victim

WASHINGTON  — The Constitution protects the rights of Americans but normally does not allow them to sue federal agents for violating those rights.

This rights vs. remedies dispute has divided the Supreme Court for nearly 50 years.

It did so again Monday when the justices heard arguments on whether to throw out a lawsuit brought by a federal prison inmate in Hawaii who suffered a broken tailbone in a gang fight.

Kekai Watanabe said he told prison nurse Francis Nielsen he was in intense pain. He was given only an over-the-counter pain medication. Seven months later, an X-ray finally revealed the damage from the fracture and the source of his continuing agony.

Acting on his own, Watanabe sued Nielsen for cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the 8th Amendment.

A federal judge dismissed his suit, citing the Supreme Court’s decades of skepticism over such lawsuits. However, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals revived his claim and pointed to a 1980 ruling that allowed a similar suit brought by a mother whose son died of an asthma attack in a federal prison.

It was the last time the high court had upheld a lawsuit for money damages against a federal agent for violating a constitutional right.

But the Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal in Nielsen vs. Watanabe. And during Monday’s arguments, the justices debated whether to further narrow such lawsuits or to reject them entirely.

The court’s conservatives say only Congress can authorize lawsuits for money damages against federal agents and employees. And they noted that in the Federal Tort Claims Act, Congress authorized damage suits against the United States for such claims.

“The power to create damages remedies belongs to Congress, not federal courts,” said Lucas Walker, an attorney for the prison nurse. “It’s time to end the Bivens experiment.”

He was referring to a 1971 decision in which the Supreme Court for the first time authorized such a constitutional claim for money damages against federal agent. In that case, known as Bivens, the suit was against several FBI agents for an unreasonable search during a drug raid in violation of the 4th Amendment.

Walker argued the court should overturn the Bivens case as well as the later ruling allowing a suit involving gross medical negligence.

But Joshua Wesneski, an attorney for Watanabe, said the prospect of being sued for wrongdoing “has a powerful deterrent effect.”

This issue has taken on new significance because of the aggressive and sometimes violent actions of federal immigration agents. They may be charged with a crime but they are not subject to being sued for damages by victims or their families.

After the Civil War, Congress passed an enforcement law that authorized suits against state and local officials acting under color of law who violated constitutional rights. But there is no comparably broad law for federal officers and agents.

That’s why a Los Angeles police officer who uses excessive force can be sued in a federal court, but the same is not true of a federal immigration agent.

Democrats in the Senate may try to change that in the year ahead.

Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) have proposed an “Accountability for Federal Law Enforcement Act” to allow victims to sue for “damages for constitutional and civil rights violations committed by federal law enforcement agents.”

They said Congress needs to extend the same legal accountability to federal agents that has long applied to police and other state and local officials.

“Recent incidents — from violent ICE and CBP raids to abuses by federal task forces — have underscored this gap in accountability,” Padilla said. “These events have eroded public trust and shown how federal officers can act with impunity even when their conduct clearly violates constitutional protections.”

El Cerrito High School in the Bay Area has canceled the remainder of its football season following a month-long police investigation into allegations of hazing and sexual assault involving at least 22 athletes over the last three seasons.

The probe stems from “a mandated reporter” on Oct. 2 telling police that members of the football team were engaging in bullying and hazing, the El Cerrito Police Department said in a statement. A mandated reporter in California is someone who has responsibility for children through their employment or volunteer status and is legally required to report suspected child abuse.

The alleged victims were other members of the football team. Detectives interviewed them along with school staff and witnesses. The West Contra Costa Unified School District, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, said the alleged incidents were said to have occurred between September 2024 and October 2026.

The police said they are investigating allegations of battery, sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment, dissuading a victim, conspiracy and stalking.

Detectives have obtained video evidence that corroborated the allegations, although police officials said they would not release details because of “the sensitive nature of an ongoing investigation that involves juvenile victims, witnesses and suspects.”

El Cerrito head coach Tim Johnson was placed on leave, and the team’s regular-season finale Friday against El Sobrante De Anza High was canceled. El Cerrito has a 6-3 record but will not participate in the upcoming playoffs to defend their title won last year.

The school district said it is conducting its own investigation under Title IX.

“No child should ever experience what our students have described,” District Supt. Cheryl Cotton said. “While we have worked to focus on accountability for the actions of individual players up until this point, new information has led to new decisions.

“We must now make the very tough call to immediately suspend the El Cerrito High football program in order to prevent any further harm and restore a safe learning environment for our students.”

Cotton said the district is “providing resources for all impacted and involved students” through classroom instruction on anti-hazing and bystander education.

The El Cerrito football program is two years removed from a controversy that allegedly coincided with the beginning of the hazing. Six games were forfeited by the Gauchos in 2024 and their coach at the time, Jacob Rincon, was suspended for breaking rules prohibiting undue influence and athletically motivated transfers. Several players were deemed ineligible, and the program was placed on probation for two years.

Some parents and advocates of the program were outraged by the school’s action, calling on Rincon to be reinstated and then-principal Malcolm Norrington to be fired. More than 100 students engaged in a walkout, waving homemade posters and chanting “Free Coach Jake,” and “No More Norrington,” according to digital news site Richmond Confidential.

Parents gathered more than 2,000 signatures in a petition to fire Norrington, who left the district in 2025. Rincon was dismissed and replaced last season by Johnson, who led the team to a 13-2 record and the school’s first State Division 4-A championship.

According to the police, however, the hazing and sexual assaults continued in 2025 and into 2026.

Similar allegations have marred prominent high school football programs in Southern California in recent years.

A lawsuit in 2024 details a sexual assault against a sophomore football player at Santa Margarita Catholic High School in Rancho Santa Margarita that triggered a police investigation and left the boy with post-traumatic stress disorder, severe depression and anxiety. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigated after the boy went to a hospital emergency room and alleged he had been sexually assaulted.

Santa Margarita principal Cheri Wood admitted in emails obtained by the Orange County Register that “at least 8” other players were allegedly assaulted by their teammates in a similar manner. The lawsuit was dismissed after a confidential out-of-court settlement was reached. The coach at the time was replaced by former NFL quarterback Carson Palmer, and Santa Margarita won a state title in 2025 and currently sits atop The Times’ high school football rankings.

A Rancho Cucamonga Los Osos High football player placed in a chokehold and whipped with a belt by two older players in a locker room in 2023 was initially described by Chaffey Joint Union High School District officials as “horseplay.” However, a video of the victim begging and screaming was circulated widely online and the district reversed its position, reclassified the event as prohibited hazing and issued undisclosed student disciplinary measures.

A 2021 lawsuit shined a light on players at Santa Ana Mater Dei High — one of the most celebrated football programs in the nation — being severely beaten by other players in a brutal hazing ritual called “bodies.” The family of a victim who suffered a traumatic brain injury and a broken nose filed a lawsuit against Mater Dei and the Diocese of Orange, alleging the Mater Dei administration covered up the incident.

“You drop your kids off at school and give them a kiss goodbye … and you feel like you’re putting them somewhere they can be safe,” the victim’s mother told The Times. “I felt like Mater Dei had the highest protection, I felt my kid would be safe there. Then for them to turn a blind eye and be so unsupervised. … It’s like, you failed my child.”

Courage in politics is rare.

It’s especially difficult and fraught for a politician such as Gavin Newsom, who has Oval Office ambitions and everything to lose from a misstep. Playing it safe is playing it smart.

On Thursday, Newsom took what can only be described as a courageous stand, a risky stand — commuting the death sentences of the 548 men and women condemned to die in California, and instead seeking to change their sentences to life without parole.

Many people will stop reading right now because honestly, do you care what happens to those on death row? They’ve raped, murdered, robbed, tortured — you name the heinous crime, one of them has done it. They are not the most sympathetic lot, and in truth many of us have ambivalent feelings on the death penalty.

It’s that ambivalence, that uncertainty, that makes Newsom’s move so interesting. We are in the most unlikely of moments — witnessing a self-inflicted test of political endurance from a savvy politician who didn’t need to go there. What happens in these strange days when a presidential hopeful takes an unnecessary risk simply because he believes it’s the right thing to do?

Newsom will be roasted by those claiming to be tough-on-crime types. They predictably will cry that he is circumventing the will of the people and disrespecting crime victims and juries. Some will say he cares more about criminals than victims. Fox News is going to have a field day.

Newsom has publicly pondered this decision for some time, calling it a “rocking chair” choice, one he’s likely to look back on someday to judge whether he lived up to his own ideals. He has said he is morally opposed to the state killing to prove killing is bad. As he terms out of office, he had only a couple of months left to take action on that belief before the power to end the largest death row in the Western Hemisphere slips out of his hands.

“Faithfulness to our values is measured by how we act when it’s most difficult to uphold them,” Newsom wrote in a letter to Californians announcing his decision. This, he said, was one of those moments for him.

“Americans are looking for leadership that is more principled,” civil rights attorney Bryan Stevenson told me, arguing Newsom’s move is actually in sync with the electorate. Stevenson is one of the people Newsom has talked to about the death penalty, and the founder of the Legacy Museum in Alabama, which traces the line from slavery to mass incarceration.

The shocking blue-wave midterms showed that Americans aren’t just tired of cruelty for cruelty’s sake, he said. They are tired of injustice, tired of selfish, self-serving leaders, tired of fearing that their own government might crush them simply because it can.

Across the country, voters elected political leaders who stood for something — who bucked the trends to run on their values and vision of a better America, even if it wasn’t mainstream or safe.

So whether Americans agree with Newsom’s decision to commute these sentences to life without parole or not, voters are at a moment when I suspect, as Stevenson does, that they may embrace his courage to stand for something, even if they don’t agree with what that something is.

The death penalty is the ultimate expression of that power of government to crush. Support for it has been mixed for years, even among liberals — though young people are less likely to back it. It has been banned in nearly every Western democracy including almost all of Europe, Canada and New Zealand.

Twenty-seven U.S. states either have abolished it or have gubernatorial moratoriums on it (Newsom enacted one in California a few years ago). And President Biden commuted the death sentences of most federal inmates in his final days of office, as have several other governors over the years.

There also has been a growing understanding in the U.S. that race bias is baked into how we use the death penalty. Black and brown people make up the majority of those on death row, and crimes in which the victim is white are more likely to draw the death sentence — even when we get it wrong.

More than 200 people on death row have been exonerated across the United States since the 1970s — including eight in California — meaning that for every eight people we have put to death, there has been one other who was going to be killed by the state until we figured out they were innocent.

So while there’s a moral argument to be made against the state killing people to prove killing people is wrong, there’s also a practical one: It turns out we’re really bad at imposing a lethal sentence fairly, or even correctly.

Vicente Benavides Figueroa is proof of that. After 25 years on death row, the justice system finally realized it had made a terrible error in his conviction. Figueroa wasn’t just railroaded into a lethal sentence — for the murder, rape and sodomy of a toddler — the crime itself likely never actually happened.

Figueroa was a seasonal farmworker, a Mexican immigrant with less than a high school education, who was watching his girlfriend’s kids in the Central Valley in 1991 when he lost track of the youngest, Consuelo, for 15 minutes. When he found her, she was in the front yard, unresponsive and vomiting.

One thing led to another — a “reckless” investigation, as his civil attorney Salomon Zavala, describes it; faulty translators; a mostly white jury who werefar from his peers; and erroneous medical testimony — and Figueroa was convicted. The machine of justice was so grinding that Figueroa did not understand he had been sentenced to death until he got to San Quentin.

Decades later, the doctors who claimed Consuelo was raped and sodomized would realize the injuries were likely because of trauma from medical workers attempting to insert an adult-sized catheter. They recanted. New experts, hired by the defense, theorized the child had been hit by a car, causing the extensive internal injuries that killed her. The witnesses now agreed the child never had been raped or sodomized.

Figueroa’s conviction was overturned by the state Supreme Court in 2018, citing false evidence in the original trial.

“No matter what your moral position is on the death penalty, I think we have to look at it from a standpoint of institutional responsibility,” Zavala, the lawyer, told me. “We have to really think about whether we, as a society, are comfortable with executing someone that could potentially be innocent.”

I’m of the mind that erroneously killing one person in the name of justice is one too many — that the death penalty is an unacceptable risk.

I take nothing away from, nor mean to diminish, the importance or pain of any victim, their story or their point of view. Their pain is real and enduring, and surely there will be some who feel Newsom’s decision robs them of some sort of final resolution.

But pain cannot define justice.

It’s easy to forget that Newsom is married to a survivor of violent crime, and knows as well as anyone how complicated and difficult and personal the journey to recovery is, and how that suffering affects not just victims, but also families and communities.

But whether or not the state should be in the business of killing has to be a bigger decision that we consider collectively in moments when we are not in distress.

Newsom’s decision does that, seeking to go beyond “these performative sentences that just represent a lot of fear and anger,” Stevenson said, and move our justice system toward one that lives up to the ideal of promoting safety and fairness over vengeance. And even then, the state Supreme Court will have a say in the majority of these clemencies, since Newsom needs their approval in cases where there are repeat felonies.

But it’s a can of worms he didn’t have to open — the clearest statement we’ll ever get of who Newsom is as a leader.

And it’s a welcome reminder that sometimes, occasionally, values still have a place in politics.

The ad was repugnant.

You know the one I’m talking about — Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s attack on opponent Amy Acton using her clearly troubled mother, who failed to protect Acton as a child from her rapist stepfather and instead abandoned her kids to stay with the now-deceased pedophile.

Wow. Even in 2026, that’s a lot.

The ad, released last week on the internet and set for a television blitz through the election, has sparked condemnation even from Republicans. Some anyway. President Trump and Vice President JD Vance (a close friend of Ramaswamy’s) have defended it, much to the chagrin of decent people everywhere who have labeled this a make-it-or-break-it moment for the Grand Old Party.

Trump called getting Acton’s mom on camera “hitting pay dirt.”

“Why shouldn’t somebody use that?” Trump said Friday. “To me, that’s something that’s very much fair game.”

Trump’s right, in his world anyway. His faithful may not like the ad, but it’s not a deal-breaker.

The appalled, left and right, are wrong on this one — this is not a turning point for the Republican Party or the moment it realized its soul was in the frying pan.

When Ramaswamy loses — and he’s likely going to lose, if polls are right — it won’t be because Republican voters finally believe the party has sunk too low, lost its way or lacks morals. And when the postmortem happens on the right, it won’t examine whether exploiting victims of sex abuse is a smart move. (Full disclosure: One of my relatives is an advisor of Ramaswamy.)

Instead, the ad will eventually be seen as a great gift to Donald Trump for two reasons.

First, it allows Ramaswamy — his endorsed candidate — to lose without it being the president’s fault for starting a war, tanking the economy and generally being entirely unpopular with average Americans. Get ready, because if Ramaswamy goes down, Trump will spin it that Democrats and the corrupt media misrepresented the ad and lied about Ramaswamy. Not Trump’s fault, just further proof of why his battle is righteous.

Second, it allows him to test the loyalty of his MAGA acolytes ahead of 2028, and folks, I’m sorry to say it’s a test they are likely to pass with flying colors. Vance laid this out clearly in his defense, reserving his scorn for Republicans who dared to be anything but steadfast.

“Stop whining about an advertisement and go win the race in 13 days,” Vance said in response to a question about the ad. He added he was “disgusted” that his fellow Republicans were seemingly more upset about the ad “than they are about what the congressional Democrats and other Democrats want to do to the United States of America.”

For all the angst about sexual abuse, even of minors, the forever Trumpers honestly don’t care as long as their candidates win and maintain power. Just ask Jeffrey Epstein’s victims. Ask E. Jean Kelly. Ask Victim A in the Matt Gaetz allegations, or Christine Blasey Ford if you can remember that far back. The list goes on.

MAGA diehards may holler and stomp about how much they hate pedophiles, but they hate Democrats more. Trump has told these voters to ignore the ad and vote Ramaswamy. I predict more of them do it than decency permits — because we’ve seen this MAGA mental split before, where they somehow set aside all of their so-called outrage when Trump tells them to do something.

These voters are clear that the Trump regime presents a real opportunity to remake the country into a conservative bastion in ways that will be hard to undo, and they will overlook even the indecency of exploiting childhood rape.

“Vivek is Great, there is no one better for Ohio. That’s a wild story,” responded one supporter on Truth Social after Trump posted a defense of the ad.

“I love how Vivek does not hesitate to call out wrongdoings,” wrote another.

Others tried to turn the topic to their conspiracies about Rep. Ilhan Omar and Michigan senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, two bogeyman of the right for their race and religion. The responses of Trumpers to his post were exactly on brand — deflecting or blaming media and disinformation for skewing the issue. (Trump and Ramaswamy are claiming that the ad isn’t about sexual abuse, but only about whether Acton is truthful.)

With that veneer of justification, it’s likely his most devout base in Ohio, led by the 20% of voters who consider themselves white evangelicals, will stick with their guy. Nearly 8 in 10 white evangelical Protestants support Trump, and they are motivated voters who have disconnected the Trump reality from the Trump promise for years.

Despite all the outrage across the country about the ad, it’s likely the final tally in Ohio will remain largely as it would have been before the kerfuffle. Ramaswamy was down in the polls before he dove into the muck of the past few days. A reliable Cook’s poll put Acton ahead 49% to 44% — one of the reasons Ramaswamy was desperate enough to try this last-ditch smear.

I’ll bet an Ohio buckeye the final count isn’t far outside that margin, with no sign of a massive drop in Republican support of Ramaswamy, despite all the posturing and hand-wringing. If he loses, it is likely more about the surging racism against Indian Americans, especially with young conservatives, than one ugly ad.

But those Republicans who denounced the ad will face the president’s punishment. The ad is not a mistake. It is an inadvertent test. By embracing the ad even as it’s disparaged nationally, the president is discovering exactly who he can, and can’t, trust as he heads into the two most difficult years of his decadelong rule — the part where he stops pretending to be anything but what he is, a corrupt and greedy man intent on maximizing power and wealth. The part where he challenges elections.

We are watching the last of the old-guard Republicans being purged thanks to the ad. Republicans who have gathered up the tattered shreds of their integrity and courage over this ad are shredding them to nothing on this moment, giving Trump insight into who might stand up to him when the protection of our democracy is on the line.

Trump has started lashing out already, making sure those potential last-round conscientious objectors are damaged.

After current Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine called for Ramaswamy to stop airing the spot, labeling it “deeply troubling,” Trump attacked him — even though DeWine said he continued to support Ramaswamy as his replacement. (DeWine is facing term limits.)

“Mike DeWine, who I unfortunately helped get elected years ago, when he was losing by 16 points prior to my doing a Rally for him was, as usual, disloyal to the Republican Party,” Trump wrote on social media.

DeWine was far from alone.

Trump’s days of conning himself into a coalition are behind him — well into his second term, is now consolidating power behind his core, public opinion be damned.

The independent voters that may indeed not vote or change votes because of the ad were just as likely to switch over gas prices or wars.

The ad was never for them, but rather just for this outrage, this push to motivate the base with just the sort of grimy bullying Trump does best — I believe him when he says he wishes he could make an ad like this. Trump will rally in Ohio this week with Ramaswamy, and it’s likely most Republicans will somehow have transmuted their outrage into support by the time he appears in person.

His base understands his support of the ad is an expression of power. His base understands the trade they are making. His base doesn’t care what happened to Acton, because she will never give them the America they want.

His base likes the ad, even if they won’t admit it.

Oct. 14, 2026 10:13 AM PT

COLUMBIA, S.C. — U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace’s former fiance and two of his business associates were charged with sex crimes and voyeurism on Wednesday over an episode the South Carolina congresswoman described in detail during a speech last year on the House floor about how crimes against women are not investigated thoroughly.

John Douglas Osborne committed sex acts on a 23-year-old incapacitated and intoxicated woman while Mace’s ex-fiance Patrick Bryant and Eric Bernard Bowman watched, according to sworn statements by agents from the State Law Enforcement Division, which brought the charges.

The men talked about who would assault the woman beforehand, took photos and recorded the assault, which was also seen on a security system feed at the home in Sullivan’s Island, an affluent suburb of Charleston, state agents said. The woman had fallen into a pool and was passed out on a couch covering herself with a pillow, agents said.

Another woman who happened to be watching the feed saw the assault and took pictures and wrote about it in a journal, police said. Mace and Bryant were not yet engaged at the time of the October 2018 assault.

Osborne, 46, is charged with first-degree assault and battery and two counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct. Bryant, 53, and Bowman, 46, are each charged with voyeurism.

Along with the voyeurism charge, Bowman was also charged with obstruction of justice after agents said he did a factory reset on a cellphone he knew investigators were seeking in a search warrant, and with publishing the name of a victim of criminal sexual conduct after posting the victim’s name and a video of her on X.

Bryant didn’t return a message seeking comment on Wednesday, and attorneys who have been listed as representing Bowman and Osborne in other cases did not immediately return messages.

Mace, a Republican, described the assault at length in a nearly hourlong speech in February 2025 that named the men and described other photos and videos found when she looked at Bryant’s cellphone when they were still together.

Mace said she “accidentally uncovered some of the most heinous crimes against women imaginable. We’re talking about rape, non-consensual photos, non-consensual videos of women and underage girls, and the premeditated, calculated exploitation of women and girls in my district.”

At the time, Bryant completely denied the allegations. “I take this matter seriously and will cooperate fully with any necessary legal processes to clear my name,” he told the Associated Press.

The State Law Enforcement Division didn’t say if their investigation into any of the men is continuing.

After the arrests, Mace released a statement detailing the 25 bills she says will protect victims of sexual assault, harassment or discrimination, including in retaliatory defamation and libel lawsuits that may result from allegations they bring to light.

The Republican, who is leaving the House this term after losing her bid to be South Carolina governor, introduced a proposal this week to require that anyone who brings such a case and loses must pay attorney fees for the defendant.

“Protecting women and holding predators accountable isn’t a slogan. It’s been one of my top priorities in Congress. For too long, survivors have faced broken systems while predators exploited loopholes and walked free,” Mace said in her statement.

Kinnard and Collins write for the Associated Press.

New restrictions have stripped Medicaid coverage from certain legal immigrants, including refugees and victims of human trafficking, as part of broader federal changes to the health insurance program that are expected to force millions off their coverage.

The change effective Oct. 1 cut from Medicaid what is estimated to be hundreds of thousands of people who legally immigrated to the United States, many of whom work and pay taxes, in the latest Trump administration policy to target foreigners.

The move is part of sweeping changes to Medicaid under President Donald Trump’s 2025 tax cut and policy law, with many set to take effect early next year. The Medicaid changes are projected to result in 7.5 million fewer people with health insurance, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s 2025 estimate.

Advocates say that without Medicaid, people will not be able to afford private insurance and will either delay care or end up in emergency rooms, adding pressure to a strained health system. For immigrants, the cuts could be felt more acutely, compounding the effects of other administration efforts to restrict their access to public assistance as part of a broader immigration crackdown.

“This is about telling every immigrant in the United States that they are not welcome here and that they should leave,” said Ben D’Avanzo, a senior strategist at the National Immigration Law Center, which has pursued litigation against the Republican administration over its immigration agenda.

Refugees, asylum seekers, victims of human trafficking and domestic violence are among those who have lost coverage. Green-card holders were not impacted.

Lauren Bis, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that “immigrants must be able to support themselves without taking from overburdened benefits programs paid for by hard-working American taxpayers.”

D’Avanzo said many people who have lost coverage will likely only realize when they need medical care. But for some, the change has been felt immediately.

Dwindling supplies of lifesaving medication

In Tucson, Arizona, María Chacon has been caring for her son Jesus for almost five years since a car accident at 17 left him unable to breathe on his own. He requires a ventilator, a feeding tube and daily medication, and must be turned once every two hours to stop sores from forming. Chacon said he sometimes opens his eyes.

The family is originally from Mexico and entered the U.S. on a T visa, offered to victims of human trafficking, in 2018.

Chacon said Medicaid has helped cover almost $25,000 per month of care for her son, which includes a small stipend for her and her husband as compensation for being long-term caregivers. She said doctors have explained that even if they both worked 24 hours a day, they would not be able to cover the cost of his care.

“Since that day I haven’t been able to sleep. We haven’t been able to eat or anything. We’re wondering what we’re going to do?” Chacon said.

Jesus takes medication that Chacon estimates costs $7,000 a month. The supply runs out in mid-October. Without coverage, she does not know how her son is going to survive.

Chacon found out just days before the cuts that she was losing care. She called the state’s Medicaid offices to appeal. Although she is in the process of obtaining a green card, Medicaid coverage would only kick in five years after she is approved.

Steven Camarota, research director for the Center for Immigration Studies, a right-leaning think tank that seeks less immigration, said the administration “is trying to nibble around the edges” with the Oct. 1 cuts, finding piecemeal ways to curb immigration into the U.S.

Camarota believes the government should screen legal immigrants for income potential and education, reducing the number who might rely on public benefits once they cross the border.

“You need immigrants who are unlikely to need welfare,” he said, or those with high educational attainment.

The administration recently revived a federal rule that could deny green cards to immigrants who use public benefits that could include food stamps, Medicaid, housing vouchers and others.

Chacon believes the cuts to Medicaid coverage are part of the administration’s clampdown on immigrants. She said her son is in no condition to travel.

“I know that’s what he’s doing, but, as my son is, I couldn’t go to Mexico,” Chacon said.

Millions more will be dropped from Medicaid

Medicaid, jointly funded by states and the federal government, has become a political focal point during Trump’s second term. The president has pushed to root out what he describes as fraud in the program. In July, the administration deferred over $1 billion in Medicaid payments to California and Minnesota, claiming there was suspected fraud; critics argued the move targeted Democratic-led states.

As more people are cut from Medicaid, the federal government is predicted to reduce program spending by $911 billion, according to healthcare research nonprofit KFF.

In Arizona, officials said 29,000 legal immigrants were cut from Medicaid rolls on Oct. 1. In Florida, estimates are closer to 177,000. Overall, more than 281,000 immigrants from nine states and the District of Columbia are estimated to lose Medicaid coverage, according to KFF.

As more states implement various restrictions to coverage, 7.5 million people are expected to lose coverage by 2034, according to analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

Without coverage, people will turn to emergency rooms for care. When people delay seeing a doctor, conditions can worsen and become even more expensive to treat.

“At the end of the day, it does raise the cost for the states because once you get these people in for something that could have been prevented, they could not go to the doctor because they were uninsured; they most likely will end up at a hospital in an emergency room,” said Carmen Feliciano, the vice president of policy and advocacy at UnidosUS, a Latino civil rights organization.

UnidosUS partners with community organizations to help provide medical care, but Feliciano said they already are overwhelmed and would not be able to support the number of people who are going to lose medical coverage in the coming months.

“We are not going to have the capacity to serve all the people who need it,” Feliciano said.

Schuettler and Hussein write for the Associated Press.