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.
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.
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.”
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.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing on Jan. 15, 2025. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — A handful of Democratic U.S. senators sounded the alarm Friday after federal agents arrested a Wisconsin judge on charges she obstructed immigration officials from detaining a man in her courtroom, saying the arrest marked a new low in President Donald Trump’s treatment of the law.
Some congressional Democrats framed the FBI’s Friday morning arrest of Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan as a grave threat to the U.S. system of government, saying it was part of Trump’s effort to expand his own power and undermine the judiciary, with which the administration has become increasingly noncompliant.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer decried the judge’s arrest on social media late Friday afternoon as a “dangerous escalation.”
“There are no kings in America. Trump and (Attorney General Pam) Bondi can’t just decide to arrest sitting judges at will and threaten judges into submission,” wrote Schumer, a New York Democrat.
Trump administration officials, including Bondi, defended the arrest as legitimate. The FBI had been investigating Dugan after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers sought to detain an immigrant without legal authority to be in the country who was in her courtroom on a misdemeanor charge.
Bondi wrote on social media just after noon Eastern, “I can confirm that our @FBI agents just arrested Hannah Dugan — a county judge in Milwaukee — for allegedly helping an illegal alien avoid an arrest by @ICEgov. No one is above the law.”
Democrats object
Democrats in Washington who sounded their objections to the arrest Friday argued it subverted separation of powers.
Sen. Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, said Trump “continues to test the limits of our Constitution — this time by arresting a sitting judge for allegedly obstructing an immigration operation at the courthouse.”
In a statement, Durbin added that local courtrooms should be off limits to immigration enforcement agents.
“When immigration enforcement officials interfere with our criminal justice system, it undermines public safety, prevents victims and witnesses from coming forward, and often prevents those who committed crimes from facing justice in the United States,” Durbin wrote.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who represents Wisconsin, issued a statement shortly after news of the arrest, calling it “a gravely serious and drastic move.”
“In the United States we have a system of checks and balances and separation of powers for damn good reasons,” Baldwin said.
“The Trump Administration just arrested a sitting judge,” Arizona’s Ruben Gallego said in a social media post. “This is what happens in authoritarian countries. Stand up now — or lose the power to do so later. The administration must drop all charges and respect separation of powers.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who also sits on the Judiciary Committee, was more careful in his criticism but said Trump is “constantly challenging” separation of powers laid out in the Constitution.
“I don’t know what happened in Wisconsin, but amplifying this arrest as the Attorney General and FBI Director have done looks like part of a larger intimidation campaign against judges,” the Rhode Island Democrat said in a statement.
In a since-deleted post on Bluesky, Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey accused Trump of “using immigrants to justify an all-out assault on our democracy and rule of law.
“After openly defying a Supreme Court order, calling for judges to be impeached, and bullying and belittling judges, today his FBI director took the extreme step of ordering a sitting judge arrested,” Booker wrote, referring to the high court’s order that the Trump administration “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who is being held in El Salvador.
Spokespeople for Booker did not respond to a late Friday inquiry about why the post was taken down.
Trump officials back up arrest
Administration officials boasted online following the arrest.
FBI Director Kash Patel deleted a post on X in which he wrote Dugan “intentionally misdirected federal agents away” from Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, a 30-year-old Mexican immigrant accused of misdemeanor battery.
Trump posted a screenshot on his social media site from the conservative activist account “Libs of TikTok” that featured a photo of Dugan and celebrated her arrest.
White House Border Czar Tom Homan said that Dugan crossed a line in her opposition to the administration’s agenda.
“People can choose to support illegal immigration and not assist ICE in removing criminal illegal aliens from our communities, BUT DON’T CROSS THAT LINE,” he wrote on X. “If you actively impede our enforcement efforts or if you knowingly harbor or conceal illegal aliens from ICE you will be prosecuted. These actions are felonies. More to come…”
Trump vs. courts
Trump and administration officials have publicly attacked judges online, including calling for the impeachment of District Judge James Boasberg for the District of Columbia after he ordered immigration officials to halt deportation flights to El Salvador.
The administration allowed the flights to reach Central America, and is now at risk of being held in criminal contempt of court as a legal fight plays out.
The president’s verbal attacks on Boasberg prompted a rare rebuke from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts in mid-March.
And the administration has seemingly refused to do anything to facilitate the return of Maryland resident Abrego Garcia from a notorious El Salvador mega-prison, despite a Supreme Court order.
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