Safety and training are forefront as the NTSB is investigating a Tennessee school bus crash that killed two teenage girls and an Oregon school bus driver was arrested for allegedly transporting students while intoxicated. Plus, new Clean School Bus program details are incoming, just in time for STN EXPO West in Reno, Nevada this July.

Jim Levine, founder of the School Transportation Active Threat Response Training, or S.T.A.R.T., joins us to discuss how school bus drivers can serve as the first line of defense against threats by interacting kindly with students and becoming trained on response tactics. His team brings its law enforcement, Secret Service, SWAT and School Resource Officer experience to an upcoming 4-hour training at STN EXPO West.

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President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail voting would shatter decades of U.S. Postal Service independence intended to shield it from partisan politics, postal experts and attorneys say.

Postal experts said Trump ordering the postmaster general to take any action — let alone on a matter as sensitive as elections — violates guardrails in federal law against presidential control of the mail. Multiple people with deep knowledge of Postal Service history said they couldn’t recall a similar order in the agency’s modern era.

“For the president to direct the postmaster general to do anything, including handling these ballots, is contrary to the statutes, contrary to law,” said James Campbell Jr., an attorney in the Washington, D.C., area who consults on postal law.

The order, signed March 31, attracted swift condemnation as an unconstitutional attempt by Trump to control state-run elections. If it stands, the directive would also represent a White House power grab over the Postal Service, which remains a key part of American life and business.

Trump’s order directs the postmaster general, who acts as the Postal Service’s CEO, to set out rules that would require states to notify the Postal Service if they intend to send ballots through the mail during federal elections. States that want to use the mail would be required to provide lists of mail voters to the Postal Service, which would be prohibited from delivering ballots to individuals not on a list.

A Board of Governors leads the Postal Service, and holds the power to hire and fire the postmaster general. No more than five of the nine governors may belong to the same political party. 

While presidents nominate the governors and the Senate confirms them, they serve seven-year terms. The length, in theory, insulates them from political pressure.

S. David Fineman, a Philadelphia attorney nominated to the Board of Governors by President Bill Clinton who served as its chairman from 2003 to 2005, said he had never heard of the White House or a president directing the postmaster general to take certain actions. He called the executive order highly unusual.

“The postmaster general serves at the pleasure of the board,” Fineman said.

The board currently has only four members, all appointed by President Joe Biden, and five vacancies. Trump has sent four nominations to the U.S. Senate this year. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has not scheduled confirmation hearings for the nominees.

Cash-strapped service

Trump has expressed interest in having more control over the mail. 

Last year, he floated the possibility of merging the Postal Service with the Commerce Department, a move that would require approval by Congress. The Washington Post reported in February 2025 that Trump was expected to try to fire the Board of Governors and take control of the Postal Service.

The Trump administration takes a dim view of independent agencies. Many allies of the president subscribe to the unitary executive theory, the idea that the U.S. Constitution grants the president full power over the entirety of the executive branch — meaning Congress cannot constitutionally create agencies that exist outside of White House control.

Trump has moved to assert authority over a number of independent and quasi-independent agencies since taking office, most notably the Federal Reserve. The Department of Justice is investigating cost overruns on a Federal Reserve construction project, widely seen as a pretext to target Jerome Powell, the Federal Reserve chairman whose interest rate policy has angered Trump.

The Postal Service is under tremendous financial pressure — potentially making it more vulnerable to proposals to bring it under White House control. Mail volume peaked in 2006 at 213 billion pieces that year. The Postal Service today handles 109 billion pieces annually.

The current postmaster general, David Steiner, told a U.S. House committee last month that the Postal Service will run out of cash within a year without changes to its prices and operations. The Postal Service is generally funded through stamps and other forms of user revenue, not by tax dollars.

Steiner emphasized the independent nature of the Postal Service throughout his prepared testimony. He has laid out a number of options to improve the Postal Service’s financial stability, including changes to pension funding and raising its borrowing limit from $15 billion, a level that’s remained unchanged since 1992.

“It is important to remember that we face these challenges as a self-financed, independent establishment of the Executive Branch,” Steiner wrote.

Congress approved sweeping legislation in 1970 reorganizing the U.S. Post Office Department into the U.S. Postal Service, an independent corporation. Before that, the postmaster general was a Cabinet-level position nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

Trump’s order marks “a dramatic shift away from the intent of the 1970 legislation to insulate the Postal Service from interference,” Joseph M. Adelman, a history professor at Framingham State University in Massachusetts who has researched mail history, said.

Election security

The White House didn’t directly answer States Newsroom’s questions about Trump’s views on the independence of the Postal Service or the legal justification for the executive order.

“Election integrity has always been a top priority for President Trump, and the American people sent him back to the White House because they overwhelmingly supported his commonsense election integrity agenda,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

“The President will do everything in his power to lawfully defend the safety and security of American elections and to ensure that only American citizens are voting in them.”

Jackson also called on Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require voters to prove their citizenship when registering. 

The Postal Service didn’t answer questions about how it plans to respond to the order. A USPS spokesperson said only that the Postal Service was reviewing it. 

Lawsuits

Steiner has indicated he’s awaiting a court decision on how to proceed. 

“If a court says that’s not what the law means, we’ll follow that,” Steiner told The New York Times after the executive order was signed. “And so from our perspective, we don’t get involved in policy or law, we just follow the law.”

The order on mail ballots faces at least five lawsuits. The Democratic National Committee, top Democrats in Congress and Democratic state officials have all sued. The legal challenges emphasize the Postal Service’s independence in federal law.

The lawsuit filed by the DNC, top Democratic lawmakers and other Democratic campaign groups, asserts the Postal Service is structured to operate independently of partisan politics. The complaint calls the Postal Service “indispensable” to voting by mail, noting that it delivered more than 222 million pieces of ballot mail in 2024, including nearly 100 million general election ballots.

A dozen Republican state attorneys general filed motions in court this week seeking to defend the executive order from the Democratic legal challenges. The motions call the order an example of cooperative federalism to provide states with optional resources to help protect their elections.

The GOP officials argue the Democrats lack standing to challenge the Postal Service provisions of the order and that their objections are premature because the Postal Service hasn’t finalized any new rules on mail ballots.

The order “simply directs” the Postal Service “to initiate rulemaking—it does not regulate the States directly and it does not directly inhibit anyone’s voting rights,” a court filing by the state attorneys general says.

The states involved in the Republican-led defense of the order include Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas.

Vote-by-mail 

Mail-in voting surged in 2020’s general election amid the COVID-19 pandemic, when 43% of voters cast their votes by mail. The percentage of voters mailing their ballots has fallen from that peak but remains above pre-pandemic levels. About 30% of voters cast mail ballots in 2024, according to data gathered by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

During the 2024 election, 584,463 mail ballots returned by voters were rejected by election officials — 1.2% of returned mail ballots. About 18% of those ballots were rejected because they didn’t arrive on time.

American Postal Workers Union President Jonathan Smith said in a statement that the Postal Service doesn’t block mailers from sending letters or refuse to deliver letters because of the identity of the sender. Postal workers take extraordinary measures to ensure ballots reach their destinations promptly and securely, he said.

“Postal workers take the sanctity of the mail seriously, and every process and policy of the Postal Service ensures that mail is accepted, processed, and delivered, no matter who sent it or where it is going,” Smith said.

On Monday, more than 100 U.S. House Democrats sent a letter to Trump demanding he refrain from future actions that undermine the Postal Service’s independence and calling on him to rescind the executive order. The letter says the order sets “a dangerous precedent for political interference” in postal service operations.

Senate Democrats followed up with a letter to Steiner and the USPS Board of Governors on Tuesday, urging the Postal Service to not implement the order. The letter, signed by 37 senators, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, calls the Postal Service’s independence a “hallmark” of its operations.

“The Postal Service doesn’t care which politicians you may support,” Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, said on the Senate floor last week. “Its only priority is to deliver the mail to every community in the country.”

“The president is now trying to corrupt this mission,” Peters, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees USPS, said. “If the president is successful in forcing the Postal Service to play a role in running elections, he will completely erode the trust of this storied institution.” 

A dozen Republican state attorneys general are moving to defend President Donald Trump’s executive order on mail ballots from legal challenges mounted by Democrats.

The GOP officials, led by Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, argued in multiple court filings Monday and Tuesday in response to Democratic lawsuits that the March 31 order provides states with “optional resources” to help secure their elections and doesn’t endanger voting rights.

The states “would like to access this resource so they may verify the accuracy of their own voter-registration lists. This flow of information between federal and state agencies is a common and critical feature of our federal system,” the Republican officials wrote in a court document.

The attorneys general of Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas joined Hanaway in the effort.

The order directs the postmaster general to put forward rules that would block the U.S. Postal Service from delivering ballots to or from voters not on lists of approved mail voters provided by states. Democrats and postal law experts have said the Postal Service has no authority over elections.

“The Constitution and multiple court rulings put it in stark terms: the President does not have the authority to issue an executive order that attempts to undermine the ability of states to run their own elections,” more than 100 U.S. House Democrats wrote in a letter to Trump on Monday.

Trump’s order also directs the Department of Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age U.S. citizens in each state. Democrats allege the Trump administration is building an unauthorized national voter list, despite the U.S. Constitution giving states the responsibility of running federal elections.

The Democratic National Committee, top Democratic lawmakers and Democratic state attorneys general and secretaries of state have all sued to block the order, as have voting rights groups. The Republican state attorneys general are seeking to intervene in those lawsuits.

The GOP officials argue the Democrats lack standing to challenge the Postal Service provisions of the order and that their objections are premature because the Postal Service hasn’t finalized any new rules on mail ballots.

The order “simply directs” the Postal Service “to initiate rulemaking—it does not regulate the States directly and it does not directly inhibit anyone’s voting rights,” a court filing by the state attorneys general says.

The executive order marked Trump’s latest attempt to assert power over federal elections. A previous order that sought to require voters to prove their citizenship was blocked in court. Legislation to impose such a requirement is stalled in the U.S. Senate.

The Department of Justice has also sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for access to unredacted state voter lists containing sensitive personal information, including driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. While federal courts have so far rebuffed those lawsuits, at least a dozen states have voluntarily turned over the data. 

DOJ plans to share the information with Homeland Security, which will use a computer program to look for possible noncitizen voters.

Voting rights groups launched a legal challenge Tuesday against the Trump administration’s effort to sweep up sensitive data on millions of Americans with the aim of identifying noncitizen voters, arguing that the U.S. Department of Justice is building a dangerous centralized national voter list ahead of the midterm elections in November.

The federal lawsuit, filed in the District of Columbia by the voting rights and civic group Common Cause with help from other organizations, seeks to block the Justice Department from obtaining and analyzing unredacted state voter lists that include driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. 

The DOJ plans to share the data with the Department of Homeland Security, which operates a powerful computer program that can verify U.S. citizenship. Democratic election officials say the program has wrongly flagged Americans as possible noncitizen voters and could erode faith in election results.

“This is a blatant, partisan power grab designed to cast doubt on the validity of our elections and whose vote should be counted,” Virginia Kase Solomón, Common Cause president and CEO, said in a statement.

The Justice Department has sued 30 states and the District of Columbia for the data. But at least a dozen other states have provided the data, handing the Trump administration information on millions of registered voters. 

The latest lawsuit by Common Cause, with legal representation by the American Civil Liberties Union, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and other voting rights groups, opens a new front in the legal fight against the Trump administration’s campaign for the data. It represents an attempt to halt the administration from using the voter information it’s already obtained — and stop it from collecting more.

The suit asks a court to order the Justice Department to halt any actions to compile, use or disclose sensitive voter data. The groups also wants the DOJ to delete the data already in its possession.

Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming have voluntarily provided, or will turn over, their sensitive voter data, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, which has been tracking the Justice Department’s efforts.

Federalization of elections

Since taking office last year, President Donald Trump has moved to assert presidential power over federal elections, which under the U.S. Constitution are run by the states. The president and his allies have framed his moves as necessary to ensure the security of elections by purging noncitizen voters.

Trump issued an executive order a year ago that attempted to impose a nationwide requirement that voters must produce documents proving their citizenship. Federal courts blocked the order. He is also pressuring Congress to pass legislation, the SAVE America Act, containing a similar requirement.

Late last month, Trump signed another executive order clamping down on mail ballots. It directs the U.S. Postal Service to restrict the delivery of ballots and instructs Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age U.S. citizens in each state, effectively building a national database of voters and would-be voters. Several active lawsuits are challenging the order.

“By attempting to interrogate and exploit voter data for political purposes, President Trump’s DOJ isn’t just threatening the privacy of every American—they are building a system designed to imprison the ballot box and silence millions of eligible voters,” Kase Solomón said. “We won’t stand by while Americans’ rights to privacy and voting are under attack.” 

The Justice Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

In other lawsuits, Justice Department lawyers have argued the agency is entitled to voter data under the 1960 Civil Rights Act, a federal law to combat voting discrimination. DOJ lawyers have also denied that the agency is building a nationwide voter list — but they have acknowledged voter data will be sent to Homeland Security for analysis by SAVE, an online tool short for Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements.

SAVE was previously used for one-off searches of individual immigrants to check whether they were eligible for government benefits. The Trump administration last year refashioned it into a program capable of checking the citizenship of voters. Some GOP states have begun voluntarily using SAVE to scan their state voter rolls for potential noncitizens.

“That’s how we are going to ensure that they have the proper identification as to each and every voter,” Justice Department Voting Section acting Chief Eric Neff said in federal court in Rhode Island in March, according to a transcript.

DOJ losing streak

Federal judges have so far uniformly ruled against the Justice Department’s efforts to force states to turn over voter data. Federal judges in five states — California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Oregon and Rhode Island — have dismissed the DOJ’s lawsuits.

The Justice Department has appealed some of the rulings. Oral arguments in those cases are set for mid-May.

The DOJ’s most recent court loss came last week in Rhode Island from Judge Mary McElroy, a Trump appointee. In a 14-page order, she ruled that federal voting laws — including the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act and the Civil Rights Act — don’t empower the Justice Department to demand state voter data.

“Neither the NVRA nor HAVA authorize DOJ to conduct the kind of fishing expedition it seeks here,” McElroy wrote.

As the midterms approach, Republican and Democratic election officials are split over a powerful federal computer program at the center of President Donald Trump’s quest to expose noncitizen voters and compile lists of voting-age Americans.

A U.S. House Administration Committee hearing Thursday underscored the partisan divide over the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE program. The online tool can verify U.S. citizenship by checking names against a host of government databases.

Republicans have embraced SAVE — Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements — as an effective new way to identify potential noncitizen voters. But Democrats have spurned it amid fears Trump is building a national voter database and concern that the program wrongly flags U.S. citizens.

Kansas Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab and Minnesota Democratic Secretary of State Steve Simon staked out opposing views on SAVE during Thursday’s hearing. Purging noncitizens registered to vote is an ongoing focus of the Trump administration, though studies show noncitizen voting is extremely rare.

Kansas ran its voter roll through SAVE last year after the Trump administration refashioned the program, initially intended to check whether individual noncitizens are eligible for government benefits, into a citizenship verification tool and made it free for states. Schwab said SAVE had led Kansas to identify more than 5,500 registered voters who had died out of state.

“SAVE is one of the most important tools states have to verify voter information,” Schwab told the committee.

But Simon has previously raised concerns about the program. He signed a Dec. 1 letter with 11 other Democratic secretaries of state that said SAVE was likely to degrade rather than enhance state efforts to ensure free, fair and secure elections. The program is likely to misidentify eligible voters and chill voter participation, they wrote.

“I’m not throwing shade on my colleague, Secretary Schwab, but we have made the determination that it’s not yet ready for use in Minnesota,” Simon said Thursday, adding that Minnesota law doesn’t allow the use of SAVE.

Program central to Trump elections push

SAVE underpins Trump’s efforts to assert more White House power over federal elections, which under the U.S. Constitution are administered by states.

The Department of Justice is suing 29 states and the District of Columbia for access to their unredacted voter rolls, including sensitive personal data on voters, such as driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. 

A Justice Department attorney said in federal court last month that the department has an agreement to share the information with Homeland Security for the purpose of identifying noncitizens.

Trump also signed an executive order last month that limits voting by mail and directs Homeland Security to compile lists of voting-age American citizens. The order says the lists will be derived from SAVE data, along with naturalization and Social Security records. At least five lawsuits have been filed against the order, including a challenge brought by Democratic state officials.

The White House is also pressuring Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, Trump’s signature elections proposal. The measure would require voters to provide documents proving their citizenship. Among its provisions is a requirement that states run their voter rolls through the SAVE program.

The House passed the bill in February. The Senate is debating a version of the legislation, which doesn’t appear to have enough votes to overcome a filibuster.

Nonprofit alternative available

“Election integrity is not a complicated issue. Only eligible voters should be casting ballots in our elections. One illegal vote is too many,” said Rep. Bryan Steil, a Wisconsin Republican and the House Administration Committee chair.

In January, Steil introduced the Make Elections Great Again Act, which contains similar provisions to the SAVE America Act but is more sweeping in its scope. It would impose additional limits on mail-in voting and require states to use SAVE to update voter lists every month.

Rep. Joe Morelle of New York, the ranking Democrat on the committee, suggested states already have effective options other than SAVE. He singled out ERIC, or the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonprofit organization that allows states to compare voter registrations and other data to identify out-of-date registrations, deceased voters and in some cases possible illegal voting.

“I think it would probably be malpractice not to talk about Electronic Registration Information Center,” Morelle said.

Twenty-five states and the District of Columbia belong to ERIC. Some Republican-led states withdrew from the organization several years ago after Trump urged them to leave amid false conspiracy theories, which he helped promote, that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Simon said ERIC offers “really good” data that provides tremendous value in helping to keep Minnesota’s voter roll up to date. 

“Good data is the coin of the realm here,” he said.

Kansas doesn’t participate in ERIC. Schwab, who is running for governor in Kansas’ Republican primary, said it would be a good tool but that it’s expensive.

ERIC charges new members a one-time $25,000 fee, in addition to annual dues approved by its board of directors, according to the organization’s bylaws. Larger states pay more each year than smaller ones, with annual dues ranging from roughly $37,000 to $117,000, its website says.

“We don’t have the resources to join,” Schwab said.

WASHINGTON — Republicans in Congress are once again looking toward the complex budget reconciliation process as a way to achieve some of their policy goals without Democratic votes. 

GOP leaders were able to use the special pathway last year to approve the “big, beautiful” law that extended tax cuts, overhauled and cut Medicaid, provided hundreds of billions in extra funding for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, and raised the country’s debt limit by $5 trillion, among other provisions. 

Now, Republicans will try to use the process at least one more time to provide years of funding to the Department of Homeland Security amid a two-month shutdown, with none of the constraints on immigration enforcement that Democrats have sought. 

Democrats’ push to rein in enforcement after federal immigration officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis led to a record-breaking stalemate over the annual DHS appropriations bill. 

The funding lapse hasn’t yet affected Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, DHS agencies which Republicans bolstered in the last reconciliation bill. But it has had an impact on the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration.

Reconciliation will require Republicans in the House and Senate to be almost completely unified on their goals, especially if the party tries to include elements of a hot-button voter identification bill called the SAVE America Act or other policies that don’t have a significant impact on federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit. 

What goes in and what is kept out of another reconciliation package will become increasingly important to GOP leaders’ reelection message as the country moves closer to November’s midterm elections. 

Why use budget reconciliation? 

Regular bills need a simple majority vote to pass the House, but at least 60 senators need to vote to end debate in that chamber. This step, sometimes called the legislative filibuster, or cloture, forces bipartisanship on most legislation, unless it moves through the reconciliation process. 

Budget reconciliation bills are exempt from that Senate rule. 

So why haven’t Republicans used reconciliation to enact all of their policy goals and campaign promises since taking over unified control last year? 

Budget reconciliation bills must follow a specific process and meet strict requirements in the Senate, known as the Byrd rule, named for former West Virginia Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd.

Very simply, this requires reconciliation bills to address federal spending, revenue, or debt in a way that is not deemed “merely incidental” by the Senate parliamentarian. 

How complicated could reconciliation really be?

Very.

First, the House and Senate must adopt a budget resolution with identical sets of reconciliation instructions for committees. Those guidelines will give committee leaders either a minimum amount to spend during the next decade or a maximum amount they can add to the deficit during that window. 

The Senate cannot approve the budget resolution without going through a marathon amendment voting session referred to as a vote-a-rama, which typically lasts well into the night. 

A budget resolution is a tax and spending blueprint, sort of like a blueprint for building a house before you’ve actually gotten a mortgage or purchased any land. It’s a proposal, but it doesn’t actually change tax law or spend any money. 

Once the budget is adopted, the House committees that receive reconciliation instructions must draft, debate and vote to send their bill to the Budget Committee. 

Then, the Budget Committee bundles all of the reconciliation bills together in one package and sends it to the House floor, where lawmakers must vote to send it to the Senate, where things get even more complex. 

What happens next?

Before a reconciliation bill goes to the Senate floor, it moves through something referred to as the “Byrd bath,” where the Senate parliamentarian determines if each provision fits the strict rules. 

Senate leaders can take up the House-passed version of the bill or work through the committee process on their side of the Capitol. Typically, the upper chamber goes directly to the floor and amends the House-passed bill. 

The Senate then goes through another vote-a-rama session, giving the minority party, currently Democrats, the chance to put all 100 lawmakers in that chamber on the record about various proposals in the bill. 

That process will be especially challenging this year, with Democrats looking to institute guardrails on immigration enforcement activities and get Republicans up for reelection on the record over some of the most pressing issues facing the country. 

If the Senate makes any changes to the House-passed bill, it must go back to that chamber for final approval before it can go to President Donald Trump for his signature. 

If the Senate approves a bill identical to the one passed by the House, it would go to Trump without needing another House vote. 

What exactly is the Byrd rule?

Elements in the bill would violate that rule if they:

• Didn’t change revenue, spending, or the debt limit. 
• Change revenue or spending in a way deemed “merely incidental.”
• Change policy outside the jurisdiction of the authorizing committee.
• Didn’t comply with the committee’s reconciliation instructions in the budget resolution.
• Increases the deficit past the budget window (usually 10 years).
• Change Social Security in any way, shape, or form.

How many times can Republicans use reconciliation? Is it unlimited? 

They have two more chances during this Congress but are limited by how many budget resolutions they can adopt. 

GOP leaders used the fiscal 2025 budget resolution to set up passage of the “big, beautiful” law. They can write a fiscal 2026 budget resolution for one more round and then use the fiscal 2027 budget resolution to run through a third reconciliation process, if they want to. 

Fiscal years for the federal government begin on Oct. 1.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Tuesday he plans to use the complex reconciliation process to fund immigration enforcement for the next three years, though it wasn’t immediately clear if House Republicans were on the exact same page.

The plan to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol with only Republican votes could end the two-month shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security when combined with the regular funding bill for that department, which the Senate already approved but is stalled in the House. 

Thune, R-S.D., said during an afternoon press conference that House GOP leaders “could” add additional provisions to the reconciliation bill, but said he would like it to remain narrow. 

“My hope would be that if we can execute on getting that done here in the Senate, the House would be able to follow through,” he said. 

Thune said the Senate could vote as soon as next week on a budget resolution with reconciliation instructions. That is the first step of the complicated process. But the House must vote to adopt that budget resolution before Republicans can pass the funding bill for ICE and the Border Patrol.  

Speaker Mike Johnson’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Homeland Security shuttered

The Department of Homeland Security has been shut down since Feb. 14, after Democrats insisted on new guardrails for immigration enforcement following the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis by federal immigration officers.

Without any bipartisan consensus on how to do that, Republicans have instead decided to use the same reconciliation process they used last year to enact their “big, beautiful” law to approve funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol. 

The House would then likely pass DHS’ spending bill without those two line items, which the Senate has already approved. That would provide funding for the other agencies within the department, including the Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration.

Safeguards demanded

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said during a separate press conference that Democrats have repeatedly asked for “common sense” safeguards that would require immigration agents to show identification, prevent them from wearing masks and require judicial warrants to enter someone’s home. 

“The bottom line is these are simple. These are common sense,” he said. “They’re what every police department uses and when you ask the American people, they’re on our side. It’s the intransigence, particularly of the hard right, who seem to like what ICE is doing.”

Schumer said Democrats would use the marathon amendment voting session on both the budget resolution and the later reconciliation bill to hold Republicans’ “feet to the fire on DHS, on the war, on so many other issues.”

Thune said he has been “trying to figure out exactly” what Democrats have gotten out of the DHS shutdown, especially considering that immigration enforcement operations haven’t been affected since there was funding for that in last year’s reconciliation bill, exempting those programs from the funding lapse. 

“All of the things that the Democrats made this about, which was supposed to be reforms to the way that ICE and CBP operate. They got none of that. Zero,” he said, referring to Customs and Border Protection, the larger agency that includes the Border Patrol. “And now we’re going to fund those agencies for three years into the future.”

A large and diverse crowd packed a community center on Milwaukee’s  south side Thursday, calling for the release of Salah Sarsour, president of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee. Sarsour, who is of Palestinian descent, was detained by federal immigration agents Monday morning. His supporters are calling Sarsour’s arrest an targeted act of political retaliation designed to chill opposition to the Israeli government and support for the Palestinian people.

“This is a man who came to the United States and kind of lived the American dream,” Othman Atta, executive director of the Islamic Society of Milwaukee, told the audience of community members, press, activists, and local elected officials. “And they are trying to tarnish his image. They’re trying to target him.”

A green card holder and lawful permanent resident, Sarsour has lived in the United States for over 30 years. “The U.S. government fully vetted his visa application at that time,” Kathryn Brady, head of the Muslim Legal Fund of America’s Immigration Litigation Department, said in a statement Wednesday. Brady said that it’s difficult to believe that the federal government’s “position now is not rooted in a violation of his First Amendment right to speak about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Atta said that on Monday Sarsour stopped at an old warehouse on Milwaukee’s south side which he owned because mail kept arriving there. As he left, a car came on the wrong side of the street “flying toward him,” said Atta, forcing Sarsour to jump out of the way. The unmarked car stopped and a person allegedly in civilian clothes pointed a gun at Sarsour and asked who he was by name. 

Atta said 12 vehicles were involved in the arrest, and Sarsour was loaded into a van before being told he was being taken by federal immigration officers. 

Atta said that the story was relayed to Sarsour’s attorney Munjed Ahmad during a phone call in which Sarsour declared that he was a lion and willing to fight. Sarsour was transported to the Broadview Detention Center in Illinois before being quickly transferred to another facility in Indiana, Atta said.  

“This is America,” said Atta. “This is Trump’s America.” 

He described Sarsour as a husband, father, grandfather, and a successful business owner who has no criminal record or convictions. 

“According to the papers that were filed in immigration court, they went back to when he was a minor — a teenager — in the West Bank under Israeli occupation,” said Atta. 

When he was a teenager, Sarsour was arrested and detained by the Israeli police. “He served two years,” said Atta. “Many of you who know him know that his passion for Palestine, his passion for justice, was based on the experience he had and that his family and friends had. He would talk to us many times how for 80 straight days, he was interrogated, and brutalized, and tortured while he was in Israeli military custody.” 

Palestinians living both in the West Bank and the region of Gaza, which has suffered catastrophic damage and where tens of thousands of people have been killed during attacks by the Israeli government in the last two and a half years, have reported similar abuse. 

In 2024, the United Nations found that due process rights for Palestinians had been violated in the West Bank for nearly 60 years. Last year, charges were dropped against five Israeli soldiers accused of beating and sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner in an assault that was captured in a video. A top legal official in the Israeli military admitted to approving the video’s release in an effort to show the world how the over 9,000 Palestinians detained by Israel are treated, the Associated Press reported. 

Al Jazeera reported that the bodies of Palestinians released as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and militant factions of Hamas exhibited signs of torture including restraints and injuries still evident on the dead. 

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement Thursday that Sarsour was convicted of throwing Molotov cocktails at the homes of Israeli armed forces.” In the statement, which repeatedly called Sarsour a “terrorist” and an “illegal alien from Jordan,” DHS charged that he “lied” on his green card application to enter the country in 1993 during the Clinton administration, and that his first attempts to apply for an immigrant visa at the American consulate in Jerusalem were rebuffed because of those allegations and others of “illegally attempting to possess” weapons and ammunition. 

Atta and Sarsour’s supportive community urged onlookers Thursday not to forget the reports about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. 

Atta said that Sarsour was again detained by the Israeli government after returning in 1995, which is where the weapons allegations came from, and that the written charges were in Hebrew, “which he doesn’t read or understand.”

Sarsour’s son, Kareem, was joined by other members of his family Thursday. Over the last two days, the family has been “bombarded” with “thousands of messages from all the people who knew him saying what he meant to them as a father-figure, as a role model, as a beloved community member, it just tells you who he was,” said Kareem Sarsour. Kareem described his father as “always giving” and said that Sarsour had tried to give his children everything he couldn’t have when he lived in the West Bank. 

The crowd that assembled to support Sarsour and his family included many Muslim residents, local activists, and elected officials, with Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley and  Mayor Cavalier Johnson in the front row, and further back, Alds. JoCasta Zamarripa and Alex Brower. Christine Neumann-Oriz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, was in the audience, and speakers from Jewish Voice for Peace joined Muslim and Christian faith leaders in denouncing Sarsour’s detention and calling for his release.

A flurry of Wisconsin lawmakers and local officials have condemned Sarsour’s arrest. Sen. Chris Larson (D-Milwaukee) said in a statement that the federal government was “increasingly fascist”  and called Sarsour “a vocal advocate for a free and independent Palestinian State.” 

“We have already seen numerous Muslim activists unfairly and unlawfully targeted by the Trump Administration for their beliefs and their speech,” Larson wrote. “These Unconstitutional assaults on our freedoms should alarm all of us. When any individual or group is targeted by the government for their speech, all of our freedoms are threatened.” 

Congresswoman Gwen Moore called Sarsour’s detention “completely unacceptable.” “Salah Sarsour is a respected leader in the Milwaukee community, and his detention raises serious concerns about the continued targeting of lawful residents based on the color of their skin or their political beliefs,” she said.

Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) charged that Sarsour’s detention was an attack on free speech. “Until free expression and free speech are protected, not treated as a privilege of the Trump Administration’s loudest supporters, this openly fascist government should be neither trusted nor obeyed,” Clancy said in a statement. “We must abolish ICE and hold those responsible for these repeated acts of state violence accountable.” 

Statements supporting Sarsour were also put out by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the Mandela Barnes for governor campaign, and the Milwaukee Area Labor Council Immigrant Rights Committee. 

Ahmad said that he’s “shocked” at how many communications he’s received from attorneys around the country on Sarsour’s case. “We have assembled a very capable legal team, that legal team continues to grow,” said Ahmad, declaring that they will work to free Sarsour. A hearing is scheduled on April 18. 

President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Tuesday that attempts to restrict mail-in voting, a White House priority certain to face significant legal challenges.

The order directs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security along with the Social Security Administration to compile a list of voting-age American citizens in each state and share it with state election officials. The order also requires the U.S. Postal Service to only send and receive ballots that include tracking barcodes.

Trump’s order represents a major escalation in his effort to assert presidential control over elections, which under the U.S. Constitution are administered by the states. Trump last year attempted to unilaterally impose a proof of citizenship requirement to vote in federal elections in an executive order that was blocked in federal court.

The move also reflects a long-held focus by Trump and his allies on noncitizen voters. Studies have shown noncitizen voting is extremely rare.

“I think this will help a lot with elections,” Trump said.

National database of adult citizens

Homeland Security operates the SAVE system, a powerful computer program that can verify citizenship. 

DHS has previously invited states to run their voter rolls through SAVE, which flags voters as potential noncitizens. Some election officials criticize the system, saying it wrongly identifies U.S. citizens as possibly ineligible.

The U.S. Department of Justice as recently as last week denied any efforts to create a national voter registration list. While the executive order does not explicitly mandate the creation of a voter list, it essentially marks an effort by the White House to create a national database of adult U.S. citizens.

The order requires Homeland Security to enable states to routinely supplement or suggest changes to each state’s citizenship list. Federal officials would also be required to allow individuals to access their own records and update or correct them ahead of elections.

Under the executive order, the postmaster general must propose rules to require all outbound ballot mail to be sent in an envelope that includes a barcode for tracking. The order also requires that states must inform the U.S. Postal Service at least 90 days before federal elections whether they intend to allow ballots to be sent through the mail.

“Instead of focusing on lowering the cost of energy, groceries, and health care, Donald Trump is desperately attempting to take over and rig our elections and avoid accountability in November,” U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said in a statement shortly after Trump announced the order. “This executive order is a blatant, unconstitutional abuse of power.”

SAVE America Act

Trump has pushed Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require individuals to produce documents, such as a passport or birth certificate, proving their citizenship in order to register to vote. The U.S. Senate is debating the bill, but it appears unlikely to have enough support to overcome a filibuster.

Trump has repeatedly asked Republicans to add three provisions to the bill, including restrictions on mail-in voting, with exceptions for members of the military, people who are ill and those on vacation. 

The president has also previously promised to advance voting restrictions, with or without Congress. Earlier this month, Trump voted by mail in Florida.

The executive order directs the Justice Department and other federal agencies to withhold federal funds from non-compliant states and localities “where such withholding is authorized by law.” 

Tuesday’s order is certain to face legal challenges. The Constitution gives Congress — not the president by executive order — the power to override state election regulations.

Marc Elias, a prominent voting rights litigator, promised to fight the executive order.

“If Trump signs an unconstitutional Executive Order to take over voting, we will sue,” Elias wrote on social media. “I don’t bluff and I usually win.”

Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters praised the order, saying Trump was restoring voter confidence. “Protecting America’s ballot box isn’t optional – it’s the foundation of our republic,” Grunters said.

DOJ lawsuits against states

The Justice Department has sued 29 states and the District of Columbia for copies of their voter rolls that contain sensitive personal information on voters, such as driver’s licenses and partial Social Security numbers. About a dozen states have voluntarily provided the data, but most are fighting the demands in court.

Three federal judges have so far ruled against the Justice Department. The administration is appealing and in court documents has argued that swift court decisions are necessary to ensure the security and fairness of the midterms.

The Trump administration has said the data is necessary to verify only citizens are registered to vote. Last week, a Justice Department lawyer confirmed in court that voter data would be shared with Homeland Security.

“Some may freak out about this, but honestly, this is hilarious,” David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former U.S. Department of Justice Voting Section attorney, wrote on social media about the Trump order. 

“It’s clearly unconstitutional, will be blocked immediately, and the only thing it will accomplish is to make liberal lawyers wealthier. He might as well sign an EO banning gravity.”

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

Mukta Joshi, an investigative reporter at Mississippi Today, is a New York Times Local Investigations fellow examining the ICE detention facility at Adams County Correctional Center. States Newsroom is partnering with Mississippi Today and The New York Times on this project. Mukta can be reached at mukta.joshi@nytimes.com. You can read the entire series here.

The Adams County Correctional Center, one of more than 200 ICE detention facilities in the U.S., is located near the city of Natchez on a sprawling 14-acre site in southwestern Mississippi.

The facility, which holds more than 2,000 people, is a significant economic driver in a county of fewer than 30,000 residents. CoreCivic employs approximately 400 people there, making it one of the largest employers in Adams County. Natchez Mayor Dan Gibson said CoreCivic is the county’s single largest taxpayer.

The federal government sets strict limits on who can visit Immigration and Custom Enforcement detention centers. And nearly all of them are run by for-profit companies, making the details of their operation private and difficult to monitor. 

So far, this is what we know.

Who owns it?

The Adams facility is privately owned and operated by CoreCivic Inc., a publicly traded company based in Tennessee. 

One of the largest private prison companies in the country, it disclosed in its most recent financial filings that it owns or controls about 57% of all privately owned prison beds in the U.S. 

The company, which reported $2.2 billion in revenue last year, has benefited financially from the Trump administration’s push to arrest immigrants. From 2024 to 2025, revenue increased by nearly $200 million thanks largely to an increase in ICE detentions, according to the company’s latest annual report.

Over the past few years, CoreCivic, its employees and PACs have poured millions of dollars into political donations and lobbying. In the 2024 election cycle, 84% of these donations went to Republican candidates. In the same cycle, CoreCivic spent more than $1.7 million lobbying, according to OpenSecrets. The previous year, it spent more than $1.6 million.

The Adams County facility is one of two ICE facilities operated by CoreCivic in the state. A second CoreCivic facility in Tutwiler, in northern Mississippi, was authorized last year to start housing ICE detainees.

What kinds of people are detained there? 

The Adams facility is a men’s facility. Most of its detainees are not from Mississippi. They were picked up by ICE agents somewhere else and are being held here until they decide to leave the country, or until an immigration judge deports them or sets them free.

Being in the U.S. without proper documentation is a civil infraction, like a speeding ticket – not a criminal violation. This fact has contributed to controversy about prison-like conditions that people detained by ICE are experiencing.

Only 9% of people in the Adams center have any sort of criminal conviction. But even those with criminal records are being held for civil immigration infractions, not as punishment. 

In addition to men, the facility currently houses a small number of transgender women. Following President Trump’s 2025 executive order, transgender people are required to be incarcerated in facilities that align with their gender assigned at birth, regardless of their legal status.

How long are detainees held?

In early 2025, then-warden Jason Streeval was quoted by the Natchez Democrat as saying that the average stay in the facility was about 60 days but had been getting longer. He told the newspaper that some detainees had been there for as long as seven months. 

Has the facility ever been the subject of controversy? 

The Adams facility made headlines in 2012, when an inmate protest against poor conditions snowballed into a riot that resulted in the killing of a guard. The FBI opened an investigation, leading to a number of inmates being charged and ultimately sentenced for participating in the riot. In the wake of the riot, U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson called for an investigation into CoreCivic, then operating as Corrections Corporation of America.

One section of the facility, known as the “Zulu” unit, contains solitary confinement cells, where detainees are housed as punishment. In 2020, two nonprofit groups submitted a written complaint to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security alleging that immigrants from Cameroon had been tortured by ICE officers in that ward and forced to sign deportation documents. A year later, the complaint was still unresolved, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights. A representative for ICE did not respond to an inquiry about the current status of the complaint.

In 2021, an inspection by DHS found that Adams generally had provided sufficient medical care but identified one case in which the medical unit examined a sick detainee but did not send the person to the hospital. The detainee died. 

DHS also found that Adams didn’t meet other federal standards. Among the cited failures: It did not respond to grievances in a timely manner, it inadequately implemented COVID-19 safety protocols and it failed to assist vulnerable detainees. The ACLU called for the facility to be shut down.

What’s life like inside? 

The facility is divided into units, each holding about 140 people who share eight toilets and 15 showers, according to detainees interviewed by Mississippi Today. While inside, detainees can work if they choose, helping to clean, run the kitchen or do laundry. Several people held at the center said they were paid about $3.50 per day for their work.

Detainees are generally restricted to their own unit, where they can move about freely. One detainee said he was allowed to visit a secure outdoor area once every four or five days.

Several detainees described harsh conditions, but said that they had spent time in other facilities that were far dirtier and more restrictive. 

We don’t know much beyond that, especially about what the detention center looks like inside. A detainee who can afford the fees can send messages and make video calls from inside. They can’t send photos or attachments. And the communication app blurs their background and obscures the video completely if the camera is aimed away from the detainee’s face during a call.

How much does it cost to run? 

The contract to run this facility, like most other ICE detention centers, is an “Intragovernmental Service Agreement” between ICE, CoreCivic and Adams County. The 2019 agreement shows that ICE had agreed to pay a $3.9 million monthly flat rate for the facility, an amount set to increase every year. There have since been changes to this contract, but they were not immediately accessible. 

When we requested an interview with the warden and assistant warden, a spokesperson for CoreCivic redirected us to the company’s public affairs office and requested us to send our questions in writing. 

Over the next few months, we plan to publish weekly dispatches about the facility and about ICE detention in Mississippi and do our best to address these unanswered questions. You’ll be able to find my reporting on the Mississippi Today website, on our social media channels and in our Friday newsletter. And you can follow me on X @mukta_jo.

In the meantime, please fill out our survey. If you know something about the detention center, if you know someone who works there or is detained there, or want me to find out something about it for readers, please get in touch.

Clarification 3/27/26: This story has been updated to clarify the types of detainees held in the Adams County Correctional Center.

CONCORD, N.C.— School bus drivers play a critical role in preventing violence and ensuring student safety, and a seasoned law enforcement veteran is on a mission to equip them with the skills to recognize and respond to warning signs of aggression.

Speaking at the STN EXPO East conferece Friday, security expert Bret Brooks of Gray Ram Tactical emphasized the importance of training drivers to identify behavioral and verbal cues that signal potential violence, empowering them to take proactive steps to de-escalate situations and protect lives.

He shared actionable insights to help bus drivers and school staff recognize warning signs of aggression and prevent violent incidents.

“Every single human being has the potential for violence,” said Brooks, a retired Missouri law enforcement officer with 23 years of experience. “Violence is simply a way of handling a situation. If we can understand the biology behind violence, then we can start to recognize it before it happens and take steps to de-escalate.”

Brooks emphasized that violence is a biological process triggered by seven universal factors: Family, order, restraint, resources, mate, insult, and life or limb. He explained that these triggers, which have evolved over thousands of years, are deeply ingrained in human behavior and can be activated in high-stress situations.

He likened violence prevention training to CPR certification, stressing the need for regular refreshers and hands-on practice. Just as CPR training requires participants to practice chest compressions on a mannequin, he explained, violence prevention training should involve real-world scenarios to prepare bus drivers for high-stress situations. Without such practice, he warned, drivers may not be equipped to respond effectively when faced with a crisis.

The importance of training bus drivers to recognize concealed weapons was another key point in Brooks’ presentation. He noted a troubling trend in which active shooters are increasingly arriving at schools via school buses.

“That means kids with guns, knives, or other weapons are boarding buses, and our bus drivers are unknowingly delivering the murderer to the victims,” he said.

Brooks shared a chilling anecdote about a school bus driver who recentlly and successfully identified a student carrying a gun and planning to harm his girlfriend.

“We just saved somebody’s life because the bus driver could see what was going on, took action and prevented the active shooter,” he said. “That’s what gives me the motivation to keep moving forward.”
Throughout his presentation, Brooks outlined key nonverbal and verbal cues that can signal potential violence. He stressed the importance of observing clusters of behaviors rather than relying on a single indicator.

For example, excessive staring or avoiding eye contact, dropping the chin to protect the airway, rapid or deep breathing, flared nostrils, wringing hands, shedding clothing, standing with feet shoulder-width apart, and shifting weight can all signal aggression. Similarly, verbal cues such as strained speech, increased pitch, parroting or echoing words, repetitive word usage, nervous laughter, forced air exhalation, mass statements, indifference in conversation, and escalating profanity can indicate a loss of self-control and a potential for violence.

Proactive De-escalation

Brooks emphasized the critical role of de-escalation in preventing violence. He explained that when someone’s triggers are activated, it is essential to act immediately to prevent the situation from escalating further. He shared a real-life example of a school bus driver who failed to de-escalate a situation with a student for over 15 minutes, leading to a physical altercation.

“The driver never asked the student why she wanted off the bus. What if she had said, ‘Because I’m being molested in the back.’ That would have changed everything,” Brooks said.

An attendee commented that her school district uitlizes crises prevention training and encouraged her peers to do the same.

Meanwhile, Brooks suggested that bus drivers play the “what-if” game to prepare for potential scenarios.

“Don’t wait for the bad thing to happen. Have a plan ahead of time,” the security expert said. “If you see the train wreck coming, you need to act.”

Related: ‘Care Less Without Being Careless’ Urges Security Expert to Student Transporters
Related: School Violence Grant Provides Opportunity for Threat Assessment Training
Related: Times Are Changing … What Is Your Response to School Bus Violence?
Related: Q&A: Cybersecurity in Student Transportation: Why It Matters, Where It’s Headed

Brooks also acknowledged that the indicators of violence and de-escalation techniques for special needs students differ from those for the general population

“It’s imperative that we do special needs training,” he said. “Special needs drivers should be consistently trained to understand the unique triggers and indicators for these students.”

In closing, Brooks urged school transportation professionals to take violence prevention seriously and to recognize the importance of their role in ensuring safety. “This happens in every other school district, not just yours,” he said. “We have to be open enough to see things for what they are and act to prevent violence.”

By understanding the biological triggers of violence, recognizing key indicators and employing effective de-escalation techniques, school bus drivers and transportation staff can play a vital role in keeping students, staff and themselves safe.

Article written with the assistance of AI.

The post Security Expert Shares Key Indicators of Violence for School Transportation Safety appeared first on School Transportation News.

Friday at STN EXPO East began with the National School Bus Inspection Training Program, an intensive, full‑day course designed to train technicians on how to conduct regular vehicle inspections, above and beyond state or federal Department of Transportation guidance.

Security expert Bret Brooks presented two sessions, one on realignment and refocusing of priorities for managing stress and work-life balance, and the other on recognizing early signs of violent behavior. Other session topics Friday included navigating funding cuts and budget issues, and multi-modal transportation.

Transportation directors gathered in the late afternoon for a leadership discussion to kick off the two-day Transportation Director Summit (TD Summit). Led by Tony Corpin, STN president and publisher, the transportation director participants gathered with vendor partners to discuss current challenges and share solutions.

The TD Summit continues Saturday. The event requires prior selection based on completion of a survey and a review of job qualifications and experience.

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Photos by Vince Rios Creative and STN staff. 

The post Gallery: Special Training, Focused Sessions at STN EXPO East appeared first on School Transportation News.

The U.S. Department of Justice confirmed in court Thursday that it is sharing sensitive voter data with the Department of Homeland Security in a search for noncitizen voters. But a DOJ lawyer denied the department is building a national voter database.

The Justice Department has demanded states provide full copies of their voter lists, including sensitive personal information, such as driver’s license and partial Social Security numbers. It has sued 29 states and the District of Columbia for refusing to turn over the data. At least a dozen other states have provided their lists.

During a hearing in the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking Rhode Island’s voter data, DOJ attorney Eric Neff said the information would be shared with Homeland Security. U.S. District Court Judge Mary McElroy had asked whether the Justice Department could send the list to Homeland Security with instructions to search for noncitizens.

“Yes, and we intend to do so,” Neff said.

He added that the Justice Department and Homeland Security already have a “use agreement” in place for such sharing.

Three federal judges have so far rejected the Justice Department’s demands for state voter data, and no judge has sided with the department. DOJ has appealed those decisions and oral arguments are scheduled for later this spring after the Trump administration pushed for quick decisions ahead of the midterm elections.

The Justice Department has said it needs the voter data to determine whether states are complying with federal voting rights laws that require states to regularly update and clean their lists. The department has voiced particular determination to root out non-citizen voting, which is extremely rare.

In September, Homeland Security told Stateline in an unsigned statement that the Justice Department was sharing voter data with the agency in a collaborative effort.

But Neff’s courtroom statement on Thursday appeared to mark the first on-record acknowledgment of the data sharing. CBS News also reported on Thursday that the two agencies were nearing a final agreement on sharing voter data for immigration and criminal investigations.

The Justice Department and Homeland Security didn’t respond to requests for comment from Stateline.

In recent weeks, a Justice Department lawyer sidestepped a question about whether voter data would be used for immigration purposes. On March 3 during a hearing in a lawsuit over Minnesota’s voter roll, U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Menendez asked DOJ lawyer James Tucker whether there was intention to use the data for immigration enforcement.

“Not to my knowledge, no, your honor, not with the data we are getting,” Tucker said, according to a transcript. But he added that some federal prosecutors were working with Homeland Security.

During a federal court hearing in Maine on Thursday, Tucker said the Justice Department was not creating a national voter database. At the same time, he didn’t rule out voter data being checked against federal databases.

“Again, that’s something that’s been routine the United States has done in the past,” Tucker said.

Since President Donald Trump took office last year, Homeland Security has refashioned an online program previously used to verify whether immigrants qualified for government benefits into a tool that can verify U.S. citizenship. Called SAVE, the program is capable of checking millions of voters against federal databases for citizenship information.

DHS has encouraged states to run their voter lists through the program. Some Democratic state election officials have expressed concerns about the program and point to instances where SAVE has wrongly flagged a voter as a potential noncitizen.

“They are initiating litigation in states all around the country, seeking the same information in sort of this cookie-cutter way,” Jonathan Bolton, an attorney in the Maine Attorney General’s Office, said during Thursday’s federal court hearing in Maine.

“Which suggests that the purpose is not to investigate specific concerns about specific states, but it is to compile this sort of national voter registration database,” Bolton said.

Bolton was representing Maine Democratic Secretary of State Shenna Bellows in the Justice Department’s lawsuit for Maine’s voter roll.

Rhode Island Current reporter Alexander Castro contributed reporting. Stateline reporter Jonathan Shorman can be reached at jshorman@stateline.org.

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he will sign an order allowing the Department of Homeland Security to pay airport security workers who have gone without a full paycheck since the shutdown began in mid-February. 

The order for Transportation Security Administration workers does not appear to include pay for other federal employees working for DHS, including those at the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Secret Service. 

Immigration and Customs Enforcement as well as Customs and Border Protection have largely been insulated from the DHS shutdown since Republicans approved tens of billions in additional funding for those two agencies in last year’s “big, beautiful” law. 

“It is not an easy thing to do, but I am going to do it! I want to thank our hardworking TSA Agents and also, ICE, for the incredible help they have given us at the Airports,” Trump wrote on social media. “I will not allow the Radical Left Democrats to hold our Country hostage any longer.”

Trump’s decision will give both chambers of Congress, which are controlled by Republicans, a bit of cover to leave for their two-week spring break without actually reaching bipartisan compromise to fund DHS. 

Democrats have held up the department’s funding bill in the Senate to demand new constraints on federal immigration actions after officers shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minnesota in January. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said shortly after Trump’s announcement that his decision “takes the immediate pressure off” lawmakers to make a deal, but that it’s a “short-term solution.”

Thune said “we’ll see” when asked if negotiations over the DHS funding bill would continue. 

“I’ll have more to say about that here soon,” he said. “But we obviously are going to try and fund as much of the DHS budget as we possibly can.”

Thune hadn’t provided an update as of 10 p.m. Eastern as senators struggled to find a path forward. 

Senate Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said earlier in the evening that talks over funding the department continued with Republicans. 

“There’s an active negotiation going on. I hope they don’t unilaterally decide to walk away. But that’s their decision,” he said. “They ultimately take orders from a higher power.”

Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said around the same time “it’s just not true that we’re not in a negotiation.”

“It may be that one person or the other has lost patience and that would be too bad,” he said. “But we’re still talking.”

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., said Trump made the right decision to choose to pay TSA agents as the shutdown drags on. 

“I just got off the phone with the president,” he said. “The president is doing absolutely the right thing. He’s showing leadership.”

House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., released a statement saying the administration needs to explain to Congress what funding it plans to divert to pay TSA workers and why it didn’t take the step sooner. 

“If the White House believes they have the authority to pay these workers, then every day for the past 41 days, they have been making a conscious decision not to pay them,” she said. “As the lines got longer, as workers called out, as agents quit or got second jobs, they chose again and again not to pay these workers.”

A senior administration official said the administration plans to use money from Republicans’ signature tax and spending package that was enacted last summer. 

Union reaction

American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley said in a statement that while the union is “grateful” that TSA employees will be paid, lawmakers need to find a deal to fully fund the entire department. 

“These workers and their families cannot wait,” he said. “All DHS workers must be paid immediately.

“Congress needs to continue working to pass a real, bipartisan appropriations deal that funds DHS, pays all DHS workers, and keeps these vital agencies running — even if that means canceling their upcoming vacation.”

WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic leaders on Thursday were reading through a new Republican offer to fund the Department of Homeland Security that could end the shutdown that began nearly six weeks ago, with a congressional recess set to begin.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in the afternoon that Democrats hadn’t “responded officially” to a proposal GOP negotiators sent over in the morning but that discussions were ongoing. He described it as the “last and final” offer.

“There are some language requests that they made that we did everything we could to accommodate,” he said. 

Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons said “it’s a good sign that there is paper going back and forth,” though he said the two political parties are still somewhat far apart.

“I think there’s a lot of sense of urgency around getting TSA funded,” he said, referring to the Transportation Security Administration and long wait times at some of the nation’s airports. Some unpaid TSA officers are calling out sick, causing jams in security lines.

“But frankly, we’re not that far from where we’ve been for weeks, which is, Democrats want real reforms to ICE and CBP and are resistant to funding them without reforms, and Republicans would like us to fund them without reforms beyond what Secretary Noem committed to,” Coons said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agencies.

Some Republican senators, he said, view the confirmation of former Oklahoma Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin earlier this week as a form of compromise on DHS’ immigration enforcement activities. Mullin replaced the former secretary, Kristi Noem.

That, however, isn’t enough for Democrats.

“My Republican friends on this topic have said, ‘Hey, Secretary Mullin in his confirmation committed to A, B, C, D,’” Coons said. “And that’s a far cry from, ‘We’ll put it in statute or we have promulgated this in regulation.’ So that’s some of the problems. I think they feel like they’ve already offered key reforms in Secretary Mullin’s confirmation. And at least the senators that I’ve talked to don’t think that’s enough.”

Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner said there is “a conundrum” over how to provide more funding for Customs and Border Protection “without some agreement that they need to go back to their statutory role, not doing interior enforcement.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., had not commented publicly on the latest Republican offer as of late afternoon. 

Trump vows ‘very drastic measures’

President Donald Trump said during a morning Cabinet meeting at the White House that he wants to see a deal to fund DHS soon, but didn’t disclose any details of the latest offer.  

“They need to end the shutdown immediately, or we’ll have to take some very drastic measures,” he said, opting not to elaborate on what he meant. 

Thune said he’d leave the White House to speak for Trump on whether he supports the latest Republican DHS funding offer but added that administration staff have “been involved in the back-and-forth that has occurred overnight and all morning.”

“It’s never done until it’s done,” he said. 

Timing on a deal to fund DHS is somewhat important, with the House scheduled to depart Friday for a two-week spring break that their Senate colleagues are supposed to leave for as well. 

Thune said the chamber will likely head off for the recess if they fund DHS, but suspects “we’ll probably be around here” if they don’t.  

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., didn’t commit to put a reworked DHS appropriations bill on the House floor, especially if it doesn’t include funding for ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations.

“We have never been in favor of breaking the bill up,” he said. 

But Johnson said it may be possible for Republicans to move funding for that specific program through the complex budget reconciliation process, which the party used last year to approve tens of billions in additional funding for immigration enforcement and deportation in its “big, beautiful” law.  

“If they break away that subset, I suppose we’d have to fund it through reconciliation and find some other means,” he said. 

Working without pay

Workers at the several agencies within DHS, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Secret Service, will continue to work without pay until Congress brokers some sort of funding deal for the department.

Any federal employee who handles national security issues or the protection of life or property keeps working during a shutdown. All others are supposed to be sent home. Everyone is supposed to get back pay once the shutdown ends. 

TSA airport security screeners this weekend will miss their second full paycheck since the funding lapse began, after seeing only a partial paycheck early in the shutdown.

While TSA workers are required to work without pay during a shutdown, thousands have called in sick over the last six weeks as they seek gig work and other ways to pay bills. Call-out rates nationwide reached double digits this week, with some airports seeing more than 40% of employees miss shifts.

Some TSA workers have turned to selling plasma to make ends meet, officials from the union representing the agency’s employees told reporters Tuesday.

The staffing shortages have led to hours-long waits at security lines in some highly trafficked airports, causing passengers to miss flights and generally adding to the anxiety of air travel.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement that the administration “is having discussions about a number of ideas to blunt the impact of the Democrat shutdown crisis, but no preparations or plans are currently underway. The best and easiest way to pay TSA Agents is to fund DHS.” 

Jacob Fischler contributed to this report. 

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators showed no movement Wednesday toward a deal to end the shutdown at the Department of Homeland Security, despite the problems it’s causing for the thousands of federal workers set to miss yet another paycheck and travelers waiting hours to get through airport security lines. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said an offer from Democrats, sent over in the morning, was completely unacceptable and that GOP lawmakers wouldn’t even bother to send back a counterproposal. 

“They know better. They’re asking for things that have already been turned down,” he said. “So it just seems like they’re going in circles.”

Thune said the chamber would vote later on a funding bill for DHS that doesn’t include Enforcement and Removal Operations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the deportation and detention arm of the agency.

“They said over the weekend that they didn’t want to fund ERO. They’ll fund everything else,” he said. “So we’re going to give an opportunity to vote to do that.”

Thune said Republicans’ decision to remove funding for those deportation programs represents a “significant” compromise that shows GOP lawmakers are “coming to the table and trying to get a deal.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the offer Democrats sent over represented “a reasonable, good-faith proposal that contains some of the very same asks Democrats have been talking about now for months.”

Schumer said a proposal Republicans sent earlier this week didn’t include any of the overhauls to immigration enforcement that Democrats have been talking about since January, when federal officers killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. 

“For Republicans to send us a proposal that has no reforms is bad faith as well and will only slow things down,” he said. 

Trump ‘pretty much not happy’ with ‘any deal’

President Donald Trump remains a wild card in the negotiations. His support will be needed for any DHS funding bill to become law, regardless of how much longer it takes lawmakers to reach consensus. 

“Well, I don’t want to comment until I see the deal,” he said Tuesday when asked about ongoing DHS talks. “But as you know, they’re negotiating a deal. I guess they’re getting fairly close. But I think any deal they make, I’m pretty much not happy with it.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., when asked about those comments during a Wednesday morning press conference, appeared skeptical of breaking off some line items in the DHS funding bill.

Any legislation to end the shutdown that passes the Senate will need to move through the House before it could reach Trump’s desk. 

“We always have Homeland funded as an entire department. There’s obvious reasons for that. It’s very important. I don’t think we need to be breaking it apart,” he said. “And so I think that’s what the president is reflecting there. He wants Congress to do its dang job.”

Will Congress leave town without an agreement?

It isn’t clear whether the Senate will still depart for its two-week spring break without a bipartisan agreement to fund DHS, which has been shut down since Feb. 14. 

Legislation cannot advance in that chamber without the support of at least 60 senators, making buy-in from each party essential to end the shutdown. 

Thune said he hadn’t made a final decision but seemed likely to let lawmakers head back home for the scheduled recess absent progress toward a deal. 

“If we’re not here, and when the Democrats are willing to make a deal, we’d certainly get everybody back to vote on it,” he said. “But no decisions on that yet. So hopefully the next couple days will be productive.”

Until a deal is reached, the DHS funding lapse will continue to affect workers and programs run by many of the agencies within the department, including the Coast Guard, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Secret Service and Transportation Security Administration.

ICE and Customs and Border Protection operations have largely continued uninterrupted since Republicans approved tens of billions in additional funding for those agencies in their “big, beautiful” law. 

‘We’ve got a lot of plate spinning’

Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford said lawmakers need to find some sort of solution to fund DHS following weeks of stalemate. 

“At the end of the day, we got to get them open,” he said. “And the frustration that we have is we literally offered what they asked for three days ago, and then suddenly it’s like, ‘Oh no, no, we got new stuff.’”

Lankford said he doesn’t want to see senators leave for the recess without a deal to reopen DHS. 

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said lawmakers should stick around Capitol Hill until they solve at least some of the several outstanding issues. 

“We’ve got a lot of plate spinning. And I’m afraid if we leave until we get some certainty around them, a few of them are going to fall to the floor and people are going to be wondering what’s going on,” he said.

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, said the way the Trump administration has approached immigration enforcement and deportation has led to the problems over DHS funding. 

“I have a constitutional responsibility to fund only a government that obeys the law,” he said. “I would be violating my oath of office to fund ICE without reforms.”

Moreno and Merkley face off

Ohio Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno went to the floor in the evening to ask unanimous consent to approve a bill that would fund every component of DHS for two weeks, providing back pay to all of its employees. 

Moreno said that would give senators enough time to work out a bipartisan deal on the full-year DHS spending bill if they canceled the recess and stayed around to work. 

Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley proposed that lawmakers instead fund TSA through the end of September, when the current fiscal year ends. 

Moreno then asked Merkley to change that request to fund every agency within DHS except for Enforcement and Removal Operations for the rest of the fiscal year. 

Merkley then said he would agree to fund every agency within DHS except ICE and CBP.

“He keeps asking for Customs and Border Protection to be funded without modifying how they’re behaving across the nation,” Merkley said. “He keeps asking for ICE to be funded without modifying their actions where they’re acting like a secret police.”

The senators were unable to come to an agreement to approve funding for any of the agencies at DHS for any length of time during a nearly hour-long exchange that became tense at several points. 

Moreno said the impasse represented “a sad day for the United States Senate.” 

Ariana Figueroa contributed to this report. 

Transportation Security Administration officers are struggling to afford basic necessities as they approach their second missed full paycheck since a funding lapse began last month, union leaders said at a virtual press conference Tuesday.

Officials from the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents more than 44,000 TSA officers nationwide, urged Congress to immediately find a solution to the partial government shutdown that began Feb. 14. More than 400 TSA workers have quit their jobs since the start of the shutdown, with thousands missing shifts.

Mac Johnson, who represents TSA workers in North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, said his members are increasingly telling him about difficulties affording groceries, housing costs, auto insurance and other essentials. 

Some have turned to selling plasma to make ends meet, he said.

“It’s not that these employees, their families, are hungry,” Johnson said. “They’re beginning to starve, literally starve, because they do not have the funds … to provide food for their families … So we not only strongly encourage, we demand that the Congress and this administration sit down like adults and resolve this matter so these employees won’t be placing themselves between a rock and a hard place.”

Dispute over immigration crackdown

After two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis in January — and other chaotic episodes sparked by President Donald Trump’s aggressive deportation push — Democrats in Congress demanded changes to immigration enforcement policy as a condition for funding the Department of Homeland Security, which includes TSA and conducts most immigration enforcement. 

Senators have indicated in recent days they could be approaching a deal to fund the non-immigration parts of TSA, but union officials said their members must be paid immediately.

“We’ve been hearing about optimism and progress for weeks,” AFGE President Everett Kelly said. “Our members cannot eat optimism or pay rent with progress.”

As airports see TSA staffing shortages while officers miss work, security lines in some airports have stretched for hours.

Even once the shutdown ends, it could take two weeks to a month for workers to receive their back pay, Aaron Barker, the president of the union covering airports in Georgia, and Johnny Jones, the secretary-treasurer of the nationwide AFGE chapter for TSA workers, said. 

That could potentially mean it will take weeks to return to normal staffing levels as officers continue to miss shifts to seek gig work or other quick payouts, they said.

TSA officers have missed one partial and one full paycheck since mid-February. Another paycheck is due this weekend, the AFGE officials said.

Blame game

Asked about the situation affecting TSA employees, DHS provided a statement from spokeswoman Lauren Bis that closely resembled a comment she gave a day earlier blaming Democrats for the shutdown.

“American travelers are facing HOURS long waits at airports across the country and more than 450 TSA officers quit and thousands have called out sick from work because they are not able to afford gas, childcare, food, or rent,” Bis said.

At the U.S. Capitol, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer blasted Trump for demanding that a national voter ID bill be included in a deal to reopen DHS.

“We wasted a day of negotiations because of Donald Trump’s temper tantrum,” Schumer, a New York Democrat, said in a floor speech. “A day may not seem a lot to the president, but that’s another day of TSA workers needlessly waiting for checks, another day of travelers standing for hours at a time at security.”

ICE ‘in the way’

The administration has dispatched agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, another DHS agency, to a handful of airports to assist TSA workers. ICE is fully funded, despite the DHS shutdown, because Republicans’ spending and tax cuts law last year provided money for immigration enforcement.

White House border czar Tom Homan has said ICE agents would help with tasks like guarding exits and not conduct activities that require extensive training, freeing up TSA officers to operate x-ray machines and other more specialized tasks.

But AFGE officials said the ICE officers are not helping.

“All ICE is doing is in the way,” Hydrick Thomas, the president of the AFGE council covering TSA workers, said. “We’re still trying to figure out why they’re there. No way ICE is gonna help us make passengers feel safe.”

WASHINGTON — Alan Armstrong, a Tulsa businessman, was sworn in Tuesday as Oklahoma’s newest U.S. senator.

Armstrong temporarily fills the seat of Markwayne Mullin, who was sworn in as U.S. Department of Homeland Security secretary earlier Tuesday. 

The Senate on Monday confirmed Mullin’s nomination to lead the agency responsible for carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. 

Armstrong was sworn in at the U.S. Capitol just hours after Oklahoma GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt appointed him to the post Tuesday morning at the Oklahoma state Capitol in Oklahoma City. 

Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley, who serves as president pro tempore of the Senate, swore in Armstrong. Grassley joined Armstrong and his family in the Old Senate Chamber for a reenactment of the swearing-in shortly after. 

Armstrong has served as executive chairman of the board of directors for Williams. The major energy company is headquartered in Tulsa. 

Armstrong joins Oklahoma GOP Sen. James Lankford in the Senate and will serve alongside him until January 2027 — the remainder of Mullin’s term. 

Under Oklahoma law, Armstrong signed an affidavit earlier Tuesday vowing to not run for a full Senate term in 2026, the Oklahoma Voice reported. 

Earlier in March, Trump gave Oklahoma GOP U.S. Rep. Kevin Hern — who is running in November for the Senate seat — his “complete and total endorsement.” 

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump hailed his new Homeland Security head, former U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, as “strong, professional and fair” during an Oval Office swearing-in ceremony Tuesday.

Mullin, who until Monday was one of Oklahoma’s Republican senators, takes the reins at the Department of Homeland Security amid a weekslong partial shutdown in the aftermath of two high-profile fatal shootings of U.S. citizens by two departmental agencies.

Mullin, accompanied by family at the Oval Office ceremony, described his swearing-in as “surreal” and “humbling” during brief remarks after Attorney General Pam Bondi administered his oath of office.

“I made this very clear that I don’t care what color your state is. I don’t care if you’re red or you’re blue. At the end of the day, my job is to be secretary of Homeland and to protect everybody the same. And we will do that. I’ll fight every single day,” Mullin said. 

The partial shutdown has snarled major airports nationwide as thousands of Transportation Security Administration personnel, part of DHS, have quit or skipped work in the absence of paychecks.

Mullin said he met with many DHS employees Tuesday, noting they had been working without pay for more than a month because of “politics.”

Former fighter

Trump praised Mullin at Tuesday’s ceremony.

“I have no doubt that as he takes the helm of DHS, Markwayne will fight for Homeland Security, the United States and securing the country and making it really strong and the way it should be,” Trump said. “Our country’s come a long way in the last year.”

In rising to the role, Mullin became the first member of the Cherokee Nation to serve in the president’s Cabinet, a fact Trump said he “didn’t know.”

Mullin, an award-winning wrestler and former professional mixed martial arts fighter, began his Senate term in 2023. Until being elected as senator, he represented Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District starting in 2013.

Mullin resigned from the U.S. Senate Monday evening following the body’s confirmation of his appointment in a 54-45 vote.

The former senator, who will be tasked with leading a department of 260,000 employees, has not sat on a committee that handles policy for Homeland Security.

Alan Armstrong, a Tulsa businessman, was sworn in Tuesday to replace Mullin in the Senate.

Department in turmoil

Mullin replaces former Secretary Kristi Noem who, since Trump’s second term began, oversaw the president’s mass deportation crackdown and publicly flaunted her role in ad campaigns and public appearances — including being photographed while touring a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador where the U.S. deported hundreds of migrants against a judge’s order. 

Noem notably immediately defended two fatal shootings by department personnel in Minneapolis when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents killed 37-year-old Renee Good on Jan. 7, and Customs and Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti, also 37, on Jan. 24.

Democrats have refused to fully fund DHS unless Republicans agreed to new policies for immigration enforcement — including banning face coverings on agents, mandating body camera usage and requiring judicial warrants. 

“The department that Markwayne takes over today is currently shut down by radical left Democrat thugs in Congress who have blocked all funding for DHS because they’re trying to shield illegal aliens, criminals and gang members,” Trump said, incorrectly stating that all DHS funding has been blocked. 

While a significant number of DHS employees, like TSA officers, have been working for weeks without pay, both ICE and Customs and Border Protection are fully funded under a new influx of cash Republicans approved in July as part of the massive tax and spending package.

Speaking to reporters following Mullin’s swearing-in, Trump declined to talk in detail about negotiations with the Senate to end the partial shutdown.  

“They’re working on all of that,” he said.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court justices seemed split Tuesday on whether the Trump administration should be allowed to turn away asylum-seekers who present themselves at ports of entry at the U.S.-Mexico border.

The question presented to the justices was whether migrants have to fully cross into the United States in order to have the right to apply for asylum and be processed, or if they can apply for asylum when they appear at a port of entry while on Mexico’s side of the border. 

The policy requiring a full crossing, known as metering, is defunct, but the Trump administration is asking the high court to make a determination in order to potentially revive the practice for future use at the southern border.

“This is an important tool in the government’s toolbox for dealing with border surges when they occur,” Vivek Suri, assistant to the U.S. solicitor general, told the court during oral arguments on the asylum case. “I can’t predict when the next border surge occurs, but I can say that when it does occur, this is a tool that (the Department of Homeland Security) would want in its toolbox. It’s not something the court should leave to future uncertainty.”

The six conservative justices seemed to agree with the Trump administration’s position, and questioned the definition of when a migrant “arrives” in the United States and can therefore seek asylum — legal protection granted to those fleeing danger or persecution in their home country.

The three liberals of the Supreme Court — Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson —  asked whether the policy violated federal law protecting refugees. 

Lower and appeals courts have repeatedly blocked the metering policy, finding it violated U.S. asylum and refugee law for those escaping persecution after the first Trump administration expanded its use in 2017. The Biden administration rescinded the policy in 2021. 

A 2020 investigation by the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General found that up to 680 migrants per day were turned around as a result of the metering policy. 

The ‘magic thing’

Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked Kelsi Corkran, an attorney who argued on behalf of the immigrant legal aid and humanitarian group Al Otro Lado, how close an asylum seeker has to be to qualify as “arriving” in the U.S.

The immigration advocacy group originally brought the challenge in 2017 after asylum seekers were turned away by border officials at U.S. ports of entry. 

“What is the magic thing, or the dispositive thing, that we’re looking for, where we say, ‘Ah, now that person we can say arrives in the United States?’” Barrett asked. 

Corkran said someone arrives in the U.S. at a port of entry “when they are at the threshold of the port’s entrance, about to step over.” 

“I think that’s consistent with ordinary meaning,” she said. “I arrive at my house, or I arrive in my yard, when I’m going through the gate. Now that process of arriving is interrupted by the border officer physically blocking them from completing the arrival.”

Barrett also asked Suri if the Trump administration plans to reinstate the metering policy. 

Suri said the Trump administration would like to, “when border conditions justify.”

Jackson noted the policy, in practice, would require an asylum seeker to violate U.S. immigration law by entering into the country without authorization, based on the Trump administration’s argument that a migrant has to be on U.S. soil before making an asylum claim. 

That would be considered entering the U.S. unlawfully.

“So imagine a polite asylum seeker who wants to do everything by the book, he approaches the border but does not cross precisely because the law says you are not supposed to enter the United States without authority,” Jackson said. “If we’re trying to think about what ‘arriving in’ means, surely Congress was contemplating that a person would be coming to the United States, would be doing so with an intent to comply with the law that says you’re not supposed to enter, and thereby asking for entry.” 

Justice Brett Kavanaugh also questioned Suri about how the policy seems to give preference to migrants to enter the U.S. without authorization, rather than those who are seeking to make an asylum claim. 

Suri said the metering policy doesn’t prevent a migrant from seeking asylum. 

“It’s saying ‘our port (of entry) is at capacity today, try again some other day,’ and that time when that person comes in, that person could come in legally,” he said. 

Refugee laws

Sotomayor questioned Suri how the metering policy didn’t violate the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951. That act, which the U.S. signed in 1967, was created after the M.S. St. Louis ship, carrying more than 900 Jewish refugees during World War II, was prevented entry to the U.S. and turned back to Europe. 

Some passengers were able to find refuge in other countries, but 254 died in the Holocaust.

Suri said the metering policy doesn’t send people back to their home country. 

“No, you’re just telling them to walk back,” Sotomayor said, adding that if the turn-back policy were applied to the Jewish refugees on the St. Louis, it would be the same as telling them to swim back. 

“They happened to be on a boat, but that’s what we did,” she said. “We didn’t let them dock. We didn’t consider whether they were being persecuted. And the majority of those people were shipped back or had to go back from where they came and were killed. That’s what we’re doing here, isn’t it?”

Suri said that he does “not deny the moral weight of claims made by refugees, but that is not the question before the court.”

He said the issue is whether Congress imposed the obligation “in the asylum and inspection statutes, and those refer only to aliens who arrive in the United States.”

Sotomayor pushed back and noted that if someone were to fly into LaGuardia Airport in New York, they “may not have put their foot on U.S. land, but they’ve arrived in the United States. They’re knocking on the door.” 

The justices are likely to make a decision on the case by late June.