Veteran

An Army veteran who grew up in Van Nuys and was awarded a Purple Heart self-deported to South Korea this week as he was threatened with being detained and deported by federal immigration forces.

On Monday, veteran Sae Joon Park, who legally immigrated from South Korea when he was seven years old, grew up in Koreatown and the San Fernando Valley and held a green card, flew back to his homeland under threat of deportation at the age of 55. He said he is being forced to leave because of drug convictions nearly two decades ago that he said were a response to the PTSD he suffered after being shot during military action in Panama.

“It’s unbelievable. I’m still in disbelief that this has actually happened,” Park said in a phone interview from Incheon early Wednesday morning. “I know I made my mistakes … but it’s not like I was a violent criminal. It’s not like I’m going around robbing people at gunpoint or hurting anyone. It was self-induced because of the problems I had.”

Asked to comment on Park, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Park has an “extensive criminal history” and has been given a final removal order, with the option to self-deport.

Park said he suffered from PTSD and addiction in the aftermath of being wounded when he was part of the U.S. forces that invaded Panama in 1989 to depose the nation’s de facto leader, Gen. Manuel Noriega.

But now Park, a legal immigrant, is targeted by federal authorities in President Trump’s recent immigration raids that have prompted widespread protests in Los Angeles and across the nation. Federal authorities have arrested more than 1,600 immigrants for deportation in Southern California between June 6 and 22, according to DHS.

A noncitizen is eligible for naturalization if they served honorably in the U.S. military for at least a year. Park served less than a year before he was wounded and honorably discharged.

Since 2002, over 158,000 immigrant service members have become U.S. citizens.

As of 2021, the Department of Veteran Affairs and DHS are responsible for tracking deported veterans to make sure they still have access to VA benefits.

Park’s parents divorced when he was a toddler, and his mother immigrated from South Korea to the United States. He followed her a year later. They first lived in Koreatown, moved to Panorama City and then Van Nuys. He graduated from Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks in 1988.

Struggling at first to learn English and acclimate with his classmates, he eventually became part of the Southern California skateboarding and surfing scene of the 1980s, which is when television editor Josh Belson met him. They have been close friends ever since.

“He’s always got a smile, a very kind of vivacious energy about him,” said Belson, who attended a nearby high school when they met. “He was the kind of person you wanted to be around.”

After graduating, Park said he wasn’t ready to attend college, so he joined the military.

“The Army provided not only turning me into a man, but also providing me with the GI Bill, so you can go to college later, and they’ll pay for it. And the fact that I did believe in the country, the United States,” he said. “So I felt like I was doing something honorable. I was very proud when I joined the military.”

Park’s platoon was deployed to Panama in late 1989, where he said they experienced a firefight the first night there. The following day, he said he was carrying an M-16 when they raided the house of one of the “witches” Noriega allegedly followed. He said they saw a voodoo worship room with body parts and a cross painted in blood on the floor.

While there, he heard gunfire from the backyard and returned fire. He was shot twice, in his spine and lower left back. The bullet to his spine was partially deflected by his dog tag, which Park believes is the reason he wasn’t paralyzed. A military ambulance was delayed because of the firefight, but a Vietnam veteran who lived nearby rescued him, Park said.

“I just remember I’m just lying in my own pool of blood and just leaking out badly. So he actually went home, got his pickup truck, put me in the back of his pickup truck with two soldiers, and drove me to the hospital,” Park said.

He was then evacuated to an Army hospital in San Antonio. A four-star general awarded him a Purple Heart at his bedside. Then-President George W. Bush visited wounded soldiers there.

Park spent about two weeks there, and then went home for a month or so, until he could walk. His experience resulted in mental issues he didn’t recognize, he said.

“My biggest issue at the time, more than my injuries, was — I didn’t know what it was at the time, nobody did, because there was no such thing as PTSD at the time,” he said. Eventually, “I realized I was suffering from PTSD badly, nightmares every night, severe. I couldn’t hear loud noises, and at that time in L.A., you would hear gunshots every night you left the house, so I was paranoid at all times. And being a man and being a tough guy, I couldn’t share this with anyone.”

Park started self-medicating with marijuana, which he said helped him sleep. But he started doing harder drugs, eventually crack cocaine. He moved to Hawaii after his mother and stepfather’s L.A. store burned during the 1992 riots, and married. After Park and his wife separated, he moved to New York City, where his addiction worsened.

“It got really bad. It just got out of control — every day, every night, all day — just smoking, everything,” Park said.

One night, in the late 2000s, he was meeting his drug dealer at a Taco Bell in Queens when police surrounded his car, and the dealer fled while leaving a large quantity of crack in his glove compartment, Park said.

A judge sent Park to rehab twice, but he said he was not ready to get sober.

“I just couldn’t. I was an addict. It was so hard for me to stay clean. I’d be good for 30 days and relapse,” he said. “I’d be good for 20 days and relapse. It was such a struggle. Finally, the judge told me, ‘Mr. Park, the next time you come into my courtroom with the dirty urine, you’re gonna go to prison.’ So I got scared.”

So Park didn’t return to court, drove to Los Angeles and then returned to Hawaii, skipping bail, which is an aggravated felony.

“I did not know at the time jumping bail was an aggravated felony charge, and combined with my drug use, that’s deportable for someone like me with my green card,” he said.

U.S. Marshals were sent looking for Park, and he said once he heard about this, he turned himself in in August 2009, because he didn’t want to be arrested in front of his two children.

He served two years in prison and said immigration officials detained him for six months after he was released as he fought deportation orders. He was eventually released under “deferred action,” an act of prosecutorial discretion by DHS to put off deportation.

Every year since, Park was required to check in with federal officials and show that he was employed and sober. Meanwhile, he had sole custody of his two children, who are now 28 and 25. He was also caring for his 85-year-old mother, who is in the early stages of dementia.

During his most recent check-in, Park was about to be handcuffed and detained, but immigration agents placed an ankle monitor on him and gave him three weeks to get his affairs in order and self-deport. He is not allowed to return to the United States for 10 years. He worries he will miss his mother’s passing and his daughter’s wedding.

“That’s the biggest part. But … it could be a lot worse too. I look at it that way also,” Park said. “So I’m grateful I made it out of the United States, I guess, without getting detained.”

“I always just assumed a green card, legal residency, is just like having citizenship,” he added. “I just never felt like I had to go get citizenship. And that’s just being honest. As a kid growing up in the United States, I’ve always just thought, hey, I’m a green card holder, a legal resident, I’m just like a citizen.”

His condition has spiraled since then.

“Alright. I’m losing it. Can’t stop crying. I think PTSD kicking in strong,” Park texted Belson on Thursday. “Just want to get back to my family and take care of my mother … I’m a mess.”

Times staff writer Nathan Solis contributed to this report.

Ever since President Trump seized control of the California National Guard and deployed thousands of troops to Los Angeles, calls from distressed soldiers and their families have been pouring in to the GI Rights Hotline.

Some National Guard members and their loved ones have called to say they were agonizing over the legality of the deployment, which is being litigated in federal court, according to Steve Woolford, a resource counselor for the hotline, which provides confidential counseling for service members.

Others phoned in to say the Guard should play no part in federal immigration raids and that they worried about immigrant family members who might get swept up.

“They don’t want to deport their uncle or their wife or their brother-in-law,” Woolford said. “… Some of the language people have used is: ‘I joined to defend my country, and that’s really important to me — but No. 1 is family, and this is actually a threat to my family.’ ”

Although active-duty soldiers are largely restricted from publicly commenting on their orders, veterans’ advocates who are in direct contact with troops and their families say they are deeply concerned about the morale of the roughly 4,100 National Guard members and 700 U.S. Marines deployed to Los Angeles amid protests against immigration raids.

In interviews with The Times, spokespeople for six veterans’ advocacy organizations said many troops were troubled by the assignment, which they viewed as overtly political and as pitting them against fellow Americans.

Advocates also said they worry about the domestic deployment’s potential effects on military retention and recruitment, which recently rebounded after several years in which various branches failed to meet recruiting goals.

“What we’re hearing from our families is: ‘This is not what we signed up for,’ ” said Brandi Jones, organizing director for the Secure Families Initiative, a nonprofit that advocates for military spouses, children and veterans. “Our families are very concerned about morale.”

Janessa Goldbeck, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and chief executive of the nonprofit Vet Voice Foundation, said that, among the former Marine Corps colleagues she has spoken to in recent weeks, “There’s been a universal expression of, ‘This is an unnecessary deployment given the operational situation.’”

“The fact that the LAPD and local elected officials repeatedly said deploying the National Guard and active duty Marines would be escalatory or inflammatory and the president of the United States chose to ignore that and deploy them anyway puts the young men and women in uniform in an unnecessarily political position,“ she said.

She added that the “young men and women who raised their right hand to serve their country” did “not sign up to police their own neighbors.”

Trump has repeatedly said Los Angeles would be “burning to the ground” if he had not sent troops to help quell the protests.

“We saved Los Angeles by having the military go in,” Trump told reporters last week. “And the second night was much better. The third night was nothing much. And the fourth night, nobody bothered even coming.”

The troops in Los Angeles do not have the authority to arrest protesters and were deployed only to defend federal functions, property and personnel, according to the military’s U.S. Northern Command.

Task Force 51, the military’s designation of the Los Angeles forces, said in an email Saturday that “while we cannot speak for the individual experience of each service member, the general assessment of morale by leadership is positive.”

The personnel’s “quality of life,” the statement continued, is “addressed through the continued improvement of living facilities, balanced work-rest cycles, and access to chaplains, licensed clinical social workers, and behavioral health experts.”

It is unclear whether the National Guard troops, federalized under Title 10 of the United States Code, had been paid as of this weekend. Task Force 51 told The Times on Saturday that the soldiers who received 60-day activation orders on June 7 “will start receiving pay by end of the month” and that “those that have financial concerns have access to resources such as Army Emergency Relief,” a nonprofit charitable organization.

U.S. Rep. Derek Tran (D-Orange), an Army veteran and member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he has asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “for his plan to manage the logistics of this military activation, but he has failed to provide me with any clear answers.”

Tran said in a statement to The Times that “the pattern of disrespect this Administration has shown our Veterans and active-duty military personnel is disgraceful, and I absolutely think it will negatively impact our ability to attract and retain the troops that keep America’s military capacity the envy of the world.”

Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokeswoman for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said in an email that the governor is “worried how this mission will impact the physical and emotional well-being of the soldiers deployed unnecessarily to Los Angeles.”

On June 9, Newsom posted photos on X depicting National Guard soldiers crowded together, sleeping on concrete floors and what appeared to be a loading dock. Newsom wrote that the president sent troops “without fuel, food, water or a place to sleep.”

Task Force 51 told The Times that the soldiers in the photos “were not actively on mission, so they were taking time to rest.” At the time, the statement continued, “it was deemed too dangerous for them to travel to better accommodations.”

Since then, according to Task Force 51, the military has contracted “for sleeping tents, latrines, showers, hand-washing stations, hot meals for breakfast, dinner and a late-night meal, and full laundry service.”

“Most of the contracts have been fulfilled at this time,” the military said.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement to The Times that Newsom “should apologize for using out-of-context photos of National Guardsmen to try and make a political argument.”

“Under President Trump’s leadership military morale is sky high because our troops know they finally have a patriotic Commander-In-Chief who will always have their backs,” Jackson wrote.

Troops have been posted outside federal buildings in an increasingly quiet downtown Civic Center — a few square blocks within the 500-square-mile city.

Their interactions with the public are far different from those earlier this year, when Newsom deployed the National Guard to L.A. County to help with wildfire recovery efforts after the Eaton and Palisades fires.

At burn zone check points, National Guard members were often spotted chatting with locals, some of whom brought food and water and thanked them for keeping looters away.

But downtown, soldiers have stood stone-faced behind riot shields as furious protesters have flipped them off, sworn at them and questioned their integrity.

During the boisterous “No Kings” protests on June 14, a woman held up a mirror to troops outside the downtown Federal Building with the words: “This is not your job. It’s YOUR LEGACY.” On a quiet Wednesday morning, a UCLA professor, standing solo outside the Federal Building, held up a sign to half a dozen Guard members reading: “It’s Called the Constitution You F—ers.”

James M. Branum, an attorney who works with the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild, said that, in recent weeks, the task force has received two to three times more than the usual volume of referrals and direct calls. The upward trend began after Trump came into office, with people calling about the war in Gaza and increased military deployment to the U.S. southern border — but calls spiked after troops were sent to Los Angeles, he said.

“A lot of these folks joined because they want to fight who they see as the terrorists,” Branum said. “They want to fight enemies of the United States … they never envisioned they would be deployed to the streets of the United States.”

In his June 7 memo federalizing the National Guard, Trump called for their deployment in places where protests against federal immigration enforcement were occurring or “are likely to occur.” The memo does not specify Los Angeles or California.

California officials have sued the president over the deployment, arguing in a federal complaint that the Trump administration’s directives are “phrased in an ambiguous manner and suggest potential misuse of the federalized National Guard.”

“Guardsmen across the country are on high alert, [thinking] that they could be pulled into this,” said Goldbeck, with the Vet Voice Foundation.

Jones, with the Secure Families Initiative, said military families “are very nervous in this moment.”

“They are so unprepared for what’s happening, and they’re very afraid to speak publicly,” she said.

Jones said she had been communicating with the wife of one National Guard member who said she had recently suffered a stroke. The woman said her husband had been on Family and Medical Leave Act leave from his civilian job to care for her. The woman said his leave was not recognized by the military for the domestic assignment. He was deployed to Los Angeles, and she has been struggling to find a caregiver, Jones said.

Jones said her own husband, an active-duty Marine, deployed to Iraq in 2004 with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment based at Twentynine Palms — the same infantry unit now mustered in Los Angeles.

The unit was hard hit in Afghanistan in 2008, with at least 20 Marines killed and its high rate of suicide after that year’s deployment highly publicized.

Jones said she was stunned to learn the battalion — nicknamed the War Dogs — was being deployed to Los Angeles.

“I said, ‘Wait, it’s 2/7 they’re sending in? The War Dogs? Releasing them on Los Angeles?’ It was nuts for me,” Jones said. “To hear that unit affiliated with this — for my family that’s been serving for two decades, it brings up a lot.”

The Los Angeles deployment comes at a time of year when the California National Guard is often engaged in wildfire suppression operations — a coincidence that has raised concerns among some officials.

On June 18, Capt. Rasheedah Bilal was activated by the California National Guard and assigned to Sacramento, where she is backfilling in an operational role for Joint Task Force Rattlesnake, a National Guard firefighting unit that is now understaffed because roughly half its members are deployed to Los Angeles.

“That’s a large amount to pull off that mission … so you have to activate additional Guardsmen to cover on those missions,” said Bilal, speaking in her capacity as executive director of the nonprofit National Guard Assn. of California.

National Guard members are primarily part-time soldiers, who hold civilian jobs or attend college until called into active duty. In California — a state prone to wildfires, earthquakes and floods — they get called into duty a lot, she said.

Many of the same National Guard soldiers in downtown Los Angeles are the same ones who just finished a 120-day activation for wildfire recovery, she said.

“You have the state response to fire and then federal activation? It becomes a strain,” Bilal said.

“They haven’t complained,” she added. “Soldiers vote with their feet. We’re mostly quiet professionals and take a lot of pride in our job. [But] you can only squeeze so much of a lemon before it is dry. You can only pound on the California Guardsmen without it affecting things like retention and recruiting.”

WAILUKU, Hawaii — A Rams–Jalen Ramsey reunion might not be in the offing.

Coach Sean McVay on Tuesday reiterated his respect for the star cornerback who helped the Rams win Super Bowl LVI, but for the first time he indicated that there might be too many “obstacles” to making a trade with the Miami Dolphins for the three-time All-Pro.

Ramsey is due to earn $24.3 million this season, and his salary-cap number will increase substantially over the next few seasons, according to Overthecap.com.

“Usually, those are scenarios and situations that you have to have plans in place prior to executing some of the decisions that have occurred,” McVay said, perhaps referencing the contract adjustment quarterback Matthew Stafford received and the signing of free-agent receiver Davante Adams. “Definitely don’t want to rule anything out… but there would be some obstacles that are real that are in the place of maybe preventing that from occurring.”

The Rams are set to open the season with a cornerback group that includes returning starters Darious Williams and Ahkello Witherspoon, with Cobie Durant, Emmanuel Forbes Jr., Josh Wallace and Derion Kendrick also competing for playing time.

The Rams recently waived Kendrick, who was due to earn $3.4 million in the final year of his rookie contract, but re-signed him Tuesday, probably for a one-year veteran minimum contract.

Kendrick is in Maui for the Rams minicamp, which featured a 30-minute jog through Tuesday.

“It was really just kind of a financial business deal,” McVay said, adding that he, general manager Les Snead and defensive backs coach Aubrey Pleasant had communicated with Kendrick their desire to keep him in the fold before he was waived.

McVay did indicate that talks with running back Kyren Williams’ agent regarding a possible extension were progressing.

“We’re getting closer to hopefully finding a conclusion to this,” McVay said. “Now, until that’s actually agreed upon from both sides, we’re really in the same boat. … So, we’re trying to be able to solve that, and if we’re able to land that we’ll be excited about that.”

Neither left tackle Alaric Jackson nor newly signed tackle D.J. Humphries are with the team in Maui.

The Rams signed Humphries last week because Jackson is dealing with blood-clot issues for the second time in his pro career. In March, Jackson signed a three-year contract that includes $35 million in guarantees.

“He was able to communicate that he was feeling some things in his lower leg, and he ends up going and getting a scan and it revealed that was the case,” McVay said. “You pray for him to be able to have a healthy, safe recovery, and we’re really just taking it a day at a time with him.

“What we did want to be able to do in the meantime was be proactive about a contingency plan. … D.J.’s a guy that we’ve got a lot of respect for. Obviously, familiarity with him just playing against him and he’s a veteran. Felt like that was definitely the right move for our team in the meantime.”

Etc.

The Rams conclude their minicamp Wednesday with a public workout at War Memorial Stadium … Rams veterans on Tuesday helped coach in a flag football camp for high school students. Rookies worked with Habitat for Humanity to rebuild homes in Lahaina that were lost to wildfires in 2023.

The Rams did not draft an offensive lineman, but they have added a veteran just before the end of offseason workouts.

The Rams on Thursday agreed to terms with veteran free-agent offensive tackle D.J. Humphries, a person with knowledge of the situation said.

The person requested anonymity because the contract has not been signed.

Humphries, a 2015 first-round draft pick by the Arizona Cardinals, joins a line that includes starting left tackle Alaric Jackson, right tackle Rob Havenstein and swing tackle Warren McClendon Jr.

Humphries, 31, played eight seasons for the Cardinals before sustaining a major knee injury near the end of the 2023 season.

Last season, he played for the Kansas City Chiefs, but he sustained a hamstring injury in his first game back in Week 14 and played in only two regular-season games.

Wales captain Aaron Ramsey has agreed a deal to sign for Mexican side Club Universidad Nacional – known as Pumas UNAM – according to the PA news agency.

The former Arsenal and Juventus midfielder would become the first high-profile British player to play in the Mexican league should the formalities of the move be completed.

Ramsey was appointed Cardiff interim manager for the final three games of the 2024-25 Championship season after the club sacked Omer Riza.

The 34-year-old was unable to prevent Cardiff from being relegated to the third tier, but reports had linked him with taking charge of the Bluebirds on a full-time basis this summer.

Ramsey shares the same agent as Pumas manager Efrain Juarez.

California leaders denounced reports Tuesday that the Trump administration is preparing to strip the name of slain gay rights leader Harvey Milk from a naval ship honoring his legacy, calling it a slap in the face for the LGBTQ+ community just as Pride month begins.

Milk was elected as a San Francisco supervisor in the 1970s, becoming one of the first openly gay elected officials in the country. After he was assassinated in San Francisco City Hall in 1978, he became an icon of the gay rights movement, with images of his face becoming synonymous with the struggle for gay rights.

Milk had served in the Navy prior to becoming an activist and political figure, and LGBTQ+ advocates and service members fought for years to have his legacy formally recognized by the Navy.

The outlet Military.com first reported Tuesday afternoon that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had ordered the Navy to rename the USNS Harvey Milk, an oiler built in San Diego as part of a series of vessels named for civil rights leaders. It was launched in 2021.

The Pentagon would not confirm or deny that the ship would be renamed.

In a statement to The Times, chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Hegseth “is committed to ensuring that the names attached to all [Department of Defense] installations and assets are reflective of the Commander-in-Chief’s priorities, our nation’s history, and the warrior ethos,” and that “any potential renaming(s) will be announced after internal reviews are complete.”

The Pentagon would not say whether such a review had been launched for the USNS Harvey Milk. The Navy referred questions to the Pentagon.

The removal of Milk’s name would be in line with a broader push by Hegseth and other leaders in the Trump administration to remove formal acknowledgments of queer rights and other programs or messages promoting diversity, equity and inclusion across the federal government.

Leaders in California — where Milk is often hailed as a hero — were quick to denounce the idea of stripping his name from the vessel.

Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on the social media platform X that Trump’s “assault on veterans has hit a new low.”

Trump and Hegseth have also issued a sweeping ban on transgender people serving in the military.

“Harvey Milk wasn’t just a civil rights icon — he was a Korean War combat veteran whose commander called him ‘outstanding,’” Newsom said. “Stripping his name from a Navy ship won’t erase his legacy as an American icon, but it does reveal Trump’s contempt for the very values our veterans fight to protect.”

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) echoed Newsom with her own comment on X.

“Our military is the most powerful in the world — but this spiteful move does not strengthen our national security or the ‘warrior’ ethos,” she wrote. “It is a shameful, vindictive erasure of those who fought to break down barriers for all to chase the American Dream.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener, who is gay and once represented the same district as Milk on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, said in an interview with The Times that the move was all “part of Trump’s systematic campaign to eliminate LGBTQ people from public life.”

“They want us to go away, to go back in the closet, not to be part of public life,” Wiener said. “And we’re not going anywhere.”

After graduating from college, Milk enlisted in the Navy in 1951 and was stationed in San Diego. According to the Harvey Milk Foundation, he resigned at the rank of lieutenant junior grade in 1955 “after being officially questioned about his sexual orientation.”

He moved to San Francisco in 1972, opened a camera shop on Castro Street, and quickly got into politics — rallying the growing local gay community to fight for rights and build strategic alliances with other groups, including organized labor and the city’s large Asian and Pacific Islander community.

Milk was elected to the Board of Supervisors in 1977, and helped lead efforts to defeat a 1978 ballot initiative that would have barred gay and lesbian people from teaching in public schools statewide — a major political win for the LGBTQ+ community.

That same year, Milk was assassinated alongside Mayor George Moscone at City Hall by former Supervisor Dan White. His killing cemented his status as an icon of the gay rights movement.

Wiener called Milk “an absolute hero” who “died for our community” and deserves the honor of having a naval vessel named after him.

“A group of LGBTQ veterans worked for years and years to achieve this goal of naming a ship for Harvey, and to have that taken away so casually, right during Pride month, is heartbreaking and painful,” Wiener said.

Removing his name would mean more than scrubbing a stenciling off the side of a ship, Wiener said, “especially now with the attacks on our community, and so many young LGBTQ people [seeing] so much negativity towards our community.”

Milk was a “very visible role model for young queer people, and he gave people hope in a way that hadn’t happened before from any high-profile queer leader, and he was murdered because of his visibility and leadership for our community,” Wiener said, and for young queer people today “to see the name of a gay man on the side of a military vessel, it’s very, very powerful.”

U.S. officials first announced in 2016 that a ship would be named for Milk, as well as for abolitionist Sojourner Truth, Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren, Atty. Gen. Robert F. Kennedy, suffragist Lucy Stone and U.S. Rep. John Lewis.

At an event marking the start of construction on the ship in 2019, Milk’s nephew Stuart Milk said the naming of the ship after his uncle “sends a global message of inclusion” that did not just say the U.S. will “tolerate everyone,” but that “we celebrate everyone.”

PORTLAND, Ore. — One program distributes laptops in rural Iowa. Another helped people get back online after Hurricane Helene washed away computers and phones in western North Carolina. Programs in Oregon and rural Alabama teach older people, including some who have never touched a computer, how to navigate in an increasingly digital world.

It all came crashing down this month when President Trump — on his own digital platform, Truth Social — announced his intention to end the Digital Equity Act, a federal grant program meant to help bridge the digital divide. He branded it as “RACIST and ILLEGAL” and said it amounts to “woke handouts based on race.” He said it was an “ILLEGAL $2.5 BILLION DOLLAR giveaway.” The program was funded with $2.75 billion.

The name seemed innocuous enough when the program was approved by Congress in 2021 as part of a $65-billion investment meant to bring internet access to every home and business in the United States. The broadband program was a key component of the $1-trillion infrastructure law enacted under the Biden administration.

The Digital Equity Act was intended to fill gaps and cover unmet needs that surfaced during the massive broadband rollout. It gave states and tribes flexibility to deliver high-speed internet access to families that could not afford it, computers to kids who did not have them, telehealth access to older adults in rural areas, and training and job skills to veterans.

Whether Trump has the legal authority to end the program remains unknown. But for now the Republican administration can simply stop spending the money.

“I just felt my heart break for what we were finally, finally in this country, going to address, the digital divide,” said Angela Siefer, executive director of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance, a nonprofit that was awarded — but has not received — a $25.7-million grant to work with groups across the country to help provide access to technology. “The digital divide is not just physical access to the internet, it is being able to use that to do what you need to do.”

The word ‘equity’

While the name of the program probably got it targeted — the Trump administration has been aggressively scrubbing the government of programs that promote diversity, equity or inclusion — the Digital Equity Act was supposed to be broader in scope.

Though Trump called it racist, the words “race” or “racial” appear just twice in the law’s text: once, alongside “color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or disability,” in a passage stating that no groups should be excluded from funding; and later, in a list of covered populations, along with older adults, veterans, people with disabilities, English learners, people with low literacy levels and rural Americans.

“Digital Equity passed with overwhelming bipartisan support,” Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the act’s chief proponent, noted in a statement. “And that’s because my Republican colleagues have heard the same stories as I have — like kids in rural communities forced to drive to McDonalds parking lots for Wi-Fi to do their homework.

“It is insane — absolutely nuts — that Trump is blocking resources to help make sure kids in rural school districts can get hot spots or laptops, all because he doesn’t like the word equity!”

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which administers the program, declined to comment. It’s not clear how much of the $2.75 billion has been awarded, though in March 2024 the NTIA announced the allocation of $811 million to states, territories and tribes.

‘More confident’

On a recent morning in Portland, Ore., Brandon Dorn was among those taking a keyboard basics class offered by Free Geek, a nonprofit that provides free courses to help people learn to use computers. The class was offered at a low-income housing building to make it accessible for residents.

Dorn and the others were given laptops and shown the different functions of keys: control, shift and caps lock, how to copy and paste. They played a typing game that taught finger and key placement on a color-coded keyboard.

Dorn, 63, said the classes helped because “in this day and age, everything has to go through the computer.” He said it helped him feel more confident and less dependent on his children or grandchildren to do things such as making appointments online.

“Folks my age, we didn’t get this luxury because we were too busy working, raising the family,” he said. “So this is a great way to help us help ourselves.”

Juan Muro, Free Geek’s executive director, said participants get the tools and skills they need to access things like online banking, job applications, online education programs and telehealth. He said Trump’s move to end funding has put nonprofits such as Free Geek in a precarious position, forcing them to make up the difference through fundraising and “beg for money to just provide individuals with essential stuff.”

Sara Nichols works for the Land of Sky Regional Council, a multi-county planning and development organization in western North Carolina. On the Friday before Trump’s inauguration in January, the organization received notice that it was approved for a grant. But like other groups the Associated Press contacted, it has not seen any money.

Land of Sky had spent a lot of resources helping people recover from last year’s storms. The award notice, Nichols said, came as “incredible news.”

“But between this and the state losing, getting their letters terminated, we feel just, like, stuck. What are we going to do? How are we going to move forward? How are we going to let our communities continue to fall behind?”

Filling unmet needs

More than one-fifth of Americans do not have broadband internet access at home, according to the Pew Research Center. In rural communities, the number jumps to 27%.

Beyond giving people access to technology and fast internet, many programs funded by the Digital Equity Act sought to provide “digital navigators” — human helpers to guide people new to the online world.

“In the United States we do not have a consistent source of funding to help individuals get online, understand how to be safe online and how to use that technology to accomplish all the things that are required now as part of life that are online,” said Siefer of the National Digital Inclusion Alliance. This includes providing families with internet hot spots so they can get online at home and helping seniors avoid online scams, she said.

“Health, workforce, education, jobs, everything, right?” Siefer said. “This law was going to be the start for the U.S. to figure out this issue. It’s a new issue in the big scheme of things, because now technology is no longer a nice-to-have. You have to have the internet and you have to know how to use the technology just to survive, let alone to thrive today.”

Siefer said the word “equity” in the name probably prompted Trump to target the program for elimination.

“But it means that he didn’t actually look at what this program does,” she said. “Because who doesn’t want Grandma to be safe online? Who doesn’t want a veteran to be able to talk to their doctor rather than get in a car and drive two hours? Who doesn’t want students to be able to do their homework?”

Ortutay and Rush write for the Associated Press and reported from San Francisco and Portland, Ore., respectively.

Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump’s special presidentail envoy for special missions, seen her in 2020, announced on Tuesday that Venezuela has released U.S. Air Force veteran Joseph St. Clair, who has been detained in the South American for several months. File Photo by Chris Kleponis/UPI | License Photo

May 21 (UPI) — A U.S. Air Force veteran detained in Venezuela has been released, according to his family and Trump administration officials.

Joseph St. Clair was freed Tuesday, according to Richard Grenell, President Donald Trump‘s special presidential envoy for special missions and the newly appointed president of the Kennedy Center.

On his X account, Grenell posted pictures of himself and St. Clair boarding a small airplane.

“Joe St. Clair is back in America,” he said.

Grenell on Tuesday met with Venezuelan officials in an unidentified “neutral country to “negotiate an America First Strategy” he said.

Scott and Patti St. Clair, Joseph St. Clair’s parents, confirmed their son’s release from Venezuelan detention in a statement.

“This news came suddenly, and we are still processing it — but we are overwhelmed with joy and gratitude,” they said.

Details about St. Clair’s release were not immediately clear.

According to the James Foley Foundation, St. Clair was working in the food services industry in South America when his family lost contact with him in November. In February, the U.S. State Department told his family — who had not heard from him in months — that he had been wrongly detained by Venezuela, the foundation, which advocates for U.S. hostage prevention and release, said.

St. Clair’s release comes after Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, both Democrats from Washington, called on Trump earlier this month to become personally involved in pressing for the release of the Air Force veteran.

“Each day he is held, it prolongs his suffering, and the suffering of his friends and family,” they said in the letter.

In February, the Trump administration secured the release of six Americans who had been wrongly detained in Venezuela for several months.