administration

WASHINGTON — Dressed in a pink pullover, the 17-year-old girl rested her head in her hands, weighing her bleak options from the empty room of a shelter in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

During a video call into an immigration courtroom in Manhattan, she listened as a lawyer explained to a judge how new regulations imposed by President Trump’s administration — for DNA testing, income verification and more — have hobbled efforts to reunite with her parents in the U.S. for more than 70 days.

As the administration’s aggressive efforts to curtail migration have taken shape, including unparalleled removals of men to prisons in other countries, migrant children are being separated for long periods from the relatives they had hoped to live with after crossing into the U.S.

Under the Trump rules, migrant children have stayed in shelters an average of 217 days before being released to family members, according to new data from the Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Refugee Resettlement. During the Biden administration, migrant children spent an average of 35 days in shelters before being released to relatives.

“Collectively, these policy changes have resulted in children across the country being separated from their loving families, while the government denies their release, unnecessarily prolonging their detention,” lawyers for the National Center for Youth Law argued in court documents submitted May 8.

The Trump administration, however, has argued that the new rules will ensure the children are put in safe homes and prevent traffickers from illegally bringing children into the country.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health secretary, told lawmakers in Congress this month: “Nobody gets a kid without showing that they are a family member.”

The family situation for the 17-year-old, and her 14-year-old brother who came with her from the Dominican Republic, is complicated. Their parents, who were living apart, were already in the U.S. Their children were trying to reunite with them to leave behind a problematic living situation with a stepmother in their home country.

After 70 days in detention, the teen girl seemed to wonder if she would ever get back to her mother or father in the U.S. If she agreed to leave America, she asked the judge, how quickly would she be sent back to her home country?

“Pretty soon,” the judge said, before adding: “It doesn’t feel nice to be in that shelter all the time.”

The siblings, whom the Associated Press agreed not to identify at the request of their mother and because they are minors, are not alone. Thousands of children have made the trek from Guatemala, Haiti, Mexico and other countries, often alone on the promise of settling with a family member already in the U.S.

They’ve faced longer waits in federal custody as officials perform DNA testing, verify family members’ incomes and inspect homes before releasing the children. The new rules also require adults who sponsor children to provide U.S.-issued identification.

The federal government released only 45 children to sponsors last month, even as more than 2,200 children remained in custody.

Child stays in shelter as Trump requires DNA testing

Under the Biden administration, officials tried to release children to eligible adult sponsors within 30 days, reuniting many families quickly. But the approach also yielded errors, with some children being released to adults who forced them to work illegally, or to people who provided clearly false identification and addresses.

Trump’s Republican administration has said its requirements will prevent children from being placed in homes where they may be at risk for abuse or exploited for child labor. Officials are conducting a review of 65,000 “notices of concerns” that were submitted to the federal government involving thousands of children who have been placed with adult sponsors since 2023.

Already, the Justice Department indicted a man on allegations he enticed a 14-year-old girl to travel from Guatemala to the U.S., then falsely claimed she was his sister to gain custody as her sponsor.

DNA testing and ID requirements for child protection are taking time

Immigration advocacy groups have sued the Trump administration seeking to block the more rigorous requirements on behalf of parents and adult siblings who are waiting to bring migrant children into their homes.

“We have a lot of children stuck … simply because they are awaiting DNA testing,” immigration lawyer Tatine Darker, of Church World Service, told the Manhattan judge as she sat next to the Dominican girl.

Five other children appeared in court that day from shelters in New York and New England, all saying they experienced delays in being released to their relatives.

The Trump administration’s latest guidance on DNA testing says the process generally takes at least two weeks, when accounting for case review and shipping results.

But some relatives have waited a month or longer just to get a test, said Molly Chew, a legal aide at Vecina. The organization is ending its work supporting guardians in reunification because of federal funding cuts and other legal and political challenges to juvenile immigration programs. DNA Diagnostics Centers, which is conducting the tests for the federal government, did not respond to a request for comment.

Plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit filed by the National Center for Youth Law have also cataloged long wait times and slow DNA results. One mother in Florida said she had been waiting at least a month just to get a DNA appointment, according to testimony submitted to the court.

Another mother waited three weeks for results. But by the time those came through in April, the Trump administration had introduced a new rule that required her to provide pay stubs she doesn’t have. She filed bank statements instead. Her children were released 10 weeks after her application was submitted, according to court documents filed Tuesday.

Many parents living in the U.S. without work authorization do not have income documents or U.S. identification documents, such as visas or driver’s licenses.

The siblings being held at the Poughkeepsie shelter are in that conundrum, said Darker, the New York immigration lawyer. They crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in March with their 25-year-old sister and her children, who were quickly deported.

Their mother said she moved to New Jersey a few years ago to earn money to support them. She couldn’t meet the new income reporting requirements. Their father, also from the Dominican Republic, lives in Boston and agreed to take them. But the DNA testing process has taken weeks. The AP could not reach him for comment.

She said her children are downcast and now simply want to return to the Dominican Republic.

“My children are going to return because they can’t take it anymore,” the mother said in Spanish. She noted that her children will have been in the shelter three months on Sunday.

Attanasio and Seitz write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge suggested the Trump administration was “manufacturing” chaos and said he hoped that “reason can get the better of rhetoric” in a scathing order in a case about government efforts to deport a handful of migrants from various countries to South Sudan.

In the order published Monday evening, Judge Brian Murphy wrote that he had given the Trump administration “remarkable flexibility with minimal oversight” in the case and emphasized the numerous times he attempted to work with the government.

“From the course of conduct, it is hard to come to any conclusion other than that Defendants invite a lack of clarity as a means of evasion,” the Boston-based Murphy wrote in the 17-page order.

Murphy oversees a case in which immigration advocates are attempting to prevent the Trump administration from sending migrants they’re trying to deport from the U.S. to countries that they’re not from without giving them a meaningful chance to protest their removal.

The judge said the men couldn’t advocate for themselves

In a hearing last week called to address reports that eight immigrants had been sent to South Sudan, Murphy said the men hadn’t been able to argue that the deportation could put them in danger.

But instead of ordering the government to return the men to the U.S. for hearings — as the plaintiffs wanted — he gave the government the option of holding the hearings in Djibouti where the plane had flown on its way to South Sudan as long as the men remained in U.S. government custody. Days later, the Trump administration filed another motion saying that Murphy was requiring them to hold “dangerous criminals in a sensitive location.”

But in his order Monday he emphasized repeatedly that it was the government’s “own suggestion” that they be allowed to process the men’s claims while they were still abroad.

“It turns out that having immigration proceedings on another continent is harder and more logistically cumbersome than Defendants anticipated,” Murphy wrote.

The government has argued that the men had a history with the immigration system, giving them prior opportunities to express a fear of being deported to a country outside their homeland. And the Trump administration has said that the men’s home — Cuba, Laos, Mexico, Myanmar, Vietnam and South Sudan — would not take them back.

The administration has also repeatedly emphasized the men’s criminal histories in the U.S. and portrayed them as national security threats.

The administration is relying on third countries

The Trump administration has increasingly relied on third countries to take immigrants who cannot be sent to their home countries for various reasons. Some countries simply refuse to take back their citizens being deported while others take back some but not all of their citizens. And some cannot be sent to their home countries because of concerns they’ll be tortured or harmed.

Historically that has meant that immigration enforcement officials have had to release people into the U.S. that it wants to deport but can’t.

But the Trump administration has leaned on other countries to take them. In the Western Hemisphere, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Panama have all agreed to take some people being removed from the U.S., with El Salvador being the most controversial example because it is holding people deported from the U.S. in a notorious prison.

The Trump administration has said it’s exploring other third countries for deportations.

Murphy said in his order that the eight men were initially told May 19 they’d be going to South Africa and then later that same day were told they were going to South Sudan. He noted that the U.S. government “has issued stark warnings regarding South Sudan.”

He said the men had fewer than 16 hours between being told they were going to be removed and going to the airport “most of which were non-waking hours” and “limited, if any” ability to talk to family or a lawyer. “Given the totality of the circumstances, it is hard to take seriously the idea that Defendants intended these individuals to have any real opportunity to make a valid claim,” the judge wrote.

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

Government escalates row with university over demands to curb pro-Palestine student activism and change racial diversity policies.

The administration of US President Donald Trump will move to sever remaining federal contracts with Harvard University, escalating a row centred on issues such as pro-Palestine student activism and racial diversity.

The New York Times and Reuters news agency reported on Tuesday that a draft letter from the General Services Administration (GSA) instructs all federal agencies to review and possibly cancel existing contracts with Harvard, worth an estimated $100m.

A copy of the draft letter shared by the Times states that Harvard has continued to engage in “race discrimination, including in its admissions process” and that the university’s failure to halt alleged acts of anti-Semitism suggests a “disturbing lack of concern for the safety and wellbeing of Jewish students”.

The move would be the latest effort by the government to use federal funds to force universities to accept changes sought by the Trump administration, including greater control over curricula, harsher steps against pro-Palestine students, and an end to policies that encourage racial diversity and greater opportunities for racial minorities.

The Trump administration has portrayed efforts to encourage greater racial diversity at US universities as a form of discrimination that prioritises racial identity over merit. Supporters say that such efforts, such as using race as one factor of many in admissions decisions, are necessary to remedy long histories of racist discrimination and exclusion in US higher education.

“GSA understands that Harvard continues to engage in race discrimination, including in its admissions process and in other areas of student life,” the letter reads.

The administration has also taken an aggressive stance on pro-Palestine activism on university campuses, which erupted after the beginning of Israel’s most recent war in Gaza in October 2023.

Critics have portrayed those steps as part of a larger assault on US universities, which Trump has depicted as hotbeds of political dissent and radical ideas at odds with the goals of his administration.

“The Trump administration has gone after Harvard because of the pro-Palestinian protests, and also has made a list of demands that goes far beyond any of that,” Al Jazeera correspondent Patty Culhane reported from Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Harvard is located.

“It wants detailed information on foreign students that Harvard is refusing to give. It wants basically a political audit to see where people’s ideologies are. So Harvard University has sued in court to stop many of these moves, and this will undoubtedly be the next one that goes before a judge.”

In March, the GSA and the Departments of Education (DOE) and Health and Human Services (HHS) announced an official review of $255.6m in Harvard contracts and $8.7bn in multi-year grants, stating that the review was part of an effort to combat alleged anti-Semitism on college campuses.

The administration also cut $400m in grants to Columbia University in New York City in March, despite a series of concessions to government demands.

The administration has said that campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza and the US provision of billions of dollars of weapons to Israel are driven by anti-Semitism and create an unsafe environment for Jewish students on campus.

Several international students have been arrested and detained by the administration for their involvement in pro-Palestine activism, including a Turkish international student named Rumeysa Ozturk at Tufts University, who was arrested on the street by federal agents for co-signing an op-ed calling for an end to the war.

Trump has consistently threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status, and moved last week to block the university’s ability to accept international students, who currently make up about 27 percent of the university’s total enrolment.

A judge blocked that effort, which Harvard had called an act of retaliation for “our refusal to surrender our academic independence and to submit to the federal government’s illegal assertion of control over our curriculum, our faculty, and our student body”.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is asking federal agencies to cancel contracts with Harvard University worth about $100 million, a senior administration official said Tuesday, intensifying the president’s clash with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university.

The government already has canceled more than $2.6 billion in federal research grants for the Ivy League school, which has pushed back on the administration’s demands for changes to several of its policies.

A draft letter from the General Services Administration directs agencies to review contracts with the university and seek alternate vendors. The administration plans to send a version of the letter Tuesday, the official said. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations.

The New York Times first reported on the letter.

President Trump has railed against Harvard, calling it a hotbed of liberalism and antisemitism. The school filed a lawsuit April 21 over the administration’s calls for changes to the university’s leadership, governance and admissions policies. Since then, the administration has slashed the school’s federal funding, moved to cut off enrollment of international students and threatened its tax-exempt status.

Contracts include scientific research, executive training

The administration has identified about 30 contracts across nine agencies to be reviewed for cancellation, according to another administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly and provided details on the condition of anonymity.

The contracts total roughly $100 million. They include executive training for Department of Homeland Security officials, research on health outcomes related to energy drinks and a contract for graduate student research services.

Agencies with contracts that are deemed critical are being directed not to halt them immediately, but to devise a plan to transition to a different vendor other than Harvard.

The letter applies only to federal contracts with Harvard and not its remaining research grants.

Trump threatens to give Harvard’s funding to trade schools

Trump laid into Harvard on social media over the weekend, threatening to cut an additional $3 billion in federal grants and give it to trade schools across the United States. He did not explain which grants he was referring to or how they could be reallocated.

The president also accused Harvard of refusing to release the names of its foreign students. In a new line of attack, he argued that students’ home countries pay nothing toward their education and that some of the countries are “not at all friendly to the United States.” International students are not eligible for federal financial aid, but Harvard offers its own aid to foreign and domestic students alike.

“We are still waiting for the Foreign Student Lists from Harvard so that we can determine, after a ridiculous expenditure of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, how many radicalized lunatics, troublemakers all, should not be let back into our Country,” Trump said on social media.

It wasn’t clear exactly what he was demanding. The federal government already has access to visa information and other records on foreign students at Harvard and other universities.

The Department of Homeland Security has demanded that Harvard turn over a trove of files related to its foreign students, including disciplinary records and records related to “dangerous or violent activity.”

Harvard says it complied, but the agency said its response fell short and moved to revoke the university’s ability to enroll foreign students. A federal judge in Boston temporarily blocked the move after Harvard sued.

Other nations respond

Japan’s government said Tuesday that it’s looking for ways to help Harvard’s foreign students. Education Minister Toshiko Abe told reporters she planned to ask Japanese universities to compile measures to support international students.

The University of Tokyo, Japan’s top school, is considering temporarily accepting some Harvard students hit by the Trump sanctions.

Superville and Binkley write for the Associated Press.

The lawsuit alleges the Trump administration’s move to cut federal funding to public broadcasting is a violation of the US Constitution’s First Amendment.

National Public Radio (NPR) and three of its local stations have filed a lawsuit against United States President Donald Trump, arguing that an executive order aimed at cutting federal funding for the organisation is illegal.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court on Tuesday in Washington, DC by NPR and three local stations in Colorado — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KUTE Inc – argues that Trump’s executive order to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR violates the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Trump issued the executive order earlier this month, instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS” and requiring that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organisations. Trump issued the order after alleging there is “bias” in the broadcasters’ reporting.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting spends roughly $500m on public TV and radio annually. PBS and NPR get part of their funding from federal grants: 17 percent and two percent, respectively.

“The Order’s objectives could not be clearer: the Order aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the President dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radio stations across the country,” the lawsuit alleges.

“The Order is textbook retaliation and viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment, and it interferes with NPR’s and the Local Member Stations’ freedom of expressive association and editorial discretion,” it said.

The White House’s executive order argued that editorial choices – including that NPR allegedly “refused to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story”, and that it ran a “Valentine’s Day feature around ‘queer animals’” – were some of the reasons it wanted to cut federal funding.

“This is retaliatory, viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment,” NPR CEO Katherine Maher said in a statement.

“NPR has a First Amendment right to be free from government attempts to control private speech as well as from retaliation aimed at punishing and chilling protected speech. By basing its directives on the substance of NPR’s programming, the Executive Order seeks to force NPR to adapt its journalistic standards and editorial choices to the preferences of the government if it is to continue to receive federal funding.”

The absence of PBS from Tuesday’s filing indicates the two systems will challenge this separately; PBS has not yet gone to court, but is likely to do so soon.

The US president’s attempts to dismantle government-run news sources like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have also sparked court clashes.

The administration has battled with the press on several fronts. The Federal Communications Commission is investigating ABC, CBS and NBC News. And after The Associated Press refrained from calling the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of America”, as Trump directed, the administration restricted the news outlet’s access to certain government events.

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration late Friday to facilitate the return of a Guatemalan man it deported to Mexico in spite of his fears of being harmed there.

The man, who is gay, was protected from being returned to his home country under a U.S. immigration judge’s order at the time. But the U.S. put him on a bus and sent him to Mexico instead, a removal that U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy found probably “lacked any semblance of due process.”

Mexico has since returned him to Guatemala, where he is in hiding, according to court documents. An earlier court proceeding determined that the man, identified by the initials O.C.G., risked persecution or torture if returned to Guatemala, but said he also feared returning to Mexico. He presented evidence of being raped and held for ransom in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S.

“No one has ever suggested that O.C.G. poses any sort of security threat,” Murphy wrote. “In general, this case presents no special facts or legal circumstances, only the banal horror of a man being wrongfully loaded onto a bus and sent back to a country where he was allegedly just raped and kidnapped.”

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said O.C.G. was in the country illegally, was “granted withholding of removal to Guatemala” and was instead sent to Mexico, which she said was “a safe third option for him, pending his asylum claim.”

McLaughlin called the judge a “federal activist judge” and said the administration expects to be vindicated by a higher court.

Murphy’s order adds to a string of findings by federal courts against recent Trump administration deportations. Those have included other deportations to third countries and the erroneous deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran who had lived as a legal U.S. resident in Maryland for 14 years while working and raising a family.

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return to the U.S. from a notorious prison in El Salvador, rejecting the White House’s claim that it couldn’t retrieve him after mistakenly deporting him. The White House and the Salvadoran president have said they are powerless to return him. The Trump administration has tried to invoke the state secrets privilege, arguing that releasing details in open court — or even to the judge in private — about returning Abrego Garcia to the United States would jeopardize national security.

In his Friday ruling, Murphy nodded to the dispute over the verb “facilitate” in that case and others, saying that returning O.C.G. to the U.S. is not complicated.

“The Court notes that ‘facilitate’ in this context should carry less baggage than in several other notable cases,” he wrote. “O.C.G. is not held by any foreign government. Defendants have declined to make any argument that facilitating his return would be costly, burdensome, or otherwise impede the government’s objectives.”

Smyth writes for the Associated Press.

May 23 (UPI) — A federal judge in San Francisco on Friday issued an injunction, blocking President Donald Trump from laying off thousands of federal employees working at more than 20 government agencies.

The order issued by U.S. District Court Judge for the Northern District of California Susan Illston also bars the Department of Government Efficiency and U.S. Office of Management and Budget from making further reductions to the federal workforce.

“Presidents may set policy priorities for the executive branch, and agency heads may implement them. This much is undisputed. But Congress creates federal agencies, funds them, and gives them duties that-by statute-they must carry out,” Illston wrote in her 51-page ruling.

“Agencies may not conduct large-scale reorganizations and reductions in force in blatant disregard of Congress’s mandates, and a President may not initiate large-scale executive branch reorganization without partnering with Congress.”

The Justice Department said in court Friday it plans to appeal the judge’s decision.

Trump in February issued an executive order declaring his intention to reduce the size and scope of the federal government.

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget then began large-scale layoffs of thousands of federal employees later that month.

A separate executive order in March targets a further seven agencies.

The lawsuit filed by the American Federation of Government Employees seeks to block the Trump administration from carrying out those layoffs and seeks to have fired employees re-hired.

Several other local governments, unions and other groups have filed similar lawsuits, calling the layoffs unlawful.

The Justice Department said in court Friday it plans to appeal the judge’s decision.

“The defendants in this case are President Trump, numerous federal agencies, and the heads of those agencies. Defendants insist that the new administration does not need Congress’s support to lay off and restructure large swathes of the federal workforce, essentially telling the Court, ‘Nothing to see here.’ In their view, federal agencies are not reorganizing. Rather, they have simply initiated reductions in force according to established regulations and ‘consistent with applicable law.’ The Court and the bystanding public should just move along,” the judge wrote Friday.

“Yet the role of a district court is to examine the evidence, and at this stage of the case the evidence discredits the executive’s position and persuades the Court that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their suit.”

Friday’s ruling comes a day after a federal judge in Massachusetts issued a separate injunction prohibiting the Trump administration from further layoffs at the Department of Education. U.S. District Judge Myong Joun’s ruling also forces the federal government to rehire Education Department employees previously let go under Trump’s executive orders.

“Indeed, the Court holds the President likely must request Congressional cooperation to order the changes he seeks, and thus issues a preliminary injunction to pause large-scale reductions in force and reorganizations in the meantime.” Illston wrote Friday.

TRENTON, N.J. — The Trump administration sued four New Jersey cities over their so-called sanctuary city policies aimed at prohibiting police from cooperating with immigration officials, saying the local governments are standing in the way of federal enforcement.

The Justice Department filed the suit Thursday against Newark, Jersey City, Paterson and Hoboken in New Jersey federal court. The lawsuit seeks a judgment against the cities and an injunction to halt them from enacting the so-called sanctuary city policies.

“While states and local governments are free to stand aside as the United States performs this important work, they cannot stand in the way,” the suit says.

It’s the latest case from President Trump’s administration against sanctuary policies. The administration also sued Chicago, Denver, the state of Colorado, and Rochester, N.Y.

There is no official definition for sanctuary policies or sanctuary cities. The terms generally describe limited local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE enforces U.S. immigration laws nationwide but sometimes seeks state and local help.

Messages seeking comment were left Friday with the affected cities.

Paterson Mayor Andre Sayegh said his city would fight the suit, calling it an “egregious attempt to score political points at Paterson’s expense.”

“We will not be intimidated,” he said in a text message.

Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla said in a statement the city prides itself on its inclusivity.

“The City of Hoboken will vigorously work to defend our rights, have our day in court, and defeat the Trump Administration’s lawlessness. To be clear: we will not back down,” he said.

The mayors of all four cities are Democrats.

New Jersey’s attorney general adopted a statewide Immigrant Trust Directive in 2018, which bars local police from cooperation with federal officials conducting immigration enforcement. The policies adopted by the four cities are similar.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a lower court that New Jersey’s statewide policy could stand, but it’s unclear how that court’s order might affect the government’s case against the four cities.

Catalini writes for the Associated Press.

Throughout his 2024 campaign for president, Donald Trump strongly and repeatedly denied any connection to Project 2025, the political platform document authored by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

“I have nothing to do with Project 2025,” Trump said during a debate with former Vice President Kamala Harris last September. He said he had not read the document, nor did he intend to.

Yet less than six months into his second stay in the White House, the president and his administration have initiated or completed 42% of Project 2025’s agenda, according to a tracking project that identified more than 300 specific action items in the 922-page document. The Project 2025 Tracker is run by two volunteers who “believe in the importance of transparent, detailed analysis,” according to its website.

Of all the action items, nearly a quarter are related to the environment through agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Forest Service, and the departments of the Interior, Commerce, and Energy. Further, it seems the environment is a high priority for the Trump administration, which has initiated or completed about 70% of Project 2025’s environmental agenda — or roughly two-thirds — according to a Times analysis of the tracked items.

That includes Project 2025 action items like rolling back air and water quality regulations; canceling funds for clean energy projects and environmental justice grants; laying off scientists and researchers in related fields; and withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord, an agreement among nearly 200 countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming.

When asked about this overlap, the administration continued to downplay any connection between the president and Project 2025.

“No one cared about Project 2025 when they elected President Trump in November 2024, and they don’t care now,” White House spokesman Taylor Rogers said in an email. “President Trump is implementing the America First agenda he campaigned on to free up wasteful DEI spending for cutting-edge scientific research, roll back radical climate regulations, and restore America’s energy dominance while ensuring Americans have clean air and clean water.”

Project 2025 refers to climate change as an “alarm industry” used to support a radical left ideology and agenda.

“Mischaracterizing the state of our environment generally and the actual harms reasonably attributable to climate change specifically is a favored tool that the Left uses to scare the American public into accepting their ineffective, liberty-crushing regulations, diminished private property rights, and exorbitant costs,” it says in a chapter about the EPA.

The author of that chapter, Mandy Gunasekara, served as the EPA’s chief of staff during Trump’s first administration. In the document, she recommends that the president undertake a number of actions to reform the EPA, including downsizing the agency, eliminating its Office of Environmental Justice and Civil Rights, and instituting a pause and review of grants — all of which Trump has done.

That same chapter also recommends that the president undermine California’s ability to set strict vehicle emission standards, which Trump vowed to do shortly after taking office; the Senate this week voted to revoke California’s rights to enact policy on the issue.

Gunasekara did not respond to a request for comment.

Matthew Sanders, acting deputy director of the Environmental Law Clinic at Stanford, said these and other Project 2025-mandated moves could have far-reaching ramifications. He noted that 11 other states had chosen to follow California’s emission rules.

“What California does impacts what the rest of the nation does,” Sanders said. “In that sense … decisions about how to effectuate the Clean Air Act mandates are technology-forcing for much of the nation, and isolating California and eliminating its ability to do that will have profound consequences.”

The EPA isn’t the only agency affected by environmental policy changes mirrored in Project 2025.

The Trump administration has also directed the Department of Energy to expand oil and gas leasing in Alaska, eliminate considerations for upstream and downstream greenhouse gas emissions, and expedite the approval of liquefied natural gas projects, all of which were recommendations outlined in the document.

The Interior Department, which oversees U.S. national parks and public lands, has seen rollbacks of at least a dozen of President Biden’s executive orders that prioritized addressing climate change, as well as the termination of a Biden-era policy to protect 30% of U.S. land and water by 2030, also known as the 30×30 plan.

In April, Trump issued an executive order opening up 112.5 million acres of national forestland to industrial logging, as outlined on page 308 of Project 2025. The president said the move — which will touch all 18 of California’s national forests — is intended to increase domestic timber supplies, reduce wildfire risk and create jobs.

Sanders said actions on public lands are particularly consequential, not only for the extraction of resources but also for protected species and their habitats. The president has already taken Project 2025-mandated steps to lessen protections for marine life and birds, and has called for narrowing protections afforded by the Endangered Species Act.

He also expressed concern about Trump’s Jan. 20 proposal to revise or rescind National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) regulations that require federal agencies to consider the environmental impacts of their actions — a step recommended on page 60 of Project 2025.

While the president described NEPA and other rules as “burdensome and ideologically motivated regulations” that limit American jobs and stymie economic growth, Sanders said such framing is an oversimplification that can make the environment a scapegoat for other administrative goals.

“When we make these decisions in a thoughtful, careful, deliberate way, we actually can have jobs and economic development and environmental protection,” he said. “ I don’t think that those things are inherently opposed, but the administration, I think, gets some mileage out of suggesting that they are.”

Indeed, the Commerce Department, which houses the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service and other climate-related entities, has also seen changes that follow Project 2025’s playbook. The document describes the agency as “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry and, as such, is harmful to future U.S. prosperity.”

In recent months, the president has made moves to “break up” NOAA — a directive also found on page 674 of the Project 2025 document — including laying off hundreds of staffers, closing several offices and proposing significant cuts to its research arm.

The administration has similarly taken Project 2025-recommended steps to shift disaster relief responsibilities away from the federal government and onto the states; loosen energy efficiency standards for appliances; and rescind USAID policies that address climate change and help countries transition away from fossil fuels, among others.

These are some of nearly 70 environmental action items identified in the Project 2025 Tracker, of which 47 are already completed or in progress less than 150 days into President Trump’s second term.

Tracking the administration’s progress is a somewhat subjective process, in part because many of the directives have come through executive orders or require multiple steps to complete. Additionally, many goals outlined in Project 2025 are indirect or implied and therefore not included in the tracker, according to Adrienne Cobb, one of its creators.

Cobb told The Times she read through the entire document and extracted only “explicit calls to action, or recommendations where the authors clearly state that something should be done.”

“My goal was for the tracker to reflect the authors’ intentions using their own words wherever possible,” she said. “By focusing on direct language and actionable items, I tried to create a list that’s accurate and accountable to the source material.”

Though the Trump administration continues to deny any connection to Project 2025, the creators of the massive tome were always clear about their presidential intentions.

“This volume — the Conservative Promise — is the opening salvo of the 2025 Presidential Transition Project,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts wrote in its forward. “Its 30 chapters lay out hundreds of clear and concrete policy recommendations for White House offices, Cabinet departments, Congress, and agencies, commissions, and boards.”

NEW YORK — The Trump administration is accusing Columbia University of violating the civil rights of Jewish students by “acting with deliberate indifference” toward what it describes as rampant antisemitism on campus.

The finding was announced late Thursday by the Health and Human Services Department, marking the latest blow for an Ivy League school already shaken by federal cutbacks and sustained government pressure to crack down on student speech.

It comes hours after the Department of Homeland Security said it would revoke Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, a major escalation in the administration’s monthslong attack on higher education.

The civil rights division of HHS said it had found Columbia in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which blocks federal funding recipients from discrimination based on race, color or national origin. That final category, the press release notes, includes “discrimination against individuals that is based on their actual or perceived Israeli or Jewish identity or ancestry.”

The announcement did not include new sanctions against Columbia, which is already facing $400 million in federal cuts by the Trump administration over its response to pro-Palestinian campus protests.

A spokesperson for Columbia said the university is currently in negotiations with the government about resolving its claims of antisemitism.

“We understand this finding is part of our ongoing discussions with the government,” the spokesperson said in an email. “Columbia is deeply committed to combatting antisemitism and all forms of harassment and discrimination on our campus.”

The civil rights investigation into Columbia was based on witness interviews, media reports and other sources, according to HHS. The findings were not made public. A spokesperson did not response to a request for further information.

“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,” Anthony Archeval, acting director of the HHS civil rights office, said in a statement.

Last spring, Columbia became the epicenter of protests against the war in Gaza, spurring a national movement of campus demonstrations that demanded universities cut ties with Israel.

At the time, some Jewish students and faculty complained about being harassed during the demonstrations or ostracized because of their faith or their support of Israel.

Those who participated in Columbia’s protests, including some Jewish students, have said they are protesting Israel’s actions against Palestinians and have forcefully denied allegations of antisemitism.

Many have also accused the university of capitulating to the Trump administration’s demands — including placing its Middle East studies department under new leadership — at the expense of academic freedom and protecting foreign students.

At a commencement ceremony earlier this week, a speech by Columbia’s acting president, Claire Shipman, was met with loud boos by graduates and chants of “free Palestine.”

Offenhartz writes for the Associated Press.

The Trump administration blocked Harvard University’s ability to enrol international students on Thursday. The move marks a sharp escalation in tensions between the White House and the Ivy League university.

A POPULAR high street name is set to make a dramatic return 13 years after vanishing from UK towns and cities.

Comet, once a go-to store for electrical goods, is being brought back by online marketplace OnBuy – but this time, it’s going digital.

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The retailer, which closed all 236 of its UK branches in 2012, including popular outlets in Essex, will relaunch as an online-only platform in time for the festive season.

Founded in Hull in 1933, Comet grew from selling batteries and radios into a nationwide electrical giant.

It was a household name for decades, known for its deals on TVs, washing machines, and home appliances, before financial trouble forced it into administration in 2012.

Its collapse was one of the biggest retail failures of the time, with thousands of staff losing their jobs and many shoppers left disappointed.

Now, more than a decade later, there’s fresh hope for fans of the iconic brand.

OnBuy’s boss, Cas Paton, said he’s determined to restore Comet’s former glory.

“I am so excited, so thrilled. Growing up, I went to Comet to get what I needed.

“It was a brand that was close to me personally,” he said.

The relaunch won’t see the return of physical shops, but the digital revival promises a wide range of electronics, from big names to emerging tech brands.

OnBuy plans to use its marketplace model to connect shoppers directly with manufacturers, offering better prices and more variety.

Paton added: “We will be ultra competitive and undercut Currys and Amazon.”

He believes OnBuy’s modern approach and Comet’s strong heritage will help win over UK customers.

A significant portion of the £10 million investment will go towards building the Comet website and boosting its technology.

Around 50 new jobs are expected to be created as part of the relaunch effort.

Paton, who started his first business with just £80 after serving in the Royal Navy, said the brand’s revival is about more than nostalgia.

“We’re not just reviving a name; we’re reimagining what trusted electronics retail looks like in a digital-first economy,” he said.

OnBuy, which launched in 2016 and is now worth around £200 million, hopes to turn Comet into a major online player.

The relaunch comes at a time when more consumers are shopping online and seeking alternatives to big-name retailers.

Shoppers can expect a mix of old and new when Comet returns, with the website promising:

“We’re reviving the brand you love to bring you the best tech, brands, and deals worth waiting for.”

Although the high street stores won’t reopen, many still have fond memories of browsing the aisles at their local Comet.

For those in Essex and beyond, the return of the name, even online, is sure to stir a sense of retail nostalgia.

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May 22 (UPI) — The Trump administration has stopped Harvard from accepting international students after the Ivy League institution lost its ability to use the Student and Exchange Visitor Program, the Trump administration announced Thursday.

The SEVP allows non-citizens to enroll using a specific visa.

“As a result of your refusal to comply with multiple requests to provide the Department of Homeland Security pertinent information while perpetuating an unsafe campus environment that is hostile to Jewish students, promotes pro-Hamas sympathies, and employs racist ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ policies, you have lost this privilege,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a letter to school.

The letter went on to say that, as a result of the revocation, Harvard would be prohibited from having international students using specific types of nonimmigrant visas on campus for the 2025-2026 academic year, and said the students would have to transfer to another university to maintain their nonimmigrant status.

In a separate post on social media, Noem said Harvard had “plenty of opportunity to do the right thing. It refused.”

In April, Noem wrote to Harvard asking university officials to provide the DHS with information about visa holders’ known illegal or violent activity, threats to fellow students or faculty, whether they had been involved in protests or disrupted students’ learning environment, and listing the coursework students were taking to maintain their visa status.

Noem has also said that the administration revoked two grants totaling $2.7 million, citing inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars.

The administration’s move is the latest step in a months-long fight with Harvard over international students during which the Trump administration threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax exempt status.

Harvard pushed back on Noem’s Thursday letter, calling the Trump administration’s move “unlawful,” and said it will likely file a second legal challenge.

“We are fully committed to maintaining Harvard’s ability to host our international students and scholars, who hail from more than 140 countries and enrich the University — and this nation — immeasurably,” in a statement, the BBC reported.

McALLEN, Texas — The Trump administration is seeking to end an immigration policy cornerstone that since the 1990s has offered protections to child migrants in federal custody, a move that will be challenged by advocates, according to a court filing Thursday.

The protections in place, known as the Flores Settlement, largely limit to 72 hours the amount of time that child migrants traveling alone or with family are detained by the U.S. Border Patrol. They also ensure the children are kept in safe and sanitary conditions.

President Trump tried to end the protections during his first term and his allies have long railed against it. The court filing, submitted jointly by the administration and advocates, says the government plans to detail its arguments later Thursday and propose a hearing on July 18 before U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee.

The settlement is named for a Salvadoran girl, Jenny Flores, whose lawsuit alleging widespread mistreatment of children in custody in the 1980s prompted special oversight.

In August 2019, the first Trump administration asked a judge to dissolve the agreement. Its motion eventually was struck down in December 2020 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Under the Biden administration, oversight protections for child migrants were lifted for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services after new guidelines were put in place last year.

The Department of Homeland Security is still beholden to the agreement, including Customs and Border Protection, which detains and processes children after their arrival in the U.S. with or without their parents. Children then are usually released with their families or sent to a shelter operated by Health and Human Services, though processing times often go up when the number of people entering increases in a short period.

Even with the agreement in place, there have been instances where the federal government failed to provide adequate conditions for children, as in a case in Texas where nearly 300 children had to be moved from a Border Patrol facility following reports they were receiving inadequate food, water and sanitation.

Court-appointed monitors provide oversight of the agreement and report noncompliant facilities to Gee. Customs and Border Protection was set to resume its own oversight, but in January a federal judge ruled it was not ready and extended the use of court-appointed monitors for another 18 months.

Gonzalez writes for the Associated Press.

May 21 (UPI) — The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to block proceedings on a case looking to get information on the Department of Government Efficiency.

In an application to stay the orders of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking documents about DOGE under the Freedom of Information Act, Solicitor General John Sauer wrote that DOGE is exempt from such requests.

“The U.S. DOGE Service is a presidential advisory body within the Executive Office of the President. The President, in various executive orders, has tasked USDS with providing recommendations to him and to federal agencies on policy matters that the President has deemed important to his agenda,” Sauer wrote. “Given those advisory functions, USDS is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act.”

The government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, filed a lawsuit against DOGE in February, which described DOGE as “a cadre of largely unidentified actors, whose status as government employees is unclear, controlling major government functions with no oversight.”

The CREW suit asked for DOGE to comply with its FOIA requests “and promptly disclose the requested records.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for D.C. ordered in May that DOGE must provide the requested information.

CREW responded to the request from Sauer to the Supreme Court with a statement Wednesday that said “While DOGE continues to attempt to fight transparency at every level of justice, we look forward to making our case that the Supreme Court should join the District Court and Court of Appeals in allowing discovery to go forward.”

May 20 (UPI) — The Trump administration has lifted a stop-work order on New York’s offshore wind energy project and will allow construction to resume.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Monday evening that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and President Donald Trump had agreed to lift the order after making progress on a natural gas compromise with the state.

“Americans who live in New York and New England would see significant economic benefits and lower utility costs from increased access to reliable, affordable, clean American natural gas,” Burgum wrote in a post on X.

The offshore and wind energy project Empire Wind 1, off Long Island, is the first offshore wind project that would deliver electricity directly to New York City. It was approved by the Biden administration and stopped last month by Trump.

Throughout his campaign, Trump made his opposition to wind power clear as he pushed offshore fossil fuel production instead. In January, Trump signed an executive order that bans new leases for offshore wind in U.S. waters.

Equinor, the parent company of Empire Offshore Wind LLC, suspended offshore construction last month in compliance with the Interior Department order.

According to Burgum, the Empire Wind 1 project was tabled “until further review of information that suggests the Biden administration rushed through its approval without sufficient analysis.”

Hochul pushed back last month, saying, “Empire Wind 1 is already employing hundreds of New Yorkers, including 1,000 good-paying union jobs as part of a growing sector that has already spurred significant economic development and private investment throughout the state and beyond.”

On Tuesday, Equinor expressed gratitude for the administration’s agreement with New York.

“We appreciate the fact that construction can now resume on Empire Wind, a project which underscores our commitment to deliver energy while supporting local economies and creating jobs,” said Anders Opedal, president and chief executive officer of Equinor.

Equinor’s work began last year with the goal of gearing up commercial operations in 2027. The Empire Wind 1 project is 30% complete. It will include 54 turbines, up to 910-feet tall, that will generate 810 megawatts of electricity for half a million homes.

“I would like to thank President Trump for finding a solution that saves thousands of American jobs and provides for continued investments in energy infrastructure in the United States,” Opedal added. “I am grateful to Gov. Hochul for her constructive collaboration with the Trump administration, without which we would not have been able to advance this project and secure energy for 500,000 homes in New York.”

A United States citizen has been transferred to the US after being held for nearly six months in Venezuela.

The family of US Air Force veteran Joseph St Clair confirmed his release on Tuesday, following his detention in November of last year.

“This news came suddenly, and we are still processing it, but we are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude,” St Clair’s parents, Scott and Patti, said in a statement.

US President Donald Trump’s envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, later explained on social media that he had met with Venezuelan officials on the Caribbean island of Antigua to negotiate the release.

Grenell credited St Clair’s freedom to Trump’s “America First” political platform.

“Joe St. Clair is back in America,” he wrote. “I met Venezuelan officials in a neutral country today to negotiate an America First strategy. This is only possible because [Trump] puts Americans first. ”

Citing anonymous sources familiar with the negotiations, the Reuters news agency reported that Grenell discussed St Clair’s case on Tuesday with Jorge Rodriguez, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly and an ally of President Nicolas Maduro.

Reuters and another news agency, Bloomberg, both reported that a deal was struck to extend a licence for the US oil company Chevron to operate in Venezuela by 60 days.

The Trump administration had previously announced it was revoking the licence in February, on the basis that Venezuela had not upheld its commitment to fair elections. The licence was due to end on May 27.

Any extension will likely need the approval of the US Department of State and the US Treasury.

The South American country relies on oil as the pillar of its economy. But since the mid-2010s, Venezuela has experienced an economic crisis that has pushed even basic supplies like food and medicine beyond what some families can afford.

That, combined with alleged political repression, has prompted an exodus of nearly 7.9 million people out of Venezuela, according to the United Nations.

In 2023, Venezuela committed to electoral reforms under the Barbados Agreement, a deal that the US applauded. Then-US President Joe Biden loosened restrictions on Venezuela’s oil industry in the aftermath of the agreement.

But Venezuela’s presidential election on July 28, 2024 was widely criticised for its lack of transparency. While Maduro and his allies claimed he had won a third term, the electoral authorities did not provide any proof of his victory.

Instead, the opposition coalition published voting tallies it said proved that its candidate had won by a landslide. That prompted widespread protests and a deadly crackdown from law enforcement.

During his first term in office, from 2017 to 2021, Trump had pursued a campaign of “maximum pressure” on Maduro’s government, even offering a $15m bounty for information that led to the Venezuelan leader’s arrest.

But critics have pointed out that Trump may need Venezuela’s cooperation to carry out his goal of “mass deportation” during his second term.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has signalled a willingness to negotiate with Maduro. In late January, he even sent Grenell to meet with Maduro in person in the capital of Caracas. Part of Grenell’s directive was to ensure all detained Americans in the country were returned home.

As Grenell left the country, he revealed he was returning with six Americans who had previously been imprisoned in Venezuela.

In March, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio estimated that nine Americans remained in Venezuela’s custody.

Venezuela, for its part, has started to accept deportation flights from the US, although in the past it has refused to accept migrants removed from the US.

St Clair’s family has said that the military veteran was a language specialist who was seeking treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder in South America.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has agreed to pay just under $5 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit that Ashli Babbitt’s family filed over her shooting by an officer during the U.S. Capitol riot, according to a person with knowledge of the settlement. The person insisted on anonymity to discuss with the Associated Press terms of a settlement that have not been made public.

The settlement would resolve the $30-million federal lawsuit that Babbitt’s estate filed last year in Washington, D.C. On Jan. 6, 2021, a Capitol police officer shot Babbitt as she tried to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby.

The officer who shot her was cleared of wrongdoing by the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia, which concluded that he acted in self-defense and in the defense of members of Congress. The Capitol Police also cleared the officer.

Settlement terms haven’t been disclosed in public court filings. On May 2, lawyers for Babbitt’s estate and the Justice Department told a federal judge that they had reached a settlement in principle but were still working out the details before a final agreement could be signed.

Justice Department spokespeople and two attorneys for the Babbitt family didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Babbitt, a 35-year-old Air Force veteran from San Diego, was unarmed when she was shot by the officer. The lawsuit alleges that the plainclothes officer failed to de-escalate the situation and did not give her any warnings or commands before opening fire.

The suit also accused the Capitol Police of negligence, claiming the department should have known that the officer was “prone to behave in a dangerous or otherwise incompetent manner.”

“Ashli posed no threat to the safety of anyone,” the lawsuit said.

The officer said in a televised interview that he fired as a “last resort.” He said he didn’t know if the person jumping through the window was armed when he pulled the trigger.

Thousands of people stormed the Capitol after President Trump spoke to a crowd of supporters at his Jan. 6 “Stop the Steal” rally near the White House. More than 100 police officers were injured in the attack.

In January, on his first day back in the White House, Trump pardoned, commuted the prison sentences or ordered the dismissal of charges for all of the more than 1,500 people charged with crimes in the riot.

Tucker and Kunzelman write for the Associated Press. AP writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.

May 19 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to revoke special legal protections for nearly 350,000 Venezuelan nationals living in the United States temporarily.

Homeland Security had asked the justices to lift a lower court’s injunction that blocked Secretary Kristi Noem’s revocations of the Temporary Protected Status program, or TPS.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said she would deny emergency relief.

The brief order said Northern California district court order is “stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought.”

The TPS program, created in 1990, provides temporary legal status and work authorization to nationals from countries experiencing armed conflict, natural disasters or other extraordinary conditions.

On Feb. 3, Noem terminated the designation, which began in March 2021 and was extended by the Biden administration in October 2023. On April 7, protected Venezuelans were to lose their government-issued work permits and deportation protections.

Another 250,000 immigrants from the Central American country who arrived before 2023 will lose their status in September.

In all, about eight million people have left Venezuela since 2014 due to political persecution, violence, and a lack of food and access to essential services. In 2023, Nicolás Maduro was elected in a race contested as fraudulent by the opposition and outside observers.

The Venezuelan program is the largest TPS designation.

At least 60 days before a TPS designation expires, the agency’s secretary is required to review the conditions in a country designated for TPS to determine whether the conditions supporting the designation continue to be met.

On March 30, District Judge Edward Chen in San Francisco blocked the action and said the decision to terminate the TPS program for the Venezuelans appeared to be “predicated on negative stereotypes.” The appointee of President Barack Obama said the order was “motivated by unconstitutional animus” and unlikely to prevail in a court’s final decision.

On April 15, Massachusetts-based U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, also appointed by Obama, separately temporarily blocked a TPS revocation of about 532,000 people from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela in the United States. It was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court

Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the administration’s emergency appeal of the decision by Chen: “So long as the order is in effect, the secretary must permit hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals to remain in the country, notwithstanding her reasoned determination that doing so is ‘contrary to the national interest.'”

Seven Venezuelan nationals covered by TPS and a group that represents others challenged the change.

Lawyers for TPS beneficiaries told the Supreme Court in a filing: “Staying the district court’s order would cause far more harm than it would stop. It would radically shift the status quo, stripping plaintiffs of their legal status and requiring them to return to a country the State Department still deems too dangerous even to visit.”

The U.S. State Department advises Americans not to travel to Venezuela, the highest travel advisory level.

At the end of Trump’s first term, officials described Venezuela as “the worst humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere.” A different form of temporary relief to some of its migrants was granted.

This litigation is separate from lawsuits involving Trump’s use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged Venezuelan gang members. The Supreme Court ruled Friday again against the administration, saying more notice is needed for people to challenge their removal under the act, which has been used during wars. In April, the justices paused deportations of any Venezuelans held in northern Texas.

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. — Kat Renfroe was at Mass when she saw a volunteer opportunity in the bulletin. Her Catholic parish was looking for tutors for Afghan youth, newly arrived in the United States.

There was a personal connection for Renfroe. Her husband, now retired from the Marine Corps, had deployed to Afghanistan four times. “He just never talked about any other region the way he did about the people there,” she said.

She signed up to volunteer. “It changed my life,” she said.

That was seven years ago. She and her husband are still close to the young man she tutored, along with his family. And Renfroe has made a career of working with refugees. She now supervises the Fredericksburg migration and refugee services office, part of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington.

That faith-based work is now in peril. As part of President Trump’s immigration crackdown, his administration banned most incoming refugees in January and froze federal funds for the programs. Across the country, local resettlement agencies like hers have been forced to lay off staff or close their doors. Refugees and other legal migrants have been left in limbo, including Afghans who supported the U.S. in their native country.

The upheaval is particularly poignant in this part of Virginia, which boasts both strong ties to the military and to resettled Afghans, along with faith communities that support both groups.

Situated south of Washington and wedged among military bases, Fredericksburg and its surrounding counties are home to tens of thousands of veterans and active-duty personnel.

Virginia has resettled more Afghan refugees per capita than any other state. The Fredericksburg area now has halal markets, Afghan restaurants and school outreach programs for families who speak Dari and Pashto.

Many of these U.S.-based Afghans are still waiting for family members to join them — hopes that appear on indefinite hold. Families fear a new travel ban will emerge with Afghanistan on the list. A subset of Afghans already in the U.S. may soon face deportation as the Trump administration ends their temporary protected status.

“I think it’s tough for military families, especially those who have served, to look back on 20 years and not feel as though there’s some confusion and maybe even some anger about the situation,” Renfroe said.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced in April that it was ending its decades-old partnership with the federal government to resettle refugees. The move came after the Trump administration halted the program’s federal funding, which the bishops’ conference channels to local Catholic Charities.

The Fredericksburg Catholic Charities office has continued aiding current clients and operating with minimal layoffs thanks to its diocese’s support and state funds. But it’s unclear what the local agency’s future will be without federal funding or arriving refugees.

“I’ll just keep praying,” Renfroe said. “It’s all I can do from my end.”

A legacy of faith-based service

Religious groups have long been at the heart of U.S. refugee resettlement work. Until the recent policy changes, seven out of the 10 national organizations that partnered with the U.S. government to resettle refugees were faith-based. They were aided by hundreds of local affiliates and religious congregations.

Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington has been working with refugees for 50 years, starting with Vietnamese people after the fall of Saigon. For the last 10 years, most of its clients have been Afghans, with an influx arriving in 2021 after the Taliban returned to power.

Area faith groups like Renfroe’s large church — St. Mary’s in Fredericksburg — have been key to helping Afghan newcomers get on their feet. Volunteers from local congregations furnish homes, provide meals and drive families to appointments.

“As a church, we care deeply. As Christians, we care deeply,” said Joi Rogers, who led the Afghan ministry at her Southern Baptist church. “As military, we also just have an obligation to them as people that committed to helping the U.S. in our mission over there.”

Rogers’ husband, Jake, a former Marine, is one of the pastors at Pillar, a network of 16 Southern Baptist churches that minister to military members. Their flagship location is near Quantico, the Marine base in northern Virginia, where nearly 5,000 Afghans were evacuated to after the fall of Kabul.

With Southern Baptist relief funds, Pillar Church hired Joi Rogers to work part time as a volunteer coordinator in the base’s makeshift refugee camp in 2021. She helped organize programming, including children’s activities. Her position was under the auspices of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which the government contracted to help run the camp.

For Pillar’s founding pastor, Colby Garman, the effort was an easy decision. “It was affecting so many of the lives of our families here who had served in Afghanistan.”

“We’ve been told to love God and love our neighbor,” Garman said. “I said to our people, this is an opportunity, a unique opportunity, for us to demonstrate love for our neighbor.”

Christians called to care for refugees, politics aside

Within five months, as the Afghans left the base for locations around the country, the support at the camp transitioned to the broader community. Pillar started hosting an English class. Church members visited locally resettled families and tried to keep track of their needs.

For one Pillar Church couple in nearby Stafford, Va., that meant opening their home to a teenager who had arrived alone in the U.S. after being separated from her family at the Kabul airport — a situation they heard about through the church.

Katlyn Williams and her husband Phil Williams, then an active-duty Marine, served as foster parents for Mahsa Zarabi, now 20, during her junior and senior years of high school. They introduced her to many American firsts: the beach, homecoming, learning to drive.

“The community was great,” Zarabi said. “They welcomed me very well.”

She attends college nearby; the Williamses visit her monthly. During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this spring, they broke fast with her and her family, now safely in Virginia.

“She has and will always be part of our family,” Katlyn Williams said.

Her friend Joi Rogers, while careful not to speak for Pillar, said watching the recent dismantling of the federal refugee program has “been very hard for me personally.”

Veterans and members of the military tend to vote Republican. Most Southern Baptists are among Trump’s staunch white evangelical supporters. For those reasons, Pillar pastor Garman knows it may be surprising to some that his church network has been steadfast in supporting refugees.

“I totally understand that is the case, but I think that is a bias of just not knowing who we are and what we do,” Garman said after a recent Sunday service.

Later, sitting in the church office with his wife, Jake Rogers said, “We recognize that there are really faithful Christians that could lie on either side of the issue of refugee policy.”

“Regardless of your view on what our national stance should be on this,” he said, “we as Christ followers should have a heart for these people that reflects God’s heart for these people.”

Unity through faith and refugee work

Later that week, nearly two dozen Afghan women gathered around a table at the Fredericksburg refugee office, while children played with toys in the corner. The class topic was self-care, led by an Afghan staff member. Along the back wall waited dishes of rice and chicken, part of a celebratory potluck to mark the end of Ramadan.

Sitting at the front was Suraya Qaderi, the last client to arrive at the resettlement agency before the U.S. government suspended new arrivals.

She was in Qatar waiting to be cleared for a flight to the United States when the Trump administration started canceling approved travel plans for refugees. “I was one of the lucky last few,” said Qaderi, who was allowed to proceed.

She arrived in Virginia on Jan. 24, the day the administration sent stop-work orders to resettlement agencies.

Qaderi worked for the election commission in Afghanistan, and she received a special immigrant visa for her close ties to the U.S. government. She was a child when her father disappeared under the previous Taliban regime.

The return of the Taliban government was like “the end of the world,” she said. As a woman, she lost many of her rights, including her ability to work and leave home unaccompanied.

She studied Islamic law during her university years. She believes the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam is wrong on the rights of women. “Islam is not only for them,” she said.

The resettlement office includes not only Catholic staffers, but many Muslim employees and clients. “We find so much commonality between our faiths,” Renfroe said.

Her Catholic faith guides her work, and it’s sustaining her through the uncertainty of what the funding and policy changes will mean for her organization, which remains committed to helping refugees.

“I’m happy to go back to being a volunteer again if that’s what it takes,” Renfroe said.

Regardless of government contracts, she wants local refugee families to know “that we’re still here, that we care about them and that we want to make sure that they have what they need.”

Stanley writes for the Associated Press.