WASHINGTON — American colleges and universities received gifts and contracts worth more than $5.2 billion from foreign entities in 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Education, which also recently published summaries of foreign investment in U.S. higher education dating back to 1986. 

Qatar, the United Kingdom, China, Switzerland, Japan, Germany and Saudi Arabia marked the largest sources of reportable gifts and contracts to U.S. institutions in 2025, according to the agency, which released the latest funding disclosures this month. 

The department also made public roughly 40 years of data on a transparency dashboard that offers a snapshot of the foreign funding disclosures submitted by colleges and universities. The administration described the move as a transparency effort, but critics say it lacks key context. 

The dashboard shows cumulative data since 1986, when Congress amended the Higher Education Act of 1965 to mandate colleges and universities receiving federal financial assistance disclose any foreign gifts or contracts valued at or above $250,000 annually.

The provision, known as Section 117, “came about due to concerns about malign actors trying to either use educational platforms to promote agendas that were not in the national interest or about getting access to American youth or about exerting influence on institutions,” said Rick Hess, senior fellow and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank.

And while the Education Department this month heralded the dashboard as a major step toward transparency in foreign influence in U.S. education, the tool does not separate gifts and contracts by year, limiting its use to help the public spot trends or identify major gifts.

Details about the gifts and contracts, such as what was given or what work was contracted, are not displayed on the dashboard.

Trump priority

President Donald Trump and his administration have sought to increase transparency requirements when it comes to foreign funds entering U.S. colleges and universities.

Part of the administration’s effort includes an April 2025 executive order that sought to “end the secrecy surrounding foreign funds in American educational institutions” and to “safeguard America’s students and research from foreign exploitation.” 

The public transparency dashboard is housed on a portal, launched in January, where colleges and universities are responsible for disclosing foreign gifts and contracts. 

The Education Department announced Feb. 23 that it would partner with the State Department on foreign gift and contract reporting under Section 117.

The move — one of several interagency agreements announced so far by the administration — is part of the administration’s ongoing efforts to dismantle the 46-year-old agency. 

State will help the Education Department manage its foreign funding reporting portal and “use its national security and foreign national academic admissions expertise to review and assess the industry’s compliance with the law, share data with the public and federal stakeholders, and identify potential threats,” the Education Department said. 

Nearly $70 billion disclosed 

At least 555 institutions have disclosed $67.6 billion in foreign gifts and contracts between 1986 and mid-December 2025, according to the dashboard.

The institutions that have received the most funding in foreign gifts and contracts since Section 117 was enacted are Harvard University in Massachusetts, at $4.2 billion; Carnegie Mellon University, in Pennsylvania, at $3.9 billion; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at $3.5 billion; Cornell University in New York, at $3.1 billion and the University of Pennsylvania, at $2.8 billion. 

The dashboard also includes a separate section on the total value of transactions in foreign gifts and contracts with “counterparties located in countries of concern,” such as China, Russia and Venezuela. 

The universities that received the most money from counterparties in these “countries of concern” are Harvard, at $610.8 million; MIT, at $490.1 million; New York University, at $462.5 million; Stanford University in California, at $418.5 million; and Yale University in Connecticut, at $400.2 million.  

Concerns from higher ed groups 

Some higher education groups expressed concerns over the dashboard, including limitations they see with how the data is portrayed. 

The cumulative nature of the dashboard does not allow the public to see how the amount of money in foreign gifts and contracts received by schools fluctuated throughout the years. 

“There’s no way to kind of break out what the funding is by the year, or perhaps by the funding cycle, so you can’t really see any funding trends,” Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff for government relations at the American Council on Education, told States Newsroom. 

The association serves as the major coordinating body for the country’s colleges and universities, representing roughly 1,600 institutions. 

Spreitzer emphasized a lack of context throughout the dashboard, including on the list of foreign entities of concern and whether such funding is active or reflects past funding. 

For instance, the U.S. Department of Commerce designated the Chinese tech company Huawei as an entity of concern in 2019.

Huawei has provided roughly $22.7 million in funding to American universities, overall, according to the dashboard. But the dashboard doesn’t show the gifts and contracts all came prior to the entity-of-concern designation, Spreitzer said.

“None of our institutions have taken funding from Huawei since 2019, if not earlier, when we were informed of the concerns around Huawei,” Spreitzer said. “However, the way that the information is presented, it seems to imply that our institutions are still taking funding from Huawei.” 

Spreitzer said that the dashboard “demonstrates that our schools are complying with Section 117 and they are meeting their reporting obligations.”

“I hope that people are not making broad assumptions based on how the data is presented right now,” added Spreitzer, who hopes the administration will continue making improvements to the dashboard, such as separating the disclosures by year and adding additional context.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats threw a spotlight Thursday on President Donald Trump’s attempts to yank funds away from minority-serving institutions, as the administration tries to end diversity, equity and inclusion policies in schools.

Hawaii U.S. Sen. Mazie Hirono hosted an unofficial hearing that gathered advocates, leaders, experts and students to sound the alarm on the consequences of cutting funding for the more than 800 MSIs, as they are known, that enroll millions of students of color. Many are from low-income households or are the first in their families to attend college.

Hirono blasted the administration’s broader efforts to end DEI efforts in schools, as well as larger ongoing actions to axe the 46-year-old U.S. Department of Education.  

Trump “has been attacking these programs and is now working to illegally eliminate the programs entirely, not to mention they would like to eliminate the entire federal Department of Education,” she said. 

In September, the department decided to gut and reprogram $350 million in discretionary funds that support minority-serving institutions, over claims that the programs for Black, Asian, Indigenous and Hispanic students and more are “racially discriminatory.”

Soon after, the department moved to redirect $495 million in additional funding to historically Black colleges and universities as well as tribal colleges.

Adding fuel to the fire, the Justice Department issued an opinion in December finding several grant programs for minority-serving institutions to be “unconstitutional.” 

Education Secretary Linda McMahon concurred with that opinion, and the agency said later that month it was “currently evaluating the full impact” of the opinion on affected programs.

‘Plainly cruel’

Mike Hoa Nguyen, associate professor of education and principal investigator for the MSI Data Project at the University of California, Los Angeles, said MSIs are “the backbone of American higher education.” 

Nguyen said these institutions “provide critical pathways to academic opportunity and achievement for millions of students of color, particularly those from low-income households and those who are often the first in their families to go to college.” 

He noted that as a result of the funds being reprogrammed, MSIs have been left “struggling to figure out how to explain the continuity of vital services — services that have been empirically demonstrated to improve student learning, boost academic performance in the classroom and ultimately lead them to graduate.” 

Nguyen added that “these funds are about providing the basic resources so students can learn, grow, succeed and contribute to our society and our economy, and eliminating these resources in general — and in such an abrupt manner — isn’t just misaligned and misguided, it’s plainly cruel.” 

Rowena Tomaneng, president of Asian Pacific Americans in Higher Education, said “essential programs nationwide have been shuttered or destabilized” as a consequence of the yanked funding.  

“These programs are not supplemental — they are essential to closing equity gaps for first-generation and low-income students,” said Tomaneng, whose organization advocates for Asian American and Pacific Islander students, faculty and staff across higher education. 

“Their loss will reverse hard-won gains, widen disparities and weaken institutions that serve as gateways to opportunity,” Tomaneng said. 

Senators send letter to McMahon

The hearing came a week after Hirono, along with Sens. Alex Padilla of California, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico and Raphael Warnock of Georgia, led nearly two dozen colleagues in urging McMahon to reverse her department’s decision to unilaterally halt federal funding for MSIs.

“This decision is yet another example of this Administration attempting to circumvent Congress and its obligations to follow the law,” the senators wrote. “Unilaterally deciding that long-standing programs are unconstitutional, absent a ruling from the judiciary, sets a dangerous precedent and disrupts needed support that colleges and students rely on.” 

Meanwhile, Trump signed into law earlier in February a spending package that funds the Education Department at $79 billion this fiscal year.

The measure also “increases funding for all Title III and V programs that support HBCUs, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Tribal colleges, and other minority-serving institutions,” per a summary from Senate Appropriations Committee Democrats. 

Hirono noted that “only Congress can eliminate these programs, and Congress has decided not to do so,” during the hearing. 

“In fact, we provided additional funding for these programs in the fiscal year (20)26 spending bill reiterating our support for them, but of course, the Trump regime doesn’t care about Congress’ priorities,” she said. 

The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday. 

WASHINGTON — Some congressional Democrats boycotted President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address Tuesday night, opting to attend counter-programming to protest the administration’s actions.

Lawmakers took to alternative stages in Washington, D.C., in rebukes of what they see as Trump’s lack of regard for constitutional norms, immigration enforcement tactics and response to the affordability crisis hitting American families.  

“Our democracy is wilting under ceaseless attack from a president who wants to be a despot,” said Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut at the “People’s State of the Union” rally on the National Mall.

“Millions of Americans are losing their health care because the president has chosen corruption to pad the pockets of his billionaire friends instead of helping average Americans,” said Murphy, who serves as the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. 

The rally, hosted by progressive media company MeidasTouch and progressive advocacy group MoveOn, countered the president’s address to Congress. Lawmakers brought their own guests to the event, who rebuffed ongoing actions by the administration. 

Tuesday night also featured the “State of the Swamp” at the National Press Club, hosted by DEFIANCE.org, a resistance effort against Trump; the Portland Frog Brigade, a coalition of “artist-activists” and COURIER, an advocacy media network. 

The “State of the Swamp” event brought in several Democratic lawmakers, former Trump administration officials, current and former Democratic state leaders, as well as leading voices against the administration. 

‘A lawless president’

Sen. Ruben Gallego, an Arizona Democrat, described the State of the Union as a “state of denial” during the event on the National Mall. 

“What’s going to happen under that Capitol is a bunch of lies — lies that Donald Trump and the Republicans are going to tell us about how great this country is doing right now,” he said. “But what is true, what is happening right now, is that Donald Trump and the Republicans have made this country sicker, poorer and less secure.”

Democratic lawmakers continued to blast the administration’s immigration enforcement tactics.

Those criticisms grew even louder after federal agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens last month in Minneapolis. 

The Department of Homeland Security is shut down as Congress and the administration try to iron out a solution to Democrats’ demands for additional restraints on immigration enforcement following the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

“Now we know the state of our union,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat. “We know it is under attack from a lawless president who is shredding our Constitution and who is attacking our democracy — a president whose private (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) army executes Americans and then calls the victims domestic terrorists.” 

Epstein files

Democrats also lambasted the administration’s handling of the files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which faced criticism for its piecemeal rollout of the files and heavy redactions. 

Several Democratic lawmakers invited survivors of Epstein as their guests to Trump’s State of the Union address. 

“We should be crystal clear about right now what is happening in our country,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, during the rally on the National Mall. 

“We have a president who is leading the single largest government cover-up in modern history — we have the single largest sex trafficking ring in modern history right now being covered up by Donald Trump and (Attorney General) Pam Bondi in the Department of Justice,” Garcia said. 

Trump, who has appeared in several of the files, had a well-documented friendship with Epstein, but has maintained he had a falling-out with the disgraced financier and was never involved in any alleged crimes.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s administration took more steps Monday to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, announcing two additional interagency agreements with other departments that will transfer more of its responsibilities to those agencies.

Under the agreements, the agency will partner with the State Department on foreign gift and contract reporting and with the Department of Health and Human Services on family engagement and school support programs.

The 46-year-old department signed seven other interagency agreements in 2025 as part of an ongoing effort to dismantle itself, including with State and HHS, as well as Labor and Interior. 

“As we continue to break up the federal education bureaucracy and return education to the states, our new partnerships with the State Department and HHS represent a practical step toward greater efficiency, stronger coordination, and meaningful improvement,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement. 

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, blasted the additional interagency agreements in a Monday statement. 

McMahon “is unlawfully dismantling the Education Department by moving programs and offices to other federal agencies despite a clear warning from Congress that she lacks the authority to do so,” Gittleman said. 

She added that “these moves come as the Trump Administration has attempted to fire large numbers of career public servants in these very offices — and is now trying to shift their critical work across multiple federal agencies with no educational expertise.”

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also lambasted the announcement.

“These illegal agreements aren’t just creating pointless new bureaucracy that burdens our already-overworked teachers and schools,” she said in a statement Monday. “They are actively jeopardizing resources and support that students and families count on and are entitled to under the law.”

Foreign gifts and contracts

The Education Department clarified in fact sheets that in both agreements, it would “maintain all statutory responsibilities” and oversight of the programs involved. 

Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, colleges and universities receiving federal financial assistance are required to disclose any foreign gifts or contracts valued above $250,000 annually. 

Under the agreement, State will help the Education Department in managing its foreign funding reporting portal, where colleges and universities are responsible for disclosing such transactions. 

State will also “use its national security and foreign national academic admissions expertise to review and assess the industry’s compliance with the law, share data with the public and federal stakeholders, and identify potential threats,” the Education Department said. 

HHS portfolio grows

Under the agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services, HHS will take on a “growing role” in administering several programs that are currently housed under the Education Department’s Office of Elementary and Secondary Education. 

The programs include the School Emergency Response to Violence (Project SERV), School Safety National Activities, Ready to Learn Programming, Full-Service Community Schools, Promise Neighborhoods and Statewide Family Engagement Centers, the Education Department said. 

The School Emergency Response to Violence program helps schools recover from a violent event, according to the department. 

Ready to Learn Programming “supports the development of educational television and digital media targeted at preschool and early elementary school children and their families,” according to the department.  

The Full-Service Community Schools program offers academic, social and health services for students in high-poverty areas and their families. 

According to the department, a Promise Neighborhood is a “place-based, collective impact approach to improving results for children and families.” The program aims to make it so that participating children “have access to great schools and strong systems of family and community support.”

The Statewide Family Engagement Centers program seeks to provide financial assistance to organizations helping state and local educational agencies to improve family engagement.

Abolishing the department

Since taking office, Trump has sought to take an axe to the agency in his quest to move education “back to the states.” The U.S. Supreme Court in July 2025 temporarily greenlit mass layoffs and a plan to dramatically downsize the Education Department ordered earlier that year.

That plan, outlined in a March 2025 executive order signed by Trump, called on McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of her own department.

Meanwhile, Congress earlier this year rebuked Trump’s request to dramatically slash funding for the department as he and his administration seek to do away with it.

Trump signed a measure earlier in February that funds the department at $79 billion this fiscal year — roughly $217 million more than the agency’s fiscal 2025 funding level and a whopping $12 billion above what Trump sought.

Though the spending package does not offer ironclad language to prevent the outsourcing of the Education Department’s responsibilities to other agencies, the measure does direct the Education Department and the agencies that are part of the transfers to provide biweekly briefings to lawmakers on the implementation of any interagency agreements.

WASHINGTON — Tributes poured in across the country for the revered civil rights figure the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., who died Tuesday morning at 84.

The two-time Democratic presidential hopeful and Greenville, South Carolina, native died peacefully, surrounded by his kin, according to his family. 

Jackson, who was active in the civil rights movement as a college student, worked alongside the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as a young adult before King’s 1968 assassination.

Leading his own political movement, Jackson became known for his populist message, charismatic delivery and organizing prowess that elevated the role and influence of Black political leaders and helped shape the modern Democratic Party.

“Our father was a servant leader — not only to our family, but to the oppressed, the voiceless, and the overlooked around the world,” Jackson’s family said in a statement. 

“We shared him with the world, and in return, the world became part of our extended family,” his family added. “His unwavering belief in justice, equality, and love uplifted millions, and we ask you to honor his memory by continuing the fight for the values he lived by.”

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, ordered flags to fly at half-staff Tuesday in Jackson’s honor in the state where he lived and worked for many years.

The family statement did not list a cause of death. Jackson was diagnosed in 2013 with Parkinson’s disease. His diagnosis was updated last year to progressive supranuclear palsy, according to a November statement from the Rainbow PUSH Coalition that Jackson founded.

Tributes from Obama, Trump and Biden

Former President Barack Obama, the first Black president, and his wife, Michelle Obama, said Jackson’s runs for the presidency “laid the foundation” for Barack Obama’s successful 2008 campaign. And Chicago native Michelle Obama’s “first glimpse of political organizing” was at the Jacksons’ kitchen table, they said.

“From organizing boycotts and sit-ins, to registering millions of voters, to advocating for freedom and democracy around the world, he was relentless in his belief that we are all children of God, deserving of dignity and respect,” they wrote. “Reverend Jackson also created opportunities for generations of African Americans and inspired countless more, including us.”

President Donald Trump paid tribute, dubbing Jackson “a force of nature like few others before him” and a “good man, with lots of personality, grit, and ‘street smarts,’” in a social media post Tuesday.  

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the highest-ranking Black member of Congress, honored Jackson as a “legendary voice for the voiceless, powerful civil rights champion and trailblazer extraordinaire,” in a social media post. 

“For decades, while laboring in the vineyards of the community, he inspired us to keep hope alive in the struggle for liberty and justice for all,” the New York Democrat said.

Jeffries expressed gratitude for Jackson’s “incredible service” to the country and “profound sacrifice as the people’s champion.” 

Former President Joe Biden called Jackson “a man of God and of the people. Determined and tenacious. Unafraid of the work to redeem the soul of our Nation.” 

South Carolina legacy

U.S. Rep. Jim Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat and longtime friend of Jackson, said the civil rights leader lived a life “defying odds,” in a statement Tuesday.  

“Reverend Jackson showed us that if we all work together – we can bend the arc of the moral universe and change history,” Clyburn said while also pointing to Jackson’s impact on “the nation, Black Americans, and movements to encourage civic participation around the world.” 

U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican who is the party’s highest-ranking Black elected official, honored Jackson’s legacy as a leader and role model.

“I don’t have to agree with someone politically to deeply respect the role Jesse Jackson, a South Carolina native, played in uplifting Black voices and inspiring young folks to believe their voices mattered,” Scott wrote on social media. “Those that empower people to stand taller always leave a lasting mark. Rest in peace.”

Jackson’s legacy will live on in the next generation, South Carolina state Sen. Deon Tedder said during a news conference Tuesday. 

“The future generation, they’re picking up that torch, they’re picking up that mantle,” said Tedder, a Democrat, gesturing to students from the state’s historically Black colleges and universities. “The baton has been passed, and now what you see is the future.”

South Carolina state Rep. Hamilton Grant recalled seeing Jackson at the July 9, 2015, signing ceremony of the law that removed the Confederate flag from Statehouse grounds entirely. The flag was taken down the next day, 15 years after it came off the Statehouse dome in a compromise Jackson opposed. 

“For him, being from South Carolina, to see that moment, and me being there in close proximity with him, meant the world to me,” Grant told the South Carolina Daily Gazette. He said Jackson paved the way for Black leaders like him and helped instill in him pride in his identity.

The South Carolina House and Senate held moments of silence in Jackson’s honor Tuesday. 

“There are so many little boys and little girls in South Carolina who can look in the mirror now and say, ‘I am somebody!’ because of this native son,” state Sen. Karl Allen, a Democrat, said.

Shaping Democratic politics

Jackson leaves behind a legacy of political and social justice work that spanned decades. 

He founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, a national social justice organization whose name evoked Jackson’s multiracial voter base and the theme of his 1984 Democratic National Convention speech. That organization was formed by a merger between Operation PUSH, which Jackson founded in 1971, and the Rainbow Coalition.

In his 1988 bid for the presidency, Jackson based his campaign in Iowa prior to that state’s presidential caucuses and made the official announcement of his candidacy at a farm in Greenfield on Oct. 10, 1987. 

He finished in fourth place in the caucuses but went on to briefly become the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination by winning a coalition of Black and Latino voters and white liberals, though he ultimately came in second in delegates to Michael Dukakis. 

Similar blocs propelled Obama to victory two decades later and continue to form national Democrats’ base.

Two of Jackson’s sons, Jesse Jackson Jr. and Jonathan Jackson, would represent Illinois in the U.S. House. Jonathan Jackson remains in office after first winning election in 2022.

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont who endorsed Jackson’s 1988 campaign, said in a Tuesday statement Jackson had been a friend and ally for nearly 40 years and credited Jackson with founding modern progressivism.

“His creation of the Rainbow Coalition, a revolutionary idea at the time, that developed a grassroots movement of working people — Black, white, Latino, Asian-American, Native-American, gay and straight — laid the foundation for the modern progressive movement which is continuing to fight for his vision of economic, racial, social and environmental justice,” Sanders wrote. “Jackson has had a profound impact upon our country. His politics of togetherness and solidarity should guide us going forward.”

‘Equal justice is not inevitable’

Georgia U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, a Democrat and a Baptist pastor, recalled the influence Jackson’s presidential runs had on a young Warnock growing up in public housing.

“With an eloquence and rhythmic rhetoric all his own, Jesse Jackson reminded America that equal justice is not inevitable,” he said. “It requires vigilance and commitment, and for freedom fighters, sacrifice. His ministry was poetry and spiritual power in the public square. He advanced King’s dream and bent the arc of history closer to justice.”

Jaime Harrison, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee, said Jackson’s 1988 run, which culminated with a speech at the party convention that lauded the United States’ multiracial identity, inspired him.

As “a poor Black kid from South Carolina,” Harrison said he was drawn to Jackson’s command of the convention hall after accumulating more than 1,000 delegates.

“He did not win the nomination,” Harrison wrote. “But he won our imagination.”

Adrian Ashford contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security is headed for a shutdown as lawmakers on Capitol Hill remained stuck Thursday over bans on face masks and other immigration tactics. 

The department’s funding expires Friday night.

A procedural vote to advance a funding bill failed in the Senate, 52-47, with Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., the only Democrat to join Republicans on the measure. Senate Majority Leader John Thune changed his vote in a maneuver to recommit the bill and bring it up again later. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., did not vote.

The Senate then left for a scheduled recess over the Presidents Day holiday, and will not return for votes until Feb. 23.

Democrats have so far rebuffed counter proposals from the White House and a Republican offer to further extend temporary DHS funding while negotiations continue. 

The vote came just hours after President Donald Trump’s border czar Tom Homan announced immigration officers will retreat from Minneapolis, which has become ground zero for the administration’s aggressive and deadly escalations that sparked mass protests and sinking approval numbers for the president.

Thune said the administration’s exit from Minneapolis is “certainly a demonstration of good faith.”

Demands for warrants and more

The fatal shootings in Minneapolis by federal agents of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both U.S. citizens, has prompted Democrats to demand immigration officers obtain judicial warrants to forcibly enter homes, wear and actively use body cameras, remove face masks, wear identification and undergo additional training.

The department, which houses Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, is the remaining part of the government for which Congress has not passed full-year funding. In addition to ICE and Customs and Border Protection, the department also includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, the Coast Guard and the Transportation Security Administration, otherwise known as TSA.

Short-term stopgap funds for the department expire Friday at midnight, though ICE will likely continue operations on an influx of cash earmarked for the agency in Republicans’ massive tax and spending cuts law enacted in July.

TSA agents, Coast Guard personnel and other essential government workers will continue their duties without pay until lawmakers strike a deal. Others will be sent home, also without pay, though all will receive back pay once the shutdown ends.

Red lines

Thune said Democrats “don’t seem to want to play ball” and consider his party’s “reasonable efforts and requests.”

“There’s some obviously red lines that Democrats have and that the White House has. I think Republicans, as I told you before, are very interested in making sure that law enforcement officials continue to be able to do their jobs in a way that is safe and that we aren’t in any way enabling, you know, dangerous illegal aliens, or disallowing them being detained and deported from the country,” the South Dakota Republican said following the failed vote.

Thune said the White House is “giving more and more ground on some of these key issues” but declined to provide further detail on the administration’s proposal.

He added he did not plan to cancel the Senate’s planned recess next week but has let members know they’ll need to be available if a deal emerges.

“I’m encouraged to hear that they’re actually going to put together another counterproposal. I think if people are operating in good faith and actually want a solution … this can get done,” he said.

Following the failed vote for full-year funding, Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., asked for unanimous consent to keep Homeland Security open with another stop-gap measure.

“Let’s keep talking, let’s keep working. Don’t let anyone miss a paycheck,” Britt, the chair of the Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee, said.

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee, objected, saying the Democrats want “to rein in  ICE’s lawlessness.” 

Democrats want GOP to get ‘serious’

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer doubled down on Democrats’ demands following the failed procedural vote. 

“This vote today asked a simple question: Will you rein in ICE’s abuses, or will you vote to extend the chaos?” he said. “Republicans chose chaos and the Democrats, we refused — Republicans chose to put a bill on the floor that ignored the abuses, ignored the outrage, ignored what the American people want, overwhelmingly, and they failed to get the votes to avoid a shutdown at DHS.” 

The New York Democrat called on Republicans to get “serious” if they want to keep DHS funded. 

“They need to sit down, they need to negotiate in good faith, produce legislation that actually reins in ICE and stops the violence,” Schumer said. 

Both sides have complained that the other did not work fast enough during the past two weeks to find a deal.

“I wish our Republican colleagues in the White House had shown more seriousness from the start, but Senate Democrats have been clear that we have all taken an oath, an oath to uphold the law of the country and this Department of Homeland Security, this ICE, is out of control. They are tear gassing our children’s schools. They are killing American citizens. They are disappearing legal migrants,” Murphy said. 

Ahead of Thursday’s vote, Murphy said Democrats would not fund the department until an agreement is reached with the White House to “reform abusive practices of ICE.” 

Murphy told reporters the White House is “obviously trying to get us to fund the department,” pointing to the announcement of immigration officers soon leaving Minneapolis. 

“If we fund ICE, because we believe that the drawdown is meaningful, they’ll just pocket that money and show up in another city two weeks from now,” he said. “We need statutory changes to stop them from the abuse, or they will be quiet for a couple of weeks and show up in Philadelphia on April 1.” 

Thune said “the ball is in Democrats’ court,” during remarks on the Senate floor Thursday morning. 

“Are they going to shut down the Department of Homeland Security — which would be their second shutdown this fiscal year — or are they going to allow for the time to negotiate with the White House and get agreement on a final bill?” he said.

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Democrats on Wednesday rebuked ongoing efforts from President Donald Trump’s administration to dismantle the Department of Education, including moves to shift some of its core functions to other agencies. 

Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia — who hosted a spotlight forum alongside several colleagues — said “over and over again, the administration has circumvented the law to hamstring the future of public education without the consent of Congress or the American people.” 

Scott, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Education and Workforce, brought in education advocates and legal voices pushing back against the administration’s ongoing attempts to axe the agency. 

The lawmakers and witnesses expressed particular alarm over the administration’s six interagency agreements, or IAAs, announced with four other departments in November 2025 that transfer several of its responsibilities to those Cabinet-level agencies.

‘Illegal’ transfers 

Ashley Harrington, senior policy counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, said that “while these agencies all provide important services for our nation, none of them are adequately prepared to take on the massive portfolio of programs that these interagency agreements strip from (the Education Department).” 

Harrington, who previously served as a senior adviser at the department, pointed to a “lack” of institutional knowledge at the four departments compared with career employees at the Education Department who have gained expertise from spending decades running the affected programs. 

Rachel Homer, director of Democracy 2025 and senior attorney at Democracy Forward, the legal advocacy group that is leading the ongoing case challenging the department’s dismantling efforts in federal court, pointed out that Congress creates and decides which agencies exist. 

“Congress charges those agencies with performing certain functions, Congress determines the mission of those agencies, and the executive branch’s obligation is to carry that out, is to implement those laws faithfully,” said Homer, who previously served as chief of staff of the Office of the General Counsel at the department. 

The advocacy group is representing a broad coalition in a legal challenge against the administration’s attempts to gut the agency. 

That challenge, consolidated with a similar suit brought by Democratic attorneys general, was expanded in November in the wake of the interagency agreement announcement to include objections to those restructuring efforts. 

“These transfers through the IAAs, they’re illegal,” Homer added. “That’s not what Congress has set up — that’s not how Congress has instructed the agencies to function.” 

Mass layoffs, downsizing 

Meanwhile, the administration’s attempts to wind down the department have also included mass layoffs initiated in March 2025 and a plan to dramatically downsize the agency ordered that same month. The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily greenlit these efforts in July.

Trump has sought to end the 46-year-old agency as part of his quest to send education “back to the states.” This effort comes while much of the oversight and funding of schools already occurs at the state and local levels. 

“I know I don’t just speak for myself when I say I can’t believe we’re here having to actually defend the existence of the Department of Education,” said Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.

“As Education committee members, we came here to work on improving education and opening doors of opportunity and addressing the civil rights disparities, but here we are having to defend the actual existence of the Department of Education,” the Oregon Democrat said. 

Civil rights in the spotlight 

Employees at the Office for Civil Rights — tasked with investigating civil rights complaints from students and families — were targeted in March as part of a broader Reduction in Force, or RIF, effort and put on paid administrative leave while legal challenges against the administration unfolded. 

Though the agency moved to rescind the RIF against the OCR employees in early January while legal challenges proceeded, a Government Accountability Office report released earlier in February found that the Education Department spent between roughly $28.5 million and $38 million on the salaries and benefits of the hundreds of OCR employees who were not working between March and December 2025. 

The government watchdog also found that despite the department resolving more than 7,000 of the over 9,000 discrimination complaints it received between March and September, roughly 90% of the resolved complaints were due to the department dismissing the complaint. 

“We’re extremely concerned of what this means for OCR to actually uphold its statutorily defined duty of protecting the civil rights of students in schools, including the rights of Black students, other students of color, girls, women, students with disabilities and members that identify with the LGBTQI+ communities,” said Ray Li, a policy counsel at the Legal Defense Fund.

Li, who previously served as an attorney for OCR, called on Congress to ensure that the unit “remains in a functioning Department of Education” and not transferred to the Department of Justice or another agency. 

He also urged Congress to provide “adequate funding for OCR” and to “play an important role in transparency, sending oversight request letters to get information on the quantity of complaints that are being received, the types of discrimination that they allege, how OCR is processing those complaints and what the basis of dismissals are.”

The Education Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. 

President Donald Trump gives a speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, 2026. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education reinforced the right to prayer in public schools in guidance issued Thursday.

Under the guidance to state and local education agencies, students, teachers and school officials have “a right to pray in school as an expression of individual faith, as long as they’re not doing so on behalf of the school,” the department said. 

President Donald Trump’s administration has sought to protect religious liberty in public schools and beyond, and a growing number of GOP state legislators have tried to infuse Christianity in public education. 

Trump announced the guidance during remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, calling the move a “big deal.” 

The president predicted that Democrats would sue over the guidance, but said he was confident his administration would win any legal challenge. 

The guidance also makes clear that “public schools may not sponsor prayer nor coerce or pressure students to pray.”

In 1962, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that school-sponsored prayer in public schools violates the Constitution. 

The new guidance calls on school officials to “allow the individuals who make up a public school community to act and speak in accordance with their faith, provided they do not invade the rights of others, the school does not itself participate in religious action or speech as an institution, and the school does not favor secular over religious views or one religious view over another.” 

The guidance leans on a handful of recent Supreme Court rulings surrounding religious expression and religious freedom in public schools, such as Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which found that the actions of a Washington state high school football coach who prayed at the 50-yard line after games were constitutionally protected. 

The Education Department is required by law to periodically reissue guidance on prayer in schools, according to the department.

Trump had previewed Thursday’s guidance while speaking in September 2025 at a Religious Liberty Commission hearing. 

The president established that commission in May 2025 in an effort to “safeguard and promote America’s founding principle of religious freedom.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the administration is “proud to stand with students, parents, and faculty who wish to exercise their First Amendment rights in schools across our great nation,” in a statement alongside the announcement.

“Our Constitution safeguards the free exercise of religion as one of the guiding principles of our republic, and we will vigorously protect that right in America’s public schools,” she said. 

The funding package President Donald Trump signed Feb. 3, 2026, includes $79 billion for the U.S. Education Department, representing a rejection by Congress of the president's plan to close the department. (Photo by kali9/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s attempts to dramatically slash funding for the U.S. Department of Education amid a broader push to dismantle the agency hit a major roadblock this week in the form of bipartisan approval of a spending law that gives the department a small raise. 

The president signed a measure that funds the department at $79 billion this fiscal year — roughly $217 million more than the agency’s fiscal year 2025 funding levels and a whopping $12 billion above what Trump wanted. 

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, wrote in a social media post after the signing that the law was a direct rebuke of several Trump priorities, including eliminating the department.

“Our funding bills send a message to Trump,” she wrote. “Congress will NOT abolish the Department of Education.”

The measure also rejects efforts to dramatically reduce or fully slash funding for a host of programs administered by the department for low-income and disadvantaged students. 

Trump and his administration have sought over the past year to take an axe to the 46-year-old agency as part of a quest to send education “back to the states.” Much of the funding and oversight of schools already occurs at the state and local levels. 

Those dismantling efforts included six interagency agreements with four other departments in November that would shift several Education responsibilities to those Cabinet-level agencies. 

The department also saw mass layoffs initiated in March 2025 and a plan to dramatically downsize the agency ordered that same month — efforts that the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily greenlit in July. 

The spending package also holds full-year funding for the departments of Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, State and Treasury. The measure includes a two-week stopgap measure for the Department of Homeland Security. 

‘Inefficiencies’ 

The measure does not offer ironclad language to prevent the outsourcing of the Education Department’s responsibilities to other agencies — despite efforts from Senate Democrats to block such transfers. 

However, in a joint explanatory statement alongside the measure, lawmakers expressed alarm over the “assignment of such programmatic responsibilities to agencies that do not have experience, expertise, or capacity to carry out these programs and activities and lack developed relationships and communications with relevant stakeholders, including States.”

Lawmakers added they were “concerned that fragmenting responsibilities for education programs across multiple agencies will create inefficiencies, result in additional costs to the American taxpayer, and cause delays and administrative challenges in Federal funding reaching States, school districts, and schools.”

Due to those concerns, the funding measure directs the Education Department and the agencies that are part of the transfers to provide biweekly briefings to lawmakers on the implementation of any interagency agreements.

The briefings are supposed to include information on “staffing transfers, implementation costs, metrics on the delivery of services” and the “availability of technical support for programs to grantees,” among other matters. 

The Education Department clarified when announcing the interagency agreements in November with the departments of Labor, Interior, Health and Human Services and State that it would “maintain all statutory responsibilities and will continue its oversight of these programs.” 

‘Necessary’ staffing levels 

The funding agreement also mandates that the department “support staffing levels necessary to fulfill its statutory responsibilities including carrying out programs, projects, and activities funded in (the law) in a timely manner.” 

The department took heat last summer when it froze $6.8 billion in funds for K-12 schools and informed states just a day before the money is typically sent out. 

The funds were eventually unfrozen, following bipartisan pushback in Congress.  

Pell Grant spared 

The measure also maintains the total maximum annual award for the Pell Grant from the prior fiscal year at $7,395, according to a summary from Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee. The government subsidy helps low-income students pay for college. 

Trump’s budget request called for cutting nearly $1,700 from the maximum award for the 2026-2027 award year, a proposal that stoked alarm last year from leading House and Senate appropriators in both parties overseeing Education Department funding. 

Funding levels maintained for TRIO, GEAR UP 

The administration also called for defunding the Federal TRIO programs and the Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs, or GEAR UP, in fiscal 2026 — a move rejected in the measure.

The Federal TRIO Programs include federal outreach and student services programs to help support students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and GEAR UP aims to prepare low-income students for college.

Appropriators maintained funding for the programs at fiscal 2025 levels — with $1.191 billion for TRIO and $388 million for GEAR UP, per the Senate Democrats’ summary.

The administration also sought to axe funding for the Child Care Access Means Parents in School Program, which, according to the Education Department, “supports the participation of low-income parents in postsecondary education through the provision of campus-based child care services.” 

Instead, the measure allocates $75 million for the program. 

The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment on the funding package.

The administration expressed its support for the entire, multi-bill package, in a Jan. 29 statement of administration policy that barely mentioned the education provisions.

Brent Ganger, far left, and Luke Ganger, second from left, brothers of Renee Good, watch a forum on Department of Homeland Security use of force organized by congressional Democrats on Feb. 3, 2026. Good was killed by a federal immigration officer Jan. 7. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Renee Good’s family, distraught and in disbelief over her killing, took some comfort in the past few weeks thinking her death might prompt change in the country, her brother Luke Ganger said Tuesday. 

“It has not,” Ganger told congressional Democrats at a forum on the disproportionate use of force by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents. “The deep distress our family feels because of (Renee’s) loss in such a violent and unnecessary way is complicated by feelings of disbelief, distress and desperation for change.”

Brent Ganger, another brother of Good, also appeared at the forum, saying Good “had a way of showing up in the world that made you believe things were going to be okay.”

Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen, was fatally shot by a federal agent Jan. 7 in Minneapolis. 

Her death prompted widespread outcry over the immigration enforcement tactics of President Donald Trump’s administration. 

“The completely surreal scenes taking place on the streets of Minneapolis are beyond explanation,” Luke Ganger said. “This is not just a bad day or a rough week or isolated incidents — these encounters with federal agents are changing the community and changing many lives, including ours, forever.” 

Backlash over the administration’s immigration efforts grew even louder after federal agents fatally shot 37-year-old Alex Pretti, also a U.S. citizen, in Minneapolis on Jan. 24. 

Administration officials have defended the immigration crackdown, including the aggressive tactics used in Minneapolis and other cities.

“The president is never going to waver in enforcing our nation’s immigration laws and protecting the public safety of the American people in his ardent support of” Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.

First-hand accounts

Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Rep. Robert Garcia of California hosted the forum. More than 20 Democrats in the House and Senate joined them. 

The unofficial forum is one of several events put on by congressional Democrats, who are in the minority in both chambers, over the past year to protest a host of actions from the administration. 

Three witnesses across Illinois, Minnesota and California — all U.S. citizens — offered harrowing accounts of their encounters with immigration agents in recent months, detailing the trauma, fear and mental distress as a result. 

Marimar Martinez was shot five times by an immigration agent in Chicago. Aliya Rahman, a Minneapolis resident with autism and a traumatic brain injury, was dragged out of her car by agents while on her way to a doctor’s appointment and said she was later refused medical care in DHS detention. And Martin Daniel Rascon was shot at by agents while traveling in a car with family members. 

“Why do we continue to wait for more public executions when we have already seen the evidence in our TVs and computer screens?” Martinez asked the panel. “We have heard the testimonies, we have watched the pain unfold in real time — how many more lives must be lost before meaningful action is taken?”

The meeting came the same day the House passed, and Trump later signed, a funding package that includes a two-week stopgap measure for DHS, as Congress and the administration try to iron out a solution to Democrats’ demands for additional restraints on immigration enforcement following Pretti’s death. 

Many Democrats in Congress have vowed not to support a Department of Homeland Security funding bill that does not include such restraints. Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Investigations Subcommittee of the Senate committee that oversees the Department of Homeland Security, made that explicit Tuesday.

“Some day we should have a truth and justice commission to investigate the systematic failing,” he said. “But for right now, I can promise that I will not support another dime for the Department of Homeland Security unless there is this fundamental, far-reaching reform and restraint in effect — a rebuilding of the agency.” 

Report blames DHS tactics for fatalities

Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released a report ahead of the hearing Tuesday on Democrats’ findings regarding the deaths of Good and Pretti.

The report claims that the administration’s “extreme policies, violent tactics, and culture of impunity led to the killings.”

The report also argues that “the available evidence suggests that the Trump Administration is attempting to cover up misconduct” and is also “continuing its cover-up by impeding thorough and impartial investigations into the shootings.” 

“We’re seeing ICE, CBP, other parts of DHS, all across our country, terrorize communities,” Garcia said at the forum, pointing to warrantless searches, arrests and detainments of individuals with no prior criminal history and people being sent to detention centers and released without explanation. 

“Now, American citizens — innocent people — have been brutalized … and to be clear, we’ve seen people dragged from cars, beaten, gassed, attacked with crowd-control weapons, blinded, like back in my home state of California, left with broken ribs, run off the road, beaten, injured, disfigured and shot,” he said.  

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building pictured on Nov. 25, 2024. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education exhausted millions in taxpayer dollars trying to eliminate a chunk of its Office for Civil Rights, a government watchdog found in a report released Monday.  

The department spent between roughly $28.5 million and $38 million on the salaries and benefits of the hundreds of Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, employees who were not working between March and December 2025, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

OCR employees — tasked with investigating civil rights complaints from students and families — were targeted in March as part of a larger Reduction in Force, or RIF, effort at the department and placed on paid administrative leave while legal challenges against President Donald Trump’s administration unfolded.

Amid a mounting backlog of discrimination complaints, the department said in December it would be bringing back the affected employees. The agency moved to rescind the RIFs against the OCR employees in early January while legal challenges proceeded.   

Complaints resolved

The department resolved more than 7,000 of the over 9,000 discrimination complaints it received between March and September, GAO, an independent, nonpartisan body that reports to Congress, said.

However, roughly 90% of the resolved complaints were due to the department dismissing the complaint, the watchdog found. The dismissal rate ranged from 49% to 81% during academic years in the 2010s, GAO found in a 2021 report.

The department “has not made complete information publicly available about potential costs and has not made any information available about potential savings associated with its OCR RIF actions,” GAO said, calling on the agency to provide those estimates and document its analysis. 

Trump has taken significant steps to try to dismantle the 46-year-old department as part of his quest to move education “back to the states.”

In response to a draft of the report, Kimberly Richey, the assistant secretary for OCR, said the matter is rendered “moot” because the agency brought OCR employees back to work in December and rescinded the RIFs. 

“We do not concur with the recommendation,” Richey wrote. 

‘Unacceptable’

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, who requested the GAO report, blasted the millions of dollars the department spent as “unacceptable” in a Monday statement. 

“Every child in America should be able to get a good education no matter where they live, what their religious beliefs are or whether or not they have a disability,” said the Vermont independent, who serves as ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. 

“Instead, the Trump administration fired half of the Education Department employees working to protect the civil rights of students and wasted as much as $38 million in taxpayer dollars by preventing investigators from doing their jobs,” he added. 

Rachel Gittleman, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 252, which represents Education Department workers, said that “instead of following court orders and federal law, the Trump Administration chose to keep these civil rights professionals on paid administrative leave rather than letting them do their jobs, while students, families, and schools paid the price.” 

Gittleman added that Education Secretary Linda McMahon “has made clear that she would rather play politics than uphold her responsibility to protect students’ rights,” and “her actions have undermined the Department’s mission, harmed families, and subjected dedicated federal employees to needless uncertainty, abuse, and harassment.” 

The department did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. 

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman announces charges against Jeffrey Epstein on July 8, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice released more than 3 million pages of documents Friday related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The release, which in the 3 million pages includes more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images, comes more than 40 days after the agency was legally required to release the full set of files involving the disgraced financier, in compliance with federal law. 

The department instead opted for a piecemeal rollout of the files, prompting backlash.

U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Friday’s release marks the end of a “very comprehensive” records review process to “ensure transparency to the American people and compliance” with the federal law — known as the Epstein Files Transparency Act — mandating the release. 

“After submitting the final report to Congress as required under the act and publishing the written justifications for redactions in the Federal Register, the department’s obligations under the act will be completed,” he said. 

In total, the DOJ has now released approximately 3.5 million pages in adherence with the federal law. 

President Donald Trump signed a bill into law in November requiring the DOJ to make publicly available “all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in DOJ’s possession that relate to the investigation and prosecution of Jeffrey Epstein,” including materials related to Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California co-sponsored the measure — which gave the department 30 days after the bill was enacted into law to release the files, or Dec. 19.

Trump, who has appeared in several of the files, had a well-documented friendship with Epstein, but has maintained he had a falling-out with the disgraced financier and was never involved in any alleged crimes. 

“There’s a hunger or a thirst for information that I do not think will be satisfied by the review of these documents,” Blanche said. 

“There’s nothing I can do about that.”