Left to right, Denver Mayor Michael Johnston, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, are sworn in during a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on sanctuary cities' policies at the U.S. Capitol on March 5, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security over the weekend took down a public list of cities and jurisdictions that the Trump administration labeled as “sanctuary” cities, after a sharp rebuke from a group representing 3,000 sheriffs and local law enforcement.
On Saturday, National Sheriffs’ Association President Sheriff Kieran Donahue slammed the list as an “unnecessary erosion of unity and collaboration with law enforcement.”
“The completion and publication of this list has not only violated the core principles of trust, cooperation, and partnership with fellow law enforcement, but it also has the potential to strain the relationship between Sheriffs and the White House administration,” Donahue said.
DHS published the list Thursday and it was unavailable by Sunday. It’s unclear when it was removed, but internet archives show Saturday as the last time the list was still active.
In a statement, DHS did not answer questions as to why the list was removed.
“As we have previously stated, the list is being constantly reviewed and can be changed at any time and will be updated regularly,” according to a DHS spokesperson. “Designation of a sanctuary jurisdiction is based on the evaluation of numerous factors, including self-identification as a Sanctuary Jurisdiction, noncompliance with Federal law enforcement in enforcing immigration laws, restrictions on information sharing, and legal protections for illegal aliens.”
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Fox News Sunday did not acknowledge that the list was taken down, but said some localities had “pushed back.”
“They think because they don’t have one law or another on the books that they don’t qualify, but they do qualify,” Noem said. “They are giving sanctuary to criminals.”
List followed Trump executive order
Local law enforcement aids in immigration enforcement by holding immigrants in local jails until federal immigration officials can arrive.
The creation of the list stems from Donald Trump’s executive order in April that required DHS to produce a list of cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration officials in enforcement matters, in order to strip federal funding from those local governments.
Those jurisdictions are often dubbed “sanctuary cities,” but immigration enforcement still occurs in the city — there’s just no coordination between the local government and the federal government.
The jurisdictions are often a target for the Trump administration and Republicans, who support the President Donald Trump campaign promise of mass deportations of people without permanent legal status.
Congressional Republicans in March grilled mayors from Boston, Chicago and Denver, on their cities’ immigration policies during a six-hour hearing before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
‘Strong objection’
Local officials were puzzled by the list.
One law enforcement association in North Dakota questioned why several counties — Billings, Golden Valley, Grant, Morton, Ramsey, Sioux, and Slope — were listed as sanctuary jurisdictions because those areas cooperate with federal immigration officials.
In a statement, the North Dakota Sheriff’s and Deputies Association said the “methodology and criteria used to compile this list is unknown,” and there has been no communication from DHS “on how to rectify this finding.”
“The elected Sheriffs of these counties take strong objection with language in this release characterizing them as ‘deliberately and shamefully obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws endangering American communities,’” according to NDSDA.
“The North Dakota Sheriff’s and Deputies Association is working to gather more information regarding the lack of transparency and reasoning as to why the Department of Homeland Security did not fact check prior to incorrectly naming these North Dakota counties.”
Local advocacy groups also noted the problems with the DHS list.
“I assume they’ve removed (the list) because they were bombarded with complaints about inaccuracy and how and why these various jurisdictions got on the list,” Steven Brown, executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, said in an interview Monday.
According to the Internet Archive website Wayback Machine, the states, as well as the District of Columbia, that were on the list included Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, Washington state and Wisconsin.
Christopher Shea and Amy Dalrymple contributed to this story.
A police department in western Wisconsin lost all of its officers due to resignations this year. Law enforcement veterans say what happened in the Trempealeau County city of Arcadia isn't unusual and highlights unique staffing challenges small departments face in an increasingly tight and competitive job market.
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Federal funding for the Washington Bridge demolition and rebuild project faces new uncertainty under new executive directives tying infrastructure grants to states’ cooperation with federal immigration policies. (Photo by Christopher Shea/Rhode Island Current)
There’s no reason why money for road repairs and flood protections should hinge upon states’ cooperation with federal immigration policies, contend 20 Democratic states attorneys general.
That’s why the AGs are asking a federal judge to stop federal agencies from a “grant funding hostage scheme” that requires detaining undocumented immigrants who don’t commit crimes in order to receive key federal grants and aid.
Two new federal lawsuits filed in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island Tuesday against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) aim to protect and preserve billions of federal dollars already awarded to states for emergency preparedness, disaster relief and infrastructure projects.
Directives issued in April by DHS and DOT secretaries informed states that their federal funding required compliance with federal immigration policies. The AGs — representing Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin and Vermont — allege this violated constitutional protections for separation of powers.
“By hanging a halt in this critical funding over States like a sword of Damocles, Defendants impose immense harm on States, forcing them to choose between readiness for disasters and emergencies, on the one hand, and their judgment about how best to investigate and prosecute crimes, on the other,” the lawsuit against DHS, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Coast Guard, and their leaders, states.
“Defendants’ grant funding hostage scheme violates two key principles that underlie the American system of checks and balances: agencies in the Executive Branch cannot act contrary to the authority conferred on them by Congress, and the federal government cannot use the spending power to coerce States into adopting its preferred policies. Defendants have ignored both principles, claiming undelegated power to place their own conditions on dozens of grant programs that Congress created and bulldozing through the Constitution’s boundary between state and federal authority.”
The AGs say state and local public safety officials have more important work to do than cater to the whims of a new administration, which stand in contradiction to state-level directives like, for example, authorizing licenses for undocumented immigrants. Rhode Island lawmakers granted driving privileges for undocumented residents in 2022, with a July, 1 2023 effective date, joining 19 other states and D.C.
Federal protocols followed by U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other agencies could force state and local police to use state license laws as a way to find and detain undocumented immigrants.
“As a former U.S. Attorney and former federal prosecutor, I know how many ICE agents are in Rhode Island and it’s under 10,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha, said during a virtual news conference Tuesday. “What they need in order to carry out their agenda is for us to do the work for them, pulling us away from important law enforcement work in Rhode Island.”
No state has seen federal funding cut off since directives were issued by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. Not yet.
States’ abilities to respond to natural disasters and security threats, and complete key infrastructure projects, including the much-anticipated rebuild of the westbound Washington Bridge in Rhode Island, hinge upon a continued flow of congressionally authorized federal grants and aid.
The $221 million Biden-era infrastructure grant awarded to Rhode Island for the Washington Bridge project only became accessible in late March, after weeks of uncertainty in the wake of the administration change. Gov. Dan McKee’s office and the Rhode Island Department of Transportation did not immediately respond to inquiries for comment Tuesday regarding continued access to the funds in the wake of Duffy’s April 24 directive tying federal infrastructure grants to compliance with federal diversity and immigration policies.
The Duffy directive fails to provide any statutory or legal explanation for why transportation funding relates to immigration enforcement. The new requirements jeopardize more than $628 million in federal funding in Rhode Island, and billions of dollars more across the country, the AGs argue in their lawsuit against Duffy and DOT.
“If Plaintiff States reject Defendants’ unlawful Immigration Enforcement Condition, they will collectively lose billions in federal funding that is essential to sustain critical public safety and transportation programs, including highway development, airport safety projects, protections against train collisions, and programs to prevent injuries and deaths from traffic accidents. The loss of this funding will cause state and local providers to scale back or even terminate many of these programs and projects,” the complaint states. “More cars, planes, and trains will crash, and more people will die as a result, if Defendants cut off federal funding to Plaintiff States.”
Similarly dire predictions accompany the loss of security and disaster funds, which includes $3 billion in FEMA money to states each year, according to the lawsuit against DHS. Rhode Island received more than $45 million in FEMA grants in 2024 alone, according to the lawsuit.
The new complaints reprise language of the 20 state AG lawsuits against the Trump administration that preceded them, calling the executive agencies’ actions “arbitrary and capricious” and in clear violation of constitutional separation of powers and spending clauses.
Not that he expects the frenzy of legal activity will abate anytime soon.
“As we stack wins against the Trump administration for violation of the Constitution and other federal laws, what we are seeing is a creeping authoritarianism in this country,” Neronha said. “The president is trying to take power for himself. He’s trying to sideline Congress, and now, he’s attempting to undermine the judiciary.”
Neronha likened the latest federal directives attempting to force states to redirect their own law enforcement to serve federal civil immigration policies to “holding a gun to states’ heads.”
Rhode Island, home to four of the 20 federal lawsuits against the Trump administration already, was again picked as the setting for the latest complaints due to the “strong team” within Neronha’s office, he said.
Neronha and other AGs bringing the two cases against the administration also stressed the sum of their collaborative parts.
“We’ve built the best and biggest law firm in the country, and we’re fighting for all Americans,” Neronha said.
The U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
The lawsuit against DOT was assigned to U.S. District Chief Judge John Jr. McConnell Jr., while the case against DHS was assigned to Senior District Judge William E. Smith, according to the public court docket.
Rhode Island Current is part of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news organization.
Wisconsin Republicans want to require cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. (Photo via ICE)
Wisconsin Republicans continued their push Tuesday for a bill that would require local law enforcement to report people charged with a felony to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) if they cannot verify their immigration status. Legislative leaders are also demanding that state government officials cooperate with and support President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.
State legislatures across the country have taken action to either require or prohibit local law enforcement cooperation. According to a Stateline report, experts have said jails are the easiest place to pick up people for deportation and when local law enforcement cooperates there are more arrests. Noncooperation in states, including California, is leading to a decreased number of arrests and deportations.
Amanda Merkwae, advocacy director for the ACLU of Wisconsin, testified against the legislation before the Senate Licensing, Regulatory Reform, State and Federal Affairs Committee Tuesday. Merkwae detailed extensive actions the Trump administration has taken to target immigrants since the bill was first introduced by lawmakers and cautioned against having local law enforcement play a larger role in those efforts.
Merkwae quoted a former North Carolina sheriff who said at a 2008 conference about the role of local police in immigration enforcement, “if you don’t have enough evidence to charge someone criminally, but you think he’s illegal, we can make him disappear.”
“A lot has happened even since the Assembly public hearing on this bill back in February,” Merkwae said, reeling off a list including “the disappearing of legal residents to gulags without due process,” “inappropriately invoking the Alien Enemies Act to remove people,” to “escalating violent arrests” by masked Department of Homeland Security agents, detaining students and activists for exercising their First Amendment rights in ICE facilities, arbitrarily canceling student visas, “threatening to disappear U.S. citizens to El Salvador,” “and just this week — and it’s only Tuesday — eliminating temporary protective status of thousands of immigrants despite a court order, blocking the entry of refugees who spent years getting approved through a lengthy process while living in refugee camps and third countries and the administration openly exploring the suspension of habeas corpus.”
“When the federal government is violating the Constitution, we must resist pressures to integrate local governance into its abuses,” she said.
The Assembly passed the bill in March along party lines, and Gov. Tony Evers has vowed to veto it. Lawmakers introduced the bill just three weeks into Trump’s new term.
Sen. Julian Bradley (R-New Berlin) and Rep. Jim Piwowarczyk (R-Hubertus) said the bill is narrow and seeks to help ensure that Wisconsin is safe.
“This proposal will make it easier to remove dangerous criminals from our communities. It’s shocking to think that a handful in law enforcement and our government would rather protect felons than work with our federal partners to stop the flow of crime and drugs into our neighborhoods,” Bradley said.
Since March, the number of Wisconsin counties with official agreements to cooperate with ICE has grown to 12, including Washington, Waupaca, Winnebago and Wood. Two counties — Dane and Milwaukee — have previously been identified by ICE as noncooperative.
Milwaukee County has become a focal point of controversy over ICE cooperation. Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested and indicted on charges of obstructing federal agents and concealing a person to prevent an arrest. ICE has arrested at least four people since March at the Milwaukee County Courthouse. Republicans have also accused Evers of being noncooperative after he told state employees to contact a lawyer before handing over information if ICE showed up at their office buildings.
“I am deeply concerned that some local jurisdictions, including Dane County and Milwaukee County, have severely limited their cooperation with ICE. Many, if not most, Wisconsin sheriffs are already doing everything they can to identify the legal immigrants in their jails and cooperate with ICE holds,” Piwowarczyk said. “This bill won’t affect them. It will affect those who refuse, imperiling the safety of all Wisconsin citizens.”
The bill — AB 24 — would require local law enforcement to check the citizenship status of people in custody for felony offenses and notify ICE if their citizenship can’t be verified. It also requires sheriffs to comply with detainers and administrative warrants received from the Department of Homeland Security regarding people held in the county jail for a criminal offense. If a sheriff refuses to comply with the law, the county would face a 15% deduction in its state aid payment the following year.
Merkwae said that the bill authors were taking a narrow reading of the bill, but “with 15% of an entire county’s share revenues on the line,” this will lead to sheriffs erring on the “side of overreporting.”
Democrats on the committee had an array of concerns about the bills, especially given the actions that the Trump administration has taken since the start of his term.
Larson asked lawmakers whether they trusted ICE.
“You’re throwing your trust in ICE — that 10 out of 10 [times] ICE is doing the right thing, 10 out of 10 times ICE is only taking people who have committed felonies and following the guidance of the president,” Larson said. “I don’t trust this federal government because [President Trump] came out on the record and said, ‘I don’t know if people deserve due process, I don’t know if I’m supposed to uphold the Constitution.’ Those are the words of the person who’s in charge of the administration.”
Bradley said he rejected the premise of Larson’s question.
“We aren’t empowering ICE,” Bradley said. “We don’t have the power to empower ICE. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re telling the sheriffs to cooperate with the federal government as they’re required to because we have instances where people have publicly come out and said, we will not cooperate… In this bill, [people] have also committed and are being charged with a felony. That’s what this bill is about.”
Larson corrected lawmakers several times when they said the only people covered in the bill had committed a crime: “75 of the people shipped overseas to El Salvador prison have no criminal history, and so this seems like an effort to jump on that bandwagon.”
“Accused,” Larson said at one point. “Accused. You keep forgetting that part — alleged.”
Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) said he also doesn’t trust the current system, especially as ICE isn’t being transparent about its work.
“It seems like it’s more of a campaign pitch to grab as many people as you can, but there are people that are innocent,” Carpenter said, adding that he fears that the bill if passed is “legitimizing a system that is not doing what we wanted it to do.”
Carpenter noted he has the largest Latino population among Wisconsin Senate districts. From events hosted in the district and conversations with constituents, he said, it’s “very noticeable that people are scared, and they don’t want to have someone — they’re innocent and get caught up in the system and end up in El Salvador.”
Carpenter told the bill authors to try to convince him that the bill won’t further affect those communities.
“How do we deal with that impact on a sizable community — many of whom have done nothing wrong?” Carpenter asked.
“I think the best thing that could happen is if people were honest about what this bill does, because by not being honest or conflating issues, what we’re doing is we’re spreading that fear,” Bradley said. “So, if you are here illegally and you are being charged with a felony, this bill, this applies to you, and you should be concerned. If not, you shouldn’t be concerned.”
Larson asked why there is a financial penalty in the bill, saying the premise of the bill appears to be that law enforcement must cooperate “or we’re cutting your damn funding.”
“If they’re not cooperating with ICE and are not doing what they’re supposed to do to keep their community safe, there should be a penalty and the penalty should be felt,” Bradley said.
“Do you think the sheriff’s department will be able to keep communities safe by cutting them?” Larson asked.
“If they follow the guidance in the bill, they won’t have to worry about that,” Bradley said.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, some of them masked, work alongside Harrison County, Miss., sheriff’s deputies to make arrests in an investigation into illegal immigration and cockfighting in early May. States are increasingly setting policy for sheriffs on how much they can cooperate with ICE at local jails. (Photo by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement)
Local sheriffs are on the front lines in deciding whether to participate in the Trump administration’s mass deportation plans. But states increasingly are making the choice for them.
More and more, sheriffs’ hands are tied no matter whether they do — or don’t — want to help with deportations, though they often get the blame when conservatives draw up lists of sanctuary cities.
“‘Naughty lists,’ as we call them, are not super helpful here,” said Patrick Royal, a spokesperson for the National Sheriffs’ Association. “We all know there are places like Colorado where you can’t [help with deportations], and places like North Carolina where you have to.”
Cooperation between sheriffs and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement lies at the heart of the Trump administration’s immigration detention policy. The administration plans to punish noncooperative jurisdictions with funding cuts — though many legal experts agree that cooperation is voluntary unless state or local laws say otherwise.
Sheriffs, who typically run local jails, must decide what to do when faced with immigration detainers — requests from ICE to hold onto incarcerated people up to two extra days so ICE officers can show up and arrest them. ICE issues those detainers when the agency reviews fingerprints sent electronically for background checks as part of the jail booking process.
Otherwise, arrested suspects who post bond or are otherwise released by a judge might go free despite their immigration status, prompting ICE in some cases to pursue them in the community.
In North Carolina, Sheriff Garry McFadden ran on a platform of limiting cooperation with ICE when he was elected in Mecklenburg County, home to Charlotte, in 2018. But today, McFadden must comply with detainers because of a state law passed last year.
You can’t say we’re a sanctuary county and have state laws that say we have to work with ICE. You can’t have both.
– Sheriff Gary McFadden, Mecklenburg County, NC
In a now-retracted Facebook post, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis in late April accused Mecklenburg and several other North Carolina counties of “shielding criminal illegal immigrants” as sanctuary jurisdictions. Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, said in the post he was writing federal legislation to prosecute sanctuary jurisdictions.
“You can’t say we’re a sanctuary county and have state laws that say we have to work with ICE. You can’t have both,” McFadden said. He added that he’d like more choice about whether to comply with detainers. A federal funding cutoff would endanger important jail programs such as rape counseling, he said.
“Everybody’s focused on immigration like that’s the biggest fire, and nobody wants to address the other things. The losers will be the prisoners who need all these services we provide,” McFadden said.
Conservative sheriffs in Democratic-controlled states also can be frustrated by state policy on detainers. Sheriff Lew Evangelidis of Worcester County, Massachusetts, said he’s been criticized for releasing prisoners wanted by ICE but sometimes has no choice: A 2017 state Supreme Court ruling prohibits holding prisoners based on detainers.
“If they [ICE] want this person and consider them a threat to public safety, then I want that person out of my community. I want to keep my community safe,” said Evangelidis. He supported a Republican-sponsored effort in the state legislature to allow 12-hour holds for ICE if a judge determines the prisoner is a threat to public safety, but the amendment was voted down in April.
States act on detainers
Many experts agree that ICE detainers can be legally ignored if states allow sheriffs to do that.
“That detainer request is just that, a request, it’s not a requirement,” said Cassandra Charles, a staff attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, which is opposing Louisiana’s lawsuit to reverse a court-ordered ban on cooperation between Orleans Parish and ICE.
The general counsel for the North Carolina Sheriffs’ Association, Eddie Caldwell, agreed that the detainers are voluntary under federal law.
The association supports a state bill now under consideration that would require not only the 48-hour detention but also a notice sent 48 hours before release to let ICE know the clock is running. The proposal has passed the House.
The notification matters, Caldwell said, because there can be criminal proceedings that take weeks or months, so ICE in many cases doesn’t realize the 48-hour window has started.
Tillis’ office said the senator’s disagreement with McFadden, a Democrat, and other sheriffs is about that notification.
“It’s not necessarily that [sheriffs] are breaking the law, but rather making it as difficult as possible for ICE to take prisoners into custody by refusing to do some basic things. Notification is important,” said Daniel Keylin, a senior adviser to Tillis.
States including California, Colorado and Massachusetts ban compliance with the ICE detainers, on the general principle that it’s not enough reason to hold people in jails when they’re otherwise free to go because of bail or an end to their criminal cases. Those three states have made recent moves to defend or fine-tune their rules.
California’s attorney general also has issued guidance to local jurisdictions based on a 2017 state law limiting cooperation with immigration authorities. That law withstood a court challenge under the first Trump administration.
Colorado has a law against holding prisoners more than six hours longer than required, and a new bill sent to Democratic Gov. Jared Polis last week would specify that even those six hours can’t be for the purpose of an immigration detainer.
Iowa, Tennessee and Texas are among the states requiring cooperation with detainers.
And Florida has gone further, requiring sheriffs to actively help ICE write detainers though official agreements in which local agencies sign up to help enforce immigration laws.
Cooperation boosts arrests
Such cooperation makes a big difference, experts say — jails are the easiest place to pick up immigrants for deportation, and when local sheriffs and police help out, there are more arrests.
“A larger share of ICE arrests and deportations are happening in places where local law enforcement is cooperative with ICE,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director for the Migration Policy Institute’s U.S. Immigration Policy Program, speaking at a recent webinar.
“A declining share of arrests and deportations are happening from places like California, where there are really strict limitations on local law enforcement’s cooperation with ICE,” she added.
ICE is making about 600 immigration arrests daily, twice the rate as during the last year of the Biden administration, said Muzaffar Chishti, an attorney and policy expert at the Migration Policy Institute, speaking at the same event.
Reports on deportations are incomplete, Chishti said, but he estimated the current administration is on track to deport half a million people this year and is trying to get that number higher.
“The Trump administration has not been able to change the laws that are on the books, because only Congress can do that,” Chishti said. “It’s going to take congressional action for the Trump administration to achieve its aim of higher [arrest and deportation] numbers.”
President Donald Trump has added more pressure, last month requesting a list from Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of sanctuary cities, which he says would face funding cuts. The administration also has sued some states, including Colorado, Illinois and New York, over their policies.
Asked for comment on the legality of funding cutoffs for sanctuary policies, Bondi’s office referred to a February memo in which she promised to “end funding to state and local jurisdictions that unlawfully interfere with federal law enforcement operations.” The memo cites a federal law saying local officials “may not prohibit, or in any way restrict” communication about immigration status.
Local jurisdictions in Connecticut, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington joined a February lawsuit led by the city and county of San Francisco and Santa Clara County in California against a Trump administration executive order calling for defunding cities with sanctuary policies, calling the order “illegal and authoritarian.”
In April, a U.S. district court in California issued a preliminary injunction in that case preventing any funding cutoff over sanctuary policies to the cities and counties in the lawsuit. And on Friday, the federal judge, William Orrick, ruled that the injunction applies to any list of sanctuary jurisdictions the administration may target for funding cuts.
Trump’s new executive order seeking the list cannot be used as “an end run” around Orrick’s injunction, the judge wrote, while he decides the legality of detainer policies and other issues.
“The litigation may not proceed with the coercive threat to end all federal funding hanging over the Cities and Counties’ heads like the sword of Damocles,” Orrick wrote.
Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrives for a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Thursday, May 8, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee panel Thursday slammed Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem for her handling of her agency’s funding and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Sen. Chris Murphy warned Noem that DHS is at risk of running out of its $65 billion in funding by July – two months before the end of the fiscal year – and therefore close to triggering the Antideficiency Act, a federal law prohibiting government agencies from spending funds in excess of their appropriations.
“Your department is out of control,” the Connecticut Democrat told Noem. “You are running out of money.”
Noem, who appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, was also grilled by Democrats about the high-profile case of a wrongly deported Maryland man sent in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador.
The White House’s “skinny” budget proposal suggests $107 billion for DHS starting Oct. 1, and assumes that Republicans pass the reconciliation package under consideration to allocate a massive $175 billion overall in border security.
“If we now live in a world in which the administration spends down the accounts that were priorities for Republicans and does not spend down the priorities that were priorities for Democrats, I don’t know how we do a budget,” Murphy said.
Sen. Patty Murray, top Democrat on the full Senate Appropriations Committee, slammed Noem for not following “our appropriations laws.”
She was critical of how immigration enforcement has caught up U.S. citizens and immigrants with protected legal statuses.
“Your crackdown has roped in American citizens and people who are here legally with no criminal record,” the Washington Democrat said.
She also criticized Noem for spending $100 million on TV ads that range from praising the president to warning migrants not to come to the United States or to self-deport.
Noem in addition launched this week an initiative to provide up to $1,000 in “travel assistance” to immigrants without legal authorization to self-deport, which would amount to $1 billion if President Donald Trump’s goal of deporting 1 million people is met. The source of those funds in the DHS budget is unclear.
Murray asked Noem about more than $100 billion in DHS funds not being used or re-programmed elsewhere for immigration enforcement, and called it “an illegal freeze.”
She then asked Noem when DHS would unfreeze those funds.
Noem did not answer and instead blamed the Biden administration, and said the previous administration “perverted” how the funds were used.
Murray said she did not think it was “credible that $100 billion is used to break the law.”
“I am very concerned that DHS is now dramatically over-spending funding that Congress has not provided,” Murray said. “We take our responsibility seriously to fund your department and others. We need to have answers, we need to have accountability, and we need to make sure you’re not overspending money that you were not allocated.”
Abrego Garcia deportation
Noem got into a heated exchange with one of the Democrats on the panel, Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to El Salvador to speak with wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia. The Trump administration has admitted his deportation was an “administrative error.”
The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, who was sent initially to brutal CECOT but is now housed in another prison.
Van Hollen asked Noem what DHS has done to bring back Abrego Garcia, who had a 2019 court order barring his return to his home country of El Salvador for fear he would be harmed by gang violence.
Noem did not answer what steps the Trump administration was taking and said that because Abrego Garcia is a citizen of El Salvador, he is in that nation’s custody and cannot be brought back.
Trump has contradicted his own administration, stating that if he wanted to bring back Agrego Garcia he would, but won’t because he believes Abrego Garcia has gang ties.
While Trump officials like Noem have alleged that Abrego Garcia has ties to the MS-13 gang, no evidence has been provided in court and federal Judge Paula Xinis, who is presiding over the case, called the accusations “hearsay.”
Noem then questioned why Van Hollen was advocating for Abrego Garcia in the first place.
“Your advocacy for a known terrorist is alarming to me,” she said.
Van Hollen said that he was advocating for due process, which the Trump administration has been accused of skirting in its deportations. A federal judge in Louisiana next week plans to hold a hearing to determine if the Trump administration violated due process in deporting a 2-year-old U.S. citizen and her mother to Honduras.
Murphy also pressed Noem on the issue and asked how she was coordinating with El Salvador for Abrego Garcia’s release.
“There is no scenario where Abrego Garcia will be returned to the United States,” she said.
Noem then said that even if Abrego Garcia were returned to the U.S., “we would immediately deport him again.”
GOP worried about students, TPS holders
Some Republicans on the panel, including the committee chair, raised concerns with Noem about how the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown is affecting students with visas.
“There are so many others who do deserve scrutiny,” said Chairwoman Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, who said she was worried about students from Canada who attend school in her home state. “But these are dually enrolled Canadian students, and they’ve been crossing the border for years without trouble.”
She said Canadian students are being stopped by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and given intense screenings.
“They have student visas, but they’re being subjected to extensive searches and questioning,” she said to Noem. “I don’t want us to discourage Canadian students from studying at the northern Maine institutions that we have for education.”
Noem said she would look into it.
Alaskan Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski raised the issue of paperwork not being processed for those with Temporary Protected Status in her state. TPS is granted to those who come from a country that is considered too dangerous or unstable to return to due to war, natural disasters or other instability.
Murkowski said several groups of immigrants in her state with temporary protected status and humanitarian protection are at risk of losing their work protections, such as Afghans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Ukrainians.
“The majority of these folks are just truly valued members of their new community,” Murkowski said. “They’re helping us meet workforce needs and really contributing to the tax base here. They’ve expressed great concern about their status and work authorizations that may be revoked or allowed to expire.”
She said that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has not processed TPS or humanitarian protection renewals for up to five months.
Noem said that those with TPS are being looked at, and admitted that some Ukrainians got an erroneous email that notified them their status was revoked.
She said DHS has not made a decision on whether or not to renew TPS for Ukrainians, who were granted the status due to Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.
“Some of these TPS programs have been in place for many, many years, but the evaluation on why TPS should be utilized and when it can be utilized by a country is the process that the administration is going through,” Noem said.
The Milwaukee County Courthouse (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Update: ICE spokespeople directed Wisconsin Examiner to a post made on X (formerly known as Twitter) announcing the arrest of Kevin Lopez, 36, a Mexican citizen, who the post said is facing state charges of sexual assault of a minor, and sexual assault of an unconscious victim. The post states that Lopez had been previously arrested by local authorities for cannabis possession. Online court records confirm the charges against Lopez.
Another Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrest was made at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on May 7. Chief Judge Carl Ashley said he was told the arrest occurred after a court hearing. Since March, at least four people have been arrested for immigration enforcement in or near the courthouse. Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was charged with obstruction after escorting a man sought by ICE into a public hallway outside her courtroom.
The identity of the person arrested Wednesday has not been released. ICE officials have been unable to provide information at this time to Wisconsin Examiner.
In late March, Marco Cruz-Garcia, 24, a Mexican citizen, was arrested in the courthouse as he appeared in family court on a domestic violence restraining order. In a statement, ICE accused Cruz-Garcia of being a known member of the “Sureños transnational criminal street gang,” and cited his 2020 deportation order by a judge.
Edwin Bustamante-Sierre, 27, a Nicaraguan citizen, was arrested days after Cruz-Garcia on April 3. ICE said in a statement that Bustamante-Sierre had been charged with reckless driving, endangering safety, reckless use of a firearm, use of a dangerous weapon and cocaine possession in Fond du Lac County and Milwaukee County.
On April 18, agents arrested Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 30, a Mexican immigrant lacking permanent legal status, who faced three misdemeanor domestic battery charges.
The arrest of Flores-Ruiz led to Judge Dugan’s arrest. On April 25, Dugan was arrested outside the courthouse, with agents leading the judge to an unmarked squad car in handcuffs. Protests erupted that day and over the weekend at the FBI Milwaukee office, which conducted a speedy investigation into Dugan, after right-wing media outlets claimed to have broken a story about Dugan helping the man evade ICE by leading him out a side door in her courtroom.
A bipartisan letter from judges around the country objected to the unusual, high-profile arrest and “perp walk” of Dugan.
Bascom Hall, University of Wisconsin-Madison. (Ron Cogswell | used by permission of the photographer)
Madison attorney Shabnam Lotfi says her client, Krish Lal Isserdasani, was exceptionally responsible in the way he handled the news that the Trump administration had suddenly taken away his student visa.
Isserdasani, a 21-year-old computer engineering senior at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from India, was about a month out from his graduation on May 10 when he became one of thousands of students across the U.S. that had their Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) records cancelled by the Trump administration. According to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement, SEVIS is a “web-based system for maintaining information on nonimmigrant students and exchange visitors” in the U.S. Once SEVIS records were canceled, students faced the termination of their student visas and their ability to remain in the U.S.
UW-Madison notified students of the changes to their SEVIS status, warning them that status termination generally means an affected person should depart the United States immediately.
“I admire him for acting quickly,” Lotfi told the Wisconsin Examiner. “He saw that his SEVIS record was terminated, immediately contacted the university to see what it means, did not attend classes for a week to figure out what’s going on, [and] hired a lawyer immediately.”
In April, U.S. District Judge William Conley issued a temporary restraining order blocking the government from terminating Isserdasani’s SEVIS and from taking any further related actions. That order noted Isserdasani and his family had spent about $240,000 on his education, stood to lose $17,500 on the current semester’s tuition and would be responsible for four months of rent on an apartment he would vacate if he was forced to leave the country.
With the temporary restraining order in place and providing some protection, Lotfi said he was able to resume attending classes.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean he feels entirely welcome and free and comfortable,” Lotfi said, “but he’s doing the best he can with the cards he has in the situation.”
At the end of April, the Trump administration started reversing the cancellations. Administration attorneys said in court that they were working on developing a policy that would provide a framework for SEVIS record terminations. Lotfi said she is “aware of what they’re thinking about” and that if they’re trying to find a way to make the terminations lawful, that “will likely be challenged again.”
subhed]Federal fallout[/subhed]
As federal funding and systems dwindle, states are left to decide how and
whether to make up the difference. Read the latest
Lotfi said the Trump administration’s step back from the cancellations is a win. This is not the first time she has fought a Trump order involving immigrants, having brought a challenge in 2018 to the Muslim travel ban during Trump’s first term.
“It was a coalition of attorneys nationwide bringing so many [temporary restraining orders], so many lawsuits on behalf of so many students all at the same time — and the government not having any defense to any of it — that caused them to have to reevaluate,” Lotfi said.
As of April 28, the 27 cancellations for UW-Madison students and alumni were reversed as were the 13 for UW-Milwaukee. However, the reversals are not the end of Isserdasani’s case.
When it comes to his case, Lotfi said it appeared during a hearing last week that the government attorneys were not changing their plan to eject Isserdasani based on the administration’s perceived change in stance on international students’ visas. She said the government’s attorney indicated her client’s SEVIS record was only active because of the temporary restraining order and that “it was not related to any change in a government policy.”
“The government attorneys also indicated that they maintain their right to terminate his SEVIS record again in the future should that be necessary,” Lotfi said. “It certainly surprised me, and I think it surprised the court that they were taking that position.”
Lotfi noted that the government attorneys in Isserdasani’s case have been arguing, based on a declaration by Andre Watson, a Trump Department of Homeland Security official, that the SEVIS record and a student’s visa status are not the same. She said no one is buying the argument.
“The vast majority of judges nationwide are asking, then, why do you terminate the SEVIS record? What was the point of doing this? If you guys say that SEVIS and student status are not the same, does that mean that Mr. Isserdasani is in a lawful student status right now?” Lotfi said. “They won’t say that. They’ll just say that the two are not the same, but they will not confirm that he is in a lawful student status with the SEVIS terminated.”
The case challenges the cancellation of the record in several ways, including arguing that the government cannot just take away his status without due process — the ability for him to know why his SEVIS is being terminated and to challenge the termination — and arguing the cancellation was arbitrary and capricious.
“It’s not that Isserdasani failed to go to class. It’s not that he had a criminal activity [or] he was convicted of criminal activity. It’s just because his name [was] in a database,” Lotfi said. In determining cancellations, the Trump administration had run international students’ names through an FBI database called the National Crime Information Center. It appeared that an arrest for disorderly conduct in November 2024 was the reason for Isserdasani’s SEVIS cancellation, but charges were never pursued and he never had to appear in court.
Lotfi said she and her client are waiting for the court’s written decision on whether the temporary restraining order will be converted to a preliminary injunction, which would prevent actions by the government through the course of litigation. Then, she said, litigation will continue, which can take time.
“It is in the interest of justice, and in the interest of the American people, that a final decision on the merits of the case is issued,” Lotfi said.
Lotfi said people shouldn’t accept the Trump administration’s accusations against foreign students as true.
“These students are in a foreign country. Many have learned a second language… They are young and alone without family. They are following this country’s rules and regulations, and they didn’t do anything wrong,” Lotfi said. “They don’t deserve this.”
“If it’s a U.S. citizen, we say innocent until proven guilty… Why do we not have that same mindset when it comes to foreign nationals?” she added. “It just seems like any arrest for anything then that’s guilt, and that’s not the case. We would never allow that for any of our neighbors, so we should not accept the administration’s description of international students having violated their status when they didn’t.”
Gov. Tony Evers had already said he wasn’t directing state employees to break the law should immigration officials enter state buildings. Evers answers reporters questions in March. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Gov. Tony Evers issued a three-minute video Friday in which he addressed Wisconsinites, describing a statement from the White House border czar Tom Homan that has been interpreted by some as a threat to arrest Evers as “chilling.”
Homan made the vague threat after a reporter for the far-right website Gateway Pundit asked him “why not just arrest” leaders interfering with deportation efforts. The reporter then specifically asked him about Evers’ directive to state agencies instructing them to consult an attorney if federal immigration agents enter state buildings demanding files or computer system access.
“Wait to see what’s coming,” Homan said. “You can not support what we’re doing and you can support sanctuary cities if that’s what you want to do, but if you cross that line of impediment or knowingly harboring or concealing an illegal alien, that is a felony and we’ll treat it as such.”
“A Trump Administration official, in not so many words, apparently threatened to arrest me… The goal of this guidance was simple — to provide clear, consistent instructions to state employees and ensure they have a lawyer to help them comply with all federal and state laws. Nothing more, nothing less,” Evers said in the video. “But Republicans and their right-wing allies, including Elon Musk, lied about this guidance, spread misinformation, accused me of doing things I didn’t do or say, and fueled a fake controversy of their own creation.”
The guidance sent by the Department of Administration to state employees told them to stay calm if an ICE agent entered their offices. It told them to ask agents for their names and badges to verify their identity, to ask why they were there, ask for documentation like a valid warrant then tell the agent to have a seat. It said state employees should call the Office of Legal Council to consult an attorney.
It also told employees not to answer questions from an agent, give them access to paper files and computer systems without speaking to an attorney and not to give consent for an agent to enter a “nonpublic” area, noting that they need a judicial warrant to enter such an area.
“Remember that every state employee has a duty to protect confidential data and information collected or maintained by the State of Wisconsin in state offices and electronic filing systems,” the guidance stated.
“I haven’t broken the law. I haven’t committed a crime, and I’ve never encouraged or directed anyone to break any laws or commit any crimes,” Evers said in the video. “When President Trump’s hand-picked appointee, Tom Homan, was asked about me and this guidance after he apparently threatened to arrest elected officials across the country, he said, ‘Wait ’til you see what’s coming.’ Overnight, Republican lawmakers piled on, encouraging the Trump Administration to arrest me.”
Evers’ directive had received backlash from Wisconsin Republicans who called on Evers to rescind the guidance and support Trump’s deportation agenda.
One Republican state lawmaker Rep. Calvin Callahan (R-Tomahawk) suggested in multiple social media posts Thursday that Evers should be arrested — sharing an AI-generated photo of Evers in handcuffs and writing in another post that “this is what Tony Evers sent out; stick him in the same cell as the Milwaukee judge!” Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested last week under accusations that she impeded the arrest of a man that ICE followed to her courtroom.
Evers said the threats should concern everyone.
“In this country, the federal government doesn’t get to abuse its power to threaten everyday Americans. In this country, the federal government doesn’t get to arrest American citizens who have not committed a crime. In this country, we don’t threaten to persecute people just because they belong to a different political party,” Evers said.
“These threats represent a concerning trajectory in this country. We now have a federal government that will threaten or arrest an elected official — or even everyday American citizens — who have broken no laws, committed no crimes, and done nothing wrong,” Evers said. “As disgusted as I am about the continued actions of the Trump Administration, I am not afraid. I have never once been discouraged from doing the right thing, and I will not start today.”
A 15-year-old boy was accused of raping a 7-year-old boy on a Jennings County school bus, reported WTHR News.
The alleged incident reportedly occurred April 16 on a school bus for students with disabilities. The Jennings County Juvenile Probation Department is overseeing the investigation.
According to the article, the incident was detected in bus security footage and Jennings County School Corporation is now reviewing other security videos from the entire school year to determine if there were other similar incidents.
The news report states that the 15-year-old, who was not identified at this writing, was taken into custody April 17 and had his initial hearing April 22, where prosecutors filed the rape charge.
The teen reportedly has another court hearing this week and is currently being held at the juvenile detention center.
Local news reports confirmed that the family of the 7-year-old is preparing to sue the school district, claiming “grossly negligent” actions resulted in permanent injury to the boy and violated his civil rights.
The family’s attorneys reportedly say that the 7-year-old was “helplessly left unmonitored by two school employees who were on the bus and charged with caring for his safety.”
A U.S. Border Patrol official vehicle is shown parked near the border. (Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Judiciary Republicans Wednesday worked in committee on a portion of a major legislative package that would help fund President Donald Trump’s plans to conduct mass deportations of people living in the United States without permanent legal status.
The Judiciary panel’s $81 billion share of the “one, big beautiful” bill the president has requested of Congress would provide $45 billion for immigration detention centers, $8 billion to hire thousands of immigration enforcement officers and more than $14 billion for deportations, among other things.
The border security and immigration funds are part of a massive package that wraps together White House priorities including tax cuts and defense spending boosts. Republicans are pushing the deal through using a special procedure known as reconciliation that will allow the Senate GOP to skirt its usual 60-vote threshold when that chamber acts.
On Wednesday, lawmakers continued work on the various sections of the reconciliation bill with markups — which means a bill is debated and potentially amended or rewritten — in the Financial Services, Judiciary, Transportation and Infrastructure and Oversight and Government Reform committees.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said Republicans will spend the rest of this week and next debating the 11 separate bills in committees. Committees when they finish their measures will send them to the House Budget Committee, which is expected to bundle them together prior to a floor vote.
The Judiciary panel’s 116-page bill vastly overhauls U.S. asylum laws. It would, for example, create a fee structure for asylum seekers that would set a minimum cost for an application at no less than $1,000. Applications now are free.
“These and other resources and fees in this reconciliation bill will ensure the Trump administration has the adequate resources to enforce the immigration laws in a fiscally responsible way,” GOP Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio said.
The bill would establish a $1,000 fee for immigrants granted temporary protected status, which would mean they would have work authorizations and deportation protections.
It would also require sponsors to pay $3,500 to take in an unaccompanied minor who crosses the border without a legal status. Typically, unaccompanied minors are released to sponsors who are family members living in the United States.
The bill would also require immigrants without permanent legal status to pay a $550 fee for work permits every six months.
The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, slammed the bill as targeting immigrants.
“Every day, this administration uses immigration enforcement as a template to erode constitutional rights and liberties,” he said.
A final committee vote was expected Wednesday night.
‘A giveaway to ICE’
The Judiciary bill directs half of the fees collected from asylum seekers to go toward the agency that handles U.S. immigration courts, but Democrats criticized the provisions as creating a barrier for asylum seekers.
“The so-called immigration fees that are in this bill are really fines and nothing but a cruel attempt to make immigrating to this country impossible,” Washington Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal said.
Democratic Rep. Chuy Garcia of Illinois, said the bill would not only “gut asylum” but would significantly increase funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.
Funding for ICE detention this fiscal year is roughly $3.4 billion, but the Judiciary bill would sharply increase that to $45 billion.
Garcia called the increase a “a giveaway to ICE, a rogue agency that’s terrorizing communities and clamping (down) on civil liberties and the Constitution itself, because they’ve been directed to do so by this president.”
House Republicans have also included language that would move the Federal Trade Commission into the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, a move Democrats argued would kneecap the FTC’s regulatory authority.
“You’re trying to shutter the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, making it harder for us to enforce our antitrust laws,” Democratic Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont said.
Consumer protections to take a hit
Lawmakers on the House Committee on Financial Services met in a lengthy, and at times tense, session to finalize legislation to cut “no less than” $1 billion from government programs and services under the panel’s jurisdiction, according to the budget resolution Congress approved in April.
Funds in the crosshairs include those previously authorized for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and grants provided under the Biden administration-era Inflation Reduction Act for homeowners to improve energy efficiency.
Chair French Hill said the committee “will do its part to reduce the deficit and decrease direct spending, so that Congress can enact pro-growth tax policies.”
“And remember, today, we are here with one purpose, to do our part to put our nation back on a responsible fiscal trajectory,” the Arkansas Republican said.
Democrats introduced dozens of amendments during the hourslong session to block cuts to community block grants and programs protecting consumers, including veterans, from illegal credit and lending practices.
Ranking member Maxine Waters said committee Republicans’ plans to cut the CFPB by 70% “is ridiculous.”
“The bureau has saved American consumers $21 billion by returning to them funds that big banks and predatory lenders swindled out of them,” said Waters, a California Democrat.
Congress created the CFPB in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, when subprime mortgage lending cascaded into bank failures and home and job losses.
Republicans opposed amendment after amendment.
Rep. María Salazar of Florida tossed a copy of one of Waters’ lengthy amendments straight into a trash can after a staffer handed it to her. Michigan’s Rep. Bill Huizenga held up proceedings for several minutes when he accused Waters of breaking the rules by not distributing enough paper copies of her amendment.
“We cannot allow our government to continue spending money like there are no consequences,” GOP Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska said in response to several Democratic amendments.
A final committee vote was expected Wednesday night.
Transportation section adds fees on electric vehicles
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee also approved, by a party line 36-30 vote, reconciliation instructions that would cut $10 billion from the federal deficit while boosting spending for the U.S. Coast Guard and the air traffic control system.
Like other portions of the larger reconciliation package, the transportation committee’s instructions would add funding for national security and border enforcement, through the Coast Guard funding, while cutting money from programs favored by Democrats, including climate programs and any spending that could be construed as race-conscious.
The bill would provide $21.2 billion for the Coast Guard and $12.5 billion for air traffic control systems. It would raise money through a $250 annual fee on electric vehicles and a $100 annual fee on hybrids, while also cutting $4.6 billion from climate programs created in Democrats’ 2022 reconciliation package.
Chairman Sam Graves, a Missouri Republican, said the measure included priorities for members of both parties, as well as business and labor interests.
“We all want to invest in our Coast Guard,” he said. “We all want to rebuild our air traffic control system and finally address the broken Highway Trust Fund. We have held countless hearings on all of these topics, both recently and, frankly, for years. And now members have the opportunity to actually act.”
Democrats on the panel complained that the reconciliation package was a partisan exercise and a departure from the panel’s normally congenial approach to business. They introduced dozens of amendments over the daylong committee meeting seeking to add funding for various programs. None were adopted.
“The larger Republican reconciliation package will add more than $15 trillion in new debt, gives away $7 trillion in deficit-financed tax cuts to the wealthy and slashes access to health care and food assistance for families,” ranking Democrat Rick Larsen of Washington said. “Given that, I think we’re going to have to vote no on the bill before us.”
The vehicle fees, which would be deposited into the Highway Trust Fund that sends highway and transit money to states, created a partisan divide Wednesday.
Federal gas taxes provide the lion’s share of deposits to the fund and Republicans argued that, because drivers of electric vehicles pay no gas taxes and hybrid drivers pay less than those who drive gas-powered cars, the provision would make the contributions fairer.
Republicans scrapped a proposed $20 annual fee on gas-powered cars, which Graves said was meant to “start a conversation” on the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund. But the provision “became a political distraction that no longer centered around seriously addressing the problem,” he said.
Pennsylvania Democrat Chris Deluzio criticized the vehicle fees, noting Republicans were pursuing additional revenue opportunities to offset losses from tax cuts.
“I don’t know when you guys became the tax-and-spend liberals,” Deluzio told his Republican colleagues. “But I guess the taxing of car owners so you can pay for tax giveaways to billionaires is your new strategy. Good luck with that.”
Federal employee benefits targeted
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted nearly along party lines, 22-21, to send its portion of the reconciliation package to the Budget Committee, with Ohio Republican Rep. Mike Turner joining Democrats in opposition.
Turner was the first GOP lawmaker to cast a committee vote against reconciliation instructions this year.
The legislation hits at federal employee benefits and comes as the Trump administration continues to overhaul the federal workforce.
Part of the bill would raise federal employees’ required retirement contribution to a rate of 4.4% of their salary and eliminate an additional retirement annuity payment for federal employees who retire before the age of 62, while cutting more than $50 billion from the federal deficit.
At his committee’s markup, Chairman James Comer said the legislation “advances important budgetary reforms that will save taxpayers money.”
The Kentucky Republican acknowledged that the chief investigative committee in the U.S. House has “very limited jurisdiction to help reduce the federal budget deficit,” noting that the panel is “empowered to pursue civil service reforms, including federal employee benefits and reining in the influence of partisan and unaccountable government employee unions.”
But Democrats on the panel blasted the committee’s portion of the reconciliation package, saying the bill chips away at federal employees’ protections.
Rep. Stephen Lynch, the top Democrat on the panel, said congressional Republicans instructed the panel to target the federal workforce with roughly $50 billion in funding cuts “regardless of the impact on hard-working, loyal federal employees and their critical services that they provide to the American people.”
The Massachusetts Democrat said the bill “threatens to further undermine the federal workforce by reducing the take-home pay, the benefits and workforce protections of 2.4 million federal employees, most of whom are middle-class Americans and a third of whom are military veterans.”
Ohio’s Turner, who voted against the legislation because of the provision reducing pension benefits, said he supported the overall reconciliation package and hoped the pension measure would be stripped before a floor vote.
Turner said “making changes to pension retirement benefits in the middle of someone’s employment is wrong.”
Rodney Scott, President Donald Trump's nominee to be commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, prepares to testify during his confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on April 30, 2025. Scott previously led the U.S. Border Patrol. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images News)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead U.S. Customs and Border Protection told the U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday that he would focus on the agency’s workforce to manage trade and border crossings, while the committee’s top Democrat accused him of covering up a 2010 death at a CBP facility he oversaw.
If Rodney Scott, of Oklahoma, is confirmed by the Senate, he would play a major role in the president’s border-enforcement agenda and lead an agency tasked with managing ports of entry and stopping unauthorized migration at U.S. borders, which he pledged to do by focusing on CBP personnel.
“I will leverage my experience to empower the men and women of CBP to do what they were hired to do – safeguard every American by securing our borders and keeping trade and travel moving,” the former Border Patrol chief said in his opening statement to the committee.
Scott added that he wants to focus on the morale of CBP officers and also ensure that the most up-to-date technology is being used during screenings at ports of entry to intercept any illegal drugs.
“I think it’s really important to highlight a lot of that technology, it just detects anomalies,” he said. “It takes an actual officer or an agent to determine if there’s actually something illegal there or not, so making sure that we … use those officers and agents in the most effective manner possible is critical.”
Scott served as chief of Border Patrol, an agency within CBP, during the first Trump administration and former President Joe Biden’s administration. In that role during the first Trump administration, he implemented a policy that required asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their cases were pending in immigration court.
Death in custody
The top Democrat on the panel, Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, raised concerns about a 2010 death at a CBP station in San Diego that Scott ran.
Anastasio Hernández Rojas was detained by CBP officers where he was beaten and later died from his injuries, Wyden said.
Scott was later accused of covering up the death of Hernández Rojas, Wyden said.
“Rather than following the agency’s own policy and immediately referring the incident to outside investigators, the San Diego CBP office began its own investigation,” Wyden said. “In the course of that investigation, the CBP officers taped over the only video copy of Hernández Rojas’s death and tampered with physical evidence, according to court documents.”
The U.S. paid $1 million to settle a lawsuit brought by Hernández Rojas’ widow. The U.S. Department of Justice in 2015 declined to pursue federal charges against any of the officers or leaders involved in the Hernández Rojas case.
Committee Chair Mike Crapo, a Republican from Idaho, defended Scott and said that U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem wrote a letter to the committee to inform members that she reviewed the 2010 incident and that Scott’s work “was in accordance with his duties, the law and professional standards.”
“Mr. Scott did not impede any investigation, nor did he take steps to conceal facts from investigators,” Crapo said Wednesday.
Wyden argued that Noem was not head of DHS in 2010 and that he had spoken to officials who were present at the time of the investigation that took place surrounding Hernández Rojas’ death.
“There have been these serious allegations made by the former heads of internal affairs about Mr. Scott’s involvement and the cover up of the death of Mr. Hernández Rojas,” he said. “I don’t believe this committee should take this letter on faith. And I have some additional information from those who were there at the time, as opposed to Secretary Noem, who was not.”
CBP has more than 60,000 employees and manages the more than 300 ports of entry at borders, airports and seatports.
Demonstrators holds signs as a motorist passes with flags supporting President Donald Trump during an April 5, 2025, protest in Columbia, South Carolina. Protestors organized nationwide demonstrations against Trump administration policies and Elon Musk's U.S. DOGE Service. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Tuesday marked the 100th day of President Donald Trump’s second term, a period filled almost daily with executive orders seeking to expand presidential power, court challenges to block those orders and economic anxiety that undermines his promised prosperity.
Trump has taken decisive actions that have polarized the electorate. He’s used obscure authorities to increase deportations, upended longstanding trade policy with record-high tariffs, made drastic cuts to the federal workforce and ordered the closure of the Education Department.
Those moves have garnered mixed results and led to legal challenges.
The approach to immigration enforcement has yielded lower numbers of unauthorized border crossings compared to last year. But the immigration crackdown has barreled the country toward a constitutional crisis through various clashes with the judiciary branch.
Those nearing retirement have watched their savings shrink as Trump’s blunt application of tariffs, which he promises will replace income taxes, roils markets. Administration officials have promised the short-term tariff pain will benefit the country in the long term.
And White House advisor and top campaign donor Elon Musk’s efforts at government efficiency have resulted in eliminations of wide swaths of government jobs. That includes about half of the Education Department workforce so far, though Trump has signed an executive order to eliminate the department.
The controversial moves appear unpopular, as Americans delivered record low approval ratings for a president so early in his term. Polls spearheaded by Fox News, NPR, Gallup and numerous others yield overall disapproval of Trump’s job performance.
Trump speaks to reporters after signing executive orders in the Oval Office on April 23, 2025. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon look on. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Deportation push tests legal boundaries
Immigration was Trump’s signature issue on the campaign trail and his first 100 days were marked by a crackdown carried out against people with a range of immigration statuses and at least three U.S. citizen children. The aggressive push has led to clashes with the judiciary branch.
A burst of Inauguration Day executive orders Trump signed upon his return to office included some hardline immigration policies he’d promised.
On day one, he declared a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border that enabled his deployment two days later of 1,500 troops to help border enforcement.
District courts blocked the birthright citizenship and refugee resettlement measures and an appeals court has upheld those interpretations. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in May on birthright citizenship.
Trump’s record on immigration is a clear example of his desire to expand executive power, said Ahilan Arulanantham, a co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law.
“It’s an attempt to expand the government’s powers far beyond anything that we have seen before in this realm,” he said.
Unprecedented authorities
The administration has taken a series of actions considered nearly unprecedented to conduct mass deportations.
Authorities never accused Khalil of committing a crime, but sought to revoke his green card under a Cold War-era provision that allows the secretary of State to remove lawful permanent residents if the secretary deems their presence has “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences.”
Similar arrests followed at universities across the country.
In mid-March, Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport two planeloads of people his administration said belonged to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
It was only the fourth time the law was invoked and the first outside of wartime. The first flights left U.S. soil en route to a mega-prison in El Salvador on Saturday, March 15, amid a hearing on the legality of using the law in peacetime.
Prison officers stand guard over a cell block at the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, on April 4, 2025 in El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Peña/Getty Images)
When a federal judge entered an oral order to turn the flights around, the administration refused, arguing the oral order was not valid. The administration also ignored a subsequent written order demanding the return of the flights, later arguing the flights were outside U.S. airspace at that time and impossible to order returned.
Administration officials mocked the court order on social media.
The Supreme Court on April 7 allowed for the use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected gang members of Tren de Aragua. However, the justices unanimously agreed that those removed under the wartime law needed to have due process and have a hearing to challenge their removal.
Abrego Garcia
A third March 15 flight carried a man who was mistakenly deported in an episode that has gained a national spotlight.
Maryland resident Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a native of El Salvador, had a final order of removal, but was granted deportation protections by an immigration judge because of the threat he would be harmed by gangs if he were returned to his home country. Despite the protective order, he was deported to the notorious Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT prison.
After his family sued over his deportation, the administration admitted he’d been removed through an “administrative error,” but stood by its decision.
The administration argued it had no power to compel the El Salvador government to release Abrego Garcia, despite a possibly illegal $6 million agreement with the country to detain the roughly 300 men.
A Maryland federal court and an appeals court ruled the administration must repatriate Abrego Garcia, whose wife and 5-year-old son are U.S. citizens, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the Trump administration must “facilitate” his return, but stopped short of requiring it.
The administration has done little to indicate it is complying with that order, earning a rebuke from a conservative judge on the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
“The Supreme Court’s decision does not … allow the government to do essentially nothing,” Circuit Court Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III wrote. “‘Facilitate’ is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear.”
The administration’s relationship with the courts — delaying compliance with orders and showing a clear distaste for doing so — has led to the brink of a constitutional crisis, Arulanantham said.
“They’re playing footsy with disregarding court orders,” he said. “On the one hand, they’re not just complying. If they were complying, Abrego Garcia would be here now.”
But the administration has also not flagrantly refused to comply, Arulanantham added. “They’re sort of testing the bounds.”
Tariffs prompted market drop
Trump’s first 100 days spiraled into economic uncertainty as he ramped up tariffs on allies and trading partners. In early April, the president declared foreign trade a national emergency and shocked economies around the world with costly import taxes.
Following a week of market upheaval, Trump paused for 90 days what he had billed as “reciprocal” tariffs and left a universal 10% levy on nearly all countries, except China, which received a bruising 125%.
Some products, including pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, lumber and copper, remain exempt for now, though the administration is eyeing the possibilities of tariffs on those goods.
A billboard in Miramar, Florida, displays an anti-tariff message on March 28, 2025. The Canadian government has placed the anti-tariff billboards in numerous American cities in what they have described as an “educational campaign” to inform Americans of the economic impacts of tariffs. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
The administration now contends it will strike trade deals with some 90 foreign governments over the pause, set to expire in July.
Meanwhile, an all-out trade war rages with China after Trump hiked tariffs on the world’s no. 2 economy even further to 145%. China responded with 125% tariffs on U.S. goods. The two economies share a massive trading relationship, both in the top three for each other’s imports and exports.
‘Chaotic’ strategy
Inu Manak, fellow for trade policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, summed up Trump’s first 100 days as “chaotic.”
“We haven’t seen anything like this in our U.S. history in terms of how trade policy is being handled. It’s very ad hoc,” Manak said.
“U.S. businesses can’t figure out what to do. And even for the large companies, it’s hard for them to know some of the long-term trajectories of where this was going to go,” Manak said.
Shortly after his second term began, Trump declared a national emergency over illicit fentanyl entering the U.S. — an unprecedented move to trigger import taxes — and began escalating tariffs on Chinese goods, as well as up to 25% on certain products crossing the borders from Canada and Mexico.
Trump hiked existing tariffs on steel and aluminum in mid-March under trade provisions meant to protect domestic production and national security, followed by 25% levies on foreign cars and auto parts — though Trump signed two executive orders Tuesday to grant some tariff relief to carmakers.
The import taxes have alarmed investors, small businesses and American consumers following the 2024 presidential campaign when Trump made lowering prices a major tenet of his platform.
The latest University of Michigan survey of consumers — a staple indicator for economists — reported consumer outlook on personal finances and business conditions took a nosedive in April. Expectations dropped 32% since January, the largest three-month percentage decline since the 1990 recession, according to the analysis.
Manak said Trump’s tariffs are “really at odds with” with the administration’s objectives of helping U.S. manufacturers and cutting costs for Americans.
“The U.S. now has the highest tariff rates in the world,” she said. “That’s going to hurt both consuming industries that import products to make things, and then consumers as well. We’re starting to see notifications coming out on layoffs, and some small businesses considering closing up shop already. And the tariffs haven’t been in place for that long.”
Rhett Buttle, of Small Business for America’s Future, said the policies are “causing real damage in terms of not just planning, but in terms of day-to-day operations.”
Buttle, a senior advisor for the advocacy group that claims 85,000 small business members, said even if Trump begins to strike deals with other countries, entrepreneurs will likely be on edge for months to come.
“It’s that uncertainty that makes business owners not want to hire or not want to grow,” Buttle said. “So it’s like, ‘Okay, we got through this mess, but why would I hire a person if I don’t know if I’m gonna wake up in two weeks and there’s gonna be another announcement?’”
Support dropping
Trillions were erased from the U.S. stock market after “Liberation Day” — the White House’s term for the start of its global tariff policy. The S&P 500 index, which tracks the performance of the 500 largest U.S. companies, is overall down 8.5% since Trump’s inauguration, according to The Wall Street Journal’s analysis.
Numerous recent polls showed flagging support for Trump’s economic policies.
In a poll released Monday, Gallup found 89% of Americans believe tariffs will result in increasing prices. And a majority of Americans are concerned about an economic recession and increasing costs of groceries and other goods, according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey between April 17 and April 22.
The Pew Research Center similarly found a growing gloomy outlook among U.S. adults from April 7 to April 13. Results showed a majority of Americans — 59% across race, age and income levels — disapproved of Trump’s approach to tariffs. But when broken down by party, the survey showed a majority of Democrats disapprove while the majority of Republicans approve of the tariff policy.
American households are poised to lose up to $2,600 annually if tariffs remain in place and U.S. fiscal policy doesn’t change, according to the Yale Budget Lab. Analyses show low-income households will be disproportionately affected.
“If these tariffs stay in place, some folks are going to benefit, but a lot of people are going to get hurt,” Manak said.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Government spending
Elon Musk, accompanied by his son X Musk and Trump, speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office on February 11, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Trump began his second term with a flurry of action on government spending, challenging the balance of power between the president and Congress.
Efforts to unilaterally cancel funding already approved by lawmakers, who hold the authority to spend federal dollars under the Constitution, led to confusion and frustration from both Democrats and Republicans, especially after the U.S. DOGE Service froze allocations on programs that have long elicited bipartisan support.
Many of the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back appropriations are subject to injunctions from federal courts, blocking the cuts from moving forward while the lawsuits advance through the judicial system.
Kevin Kosar, senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, said Trump’s actions on spending so far have sought to expand the bounds of presidential authority.
“We’ve never seen a president in modern times who’s been this aggressive in trying to seize control of the power of the purse,” he said. “To just say, ‘I’m not going to fund this agency, like USAID, despite money being appropriated for it. And we’re going to walk over and take their plaque off their wall and lock their doors.’ This is new.”
Many of Trump’s actions so far indicate to Kosar that the administration expects a change to the balance of power following next year’s midterm elections, when the president’s party historically loses control of at least one chamber of Congress.
“It feels to me that the first 100 days are in large part predicated on an assumption that they may only have two years of unified Republican control of the House of Representatives, the Senate and the presidency,” he said. “We know the margins in the House are quite narrow, and the heavy use of executive actions and the simple defunding of various government contracts and agencies all through executive action, just tell me that the administration feels like they have to get everything done as fast as they possibly can, because the time is short.”
Kosar said he’s watching to see if Trump works with Republicans in Congress, while they still have unified control, to codify his executive orders into law — something he didn’t do with many of the unilateral actions he took during his first term.
“He just did executive actions, which, of course, (President Joe) Biden just undid,” he said. “And I’m just wondering: Are we going to see this movie all over again? Or is he going to actually partner with Congress on these various policy matters and pass statutes so that they stick?”
Zachary Peskowitz, associate professor of political science at Emory University, said Trump has been much more “assertive” during the last 100 days than during the first few months of 2017.
DOGE ‘winding down’
U.S. DOGE Service and Musk hit the ground running, though their actions have fallen short of the goals he set, and appear to be sunsetting with the billionaire turning his attention back toward his businesses.
“I think the big bang is winding down. They did a lot of things early on. It’s not clear how many of them are going to stick, what the consequences are,” Peskowitz said. “And I think, big picture, in terms of federal spending, the amounts of money that may have been saved or not are pretty small.”
Democrats in Congress released a tracker Tuesday listing which accounts the Trump administration has frozen or canceled to the tune of more than $430 billion.
But Trump has just gotten started.
The administration plans to submit its first budget request to Congress in the coming days, a step that’s typically taken in early February, though it happens a couple months behind schedule during a president’s first year.
That massive tax-and-spending proposal will begin the classic tug-of-war between Congress, which will draft the dozen annual appropriations bills, and Trump, who has shown a willingness to act unilaterally when he doesn’t get his way.
Trump and lawmakers must agree to some sort of government funding bill before the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1, otherwise a partial government shutdown would begin. And unlike the reconciliation package that Republicans can enact all on their own, funding bills require some Democratic support to move past the Senate’s 60-vote cloture threshold.
Trump stands with 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. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Eliminating the Education Department
Researchers and advocates predicted even more changes to the federal role in education, underscoring anti-diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and a continued ideological battle with higher education that have marked Trump’s approach to education policy in his first 100 days.
In a torrent of education-related decisions, Trump and his administration have tried to dismantle the Education Department via an executive order, slashed more than 1,300 employees at the department, threatened to revoke funds for schools that use DEI practices and cracked down on “woke” higher education.
The Trump administration has taken drastic steps to revoke federal funding for a number of elite universities in an attempt to make the institutions align more with them ideologically.
Rachel Perera, a governance studies fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at the Brookings Institution, cited “brazen lawlessness” when reflecting on Trump’s approach to higher education in his second term.
“The ways that they’re trying to withhold funding from universities are very clearly in violation of federal law and the processes mandated by civil rights law in terms of ensuring that institutions are offered due process in assessing whether violations have taken place,” Perera said. “There’s not even a pretense of pretending to investigate some of these institutions before taking really dramatic action.”
Whether the administration’s approach continues or not depends on court action, she added.
“I think what the next three years might look like is really going to depend on how some of these lawsuits play out,” Perera said, referencing some of the major legal battles involving the Trump administration.
Wil Del Pilar, senior vice president at the nonprofit policy and advocacy group EdTrust, said “much of what this administration has done has been overreach.” He pointed to the Education Department’s letter threatening to yank federal funds for schools that use race-conscious practices across aspects of student life as one example.
Del Pilar, who was previously deputy secretary of postsecondary and higher education for the state of Pennsylvania, said the administration is “going to take any opportunity to grab at power that advances their ideology.”
Meanwhile, Perera said the consequences of the department implementing a reduction in force plan in March “have yet to be felt.”
“I think we will start to see really the material consequences of the reduced staffing capacity in the coming years, in terms of how programs are administered, in terms of how funding is moving out the building, in terms of auditing, making sure funding is going to the right groups of students that Congress intended for the money to go to, whether big data collection efforts that are congressionally mandated are being carried out in timely and effective ways,” she said.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, joined by GOP Reps. Lisa McClain of Michigan and Troy Downing of Montana, speaks at a news conference following a meeting of the House Republican Conference on April 29, 2025. House Republicans began the process of approving a massive bill to support President Donald Trump’s priorities on the 100th day of second presidency Tuesday. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on Tuesday kicked off their work to build consensus on “one big, beautiful bill,” to fund President Donald Trump’s priorities, including a major funding boost for immigration enforcement and border security.
After returning from a two-week recess, House lawmakers started debating and amending the various sections of the bill with markups in the Armed Services, Education and Workforce, and Homeland Security committees.
Congressional Republicans are using reconciliation — a special procedure that skirts the Senate’s 60-vote filibuster — to put together one bill to fulfill the White House’s priorities on border security, tax cuts, energy policy and defense.
The Homeland panel’s bill, which would increase funding for border security by $70 billion, aligns with Trump’s second-term agenda, which has centered on an immigration crackdown.
The Homeland Security portion of the reconciliation package recommends $46.5 billion to construct a barrier along U.S. borders and $5 billion for Customs and Border Protection facilities, including $4.1 billion to hire 3,000 Border Patrol agents and 5,000 CBP officers. It would also set aside $2 billion for retention and signing bonuses for CBP staff.
“It is critical that the Republican majority do what the people elected us to do, approve funds for effective border security and enforcement measures,” House Homeland Security Chairman Mark Green of Tennessee said.
The bill also includes $2.7 billion in technology surveillance along U.S. borders and roughly $1 billion for inspection technology at ports of entry.
The top Democrat on the committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, said Democrats were unified in their opposition to the proposal. He argued that roughly $70 billion in funding would only aid the Trump administration in its plans of mass deportation and not address border security.
“House Republican leadership is putting lipstick on this pig of a reconciliation package by pretending it’s about border security,” Thompson said.
Votes on all three committees’ bills, and amendments mostly from Democrats raising objections to the package, were expected late Tuesday or after midnight Wednesday. The committees are not expected to adopt any of the Democratic amendments.
Summer floor votes
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Tuesday he expects the House will spend the rest of this week and next week debating the 11 different bills in committee before rolling them all into one reconciliation package.
The full House will debate and vote to approve the legislation before Memorial Day, under the current timeline.
“I don’t know how long the Senate is going to take to do their piece,” Johnson said. “But I was very encouraged after the meeting yesterday, frankly. Leader (John) Thune and Sen. (Mike) Crapo are on point. The Senate Republicans have been working very hard together.”
Thune, of South Dakota, is the Senate majority leader and Crapo, of Idaho, chairs the tax-writing Finance Committee.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said the administration would like the package to clear Congress before the Fourth of July, though Johnson said he “hopes” to finalize a deal before that deadline.
Thune said later Tuesday that the reconciliation package’s final look will be decided by what policies have the votes to get through each chamber.
“Ultimately, what gets included in a reconciliation bill will be determined by what there are 218 votes for in the House and 51, or 50, votes for in the United States Senate,” Thune said.
Democrats object to deportations
Democrats on the Homeland Security panel introduced amendments to signal their opposition to the administration’s deportation agenda.
Louisiana Rep. Troy Carter was one of several Democrats to sharply criticize the recent deportation of three U.S. citizen children to Honduras during the Homeland Security Committee’s markup.
He noted that one of the children removed with his mother to Honduras, is a 4-year-old battling Stage 4 cancer.
“This is not border security,” Carter said. “This is state-sanctioned trauma.
Democrats introduced amendments to bar federal funds being used to detain immigrants at a foreign prison, following an agreement between the U.S. and El Salvador to detain more than 300 men in a notorious mega-prison. Experts have raised concerns the agreement could violate a law against funding foreign governments engaged in human rights abuses.
“This is not an idle possibility,” Democratic Rep. Seth Magaziner of Rhode Island said.
He pointed out that Trump asked El Salvador’s president Nayib Bukele to consider taking “homegrown” criminals, meaning U.S. citizens.
“This is insane,” Magaziner said. “It is outrageous and every American should be terrified by this prospect.”
Several other Democrats introduced amendments related to the Trump administration’s use of the prison in El Salvador.
That funding would be divvied up between numerous national security priorities, including $25 billion for Trump’s goal of having a countrywide missile defense system, similar to Israel’s Iron Dome.
The defense bill would appropriate $34 billion for shipbuilding and the maritime industrial base, $21 billion for munitions purchases, $14 billion for “initiatives to scale production of game changing new technology,” $13 billion for nuclear deterrence and $12 billion to enhance military readiness, according to a GOP summary of that bill.
Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., said at the beginning of his committee’s markup that the bill would make a “generational investment in our national security.”
“It is clear we are no longer deterring our adversaries,” Rogers said. “The threats we face today from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea and others, are much more serious and challenging than we have ever faced before.”
Washington Democratic Rep. Adam Smith, ranking member on the panel, said there’s “no question that the Department of Defense has needs and there’s also no question that we as a country face threats.”
But Smith criticized Republicans for moving the defense funding boost within the massive reconciliation package, which will increase the deficit.
“We’re, once again, saying to the American people, ‘This is important but not important enough to actually pay for it.’ So the budget itself is a huge problem,” Smith said. “And you really can’t support the additional $150 billion for defense if you don’t support the overall reconciliation bill because that’s what this is. And the overall reconciliation bill, I firmly believe, is a disaster for this country.”
Smith criticized Republicans for proposing additional dollars for the Pentagon while it is run by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who is under investigation for sending information about a bombing campaign in Yemen to a group chat that inadvertently included a journalist and a different group chat that included his wife, brother and others.
“They have not even begun to prove that there is a chance in hell that they will spend this money intelligently, efficiently and effectively,” Smith said. “Secretary Hegseth has proven himself to be completely incapable of doing the job of secretary of Defense.”
Cuts for Pell grants
The Education and Workforce Committee’s markup fell along similar partisan lines, with GOP lawmakers lauding the bill and Democrats rejecting Republicans’ plans seeking to overhaul federal spending.
Chairman Tim Walberg, R-Mich., said the legislation would cut $330 billion in federal spending over the next decade by reshaping federal student loan programs and Pell grants for low-income students, among several other changes.
“Dumping more federal money into a broken system doesn’t mean that system will work,” Walberg said. “In fact, government spending on higher education has reached record highs, yet millions of students benefiting from those funds will ultimately end up with a degree that doesn’t pay off or fail to finish school altogether.”
The GOP bill, he said, would “bring much-needed reform in three key areas: simplified loan repayment, streamlined student loan options, and accountability for students and taxpayers.”
Walberg scolded former President Joe Biden for not working with Congress to overhaul federal grant and loan programs for higher education, saying the former administration “was determined to keep pouring taxpayer funds into the abyss in a futile attempt to keep up with the unacceptable and unaccountable institutional prices.”
Virginia Democratic Rep. Bobby Scott, ranking member, said that Congress should look at ways to make college more affordable through reforms, but said the GOP bill “misses the mark.”
“This current reconciliation plan would increase costs for colleges and students. It would limit students access to quality programs, which would then reduce their likelihood of finding a rewarding or successful career,” Scott said. “And then take the so-called savings to pay for more tax cuts for the wealthy and the well-connected.”
Republicans “limiting the students’ access to Pell grants and federal loans,” he said, could increase the number of people who have to rely on “predatory, private loans” to pay for college.
“Put bluntly: The Republican plan will limit how much money middle- and low-income students can borrow from the federal government,” Scott said. “As a result, limiting the federal student aid that students can receive means that millions of students will not be able to access federal assistance that they need to complete their degrees. Moreover, this bill will force student borrowers into unaffordable repayment plans.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court chambers. (Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan Tuesday due to the federal charges that allege she tried to help a man in her courtroom avoid arrest by federal immigration agents.
Dugan was arrested Friday by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the Milwaukee County courthouse and has been charged with two federal criminal offenses, felony obstruction of a federal agency and a misdemeanor for concealing a person to help them avoid arrest.
Earlier this month, ICE and other federal agents showed up outside her courtroom to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant accused of misdemeanor battery. The federal government alleges she helped Flores-Ruiz evade them by allowing him to exit using a side door without going past the agents. The agents then apprehended him outside the courthouse on foot.
The Court said in a two-page letter that it was in the public interest to relieve Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan of her duties. The letter stated that Dugan is temporarily banned from “exercising the powers of a circuit court judge” as of Tuesday.
“In the exercise of [the Supreme Court’s] constitutional authority and in order to uphold the public’s confidence in the courts of this state during the pendency of the criminal proceeding against Judge Dugan, we conclude, on our own motion, that it is in the public interest that she be temporarily relieved of her official duties,” the Court stated.
Dugan’s legal team said in a statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that they “are disappointed that the Court acted in unilateral fashion. We continue to assert Judge Dugan’s innocence and look forward [to] her vindication in court.”
The Milwaukee County Courthouse (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan’s arrest last week by federal agents is going to make Wisconsin’s court system worse, according to attorneys who practice in the state.
Earlier this month, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Drug Enforcement Agency and FBI appeared at the Milwaukee County Courthouse with an administrative warrant to arrest Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant accused of misdemeanor battery, and scheduled for an appearance in Dugan’s courtroom.
An administrative warrant is not signed by a judge and does not allow agents to enter private spaces to make an arrest like a judicial warrant would. While the agents sat in the hallway outside the courtroom, Dugan told Flores-Ruiz and his attorney to use a side door. The door exits into the same public hallway and one agent rode the same elevator down to the lobby as Flores-Ruiz and his lawyer. Agents let Flores-Ruiz leave the building and then arrested him on the street.
Last week, FBI agents appeared at the courthouse again to arrest Dugan. She’s been charged with obstructing justice and harboring an individual, both felony counts. Soon after her arrest, and before she had made her initial appearance in front of a judge, President Donald Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel were discussing the case on social media and television, accusing Dugan of being “deranged.”
Bondi said on Fox News Friday that the charges were filed against Dugan to show the administration was willing to go after anyone, even judges, if they get in the way of their efforts to deport millions of people. Bondi said interfering with ICE agents “will not be tolerated.”
“What has happened to our judiciary is beyond me,” Bondi said. “The [judges] are deranged is all I can think of. I think some of these judges think that they are beyond and above the law. They are not, and we are sending a very strong message today … if you are harboring a fugitive… we will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.”
From the beginning, the case displayed many missteps in an effort to show force and draw attention, says Stephen Kravit, a former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
“It looks like these prosecutors are completely co-opted in Trump World and aren’t really using very good judgment. You should just look at the facts and law, and there’s just no chance they’ll be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Judge Dugan was corruptly intending to avoid a government subpoena, or that she was harboring a fugitive,” he says, calling the charges “crap.”
During the initial arrest of Flores-Ruiz, Kravit questions why DEA and FBI agents are appearing at the courthouse for immigration enforcement actions and why so many agents were needed to serve an administrative warrant.
“It’s bad for justice on any level. They had six agents there, six to make an unarmed collar of a person who was accused of battery to his roommate,” Kravit says. “And they know he’s not armed. And there’s six of them. Two of them are DEA agents. Those are two agents not enforcing drug laws, which is what they’re charged to do. There’s no drugs involved here, OK? Two of them are FBI agents, who have 100 other different things to do. We probably only have six or seven DEA agents in the state.”
Kravit adds that the whole situation might have gone differently if ICE had gotten a warrant to arrest Flores-Ruiz from a judge rather than one “written by some guy in the office” and it’s going to be difficult for prosecutors to prove Dugan had a corrupt intent by sending Florez-Ruiz out the side door when she could have just been avoiding a “ruckus” outside her door while she’s trying to move on with the court schedule.
He also takes offense with the way Dugan was “perp walked” out of the courthouse when she could have just been asked to turn herself in; questions why federal prosecutors didn’t bring the case to a grand jury first — which would have been the standard process — and why the country’s most powerful justice officials are discussing the case on cable news.
“The arrest warrant for the judge is a travesty, but there’s so much reasonable doubt,” he says. “Was she corruptly trying to interrupt a government proceeding? Corruptly? Was somebody paying her money? No, or was she harboring a fugitive? That’s what she’s charged with. Did she harbor a fugitive on any set of facts that you can imagine? That’s what she’s charged with. These are serious felonies. They ruin the woman’s life and all so that Pam Bondi could make a press statement.”
Dugan’s arrest, and the attention her case has brought to ICE operating at county courthouses could have a chilling effect on Wisconsin’s justice system, Jeff Mandell, executive director of Law Forward, says.
“I do think that there’s a chilling effect to having federal officials prowling a state courthouse to make arrests and absent real danger or exigent circumstances, it feels like that’s not a good thing,” Mandell says. “We want people in our communities to be willing and able to show up in court. We want those people to know that they can do so without feeling like they’re getting entrapped or something like that, and that’s in all of our interests.”
For immigrants, undocumented or not, appearing in court for any reason now is a fraught decision, which could lead to witnesses to crimes not showing up to testify, Mandell says.
“If you were just going about your day and something happened to you and this person was a witness, and you needed them to help sort things out in court and things like that, then you know, you didn’t choose your witnesses,” he says.” You didn’t decide who was going to be standing there when you were in an accident or some other misfortune befell you.”
ICE’s focus on arresting people making court appearances puts those criminal defendants — who have not yet been convicted of a crime — in the position to decide between showing up to court and potentially being picked up by ICE or skipping their court date. Last week, the Wisconsin public defender’s office sent an email to private defense attorneys across the state advising them how to deal with clients asking about ICE operations in courthouses.
“Explain to the client the consequences of not showing to court like you would to any client,” the email states. “Remember you cannot tell a client not to come but you can explain that ICE has been coming to courthouses and that it may no longer be a safe haven.”
Mandell says the operations in courthouses and Dugan’s arrest are emblematic of the Trump administration’s worst impulses.
“I think it reinforces what we’re seeing through day 98 of the administration, what we’re seeing in all kinds of ways in this administration, which is an impatience, a heedlessness, a recklessness, a disregard for norms,” he says. “That many of these folks seem to believe there’s one set of rules for them and a different set of rules for someone else.”
“So they want respect paid to federal officials, but they are going to trample on state institutions and state officials,” he continues. “They want everyone to follow the law, but they are going to play fast and loose and cut corners, whether that’s using administrative warrants, whether that is avoiding grand juries to bring federal charges.”
Mandell adds that when Trump was charged with felonies, he was given the privilege of turning himself in to be booked.
“They want all of the trappings of tremendous respect for their offices, but they are not going to afford even a modicum of respect to others,” Mandell continues, “which we see handcuffing and perp walking Judge Dugan out of the courthouse without even the common courtesy of a phone call to ask if she might be willing to turn herself in, which, of course, is how the President himself insisted on all of his bookings being handled.”
President Donald Trump speaks during an executive order signing in the Oval Office on Feb. 11, 2025. Trump signed two immigration-related orders on Monday in an event closed to press photographers. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday evening signed executive orders targeting so-called sanctuary cities by threatening to revoke federal funding and providing legal services and national security assets to law enforcement.
The signings fell on the eve of Trump’s first 100 days of his second term, during which his administration has enacted an immigration crackdown that has led to clashes with the judiciary branch and cities that do not coordinate with federal immigration authorities, often referred to as “sanctuary cities.”
“Some State and local officials nevertheless continue to use their authority to violate, obstruct, and defy the enforcement of Federal immigration laws,” according to the executive order regarding sanctuary cities. “This is a lawless insurrection against the supremacy of Federal law and the Federal Government’s obligation to defend the territorial sovereignty of the United States.”
The order directs the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to publicly list local jurisdictions that limit cooperation with immigration officials, but do not stop immigration enforcement.
Jurisdictions on the list will then be reviewed by the Office of Management and Budget to “identify appropriate Federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions, including grants and contracts, for suspension or termination, as appropriate.”
This is not the first time the Trump administration has targeted jurisdictions that don’t fully cooperate with federal immigration enforcement.
The Justice Department recently filed a lawsuit against the city of Rochester, New York, over its immigration policies after local law enforcement did not assist federal immigration officials in an arrest. The Trump administration argued those ordinances in Rochester were impeding federal immigration enforcement.
The president also signed an executive order in January that threatened to withhold federal funding from states and local governments that refused to aid in federal immigration enforcement activities. A federal judge in San Francisco last week blocked the Trump administration from withholding federal funds from 16 so-called sanctuary cities.
Republicans have also scrutinized those policies, including during a six-hour hearing of the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that included grilling mayors from Boston, Chicago and Denver, on their cities’ immigration policies.
The executive order also aims to curb any federal benefits that may extend to people without permanent legal status.
That executive order directed DOJ and DHS to “take appropriate action to stop the enforcement of State and local laws” that allow for students without proper legal authorization to receive in-state tuition, which would include those with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
Last week, administration officials cheeredthe FBI arrest of a Wisconsin judge who they say helped an immigrant in the country without legal authorization escape detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The arrest followed the third appearance by ICE officers seeking to make arrests at the Milwaukee County Courthouse, a practice some experts believe hinders local law enforcement.
Law enforcement resources
A second executive order Trump signed Monday provides legal resources for law enforcement officials “who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities for actions taken during the performance of their official duties to enforce the law.”
The order also directs coordination among the departments of Justice, Defense and Homeland Security to “increase the provision of excess military and national security assets in local jurisdictions to assist State and local law enforcement.”
Earlier Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the executive order relating to law enforcement will “strengthen and unleash America’s law enforcement to pursue criminals and protect innocent citizens.”
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