Massachusetts Democratic U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley speaks at a press conference April 15, 2026, outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. From left to right just in back of her are House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, New York Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen, GOP Rep. Mike Lawler and Congressional Black Caucus Chair Yvette Clarke. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House on Thursday passed a measure that would extend Temporary Protected Status for Haiti for three years, in a rare rebuke by the GOP-led Congress to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
Ten Republicans defected, including Reps. Maria Salazar, Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Giménez of Florida, Rich McCormick of Georgia, Don Bacon of Nebraska, Mike Lawler and Nicole Malliotakis of New York, Mike Turner and Mike Carey of Ohio and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, a California independent who caucuses with the GOP, also voted for the bill.
The bill, which succeeded 224-204, came as Trump’s administration has sought to revoke legal protections for immigrants with Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, including Haitian nationals, amid his crackdown on immigrants without legal status.
The bill now heads to the GOP-led Senate, and should that chamber pass the measure, would almost certainly be vetoed by Trump.
Discharge petition
The Democratic-led effort came to the floor under a discharge petition, which allows a bill to skirt Republican leadership and be brought to the House floor once it gains the signatures of a majority of House members.
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley — a Massachusetts Democrat and co-chair of the House Haiti Caucus — brought forth the petition in January and it reached the 218-signature threshold in late March.
Pressley’s petition forced a floor vote on a bill from New York Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen. The version voted on by the House would require the secretary of Homeland Security to designate Haiti for TPS until April 2029.
Lawler, a New York Republican, was an original co-sponsor of Gillen’s measure.
Lawler, Salazar, Fitzpatrick and Bacon had also signed on to Pressley’s discharge petition.
The bill’s passage in the House came just days before the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear arguments over Trump’s efforts to revoke TPS for 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians.
A federal judge in February blocked the termination of TPS for Haiti from going into effect — shortly before the designation was slated to end.
TPS is provided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary to nationals who cannot safely return home. The deportation protection lets individuals legally work in the United States, with renewal cycles that range from six to 18 months.
‘A death sentence’
“Let us be clear about what deportation would mean — we would be sending parents back into danger, ripping our seniors away from their caregivers, faith leaders back into instability, and essential workers back into insecurity,” Pressley said at a Wednesday press conference she and Gillen held with colleagues and advocates regarding the effort.
“To deport anyone to a country that is grappling with layered political, humanitarian and economic crises is unconscionable, it is dangerous and it is preventable,” Pressley added.
“To deport anyone to Haiti right now is unlawful, and it would be a death sentence.”
A resident sits on a bench at Make the Road New York, a community center in Corona, Queens, in New York City. Lettering in Spanish reads, "We are here, we're not leaving." The area was one of the largest magnets for asylum-seekers from the border, mostly from Ecuador. (Photo by Tim Henderson/Stateline)
The millions of migrants who were released into the country during the immigration surge that began in 2021 and peaked in 2023 caused a political firestorm when Republican states transported them to Democratic cities. Now, according to a new analysis, many of them are back working in the states that expelled them.
Many of the migrants turned themselves in to immigration officials when they entered the United States illegally, but avoided immediate removal by claiming a “credible fear” of persecution or torture if they returned home, giving them the right to seek asylum. It can take years to receive an asylum hearing. Others seeking asylum arrived with appointments made through a government app or relied on temporary parole programs while pursuing legal status in court.
Now, amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, these migrants are under increasing pressure, threatened with arrest and detention even when they appear for their court dates. Currently, they can begin to work legally after waiting six months, but the Trump administration is seeking to extend the waiting period to one year.
A Stateline analysis of court records shows that the largest numbers of recent asylum-seekers are in New York, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Utah, all of which have populations that are at least 1% higher than they were in 2020 because of the new migrants. Also in the top 10: Texas, Connecticut, California, Illinois and Colorado. Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis in Florida and Greg Abbott in Texas led the charge to transport migrants out of state. Stateline’s analysis counts only those migrants who are not being detained.
The country that is the single largest source of recent asylum-seeking migrants is Venezuela, with 363,000 as of February. The next largest is Mexico (251,000), followed by Guatemala (241,000), Honduras (240,000) and Colombia (235,000). But those nationwide numbers are scrambled in individual states: Ecuadorians predominate in five states, Nicaraguans in four, and Brazilians and Cubans in three each.
The influx of migrants that began escalating when President Joe Biden loosened immigration rules in January 2021 generated a political backlash that intensified after DeSantis and Abbott began busing and flying border migrants to Democratic-led cities, putting a significant strain on their finances. New York City, for example, spent a total of $8.13 billion on shelter and services for the more than 223,000 asylum-seekers and other migrants who arrived between the spring of 2022 and the fall of 2024.
Meanwhile, some established immigrant communities resented what they saw as lenient treatment of the newcomers.
Local news accounts reported anger over competition for jobs in Latino communities in New York City. But Ernesto Castañeda, director of American University’s Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, said interviews there showed more resentment over the aid that was offered to the new arrivals.
“For the first time in U.S. history, there were many big programs to temporarily house and feed the newcomers,” Castañeda said. “People (in New York City) talked about the food cards they got, or the free meals, or the hotel rooms, and that took a lot of the media attention locally.”
But many of the new immigrants also have provided much-needed labor, from the streets of New York City and its suburbs to the dairy farms of Idaho.
“All we can do is just work and hope for the best,” said a woman from Ecuador, who asked to be identified only as Rosa. Rosa works in a family food service business in suburban Spring Valley, New York, one of the top five areas in the country for the sheer number of the migrants, with most coming from Ecuador, according to court records.
“It’s hard here but in Ecuador it’s worse — there are gangs blackmailing you,” said another woman who works in a Queens store labeling packets of Ecuadorian herbs. She declined to identify herself.
In suburbs as well as cities, the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda has immigrants worried. About 22% of the newcomers around the country, in and out of detention, have orders of removal from immigration courts, meaning they could be arrested and summarily deported at any time.
“There were a lot of arrests right around here. People who did everything right got detained,” Rosa said in Spanish, glancing around nervously as she worked making traditional Ecuadorian dishes like corviches, fish fritters, and a fish and onion soup called encebollado.
Customers wait for their orders at an Ecuadorian food truck in Spring Valley, N.Y., a suburb of New York City. The area was one of the largest magnets for asylum-seekers from the border, mostly from Ecuador. (Photo by Tim Henderson/Stateline)
Many of the new arrivals have stopped socializing and stay home when they’re not working, afraid to be caught up in raids that have swept thousands of them up into detention, according to interviews conducted in New York and the District of Columbia by the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies.
Even when much-hated Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro was arrested in January and removed to the United States for trial, many Venezuelan asylum-seekers stayed home rather than risk being arrested at public celebrations.
Ecuadorians got less media attention than Venezuelans because they came to a more established community in New York, Castañeda said.
“(Ecuadorians) already had networks, so they were not staying in shelters. They were not in the streets,” he said. “They could work and they were becoming part of the fabric of New York, but now they’re being deported by Trump because ICE knows who they are, where they live and their status is very easy pickings. They’re low-hanging fruit.”
Many Venezuelans would like to go home but face even more chaos after the fall of Maduro, said Héctor Arguinzones, organizer of a Venezuelan immigrant group in New York City.
“Many of us fled Venezuela because our own neighbors were our persecutors,” said Arguinzones. “We’re not trying to, you know, sneak into the United States. A lot of us want to go back. We are full of hope. But we cannot think that this crisis in Venezuela will be solved in three months. We must be patient. What we really need is humanitarian treatment.”
Texas has ended up with the largest number of Venezuelans, an irony noted in a book written by the American University research team. After initially receiving aid in more sympathetic areas such as Colorado, New York City and Washington, D.C., many of the Venezuelans traveled around the country looking for work, but trickled back to Texas where jobs were available and the cost of living was lower.
Living in the U.S. with an immigration court date is a tenuous existence for people fleeing gangs and political oppression in South America and Central America. Fear of returning to a home country can be a valid legal reason to avoid deportation, but it requires legal help and doesn’t prevent detention and pressure to “self-deport.”
“Unfortunately, having an asylum case is not a legal status,” Arguinzones said. “We tell people to keep up with their court cases and keep the paperwork with them, so at least they have something to show. At least it’s something.”
Unfortunately, having an asylum case is not a legal status.
– Héctor Arguinzones, organizer of a Venezuelan immigrant group
Robin Nice, a Boston attorney, said six of her clients with pending asylum cases were detained in a January sweep called Operation Catch of the Day, and only one had had a brush with the law in the form of a year-old traffic case.
“They were typically on their way to or from work, sometimes just getting into their car after finishing a shift,” Nice said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in an unattributed statement to Stateline, said: “A pending asylum case does NOT confer any type of legal status in the United States. If a person enters our country illegally, they are subject to detention or deportation.”
Some of the asylum-seekers pursuing legal status through the courts have already been detained, but they make up a small fraction of the 2.8 million total cases.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Members of the media set up outside the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of President Donald Trump's expected arrival on April 1, 2026. The court heard oral arguments that day in a case to determine if Trump's executive order ending birthright citizenship is constitutional. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)
As the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last week about the constitutionality of President Donald Trump’s executive order to end birthright citizenship, Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed skeptical.
The order as written applies only to babies born in the future, and the Trump administration has asked the court to exclude current citizens from any decision. Still, the court’s senior liberal justice wasn’t so sure it would work out like that.
“But the logic of your position, if accepted, is that this president or the next president or Congress or someone else could decide that it shouldn’t be prospective,” Sotomayor told U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the government’s top advocate at the court. “There would be nothing limiting that, according to your theory.”
The birthright citizenship case, Trump v. Barbara, is forcing the Supreme Court to confront the prospect of the United States becoming a much different kind of nation — one where Americans risk losing their citizenship and babies could be born effectively stateless. It’s also a nation that would more closely resemble its past, when broad swaths of people were excluded from the coveted title of American.
A majority of the court, including several conservative justices, appeared unpersuaded by the Trump administration’s argument that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified during Reconstruction, doesn’t guarantee citizenship to nearly everyone born on American soil. The court may very well strike down the order, which has never taken effect, later this year.
But whatever the decision, the case has prompted a high-stakes debate over who is an American — and the consequences of that definition — that’s playing out in the courtroom, in court documents and on the steps of the Supreme Court.
“Birthright citizenship is not just a legal principle,” Norman Wong said at a demonstration outside the Supreme Court last week.
Wong is a grandchild of Wong Kim Ark, who was born in San Francisco but denied entry back into the country after visiting China more than a century ago. Officials at the time argued he wasn’t a citizen, but he took his case to the Supreme Court and, in a 1898 decision, the justices affirmed that virtually all children born in the United States were guaranteed citizenship.
“It’s a statement about who we are as a nation,” Wong said of birthright citizenship. “It affirms that America is not defined by bloodlines or exclusion, but shared values and equal rights.”
A different view
Trump and some Republicans view birthright citizenship differently.
The 14th Amendment says “all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”
The Trump administration, which has worked to carry out mass deportations, contends that children born to parents in the country illegally or temporarily are not subject to the country’s jurisdiction. Most historians and legal scholars repudiate that position.
The executive order, signed on Trump’s first day back in office, calls citizenship a privilege — not a right — that’s a “priceless and profound gift.”
During a recent Oval Office event, Trump told reporters that birthright citizenship was intended to extend citizenship to formerly enslaved people and their children following the Civil War.
“The reason was it had to do with the babies of slaves,” Trump said.
Some Republicans have embraced a conception of the U.S. as a nation bound by a distinct cultural heritage — sometimes in language that celebrates European settlers — as opposed to a people brought together by the idea of America or a set of common principles. Like Trump, they advocate for a restrictive approach to immigration.
At a conference last fall on national conservatism — the name sometimes given to this perspective — U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican, called America a “a way of life that is ours, and only ours, and if we disappear, then America, too, will cease to exist.”
Schmitt filed a brief with the Supreme Court in January, along with Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, in support of the executive order.
“The Citizenship Clause applies only to those who have been allowed to adopt our country as their permanent and lawful home,” the brief says.
Revoking citizenship?
At the Supreme Court last week, Sotomayor pressed Sauer on a 1923 Supreme Court decision, U.S. vs. Thind. In that case, the justices ruled that a Sikh man from India, Bhagat Singh Thind, wasn’t eligible for citizenship.
Thind argued that he was a “free white person,” a category of person allowed to naturalize under federal law at the time. The court found that Thind didn’t meet that definition under the common understanding of the phrase. The federal government revoked the citizenship of dozens of South Asian Americans following the decision.
Sauer reiterated that the Trump administration was only asking for “prospective relief,” prompting Sotomayor to interject.
“No, what I’m saying to you (is), yeah, that’s what you’re asking for relief right now,” Sotomayor said. “I’m asking whether the logic of your theory would permit what happened after the court’s decision in Thind, that the government could move to unnaturalize people who were born here of illegal residents.”
Sauer responded no, before concluding that “we are not asking for any retroactive relief.”
The exchange spotlighted the scenario that many advocates for immigrants fear if the Supreme Court strips away birthright citizenship.
In a court brief, the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, which uses litigation to advance racial justice, and more than 70 other nonprofit groups warned that upholding the order would invite efforts to revoke the citizenship of countless Americans.
While the order is styled as only forward-looking, the groups said it threatens much deeper harms. To uphold Trump’s order, the Supreme Court would need to conclude that birth on U.S. soil doesn’t guarantee citizenship. Once that happens, they argue, “it is all too easy” to imagine the government retroactively removing citizenship.
“In that scenario, without further intervention from Congress, the affected individuals would become undocumented, with many or most becoming stateless,” the brief says.
American Civil Liberties Union national legal director Cecillia Wang, arguing against the order at the Supreme Court, said the 14th Amendment has provided a “fixed, bright-line rule” on citizenship that has contributed to the growth and thriving of the nation.
She cautioned that the order would render whole swaths of American laws senseless.
“Thousands of American babies will immediately lose their citizenship,” Wang said. “And if you credit the government’s theory, the citizenship of millions of Americans — past, present and future — could be called into question.”
Pennsylvania officials are investing nearly a quarter million dollars to train new school bus drivers as part of a new program aimed at improving student transportation safety across the state.
The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said in a statement last month the funding will help seven school districts and transportation providers cover costs tied to training nearly 90 new drivers, including commercial driver’s license training, trainee wages, testing fees and permit costs.
Officials said the funding is part of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s newly established School Bus Safety Program, designed to expand the number of qualified drivers and strengthen safety measures for students traveling to and from school. The national school bus driver shortage remains one of the greatest challenges faced by school transportation.
“Ensuring enough drivers to safely get our students to school is another way we’re focusing on our children’s futures,” said PennDOT Secretary Mike Carroll in a statement.
He added that the funding will help schools and transportation providers make student transportation more reliable.
The funds awarded will support driver training programs across multiple counties. Recipients include the Chartiers Valley School District in Allegheny County, which received $17,256 to train 12 new drivers, and Fullington Auto Bus Company serving Centre and Clearfield counties, which received $42,500 to train 25 drivers.
Other recipients include contractor Krapf School Bus – GKJ Inc. serving Chester, Dauphin and York counties, which received $98,160 to train 32 drivers; Boyo Transportation Services in Dauphin County, which received $31,250 to train 10 drivers; the North East School District in Erie County, which received $8,160 to train eight drivers; the Laurel School District in Lawrence County, which received $1,000 for driver certification costs; and DMJ Transportation in Westmoreland County, which received $50,000 to train additional drivers.
Program award funds comes from fines collected through Pennsylvania’s automated school bus enforcement system. State law allows school buses to use camera systems to capture motorists who illegally pass buses with flashing red lights and extended stop arms.
Officials said $25 of each $300 fine issued through the enforcement system goes toward the School Bus Safety Grant Program. STN contacted the districts awarded but had not heard back at this writing.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is issuing a request for information from school bus industry stakeholders as it seeks to add biodiesel, renewable diesel (RD) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) as funding options to a revised Clean School Bus Program.
EPA also said it will not be awarding funds for the 2024 CSB Rebate Program. “EPA thanks applicants for their interest and encourages them to apply for the new grant program,” EPA said in a press release Thursday. “The agency will provide more details on the 2026 grants and eligibility requirements in the near future through a Notice of Funding Opportunity.”
In a follow-up email sent by School Transportation News asking for clarification on foregoing the 2024 rebate awards and if those same applications would be recycled, EPA referred to its original statement.
Meanwhile, Thursday’s RFI also mentions hydrogen as an eligible fuel listed by the Investing in Infrastructure and Jobs Act, which created the five-year, $5 billion fund. But there are currently no hydrogen school buses in production. The same goes for liquefied natural gas, which differs from propane. The IIJA also mentions CNG, which won a handful of awards, but manufacturers don’t currently produce that fuel option, either.
Diesel-powered school buses do exist in large numbers nationwide, estimated at about 80 percent of the national fleet of approximately 450,000 vehicles. Many operate with biodiesel blended with regular diesel. The RFI specifically states EPA seeks information on B20, or 20 percent biofuel blend with diesel.
Renewable diesel, or RD, is different from biodiesel as the former is produced by a hydrotreating process, making it a hydrocarbon fuel. Because it is otherwise nearly identical to petroleum diesel, RD is a drop-in fuel alternative that diesel engine manufacturers certify for use in their engines without voiding warranties. But RD is more expensive than petroleum diesel except in California, Oregon, New Mexico and Washington, where Low Carbon Fuel Standard credits are at play.
Electric school buses are not a focus of the RFI because EPA said it has sufficient information on its infrastructure, availability and performance.
EPA added electric school buses have accounted for 90 percent of Clean School Bus Program awards to date, and the next funding round should target other allowed alternative fuels “to allow for the maximum number of affordable bus choices to fit school districts’ specific needs.”
What’s in the RFI?
EPA is asking the current availability and anticipated purchasing within the next year to five years of biodiesel, RD, E85 flex fuel, CNG, LNG, propane or any other biofuel and if those school buses are fueled at the school district facility, an offsite private fueling station, or an offsite public station. EPA also wants to know about fuel supplier arrangements.
Specifically for biodiesel and RD, EPA is asking for details on how the blends or drop-in fuels are used.
It requests information on fueling system components, pricing, construction and installation requirements, performance, domestic content, and other practical considerations.
The RFI also states EPA wants information on how it can further safeguard taxpayer dollars. The agency completed an internal review to assess financial management practices and said it uncovered inconsistent documentation, incomplete adherence to reporting an award conditions, improper or premature drawdowns of funds, and insufficient internal controls by certain awardees, including for profit recipients.
EPA said it is “evaluating additional safeguards and conditions for for-profit entities,” which includes audits of financial statements and conflict of interest policies. It is also considering verification tools or documentation to ensure appropriate bus usage and routes before funds are disbursed; milestone-based payment structures, reimbursement-only models, or phased disbursement mechanisms tied to verified delivery to reduce risk and improve accountability; and enforcement mechanisms such as repayment obligations or clawback provisions in cases of nonperformance, noncompliance, or misuse of funds.
The Clean School Bus Program is set to expire at the end of the current fiscal year, which would require the remaining $2 billion that has yet to be awarded needing to rollout over the next six months.
Public comments are due within 45 days of EPA publishing the RFI in the Federal Register. A webinar is scheduled for March 3.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) updated its website with a statement that a “revamped and modernized Clean School Bus Program” is coming soon.
The five-year, $5-billion fund has been on hiatus since President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office last January, days after the application period for the 2024 Clean School Bus Rebates closed.
But funding ground to a halt, leaving hundreds of school districts waiting to see if their electric and propane school bus projects could continue.
EPA said last summer it has been working with school districts to award rebate and grant awards for fiscal years 2022 and 2023, while holding off on providing details for new funding, pending a program review. The new website statement, reiterated to School Transportation News by the EPA press office, indicates an update on the Clean School Bus Program is in the works.
“EPA is actively reviewing and revamping the Clean School Bus Program in accordance with President Trump’s Executive Order Unleashing American Energy to ensure hard-earned American tax dollars are being put to the best use possible and not frivolously wasted as was often the case under the previous administration,” the statement reads. “Under Administrator [Lee] Zeldin’s leadership, EPA is committed to being exceptional stewards of taxpayer dollars and delivering measured results for American families, while still fulfilling Congressional intent. Administrator Zeldin has cancelled roughly $30 billion in wasteful grants and contracts since being confirmed as EPA Administrator. EPA anticipates providing additional information about the revamped and modernized Clean School Bus Program in the near future.”
The EPA website says 1,152 school districts have received 888 awards valued at over $2.62 billion to replace 8,236 school buses. The World Resource Institute’s Electric School Bus Initiative indicates via its Electric School Bus Data Dashboard that over 2,000 of those are electric school buses in operation or on order. Electric school buses have accounted for about 95 percent of Clean School Bus Program awards to date.
Unauthorized immigrants are not eligible for federally or state-funded health coverage in Wisconsin.
That includes Medicaid, Medicare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and coverage purchased through the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) marketplaces.
Unauthorized immigrants also are not eligible for Wisconsin Medicaid or BadgerCare Plus.
Fourteen states, including Illinois and Minnesota, use state Medicaid funds to cover unauthorized immigrants, but Wisconsin does not.
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers on Dec. 5 vetoed a Republican-backed bill that would have banned public money from going toward health care coverage for unauthorized immigrants.
Republicans said the bill was meant to be pre-emptive.
On Dec. 10, Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor in 2026, incorrectly said Evers’ veto allowed unauthorized immigrants “to continue to get taxpayer-funded health care.”
When Evers vetoed the bill he criticized it for “trying to push polarizing political rhetoric.”
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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