles, amid anti-immigration enforcement protests in California’s capital city.
In one post on X on Tuesday, Miller said that California has become a “criminal sanctuary for millions of illegal alien invaders” and that “huge swaths of the city where I was born now resemble failed third world nations.”
The AP news agency reported that Moran’s contract with ABC had been due to expire on Friday, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Moran’s post also comes at what was already a sensitive time for ABC News. The network agreed to pay $15m towards Trump’s presidential library in December to settle a defamation lawsuit over George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate claim that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E Jean Carroll.
Moran leaves ABC as major television networks in the US struggle to retain audiences amid the soaring popularity of some podcasters and subscription-based newsletters.
The shift has also been embraced by some journalists, such as Mehdi Hasan, who started his own media network in early 2024, after quitting MSNBC when it cancelled his show in late 2023.
When la migra raids workplaces and tries to enter schools and is vowing to do even more, L.A. ain’t going to roll out the red carpet and throw roses at them.
When Donald Trump calls up 2,000 National Guardsmen to clear the way for his immigration goons, over the strenuous objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom and Mayor Karen Bass, this city is going to push back even harder.
When Trump takes to social media to claim that “once great” Los Angeles “has been invaded and occupied by Illegal Aliens and Criminals” and that his administration will stop at nothing “to liberate Los Angeles from the Migrant Invasion,” we’re going to do something about it.
But this?
Throwing cinder blocks and e-scooters at California Highway Patrol cars from a 101 Freeway overpass? Ripping out the pink tables and benches from Gloria Molina Grand Park to create a makeshift barricade on Spring Street near City Hall? Tagging small businesses, vandalizing the old Los Angeles Times headquarters, skidding a car around the bandstand at La Placita Olvera?
That’s supposed to keep immigrant families safe and defeat Trump?
This is what many people are muttering to themselves after a weekend of protests that ended with chaos in downtown Sunday night. LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell called the damage “disgusting.” Bass posted on social media that “destruction and vandalism will not be tolerated in our City and those responsible will be held fully accountable.” U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla told KTLA 5 News that it was “counterproductive.” In a statement, Eastside Assemblymember Mark González decried “agitators [whose] actions are reckless, dangerous and playing into exactly what Trump wants.”
Uprisings have a time and place, but not when they’re a trap you willingly run into. That’s what L.A. is dealing with now, and for weeks, if not months — years! — to come.
Trump called in the National Guard to set in motion his dream of crushing the city and using us as an example for other sanctuary jurisdictions of what happens if they dare defy him. L.A. is everything he loathes: diverse, immigrant-friendly, progressive and deeply opposed to him and his xenophobic agenda. He called in the Guard, even though the skirmishes between protesters and law enforcement that happened Friday in the Garment District and Saturday in Paramount were about as rowdy as when the Dodgers lose in the National League championship series.
The president knew the deployment would be incendiary, and that was the point: Goad L.A. into setting itself on fire.
A demonstrator waves a Mexican flag in front of a dumpster fire Sunday after another night of unrest during a protest against immigration raids in Los Angeles.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
The National Guard has largely stood by as police officers and sheriff’s deputies beat back unruly crowds who see them as an invading force, even though McDonnell and Sheriff Robert Luna have repeatedly stated that their agencies don’t enforce immigration laws. The clashes led to visuals — protesters flying the flags of Mexico and other Latin American countries as a counterpoint to the Trump administration’s white supremacy, cars in flames, graffiti — that went worldwide and cast the City of Angels as a City in Hell.
Now, Trump is pouncing on L.A. like a cat on a mouse.
Now, Trump is roaring on social media — “Paid insurrectionists” and “BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!” — like the mad king he is. Now, law enforcement from across Southern California are descending on L.A. to keep the peace.
This is what Los Angeles deserves?
At moments like these, I remember the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous maxim that “a riot is the language of the unheard,” even as he described riots in the same 1967 speech as “socially destructive and self-defeating.” Most who took to the streets last weekend are righteously angry at what Trump has done, and plans to do, to L.A. But their fury was too easily co-opted by the few who want to wantonly destroy and used the cover of protest to do so.
“We might fight amongst each other/But I promise you this: we’ll burn this bitch down, get us pissed,” Tupac Shakur famously sang in “To Live and Die in L.A.”
It’s a tendency I can’t fully embrace or condemn — because I get both sides. But we can always do better — and we usually do. L.A. is also the city of the 2006 Day Without Immigrants, where hundreds of thousands peacefully marched through the same downtown streets now in shambles. Where students organize walkouts and sit-ins to fight for a better education. Where working class folks stage electoral upsets against the powers that be.
Revolts in L.A. don’t always need literal flames — because the ones that burn brightest and longest are moral and philosophical.
Protesters shut down the 101 Freeway on Sunday as they clash with law enforcement in downtown Los Angeles over the immigration raids in L.A.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
So I challenge all the folks simmering with rage against Trump’s war against L.A. and itching to do something about it — and that should be every Angeleno right now — to rebel smarter.
It’s easy to chuck rocks at a cop car. How about becoming a political prisoner a la SEIU California President David Huerta, who was arrested Friday for allegedly blocking a law enforcement van from executing a search warrant?
Setting fires to garbage cans in the middle of a street is old hat — how about providing shelter to undocumented families living with the terrifying reality that their time in this country might soon be up? Fanning out across downtown with no real destination is an L.A. tradition — what about joining the many immigrant rights groups who have set up rapid response networks to show up where la migra does?
The feds don’t play — but neither does L.A. Let’s show the world what we do at our best.
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration from enforcing anti-diversity and anti-transgender executive orders in grant funding requirements that LGBTQ+ organizations say are unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar said Monday that the federal government cannot force recipients to halt programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion or acknowledge the existence of transgender people in order to receive grant funding. The order will remain in effect while the legal case continues, although government lawyers will likely appeal.
The funding provisions “reflect an effort to censor constitutionally protected speech and services promoting DEI and recognizing the existence of transgender individuals,” Tigar wrote.
He went on to say that the executive branch must still be bound by the Constitution in shaping its agenda and that even in the context of federal subsidies, “it cannot weaponize Congressionally appropriated funds to single out protected communities for disfavored treatment or suppress ideas that it does not like or has deemed dangerous.”
The plaintiffs include health centers, LGBTQ+ services groups and the Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Historical Society. All receive federal funding and say they cannot complete their missions by following the president’s executive orders.
The San Francisco AIDS Foundation, one of the plaintiffs, said in 2023 it received a five-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to expand and enhance sexual health services, including the prevention of sexually transmitted infections. The $1.3 million project specifically targets communities disproportionately affected by sexual health disparities.
But in April, the CDC informed the nonprofit that it must “immediately terminate all programs, personnel, activities, or contracts” that promote DEI or gender ideology.
President Trump has signed a flurry of executive orders since taking office in January, including ones to roll back transgender protections and stop DEI programs. Lawyers for the government say that the president is permitted to “align government funding and enforcement strategies” with his policies.
Plaintiffs say that Congress — and not the president — has the power to condition how federal funds are used, and that the executive orders restrict free speech rights.
CONCORD, N.H. — President Trump’s administration wants to be dropped from a lawsuit in which two New Hampshire teens are challenging their state’s ban on transgender athletes in girls’ sports and the president’s executive order on the same topic.
Parker Tirrell, 16, and Iris Turmelle, 14, became first to challenge Trump’s “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” order when they added him to their ongoing lawsuit over New Hampshire’s ban in February. A federal judge has ruled that they can try out and play on girls sports teams while the case proceeds.
In a motion filed Friday, attorneys for the government say the teens are trying to “drag the federal government into a lawsuit well under way not because of an imminent injury, but because of a generalized grievance with policies set by the President of the United States.”
Deputy Associate Atty. Gen. Richard Lawson argued that the government has done nothing yet to enforce the executive orders in New Hampshire and may never do so.
“Plaintiffs lack constitutional standing and their stated speculative risk of future injury is not close to imminent and may never become ripe,” wrote Lawson, who asked the judge to dismiss claims against Trump, the Justice and Education departments, and their leaders.
Trump’s executive order gives federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX — which prohibits sexual discrimination in schools — in alignment with the Trump administration’s view of a person’s sex as the gender assigned at birth.
Lawyers for the teens say the order, along with parts of a Jan. 20 executive order that forbids federal money to be used to “promote gender ideology,” subjects the teens and all transgender girls to discrimination in violation of federal equal protection guarantees and their rights under Title IX.
In its response, the government argues that the order does not discriminate based on sex because males and females are not similarly situated when it comes to sports.
Transgender people represent a very small part of the nation’s youth population — about 1.4% of teens ages 13 to 17, or around 300,000 people. But about half of the states have adopted similar measures to New Hampshire’s sports ban, with supporters arguing that allowing transgender girls to play is unfair and dangerous.
In interviews this year, neither New Hampshire teen said they feel they hold any advantage over other players. Tirrell says she’s less muscular than other girls on her soccer team, and Turmelle said she doesn’t see herself as a major athlete.
“To the argument that it’s not fair, I’d just like to point out that I did not get on the softball team,” Turmelle recalled of her tryout last year. “If that wasn’t fair, then I don’t know what you want from me.”
WASHINGTON — When racial justice protests roiled cities across America at the depths of the pandemic, President Trump, then in his first term, demonstrated restraint. Threats to invoke the Insurrection Act and to federalize the National Guard never materialized.
This time, it took less than 24 hours of isolated protests in Los Angeles County before Trump, more aggressive than ever in his use of executive power, to issue a historic order. “The federal government will step in and solve the problem,” he said on social media Saturday night, issuing executive action not seen since civil unrest gripped the nation in the 1960s.
It was the latest expression of a president unleashed from conventional parameters on his power, unconcerned with states’ rights or the proportionality of his actions. And the targeting of a Democratic city in a Democratic state was, according to the vice president, an intentional ploy to make a political lesson out of Los Angeles.
The pace of the escalation, and the federal government’s unwillingness to defer to cooperative local law enforcement authorities, raise questions about the administration’s intentions as it responds to protesters. The administration skipped several steps in an established ladder of response options, such as enhancing U.S. Marshals Service and Federal Protective Service personnel to protect federal prisons and property, before asking the state whether a National Guard deployment might be warranted.
Local officials were clear that they did not want, or need, federal assistance. And they are concerned that Trump’s heavy-handed response risks escalating what was a series of isolated, heated clashes consisting of a few hundred people into a larger law enforcement challenge that could roil the city.
The president’s historic deployment prompted fury among local Democratic officials who warned of an infringement on states’ rights. Trump’s takeover of the California National Guard, Gov. Gavin Newsom said, was prompted “not because there is a shortage of law enforcement, but because they want a spectacle.”
“Don’t give them one,” he said.
Vice President JD Vance, calling the anti-ICE protesters “insurrectionists,” welcomed the political pushback, stating on X that “one half of America’s political leadership has decided that border enforcement is evil.”
Protests against ICE agents on Friday and Saturday were limited in scale and location. Several dozen people protested the flash raids on Friday afternoon outside the Metropolitan Detention Center, with some clashing with agents and vandalizing the building. The LAPD authorized so-called less-lethal munitions against a small group of “violent protesters” after concrete was thrown at an officer. The protest disbursed by midnight.
On Saturday, outside a Home Depot, demonstrators chanted “ICE go home” and “No justice, no peace.” Some protesters yelled at deputies, and a series of flash-bang grenades was deployed.
“What are you doing!” one man screamed out.
Times reporters witnessed federal agents lobbing multiple rounds of flash-bangs and pepper balls at protesters.
Despite the limited scale of the violence, by Saturday evening, the Trump administration embraced the visuals of a city in chaos compelling federal enforcement of law and order.
“The Trump Administration has a zero tolerance policy for criminal behavior and violence, especially when that violence is aimed at law enforcement officers trying to do their jobs,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Saturday night. “These criminals will be arrested and swiftly brought to justice. The commander-in-chief will ensure the laws of the United States are executed fully and completely.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a statement Saturday, said the administration is prepared to go further, deploying active-duty U.S. Marines to the nation’s second-largest city. “This is deranged behavior,” responded California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom.
Trump’s decision Saturday to call in the National Guard, using a rarely used authority called Title 10, has no clear historic precedent. President Lyndon Johnson cited Title 10 in 1965 to protect civil rights marchers during protests in Selma, Ala., but did so out of concern that local law enforcement would decline to do so themselves.
By contrast, this weekend, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department said it was fully cooperating with federal law enforcement. “We are planning for long-term civil unrest and collaborating with our law enforcement partners,” the department said in a statement.
The 2,000 Guardsmen called up for duty is double the number that were assigned by local authorities to respond to much wider protests that erupted throughout Los Angeles in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.
Tom Homan, the president’s so-called border czar, told Fox News on Saturday evening that the administration was “already ahead of the game” in its planning for a National Guard deployment.
“This is about enforcing the law, and again, we’re not going to apologize for doing it,” he said. “We’re stepping up.”
National Guard troops began arriving in Los Angeles on Sunday morning, deploying around federal buildings in L.A. County.
“If Governor Gavin Newscum, of California, and Mayor Karen Bass, of Los Angeles, can’t do their jobs,” Trump wrote on Truth, his social media platform, “then the federal government will step in and solve the problem.”
The Trump administration announced Saturday that National Guard troops were being sent to Los Angeles — an action Gov. Gavin Newsom said he opposed. President Trump is activating the Guard by using powers that have been invoked only rarely.
Trump said in a memo to the Defense and Homeland Security departments that he was calling the National Guard into federal service under a provision called Title 10 to “temporarily protect ICE and other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions.”
What is Title 10?
Title 10 provides for activating National Guard troops for federal service. Such Title 10 orders can be used for deploying National Guard members in the United States or abroad.
Erwin Chemerinsky, one of the nation’s leading constitutional law scholars, said “for the federal government to take over the California National Guard, without the request of the governor, to put down protests is truly chilling.”
“It is using the military domestically to stop dissent,” said Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. “It certainly sends a message as to how this administration is going to respond to protests. It is very frightening to see this done.”
Tom Homan, the Trump administration’s “border czar,” announced the plan to send the National Guard in an interview Saturday on Fox News as protesters continued confronting immigration agents during raids.
“This is about enforcing the law,” Homan said. “We’re not going to apologize for doing it. We’re stepping up.”
“We’re already ahead of the game. We were already mobilizing,” he added. “We’re gonna bring the National Guard in tonight. We’re gonna continue doing our job. We’re gonna push back on these people.”
Newsom criticized the federal action, saying that local law enforcement was already mobilized and that sending in troops was a move that was “purposefully inflammatory” and would “only escalate tensions.”
The governor called the president and they spoke for about 40 minutes, according to the governor’s office.
Other rarely used powers
Critics have raised concerns that Trump also might try to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to activate troops as part of his campaign to deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants.
The president has the authority under the Insurrection Act to federalize the National Guard units of states to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” that “so hinders the execution of the laws” that any portion of the state’s inhabitants are deprived of a constitutional right and state authorities are unable or unwilling to protect that right.
The American Civil Liberties Union has warned that Trump’s use of the military domestically would be misguided and dangerous.
According to the ACLU, Title 10 activation of National Guard troops has historically been rare and Congress has prohibited troops deployed under the law from providing “direct assistance” to civilian law enforcement — under both a separate provision of Title 10 as well as the Posse Comitatus Act.
The Insurrection Act, however, is viewed as an exception to the prohibitions under the Posse Comitatus Act.
In 1958, President Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act to deploy troops to Arkansas to enforce the Supreme Court’s decision ending racial segregation in schools, and to defend Black students against a violent mob.
Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, wrote in a recent article that if Trump were to invoke the Insurrection Act “to activate federalized troops for mass deportation — whether at the border or somewhere else in the country — it would be unprecedented, unnecessary, and wrong.”
Chemerinsky said invoking the Insurrection Act and nationalizing a state’s National Guard has been reserved for extreme circumstances in which there are no other alternatives to maintain the peace.
Chemerinsky said he feared that in this case the Trump administration was seeking “to send a message to protesters of the willingness of the federal government to use federal troops to quell protests.”
In 1992, California Gov. Pete Wilson requested that President George H.W. Bush use the National Guard to quell the unrest in Los Angeles after police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King. That was under a different provision of federal law that allows the president to use military force in the United States. That provision applies if a state governor or legislature requests it.
California politics editor Phil Willon contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to pause a court order to reinstate Education Department employees who were fired in mass layoffs as part of his plan to dismantle the agency.
The Justice Department’s emergency appeal to the high court said U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston exceeded his authority last month when he issued a preliminary injunction reversing the layoffs of nearly 1,400 people and putting the broader plan on hold.
Joun’s order has blocked one of the Republican president’s biggest campaign promises and effectively stalled the effort to wind down the department. A federal appeals court refused to put the order on hold while the administration appealed.
The judge wrote that the layoffs “will likely cripple the department.”
But Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote Friday that Joun was substituting his policy preferences for those of the Trump administration.
The layoffs help put in the place the “policy of streamlining the department and eliminating discretionary functions that, in the administration’s view, are better left to the states,” Sauer wrote.
He also pointed out that the Supreme Court in April voted 5-4 to block Joun’s earlier order seeking to keep in place Education Department teacher-training grants.
The current case involves two consolidated lawsuits that said Trump’s plan amounted to an illegal closure of the Education Department.
One suit was filed by the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts along with the American Federation of Teachers and other education groups. The other suit was filed by a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general.
The suits argued that layoffs left the department unable to carry out responsibilities required by Congress, including duties to support special education, distribute financial aid and enforce civil rights laws.
Education Department employees who were targeted by the layoffs have been on paid leave since March, according to a union that represents some of the agency’s staff. Joun’s order prevents the department from fully terminating them, but none have been allowed to return to work, according to the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. Without Joun’s order, the workers were scheduled to be terminated Monday.
Trump has made it a priority to shut down the Education Department, though he has acknowledged that only Congress has the authority to do that. In the meantime, Trump issued a March order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to wind it down “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”
Trump later said the department’s functions will be parceled to other agencies, suggesting that federal student loans should be managed by the Small Business Administration and programs involving students with disabilities would be absorbed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Those changes have not yet happened.
The president argues that the Education Department has been overtaken by liberals and has failed to spur improvements to the nation’s lagging academic scores. He has promised to “return education to the states.”
Opponents note that K-12 education is already mostly overseen by states and cities.
Democrats have blasted the Trump administration’s Education Department budget, which seeks a 15% budget cut including a $4.5 billion cut in K-12 funding as part of the agency’s downsizing.
Sherman writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Collin Binkley contributed to this report.
Harvard University won a temporary order in federal court Thursday restraining the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and the DOJ from implementing a Trump ban on foreign nationals entering the United States to study, work or conduct research at the Ivy League school. File photo CJ Gunther/EPA-EFE
June 6 (UPI) — A federal judge temporarily paused President Donald Trump‘s ban on foreign nationals coming to study, teach, or do research at Harvard University, pending a hearing later in June.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs’ ruling Thursday night came after Harvard filed a suit in Boston alleging Trump’s proclamation, issued a day earlier, was unlawful because it violated the First Amendment.
Burroughs said she was granting Harvard’s motion for a restraining order against the Homeland Security Department, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Justice Department, State Department and the Student and Exchange Visitor Program after accepting Harvard’s claim that it would otherwise “sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there was an opportunity to hear from all parties.”
The motion was in a hastily amended complaint by Harvard after Trump on Wednesday suspended entry of all foreign nationals “who enter or attempt to enter the United States to begin attending Harvard,” and directed Secretary of State Marco Rubio to consider cancelling the visas of foreigners already there.
She said the court would reconvene on June 16 for a full hearing on whether Trump’s proclamation is legal.
Burroughs’ order also extended through June 20 a temporary restraining order she issued May 23, preventing DHS from implementing a ban on Harvard sponsoring holders of F-1 and J-1 non-immigrant visas, something the university has been permitted to do for more than seven decades.
The school’s legal team argued Wednesday’s proclamation was an effort to get around this restraining order.
“The proclamation simply reflects the administration’s effort to accomplish the very result that the Court sought to prevent. The Court should not stand for that,” Harvard’s legal counsel alleged in court filings.
Harvard has maintained that the orders represent executive overreach, while Trump insists there is a national security risk posed by its foreign students.
The Trump administration has demanded that Harvard water down its diversity, equality and inclusion policies in hiring and admissions, beef up enforcement of anti-Semitism measures on campus following anti-Gaza war protests and hand over the records of its international students.
Trump’s proclamation stated that the step was in the national interest because he believed Harvard’s refusal to share “information that the federal government requires to safeguard national security and the American public” showed it was not suitable for foreign nationals.
In April, Trump cancelled more than $2 billion in federal funding that the university receives and threatened to remove its tax-exemption status and ability to enroll overseas students.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told The Hill that Harvard’s lawsuit was a bid to “kneecap the President’s constitutionally vested powers” to suspend entry to the country of persons whose presence was not in line with national interests.
“It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments,” McLaughlin said. “The Trump administration is committed to restoring common sense to our student visa system; no lawsuit, this or any other, is going to change that. We have the law, the facts, and common sense on our side.”
The administration of President Donald Trump has followed through with a threat to sanction officials on the International Criminal Court (ICC), naming four judges whom it accuses of taking “illegitimate and baseless actions” against the United States and its allies.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions in a sharply worded written statement.
“The ICC is politicized and falsely claims unfettered discretion to investigate, charge, and prosecute nationals of the United States and our allies,” Rubio wrote.
“This dangerous assertion and abuse of power infringes upon the sovereignty and national security of the United States and our allies, including Israel.”
The four sanctioned judges include Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru, Reine Adelaide Sophie Alapini Gansou of Benin and Beti Hohler of Slovenia.
As a result of the sanctions, the judges will see their US-based property and assets blocked. US-based entities are also forbidden from engaging in transactions with them, including through the “provision of funds, goods or services”.
The ICC quickly issued a statement in response, saying it stood behind its judges and “deplores” the Trump administration’s decision.
“These measures are a clear attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution which operates under the mandate from 125 States Parties from all corners of the globe,” the statement said.
“Targeting those working for accountability does nothing to help civilians trapped in conflict. It only emboldens those who believe they can act with impunity.”
Who are the judges?
In a fact sheet, the State Department explained that Bossa and Ibanez Carranza were sanctioned for authorising an investigation into US troops in Afghanistan in 2020, during Trump’s first term as president.
Previously, the ICC had blocked a request to probe alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, where the US had been leading a slow-grinding war from 2001 to 2021.
But it reversed course the following year, granting a prosecutor’s request to investigate US forces and members of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for war crimes in “secret detention facilities” in Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Afghanistan, the court noted, was a member of the Rome Statute, which includes the 125 countries where the ICC has jurisdiction.
But the Trump administration at the time blasted the court’s decision, calling the ICC a “political institution masquerading as a legal body”. It has long argued that the US, which is not party to the Rome Statute, lies outside the ICC’s jurisdiction.
Another country that is not a member of the Rome Statute is Israel, which has used similar arguments to reject the ICC’s power over its actions in Palestine.
The second pair of judges named in Thursday’s sanctions — Alapini Gansou and Hohler — were sanctioned for their actions against Israeli leaders, according to the US State Department.
The US is Israel’s oldest ally, having been the first to recognise the country in 1948. It has since offered Israel strong support, including for its ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed an estimated 54,607 Palestinians so far.
Experts at the United Nations and human rights organisations have compared Israel’s military campaign in Gaza to a genocide, as reports continue to emerge of alleged human rights abuses.
In November 2024, those accusations spurred the ICC to issue arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who have both been accused of war crimes in Gaza, including intentional attacks on civilians.
Alapini Gansou and Hohler reportedly took part in those proceedings.
Has this happened before?
This is not the first time that the US has issued restrictions against an ICC official since Trump returned to office for a second term on January 20.
Shortly after taking office, Trump issued a broad executive order threatening anyone who participates in ICC investigations with sanctions. Critics warned that such sweeping language could pervert the course of justice, for example by dissuading witnesses from coming forward with evidence.
But Trump argued that the recent arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant necessitated such measures.
He also claimed that the US and Israel were “thriving democracies” that “strictly adhere to the laws of war” and that the ICC’s investigations threatened military members with “harassment, abuse and possible arrest”.
“This malign conduct in turn threatens to infringe upon the sovereignty of the United States and undermines the critical national security and foreign policy work of the United States Government and our allies, including Israel,” the executive order said.
Under that order, the US sanctioned ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, who had petitioned the court for the arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant. That, in turn, slowed the investigation into Israel’s actions in Gaza, and Khan later stepped away from his role amid allegations of sexual misconduct.
But Trump has a history of opposing the ICC, stretching back to his first term. In 2019, for instance, Trump announced his administration would deny or yank visas for ICC officials involved in investigating US troops in Afghanistan.
Then, in 2020, he sanctioned ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and a court official named Phakiso Mochochoko for their involvement in the investigation. Those actions were later overturned under President Joe Biden.
Critics, however, warn that Trump’s actions could have dire consequences over the long term for the ICC, which relies on its member countries to execute orders like arrest warrants. The court itself has called for an end to the threats.
The Education Department accuses the Ivy League school of violating the Civil Rights Act and calls for its accreditor to take action.
The United States Department of Education has notified Columbia University’s accreditor that the Ivy League school allegedly broke federal anti-discrimination laws.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) claimed that Columbia University had “acted with deliberate indifference towards the harassment of Jewish students”.
As a result, they said that Columbia violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits recipients of federal funding from discriminating on the basis of race, colour or national origin.
“Specifically, OCR and HHS OCR found that Columbia failed to meaningfully protect Jewish students against severe and pervasive harassment on Columbia’s campus and consequently denied these students’ equal access to educational opportunities to which they are entitled under the law,” the statement said.
It quoted Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who accused Columbia University of ignoring the ongoing harassment of Jewish students on its campus since Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, 2023.
“This is not only immoral, but also unlawful,” McMahon said
She added that the accreditor, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, has “an obligation to ensure member institutions abide by their standards”.
The commission is one of seven regional bodies that reviews colleges, universities and other institutions of higher education to ensure they meet the standards needed to grant degrees.
McMahon described accreditation institutions as the “gatekeepers of federal student aid” and explained that they decide which schools are eligible for student loans.
“We look forward to the Commission keeping the Department fully informed of actions taken to ensure Columbia’s compliance with accreditation standards including compliance with federal civil rights laws,” McMahon said.
The statement specified that the Education Department and HHS had come to their determination about Columbia University’s civil rights compliance on May 22.
The university has remained in the news with arrests of high-profile student activists like Mahmoud Khalil in March and Mohsen Mahdawi in April.
Mahdawi has since been released, though he, like Khalil, continues to face deportation proceedings.
The administration of President Donald Trump has accused the demonstrators of creating unsafe conditions for Jewish students on campus, something the protest leaders have denied.
It reiterated that allegation in Wednesday’s statement, where it summed up the “noncompliance findings” that allegedly show Columbia at odds with civil rights law.
“The findings carefully document the hostile environment Jewish students at Columbia University have had to endure for over 19 months, disrupting their education, safety, and well-being,” said Anthony Archeval, acting director of the Office for Civil Rights at HHS, in the statement.
“We encourage Columbia University to work with us to come to an agreement that reflects meaningful changes that will truly protect Jewish students.”
The university did not immediately respond to a request by the Reuters news agency for comment.
The Trump administration and Columbia University were in negotiations over $400m in federal funding for the New York-based Ivy League school. Columbia agreed to a series of demands from the administration in a bid to keep the funds flowing, but the US government has not confirmed whether it will restore the contracts and grants that it paused.
In March, McMahon had said Columbia University was “on the right track” toward recovering its federal funding.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office sent a letter on Friday requesting that the Trump administration remove California from its list of sanctuary jurisdictions that obstruct the enforcement of federal immigration law.
The Department of Homeland Security issued the list this week in accordance with an executive order President Trump signed in April that directs federal agencies to identify funding to sanctuary cities, counties and states that could be suspended or terminated.
In the letter, Newsom’s office contended that federal court rulings have rejected the argument that California law limiting law enforcement coordination with immigration authorities “unlawfully obstructs the enforcement of federal immigration laws.”
“This list is another gimmick — even the Trump Administration has admitted California law doesn’t block the federal government from doing its job,” Newsom said in a statement. “Most immigrants are hardworking taxpayers and part of American families. When they feel safe reporting crimes, we’re all safer.”
California is among more than a half-dozen states that were included on the list for self-identifying as sanctuaries for undocumented immigrants. Forty-eight California counties and dozens of cities, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego and San Francisco, were also on the Trump administration’s list of more than 500 total jurisdictions nationwide.
The state strengthened its sanctuary policies under a law signed by former Gov. Jerry Brown that took effect 2018 after Trump won office the first time. Then, state officials tried to strike a balance between preventing local law enforcement resources from being used to round up otherwise law-abiding immigrants without obstructing the ability of the federal government to enforce its laws within the state.
Local police, for example, cannot arrest someone on a deportation order alone or hold someone for extra time to transfer to immigration authorities. But state law does permit local governments to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to transfer people to federal custody if they have been convicted of a felony or certain misdemeanors within a given time frame. The limitations do not apply to state prison officials, who can coordinate with federal authorities.
The law has been a thorn in the side of the Trump administration’s campaign to ramp up deportations, which the president has cast as an effort to rid the country of criminals despite also targeting immigrants with no prior convictions.
In a release announcing the list, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said politicians in sanctuary communities are “endangering Americans and our law enforcement in order to protect violent criminal illegal aliens.”
“We are exposing these sanctuary politicians who harbor criminal illegal aliens and defy federal law,” Noem said. “President Trump and I will always put the safety of the American people first. Sanctuary politicians are on notice: comply with federal law.”
The Trump administration’s assertion that California’s sanctuary policies protect criminals from deportation appears to irk Newsom, who has repeatedly denied the allegation. Trump’s threat to withhold federal dollars could also pose a challenge for a governor proposing billions in cuts to state programs to offset a state budget deficit for the year ahead.
Homeland Security said jurisdictions will receive a formal notice of non-compliance with federal law and demand that cities, counties and states immediately revise their policies.
Federal Communications Commissioner Anna M. Gomez traveled to Los Angeles this week to sound an alarm that attacks on the media by President Trump and his lieutenants could fray the fabric of the 1st Amendment.
Gomez’s appearance Wednesday at Cal State L.A. was designed to take feedback from community members about the changed media atmosphere since Trump returned to office. The president initially expelled Associated Press journalists from the White House, for example. He signed an executive order demanding government funding be cut to PBS and NPR stations.
Should that order take effect, Pasadena-based radio station LAist would lose nearly $1.7 million — or about 4% of its annual budget, according to Alejandra Santamaria, chief executive of parent organization Southern California Public Radio.
“The point of all these actions is to chill speech,” Gomez told the small crowd. “We all need to understand what is happening and we need people to speak up and push back.”
Congress in the 1930s designed the FCC as an independent body, she said, rather than one beholden to the president.
But those lines have blurred. In the closing days of last fall’s presidential campaign, Trump sued CBS and “60 Minutes” over edits to an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, alleging producers doctored the broadcast to enhance her election chances. CBS has denied the allegations and the raw footage showed Harris was accurately quoted.
Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, upon taking office in January, revived three complaints of bias against ABC, NBC and CBS, including one alleging the “60 Minutes” edits had violated rules against news distortion. He demanded that CBS release the unedited footage.
Gomez, in an interview, declined to discuss the FCC’s review of the Skydance-Paramount deal beyond saying: “It would be entirely inappropriate to consider the complaint against the ’60 Minutes’ segment as part of a transaction review.” Scrutinizing edits to a national newscast “are not part of the public interest analysis that the commission does when it considers mergers and acquisitions,” she said.
For months, Gomez has been the lone voice of dissent at the FCC. Next month, she will become the sole Democrat on the panel.
The longtime communications attorney, who was appointed to the commission in 2023 by former President Biden, has openly challenged her colleague Carr and his policies that align with Trump’s directives. She maintains that some of Carr’s proposals, including opening investigations into diversity and inclusion policies at Walt Disney Co. and Comcast, go beyond the scope of the FCC, which is designed to regulate radio and TV stations and others that use the public airwaves.
The pressure campaign is working, Gomez said.
“When you see corporate parents of news providers … telling their broadcasters to tone down their criticisms of this administration, or to push out the executive producer of ’60 Minutes’ or the head of [CBS] News because of concerns about retribution from this administration because of corporate transactions — that is a chilling effect,” Gomez said.
Wednesday’s forum, organized by the nonprofit advocacy group Free Press, was punctuated with pleas from professors, journalists and community advocates for help in fending off Trump’s attacks. One journalist said she lost her job this spring at Voice of America after Trump took aim at the organization, which was founded more than 80 years ago to counter Nazi propaganda during World War II.
The Voice of America’s remaining staffers could receive reduction-in-force notices later this week, according to Politico.
Latino journalists spoke about the difficulty of covering some stories because people have been frightened into silence due to the administration’s immigration crackdown.
For now, journalists are able to carry out their missions “for the most part,” said Gabriel Lerner, editor emeritus of the Spanish-language La Opinión.
But he added a warning.
“Many think that America is so exceptional that you don’t have to do anything because fascism will never happen here,” Lerner said. “I compare that with those who dance on the Titanic thinking it will never sink.”
The White House pushed back on such narratives:
“President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in history. He regularly takes questions from the media, communicates directly to the public, and signed an Executive Order to protect free speech on his first day back in office,” spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “He will continue to fight against censorship while evaluating all federal spending to identify waste, fraud, and abuse.”
FCC Commission Chairman Brendan Carr on Capitol Hill.
(Alex Wroblewski / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Traditionally, the five-member FCC has maintained an ideological balance with three commissioners from the party in power and two from the minority. But the senior Democrat — Geoffrey Starks — plans to step down next month, which will leave just three commissioners: Gomez, Carr and another Republican, Nathan Simington.
Trump has nominated a third Republican, Olivia Trusty, but the Senate has not confirmed her appointment.
Trump has not named a Democrat to replace Starks.
Some on Wednesday expressed concern that Gomez’s five-year tenure on the commission could be cut short. Trump has fired Democrats from other independent bodies, including the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Gomez said if she is pushed out, it would only be because she was doing her job, which she said was defending the Constitution.
Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Indio) applauded Gomez’s efforts and noted that he’s long appreciated coordinating with her on more routine FCC matters, such as ensuring wider broadband internet access.
“But now the fight is the survival of the free press,” Ruiz said.
He noted that millions of people now get news from non-journalist sources, leading to a rise of misinformation and confusion.
“What is the truth?” Ruiz said. “How can we begin to have a debate? How can we begin to create policy on problems when we can’t even agree on what reality is?”
The Harvard University crest adorns a gate on the school’s campus in Allston, Mass., in April. A federal judge blocked the Trump administration Thursday from its attempt to deny Harvard University’s ability to admit international students. File Photo by CJ GUNTHER/EPA-EFE
May 29 (UPI) — A federal judge blocked the Trump administration Thursday from its attempt to deny Harvard University’s ability to admit international students.
U.S. District Judge Allison Burroughs said in a hearing she plans to issue a preliminary injunction requested by Harvard and then extended a temporary restraining order that stops the administration from any attempt to follow through on its threat.
Twenty-seven percent of Harvard’s student body consists of foreign students, and it filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration last week after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ordered the termination of the school’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program, or SEVP certification.
Noem said in a press release last week, “This administration is holding Harvard accountable for fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus.”
The Harvard International Office’s Director of Immigration Services Maureen Martin filed a supplemental declaration in addition to the lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, and among the concerns listed in the suit, she wrote: “As a result of the revocation notice, students and faculty alike have expressed profound fear, concern, and confusion. Faculty members and administrators have been inundated with questions from current international students and scholars about their status and options.”
CNN reported that Burroughs told the lawyers for both Harvard and the Trump administration to agree upon how to keep the student visa program in place, to which she added, “It doesn’t need to be draconian, but I want to make sure it’s worded in such a way that nothing changes.”
The Trump administration has also focused on Harvard’s finances in addition to the effort to block the enrollment of foreign students, as it announced Tuesday it plans to cancel all its contracts with Harvard University.
Billionaire and Tesla chief Elon Musk has stepped down from his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), in which he was charged with reducing federal spending, as he nears the maximum limit for his tenure as a special government adviser.
His departure comes just after his first major public disagreement with President Donald Trump over the administration’s much-touted tax-and-spending budget bill, which was passed by the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives on May 22 by a single vote.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Musk said his time with the administration had “come to an end”.
“I would like to thank President Donald Trump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” the SpaceX founder wrote.
As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.
The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.
Musk, who was appointed by Trump to lead DOGE, has seen his tenure in the White House marred by controversy, in particular sparked by his attempt to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID), an agency dedicated to distributing foreign aid.
With Musk’s departure, what will become of DOGE? And what legacy does the Tesla CEO leave behind?
How long was Musk at DOGE?
Musk’s term as a “special government employee” in the Trump administration meant he was only entitled to serve for 130 days in any 365-day period, and is barred from using government roles for any monetary gain.
Musk’s term has lasted just over four months, a few days short of the maximum legal limit.
In late April, Musk said he would soon shift his focus back to his own business enterprises and that his “time allocation” at DOGE would “drop significantly” starting in May.
However, Musk did note that he would spend “a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the President would like me to do so, as long as it is useful”.
Why does Musk disagree with Trump’s tax-and-spending bill?
In a clip from an interview with news channel CBS’s Sunday Morning programme, released on Tuesday, Musk revealed he was “disappointed to see the massive spending bill”.
According to him, the wide-ranging budget bill, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, increases the budget deficit and undermines his work at DOGE.
“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion,” Musk told journalist David Pogue.
On Wednesday, Trump staunchly defended the bill. “We will be negotiating that bill, and I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “That’s the way they go.”
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump [File: Alex Brandon/AP Photo]
The budget bill spans more than a thousand pages and outlines various domestic policy goals favoured by the Trump administration.
Among its provisions are measures that extend tax cuts introduced during Trump’s first presidential term in 2017. The bill also boosts funding for Trump’s proposed “mass deportation” initiative and for security along the US-Mexico border.
The disagreement over the tax-and-spending bill was one of several challenges Musk has encountered during his time at the White House.
What else has Musk disagreed with the Trump administration about?
Musk ran afoul of several Trump officials during his stint at the White House, including the president’s chief trade adviser, Peter Navarro, whom he called a “moron” over Trump’s sweeping increase in trade tariffs across the globe. Musk has also stated publicly that he would be more in favour of “predictable tariff structures”, in addition to “free trade and lower tariffs”.
In April, the SpaceX founder expressed hopes for “a zero-tariff situation” between the US and Europe. Instead, Trump has threatened to impose a 50 percent tariff on imported goods from the European Union unless the two sides can agree to a trade deal.
What will happen to DOGE now?
Trump established DOGE by executive order the day he was sworn into office on January 20. With Musk’s departure, it’s unclear what fate awaits the agency, as Trump has yet to appoint anyone to replace him.
Musk was given a mandate to reduce federal funding, which included downsizing the government’s workforce, terminating government contracts and attempting to close down entire agencies. In February, he and Trump both claimed they had unearthed billions of dollars worth of fraud related to diversity and climate schemes within the government. This was proved to be largely untrue or misleading.
In his post on Wednesday, Musk said: “The DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.”
However, Colleen Graffy, a former US diplomat and professor of law at Pepperdine University in California, said DOGE’s future was on shaky ground. “The power of DOGE came from the world’s richest man, Musk, having the ear of the world’s most powerful person, Trump,” she told Al Jazeera. “DOGE will likely struggle along for a while, but without Musk, and with pending court cases against it, its days are numbered. It would be a poisoned chalice appointment for anyone to take. Trump’s tax cuts will dwarf any savings.”
What will Musk’s DOGE legacy be?
Musk’s role in the Trump administration has sparked a large amount of controversy.
“Elon Musk’s DOGE was like one of his rockets exploding soon after liftoff, thereby demonstrating how not to do things,” Graffy told Al Jazeera.
“The difference is that for one, the learning experience is paid in money; for the other, the price is paid in human lives,” she added.
A major point of criticism directed at Trump and Musk centred on their decision to severely scale back USAID’s operations.
A woman protests against Elon Musk outside the US Agency for International Development (USAID) building in Washington, DC, the US [File: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]
By late February, the main offices of the agency in Washington, DC, had been essentially shut down.
Following the dismissal of roughly 1,600 employees and the placement of approximately 4,700 more on leave, staff were given just 15 minutes to gather their belongings and exit the building.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio later revealed that 83 percent of all contracts managed by USAID had been closed.
In March, a federal judge in Maryland stated that DOGE had “likely violated” the US Constitution by attempting to dismantle the agency. The judge authorised a temporary injunction to stop DOGE from proceeding with USAID-related staff reductions, building closures, contract terminations, or the destruction of USAID materials.
Lisa Gilbert, co-president of Public Citizen, a consumer rights advocacy group, described DOGE as a “mantra of destruction”.
“The legacy of Elon Musk is lost livelihoods for critical government employees, hindered American education, loss of funding for scientists and the violation of Americans’ personal privacy, all in the service of corrupt tech-bro billionaire special interests,” she told Al Jazeera.
“The carnage is even more horrifying internationally, as Musk’s chainsaw will lead to the pointless and needless deaths of likely millions of people in the developing world.”
Max Yoeli, senior research fellow in the US and the Americas Programme at Chatham House, said Musk’s brief tenure has “irrevocably altered US government”.
“DOGE’s weakening of state capacity and disruption of America’s research and development ecosystem pose lasting risks to US economic prospects and resilience, even as courts still grapple with legal issues his approach raised,” Yoeli told Al Jazeera.
Musk announced the news on X, where he declared his controversial government cost-cutting measures a victory.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has announced that he is leaving the administration of United States President Donald Trump, where he led a months-long project to cut costs in the federal government.
“As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending,” he wrote on the social media platform on Wednesday evening.
“The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government,” Musk said, referring to the Department of Government Efficiency, which he was a top figure in.
An unnamed White House official confirmed the news with the Associated Press.
Musk’s departure comes just days after he publicly expressed concerns about Trump’s flagship “big, beautiful bill”– a 1,000-page piece of legislation that extends the president’s 2017 tax cuts while adding work requirements for food assistance and Medicaid.
The bill also allocates spending for some of Trump’s signature projects, like building a wall between the US and Mexico and raising funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The “big, beautiful bill” passed in the House of Representatives last week and will next be discussed by the Senate.
As my scheduled time as a Special Government Employee comes to an end, I would like to thank President @realDonaldTrump for the opportunity to reduce wasteful spending.
The @DOGE mission will only strengthen over time as it becomes a way of life throughout the government.
“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told the news programme CBS Sunday Morning, using an acronym for the “Department of Government Efficiency.”
The billionaire joined the Trump Administration in January with the promise of slashing at least $1tril from the US federal budget, although the DOGE website shows that it has only achieved around $175bn in savings, or $1,088.96 per US taxpayer.
If passed in its current format, Trump’s spending bill would cancel out DOGE’s work because it is expected to raise the US deficit by $3.9tril by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“I think a bill can be big, or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion,” Musk told CBS.
