U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivers remarks to staff at DHS headquarters in Washington on Jan. 28, 2025. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California on Monday blocked the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from terminating the temporary protected status of more than 350,000 Venezuelans next week.
The order does not apply to a separate group of 250,000 Venezuelans who are set to lose their status in September.
U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California said the groups that brought the suit against the Trump administration are likely to succeed in their claims. He noted that Noem’s decision to vacate the temporary protected status for Venezuelans was not only arbitrary and capricious, but would harm the TPS holders, cost the U.S. billions in economic loss and harm public health and safety in U.S. communities.
DHS did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
Program for immigrants in danger
TPS allows nationals from countries deemed too dangerous to return to remain in the U.S. Those with the status have deportation protections and are allowed to work and live in the U.S. for 18 months, unless extended by the DHS secretary.
Under Biden administration orders, protections were extended until October 2026 for two groups of Venezuelans, one initially assigned temporary protected status in 2021 and another in 2023.
Chen’s order applies only to the group who first gained status in 2023. The 2021 group is also challenging the Trump administration’s revocation of their status, but that group’s status is in place until September.
Chen noted that the Trump administration “failed to identify any real countervailing harm in continuing TPS for Venezuelan beneficiaries.”
Chen was appointed by President Barack Obama in 2011.
Gang activity cited
The groups who brought the suit against Noem represent TPS holders from Venezuela.
The groups argued that Noem’s decisions to vacate the 2023 protections and end TPS for Venezuelans were arbitrary and capricious.
They also argued that the Trump administration violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause, arguing that the decisions to vacate the extension and terminate protections “were motivated, at least in part, by intentional discrimination based on race, ethnicity, or national origin.”
Noem cited gang activity as her reason for not extending TPS for the 2023 group of Venezuelans.
The Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport any Venezuelan national 14 years or older who is suspected of having ties to the Tren de Aragua gang. A federal judge has placed a temporary restraining order on use of the wartime law.
‘Classic example of racism’
In his order, Chen said that while attorneys on behalf of the Trump administration argued that there is the threat of the Tren de Aragua gang, “it has made no showing that any Venezuelans TPS holders are members of the gang or otherwise have ties to the gang.”
Chen also rejected the Trump administration’s argument that Noem had the legal authority to vacate the extension of protections.
“The unprecedented action of vacating existing TPS (a step never taken by any previous administration in the 35 years of the TPS program), initiated just three days after Secretary Noem took office, reverses actions taken by the Biden administration to extend temporary protection of Venezuelan nationals that have been in place since 2021,” he wrote.
In granting the nationwide pause, Chen noted the groups had a strong claim under the equal protection clause because Noem has “made sweeping negative generalizations about Venezuelan TPS beneficiaries.”
“This is evident not only in what she said, but also in the fact that she decided to take en masse actions against all Venezuelan TPS beneficiaries, who number in the hundreds of thousands,” he said. “Acting on the basis of a negative group stereotype and generalizing such stereotype to the entire group is the classic example of racism.”
This is not the first time the Trump administration has tried to end TPS designation for certain nationals. During Trump’s first term, DHS tried to end TPS for Haiti, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Sudan, but the courts blocked those attempts in 2018.
The U.S. Supreme Court building. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration submitted an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday in an effort to resume the rapid deportations of Venezuelans accused of gang ties under a wartime law that a lower court blocked.
Acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah Harris argued in a brief to the Supreme Court that a federal judge’s temporary restraining order this month, and an appeals court ruling Wednesday upholding it, wrongly denied President Donald Trump the authority to make decisions about national security operations, including the removal of Venezuelan nationals the administration says are subject to the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
“The district court’s orders have rebuffed the President’s judgments as to how to protect the Nation against foreign terrorist organizations and risk debilitating effects for delicate foreign negotiations,” Harris wrote in her request to the court.
The Alien Enemies Act had only been invoked three times, during the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.
The Trump administration has tried to use it in a novel way, when the nation is not officially at war. The administration designated the Tren de Aragua – a gang that originated in Venezuela – as a foreign terrorist group, and argued that any Venezuelan nationals aged 14 and older with suspected ties to the gang are subject to the proclamation.
U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg placed a temporary restraining order on the Trump administration’s use of the law this month, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the order this week. The administration asked the Supreme Court to lift the order.
“As long as the orders remain in force, the United States is unable to rely on the Proclamation to remove dangerous affiliates with a foreign terrorist organization—even if the United States receives indications that particular (Tren de Aragua) members are about to take destabilizing or infiltrating actions,” Harris said Friday.
Extending restraining order
Boasberg’s temporary restraining order placed on the use of the Alien Enemies Act is set to expire Saturday. The American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit, requested that order be extended for an additional two weeks.
The ACLU also plans to request Boasberg issue a preliminary injunction, which would block the administration from deportations under the act until the lawsuit is complete. A hearing is set for April 8.
Boasberg has rejected the Trump administration’s move to lift his restraining order, on the grounds that those subject to the Alien Enemies Act should have due process to challenge those accusations.
At the D.C. Circuit this week, Department of Justice attorneys for the Trump administration argued that those subject to the proclamation do not need to be notified they are being removed under the Alien Enemies Act. The Trump administration also argued that those who fall under the Alien Enemies Act can bring a challenge of their detention under a habeas corpus claim.
Defied verbal order
The White House quietly implemented the act on March 15 and a verbal restraining order given by Boasberg that day to block it went into effect hours later.
In that order, Boasberg barred the Trump administration from applying the act but three deportation planes landed in El Salvador after the order was issued. The Trump administration has argued that his verbal order was not enforceable.
Boasberg also ordered that anyone subject to the Alien Enemies Act be returned to the U.S., but federal immigration agents took more than 250 men aboard the three flights to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
Boasberg has vowed to determine if the Trump administration violated his restraining order in sending the deportation planes to El Salvador, but Attorney General Pam Bondi invoked the “state secrets privilege” to refuse to answer detailed questions about the flights.
Friday’s emergency request is one of several immigration-related appeals the Trump administration has made to the high court, such as the request to lift several nationwide injunctions placed on the president’s executive order that ends the constitutional right of birthright citizenship.
White House Border Czar Tom Homan talks with reporters on the driveway outside the West Wing on March 17, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration lost a round Wednesday night in its attempts to use a wartime law for deportations of Venezuelans accused of gang ties.
The 2-1 decision by a U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit panel will keep in place a temporary restraining order to prevent any more deportations of Venezuelan nationals ages 14 and older under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, invoked by President Donald Trump.
The Trump administration sent three deportation flights carrying more than 250 men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador after the restraining order was issued.
Judge Patricia A. Millett, a nominee of President Barack Obama, and Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a nominee of President George H.W. Bush, ruled that the Department of Justice did not meet the requirements to lift the order.
Henderson also noted a presidential proclamation signed by Trump did not set up a due process to allow those accused under the Alien Enemies Act to challenge it.
Judge Justin R. Walker, who was appointed by Trump, agreed with the Trump administration’s request to block the restraining order.
Shortly after the appeals court order, the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the suit against the Trump administration, filed a request with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking for the temporary restraining order to be extended for another 14 days.
The ACLU noted it plans to file a preliminary injunction request on Friday “in which they intend to submit additional factual material so that there is a more complete record.”
A hearing on the preliminary injunction is set for April 8.
Bondi and state secrets privilege
Wednesday’s decision comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday invoked the “state secrets privilege” to block U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg from obtaining additional information about deportation flights carried out under the Alien Enemies Act.
The privilege is a common-law doctrine that protects sensitive national security information from being released.
From the bench on March 15, he gave a verbal order that blocked the use of the act and ordered anyone on the deportation flights subject to the Alien Enemies Act to be returned to the United States.
The Trump administration has said only two of the three planes carried Venezuelans subject to the proclamation.
Due process
Henderson, in her opinion, noted that the Trump administration “has yet to show a likelihood of success on the merits.”
In oral arguments before the appeals court Monday, the Department of Justice argued that the U.S. District Court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the case and that the Trump administration’s “conduct is lawful under the plain text of the Alien Enemies Act.”
Henderson also raised due process issues. She noted that the temporary restraining order is simply pausing “the summary removal of Venezuelan immigrants to a notorious prison in El Salvador or other unknown locations without first affording them some semblance of due process to contest the legal and factual bases for removal.
“In the government’s view, based on its allegation alone, Plaintiffs can be removed immediately with no notice, no hearing, no opportunity—zero process—to show that they are not members of the gang, to contest their eligibility for removal under the law, or to invoke legal protections against being sent to a place where it appears likely they will be tortured and their lives endangered,” she said.
Millett in her opinion questioned why the Trump administration would ask for an emergency ruling to lift the order from Boasberg because “the government’s persistent theme for the last ten days has been that the district court’s oral direction regarding the airplanes was not a (Temporary Restraining Order) with which it had to comply.”
“But the one thing that is not tolerable is for the government to seek from this court a stay of an order that the government at the very same time is telling the district court is not an order with which compliance was ever required,” she said. “Heads the government wins, tails the district court loses is no way to obtain the exceptional relief of a (Temporary Restraining Order) stay.”
Millett also criticized the Department of Justice for appealing to the circuit court first before trying the district court.
“I would deny the stay on this additional ground,” she said. “The government needs to play by the same rules it preaches. And it needs to respect court rules.”
Judge sides with DOJ
Walker, who appeared to align with the Department of Justice’s arguments on Monday, sided with the Trump administration.
In his opinion he reiterated his stance from Monday’s oral arguments.
Walker again argued that the right way for Venezuelans to object to detention under the Alien Enemies Act is a habeas corpus claim, which is used to challenge an unjust imprisonment, including immigration detention.
The original five men who brought the suit under the Alien Enemies Act, before the federal judge moved to a class suit, were in a detention center in Texas, rather than the District of Columbia.
“The problem for the Plaintiffs is that habeas claims must be brought in the district where the Plaintiffs are confined,” he said. “For the named Plaintiffs at least, that is the Southern District of Texas.”
Tren de Aragua gang
Border Czar Tom Homan said Monday that he was confident that the more than 250 Venezuelans on the deportation flights were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, according to White House pool reports.
Homan said that he got “assurances from the highest levels of (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) that” everyone on the planes were members of the Tren de Aragua.
“We’re talking about terrorists,” he said. “These are not good people.”
Immigration attorneys for the men and family members have said those sent to the mega-prison had no criminal record or were in asylum proceedings before an immigration judge.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard arguments at the E. Barrett Prettyman Federal Courthouse on March 24, 2025, over a challenge of a lower court’s restraining order barring the administration from deporting Venezuelan immigrants under a wartime law. (U.S. General Services Administration photo)
WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice late Monday invoked the “state secrets privilege” to block a federal judge from obtaining information about deportation flights carried out under a wartime law.
District of Columbia District Judge James E. Boasberg has been trying to determine if the Trump administration violated a restraining order he had placed in connection with the deportations of Venezuelans under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The Trump administration said Monday further details could not be provided about the flights to El Salvador, where the alleged gang members were sent to a mega-prison.
The filing, signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, uses the state secrets privilege to refuse answering questions posed in a March 18 order from Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The privilege is a common-law doctrine that protects sensitive national security information from being released.
“The Court has all of the facts it needs to address the compliance issues before it,” according to the DOJ filing. “Further intrusions on the Executive Branch would present dangerous and wholly unwarranted separation-of-powers harms with respect to diplomatic and national security concerns that the Court lacks competence to address.”
In his March 18 order, Boasberg wanted details about what times the flights took off from the United States, when they left U.S. airspace, when they landed in their designated countries, when the immigrants being deported were subject to the Alien Enemies Act and the number of people on the flights who were subject to the Alien Enemies Act.
The DOJ filing cites national security issues and says that “confirming the exact time the flights departed, or their particular locations at some other time, would facilitate efforts to track those flights and future flights.”
“In turn, disclosing any information that assists in the tracking of the flights would both endanger the government personnel operating those flights and aid efforts by our adversaries to draw inferences about diplomatic negotiations and coordination relating to operations by the Executive Branch to remove terrorists and other criminal aliens from the country,” according to the filing. “Simply put, the Court has no cause to compel disclosure of information that would undermine or impede future counterterrorism operations by the United States.”
Appeals court action
The filing followed the Trump administration’s request for an emergency hearing before a District of Columbia federal appeals court.
A panel of three federal appellate judges seemed split Monday while hearing the Trump administration’s challenge of the lower court’s restraining order on the use of the wartime law to deport, without due process, the Venezuelan nationals.
Judge Justin R. Walker, who was appointed to the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Donald Trump, appeared to align with the Department of Justice’s arguments, while Judge Patricia A. Millett, whom Democratic President Barack Obama appointed, raised serious questions about due process.
The position of Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a President George H.W. Bush nominee who is the third member of the panel, spoke less than the others and revealed little about her position.
The panel will rule on the government’s challenge of the temporary restraining order placed by Boasberg, the chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Justice Department argued the order undercut the president’s wartime authority and that the suit by civil rights groups should have been brought to a different court.
Groups led by the American Civil Liberties Union argued Boasberg’s order correctly defended due process protections.
The D.C. Circuit hearing followed back-and-forth hearings before Boasberg, who has vowed to determine whether the Trump administration violated his March 15 oral order to turn around deportation planes.
After Boasberg issued his order, three deportation planes still landed in El Salvador, with mostly Venezuelan men taken to a notorious mega-prison.
Shortly before Monday’s hearing, Boasberg rejected the latest Trump administration attempt to vacate his restraining order that barred use of the proclamation without due process.
In Monday’s order, Boasberg said anyone who is removed from the U.S. under the act is “entitled to individualized hearings.”
“Because the named Plaintiffs dispute that they are members of Tren de Aragua, they may not be deported until a court has been able to decide the merits of their challenge,” he wrote. “Nor may any members of the provisionally certified class be removed until they have been given the opportunity to challenge their designations as well.”
Due process
Millett grilled Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign on the Trump administration’s view on what due process should be granted to those subject to the proclamation, which states that any Venezuelan national 14 and older with suspected ties to the Tren de Aragua gang may be deported.
Ensign said the Trump administration doesn’t agree that those subject to the proclamation the president signed March 14 should be notified they are being removed under the Alien Enemies Act.
“We agree that if you bring habeas (corpus) that you can raise such challenges,” he said.
A habeas corpus claim asserts someone is unjustly imprisoned and can be used to challenge immigration detention.
Millett said the deportees had no opportunity to raise such a claim.
“Nazis got better treatment under the Alien Enemies Act,” Millett said, referring to German nationals who were able to have a hearing before a board to challenge their removal when the wartime law was invoked during World War II.
The act had previously been invoked only three times in U.S. history, all during wartime.
Millett questioned how the Venezuelans on the first two deportation planes could have challenged their deportations.
“Those people on those planes on that Saturday had no opportunity to file habeas or any type of action to challenge the removal under the (Alien Enemies Act),” she said.
Lee Gelernt, American Civil Liberties Union lead attorney, said that Venezuelans who were removed were “designated (Tren de Aragua) without any advance notice, rushed to planes” and given papers that “specifically says you are not entitled to review.” He said ACLU is preparing to enter that evidence into the court record.
Jurisdiction
Walker questioned the venue where the lawsuit was filed. He asked why the challenge wasn’t brought in a Texas district court, because the original five men who brought the suit were detained there.
Gelernt said a challenge could have been brought in Texas, but that it was not clear where all the detainees subject to the proclamation were being held.
“We certainly weren’t looking just to get our five individuals from being sent to a Salvadorian prison,” Gelernt said. “This would have had to be a class. If the government is suggesting that we could have gone in there for every individual, absolutely not. We did not know who had been designated. This has all been done in secret.”
Walker also questioned how a temporary restraining order could order planes that had already left the U.S. to return.
“I’m wondering if you can point me to a district court (temporary restraining order) or injunction that survived appeal that stopped an ongoing, partially overseas national security operation in the way that this… did (to) order planes to take foreigners from international waters to the United States,” Walker asked Gelernt.
Gelernt said that the issue before the appeals court was not about the order to return deportation planes.
“The government cannot take the position that it’s an interference, by this court, on national security grounds, to give people (due) process,” he said.
New court filings revealed several immigrants on the March 15 flights were returned to the U.S. from El Salvador. They include a Nicaraguan national and eight Venezuelan women who were returned because the mega-prison is for men only.
DOJ argues notice not needed
Ensign argued that the order blocking the implementation of the Alien Enemies Act wrongly constrained the president’s wartime authority.
Millett said that the issue wasn’t about the president’s authority to use the Alien Enemies Act, but how the administration used it.
“The question is whether the implementation of this proclamation without any process to determine whether people qualify under it,” she said.
She asked Ensign if the appeals court lifting the stay would lead to a situation where “people are lined up and put on planes without notice or time to file for habeas, even though the government agrees that … they have a right to have the decision made about whether they even qualify under the proclamation?”
Ensign reserved that option for the government.
“If the (temporary restraining order) is dissolved, the government believes there would not be a limitation and that the statute does not require such notice,” he said.
American Civil Liberties Union lead attorney Lee Gelernt holds a press conference outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after a March 21, 2025, hearing on deportation flights that occurred despite a court’s restraining order in place. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge Friday probed the U.S. Department of Justice about whether the Trump administration knowingly defied his court order to return deportation flights to the United States and questioned the president’s authority to invoke a wartime law during peacetime.
The case, which is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court, will test President Donald Trump’s authority to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and apply it to any Venezuelan nationals ages 14 and up who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang amid his mass deportation plans.
Three deportation flights containing some Venezuelans subject to the proclamation that Trump signed last Friday were in transit when U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order to block the removals. But the administration continued sending the men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.
The Trump administration published a highly produced video detailing the operation, but has not been forthright with answers to questions Boasberg posed about it.
“The government’s not being terribly cooperative at this point, but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be,” Boasberg said Friday.
Wartime law
Boasberg also pressed the Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign on whether the Trump administration can deport people under the Alien Enemies Act without allowing the deportees to prove they are not members or associated with the Tren de Aragua gang.
“How do they challenge that removal?” Boasberg asked.
The Alien Enemies Act allows nationals of a country deemed an enemy of the U.S. to be detained and deported without due process of law regardless of immigration status.
Boasberg also raised concerns of using the proclamation when the U.S. is not at war.
“The policy ramifications for this are incredibly troublesome,” Boasberg said of the Alien Enemies Act. “This is a long way from the heartland of the act.”
A panel of judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral arguments Monday afternoon on the Trump administration seeking an emergency stay on the restraining order.
Restraining order
Boasberg asked DOJ attorney Ensign to clarify how he interpreted the oral temporary restraining order issued on March 15.
He asked Ensign if he relayed to the Trump administration that his order included returning any Venezuelans back to the U.S. who were deported under the wartime authority.
“I understood your intent, that you meant that to be effective at that time,” Ensign said of the oral temporary restraining order.
In filings, the Department of Justice has argued that Boasberg’s oral argument was not binding because it was not written.
For nearly a week, the Department of Justice has evaded pointed questions from Boasberg about the timing of the deportation flights on March 15.
Boasberg said Thursday he would give the Trump administration until Tuesday to submit a declaration on whether the government was invoking the state-secrets privilege and a brief “showing cause why they did not violate the Court’s Temporary Restraining Orders by failing to return class members removed from the United States on the two earliest planes that departed on March 15, 2025.”
In Friday filings, Trump officials said they are currently having Cabinet-level conversations about using that privilege to block Boasberg from obtaining details about the timing of the deportation flights.
Flight location an issue
The Department of Justice has also argued that because the flights were no longer in U.S. airspace or territory when Boasberg issued the restraining order, they were not under U.S. courts’ jurisdiction.
Lead attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Lee Gelernt pushed back on that claim. He told Boasberg that some immigrants on those deportation flights to El Salvador were returned to the U.S. because of mistakes and that the El Salvadoran “government would not take them.”
He said that included someone who was not a Venezuelan national, and a woman because the mega-prison is for men only.
He said the ACLU will submit an affidavit late Friday with more details.
Gelernt said the ACLU is also questioning the type of removal for people on the third flight, even though the Trump administration said those on that flight had final orders of removal and were not subject to the Alien Enemies Act.
Gelernt argued that in immigration law, those with final orders are required to be notified what country they are being deported to. He said that was not the case with the immigrants on the third flight, which originally went to Honduras before heading to El Salvador.
“We asked the judge to clarify that with the government, because it seems very doubtful that Venezuelans had a final order that said you could be removed to El Salvador,” Gelernt said to reporters after Friday’s hearing.
The White House earlier this week said of the men on the deportation flights, 137 were alleged Tren de Aragua members and deported under the Alien Enemies Act.
Attorneys for several of the 238 Venezuelan men deported argue their clients are not members of the gang and were only targeted by immigration officials because they had tattoos and were Venezuelan nationals.
El Salvador prison
Gelernt said that because the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador $6 million to imprison the men, he believes those men who were deported under the wartime law can be returned, although it would be a lengthy process.
“I think we very much think the federal court can order the U.S. to get them out, since they’re constructively in U.S. custody,” he said outside the courtroom. “The U.S. is apparently paying for it all. (El Salvador is) doing it at the behest of the United States.”
Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit that monitors human rights conditions around the world, has raised major concerns with the conditions of the prison and has noted that the group “is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison.”
Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian president, called this week for the men taken to the mega prison to be returned to Venezuela, calling on El Salvador president to “not be an accomplice to this kidnapping, because our boys did not commit any crime in the United States, none,” according to CNN.
“They were not brought to trial, they were not given the right to a defense, the right to due process, they were deceived, handcuffed, put on a plane, kidnapped, and sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador,” Maduro said.
Several of the men who were transferred to El Salvador’s prison initially fled Venezuela because they experienced violence from officials after they partook in political protests against the Maduro regime, according to court filings.
A section of the U.S.-Mexico border wall near El Paso, Texas, on June 6, 2024. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Among the flurry of executive orders President Donald Trump signed on the first day he returned to the White House are five that lay out the use of military forces within the U.S. borders and extend other executive powers to speed up the president’s immigration crackdown.
The administration has engendered huge controversy in recent days by employing the orders and a presidential proclamation to use the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport Venezuelan migrants. Administration officials described the Venezuelans as gang members, put them on flights and sent them to a huge prison in El Salvador.
The wartime Alien Enemies Act, used only three times before, allows the president to detain and deport anyone 14 and older who is a national from a country the United States deems an enemy.
Together, the interlocking executive orders and proclamation could provide the resources and legal footing needed for the Trump administration’s plans to deploy the military to deport and detain millions of people who are living in the United States without permanent legal status.
National security and military experts interviewed by States Newsroom raised concerns about this domestic deployment of armed forces that could result in violations of civil liberties, as well as the detainment and deportation of immigrants without due process.
Additionally, the broad actions by the executive branch would test the courts on what guardrails, if any, could be placed on the president. Trump earlier this week in a social media post called for the impeachment of the judge who questioned his use of the Alien Enemies Act in the case of the Venezuelans, bringing a stunning rebuke by Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
David Sacks, President Donald Trump’s “AI and Crypto Czar”, speaks to Trump as he signs a series of executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House on Jan. 23, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Besides the Alien Enemies Act, a second archaic law Trump is gearing up to invoke is the Insurrection Act of 1807. It gives the president the power to call on the military during an emergency to curb civilian unrest or enforce federal law in a crisis.
The Insurrection Act is also a statutory exception in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which generally bars the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes.
Trump vowed to use both the Insurrection Act and the Alien Enemies Act while he campaigned for a second term.
“Invoking the Insurrection Act for immigration enforcement … would be unprecedented,” said Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program. “It would be an abuse, both because it’s not necessary, under the circumstances, and also because this is not what the Insurrection Act is for.”
Nonetheless, one Trump executive order directs the heads of the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense to issue a report by April 20 to the president with recommendations on whether or not to use the Insurrection Act to aid in mass deportations.
Orders woven together into an agenda
Trump’s five executive orders signed on Inauguration Day are:
The administration eyes its next moves while apprehensions at the southern border have plummeted to their lowest level in 25 years, with 8,347 encounters for February, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
The last time the Border Patrol averaged roughly 8,000 apprehensions per month in a fiscal year was in 1968, according to historical data obtained by the Texas Tribune.
In the executive order titled Securing our Borders, the Trump administration lays out its objectives for that U.S.-Mexico border, such as building barriers and barring migrants from entering the U.S. To carry that out, the president signed another executive order that declared a national emergency.
Chris Mirasola, a professor and national security expert at the University of Houston Law Center, said for roughly 20 years, there has been a military presence at the southern border assisting the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with immigration enforcement.
“What made the Trump executive orders interesting was the kind of escalation trajectory that they kind of mapped out for us,” Mirasola said, noting the likely use of the Insurrection Act and Alien Enemies Act.
Emory University School of Law professor Mark Nevitt, a national security expert who also served in the Navy, notes the executive order declaring a national emergency is limited to the geographic location of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“He’s not tasking (Homeland Security Secretary Kristi) Noem to come up with a nationwide immigration enforcement. Having said that, of course, he can change (his mind), he’s the president,” he said.
Sending military to the southern border stretches back to former President George W. Bush in 2006. Over a two-year period, more than 30,000 Army and Air National Guard personnel were sent to the southern border to assist with numerous migrants from Central America.
Northern Command
Continued coordination between Defense and Homeland Security is laid out in another of the executive orders, the one on “clarifying the military’s role,” that reorganizes the U.S. Northern Command to focus on border security.
Northern Command, established after the 9/11 terrorist attacks to coordinate military and homeland security support with civilian authorities, under the Trump executive order has a new mission “to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities.”
The legal underpinnings for Northern Command to carry this out, Mirasola said, are provisions in the Insurrection Act, which he adds is likely to face its own legal challenge.
“I kind of see this, perhaps surprisingly, long ramp up being a way for them to establish a factual record that they could use in litigation,” he said of the executive order that requests a report from DHS and DOD by April 20.
Trump does not need a report or recommendation to invoke the Insurrection Act. It is an existing presidential authority granting him access to use all federal military forces, more than 1 million members. But his executive orders would undergird his expected use of the act.
“I think it’s no surprise that he’s thinking about using the military for immigration enforcement,” Nevitt said of the president.
The request for a report by April 20, Nevitt said, could be “a way to set up the politics of declaring the Insurrection Act.”
Deported migrants queue to receive an essential items bag during the arrival of a group of deported Salvadorans at Gerencia de Atención al Migrante on Feb. 12, 2025 in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)
Historically the Insurrection Act, which has only been invoked 30 times, is typically focused on an area of great civil unrest that has overwhelmed law enforcement, Nevitt said.
The last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was 1992, during the Los Angeles riots, after four white police officers were acquitted in the brutal beating of Black motorist Rodney King.
Federal troops were deployed with local law enforcement to a domestic violence situation. Because of the difference in training between the two, it resulted in soldiers opening fire onto a Los Angeles residence. No one was injured, but more than 200 bullets were fired.
“Soldiers are not trained to do law enforcement,” Nunn, with the Brennan Center, said.
He added that this kind of use could also lead to violations of civil liberties, even though the use of the Insurrection Act does not suspend constitutional rights and he argues is not limitless.
“When the military is operating under the Insurrection Act, they are assisting civilian authorities, not taking their place,” Nunn said.
‘The magic word’
Two of the executive orders — one designating cartels as terrorist organizations and another on protection of the states — could lead to the rapid detention and deportation of immigrants by using the Alien Enemies Act.
“In one of those early executive orders is a magic word that you should be sensitive to,” said Stephen Dycus, a professor in national security law at the Vermont Law School. “And the magic word is ‘invasion.’”
The Trump administration designated the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, as a terrorist organization in its use in mid-March of the Alien Enemies Act.
A federal judge has already blocked the use of the law. However, civil rights groups charge that the Trump administration continued to use the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants, and a federal judge is demanding clear answers from the administration about the deportation flights.
The Trump administration has defended the deportation flights and Trump has cited his duty to protect Americans from an “invasion.”
“The big question, obviously, is, what constitutes an invasion?” Dycus asked. “In the first Trump administration, the influx of immigrants from the southwest were characterized that way. So I think that’s part of the groundwork that’s being laid.”
Ilya Somin, an expert in constitutional law and professor at George Mason University, disagrees with the Trump administration’s argument declaring the Tren de Aragua gang as an “invasion” in order to form the legal basis for using the Alien Enemies Act.
The use of the act can circumvent judicial proceedings, based on an immigrant’s country of origin. It’s been invoked in the War of 1812, World War I and World War II and most recently led to the Japanese internment camps.
“The attempt to declare them to be terrorist organizations could be part of an effort to sort of get courts to defer and to accept the invasion framing, and possibly also to accept the use of the Alien Enemies Act,” Somin said.
Targeting Venezuela
In speeches, rallies and social media posts, Trump has often accused Venezuela of sending criminals and gang members to the U.S., despite during his first administration granting deportation protections for Venezuelans, citing the political and economic instability of the Maduro regime.
The Trump administration has pressured the Venezuela government to begin accepting deportation flights of its nationals. Noem has already moved to end temporary protected status for one group of 350,000 Venezuelans, subjecting them to fast-track deportations. Noem cited gang activity as one of her factors in not extending protections.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem delivers remarks to staff at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters on Jan. 28, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Manuel Balce Ceneta-Pool/Getty Images)
Somin said that for the Alien Enemies Act to be used, an “invasion” needs to be undertaken by a foreign government.
“Even if the cartels are terrorist organizations, which I deny, they are not foreign governments,” he said.
Katherine Yon Ebright, a counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, said that using the act to go after suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang could ensnare many Venezuelan immigrants, regardless of legal status.
“You’re getting the ability, really, to target any Venezuelan, age 14 (and up), who’s not a U.S. citizen,” she said of the Alien Enemies Act. “And you don’t have to explain yourself, you don’t have to prove anything.”
Guantanamo
Using a memo rather than an executive order, although related, the Trump administration has already ramped up use of the military in immigration duties, using military aircraft to return migrants to their home countries or to send immigrants to the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The base was used to house suspected terrorists in the 9/11 attacks.
“I think it’s actually a bellwether for understanding how far this escalation trajectory the administration plans to go, because the detention that’s happening at Guantanamo Bay is a big concern,” Mirasola said.
The use of the naval base comes as the Trump administration has tried to increase detention bed space capacity, but U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is only funded to hold roughly 41,500 beds across the country.
Trump has instructed his administration to hold up to 30,000 migrants at Guantanamo. There are currently no immigrants detained at the base, though its use has not been ruled out.
But the actions of signing executive orders or memos or proclamations can only go so far, experts say.
“Implementing his commitment to use the military to round up immigrants is not going to be easy,” Dycus, of Vermont Law, said. “Logistically, it’s going to really take a lot of effort and a lot of personnel to do it.”
President of El Salvador Nayib Bukele said hundreds of Venezuelan migrants deported from the U.S. to a prison in his country under the Alien Enemies Act would perform hard labor for up to a year, potentially longer. In this photo, he delivers a speech during the first press conference of the year at Casa Presidencial on Jan. 14, 2025, in San Salvador, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — In new court briefings Thursday, attorneys for several Venezuelan immigrants say their clients either had no criminal record or had cases before an immigration judge when they were deported under the Trump administration’s wartime authority — despite a federal judge ordering the return of the flights to the United States.
Attorneys for four men who were sent to a notorious maximum security prison in El Salvador said their clients had two things in common: They were accused of being members of the Tren de Aragua gang under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 the president invoked, and they all had tattoos.
Among those four men deported were a professional soccer player; a father whose son is a U.S. citizen; a political activist who protested the Maduro regime in Venezuela; and an asylum seeker.
238 Venezuelans on flights
Last week, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act, which allowed the rapid deportation of Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang.
“If the President can label any group as enemy aliens under the Act, and that designation is unreviewable, then there is no limit on who can be sent to a Salvadoran prison, or any limit on how long they will remain there,” the American Civil Liberties Union, which originally filed the suit, wrote in recent court briefings.
The White House confirmed 238 Venezuelans were deported and flown to El Salvador, but is refusing to answer detailed questions about the timing of the March 15 flights, after a federal judge placed a temporary restraining order that same day on use of the wartime authority.
Thursday’s filings also included sworn statements from four attorneys who had clients initially on the deportation flights heading to the prison in El Salvador, but were removed before the plane left the U.S.
In separate accounts, the four men who disembarked the plane and questioned what was happening said they were told by an immigration official they had “won the lottery” because they were not being deported that day.
The eight exhibits by attorneys came just before a Friday hearing before U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg in the District of Columbia, who is pressing the government for more details on the timing of the two deportation flights.
Hard labor
The prison that the men were taken to, known as the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, has concerned human rights groups like the Human Rights Watch.
The president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, wrote on social media that the men deported from the U.S. to his country would perform hard labor for up to a year, potentially longer.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. government paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the men.
In a court filing with the ACLU, Juanita Goebertus, the director of the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch, said that “the Salvadoran government has described people held in CECOT as ‘terrorists,’ and has said that they ‘will never leave.’”
“Human Rights Watch is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison,” she said.
Tattoos of crowns, rosary, flowers
One of the men taken to CECOT is Jerce Reyes Barrios, a professional soccer player who marched in two political demonstrations protesting the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, his attorney, Linette Tobin, wrote.
Barrios came to the U.S. in 2024 using the CBP One app, a tool the Biden administration used to help migrants make appointments with asylum officers. The Trump administration shut down the app on the president’s first day in office and have repurposed the app as a self-deportation tool.
Tobin said that Barrios, who had no criminal record in the U.S. or Venezuela, applied for asylum and had a court hearing in April.
She said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement accused Barrios of belonging to the Tren de Aragua gang because of his tattoos. He has a tattoo on his arm with a soccer ball and a crown on top, with a rosary.
“DHS alleges that this tattoo is proof of gang membership,” Tobin said. “In reality, he chose this tattoo, because it is similar to the logo for his favorite soccer team, Real Madrid.”
Another attorney, Austin Thierry, said his client, E.V., fled Venezuela after being tortured by officials for participating in a protest against the regime.
Since E.V. has been in ICE detention, “his partner and infant son have struggled to meet their expenses and maintain housing,” Thierry said, adding that his client’s son is a U.S. citizen.
“EV has various tattoos, such as tattoos of anime, flowers, and animals, that he chose to get for personal and artistic reasons,” Thierry said.
“E.V. also has a tattoo of a crown, which may be why ICE falsely accused him of gang membership. However, this crown is not related to Tren de Aragua but rather, a tribute to his grandmother whose date of death appears at the base of the crown.”
Asylum cases pending
Another immigration attorney, Katherine Kim, said her client, referred to as L.G., had a pending asylum case and that ICE alleged he was associated with Tren de Aragua.
She said L.G. denied being a member and has three tattoos.
“One is a rosary, the other is his partner’s name, and the third is a rose and a clock,” she said. “None of these tattoos are related to Tren de Aragua gang membership or membership in any other gang.”
Immigration attorney Osvaldo Caro-Cruz, said his client, JABV, fled Venezuela due to political persecution and applied for asylum through the CBP One app.
“His tattoos are a Rose, a Clock and a Crown with his son’s name on it,” Caro-Cruz wrote in a court filing. “These are common in Venezuela and bear no exclusive association with gang affiliation.”
Caro-Cruz said he was able to determine that JABV was deported to the prison in El Salvador because the president, Bukele, published a video and JABV’s brother recognized him.
Tattoo artist
Another filing was by Solanyer Michell Sarabia Gonzalez, who said he fears his younger brother was sent to El Salvador.
Both brothers have asylum cases pending. When they went to their ICE check-in appointment, the younger one, 19-year-old Anyelo Jose Sarabia, was asked about his hand tattoo by an immigration official and later detained.
Sabaria has no criminal record and is a tattoo artist.
Gonzalez said he can no longer find his brother on the ICE detainee locator.
U.S. President Donald Trump stands with Secretary of Education Linda McMahon after signing an executive order to reduce the size and scope of the Education Department during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on March 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — In a sweeping executive order signed Thursday, President Donald Trump called on Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the U.S. Education Department.
Trump signed the order at a major White House ceremony, flanked by children seated at desks. It directs McMahon to “return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”
Trump spoke to an audience packed with top GOP state officials, and he cited Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas, Mike Braun of Indiana, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Bill Lee of Tennessee, Kim Reynolds of Iowa, Jeff Landry of Louisiana, Brad Little of Idaho, Jim Pillen of Nebraska and Mike DeWine of Ohio.
“After 45 years, the United States spends more money in education by far than any other country and spends, likewise, by far, more money per pupil than any country, and it’s not even close, but yet we rank near the bottom of the list in terms of success,” Trump said at the brief ceremony.
GOP Reps. Tim Walberg of Michigan and Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, the respective current and former chairs of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, were also in attendance.
The children each signed their own individual executive orders, proudly displaying them alongside Trump.
The order, which is sure to draw legal challenges, “also directs that programs or activities receiving any remaining Department of Education funds will not advance DEI or gender ideology,” referring to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Widespread reports ahead of the signing drew intense blowback from leading education groups, labor unions and congressional Democrats.
Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, noted that the department “was founded in part to guarantee the enforcement of students’ civil rights” in a statement Thursday.
“Legality aside, dismantling (the department) will exacerbate existing disparities, reduce accountability, and put low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, rural students, and English as a Second Language (ESL) students at risk,” the Virginia Democrat added.
Title I, IDEA funds
The department’s many responsibilities include administering federal student aid, carrying out civil rights investigations, providing Title I funding for low-income school districts and guaranteeing a free public education for children with disabilities via the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.
Following the signing, McMahon clarified in a statement that “closing the Department does not mean cutting off funds from those who depend on them — we will continue to support K-12 students, students with special needs, college student borrowers, and others who rely on essential programs.”
“We’re going to follow the law and eliminate the bureaucracy responsibly by working through Congress to ensure a lawful and orderly transition,” McMahon said.
Linda McMahon, President Donald Trump’s nominee at the time to be secretary of Education, testifies during her Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee confirmation hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Feb. 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Trump’s long-held campaign promise to move education “back to the states” comes despite much of the funding and oversight of schools already occurring at the state and local levels. The department also legally cannot dictate the curriculum of schools across the country.
Congress has the sole authority to shut down the department, and any bill to completely close the agency would face extreme difficulties getting through the narrowly GOP-controlled Senate, with at least 60 senators needed to advance past the filibuster.
However, it could be possible for the administration to take significant actions short of closure, such as moving some Education Department functions to other agencies.
The agency has an annual budget of $79 billion in discretionary spending, or funds appropriated yearly by Congress.
Earlier in March, the department announced that more than 1,300 employees would be cut through a “reduction in force” process — sparking concerns across the country over how the mass layoffs would impact the agency’s abilities to carry out its core functions.
A U.S. Department of Education employee leaves the building with their belongings on March 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
The department had 4,133 employees when Trump took office, but the cuts brought the total number of workers remaining down to roughly 2,183.
A group of 21 Democratic attorneys general quickly sued over that effort and asked a federal court in Massachusetts to block the department from implementing the “reduction in force” action and Trump’s “directive to dismantle the Department of Education.”
Lawsuit incoming
Opponents of the closure said it’s one more example of how Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, head of the temporary U.S. DOGE Service, are seeking to destroy the federal government as they reduce the workforce and spending.
From left, Olivia Sawyer and Jeremy Bauer-Wolf protest the U.S. Education Department’s mass layoffs during a “honk-a-thon” and rally March 14, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
“Donald Trump and Elon Musk have aimed their wrecking ball at public schools and the futures of the 50 million students in rural, suburban, and urban communities across America, by dismantling public education to pay for tax handouts for billionaires,” said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, in a Wednesday night statement.
“Now, Trump is at it again with his latest effort to gut the Department of Education programs that support every student across the nation,” added Pringle, who leads the largest labor union in the country.
“If successful, Trump’s continued actions will hurt all students by sending class sizes soaring, cutting job training programs, making higher education more expensive and out of reach for middle class families, taking away special education services for students with disabilities, and gutting student civil rights protections,” she said.
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers unions in the country, kept her response to reports of the forthcoming order succinct.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing on Jan. 15, 2025. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday refused to provide further details about deportation flights that were in flight when a federal judge issued an order blocking the invocation of the wartime law used to authorize the removals.
In new court filings, the Department of Justice said two deportation flights to El Salvador and Honduras were not subject to a restraining order from U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg because they were no longer in U.S. territory or airspace when the order was issued.
In a notice signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Justice Department would not answer further questions about those flights, contradicting Boasberg’s order late Monday calling for the administration to answer four specific questions about details of the operation.
“The Government maintains that there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate, because even accepting Plaintiffs’ account of the facts, there was no violation of the Court’s written order (since the relevant flights left U.S. airspace, and so their occupants were ‘removed,’ before the order issued), and the Court’s earlier oral statements were not independently enforceable as injunctions,” according to the notice.
“The Government stands on those arguments.”
In response to the filing, Boasberg issued a new order, giving the administration until noon Eastern on Wednesday to give those details under seal.
Specifically, he is asking what times the flights took off from the United States, when they left U.S. airspace, when they landed in their designated countries, when those immigrants being deported were subject to the Alien Enemies Act and the number of people on the flights who were subject to the Alien Enemies Act.
The Department of Justice has also argued that an oral order given by Boasberg was “not enforceable” because it was not a written order.
Fighting the judicial order
In a temporary restraining order barring President Donald Trump from invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to detain and deport any Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang, Boasberg also ordered those flights carrying Venezuelan men to return to the U.S. Those men instead were taken to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
Boasberg on Monday demanded sworn statements from the Department of Justice to determine if the Trump administration relied on the Alien Enemies Act to deport any of the Venezuelan men flown to El Salvador, which would have violated his Saturday temporary restraining order.
In the Tuesday notice signed by Bondi, the Department of Justice also argued that “the Government should not be required to disclose sensitive information bearing on national security and foreign relations.”
Another hearing before Boasberg is set for Friday afternoon.
Authority for deportations
Robert Cerna, the acting field office director for enforcement and removal operations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a signed statement to the court that the immigrants on a third deportation flight after the Saturday restraining order were not removed under the Alien Enemies Act, but under a separate final removal authority known as Title 8.
“To avoid any doubt, no one on any flight departing the United States after 7:25 PM EDT on March 15, 2025, was removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue,” he said.
Boasberg issued his temporary restraining order Saturday around 6:48 p.m. Eastern, according to court filings. One of the flights landed in Honduras at 7:36 p.m. Eastern and the other flight landed in El Salvador at 8:02 p.m. Eastern.
Cerna also clarified that the president signed the proclamation invoking the wartime law on Friday, but that ICE understood the proclamation went into effect after the White House published it Saturday afternoon.
Cerna said there are roughly 258 additional immigrants who would be subject to the proclamation. Of those people, Cerna said that 54 were already detained.
18th-century law
The Alien Enemies Act has only been invoked three times, all when the U.S. was at war with other countries. The most recent was during World War II, when it led to the rapid detention and internment camps of nationals from Japan, Italy and Germany.
The U.S. is not at war with another country, and Congress has not approved a declaration of war. The Trump administration has argued that by designating the Tren de Aragua gang as a terrorist group, the act can be invoked.
The White House has defended the deportation flights and has argued that it has not violated the court’s order.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Monday press briefing that the Trump administration is confident it will be successful in court.
She added that the U.S. paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the 261 men who were deported to the country.
Appeals
The president has lashed out against the temporary restraining order, even calling for the impeachment of Boasberg, along with other federal judges who have ruled against his administration.
“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!,” Trump wrote on social media.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
The Trump administration has already appealed the temporary restraining order to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In that appeal, the Justice Department asked the appellate court to remove the case from Boasberg, taking issue with his decision to agree to a class action lawsuit, rather than apply the restraining order to the original five men in the suit.
The American Civil Liberties Union originally brought the suit with five men who are Venezuelan and were threatened “with imminent removal under” the Alien Enemies Act.
The case is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office at the White House on Feb. 11, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Monday ordered the U.S. government to provide answers about details of the Trump administration’s deportation of immigrants under an 18th-century wartime law after civil rights groups alleged that the administration defied the court’s restraining order reversing the deportations.
The Department of Justice was given four directives by U.S. Judge James Emanuel Boasberg in the District of Columbia that are due in a filing by noon on Tuesday. Among the requirements is a sworn statement that the government did not rely on the 1798 Alien Enemies Act for the authority to deport any of the Venezuelan men flown to El Salvador over the weekend, which would have violated his Friday temporary restraining order.
According to the order, if “the Government takes the position that it will not provide that information to the Court under any circumstances, it must support such position, including with classified authorities if necessary.”
The American Civil Liberties Union wrote in court briefings that the government violated a court order by not turning around deportation flights headed to Honduras and El Salvador late Saturday, despite a restraining order in place hours prior to the flights’ landing.
Four directives
The Trump administration tried to dismiss the case, but Boasberg rejected the motion.
Prior to Monday’s late emergency hearing, the Department of Justice defended the Trump administration’s deportation flights, arguing in a court filing that the federal judge’s “oral directive is not enforceable as an injunction.”
At Monday’s hearing, Boasberg ordered the Department of Justice to issue a sworn declaration that after he issued a restraining order Saturday, none of the men on the deportation flights were removed on the grounds of the Alien Enemies Act.
He also wants to know when the president signed the proclamation and when it went into effect.
Boasberg also asked the Justice Department to report how many people would be subject to the act who are in the U.S. and how many of those people are in custody.
He is asking Department of Justice attorneys for the Trump administration’s “position on whether, and in what form, it will provide answers to the Court’s questions regarding the particulars of the flights,” according to the order.
President Donald Trump on Sunday afternoon posted a highly produced, dramatized video showing what appeared to be the deported migrants in uniform garb, chained, with their hair and beards forcibly shaved by armed prison guards in El Salvador. The men in the video were shoved into maximum security cells in the huge El Salvador prison known as the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo.
The Trump administration has already appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and has urged that court to remove the case from Boasberg.
In a Monday filing to the appeals court, the Trump administration argued that the lower court overreached its authority.
“The Government cannot—and will not—be forced to answer sensitive questions of national security and foreign relations in a rushed posture without orderly briefing and a showing that these questions are somehow material to a live issue,” according to the filing.
The Trump administration is also appealing the lower court’s decision to allow a class action suit to include anyone who is subjected to the proclamation the president issued over the weekend. The ACLU originally brought the suit with five men who are Venezuelan and were threatened “with imminent removal under” the Alien Enemies Act.
“The district court has enjoined the President from using his statutory and constitutional authority to address what he has identified as an invasion or predatory incursion by a group undertaking hostile actions and conducting irregular warfare,” the Trump administration wrote in its Sunday appeal.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Monday press briefing that the Trump administration is confident they are “going to win in court.”
She added that the U.S. paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the 261 men who were deported to the country.
The high-profile dispute is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Saturday’s events
The administration had said in a presidential proclamation published Saturday it would be using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, last invoked during World War II, to detain and remove anyone 14 or older who is a suspected member of the Venezuelan gang, the Tren de Aragua.
In the proclamation, President Donald Trump said he will detain and deport anyone 14 and older who is a suspected member of the Tren de Aragua. There is a carve out for naturalized citizens and lawful permanent residents, or green card holders.
“Evidence irrefutably demonstrates that (Tren de Aragua) has invaded the United States and continues to invade, attempt to invade, and threaten to invade the country; perpetrated irregular warfare within the country; and used drug trafficking as a weapon against our citizens,” according to the Trump proclamation. “As President of the United States and Commander in Chief, it is my solemn duty to protect the American people from the devastating effects of this invasion.”
To block that use of the Alien Enemies Act, the ACLU and other civil rights groups filed an emergency request before Boasberg in the District of Columbia, and a hearing was held at 5 p.m. Eastern on Saturday. Boasberg was nominated by former President Barack Obama in 2011.
Flight records and court briefing show that two U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement flights departed from Texas Saturday – one at 5:45 p.m. Eastern for El Salvador and one at 5:26 p.m. Eastern for Honduras.
Roughly an hour later, Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order and, in his order, told the government to turn around any deportation flights that were currently in the air.
“[A]ny plane containing these folks that is going to take off or is in the air needs to be returned to the United States, but those people need to be returned to the United States,” Boasberg said, according to the court’s transcript. “However that’s accomplished, whether turning around a plane or not embarking anyone on the plane or those people covered by this on the plane, I leave to you. But this is something that you need to make sure is complied with immediately.”
Both flights landed after the orders were given by Boasberg, ACLU argues in its court records.
A third Saturday flight left from Texas to Honduras at 7:37 p.m. Eastern, according to flight records and court briefings.
In filings to the appeals court, the Trump administration argued that the district court did not have the jurisdiction to issue the temporary restraining order and that the president has the authority to use the Alien Enemies Act.
On Sunday, the president of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, on social media, reposted a news story about the deportation flights that had continued despite a court order.
He responded, “Oopsie… Too late.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reposted the response from El Salvador’s president from his personal account.
Rubio has traveled to El Salvador and met with Bukele to talk about accepting deportations of nationals from other countries. In those meetings, Bukele agreed to accept “members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang” and place them in jail, according to State Department records.
Due process concerns
U.S. immigration law already gives the authority to investigate, arrest and remove immigrants who are engaging in criminal activity or harm in the country, and the wartime authority to go after the Tren de Aragua is not needed, said Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.
She said Trump invoking the wartime authority is not about “going after people who are provably committing crimes or harming American communities.”
“It’s about going after Venezuelans without due process because this law gives the president the power to say that … they’re dangerous, and just remove them without proving anything to an independent adjudicator, without any evidence that actually underlies that determination,” she said.
Immigrants subject to the Alien Enemies Act would not have access to an immigration judge or court hearing under the law.
He previewed in his inauguration speech his intentions to designate cartels as foreign terrorist groups in order to use the Alien Enemies Act.
“By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities,” Trump said during the Jan. 20 address.
In order for the Alien Enemies Act to be invoked, an invasion by a foreign government must occur, and in the executive order relating to the cartels, the Trump administration argues that they are a foreign entity. The cartels that the Trump administration singles out in the order are the MS-13 gang and the Tren de Aragua.
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has already revoked protections granted to roughly half a million Venezuelans under the Biden administration. In early February, she declined to renew Temporary Status Protections for 350,000 Venezuelans that are set to expire April 2. In her reasoning, she cited gang activity.
Ebright noted that the last time the act was invoked, during World War II, many of the Japanese, Italian and German immigrants who were detained had some form of legal status.
“I would put money on it that this proclamation is going to cover people who are lawfully present,” she said.
Historical use of Alien Enemies Act
The last time the Alien Enemies Act was invoked was after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941.
But even after World War II ended in 1945, the Alien Enemies Act was still in place for several years, along with the continuation of internment camps, because Congress and the president had not formally terminated the declaration of war, Ebright said.
She said that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld then-President Harry Truman’s extended use of the Alien Enemies Act three years after World War II on the grounds that “it would be too political for the courts to intercede and say that this wartime authority had lapsed.”
“That is something that makes talking about the Alien Enemies Act and the potential for abuse very important, but it doesn’t mean that the courts truly are powerless to step in and prevent a clear abuse of the authority right,” she said.
Ebright said there’s a distinction between the Pearl Harbor attack during World War II and present day.
“Today, you don’t have anything remotely close to a wartime context,” she said. “Judges have eyes, they can see that there has not been a second Pearl Harbor perpetrated by a gang.”
CONCORD, N.C. — More questions than answers currently exist on what the funding future of clean school buses will look like, following program cuts, elimination of EV mandates, and executive orders from the Trump administration.
Joe Annotti, the vice president of incentives for TRC Clean Transportation Solutions, attempted to provide some clarity in “an era of deregulation” on Sunday during STN EXPO East in Charlotte. He noted that despite the belief stated by media that President Donald Trump is making unprecedented changes and reevaluations of agencies and programs, the actions are normal. Annotti relayed that presidents come in all the time, stop and relook at programs, before funds get flowing again.
He referenced 2005, when former President Goerge Bush altered federal grant structures to states by moving to “blocks,” and when former President Barack Obama immediately cut 5 percent of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) operating budget.
What is unprecedented, however, is the amount of funding being allocated to school buses, primarily clean school buses. That, by way of the Clean School Bus Program, is now in peril.
Meanwhile, Annotti said there are currently over 700 clean transportation state and local incentive programs. Of those, 124 could fund school bus projects, whereas 26 prioritize or exclusively fund school bus projects. He said $3 billion is available from the combined 124 programs, yet more than half of that ($1.8 billion) funds the 26 school bus eligible programs.
In his opinion, he said those 26 programs are the ones on the Trump administration’s chopping block.
“Gone are the days for the flat rate voucher incentives,” he said, adding there’s a renewed focus on cost-effectiveness. Federal programs covering 80 percent of the cost of the bus is probably a thing of the past.
Of the 124 programs that could fund school buses, 25 are exclusive to battery-electric and 50 of them are located in California, he added.
He discussed expectations, such as federal agencies may terminate award programs that no longer effectuate goals or agency priorities. He noted that multiple grant programs across agencies are cancelled or modified or modified.
Annotti answered attendee questions and said that in terms of the EPA Clean School Bus Program funding, rounds 3 and 4 are where he sees disruptions. Round 1, he said, is done. Round 2 awards were issued, and most are under a contractual agreement, which he said leads him to believe they are safe.
Round 3 has not yet been awarded, and the EPA has not yet issued funding decisions, which may never happen, he noted. He said Round 4, which was supposed to be announced later this year or early next, is not on his funding calendar at all.
He clarified that if the program is cut, projects would be funded up until the day that announcement is made. Any purchases made prior to a decision would still be funded.
As for the possibility of manufacturers raising their school bus prices due to the impending Trump tariffs, he said the EPA won’t allocate more award funds than called for in the original contract agreement.
Annotti advised attendees to assess what stage in the federal reward process they are in, whether they’ve actually won award, if they’ve spent federal money, or they’re in the process of purchasing. He advised fleets to act cautiously, as money is not guaranteed, adding that when writing grants fleets need to recognize the changed priorities and tailor their message to the audience.
“Change your tune when asking for funding,” he said, noting that attendees need to consider how their proposed project is benefiting the EPA’s latest priorities. “Match with what they need to hear, not what you want to say.”
He said current unpopular topics with the feds include: Regulations, DEI/community engagement, and renewable energy. Popular topics include: Tariffs, deregulation, economic development and fossil fuels.
TRC is hosting the Advanced Clean Transportation Expo next month in Anaheim, California. School Transportation News is an official media sponsor of the event.
The Wisconsin Assembly voted along party lines Tuesday to pass legislation penalizing counties with sheriff's departments that don't cooperate with ICE, the federal Immigration Customers and Enforcement agency. (Photo via ICE)
Legislation passed the Assembly Tuesday that would claw back state aid from counties where the sheriff doesn’t cooperate with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement service (ICE).
The legislation would require sheriffs to check the citizenship status of people being held in jail on felony charges and notify federal immigration enforcement officials if citizenship cannot be verified.
The state Senate, meanwhile, approved a bill that would block a judicial investigation of a police officer involved in the death of a person unless there’s new evidence or evidence that has not been previously addressed in court.
The immigration-related bill,AB 24, passed the Assembly on a straight party-line vote.
In addition to requiring citizenship checks, the bill would also require sheriffs to comply with detainers and administrative warrants received from the federal Department of Homeland Security for people in jail. Counties would be required to certify annually that they were following the law and would lose 15% of their shared revenue payments from the state if they were not.
Proponents described the measure as enhancing safety.
“We have the opportunity to emulate in many ways the best practices that are already happening across our country,” Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R-Rochester), the bill’s author, said at a news conference before the floor session. “We have seen since [President] Donald Trump took office that we have had a dramatic reduction in the number of illegal crossings that are happening at the southern border.”
Opponents said the bill would divert local law enforcement resources while driving up mistrust and fear among immigrants, regardless of their legal status.
Rep. Ryan Clancy (D-Milwaukee) said the legislation was “big government” and interferes with local counties’ policy decisions. It also undermines the presumption of innocence for a person charged with a crime, potentially strains resources for local jails, and could lead to holding people “longer than is necessary,” he said.
But he added that those weren’t his top reasons for opposing the bill.
“I’m voting against this because it’s wrong, because this legislation rips people from our communities and families based on the mere accusation of a crime, because our Republicans colleagues’ eagerness to make themselves tools in Trump’s attacks on immigrants, refugees, visitors and those who oppose him is vile,” Clancy said.
On the floor, Vos replied that he agreed with Clancy about the presumption of innocence, and that he also agreed with other lawmakers who said the vast majority of immigrants are not guilty of any crime.
“But I would also say that there is a burden of proof on both sides,” Vos said. “It’s not entirely on just the side of the government to ensure that you follow the law.”
Claiming broad bipartisan support for the measure, Vos said Democratic opposition was “clearly out of step, even with your base.”
Rep. Christian Phelps (D-Eau Claire) responded that he hasn’t heard constituents ask for the legislation or anything like it.
“They are asking us explicitly to make life tangibly easier for working class Wisconsinites,” he said, “and they have not been asking me to engage in redundant acts of political theater to satisfy the whims of a rogue president engaging in a campaign of intimidation and mass deportation that includes constituents in western Wisconsin.”
In Wisconsin, if a district attorney chooses not to file criminal charges, a judge may hold a hearing — known as a John Doe investigation — on the matter and file a complaint based on the findings of that hearing.
The legislation,SB 25, “simply says, if that case goes before a DA, and then the DA justifies their actions and they are deemed to be innocent of any wrongdoing … that case is closed and it is in a file never to be seen again,” said the bill’s author, Sen. Rob Hutton (R-Brookfield), on the Senate floor.
Hutton said the legislation allows a judicial investigation to proceed, however, “if a new piece of evidence is presented that wasn’t known before, or an unused piece of evidence is found.”
But Sen. Dora Drake (D-Milwaukee) questioned carving out an exemption to the state’s John Doe law. “This bill does not apply to any other crime in Wisconsin,” she said.
Lawmakers, Drake added, should do more to address “the environment and the situations” that have led to officer-involved deaths.
Sen. LaTonya Johnson (D-Milwaukee), said testimony at the bill’s public hearing discussed only two attempts to invoke the John Doe proceeding after a prosecutor declined to file charges in an officer-involved death — and one of them involved former Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah, who killed three people in five years.
Allowing for a John Doe investigation in an officer-involved death “protects the public,” Johnson said. “What it does is put a second eye on those cases that deserve a second look.”
The Senate passed the bill 19-13. Two Democrats, Sens. Kristin Dassler-Alfheim (D-Appleton) and Sarah Keyeski (D-Lodi), voted in favor along with 17 Republicans. Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto), who also opposed the bill in committee, joined the remaining Democrats who voted against the measure.
Reversing DPI testing standards: On a vote of 18-14 along party lines, the Senate concurred in an Assembly bill that would reverse a change that the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) made last year totesting standards.
AB 1 would revert the state’s testing standards to what they were in 2019 and link standards to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).
Republicans voting for the bill said that the DPI change “lowered” standards — a claim DPI and Democrats rejected.
Direct primary care passes — but Democrats object: The Senate also voted 18-14 on party lines to passSB 4, legislation that would clear the way for health care providers who participate indirect primary care arrangements. Under direct primary care, doctors treat patients who subscribe to their services for a monthly fee as an alternative to health insurance for primary care.
An amendment Democrats offered would have added a list of enumerated civil rights protections for direct primary care patients. That list was in a direct primary care bill in the 2023-24 legislative session that passed the Assembly but stalled in the Senate when two organizations protested language protecting “gender identity.”
After the amendment was rejected, also on a party-line vote, Democrats voted against the final bill.
In the 1920s, some Americans’ concern for a U.S. in decline led to a rise in various discriminatory policies and movements that hurt vulnerable minorities. (iStock/Getty Images Plus)
As promised, the second Trump administration has quickly rolled out a slew of policies and executive orders that the president says are all aimed at “Making America Great Again.” This takes on different forms, including Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency quickly laying off thousands of workers at various federal agencies, and President Donald Trump pausing all funding for Ukraine.
These administration efforts began at a time when many Americans expressed an overall rising sense of dissatisfaction with the state of the country and politics. Just 19% of Americans said in December 2024 that they think the country is heading in the right direction.
This perspective is striking not only because it is so dark, but because it strongly resembles how Americans felt during a pivotal decade 100 years ago, when people’s dissatisfaction with the state of the country led to a series of discriminatory, hateful policies by the federal government.
It’s a period of American history that I think offers something of a mirror of the current political situation in the U.S.
A registry room is seen at Ellis Island in New York Harbor in 1924. (Associated Press)
They entered the 1920s with a growing sense of paranoia and a feeling that they had been robbed of something. Winning World War I had come at a terrible cost. More than 116,000 American soldiers died and twice that number came home wounded.
Other Americans were concerned about the possible rise of communism in the U.S., as well as the arrival of many immigrants. This led extremists to introduce and implement hate-based policies at the federal and state level that targeted nonwhite immigrants and disabled people.
Among the most significant results of that political moment was the 1924 Johnson-Reed Act, a restrictive immigration policy that, among other changes, prohibited immigration from Asia.
Another pivotal movement was the Supreme Court’s 1927 Buck v. Bell decision, which affirmed that the state of Virginia had the right to sterilize intellectually and developmentally disabled people.
Discrimination against marginalized groups
The Johnson-Reed Act prompted a major shift in American immigration policy, based on the fear of something that former President Theodore Roosevelt and others called “race suicide.”
The law introduced rigid restrictions keeping people out of the country who were not from Northern and Western Europe. The immigration quotas that it established would continue to be enforced into the 1960s.
The U.S. politicians who lobbied for this law were successful because they supported their effort by presenting evidence that showed purportedly scientific proof that almost all people in the world were biologically inferior to a group they called the Nordic Race – meaning people from Northern Europe – and their American descendants, who formed a group they called the “American Race.”
By restricting immigration from all other groups, these legislators believed they were counterbalancing a crushing period where war and pandemic had killed off what they saw as the country’s best people.
Different groups preyed on Americans’ grief about the war and pandemic and directed it against minority groups.
Ku Klux Klan members parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington on Aug. 8, 1925. (Bettman/Contributor)
From Maine to California, a revived Ku Klux Klan attracted millions of followers with its belief that white people were superior to all others, and that Black people should remain enslaved. At the same time, a group of scientists, doctors and psychologists found enormous success in persuading the public that there were scientific reasons why hatred and discrimination needed to be incorporated into American government.
Their proof was something called eugenics, a pseudoscience which argued that humans had to use advanced technology and medicine to get people with good traits to reproduce while stopping those with bad traits from having the opportunity to do so.
Harry Laughlin, a eugenicist based at a research laboratory in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, was one of this movement’s most vocal representatives.
Laughlin worked for several different eugenics research organizations, and this helped him become successful at creating propaganda supporting eugenics that influenced public policy. He then gained a spot as an expert eugenics adviser to Congress in the early 1920s. With his position, Laughlin then provided the pseudoscientific data that gave the supporters of Johnson-Reed the claims they needed to justify passing the measure.
In Laughlin’s influential 1922 book “Eugenic Sterilization in the United States,” he detailed a road map for passing a law that would allow governments to sterilize disabled people.
After so much death during World War I and the influenza pandemic, Laughlin found fertile ground for making a case that the U.S. needed to stop people who might be considered “feeble-minded” from passing down inferior traits.
In the mid-1920s, Laughlin and his allies pressed a court case against a teenage woman whom the state of Virginia had deemed an imbecile and incarcerated at a massive Virginia institution for the feeble-minded. This woman, Carrie Buck, was incarcerated after she gave birth to a child in 1924 who was conceived as a result of rape. If Buck, who was 18 years old at the time, had any hope of being released, the officials who ran the institution demanded she be sterilized first.
All across the country, states had begun legalizing forced sterilization. Now, this case of Buck v. Bell made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1927, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. issued the court’s ruling, which had only one dissent. In it, he wrote that “three generations of imbeciles is enough” and extended the scope of a previous ruling that allowed the government to compel people to get vaccinated to include forced sterilization of disabled people.
While it is unquestionable that sterilization and other discriminatory policies found common cause with Adolf Hitler’s rising Nazi movement – which used the eugenic ideas of sterilization and mass extermination – they persisted, largely unchallenged, here in the U.S.
Some people, including myself, argue that the spirit of these discriminatory policies still exists in the U.S. today.
A familiar story
Following stalemated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the American economy has been growing.
But sensing a grave decline, some white Americans have turned their sights on people with disabilities, immigrants, transgender and nonbinary people, and people of color as the source of their problems.
Trump regularly encourages this kind of thinking. In January 2025, he blamed an air collision that occurred over the Potomac River and killed 67 people on disabled Federal Aviation Administration employees, implying that they did not possess the intelligence to do their jobs.
Trump falsely said the Jan. 1, 2025, New Orleans terror attack was caused by illegal immigration, even though a Texas-born man drove a car into a crowd of people, killing 14.
There are limits to what history can say about the current situation. But these similarities with the early 1920s suggest that, contrary to many claims about the unprecedented nature of the current times, the country has been here before.
A recent study conducted for the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) claims that electric school buses (ESBs) are not only viable but also advantageous in Montana’s harsh winter conditions.
The study published last September by clean energy nonprofit VEIC evaluated all 17 ESBs that are currently operating across six school districts: Bigfork, Billings, Clinton, East Helena, Fairfield, and Havre. The findings indicate significant fuel cost savings, reliable performance in subzero temperatures, and positive feedback from both drivers and transportation managers.
A Montana DEQ spokesperson told School Transportation News the agency partially funded 11 of the 17 ESBs studied. The EPA Clean School Bus Program also provided funding.
One of the primary concerns regarding electric vehicles in Montana is their performance during severe winter weather. The study found that ESBs operated effectively even when temperatures dropped to 25 degrees below zero. While vehicle efficiency decreased by up to 40 percent in such extreme cold, the buses consistently met the required daily route distances. Notably, the study said ESBs demonstrated more reliable start-up performance compared to diesel buses, which often face challenges like fuel gelling in low temperatures.
Brian Picariello, the principal consultant and clean transportation lead at VEIC, emphasized the efficiency of electric school buses in extreme weather.
“One major takeaway from the study was that, on average, the electric school buses were almost four times more efficient than the diesel alternative,” he told STN. “The buses also had sufficient range to complete their assigned routes, even under extreme cold and hot conditions. In fact, during a significant cold front, the temperature dipped more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit below zero, and the diesel buses at one agency had to be taken out of service while the electric buses continued operation, albeit with a 30- to 40-percent range reduction.”
Havre Public Schools near the U.S-Canada border launched its electric school bus program in late 2022, putting two Lion C electric buses into service by early 2023. Allen “Woody” Woodwick, the district’s fleet manager, said skepticism was high at the start of the program.
“There was a lot of people that said you couldn’t run electrics up in Montana, so that was somewhat of a challenge,” Woodwick told Montana Public Radio earlier this month. “And it looks like we’ve been proving the simple fact is yes, we can.”
He shared with STN that the Lion ESBs “have been largely problem-free,” but he added that obtaining parts and service has been an ongoing issue, largely due to Havre’s remote location in north-central Montana.
“The few service techs they had were nowhere near Montana. They were expecting to expand but other issues arose,” Woodrick continued. “So, we plan on running the buses as we have been and figure out the challenges as they come, and source our parts from the suppliers or manufacturers.”
Other Montana school districts that participated in the study include Bigfork (one Lion C), Clinton (two Lion Cs) East Helena (one Lion C), Fairfield (three Lion Cs), and Billings (eight IC Bus CEs), with all buses deployed between January 2023 and January 2024.
The transition to electric buses has also resulted in notable cost savings. Each ESB averaged $1,575 in annual fuel savings compared to traditional diesel buses. Additionally, maintenance costs are expected to decrease over time due to the simpler mechanics of electric drivetrains, which have fewer moving parts and do not require oil changes or exhaust system repairs, the study noted.
However, the study highlighted that per-mile energy costs could vary, with fleets subject to utility demand charges seeing energy costs twice as high as those without such fees. This discrepancy emphasizes the role of local utility pricing structures in determining the overall cost-effectiveness of ESBs. According to VEIC’s full report, understanding these factors is critical for districts considering electrification.
Beyond economic advantages, the adoption of electric buses contributes to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants. ESBs produce zero tailpipe emissions, leading to improved air quality for students and the community. Even when accounting for emissions from electricity generation, the overall environmental footprint of ESBs is significantly smaller than that of diesel buses.
Picariello noted that even with the use of auxiliary diesel heaters in winter months, ESBs significantly reduced emissions compared to diesel buses.
“The buses in this study with auxiliary heaters, maintained efficiency and range during winter months better than buses in previous studies,” he explained, citing the example of NREL’s 2022 report on electric transit buses in Duluth, Minnesota. “Although the significance was not assessed directly, it does seem likely that the auxiliary fuel heaters allowed the buses to continue operating efficiently at extreme temperatures compared to buses that use electric resistance elements for cabin heating.”
Meanwhile, transportation managers and drivers have reported positive experiences with the new electric buses, according to the study. Drivers noted better acceleration and quieter operation, enhancing the overall transportation environment. Despite a slightly lower top speed compared to diesel buses, the performance of ESBs has met the daily operational needs of the districts.
Picariello emphasized the enthusiasm among drivers and school managers.
“We were also pleasantly surprised to hear how much drivers and school managers loved the experience once they were trained and got used to the new equipment,” he said. “It’s promising to hear that on-road performance across driving conditions met or exceeded that of internal combustion alternatives. It was also encouraging to hear all the folks who manage these fleets year after year would recommend them to other districts in the area.”
Regarding reliability, the study reported that ESBs were available for route service 82 percent of the time, compared to 94 percent of the time with diesel buses. The study noted that 72 percent of the out-of-service days for ESBs occurred in a single district. Excluding that district, the remaining ESBs had an availability rate of 93 percent. The primary causes of downtime were related to components outside of the electric drivetrain, highlighting the need for comprehensive maintenance training and support.
While funding is often cited as the primary barrier to widespread ESB adoption, Picariello pointed out additional challenges.
“Funding aside, the main barriers for schools are split in two categories: Infrastructure improvements and change management,” he explained. “Schools often need to work with a local electrician, charging manufacturers, and their utility to make the necessary electrical upgrades for more capacity and install charging equipment, all of which takes a lot of coordination and time and potentially cost.”
Picariello added that early collaboration with utilities is key to overcoming these challenges.
“The sooner a district can engage their local distribution utility to discuss the scope of the work, the better. From there, fleet managers, technicians and drivers need access to expert-level training and support services to help their teams get comfortable with the electric buses and charging infrastructure, like any new technology.”
He emphasized that ensuring contracts with vehicle OEMs and charging manufacturers include sufficient training and support can help districts confidently transition to electric fleets.
There’s no readily available evidence Susan Crawford has supported stopping deportations of illegal immigrants or protecting sanctuary cities, as a Republican attack ad claims.
Sanctuary communities limit how much they help authorities with deportations.
Crawford, a liberal, faces conservative Brad Schimel in the nonpartisan April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
The attack on Crawford was made by the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national group that works to elect Republicans to state offices.
The group provided Wisconsin Watch no evidence to back its claim. A spokesperson cited Democratic support for Crawford and Democratic opposition to cooperating with deportations, but nothing Crawford said on the topics. Searches of past Crawford statements found nothing.
The ad also claims Crawford would “let criminals roam free,” referring to a man convicted of touching girls’ private parts in a club swimming pool. Crawford sentenced the man in 2020 to four years in prison; a prosecutor had requested 10 years.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
A teacher and students in a classroom. (Klaus Vedfelt | Getty Images)
An audit announced this week of changes in recent state testing standards is the latest reaction of Republican lawmakers to changes the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) approved last year in the names and cut scores for achievement levels. It also comes as state Superintendent Jill Underly campaigns for reelection facing a challenger criticizing DPI for “lowering” state standards.
Co-Chairs of Wisconsin Legislative Joint Audit Committee Sen. Eric Wimberger (R-Oconto) and Rep. Robert Wittke (R-Caledonia) announced the audit Tuesday of DPI’s decision to update terms describing achievement levels and revise the cut scores used to measure student achievement.
Underly and DPI have repeatedly defended the changes as part of the agency’s regular process to ensure standards are kept current. Assembly Republicans passed a bill last week that would reverse the changes, requiring the state to reinstate standards set in the 2019-20 school year and tie changes to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). NAEP is a nationwide assessment meant to provide representative data about student achievement.
Wimberger and Wittke noted in a statement that the recent NAEP results found that 31% of fourth grade students were at or above proficient in reading. Under the new state testing standards, Wisconsin had a proficiency rate of 48% in English/Language Arts and 49% in math. The legislators accused Underly of trying to hide the state’s literacy challenges.
The “unilateral changes to cover up DPI’s failing is absolutely unacceptable, and this audit will help us uncover exactly how and why these reporting standards were changed to stop future manipulation,” the lawmakers said.
According to the Legislative Audit Bureau, the audit could look at several topics related to the changes, including DPI’s written policies and procedures for developing the state’s annual school report card and for updating assessment cut scores. Other topics include, whether the current policies comply with statutory and administrative rule requirements, the way the agency gets input from educators and parents when developing changes, and how the process used for the recent changes versus previous years, State Auditor Joe Chrisman wrote in a memo to Wimberger and Wittke.
Deputy Superintendent Tom McCarthy said in a statement that the audit was for political purposes, noting the upcoming state superintendent election.
“Our approach has been transparent. If the Legislature were genuinely interested in this issue, and had listened to our testimony just a few weeks ago, they would understand that updating cut scores is a standard procedure whenever updates are made to our rigorous state standards,” McCarthy said.
During a hearing on the bill to reverse the changes, McCarthy and other DPI representatives laid out the process the agency used, including a survey and consulting education experts to discuss potential changes and come up with recommendations.
In his statement, McCarthy reiterated that the updates were recommended by experts and that NAEP is a “national benchmarking tool” not a state accountability tool. The test is typically taken by only a few thousand students in the state to develop a representative pool.
“It does not measure Wisconsin academic standards, which are used by teachers to deliver instruction. Comparing the two is like trying to use a thermometer to measure the length of a two-by-four — it makes no sense,” McCarthy said. “Especially since it seems NAEP is under attack by the White House, including canceling a major NAEP assessment and firing analytic staff.”
The Trump administration recently put NAEP Chief Peggy Carr on administrative leave. The Department of Education also recently canceled the NAEP Long-Term Trend exam, which measures the math and reading skills for 17-year-olds.
McCarthy said DPI learned about the audit from a press release that “falsely states that the DPI didn’t support literacy reform.”
“Let’s be clear: we supported and still support literacy reform. The legislature, on the other hand, is still holding back nearly all of the $50 million meant to help kids learn to read. Instead of funding the solutions, they’re trying to manufacture controversy,” McCarthy said. “This newly announced ‘audit’ is not a desire to truly learn, but to lay a political hit on a state elected official in the middle of a campaign.”
State testing standards have become a central issue in the April 1 election for state superintendent as Underly’s challenger, Brittany Kinser, who is backed by Republicans, has said she is running on a platform of “restoring high standards.”
State grants audit
Lawmakers also announced that they plan to launch an audit into the administration of state grants, which they say is meant to help examine whether there is waste, fraud and abuse in the state.
According to the LAB, the audit could look into the policies an agency has for administering grants, whether agencies are compliant with state statute and administrative rules in implementing grants, the amount of grants awarded in recent years and outcomes from those awards.
The audit request comes as lawmakers are starting the process of writing the next two-year state budget.
Wimberger and Wittke said that given the budget it is “prudent” to look at how much is being spent on grants.
“In the last budget, the state issued more than $44 billion in grant assistance funding. Evaluating these programs for wasteful, fraudulent, or abusive spending means we can identify and cut the fat of big government, making Wisconsin’s state government more accountable for our hardworking taxpayers,” the lawmakers said.
A public hearing on the proposed audits is scheduled for Tuesday.
Protestors March near Washington Ave in Downtown Green Bay, on Feb 8, 2025. (Photo by Jason Kerzinski/Wisconsin Examiner)
Early Saturday afternoon, a crowd of demonstrators marched through the streets of downtown Green Bay, holding signs and chanting to protest U.S. President Donald Trump and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Verenice Lopez, the organizer of Saturday’s march against ICE, holds a protest sign as protestors marched through the streets of Green Bay, on Feb 8, 2025. (Photo by Jason Kerzinski/Wisconsin Examiner)
“If being an American is defined as hard-working, pro-family values, and being a good neighbor, then we are Americans,” protest organizer Verenice Lopez told the crowd before the march.
Trump took action on immigration with a flurry of executive orders, including pausing the resettlement of tens of thousands of refugees who had been approved for relocation into the U.S. Reports of deportation raids around the country have caused panic, even after The Guardian reported that ICE press releases had been doctored so they appeared on Google searches to make it seem as though years-old raids had happened recently.
Trump’s promised mass deportation of immigrants throughout the U.S. has not happened yet, Politico reported last week. The president is reportedly angry that deportation numbers are not higher.
“Mr. President,” Lopez said. “My name is Verenice Lopez, and I am a Dreamer. I have chosen to use my voice today for everyone here and for others across this nation that seek a path to citizenship and the American Dream. My story is like so many others. I was brought to this country by my family when I was 2 years old. I have lived, worked and been educated in America my entire life.”
Protest march against ICE in Green Bay, on Feb 8, 2025 (Photo by Jason Kerzinski/Wisconsin Examiner)
As demonstrators gathered near a promenade that runs alongside the Fox River, Winter Storm Brenda was hitting northeast Wisconsin, dumping up to 10 inches of snow across the region Saturday. Passing cars honked at the marchers.
Lopez said that “in a moment of, I guess, fear and anxiety,” she “just had a calling to do something about it.” She used Facebook and reached out to organizations she hoped would support the protest.
Two organizations joined the effort, though neither group specifically works on immigration issues. The Green Bay Anti-war Committee is “dedicated to fighting against U.S. wars” and has opposed the war in Gaza. Hate Free Outagamie’s aims include improving inclusivity for LGBTQ+ people.
“Whenever you’re trying to create or do anything big, getting momentum going is always the biggest issue, or the hardest part,” said Daniel Castillo, co-chair for Green Bay Anti-war Committee. “…Something that people can go to and realize that they’re the only ones that can really fight for their own rights, is something that we would like to get started.”
Lopez said she felt the turnout — estimates varied from 50 to 100 or more people — was good.
Protest march against ICE in Green Bay on Feb. 8, 2025 | Photo by Jason Kerzinski/Wisconsin Examiner
She said that “we do plan on creating more [protests or marches] within the next few weeks or month.”
Most inmates in Wisconsin’s federal prison, and in federal prisons nationally, are U.S. citizens.
Following Trump administration arrests of immigrants suspected or convicted of crimes, Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden of western Wisconsin claimed Jan. 27 that over 50% of inmates at the Federal Correctional Institution in Oxford, Wisconsin, are “illegal aliens.”
Oxford is a low-security prison 60 miles north of Madison that houses 1,100 male offenders.
As of Jan. 25, 59% of Oxford inmates, and 85% of federal inmates nationally, were U.S. citizens. The Federal Bureau of Prisons does not readily have data on what percentage of inmates are unauthorized immigrants.
Nationally:
U.S. citizens constituted two-thirds of recently federally sentenced individuals.
The most serious offense for 76% of noncitizens sentenced for a federal crime in recent years was immigration-related, such as unlawful U.S. entry or smuggling noncitizens (14% were drug-related).
Donald Trump’s administration has called unauthorized immigrants criminals, but being undocumented is a civil violation.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a news conference at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort on Dec. 16, 2024 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Under President Joe Biden, enrollment in Medicaid hit a record high and the uninsured rate reached a record low.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House — along with a GOP-controlled Senate and House of Representatives — is expected to change that.
Republicans in Washington say they plan to use funding cuts and regulatory changes to dramatically shrink Medicaid, the nearly $900-billion-a-year government health insurance program that, along with the related Children’s Health Insurance Program, serves about 79 million mostly low-income or disabled Americans.
The proposals include rolling back the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of Medicaid, which over the last 11 years added about 20 million low-income adults to its rolls. Trump has said he wants to drastically cut government spending, which may be necessary for Republicans to extend 2017 tax cuts that expire at the end of this year.
Trump made little mention of Medicaid during the 2024 campaign. The first Trump administration approved work requirements in several states, though only Arkansas implemented theirs before a federal judge said it violated the law. The first Trump administration also sought to block-grant funding to states.
House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) told KFF Health News that Medicaid and other federal entitlement programs need major changes to help cut the federal debt. “Without them, we will watch this country sadly enter into fiscal collapse.”
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a member of the Budget Committee, said Congress needs to explore cutting federal spending on Medicaid.
“You need wholesale reform on the health care front, which can include undoing a lot of the damage being done by the ACA and Obamacare,” Roy said. “Frankly, we could end up providing better service if we do it the right way.”
Advocates for poor people fear GOP funding cuts will leave more Americans without insurance, making it harder for them to get care.
“Medicaid is an obvious target for huge cuts,” said Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “An existential fight about Medicaid’s future likely lies ahead.”
Medicaid, which turns 60 in July, is nearing the end of a disruptive period, after covid pandemic-era coverage protections expired in 2023 and all enrollees had to prove they still qualified. More than 25 million people lost coverage over the 18 months after the “unwinding” began, though it has not notably increased the number of people without insurance, according to the latest census data.
The unwinding’s disruptions could pale in comparison to what happens in the next four years, said Matt Salo, former executive director and founder of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. “What we are going to see is an even bigger seismic shift in who Medicaid covers and how it operates,” he said.
But Salo said any efforts to shrink the program will face pushback.
“A lot of powerful entities — state governments, managed-care organizations, long-term care providers, and everyone under the sun who wants to do well by doing good — wants to see Medicaid work efficiently and be adequately funded,” he said. “And they will be highly motivated to push back on something they see as draconian cuts, because it could affect their business model.”
The GOP is looking at several tactics to reduce the size of Medicaid:
Shifting to block grants. Switching to annual block grants could lower federal funding for states to operate the program while giving states more discretion over how to spend the money. Currently, the government matches a certain percentage of state spending each year with no cap. Republican presidents since Ronald Reagan have sought to block-grant Medicaid with no success. Arrington said he favors ending the open-ended federal funding to states and replacing it with a set annual amount based on how many people each state has in the program.
Cutting ACA Medicaid funding. The ACA provided financing to cover, through Medicaid, Americans with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty level, or $20,783 for an individual last year. The federal government pays 90% of the cost for adults covered through the law’s Medicaid expansion, which 40 states and Washington, D.C., have adopted. The GOP may try to lower that funding to the same match rate the feds pay states for everyone else in the program, which averages about 60%. “We should absolutely note that we are subsidizing the healthy, able-bodied Medicaid expansion population at a higher rate than we do the poorest and sickest among us, which was the original intent of the program,” Arrington said. “That’s not right.”
Lowering federal matching funds. Since Medicaid began, the federal match rate has been based on the relative wealth of a state’s population, with poorer states receiving a higher rate and no state receiving less than a 50% match. Ten states get the base rate — all but two are Democratic-run states, including New York and California. The GOP may seek to cut the base rate to 40% or less.
Adding work requirements. During the first Trump term, federal courts ruled that Medicaid law doesn’t allow coverage to be conditioned on enrollees’ working or seeking jobs. But the GOP may try again. “If we can get strict work requirements on able-bodied adults, that can be a huge cost savings by itself,” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.) told KFF Health News. Because most Medicaid enrollees already work, go to school, or serve as caregivers, critics say such a requirement would simply add red tape to obtaining coverage, with little impact on employment.
Placing enrollment hurdles. About 10 states offer some populations what’s called continuous eligibility, whereby people stay enrolled for years without having to renew their coverage. That policy’s been shown to prevent enrollees from falling out of the program for short periods because of hardships or paperwork problems, which can lead to surprise medical bills and debt. The Trump administration could seek to repeal waivers that allow states to grant multiyear continuous eligibility, which would require people in those states to reapply for coverage annually.
If the GOP’s plans to shrink Medicaid are realized, Democrats and health experts say, low-income people forced to buy private insurance would face challenges paying monthly premiums and the large copayments and deductibles common to commercial plans that typically don’t exist in Medicaid.
The Paragon Health Institute, a leading conservative think tank run by former Trump adviser Brian Blase, has issued reports saying the billions in extra money states took to expand Medicaid under the ACA has been a boon to private insurers that manage the program and relatively wealthier people it says shouldn’t be enrolled.
Josh Archambault, a senior fellow with the conservative Cicero Institute, said he hopes the Trump administration holds states accountable for overpaying providers and enrolling people in Medicaid who are not eligible. Conservatives have cited CMS reports saying states improperly pay Medicaid providers billions of dollars a year, though the federal government notes that is mostly due to lack of documentation.
He said the GOP will look to scale back Medicaid to its “traditional” populations of children, pregnant women, and people with disabilities. “We need to rebalance the program that most people think is underperforming,” he said. Most Americans, including large majorities of both Republicans and Democrats, view the program favorably, according to polls.
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.
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This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
EL DORADO Springs, Mo. — El Dorado Springs R-2 Schools, in partnership with transportation leader First Student, has become the first school district in Missouri, and one of only a few in the country, to transition its entire fleet of regular education bus routes to electric. Today, the district and company held an event to mark the successful deployment of 13 electric school buses (ESBs), which will provide a cleaner, quieter and safer ride for hundreds of students.
“With zero emissions, improved air quality and reduced noise pollution, the deployment of these electric school buses will have an immediate, positive impact on the community,” said First Student Head of Electrification Kevin Matthews. “We appreciate the partnership from
El Dorado Springs R-2 Schools to enhance the bus-riding experience for students. As more districts recognize the long-term benefits of electric school buses, First Student is proud to be leading the charge toward a more sustainable future by embracing this cutting-edge transportation solution.”
The electric school buses are a first for El Dorado Springs R-2 Schools. The ESBs will replace 13 diesel buses in the district’s fleet and will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 700,000 pounds each year.
“The transition to electric school buses demonstrates our commitment to sustainable initiatives and support for innovative technologies,” said El Dorado Springs R-2 Schools Superintendent Brad Steward. “These electric school buses will benefit the well-being of our students and the community, setting a positive example for future generations. We are excited to work with First Student on our shared goal of greener, safer and more efficient transportation for our families.”
Funding from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean School Bus Program covered the cost of the electric school buses and charging stations. First Student has secured enough funding from the program to deploy around 1,200 ESBs for school districts across the United States.
First Student has committed to transitioning 30,000 of its diesel buses to electric by 2035 to improve the health and well-being of even more students and communities. The company currently operates more than 400 electric school buses throughout North America and is close to marking 5 million miles of service with ESBs, expanding its industry-leading position.
About First Student
As a leading school transportation solutions provider in North America, First Student strives to provide the best start and finish to every school day. With a team of highly trained drivers and the industry’s strongest safety record, First Student delivers reliable, quality services, including full-service transportation and management, special-needs transportation, route optimization, and scheduling, maintenance, and charter services with a fleet of about 40,000 buses. For more information, visit firststudentinc.com.
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