The E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse in Washington, D.C., home of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, pictured on July 14, 2025. (Photo by Jacob Fischler/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — A pair of federal court rulings over the Labor Day weekend invalidated aggressive actions the Trump administration had taken on immigration enforcement.
Judge Sparkle Sooknanan ordered an unknown number of planes carrying unaccompanied Guatemalan children temporarily halted on Sunday, two days after Judge Jia Cobb struck down a policy used to bypass judicial review in quick removals of migrants far from the southern border. Both judges are of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The rulings are part of an ongoing clash between President Donald Trump and the federal judiciary over the administration’s immigration crackdown. Judges have raised concerns that immigrants’ due process rights are being violated.
On Sunday, Sooknanan voiced concern for unaccompanied children’s due process rights, and temporarily halted planes carrying the minors from taking off.
The administration had planned to deport 10 children to their home country of Guatemala.
The case resembled one earlier this year in which a judge ordered planes carrying Venezuelan men removed under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 grounded. Despite the order, multiple planes landed in El Salvador where more than 200 Venezuelans were sent to a notorious mega-prison.
The 10 children, nationals of Guatemala, on the planes ranged in age from 10 to 17 and crossed the southern border alone. Attorneys in court filings stressed that the children had immigration cases pending before a judge and that the children expressed fear of returning to Guatemala.
‘Everyone would be at risk’
The order followed Cobb’s order Friday granting a request from immigration rights groups to halt the implementation of a new policy that expanded expedited removal.
The administration has expanded the use of expedited removal, which allows for the quick removal of migrants, as a pillar of its aim to carry out mass deportations of people without permanent legal status.
For decades, administrations have applied expedited removal to immigrants apprehended at the southern border who cannot prove they have been in the United States for more than two years. If they cannot produce that proof, they are subject to a fast-track deportation without appearing before an immigration judge.
The Trump administration in January expanded expedited removal to apply nationwide, rather than only within 100 miles of the southern border.
In Cobb’s Friday opinion, she wrote that the administration likely violated the rights of immigrants and approached a universal violation of the constitutional right to due process. Former President Joe Biden appointed Cobb in 2021.
“In defending this skimpy process, the Government makes a truly startling argument: that those who entered the country illegally are entitled to no process under the Fifth Amendment, but instead must accept whatever grace Congress affords them,” she wrote. “Were that right, not only noncitizens, but everyone would be at risk.”
Flights of Guatemalan minors grounded
In a flurry of action Sunday, Sooknanan temporarily halted the deportation of the children for 14 days while the case continues after an emergency request from the National Immigration Law Center, an advocacy group.
Attorneys from NILC argued that if the children were returned, they could face violence and the administration’s move to deport them violated immigration procedures for unaccompanied minors.
“Defendants are imminently planning to illegally transfer Plaintiffs to Immigration and Customs Enforcement … custody to put them on flights to Guatemala, where they may face abuse, neglect, persecution, or even torture, against their best interests,” the attorneys wrote in their emergency filing.
The Trump administration has identified up to 600 Guatemalan children to be removed under a pilot program created through an agreement with Guatemala, according to the court filings.
Sooknanan’s order applies to all roughly 2,000 Guatemalan unaccompanied children in the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Biden also appointed Sooknanan.
Carlos Ramíro Martínez, Guatemala’s minister of foreign affairs, told the New York Times in an interview that the initiative began when Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Guatemala in July. He added there is an agreement for Guatemala to accept more than 600 children.
DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
The State Department’s 2024 report on Guatemala details human rights concerns such as violence, and advises against traveling to the country.
The case involving the unaccompanied children was reassigned to judge Timothy James Kelly, whom Trump appointed in 2017.
Detail of a mural inside the Madison Labor Temple building celebrating unions and worker rights. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
“This fight is all of labor’s fight,” Kevin Gundlach, president of the South Central Federation of Labor, declared at a “solidarity dinner” for 43 immigrant workers who recently lost their jobs at a Monroe, Wisconsin cheese factory. “Even Wisconsinites who don’t know about the story, should know in a cheesemaking state we should support cheesemakers.”
The workers, some of whom labored for more than 20 years at W&W Dairy, were told in August they would have to submit to E-Verify screening and confirm their legal status in order to continue their employment after a new company, Kansas-based Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), bought the cheese plant. They walked off the job to protest, hoping DFA, which has a policy of subjecting new hires to E-Verify screening, would exempt them because of their many years of service. The company declined, but asked the workers to return to help train their replacements, one worker said.
The cheese plant employees I spoke with said they were still in shock, worried about supporting their families as they face the loss of pay and benefits at the end of the month.
Workers who pulled long shifts, kept the plant going through the pandemic and took pride in producing high quality, Mexican-style cheeses — queso fresco, queso blanco, quesadilla and panela — now feel betrayed.
Their goal is no longer to return to their old jobs. Instead, they are focused on getting severance pay from W&W Dairy, which is still technically their employer until Sept. 1 — Labor Day — when DFA assumes control of the plant.
On Thursday, Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of the immigrant workers’ rights group Voces de la Frontera, wrote to W&W president Franz Hofmeister to ask that the dairy show appreciation for its longtime workers by offering them a severance package. A Labor Day picnic organized by community members to support the workers, “would be an excellent opportunity to announce that the workers and the company have resolved their differences and that workers are being given some compensation,” Neumann-Ortiz wrote. “This would give the workers a chance to thank you publicly and provide some healing and closure.”
W&W’s success was propelled by its loyal workforce — fewer than 100 people who knew how to do multiple jobs in the plant and switched roles to keep things running smoothly. The quality of the product attracted a high-profile buyer.
“The growth trajectory for the Hispanic cheese market is more than three times that of the cheese category,” Ken Orf, president of DFA’s Cheese, Taste and Flavors Division, told the trade publication Cheese Reporter, in an article about the benefit to the company of its “strategic acquisition” of W&W, which puts it in a “stronger position for growth with this important dairy category.”
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Hispanic employees of the plant.
Bibiana Gonzalez, a child care provider and community leader in the Monroe area, said she liked the term “essential workers” when she first heard it. The W&W workers felt they were essential to their employer’s success, and put in long hours during the pandemic, when other people were staying home to protect their health. But “unfortunately, people confuse essential workers with workers who can be exploited,” Gonzalez said.
“They want to toss these workers in the street just for being immigrants,” said Voces de la Frontera organizer Pablo Rodriguez.
DFA wants to distance itself from any thorny political issues around immigration. In a statement to WKOW Channel 27 news, the company asserted it had a goal “to retain 100% of the W&W workforce,” but that “as part of the hiring process to become DFA employees, all W&W workers and other applicants were notified of the need to provide documents to complete both an I-9 form and the E-verify process.” Failing to produce the proper documents, unfortunately, would mean “DFA’s ability to offer employment was impacted.”
Using cold, passive bureaucratic language, DFA casts it as a regrettable accident that its E-Verify policy rendered nearly half the cheese plant’s employees ineligible to continue working there. But as a cooperative with 5,000 dairy farm members, it’s impossible DFA leadership is unfamiliar with its industry’s heavy reliance on workers who don’t have papers.
In Wisconsin, where DFA has 399 member farms and four dairy manufacturing plants, an estimated 70% of the dairy workforce is made up of immigrants who cannot get E-Verifiable legal work papers.
In dairy, as in other year-round, nonseasonal industries, immigrants who make up the majority of the work force are ineligible for U.S. work visas. Congress has simply failed to create a visa for year-round jobs in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, food service and other industries that rely on immigrant labor.
Far from being a drag on the economy, immigrant workers who lack legal authorization are heavily recruited by U.S. employers and “supercharge economic growth,” according to a new Center for Migration Studies research brief. The research brief shows that 8.5 million undocumented workers in the U.S. contribute an estimated $96.7 billion annually in federal, state and local taxes, “filling roles vital to critical industries.”
The brief also warns that mass deportations could cause critical workforce shortages. No one knows that better than Wisconsin dairy farmers, who would go out of business overnight if their mostly immigrant workforce was deported.
Union members who came out to support the W&W workers Tuesday night embraced the idea that all workers are in the same boat, are ill served by an authoritarian, bullying Trump administration, and will do better if they band together.
That’s the whole idea of solidarity: Working people need to unite to protect their common interests against the rich and powerful, who will run roughshod over all of us if they can. Expanding on that unifying message, Al Hudson, lay leader of the Union Presbyterian Church in Monroe, whose congregation supports the W&W workers, brought his social justice gospel to the union hall.
“We are proud to be a gathering place for the Green County Hispanic community,” Hudson said of his church. “We’re proud to do our part to be a Matthew 25 church,” he added, referring to the Bible verse in which Jesus calls on the faithful to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, care for the sick and visit those in prison. “This is what churches are supposed to do,” Hudson said. “I admire your courage,” he told the displaced W&W workers, pledging to continue to “walk with you and support you in your struggle as long as you want us there.”
The union members in the hall cheered. They applauded the W&W workers, they applauded speeches about solidarity among working people of every race and ethnic background. They seemed enlivened by the chance to do something to help.
The warm feeling of pulling together to resist the violent bigotry of the anti-immigrant Trump administration, recognizing the common struggle among all working people, was uplifting.
“Solidaridad!” shouted Gundlach, and the mostly gringo crowd of unionists shouted back, “Solidaridad!”
A couple hundred people rallied Aug. 25 in support of Kilmar Abrego Garcia outside the the George H. Fallon Federal Building, where the ICE detention facility is located in Baltimore. (Photo by William J. Ford/Maryland Matters)
WASHINGTON — Maryland federal Judge Paula Xinis barred the Trump administration Wednesday from re-deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was unlawfully removed earlier this year, until she makes a decision in an evidentiary hearing set for October.
Separately, Abrego Garcia filed a claim for asylum, a longshot bid to gain legal status as the Trump administration aims to expel him to Uganda after unlawfully deporting him to a notorious prison in El Salvador in March. Xinis has no jurisdiction over the asylum case, which will be handled by an immigration judge.
Xinis said at a Wednesday hearing that she would issue a temporary restraining order blocking immigration authorities from removing Abrego Garcia until she issues a decision following a hearing scheduled for Oct. 6 in the U.S. District Court of Maryland.
That hearing is on Abrego Garcia’s habeas corpus claim challenging his detention by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials this week.
Xinis said she would rule on the claim within 30 days of the early October hearing.
Xinis said she would include in her temporary restraining order that Abrego Garcia must be detained within 200 miles of the district courthouse in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Attorneys for Abrego Garcia are also challenging the administration’s efforts to expel Abrego Garcia to the East African nation of Uganda and are pushing for a credible fear interview, in an effort to stop his removal to a country where he could face harm.
Immigrants who are deported to a country that is not their home, known as a third country, are allowed to challenge their removal if they believe they will experience harm in that country.
Justice Department attorney Drew Ensign said during Wednesday’s hearing that he expects the credible fear process to take two weeks.
Ensign said that while the Department of Justice objects to Xinis’ temporary restraining order, the federal government is “committed” to keeping Abrego Garcia in the United States until she makes her decision on the habeas corpus claim.
Uganda or Costa Rica
Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported to El Salvador despite deportation protections granted in 2019, was brought back to the U.S. in June to face criminal charges lodged against him by the Department of Justice in May amid several court orders, including from the Supreme Court, that required the Trump administration to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return.
His case has brought a spotlight to President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown. Abrego Garcia has detailed the physical and psychological torture he experienced at the El Salvador megaprison.
Last week, attorneys for Abrego Garcia in his criminal case in Nashville, Tennessee, said in court filings that the Trump administration is trying to force Abrego Garcia to plead guilty to human smuggling charges by promising to remove him to Costa Rica if he does so, and threatening to deport him to Uganda if he refuses.
Costa Rica’s government has stated it will grant Abrego Garcia refugee status.
Abrego Garcia’s attorney in his Maryland case, Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, said Abrego Garcia is willing to be removed to Costa Rica but will not plead guilty to the charges in Tennessee.
Those charges stem from a traffic stop in 2022 in which Abrego Garcia was in a car with several people. No charges were filed at the time.
The Department of Justice has alleged that Abrego Garcia took part in a long-running conspiracy to smuggle immigrants without legal status across the United States. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Trump and other top officials such as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have accused Abrego Garcia of being a MS-13 gang leader, but no allegations have been proven in court.
Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. without legal authorization from his home country of El Salvador in 2011 at the age of 16. He applied for asylum in 2019, but authorities denied the claim because he did not apply for asylum within his first year in the U.S., which is the legal deadline for such claims.
Instead, an immigration judge gave him deportation protections, known as a withholding in place, because it was likely he would face gang violence if returned to his home country of El Salvador.
Federal immigration officials at the time didn’t object to the deportation protections and declined to find a third country of removal that would accept him and where he would not experience harm.
Brooke Rollins believes she is waging a new American Revolution, leading a crusade against Biblical darkness and guiding U.S. agriculture into a “golden age.”
In her first six months as the nation’s top agriculture official, Rollins has reshaped the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s focus — “more farmer, less climate,” she summarized. Her leadership will make farmers more prosperous than ever before, she proclaimed.
“This is making America and American agriculture great again,” she told Congress.
But her management has left many within USDA unmoored and frightened. Mass firings have purged scientists, whose discoveries underpin modern agriculture, from seeds to soil management. Indiscriminate terminations will likely deter younger, qualified candidates from joining the effort to address agriculture’s pressing challenges, such as adapting to climate change and containing animal diseases like bird flu.
Rollins-approved funding freezes and cancellations have squeezed small farmers and risked their trust. Rural communities could be kneecapped: Rollins has proposed cutting resources for broadband initiatives and Rural Development, the agency that invests in farmers’ communities.
The divestment of staff, science and sustainability programs at USDA isn’t just a budget cut; it could be a direct threat to the nation’s food system. Experts warn of far-reaching consequences: unsafe food for consumers, more invasive and economically damaging pests for farmers, and an agriculture industry forced to adapt to climate change with less scientific insight.
“We might see more farming in the dark, essentially,” said Michal Happ, a climate change and rural community expert at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
Investigate Midwest spoke with multiple agricultural experts and more than 30 current and former USDA employees to better understand Rollins’ leadership style, her impact on the department and the profound consequences her administration will have for farmers, rural families and consumers.
What emerged was a picture of a leader who has brought sweeping changes and largely embraced President Trump’s agenda of downsizing the federal government. However, Rollins has also been tasked with managing Trump policies that she has privately rebuked and cuts made before she assumed office.
Trump tapped Rollins to head the massive federal department at a crucial time for American agriculture. Farmers are grappling with changing weather patterns, shifting trade policies, and even internal administration critiques of pesticide use — a report from Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” commission, which Rollins applauded, slammed farms’ pesticide reliance.
Trump has praised Rollins’ performance. In mid-April, as an aside during a press conference, Trump thanked her for lowering egg prices. “Brooke Rollins, secretary of agriculture, did a great job,” he said. During his first term, she maneuvered into his inner circle and, as Politico reported, has quickly become “one of the most powerful conservatives in the country.”
Rollins has said her mission is to be the voice of farmers in Trump’s cabinet. She appears to have pull with the president, but questions remain about her influence over decisions affecting the USDA and its staff.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, appeared to wield significant control over department operations, at least until recently. It influenced everything from policy language to which USDA offices remain open, according to court records and Rollins’ hearing testimony.
In a statement to Investigate Midwest, the USDA rejected any characterization that Rollins was not solely responsible for department actions.
“The claims you cite are absurd and without merit,” it said. “Secretary Rollins was appointed by President Trump to lead the Department and to insinuate that anyone other than the Constitutionally directed cabinet officer is making the decisions at USDA is unwarranted.”
She’s also been sandwiched between Trump’s signature policy, an extreme stance on immigration, and the reality of agriculture’s labor force.
“We might see more farming in the dark, essentially.”
Michal Happ, a climate change and rural community expert at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
Because of immigration raids, some farms’ labor pools have been depleted, and, already, some fields have not been harvested. Farmers have pleaded for relief. In early June, Rollins pushed Trump to pause enforcement on farms, The New York Times reported. After the news broke, Rollins proclaimed she was in lockstep with Trump.
Raids on farms resumed days later, but Trump recently expressed support for giving farmers discretion over undocumented workers.
“Brooke Rollins brought it up, and she said, ‘So, we have a little problem. The farmers are losing a lot of people,’ and we figured it out, and we have some great stuff being written,” he said during a July 4 speech.
On July 8, Rollins said undocumented farmworkers would receive “no amnesty.”
Farming is inherently risky. Making a living depends on good weather and profitable markets. Farmers try to limit variables, but Rollins’ first months have added disorder into the food system, said Mike Lavender, a policy expert for the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition.
“All of it is this theme of creating needless uncertainty and confusion amongst people who are trying to do the exact opposite in order to be successful in their livelihoods, support their families and ultimately support their communities,” he said.
The USDA did not directly answer questions about Rollins’ tenure, and, in a statement, it said she was cleaning up a mess left by her predecessor, Tom Vilsack.
“Secretary Rollins is working to reorient USDA to put Farmers First and be more effective and efficient at serving the American people,” the department said. “President Biden and Secretary Vilsack left USDA in complete disarray, including hiring thousands of employees with no sustainable way to pay them.”
In congressional hearings, Rollins said the USDA, which has lost more than 15,000 employees, has enough staff to fulfill its mission. Trump’s desire to make new deals with trading partners — which is causing confusion and financial anxiety for farmers — will create stability for agricultural producers, Rollins has said.
“I do believe, with every fiber of my being, that this era of unlimited or unprecedented prosperity for the ag community is just around the corner,” Rollins told Congress in June. “I’m just really, really sure of that.”
Rollins has painted the present as being “strikingly similar” to the time of the American Revolution, a period she often invokes in speeches. She has also cast her leadership in Biblical terms, citing Romans 13:12, saying she wears an “armor of light” in her current position.
“There is just a lot of darkness — not with this White House or my current boss, President Trump, or our cabinet, but the government in general,” Rollins told Decision Magazine, a religious publication, during an interview last month.
The USDA did not answer when asked if Rollins views rank-and-file employees as part of the “darkness.” But her management of employees varies drastically from her two predecessors, Vilsack and Sonny Perdue, Trump’s first agriculture secretary.
Perdue was a veterinarian and, as governor of Georgia, had led a large bureaucracy, experience that translated into running a complex federal department in a “thoughtful, analytical way,” said Kevin Shea, a USDA employee for 45 years under Republican and Democrat administrations.
“The first Trump administration at USDA was run very professionally,” Shea said. Now, however, “the USDA political leadership seems to be particularly scornful of its career workforce.”
For instance, very little information filters down to employees. Leadership has not effectively communicated what it wants, so it’s been a “gradual process of learning what is and is not OK,” said Ethan Roberts, president of AFGE Local 3247, a union representing government employees, and a nine-year USDA employee.
Agency staff used to plan months or years ahead, but that’s difficult now because they don’t know if they’ll still have jobs or if the office will exist, said one current employee who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Her two predecessors regularly sent department-wide emails that communicated their goals and priorities, current and former employees said. Rollins seems to have a different audience in mind.
“She just posts on X what she’s doing,” said Laura Dodson, the vice president of AFGE Local 3403 and a longtime USDA employee. X, the social media company owned by Musk, requires an account to view posts. “It just seems everything’s coming from DOGE and whatever the White House is saying about federal employees.”
The first Trump administration also instituted funding freezes and reduced staff, including relocating USDA offices out of Washington, D.C. One of the affected agencies was the Economic Research Service, which provides insights into markets the industry relies on.
In 2019, Dodson and her colleagues were called into a conference room. If their job description was called, they would remain where they had established their lives. The others, the vast majority, would be relocated to Kansas City, Missouri. Employees started crying.
Despite that episode from Trump’s first term, Dodson said, the tone of his second stint is markedly different as DOGE, overseen by Musk until May, has wantonly carved up federal agencies.
“They still maintained a veneer of respectability. They were trying to do this for the greater good,” she said about the USDA under Perdue. “Now, with people like Elon Musk, it’s clear this is not the pursuit of efficiency. It’s the pursuit of cruelty.”
DOGE slashes a scared staff
Before Rollins was sworn in, DOGE and USDA’s new political appointees began slashing.
Budget officers received a flowchart instructing them to block any money from the Inflation Reduction Act or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, two major economic infusions during the Biden presidency, The New York Times reported. Judges have ruled the freezes illegal.
Officials, including new chief of staff Kailee Buller, submitted plans for mass firings to Musk’s quasi-governmental organization, court records show. DOGE thought it needed reworking. Then, on Feb. 13, Buller met with Noah Peters, a DOGE operative in the White House. Buller “shared her experiences terminating the employees ‘cause that process was underway at Agriculture,” Peters said.
Rollins took over that night, and, the next day, thousands received termination notices. When Congress pressed her on the mass firings, Rollins shifted responsibility. “That happened before I was sworn in,” she said.
While job cuts and funding freezes were pursued, there appeared to be little knowledge of the USDA’s work.
For instance, school nutrition researchers were told to flag any studies that included the word “class” — an attempt to discover funding for diversity, equity and inclusion, a Trump target, said one employee who asked for anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Another time, DOGE’s main liaison to the USDA, Gavin Kliger, requested that the word “tracking” be added to the list of words to flag in grants that could be terminated, according to an email included in a lawsuit.
“Tracking the exact carbon output of soybean yields does not provide a direct benefit to farmers,” he reasoned in an email to staff, “and we can reallocate that funding in a way that more directly benefits farmers.”
Kliger’s LinkedIn resume does not show any experience in agriculture. He graduated from the University of California-Berkeley in 2020 and has worked exclusively for tech and artificial intelligence companies. He has helped slash staff and funding at other agencies, including the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
It’s unclear how he came to this understanding about carbon tracking.
Carbon is essential to soil health, producing higher yields. Knowing how much carbon is escaping their soil can help farmers adopt better soil management techniques. This not only helps farmers grow more efficiently but helps keep the plant from warming. Soy industry groups have expressed the importance of tracking carbon footprints.
Also, under a Biden-era rule, measuring carbon output helps put money directly in farmers’ pockets — they can sell their output on carbon offset markets.
Despite this misguided reasoning, Kliger appears to have had considerable influence at the USDA.
In the same email, he said he wanted to surpass DOGE’s goal of cutting $120 million in climate-focused grants by a certain date. “I spoke with the Secretary tonight who was supportive of these initiatives – working on getting a memo formalized for her signature in parallel,” he wrote.
Above is an excerpt from an email exchange between USDA staff and DOGE’s main USDA liaison, Gavin Kliger, in which he said he wanted to surpass DOGE’s goal of cutting $120 million in climate-focused grants by a certain date.
Kliger did not respond to requests for comment to his USDA email address. The USDA did not respond when asked about the email or how much influence Kliger had.
“All decisions made at the USDA are at the direction of secretary Rollins to best fulfil (sic) president trumps (sic) agenda,” the department said.
Kliger appears to have moved on. The USDA said his access to the National Finance Center, which manages employee payroll, has been “deactivated due to lack of use. … We would refer you to” the Small Business Administration.
While voices with no agricultural experience have been elevated, those with expertise — USDA employees — have been pushed aside and silenced, current and former employees said.
One skirmish between DOGE and the USDA’s rank-and-file has involved the Trump administration’s return-to-office policies. Some Republican leaders and Musk have claimed that allowing employees to work remotely is a waste.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced remote work for staffers at the Farm Service Agency, which helps farmers access federal funding. As the year progressed, Perdue, the agriculture secretary at the time, considered calling workers back to the office.
However, an internal study found that employees had actually been more efficient, said Charles Dodson, a 30-year FSA veteran who retired late last year.
Despite that, Trump ordered remote workers back to offices when he retook the presidency. At the same time, DOGE began canceling leases of local offices around the country.
At a May hearing, members of Congress accused Rollins of being unaware that local FSA offices were being closed. Rollins did not deny the accusation. Then at a June hearing, she said the General Services Administration, a DOGE target, was behind the closures. (Some offices have since reopened.)
On the ground, the situation has caused confusion and consternation for USDA employees.
When one employee reported to a new office, they were told they weren’t on the list of transfers. How could they follow the order to report to an office if they weren’t allowed in? Another USDA employee, a researcher, was ordered to report to a Forest Service trailer in the woods. And another employee, according to NPR, was told to report to a shed where a boat was stored.
The USDA has also intimidated its workforce, current and former employees said.
According to Roberts, the department veteran and union representative, USDA scientists have been instructed to deflect questions from university researchers — their frequent collaborators — about the agency’s internal affairs.
“They’re being told to say those things for fear it looks like the USDA is silencing them,” he said, “which they are.”
Surveillance also has increased. While the government has used software to monitor employee emails for years, the Trump administration has altered it to detect emails sent to a personal or college account. As part of a leak investigation, one staffer was placed on administrative leave after emailing their personal account, even though it did not contain the leaked material officials were looking for.
The USDA did not respond to a question about the leak investigation.
Some employees have responded by doing only what is asked of them, not going above and beyond. Dodson, the retiree, recounted what a current staffer told him: “I’m afraid to do anything else. I just want to survive and not get fired.”
Navigating agriculture’s latest challenges
In May, after thousands had been forced to leave the USDA, Rollins reassured Congress the department had adequate staffing to perform its mission. For instance, she said, no one from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS — which includes veterinarians and staff battling invasive diseases and pests — had left.
They were “key, critical components,” she said.
The comment shocked APHIS employees. Two weeks earlier, several hundred employees who helped keep pests out of the U.S. accepted the administration’s deferred resignation offers, which would pay them to not work for months. (Some returned after the offers were rescinded.)
Overall, roughly 15% of APHIS’s 8,000 employees have departed following the administration’s attempts to cut headcount, according to DTN. That includes about 400 from the agency’s Plant Protection and Quarantine division, which keeps invasive species out of the U.S., and about 350 veterinarians, said Shea, the longtime USDA employee who was the agency’s leader under Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden.
The cuts will have a ripple effect, particularly during emergencies, he said. To respond, employees will be moved from their regular duties, leaving others to pick up the slack.
The lack of staff is a major obstacle, Shea said.
“There couldn’t be a worse time to lower our guard,” he said. “APHIS cannot do its job with that level of personnel. It simply cannot do it. I’ve never been more concerned about the agency’s ability to carry out its mission going forward.”
The USDA has implemented a hiring freeze, but in April it exempted APHIS. The agency has posted job listings online.
“Secretary Rollins will not compromise the critical work of the Department,” the USDA said. The exempted positions “carry out functions that are critical to the safety and security of the American people, our national forests, the inspection and safety of the Nation’s agriculture and food supply system.”
Another challenge Rollins has faced is trade, the lifeblood of U.S. agriculture.
When Trump returned to office, he generated chaos in the agricultural markets by starting a trade war and implementing higher tariffs. In response, Rollins has embarked on a global tour to establish new trade partners.
She has announced a few “Make Agriculture Great Again trade wins.” She recently proclaimed that Namibia, an African country, agreed to accept frozen poultry from the U.S. The Biden administration had opened the market after allaying the country’s concerns about bird flu. Also, she declared Costa Rica accepting U.S. dairy a win for Trump. An industry trade group said the “win has been several years in the making.”
Rollins has said repeatedly that the agricultural trade deficit — the U.S. imports more products from overseas than it exports — is bad for the country. The tariffs were intended to address the deficit, but the narrative hit a snag in early June.
Politico reported the USDA had delayed a regularly scheduled report because it showed Trump’s tariffs could exacerbate the trade deficit. Days later, Rollins defended the delay. “I want to be sure every piece of research we move out is the best, the best-cited, etc.,” she told Congress. (The hearing was about a week after news broke that the MAHA report, which Rollins supported, cited nonexistent studies.)
Perhaps the most pressing issue facing Rollins is helping the agriculture industry as it grapples with climate change, which is altering how farmers grow food and commodities. Rollins, however, has denied the planet is warming.
Her husband is an executive at an oil and gas company, and in a 2018 speech, she said “research of CO2 being a pollutant is just not valid,” according to Inside Climate News. More recently, she led the America First Policy Institute, which pushes Trump’s agenda. She employed another Trump loyalist, Carla Sands, who once said the idea of climate change is “Marxism to control humanity,” according to Politico.
In January, before Rollins was sworn in, USDA employees were directed to “unpublish any landing pages (on the USDA’s website) focused on climate change,” according to court records. Research involving climate change has also been effectively banned, current employees said. If studies include words such as “climate,” “clean energy,” “sustainable construction” or dozens of others, the research will not be funded.
Climate change is having profound effects on agriculture. For instance, the Corn Belt — considered the prime region for growing the valuable commodity used in everything from soft drinks to gasoline — is inching northward. In decades, instead of Iowa and Illinois, Minnesota and the Dakotas could be America’s breadbasket, researchers have predicted.
More recent research shows that, as the world keeps warming and farming gets harder, U.S. corn production could fall by 40% by century’s end.
If the USDA ignores climate issues, farmers could be struggling alone, said Happ, of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
“They want to adapt to what’s going on,” he said. “They want to still have their land there and steward it for the next generation or two. Without those resources, they’re going to just have to figure it out on their own.”
The USDA did not respond when asked about Rollins’ household’s financial stake in fossil fuels. At a congressional hearing, Rollins agreed with a representative who said sound policy follows sound science. The USDA did not respond when asked why the USDA was not following climate change science.
Promises of healthy food waylaid
In March, Rollins cancelled more than $1 billion in funding that paid small farmers to supply fresh meat and produce to schools and food banks. Supporters of the initiatives — named the Local Food for Schools and Child Care and Local Food Purchasing Assistance programs — said they helped local economies and supplied nutritious meals to growing kids.
In a Fox News appearance, Rollins argued the funding was non-essential because it was a COVID-era program. The funding has helped farmers in most states, according to the USDA’s website.
Nullifying those programs undercut another initiative of the Trump administration, the MAHA push to castigate processed foods and promote healthy products, said Debbie Friedman, with the Food Insight Group, which studies food system infrastructure. At the press conference releasing the MAHA report, Rollins referred to herself as a “MAHA mom.”
“While the MAHA concept is terrific,” said Friedman, specifically referencing its stance on improving the food supply, “the action steps they’re taking are the exact opposite. It’s all talk.”
Rollins has also overseen a divestment in food safety research.
The USDA has forced out 98 of 167 food safety scientists at the Agricultural Research Service, a department arm that studies how to prevent deadly pathogens, such as E. coli or Salmonella, from entering the food supply.
Foodborne illnesses could become more prevalent because the work the scientists were doing will likely just end, said Roberts, the union representative who works for the Agricultural Research Service.
“Who knows what we’ve lost? What discoveries or products that were going to be invented that we’ll just never see?” Roberts said. “We’ll be stuck with the tools we have now.”
A robust food safety system, with research and vigilant monitoring, is necessary to help prevent foodborne illnesses, which not only can hospitalize consumers but also have long-lasting health consequences, said Barbara Kowalcyk, a longtime food safety researcher who is now at George Washington University. In a 2013 study, Kowalcyk and her colleagues showed foodborne infections could lead to, among other conditions, chronic kidney disease, arthritis and cognitive deficits.
An example of science and government oversight working in concert to save lives stems from a deadly outbreak in the 1990s, she said. After eating undercooked hamburgers at Jack in the Box, more than 700 people fell ill and four children died.
The scandal put the USDA’s food safety system under an intense microscope, and the department changed how it protected America’s meat supply. Instead of eyeing and smelling a carcass, the USDA began testing for pathogens, a monumental task to implement.
The original testing procedure was first developed in the 1960s and refined over the decades. Since the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service began using the system — named Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point — cases of foodborne illness from beef have declined dramatically.
“Lots of effort went into that,” Kowalcyk said. “We don’t see the same level of outbreaks in ground beef that we used to.”
Rollins plans on altering the USDA’s, and the country’s, future through her actions. Cutting funding to farmers, axing scientists, instilling fear in remaining employees — it’s about changing the country’s course.
“It isn’t just about the next four years,” she told Breitbart in May. “It’s about the next 250 years.”
But it could all backfire on farmers, rural communities and consumers, said Lavender, with the national sustainable agriculture coalition.
“The draining of expertise at USDA,” he said, “whether that’s scientific expertise or just expertise of people who have been there for a period of time and have built up knowledge — it will ultimately come home to roost.”
Federal agents block people protesting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at a nearby licensed cannabis farm in Ventura County, California, on July 10, 2025. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A group of U.S. House Democrats on Tuesday blasted President Donald Trump’s administration for what they called “cruelty” and “lawlessness” in carrying out mass deportations of migrants without legal status.
At a forum at the U.S. Capitol, Democrats who sit on the House Homeland Security Committee and others rebuked the administration’s sweeping immigration crackdown and its impact on communities, bringing in prominent voices from immigration and legal advocacy groups and a U.S. Marine veteran who said his father was beaten by federal immigration officers.
Rep. Delia Ramirez, an Illinois Democrat, slammed the Department of Homeland Security, calling the agency “unaccountable.”
“They continue to break the law and bypass congressional authority to conceal the ways in which they are abusing (the) power of DHS to violate our rights, undermine due process and tear our communities apart,” she said.
“Under the Trump administration, DHS is an out-of-control, abusive terror force that disregards law, rejects accountability and tramples on the very foundations of our Constitution,” Ramirez added.
Rep. Troy Carter, a Louisiana Democrat and committee member, said “like many Americans, I’m deeply troubled by the cruel and profoundly un-American mass deportation agenda being undertaken by Donald Trump and his allies.”
“These harsh policies are not about public safety or border security — we have seen children torn from their parents, a flagrant disregard for basic due process protections and individuals targeted for exercising their First Amendment rights,” he said.
“Congress must uphold the rights of all people in the United States. We need immigration policy rooted in dignity, fairness and due process, not cruelty and authoritarianism.”
NPR reported Monday that DHS is preparing to use military bases in New Jersey and Indiana to detain immigrants who unlawfully entered the United States.
“What is happening right now is just plain wrong,” Rep. Seth Magaziner, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, said. “We’re all for immigration enforcement and smart border security, but the targeting of innocent people who are just trying to work hard and make a living, the targeting of the elderly, of the sick, of U.S. citizens, of students by an anonymous army of masked men is not who we are as a country.”
‘Violently attacked and detained’
Alejandro Barranco, a Marine veteran, said his father, an immigrant who does not have legal status, was “violently attacked and detained by federal immigration agents” in Orange County, California.
Barranco said his father, a landscaper, was working in June when masked men approached and quickly surrounded him and did not identify themselves or present any warrant.
He said his father was terrified and ran.
“They chased him through the parking lot and into a crowded street,” Barranco said. “They pointed guns at him, pepper-sprayed him. They tackled him to the ground and kicked him. They restrained and handcuffed him. They dragged him into an unmarked vehicle and pushed him into the back seat. As many have already seen, while several agents were holding him down, another beat him repeatedly in the neck and head area, over and over and over again.”
Barranco depicted the brutal conditions his father endured while in federal custody and said it’s been a nightmare for his family since his father was detained.
Barranco said that while his father was eventually released on bond, “the trauma that day and the brokenness of this system remains in our hearts, and we are still under a cloud.”
Jesse Franzblau, associate director of policy at the National Immigrant Justice Center, said ICE agents wearing masks with no identifying information is not proper, but “quite dangerous” and “puts everyone further at risk.”
“I mean, we’ve seen people impersonating ICE, wearing masks and saying that they’re ICE and then carrying out abuses against other people,” Franzblau said, adding that “it puts communities at more risk when you have masked agents, federal agents that should be identifying themselves, going into communities and carrying out sweeping operations like this.”
DHS response
In a statement shared with States Newsroom on Wednesday, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the department, said: “How many Americans have to die because of illegal immigration for Democrats to give a damn about actual American citizens?”
“Democrat politicians should stop defending criminal illegal aliens and exploiting law enforcement for their 15 minutes of fame and start working with President Trump and (Homeland Security) Secretary (Kristi) Noem to keep Americans safe.”
In a Tuesday press release, the department defended ICE, saying the agency has targeted the “worst of the worst” during immigration arrests.
To mark six months since Trump took office on Sunday, the department touted a long list of its actions, including on immigration enforcement and border security.
The agency described the list as “victories” in Trump’s and Noem’s “mission to secure the homeland and Make America Safe Again,” including record low numbers of illegal border crossings.
Essential immigrant workers and their families gather in front of the Federal Building in Milwaukee for the Day Without Immigrants call to action. (Photo | Isiah Holmes)
People who believe the call to action, Black Lives Matter, to be controversial and provocative should buckle up.
What we’ve been witnessing these last weeks has been a new call to action: Immigrant Lives Matter.
Yes, even undocumented immigrant lives matter.
Black Lives Matter stirred passionate backlash unlike anything I’ve seen since the 1960s.
Immigrant Lives Matter is now a cry to recognize the humanity of people who are suffering violent attacks after being demonized as “aliens.”
I’ve written on immigration as a reporter, columnist and editorial writer for decades. The most invective I’ve had directed my way has been about who I am as the son of immigrants.
“Go back to Mexico” was a common retort to things I wrote. Each time I’d chuckle to myself: “Hard to do since I’m from California.”
Yup, I’m not from Mexico. But my parents were. And they lived in this country without legal status until I was in grade school.
I’m quite familiar with immigrant life, although, thanks to the 14th Amendment (also under attack by the Trump administration), I’m a citizen.
I’ve seen up close what being afraid of deportation looks like. The fear that a family would be torn apart, loss of livelihood and loss of the country you chose to work in, pay taxes for, build a family in and the only one your children know. And, in my case as with many other immigrants and children of immigrants, the country in whose military you chose to serve.
That experience and those decades of writing on immigration taught me that among the hottest buttons around are those dealing with the border, particularly when people cross it who don’t look and talk like you.
Standard disclaimer: You don’t have to be a racist to be concerned about immigration and immigrants, but using terms such as invasion, infestation, vermin, criminals and threat to American identity and values is a big tell.
As is calling out the military to combat a non-existent foreign invasion.
Black Lives Matter speaks to the current plight of people whose ancestors were unwilling immigrants, packed into slave ships and brought here by force. Dehumanizing racism and the shocking mistreatment of Black citizens by police has dogged our nation from the beginning.
But even that call to action, after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, was roundly disparaged.
Wrap your head around that. Americans who have been around since the country’s founding and over whose slavery a country fought a bitter civil war are still not considered American enough to insist on being treated as Americans.
All that immigrants and those who stand in solidarity with them are asking is that the basic precepts of fairness, humanity and, importantly, due process extend to them as well.
Immigrants are in a vulnerable position. Demagoguing about invasion and infestation is just too tempting for nativists and opportunists who prey on prejudices for political gain.
Los Angeles has been in the news because of protests that the Trump administration has been trying very hard to depict as a violent conflagration. But the protests have been mostly peaceful by people reasonably objecting to ICE raids. The ICE targets are people who have worked here for years, raising U.S. citizen children and doing the work Americans won’t do.
Despite footage of “violent“ protesters cast as “invaders” faced by brave military troops, California’s governor and many others have noted that there was no widespread, destructive civil unrest, much less the foreign invasion that the demagogues claim justifies military involvement.
Be afraid. We need to stop underestimating the appeal of nativism. It’s real in this country.
But something happened after President Trump’s unwarranted use of the military in Los Angeles and in reaction to his military parade in Washington D.C. (lightly attended, to the president’s dismay).
The “No Kings” protests.
I saw them as solidarity with Immigrant Lives Matter.
Black lives will always matter. After the phrase was coined, some people insisted that it meant other lives mattered less.
Nonsense, then and now.
Immigrant lives matter, as with Black lives, as much as your life does. And if we don’t protect the lives of the people in the crosshairs now, we all could be next.
Senator Alex Padilla, D-Calif., speaks at a Biden-Harris campaign and DNC press conference on July 18, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Jim Vondruska/Getty Images)
Federal law enforcement officials forcibly removed and handcuffed U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla at a Thursday press conference in Los Angeles by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem amid multi-day protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
The scuffle between law enforcement, including an officer wearing a jacket with an FBI logo, and a United States senator represented a stark escalation of tensions after President Donald Trump ordered 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to LA. His action followed major protests sparked by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials ramping up immigration raids.
Before Padilla was physically removed, Noem said that the Trump administration would continue its immigration enforcement in LA.
“We are not going away,” Noem, the former governor of South Dakota, said. “We are staying here to liberate the city from the socialists and the burdensome leadership that this governor and that this mayor have placed on this country and what they have tried to insert into the city.”
Padilla, 52, a member of the Senate since 2021, when he was appointed to replace former Vice President Kamala Harris, and then elected in 2022, tried to ask Noem a question and was rushed by federal law enforcement.
“I’m Sen. Alex Padilla and I have questions for the secretary,” he said as four federal law enforcement officers grabbed him and shoved him to the ground. “Hands off.”
The DHS wrote on social media that U.S. Secret Service officers thought “he was an attacker and officers acted appropriately.”
DHS said that after the press conference, Noem and Padilla had a 15-minute meeting. His office did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.
In a statement, Padilla’s office said the California senator was in LA for congressional oversight into the federal government’s operations in LA and across California.
“He was in the federal building to receive a briefing with General Guillot and was listening to Secretary Noem’s press conference,” his office said, referring to General Gregory M. Guillot, commander of United States Northern Command.
“He tried to ask the Secretary a question, and was forcibly removed by federal agents, forced to the ground and handcuffed. He is not currently detained, and we are working to get additional information.”
The incident drew swift condemnation from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
“Watching this video sickened my stomach, the manhandling of a United States Senator, Senator Padilla,” Schumer wrote on social media. “We need immediate answers to what the hell went on.”
On the Senate floor, Schumer said the video of Padilla “reeks of totalitarianism.”
He called for a full investigation so that “this doesn’t happen again.”
“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, if this is how the Department of Homeland Security responds to a senator with a question, you can only imagine what they’re doing to farmworkers, to cooks, to day laborers out in the Los Angeles community,” Padilla said.
U.S. Sen. James Lankford, an Oklahoma Republican, speaks to reporters on Feb. 6, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Members of a Senate Homeland and Governmental Affairs Committee panel Tuesday probed witnesses about how the federal government can ensure public safety at major international sporting events such as the Olympics and World Cup.
The hearing came at the same time as protests in Los Angeles over the administration’s immigration crackdown and shortly after President Donald Trump announced his travel ban.
While athletes, coaches and other staff are exempt from the travel ban, it’s unclear how fans wanting to support their home countries will fare.
Nationals from 12 countries face travel bans – Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Iran is the only country from that list to qualify in the World Cup this year.
Citizens from seven countries have partial restrictions – Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
Senators, like the head of the panel, James Lankford, were concerned about visa wait times for international visitors wanting to attend the World Cup, which starts Thursday in Miami, Florida.
“While I’m confident there has been a lot of preparation, I am concerned we are getting a late start,” the Oklahoma Republican said.
Senators on the Border Management, Federal Workforce and Regulatory Affairs Subcommittee also raised concerns about drones and said local and federal partnerships can help in hosting sporting events to avoid terrorism threats, such as the New Year’s Day attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, Louisiana.
One of the witnesses, Gina Ligon, leads the Department of Homeland Security’s Academic Center of Excellence for Counterterrorism Research at the University of Nebraska. She said the attacker in New Orleans used artificial intelligence through Meta smart glasses to scope out the location before the attack that killed 14 people and injured dozens.
“The threats we observed in the New Orleans attack remain a very real concern that needs significant planning and resourcing given the spread of crowds before, during, and after these events,” she said.
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, the top Democrat on the panel, said hosting international sporting events is “an incredible opportunity to show the best of America to visitors.”
Los Angeles and the Olympics
Two GOP senators, Ashley Moody of Florida and Bernie Moreno of Ohio, questioned how LA would be capable of handling the Olympics in 2028, given the ongoing protests sparked after federal immigration officials raided several Home Depots across Los Angeles looking for people in the country without legal authorization.
In response, Trump has deployed 4,000 National Guard troops – without California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s authority – and 700 Marines to LA.
One of the witnesses, CEO of the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games Reynold Hoover, said local and state officials in California were capable of handling the Olympics and working with the federal government for security measures.
“There’s no place in the world like LA to host the world’s largest Olympics ever,” Hoover said. “I am confident, come July 14 of 2028, when we do the opening ceremony in the Coliseum and the stadium in Inglewood, the world will be watching and see America at its best.”
Hoover said that hosting the Olympics will be the equivalent of holding seven Superbowls for 30 days straight with more than 11,000 Olympic athletes and more than 4,400 paralympic athletes.
Drones and the Olympics
Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Fetterman raised concerns about drones getting too close to sporting events.
Hassan said while the federal government has taken steps to address private drones, she asked Hoover how he was preparing to address any drone issues for the 2028 Olympics.
Hoover said that “tools to include counter (unmanned aircraft systems) drone technology remain key priorities for our ongoing collaboration with our federal, state and local partners.” He added that coordinating with the Secret Service has been helpful in dealing with unmanned drones.
Ligon said she has seen drones being used near global sporting events.
“Malign actors can now more easily acquire, build, or customize drones at lower costs, with extended ranges, higher speeds, and greater payload capacities,” she said.
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