executive order

A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to restore signs related to topics such as climate change, slavery and Indigenous and LGBTQ+ history that were removed under an executive order to purge language at national parks that allegedly cast America in a negative light.

The order has prompted the removal of mentions of President Washington’s slaves at Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia, signs regarding climate threats at Fort Sumter in South Carolina and a pride flag at the Stonewall National Monument in New York City, according to the lawsuit challenging the action.

In California, language related to the internment of Japanese Americans at the Manzanar National Historic Site, as well as the history of Indigenous people in Death Valley and Muir Woods came under scrutiny.

A preliminary injunction was issued Friday by U.S. District Judge Angel Kelley in Boston, who sided with a coalition of conservation and historical groups and ordered all language removed under the order to be reinstated before the Fourth of July. Earlier this year, another federal judge ordered the signage related to Washington’s slaves restored.

In Friday’s injunction, Kelley accused the Trump administration of seeking “to rewrite the Nation’s history with a white-out pen,” and said that national parks play an important role in telling the multifaceted history of America, including “the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

“Because Defendants deemed it important to strip the parks of these undeniable truths in anticipation of the 250th Anniversary of our great Nation,” she wrote, “it is equally important that our shared history be honestly told and fully restored by the 250th Anniversary to properly honor the remarkable achievements of the United States.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of the Interior dismissed the ruling as the work of a “liberal activist judge.”

“The Department will look at our appeal options while we celebrate UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House this weekend in honor of our nation’s 250th with the greatest president in the history of our country — President Donald J. Trump,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Trump initially signed the executive order in March 2025, arguing that a revisionist movement is seeking to undermine American history by replacing objective fact with a distorted, ideologically driven narrative.

“Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed,” the order stated.

Under the order, more than 430 sites under the purview of the National Park Service were told to review language on monuments, memorials, statues and markers to ensure they didn’t disparage Americans past or present, with a close eye on language added during former President Biden’s administration. QR codes were also added at sites encouraging visitors to report any signs they believed violated the order.

In February, a coalition including the National Parks Conservation Assn., American Assn. for State and Local History, Assn. of National Park Rangers and Union of Concerned Scientists filed a lawsuit in federal court in Boston alleging that the order was erasing American history and science.

“National parks serve as living classrooms for our country, where science and history come to life for visitors,” Alan Spears, senior director of cultural resources at the parks conservation association, said in a February statement. “As Americans, we deserve national parks that tell stories of our country’s triumphs and heartbreaks alike. We can handle the truth.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Trump signed an executive order on artificial intelligence Tuesday, less than two weeks after postponing a White House ceremony over his concerns that a similar policy could dull America’s edge on AI technology.

The order establishes a framework for the federal government to vet the national security risks of the most advanced AI systems for up to a month before their public release. The government will be able to work with trusted partners “that will have early access to covered frontier models to promote secure innovation and strengthen the cybersecurity of critical infrastructure,” the order says.

It was not immediately clear to what extent the order differed from the one he declined to sign on May 21.

Trump canceled an Oval Office event with tech industry executives last month because he did not like what he saw in the earlier version of the order’s text. “We’re leading China, we’re leading everybody, and I don’t want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of that lead,” Trump told reporters at the time.

That directive was characterized as a voluntary collaboration with participating U.S.-based tech companies, including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google.

O’Brien writes for the Associated Press.

California voters are deeply divided over the trustworthiness of state elections heading into Tuesday’s primary, with most Democrats but less than half of Republicans expressing confidence in the electoral process, according to a new poll.

The polarized view follows a years-long campaign by President Trump and his Republican allies to question the legitimacy of American elections, especially in California and other blue states. It also follows robust efforts from liberal leaders, elections officials and voting rights experts to denounce Trump’s claims as baseless.

Overall, registered voters in the state — which skews heavily Democratic — expressed confidence in local election officials by a 2-to-1 margin, with 65% expressing confidence and 31% expressing a lack of confidence, according to the poll released Tuesday by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

However, those figures shift dramatically when sorted by political party, and even more when parsed by partisan leaning.

For example, 79% of Democratic voters expressed confidence in local officials running a secure and fair election, compared to 62% of independent voters and 42% of Republican voters, the poll found.

While 82% of voters who identified as strongly liberal expressed confidence, just 38% of voters who identified as strongly conservative did so.

A volunteer assists Melani Hurwitz at a polling location Monday at the Cal State Long Beach Walter Pyramid.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

“It’s clearly a partisan issue, and it is being promoted by the president and others who are his followers,” said Mark DiCamillo, the director of Berkeley IGS polls. “Strong conservatives and the Republicans are the least confident, and a lot of them are saying [they are] not at all confident. That’s a pretty extreme statement.”

Rick Hasen, an election law expert and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at UCLA Law, said he expected Republican confidence to be even lower given Trump’s decade of undermining trust in elections, especially in liberal, diverse states such as California. But he said neither Trump’s narrative nor public sentiment about election security — which generally shows voters are more confident “when their side wins” — reflects reality, which is that “our elections are administered well.”

“There’s very little evidence of manipulation or of fraud or even of incompetence,” Hasen said. “Anyone who looks objectively would see that there are numerous safeguards to ensure we have free and fair elections in California.”

Trump has long contended without evidence that voter fraud is pervasive among undocumented immigrants and in states, such as California, that use mail ballots, and blamed his 2020 loss to Joe Biden on such fraud despite experts rejecting the claim and Trump’s own allies and lawyers being unable to prove it.

A voter casts their vote inside the Westchester Family YMCA Annex on Monday.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Since returning to the White House last year, Trump has tried to implement strict new requirements for voter ID and proof of citizenship and to limit or bar mail-in voting, and called for greater federal or Republican Party control over state-run elections. In February, he said that “Republicans ought to nationalize the voting” in “at least 15 places” where they lose.

On Saturday, Trump falsely claimed that California doesn’t have any voting booths and only accepts mail ballots.

Democratic leaders, elections experts and voting rights advocates have all pushed back. They’ve backed their assurances that the state’s elections are safe with lawsuits to block Trump’s efforts to assert federal control. They also warn that his administration may try to intervene anyway, including by sending federal immigration agents to polling locations or intercepting or invalidating mailed ballots.

When Trump issued an executive order in March 2025 purporting to require voters to provide proof of citizenship, California sued, with a court blocking the policy while the litigation continues. When the Justice Department sued California Secretary of State Shirley Weber in September for refusing to hand over the state’s voter rolls, California won a dismissal in court. When Trump issued another executive order this March directing the U.S. Postal Service to take control of mail balloting, California sued again. That litigation is ongoing.

Last week Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill barring federal agents and other law enforcement from interfering with local and state elections officials or confiscating ballots, voter rolls or voting machines without a warrant. Newsom said California voters were experiencing “legitimate anxiety” over election integrity given the threats from the Trump administration and the recent actions of Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco — a MAGA-backed Republican candidate for governor who recently seized hundreds of thousands of ballots as part of what he said was an investigation into potential fraud in last year’s election.

An election worker collects extracted vote by mail ballots to be tallied at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Ballot Processing Center in City of Industry.

(Gary Coronado / For The Times)

Newsom said he expects Trump to interfere with the upcoming election as well because “every single thing that Donald Trump is saying only suggests that he will do more, not less, to intimidate and to impact the outcome of this election,” but that the state stands ready to respond.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta last week said that his office is preparing for “all different types of scenarios” involving federal interference, from ballots being seized to immigration agents showing up at polling locations.

“We are currently monitoring any potential risks or threats, and we’re ready for any possibility,” he said.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) last week blasted the U.S. Postal Service for issuing a proposed rule to implement Trump’s mail ballot changes, despite the ongoing litigation. In April, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) helped convene a pair of “shadow hearings” in California where fellow House Democrats and a panel of experts shot down Trump’s claims about widespread fraud and expressed confidence in state elections.

A Berkeley IGS Poll from a year ago found that California voters support requiring first-time voters to show ID to prove citizenship in order to register, and that most supported requiring a government ID every time a voter casts a ballot. However, another Berkeley IGS Poll from last month found that strong majorities of California voters believe American democracy is under attack or being “tested.”

Dean Logan, head of the L.A. County registrar-recorder/county clerk’s office, said that overall confidence, “despite a sometimes volatile state and national narrative,” was “gratifying.”

“Election officials take connection to their community seriously. We recognize that our job is to facilitate their voting experience, and that voter participation is key to election security,” Logan said. “Regardless of party affiliation, our role as election officials focuses on the function and process of ensuring the voice of the electorate is heard and that compliance with the election laws adopted in our state is achieved.”

Jesse Salinas, president of the California Assn. of Clerks and Elections Officials and the registrar of voters in Yolo County, said local elections officials are “proud to be a steady source of trust at a consequential moment,” and stand ready to “open our doors to any voter who wants to see firsthand how our elections work and to answer any questions they may have.”

Times staff writer Iris Kwok contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — A Trump administration policy illegally banned transgender troops from military service, a divided panel of federal appeal court judges ruled on Monday.

The majority opinion by a three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia circuit largely upholds a March 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes in Washington, D.C. Reyes concluded that President Trump’s executive order to exclude transgender troops from military service likely violates their constitutional rights.

The administration appealed after Reyes issued a preliminary injunction requested by attorneys for six transgender people who are active-duty service members and two others seeking to join the military. The appeal court’s majority decided that the injunction should be narrowed to the plaintiffs currently serving in the military but not those seeking to join.

The ruling won’t immediately go into effect, allowing the administration time to ask the full appeals court to hear the case.

The U.S. Supreme Court allowed the transgender military ban to go into effect last year, as litigation continues to play out. Another lawsuit challenging the ban was filed in Washington state and led to a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs challenging the policy in that case.

In January 2025, Trump signed an executive order that claims the sexual identity of transgender service members “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life” and is harmful to military readiness.

In response to the order, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a policy that presumptively disqualifies people with gender dysphoria from military service. Gender dysphoria is the distress that a person feels because their assigned gender and gender identity don’t match. The medical condition has been linked to depression and suicidal thoughts.

The policy “appears to be driven by the bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group: persons who identify as transgender,” Judge Robert Wilkins wrote for the majority. Wilkins was nominated to the court by Democratic President Obama.

In a dissenting opinion, Judge Justin Walker said judges lack the power to second-guess the decision to exclude transgender troops.

“We have neither the expertise nor the authority to decide whether the military can exclude the plaintiffs from its ranks. The Constitution assigns that authority to Congress and the Commander in Chief,” wrote Walker, who was nominated by Trump, a Republican.

Judge Judith Rogers, who was nominated by Democratic President Clinton, joined Wilkins’ opinion but also partially dissented.

Kunzelman and Whitehurst write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court heads into the final month of its yearly term facing decisions on birthright citizenship, gun rights, transgender athletes and President Trump’s power over independent agencies.

Unlike in years past, the term’s most significant rulings were not left for the last week in June.

The court dealt Trump a major defeat in February by striking down his sweeping worldwide tariffs. The president is likely to suffer a second defeat when the justices reject his plan to revise the citizenship laws via an executive order.

Republicans won when the court struck down a Louisiana congressional district that favored a Black Democrat.

That decision has already shifted several congressional districts toward the GOP, but its greatest impact will be seen in 2028 and 2030.

Republicans are likely to prevail in two other pending cases.

One would free party committees to raise and spend more money to support their candidates. A second would change state laws to bar counting of mail ballots that arrive after election day.

The justices have 26 cases waiting to be decided before they go on a summer recess. Here are the major cases due for decision:

Trump and birthright citizenship

Does the 14th Amendment of 1868 mean what it says about who is a citizen?

It declares: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.”

The Supreme Court upheld that understanding in 1898, ruling that Wong Kim Ark, who was born to Chinese parents in San Francisco, was a U.S. citizen at birth. Congress adopted birthright citizenship in the Immigration and Nationality Acts of 1940 and 1952.

But on his first day back in the White House, Trump issued an executive order to deny citizenship to the newborns of parents who in the country unlawfully or temporarily on a student, work or tourist visa.

Judges blocked the order from taking effect, and in April, the justices gave a skeptical hearing to Trump’s lawyers as the president sat in the gallery.

The best outcome for Trump would be a ruling that rejects his executive order based on U.S. immigration law alone. Although a defeat, that could in theory permit Congress to revise the law and deny citizenship to the newborns of so-called “birth tourists.” (Trump vs. Barbara)

Guns and drugs

Can the government make it a crime for “habitual users of unlawful drugs” to have a gun, or does that violate 2nd Amendment rights?

Since 1968, federal law has prohibited gun possession by anyone who is an “unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.”

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in a Texas case struck down this provision as unconstitutional, except for someone who is “under an impairing influence” of drugs at the time of his arrest.

The Trump administration appealed and urged the Supreme Court to uphold the law against “habitual users of unlawful drugs,” including regular users of marijuana. (U.S. vs. Hemani)

In a second gun rights case, the court will decide whether Hawaii, California and three other states led by Democrats may forbid licensed gun owners from carrying a firearm into stores or private businesses open to the public unless they have the “express authorization” of the owners. (Wolford vs. Lopez)

Transgender athletes and school sports

Can states maintain separate sports teams for boys and girls “based on biological sex determined at birth” or does excluding transgender girls violate the Title IX law or the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection?

The justices heard appeals from West Virginia and Idaho after lower courts ruled they had discriminated against transgender girls, and most of them sounded ready to rule for the states.

The only question was whether the court will rule narrowly to uphold laws in the red states or go further to decide how Title IX applies nationwide. (West Virginia vs. B.P.J. and Little vs. Hecox)

Trump and independent agencies

Can the president fire the leaders of special agencies who were given a fixed term by Congress?

For most of American history, Congress created new boards or commissions with a specific mission, such as regulating railroad rates in the 1880s or nuclear power in the 1970s. By law, these agencies are led by a bipartisan board of experts who had a fixed term and could be fired only for cause.

But Trump and the court’s conservatives believe the president has the executive authority to control the government and to fire agency officials — but with one exception. The majority wants to preserve the independence of the Federal Reserve Board. (Trump vs. Slaughter)

Separately, the court will rule on whether Trump had the power to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook for cause. He alleged she engaged in mortgage fraud and dismissed her in a social media post. The justices blocked her removal and sounded ready to rule she deserved due process of law and a full hearing to contest the allegations. (Trump vs. Cook)

Temporary Protected Status

Can the Trump administration cancel legal protection for more than 300,000 Haitians and Syrians who are living and working in this country?

In 1990, Congress created this protected status for foreign nationals who could not return home safely because of armed conflicts or natural disasters.

The Obama administration extended protection to Haitians and Syrians. Last year, Trump’s then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sought to terminate it, but judges blocked her orders because it was still dangerous and unsafe in those countries.

Before the Supreme Court, Trump’s lawyers argued the law forbids “judicial review” of these executive decisions. (Mullin vs. Doe)

Campaign funds and political parties

Do the 50-year-old limits on how much political party committees can raise and spend to directly support their candidates violate the 1st Amendment?

During the Watergate era, Congress adopted limits on money in political campaigns, but the court has struck down the spending limits on free speech grounds. Left standing were the limits on direct contributions to candidates, including from political parties.

Republicans led by then-Sen. JD Vance sued, arguing the party limits were outdated and unwise in an era when super PACs are free to spend huge sums on campaigns. (National Republican Senatorial Committee vs. FEC)

The court also will rule on the GOP’s bid to strike down laws in California and most states that allow for counting mail ballots that were postmarked by election day but arrive a few days later. (Watson vs. Republican National Committee)

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday gave his endorsement to a January study by the Department of Health and Human Services that calls for cutting the number of vaccines recommended for every American child.

An executive order from Trump directs federal agencies to align their policies behind the study, which recommended an overhaul long called for by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The study found that the United States recommends more childhood vaccines than many peer nations.

The Trump administration previously moved to narrow the number of recommended childhood vaccines in response to the report, but the move was blocked by a federal judge in Massachusetts. The administration is appealing the decision.

The study recommends vaccinating all children against 11 diseases. Several others would be recommended only for high-risk groups or when doctors recommend them in what’s called “shared decision-making.” That includes vaccines for flu, rotavirus, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, some forms of meningitis and RSV.

Trump’s order adds weight behind the study at a time when the administration had appeared to be trying to shift focus away from Kennedy’s more contentious vaccine policies and toward topics with more widespread support among medical professionals, such as healthful eating.

The order directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to review the study and “take any appropriate steps” to update its vaccine recommendations. It says the CDC should “provide maximum flexibility to parents and doctors” and directs agencies to make sure all actions, regulations and funding are aligned with the study.

The order adds that any changes should ensure that Americans retain their current access to vaccines.

States, not the federal government, have the authority to require vaccinations for schoolchildren. While CDC requirements often influence those state regulations, some states have begun creating their own alliances to counter the Trump administration’s guidance on vaccines.

Trump directed the Department of Health and Human Services to carry out the study in December.

Kennedy is a longtime activist against vaccines and has sought ways to inject his skepticism about the shots into national guidance, running counter to the overwhelming consensus of medical experts. Last year, he announced the CDC would no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women, though public health experts said they saw no new data to justify the change.

Last June, he fired a 17-member CDC vaccine advisory committee and later installed several of his own replacements, including vaccine skeptics.

The January report found that vaccine recommendations for American children had increased in recent decades. It also highlighted countries where no vaccines are required to attend school.

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

A federal judge has declined to halt President Trump’s executive order creating a federal voter list and limiting mail voting, clearing the way for potential sweeping changes in how American elections are run shortly before this year’s midterm elections.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee in Washington, late Wednesday rejected the request by Democrats and civil rights groups that had argued Trump’s order would likely be found unconstitutional because the states and Congress, not the president, have the power to set election rules. Nichols agreed with the Republican Trump administration’s contention that it was too early to block the order because it has yet to be implemented.

Nichols’ ruling leaves the door open for further challenges when the Trump administration moves to implement the president’s directive. A separate lawsuit seeking to block the executive order is underway in Boston. No matter how rapidly the administration acts, no voting changes are expected during primary elections, which continue into next month.

“The Court recognizes that the Postal Service may ultimately issue a final rule that directly affects Plaintiffs or their members, or that the Government may develop State Citizenship Lists that omit specific individuals due to particularized flaws,” Nichols wrote. “Plaintiffs may, of course, renew their motions if and when those future actions occur. Until then, however, Plaintiffs cannot show that preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.”

The Trump administration has yet to formally issue lists of eligible voters, and those who filed the initial request for a temporary halt said they’d be back if the administration moves in that direction.

“We are ready to resume the fight if and when the administration takes those next steps,” said Juan Proaño, chief executive officer of the League of United Latin American Citizens, one of the organizations that sought the stay from Nichols.

Trump issued the order in March after a bill he supported to overhaul voting stalled in Congress. The order would have had the federal government create a list of eligible voters and then directed the U.S. Postal Service to deliver mail ballots only to those on the list. Election officials argued it was ripe for abuse and could cause chaos, and the postal union has objected to the idea of mail carriers policing ballots.

Since his 2020 presidential election loss to Democrat Joe Biden, Trump has groundlessly claimed mail voting is rife with fraud and has launched a federal investigation into that year’s vote, even though repeated audits and investigations, including ones run by Republicans, found it was free of widespread fraud. Trump also has said he wants to “take over” election administration in Democratic areas.

Democrats and civil rights groups argued it was urgent that Nichols issue a restraining order in the midst of primary season and with states already gearing up for the fall midterm elections.

This was Trump’s second executive order seeking to overhaul elections and voting. His initial election executive order, issued just months after he took office in his second term, has been blocked by multiplefederal judges. That order sought to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, among other changes.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s plan to put weapons in space — pitched as a “Golden Dome for America” missile defense program — is estimated to cost $1.2 trillion over a 20 year period, according to a new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office, a far heftier sum than the initial $175 billion price tag he gave last year.

The nonpartisan CBO report, published Tuesday, is described as an analysis that reflects “one illustrative approach rather than an estimate of a specific Administration proposal.”

The futuristic system was ordered by Trump in an executive order during his first week in office. He said then that he expected the system to be “fully operational before the end of my term,” which wraps up in January 2029.

“Over the past 40 years, rather than lessening, the threat from next-generation strategic weapons has become more intense and complex with the development by peer and near-peer adversaries of next-generation delivery systems,” Trump said in his executive order, justifying the need for the missile defense system.

The CBO’s estimates are in part based on a lack of details from the Defense Department about what and how many systems will be deployed, “making it impossible to estimate the long term cost” of the Golden Dome system, the report says.

The concept for the missile system is at least partly inspired by Israel’s multitiered defenses, often collectively referred to as the “Iron Dome,” which played a key role in defending it from rocket and missile fire from Iran and allied militant groups as it prosecutes the war on Iran alongside the U.S.

The U.S. Golden Dome is envisioned to include ground and space-based capabilities able to detect, intercept and stop missiles at all major stages of a potential attack.

Congress has already approved roughly $24 billion for the missile defense initiative through Republicans’ massive tax and spending measure signed into law last summer.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-OR, who requested the estimate from the CBO, said in response to the report that the missile defense project is “nothing more than a massive giveaway to defense contractors paid for entirely by working Americans.”

Last May, the president said the Golden Dome would cost $175 billion. The CBO last year estimated that just the space-based components of the Golden Dome could cost as much as $542 billion over the next 20 years.

Hussein writes for the Associated Press.

The Trump administration’s historic move to reclassify state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug was cheered by some advocates but for others, it fell far short for the thousands still incarcerated on federal cannabis-related convictions.

The executive order, which acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche signed Thursday, does not address current penalties for possessing and selling marijuana or those jailed with yearslong sentences.

“While this is a victory, the fight is far from over,” said Jason Ortiz, director of strategic initiatives for the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit focused on cannabis criminal justice reform.

Proponents of legalizing marijuana as well as overhauling prison sentencing say this order, which does not completely decriminalize the drug, benefits only cannabis researchers, growers and others in Big Weed. Meanwhile, thousands — many of whom are people of color — are stuck serving harsh sentences for marijuana-related offenses. Or they have served their time but having a conviction on their record has made life difficult.

Now, advocates are calling on Congress and state lawmakers to take concrete steps to ensure those with marijuana-related convictions receive fair treatment or be forgiven altogether.

Prisoners and their families look for hope

Blanche’s order reclassifies state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug. The major policy shift, which both Presidents Obama and Joe Biden had considered, means cannabis won’t be grouped with drugs like heroin.

But it does not legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use. It shifts licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse — to the less strictly regulated Schedule III. This will likely give licensed medical marijuana operators and cannabis researchers a major tax break and less stringent barriers to doing normal business.

Virtually no one imprisoned at the federal level is there solely for marijuana possession. But many are there for large-scale possession, trafficking offenses or both.

Hector Ruben McGurk, 66, has been serving life without the possibility of parole since 2007 for transporting thousands of pounds of marijuana and money laundering. He is currently imprisoned in Beaumont, Texas, over 800 miles from his son’s El Paso home. His incarceration has been hard on his son, said McGurk’s daughter-in-law, Ferna Anguiano. And the distance makes visits logistically difficult.

So it’s tempting to see this order as a glimmer of hope, given that the family believes McGurk’s punishment far outweighs his crimes. But Anguiano has no idea how to navigate lobbying for his release.

“His release date is death,” Anguiano said. “I mean, we see all this stuff on the news — bigger cases, fatal cases — and people are going in and out of prison and coming out to their families.”

They try to keep in touch through phone calls and a prison texting service. They’re concerned about McGurk’s health and his diabetes management. It would be a dream come true for him to come home.

“He deserves a second chance,” Anguiano said. “Yes, it was a poor decision he did in his lifetime. He was younger. But he is not a bad person. I think it’s fair to say he has served enough time for it.”

It’s not clear whether punishments would be different had marijuana always been scheduled differently, drug policy experts say.

“In addition to schedule-specific penalties, there are marijuana-specific penalties that have nothing to do with the schedule,” said Cat Packer, director of drug markets and legal regulation at the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance. “Even if marijuana were to be moved to Schedule V, those criminal penalties would still exist and there are mandatory minimums for simple possession.”

Racial disparities exist in convictions and Big Weed

Destigmatizing marijuana has long been an issue for both political parties. Obama commuted the sentences of about 1,900 federal prisoners, almost all of whom were incarcerated for nonviolent drug crimes. Biden pardoned 6,500 people convicted of use and simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia. President Trump’s administration has taken far fewer drug clemency actions and does not have an overarching policy directing such actions.

“What many people on the right and the left would like is to move marijuana from this ‘just as bad as heroin’ category and to just sort of de-schedule it entirely,” said Marta Nelson, director of sentencing reform at the Vera Institute of Justice. “Regulate it like you do alcohol or tobacco.”

Studies show Black Americans are roughly 3.7 to 4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white Americans, despite usage rates being roughly the same across racial groups. Federal-level marijuana cases are pretty small today, but those serving sentences for federal drug offenses are overwhelmingly Hispanic and Black, according to Justice Department and Bureau of Justice Statistics data.

The racial disparity with drug convictions is reminiscent of 2010 legislation Obama signed reducing the gap between mandatory sentences for crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. In 2018, Trump made it apply retroactively.

Because business owners with state medical marijuana licenses are predominantly white, the tax relief created by the rescheduling will also likely give a leg up to mostly white businesses, Packer said. A lot of equity programs won’t apply.

“This is going to, in my mind, widen the gap, the financial disparities, the business disparities that currently exist between Black and brown, Latino and white owners in the cannabis industry because licenses were not distributed equitably,” Packer said.

Possible next steps for marijuana convictions

In theory, Trump could issue a blanket pardon like he did for Jan. 6 rioters. But Nelson thinks that is highly doubtful.

“Having marijuana convictions on the record for things like mass immigration enforcement is helpful to the administration,” Nelson said.

An impactful next step would be for Congress to outline very comprehensive legislation addressing existing marijuana-related convictions, expungements and industry regulations, she added.

The Last Prisoner Project and other organizations are planning to renew a dialogue with federal lawmakers, including the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, which includes Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Republican Rep. David Joyce of Ohio. They will also continue to lobby for Trump to conduct a large-scale act of commutation and clemency.

Advocates are also hoping Trump’s order will prompt every state to rethink their marijuana classification and penalties.

“It is imperative that every state review their situation, as a lot of their controlled substances at the state level are tied to the federal government,” Ortiz said. “We’re gonna see other states that are going to need a little help from the public to remind them what the right thing to do is.”

Tang writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — An appeals court on Friday blocked President Trump’s executive order suspending asylum access, a key pillar of the Republican president’s plan to crack down on migration at the southern border of the U.S.

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit found that immigration laws give people the right to apply for asylum at the border, and the president can’t circumvent that.

The panel concluded that the Immigration and Nationality Act doesn’t authorize the president to remove the plaintiffs under “procedures of his own making,” allow him to suspend plaintiffs’ right to apply for asylum or curtail procedures for adjudicating their anti-torture claims.

“The power by proclamation to temporarily suspend the entry of specified foreign individuals into the United States does not contain implicit authority to override the INA’s mandatory process to summarily remove foreign individuals,” wrote Judge J. Michelle Childs, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Biden.

The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said in a statement that the appellate ruling is “essential for those fleeing danger who have been denied even a hearing to present asylum claims under the Trump administration’s unlawful and inhumane executive order.”

Judge Justin Walker, a Trump nominee, wrote a partial dissent. He said the law gives immigrants protections against removal to countries where they would be persecuted, but the administration can issue broad denials of asylum applications.

Walker, however, agreed with the majority that the president cannot deport migrants to countries where they will be persecuted or strip them of mandatory procedures that protect against their removal.

Judge Cornelia Pillard, who was nominated by Democratic President Obama, also heard the case.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is in discussions to potentially send more than 1,000 Afghans who assisted America’s war effort and relatives of U.S. service members stuck in Qatar to a third country, the U.S. government and some advocates said. Congo is an option, the advocates said.

Shawn VanDiver, a Navy veteran who heads a coalition that supports Afghan resettlement efforts called #AfghanEvac, said Wednesday that U.S. officials informed him and other groups of discussions between the United States and Congo about taking the Afghan refugees who have been in limbo at a U.S. base in Doha for the last year.

The 1,100 refugees at Camp As-Sayliyah include Afghans who served as interpreters and with Special Operations Forces as well as the immediate families of more than 150 active-duty U.S. military members.

The State Department said Wednesday that it is working to identify options to “voluntarily” resettle the refugees in a third country, but it did not confirm which nations were being discussed.

An alternative provided to the refugees, VanDiver said, is to return to Afghanistan, where they face likely reprisal or even death at the hands of the Taliban for working alongside the U.S. during the two-decade war.

“You cannot call a choice voluntary when the two options are Congo and the Taliban, civil war or an oppressor who wants to kill you,” VanDiver said at a virtual news conference. “That is not a choice. That is a confession extracted under duress.”

The discussions — which were reported earlier by the New York Times — come more than a year after President Trump paused his predecessor’s Afghan resettlement program as part of a series of executive orders cracking down on immigration.

That policy left thousands of refugees who fled war and persecution, and had gone through a sometimes years-long vetting process to start new lives in America, stranded at places worldwide, including the base in Qatar.

From one war-torn country to another

Negotiations between the U.S. and several other countries, including Botswana and Malaysia, started months ago, according to an executive at a refugee resettlement agency who was briefed by U.S. officials. The executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity to share private negotiations, said that Botswana was seen by many refugee advocates as the most promising option but that talks between senior U.S. officials and the country’s leadership fell through. In early April, the executive was briefed that Congo was now the main option being discussed.

A person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity said they had heard from State Department personnel that the U.S. was looking at sending the Afghans at the base in Qatar to countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The person said the Afghans were told Wednesday that there was no final deal on where to send them.

The base in Doha “was always intended as a transit platform. It was never designed to hold families for months or years, which is the situation that people are currently in,” said Jon Finer, who was deputy national security advisor to then-President Biden. “What I want to emphasize is that this was intended to honor a wartime commitment.”

Finer and other former U.S. officials and refugee advocates warned of the risk of resettling Afghans in Congo, a country that U.N. officials say is facing “one of the most acute humanitarian emergencies in the world.”

The African country has been battered by decades-long fighting between government forces and Rwanda-backed rebels in its eastern region.

Congolese authorities did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment on the discussions, which did not come as a surprise to some there. Congo is one of at least eight African nations that were paid millions in controversial deals with the Trump administration to receive migrants deported from the U.S. to countries other than their own.

Like most other African nations involved in the deportation program, Congo is also among the worst-hit by the Trump administration’s policies on aid and trade. At least 70% of the country’s humanitarian aid came from the U.S. before Trump’s second term, and aid workers say American aid cuts have led to avoidable deaths in the conflict-hit region.

Sean Jamshidi — an Afghan American who served in the U.S. military, including a stint in Congo — said he was deeply concerned about his brother possibly being sent from the Doha base to the war-torn country.

“I saw the security situation and what it looked like there. I saw the displacement camps. … I stood in places where the United Nations has counted the dead,” Jamshidi said. “I’m telling you, as someone who has been in uniform, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is not a place you send vetted Afghan allies and their children to live.”

Refugees are in the dark as they await their fate

Negina Khalili, a former prosecutor in Afghanistan who fled during the 2021 U.S. withdrawal, has been waiting to hear about the resettlement status of her father, brother and stepmother since they arrived at the Doha base in January 2025. That was just days before Trump suspended the refugee program soon after he returned to the White House.

Khalili told the Associated Press on Wednesday that she spoke to her family about reports that they could be sent to Congo.

“They are not giving them any information or updates regarding which countries they will go to,” she said. “They were so stressed and worried about it and said that Congo is not a safe place either. They don’t know if it’s a temporary location for them there or a permanent location. They are worried.”

She said U.S. officials at the camp have been suggesting to refugees that they go back to Afghanistan and offering them money to do so.

Amiri, Santana and Asadu write for the Associated Press. Amiri reported from New York and Asadu from Abuja, Nigeria. AP writer Matthew Lee contributed to this report.