Ariana Figueroa, States Newsroom

WASHINGTON — Congress’ failure to pass a short-term government funding bill before midnight Tuesday will lead to the first shutdown in nearly seven years and give President Donald Trump broad authority to determine what federal operations keep running — which will have a huge impact on the government, its employees, states, and Americans.

A funding lapse this year would have a considerably wider effect than the 35-day one that took place during Trump’s first term and could last longer, given heightened political tensions.

The last shutdown didn’t affect the departments of Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Labor, and Veterans Affairs, since Congress had approved those agencies’ full-year funding bills.

Lawmakers had also enacted the Legislative Branch appropriations bill, exempting Capitol Hill from any repercussions.

That isn’t the case this time around since none of the dozen government spending bills have become law. That means nearly every corner of the federal government will feel the pain in some way if a compromise isn’t reached by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.

States Newsroom’s Washington, D.C. Bureau offers you a quick guide to what could happen if Republicans and Democrats don’t broker an agreement in time.

How does the White House budget office determine what government operations are essential during a shutdown?

Generally, federal programs that include the preservation of life or property as well as those addressing national security, continue during a shutdown, while all other activities are supposed to cease until a funding bill becomes law.

But the president holds expansive power to determine what activities within the executive branch are essential and which aren’t, making the effects of a shutdown hard to pinpoint unless the Trump administration shares that information publicly.

Presidential administrations have traditionally posted contingency plans on the White House budget office’s website, detailing how each agency would shut down — explaining which employees are exempt and need to keep working, and which are furloughed.

That appears to have changed this year. The web page that would normally host dozens of contingency plans remained blank until late September, when the White House budget office posted that a 940-page document released in August calls for the plans to be “hosted solely on each agency’s website.”

Only a few departments had plans from this year posted on their websites as of Friday afternoon.

The White House budget office expects agencies to develop Reduction in Force plans as part of their shutdown preparation, signaling a prolonged funding lapse will include mass firings and layoffs.

While the two-page memo doesn’t detail which agencies would be most affected, it says layoffs will apply to programs, projects, or activities that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.”

Trump will be paid during a shutdown since Article II, Section 1, Clause 7 of the Constitution prevents the president’s salary from being increased or decreased during the current term.

No one else in the executive branch — including Cabinet secretaries, more than 2 million civilian employees and over 1 million active duty military personnel — will receive their paycheck until after the shutdown ends.

Are federal courts exempt from a shutdown since they’re a separate branch of government?

The Supreme Court will continue to conduct normal operations in the event of a shutdown, according to its Public Information Office.

The office said the court “will rely on permanent funds not subject to annual approval, as it has in the past, to maintain operations through the duration of short-term lapses of annual appropriations,” in a statement shared with States Newsroom.

As for any impact on lower federal courts, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said the federal judiciary was still assessing the fiscal 2026 outlook and had no comment.

The office serves as the central support arm of the federal judiciary.

During the last government shutdown from late 2018 into early 2019, federal courts remained open using court fee balances and “no-year” funds, which are available for an indefinite period.

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts has said that if those funds run out, they would operate under the terms of the Anti-Deficiency Act, which “allows work to continue during a lapse in appropriations if it is necessary to support the exercise of Article III judicial powers.”

Supreme Court justices and appointed federal judges continue to get paid during a government shutdown, as Article III of the Constitution says the judges’ compensation “shall not be diminished” during their term.

What happens to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid?

The three programs exist largely outside of the annual appropriations process, since lawmakers categorized them as “mandatory spending.”

This means Social Security checks, as well as reimbursements to health care providers for Medicare and Medicaid services, should continue as normal.

One possible hitch is that the salaries for people who run those programs are covered by annual appropriations bills, so there could be some staffing problems for the Social Security Administration and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, depending on their contingency plans.

The first Trump administration’s shutdown guidance for the Social Security Administration showed 54,000 of 63,000 employees at that agency would have kept working. The CMS plan from 2020 shows that it intended to keep about 50% of its employees working in the event of a shutdown. Neither had a current plan as of Friday.

Will the Department of Veterans Affairs be able to keep providing health care and benefits?

Veterans can expect health care to continue uninterrupted at VA medical centers and outpatient clinics in the event of a shutdown. Vets would also continue to receive benefits, including compensation, pension, education, and housing, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs contingency planning for a funding lapse that is currently published on the department’s website. It’s unclear if the plan will be the one the Trump administration puts into action.

But a shutdown would affect other VA services. For example, the GI Bill hotline would close, and all in-person and virtual career counseling and transition assistance services would be unavailable.

Additionally, all regional VA benefits offices would shutter until Congress agreed to fund the government. The closures would include the Manila Regional Office in the Philippines that serves veterans in the Pacific region.

All department public outreach to veterans would also cease.

Will Hubbard, spokesperson for Veterans Education Success, said his advocacy organization is bracing for increased phone calls and emails from veterans who would normally call the GI Bill hotline.

“Questions are going to come up, veterans are going to be looking for answers, and they’re not going to be able to call like they would be able to normally, that’s going to be a big problem,” Hubbard said.

“Most of the benefits that people are going to be most concerned about will not be affected, but the ones that do get affected, for the people that that hits, I mean, it’s going to matter a lot to them. It’s going to change the direction of their planning, and potentially the direction of their life,” Hubbard said.

The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Office of Management and Budget did not respond to a request for current VA shutdown guidance.

What happens to immigration enforcement and immigration courts?

As the Trump administration continues with its aggressive immigration tactics in cities with high immigrant populations, that enforcement is likely to continue during a government shutdown, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s March guidance for operating in a government shutdown.

Immigration-related fees will continue, such as for processing visas and applications from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

And DHS expects nearly all of its U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement employees to be exempt — 17,500 out of 20,500 — and continue working without pay amid a government shutdown.

That means that ICE officers will continue to arrest, detain, and remove from the country immigrants without legal status. DHS is currently concentrating immigration enforcement efforts in Chicago, known as “Operation Midway Blitz.”

Other employees within DHS, such as those in the Transportation Security Administration, will also be retained during a government shutdown. There are about 58,000 TSA employees who would be exempt and continue to work without pay in airports across the country.

DHS did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for a contingency plan if there is a government shutdown.

Separately, a shutdown would also burden the overwhelmed immigration court system that is housed within the Department of Justice. It would lead to canceling or rescheduling court cases, when there is already a backlog of 3.4 million cases.

The only exceptions are immigration courts that are located within Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention centers, but most cases would need to be rescheduled. The partial government shutdown that began in December 2018 caused nearly 43,000 court cases to be canceled, according to a report by Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC.

And 28 states have an immigration court, requiring some immigrants to travel hundreds or thousands of miles for their appointment.

States that do not have an immigration court include Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Will people be able to visit national parks or use public lands during a shutdown?

Probably, but that may be bad for parks’ long-term health.

During the 2018-2019 shutdown, the first Trump administration kept parks open, with skeleton staffs across the country struggling to maintain National Park Service facilities.

Theresa Pierno, the president and CEO of the advocacy group National Parks Conservation Association, said in a Sept. 23 statement that the last shutdown devastated areas of some parks.

“Americans watched helplessly as Joshua Trees were cut down, park buildings were vandalized, prehistoric petroglyphs were defaced, trash overflowed leading to wildlife impacts, and human waste piled up,” she wrote. “Visitor safety and irreplaceable natural and cultural resources were put at serious risk. We cannot allow this to happen again.”

The National Park Service’s latest contingency plan was published in March 2024, during President Joe Biden’s administration. It calls for at least some closures during a shutdown, though the document says the response will differ from park to park.

Restricting access to parks is difficult due to their physical characteristics, the document said, adding that staffing would generally be maintained at a minimum to allow visitors. However, some areas that are regularly closed could be locked up for the duration of a shutdown.

But that contingency plan is likely to change before Tuesday, spokespeople for the Park Service and the Interior Department, which oversees NPS, said Sept. 25.

“The lapse in funding plans on our website is from 2024,” an email from the NPS office of public affairs said. “They are currently being reviewed and updated.”

Hunters and others seeking to use public lands maintained by Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, which is overseen by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, will likely be able to continue to do so, though they may have to make alternative plans if they’d planned to use facilities such as campgrounds.

Land Tawney, the co-chair of the advocacy group American Hunters and Anglers, said campgrounds, toilets, and facilities that require staffing would be inaccessible, but most public lands would remain available.

“Those lands are kind of open and they’re just unmanned, I would say, and that’s not really gonna change much,” he said. “If you’re staying in a campground, you’ve got to figure something else out.”

As with national parks, access to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refuges and other hunting and fishing sites will differ from site to site, Tawney said. The Fish and Wildlife Service doesn’t require permits for hunting on its lands, but access to some refuges is determined by a staff-run lottery drawing. If those drawings can’t be held, access to those sites will be limited, Tawney said.

What happens to the Internal Revenue Service?

How the Internal Revenue Service would operate during a government shutdown remains unclear.

When Congress teetered on letting funding run out in March, the nation’s revenue collection agency released a contingency plan to continue full operations during the height of tax filing season.

The IRS planned to use funds allocated in the 2022 budget reconciliation law to keep its roughly 95,000 employees processing returns and refunds, answering the phones, and pursuing audits.

Ultimately, Congress agreed on a stopgap funding bill to avoid a March shutdown, but much has changed since then.

The new tax and spending law, signed by Trump on July 4 and often referred to as the “one big beautiful bill,” made major changes to the U.S. tax code.

Additionally, the agency, which processes roughly 180 million income tax returns per year, has lost about a quarter of its workforce since January. Top leadership has also turned over six times in 2025.

Rachel Snyderman, of the Bipartisan Policy Center, said workforce reductions combined with a string of leadership changes could factor into how the agency would operate during a funding lapse.

“It’s really difficult to understand both what the status of the agency would be if the government were to shut down in less than a week, and also the impacts that a prolonged shutdown could have on taxpayer services and taxpayers at large,” said Snyderman, the think tank’s managing director of economic policy.

Do federal employees get back pay after a shutdown ends?

According to the Office of Personnel Management — the executive branch’s chief human resources agency — “after the lapse in appropriations has ended, employees who were furloughed as a result of the lapse will receive retroactive pay for those furlough periods.”

The Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 requires furloughed government employees to receive back pay as a result of a government shutdown.

That law does not apply to federal contractors, who face uncertainty in getting paid during a shutdown.

What role does Congress have during a shutdown?

The House and Senate must approve a stopgap spending bill or all twelve full-year appropriations bills to end a shutdown, a feat that requires the support of at least some Democrats to get past the upper chamber’s 60-vote legislative filibuster.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., control their respective chambers’ calendars as well as the floor schedule, so they could keep holding votes on the stopgap bill Democrats have already rejected or try to pass individual bills to alleviate the impacts on certain agencies.

Neither Johnson nor Thune has yet to suggest bipartisan negotiations with Democratic leaders about funding the government. And while they are open to discussions about extending the enhanced tax credits for people who buy their health insurance from the Affordable Care Act Marketplace, they don’t want that decision connected to the funding debate.

Democratic leaders have said repeatedly that Republicans shouldn’t expect them to vote for legislation they had no say in drafting, especially with a health care cliff for millions of Americans coming at the end of the year.

Members of Congress will receive their paychecks regardless of how long a shutdown lasts, but the people who work for them would only receive their salaries after it ends.

Lawmakers must be paid under language in Article I, Section 6, Clause 1 of the Constitution as well as the 27th Amendment, which bars members of Congress from changing their salaries during the current session.

Lawmakers have discretion to decide which of their staff members continue working during a shutdown and which are furloughed.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Capitol Police, which is tasked with protecting members amid a sharp rise in political violence, said a shutdown “would not affect the security of the Capitol Complex.”

“Our officers, and the professional staff who perform or support emergency functions, would still report to work,” the spokesperson said. “Employees who are not required for emergency functions would be furloughed until funding is available.”

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

WASHINGTON — A San Francisco federal court Friday blocked the Trump administration from ending temporary protections for hundreds of thousands of nationals from Venezuela and Haiti.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Edward Chen of the Northern District of California comes as the Department of Homeland Security Friday filed a notice ending Temporary Protected Status by Nov. 7 for a group of 250,000 Venezuelans who were granted deportation protections in 2021 by President Donald Trump.

Chen found that DHS Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to undo extended protections for Venezuelans was baseless and preordained for the “purpose of expediting termination of Venezuela’s TPS.”

“DHS began drafting the decision to vacate within days after President Trump began his second administration,” Chen said. “There is no indication that the Secretary or DHS consulted any other government agencies or conducted an internal evaluation as part of this process.”

Chen said Noem’s decision to end TPS for Haiti “was not materially different from that carried out for Venezuela.”

DHS to appeal

In a statement to States Newsroom, a DHS spokesperson said the agency will appeal the decision.

“While this order delays justice, Secretary Noem will use every legal option at the Department’s disposal to end this chaos and prioritize the safety of Americans,” the spokesperson said.

Former President Joe Biden granted TPS holders from Venezuela protections until October 2026 and protections until February 2026 for holders from Haiti.

In Friday’s decision, the judge said decisions on TPS have been carefully considered in the past.

“For 35 years, the TPS statute has been faithfully executed by presidential administrations from both parties, affording relief based on the best available information obtained by the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”) in consultation with the State Department and other agencies, a process that involves careful study and analysis. Until now,” Chen said.

TPS is granted when a national’s home country is deemed too dangerous to return to, for reasons such as violence, political instability or extreme natural disasters.

The Trump administration has moved to end that status, which protects immigrants from deportation and grants work permits, as it aims to limit legal pathways in its immigration crackdown. Trump tried to end TPS for Haiti during his first term, but was blocked by the courts.

“This case arose from action taken post haste by the current DHS Secretary, Kristi Noem, to revoke the legal status of Venezuelan and Haitian TPS holders, sending them back to conditions that are so dangerous that even the State Department advises against travel to their home countries,” said Chen, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama.

900,000 people with legal protections

More than 600,000 Venezuelans have TPS after arriving in the United States in 2021 and 2023. More than 300,000 Haitians have TPS, which was granted after a catastrophic earthquake in 2010.

Chen said that while the Supreme Court in May allowed the Trump administration to continue with removing protections for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, he argued the justices did not make a decision on the merits of the case.

“The Supreme Court’s order did not bar this Court from adjudicating the case on the merits and entering a final judgement issuing relief under… the (Administrative Procedure Act),” Chen wrote.

An appeals court last week ruled in a separate but related case regarding TPS for Venezuelans that deemed the Trump administration likely acted unlawfully in ending the protected status for those immigrants.

Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.

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 on 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 on 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 10 children on the planes were taken off and put back into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to a status update filed Monday by NILC lawyers.

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 that 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.

Wisconsin Examiner is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com.

Appeals court lets Trump end temporary legal protections for 60,000 migrants

by Ariana Figueroa, Daily Montanan
August 21, 2025

WASHINGTON — An appeals court late Wednesday said it will allow the Trump administration, for now, to move forward with ending temporary protections for 60,000 immigrants from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.

It means that Nepali immigrants with Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, will lose their legal status – including work permits and deportation protections – immediately. Honduran and Nicaraguan holders will lose their status by Sept. 8.

The judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals — Michael Daly Hawkins, Consuelo M. Callahan and Eric D. Miller — did not give a reason for their decision. Former President Bill Clinton nominated Hawkins, former President George W. Bush nominated Callahan and President Donald Trump nominated Miller in his first term.

Wednesday’s decision pauses a late July ruling from California District Judge Trina Thompson that found Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s decision to end deportation protections for those nationals to be rooted in racism.

Instead, Thompson extended TPS for nationals from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua until Nov. 18 while the case proceeded through the courts.

“The freedom to live fearlessly, the opportunity of liberty, and the American dream. That is all Plaintiffs seek,” Thompson wrote in her 37-page ruling. “Instead, they are told to atone for their race, leave because of their names, and purify their blood. The Court disagrees.”

As the Trump administration aims to carry out its plans of mass deportation of immigrants in the country without legal authorization, DHS has also moved to end the temporary legal status many immigrants have held.

Noem has acted to halt TPS for nationals from Haiti and Venezuela and end humanitarian protections for those from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The Supreme Court has allowed, for now, many of those moves by the Trump administration.

DHS praises decision

DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin in a statement called the decision from the appeals court a victory for the Trump administration.

“TPS was never meant to be a de facto asylum system, yet that is how previous administrations have used it for decades while allowing hundreds of thousands of foreigners into the country without proper vetting,” McLaughlin said. “This unanimous decision will help restore integrity to our immigration system to keep our homeland and its people safe.”

Certain nationals are granted TPS because their home country is deemed too dangerous to return to due to war, disaster or other unstable conditions.

Immigrants who are granted TPS go through vetting by DHS, including a background check, and have to reapply roughly every 18 months to keep work permits and have deportation protections. A misdemeanor could result in the loss of TPS status for an immigrant.

‘Fear and uncertainty’

“I am heartbroken by the court’s decision,” Sandhya Lama, a TPS holder from Nepal who is a plaintiff in the case, said in a statement.

“I’ve lived in the U.S. for years, and my kids are U.S. citizens and have never even been to Nepal. This ruling leaves us and thousands of other TPS families in fear and uncertainty,” Lama continued.

Many immigrants are on TPS for lengthy periods due to their home country’s condition. Those from Nepal had TPS for more than 10 years and those nationals from Honduras and Nicaragua were on TPS for more than 26 years, attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union, which is one of the groups that filed the suit, said.

“This administration’s attack on TPS is part of a concerted campaign to deprive noncitizens of any legal status,” Emi MacLean, an attorney at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California said in a statement. “(Wednesday’s) ruling is a devastating setback, but it is not the end of this fight. Humanitarian protection–TPS–means something and cannot be decimated so easily.”

Organizations that filed the suit include the ACLU Foundations of Northern California and Southern California, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law and the Haitian Bridge Alliance.

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem ended temporary protections Monday for nationals from Nicaragua and Honduras, opening up roughly 76,000 people to deportations by early September.

The move is the latest effort by President Donald Trump’s administration to wind down legal statuses, such as Temporary Protected Status, amid an immigration crackdown and pledge to carry out mass deportations.

So far, the Trump administration has moved to end legal statuses, including work authorizations and deportation protections, for more than half a million immigrants.

TPS has been used since the 1990s and is granted to nationals from countries deemed too dangerous to return to due to violence, natural disasters, or other unstable conditions.

Roughly 72,000 Hondurans and 4,000 Nicaraguans had temporary protections since 1999 following Hurricane Mitch, a Category 5 storm that destroyed parts of Central America and killed more than 10,000 people.

“Temporary Protected Status was never meant to last a quarter of a century,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

Noem determined that conditions in Nicaragua and Honduras had improved and TPS for the two countries is no longer needed, DHS said.

In late June, Noem traveled to Honduras, where she met with President Xiomara Castro de Zelaya regarding the repatriation of Hondurans from the U.S.

“It is clear that the Government of Honduras has taken all of the necessary steps to overcome the impacts of Hurricane Mitch, almost 27 years ago,” Noem said Monday. “Honduran citizens can safely return home, and DHS is here to help facilitate their voluntary return.”

Noem has also ended TPS for nationals of Afghanistan, Cameroon, Haiti, Nepal, and Venezuela.

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice, in an unusual move, has filed a lawsuit against all the judges in the federal court in Maryland in an attempt to block the court’s two-day pause on deporting immigrants who challenge their detention in the state.

The action by the Trump administration represents the DOJ’s latest clash with the judicial branch, and one that may be repeated in other states. Holds on deportations have slowed the administration’s aggressive plans for mass deportation of people without permanent legal status, on the grounds of due process.

“Every unlawful order entered by the district courts robs the Executive Branch of its most scarce resource: time to put its policies into effect,” according to the complaint. “In the process, such orders diminish the votes of the citizens who elected the head of the Executive Branch.”

The complaint by DOJ argued that a standing order from Chief Judge George Russell of the District Court of Maryland is “nothing more than a particularly egregious example of judicial overreach interfering with Executive Branch prerogatives—and thus undermining the democratic process.”

In late May, Russell signed a standing order to halt deportations for two days in an effort to accommodate the sudden high volume of habeas corpus claims filed outside of normal court business hours. A habeas corpus claim allows immigrants to challenge their detention.

The Trump administration argues that the order stymies federal immigration enforcement and acts as a preliminary injunction or temporary retraining order without meeting the threshold and is therefore unlawful.

“Inconvenience to the Court is not a basis to enter an injunction, and filings outside normal business hours, scheduling difficulties, and the possibility of hurried and frustrating hearings are not irreparable harms,” according to the complaint.

The Department of Justice has also asked that the judges recuse themselves from the case, and that either the 4th Circuit hear the case or a judge randomly selected from another district.

Abrego Garcia case

The Maryland court in Greenbelt has halted several immigration-related moves by the Trump administration, with the most high-profile case handled by Judge Paula Xinis, who ordered the return of the wrongfully deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia who was sent to a prison in El Salvador.

The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled the Trump administration must facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia. The Maryland man was brought back earlier this month, but to face federal charges on human smuggling that were filed after he was wrongfully deported and courts ordered his return.

The Maryland case is still ongoing, as Xinis is allowing discovery to determine if the Trump administration refused to comply with her order to return Abrego Garcia.

Another judge, Theodore David Chuang, in February partly granted a request from Quakers and other religious groups to limit the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s authority to conduct immigration enforcement in houses of worship.

A Rhode Island federal judge seemed likely Wednesday to block the U.S. Department of Transportation’s move to yank billions in congressional funding for bridges, roads and airport projects if Democrat-led states do not partake in federal immigration enforcement.

U.S. District Judge John James McConnell Jr.during a hearing pressed acting U.S. Attorney Sara Miron Bloom on how the Transportation Department could have power over funding that was approved by Congress, saying federal agencies “only have appropriations power given by Congress.”

“That’s how the Constitution works,” he said. “Where does the secretary get the power and authority to impose immigration conditions on transportation funding?”

The suit brought by 20 Democratic state attorneys general challenges an April directive from Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former House member from Wisconsin, that requires states to cooperate in federal immigration enforcement in order to receive federal grants already approved by Congress.

“Defendents seek to hold hostage tens of billions of dollars of critical transportation funding in order to force the plaintiff states to become mere arms of the federal government’s immigration enforcement policies,” Delbert Tran of the California Department of Justice, who argued on behalf of the states, said.

Arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, Bloom said that Duffy’s letter simply directs the states to follow federal immigration law.

McConnell, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2011, said that while the states could interpret it that way, the Trump administration has gone after so-called sanctuary cities and targeted them for not taking the same aggressive immigration enforcement as the administration.

The judge said Bloom’s argument expressed a “very different” interpretation of the directive than how the administration has described it publicly. He also noted President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have “railed on … the issues that arise from sanctuary cities.”

Trump this week directed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to target Chicago, Los Angeles and New York — three major Democrat-led cities that have policies to not aid in immigration enforcement.

McConnell said he would make a decision whether to issue a preliminary injunction before Friday. The preliminary injunction would be tailored to the states that brought the suit and would not have a nationwide effect.

The states that brought the suit are California, Illinois, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Maryland, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin.

Undermines Congress

Tran said the Department of Transportation’s directive is not only arbitrary and capricious, but undermines congressional authority because Congress appropriated more than $100 billion for transportation projects to the states.

Cutting off funding would have disastrous consequences, the states have argued.

“More cars, planes, and trains will crash, and more people will die as a result, if Defendants cut off federal funding to Plaintiff States,” according to the brief from the states.

Transportation security and immigration

Bloom defended Duffy’s letter, saying it listed actions that would impede federal law enforcement and justified withholding of funds because “such actions compromise the safety and security of the transportation systems supported by DOT financial assistance.”

McConnell said that didn’t answer his question about the secretary’s authority to withhold congressionally appropriated funding.

“It seems to me that the secretary is saying that a failure to comply with immigration conditions is relevant to the safety and security of the transportation system,” Bloom said.

McConnell seemed skeptical of that argument.

“Under that rationale, does the secretary of the Department of Transportation have the authority to impose a condition on federal highway funds that prohibit a state that has legalized abortion from seeking a federal grant?” he asked.

Bloom said that question was beyond her directive from the Department of Transportation to address in her arguments to the court.

“I understand your question,” she said. “All I think I can say is that here the secretary has, in his statement, set out a rationale for why this is relevant to DOT funding.”

Tran said that the “crux of this case is” that the Trump administration is trying “to enforce other laws that do not apply to these grants,” by requiring states to partake in immigration enforcement.

“It’s beyond their statutory authority,” he argued.

Trump’s proof of citizenship elections order blocked for now in federal court

by Ariana Figueroa, Daily Montanan
June 13, 2025

WASHINGTON — A Massachusetts federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring states to mandate voters in federal elections provide documents proving their citizenship, ruling the measure would cause a significant burden to states and potentially harm voters.

U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper issued a preliminary injunction stopping the order from going into effect while the case is pending.

“There is no dispute (nor could there be) that U.S. citizenship is required to vote in federal elections and the federal voter registration forms require attestation of citizenship,” Casper wrote in her order.

“The issue here is whether the President can require documentary proof of citizenship where the authority for election requirements is in the hands of Congress, its statutes … do not require it, and the statutorily created (Election Assistance Commission) is required to go through a notice and comment period and consult with the States before implementing any changes to the federal forms for voter registration,” Casper, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama, continued.

Democratic attorneys general in 19 states brought the suit in U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts after the president signed the order in March.

The order directed the federal Election Assistance Commission, which distributes grants to states, within 30 days to start requiring people registering to vote to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport or state-issued identification that indicates citizenship.

Harm to voters

In her decision to grant the preliminary injunction, Casper said the states had shown that without a pause on the executive order, “citizens will be disenfranchised.”

“The States have also credibly attested that the challenged requirements could create chaos and confusion that could result in voters losing trust in the election process,” she said.

The executive order posed risks of irreparable harm to states “for at least three reasons,” Casper wrote.

She noted the cost and resources to implement the executive order, the federal funding states are at risk of losing if they do not comply with the order and discouraging voter participation.

Chilling voter participation is “the antithesis of Congress’s purpose in enacting the (The Uniform Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) and the (National Voter Registration Act),” she wrote.

The order also would prohibit the counting of absentee or mail-in ballots that are received after Election Day. States set their own rules for ballot counting and many allow those that arrive after Election Day but postmarked before.

The states that brought the challenge to the executive order are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Crackdown on immigrants

The executive order that Trump signed in March was a culmination of his rhetoric on the campaign trail about people without U.S. citizenship voting in federal elections and his vow to crackdown on immigration and carry out mass deportations.

Republicans have sought to use the rare examples of people without citizenship voting in federal elections, and local governments that allow immigrants to vote in local elections, to tighten restrictions on voter registration.

U.S. House Republicans in April passed a bill to codify the executive order.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, conducted an analysis of election conduct from 2003 to 2023 and found 29 instances of noncitizens voting, just more than one per year.

Daily Montanan is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Daily Montanan maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Darrell Ehrlick for questions: info@dailymontanan.com.

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.

Ximena Arias-Cristobal knows the risks that can come with driving as a person living in the U.S. without legal authorization, where a simple traffic stop could lead to being deported.

That fear materialized last month when she was pulled over by local police in Dalton, Georgia, for making an improper turn at a red light, but instead of a traffic ticket, the 19-year-old was detained at Stewart Detention Center for nearly three weeks, she said at a virtual event Tuesday.

“Even though my time there was short … the emotional weight is overwhelming,” Arias-Cristobal said during a panel conversation organized by advocacy groups opposing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown on students without legal authorization and international students.

“This isn’t just an immigration issue, it’s a human rights issue,” Arias-Cristobal said.

She and her parents arrived in the United States without legal authorization from Mexico when Arias-Cristobal was 4 years old. Her father was in the car with her last month and was also detained at the Stewart Detention Center, she said. He has since been released.

“What affected me the most was the transfer itself, being shackled at the waist and ankles,” Arias-Cristobal said of being transferred by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to Stewart Detention Center.

Arias-Cristobal is eligible to apply for deportation protections under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, policy. DACA allows some people who were brought into the country as children without legal authorization to obtain a drivers license and work permits and remain in the country, under certain conditions.

But the agency that issues such protections, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, stopped accepting applications in 2021 as part of a court case from Republican state officials challenging DACA’s legality.

The case remains pending and is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Arias-Cristobal now faces deportation to Mexico as she tries to complete her higher education at Dalton State College, where she is studying economics and finance.

Impact on higher education

Gaby Pacheco, president and CEO of advocacy group TheDream.US, said that cases like Arias-Cristobal’s are becoming more common under the second Trump administration and that “Dreamers are under attack.”

Pachecos’ group provides scholarships to young immigrants without legal status, including Arias-Cristobal, to pursue higher education.

She said that while DACA recipients have not been caught in deportations, “we have heard of people (being) held and questioned” by ICE agents.

“The level of cruelty, inhumanity and lawlessness that we’re seeing from the Department of Homeland Security… is completely alarming,” Pacheco said.

That type of immigration enforcement has impacted higher education, said Miriam Feldblum, the president of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, which advocates for international students and students without proper legal authority to attend college.

The Department of Homeland Security informed Harvard University last month that it was revoking the Ivy League school’s ability to accept international students. A federal court has temporarily blocked the move while the case is pending.

“This will directly harm our enrollment at U.S. institutions,” she said of the Trump administration’s stance on limiting how many international students can attend higher education.

Feldblum said that because international students pay full tuition, those costs often subsidize scholarships for U.S. students.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is personally working to facilitate the return of a man wrongly deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, the Trump administration said on Monday in court documents.

If successful, the man, identified in documents in federal court in Maryland only by the pseudonym of “Cristian,” would be the first deported person returned from the brutal Salvadoran Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

Bringing him back to the United States would also contradict the Trump administration’s long-running argument in the courts and to the public that El Salvador has custody over hundreds of men sent there in March, not the U.S.

The Trump-appointed judge in Cristian’s case on Friday had blasted the administration for not detailing to her its actions to return him.

The Trump administration has made the same argument in the case of another wrongly deported man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland, despite a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate his return.

Trump and other top U.S. officials have alleged Abrego Garcia is a gang member, though there is no evidence of that. President Donald Trump has also acknowledged he could bring Abrego Garcia back if he wanted to do so.

‘Prompt and diligent efforts on behalf of the United States’

The court document in Cristian’s case filed Monday by U.S. Department of Homeland Security official Mellissa B. Harper says that Rubio “has a personal relationship” with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and Salvadoran government officials that dates back over a decade to the Florida Republican’s time on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

The case is being heard in Baltimore, in the District of Maryland.

“Based on this deep experience with El Salvador and the Secretary’s familiarity with political and diplomatic sensitivities in that country, he is personally handling the discussions with the government of El Salvador regarding persons subject to the Court’s order detained in El Salvador,” according to the document.

“Secretary Rubio has read and understands this Court’s order, and wants to assure this Court that he is committed to making prompt and diligent efforts on behalf of the United States to comply with that order,” the document continues.

The document notes that DHS has asked the State Department for “assistance in complying with the Court’s order, including by entering into negotiations to facilitate Cristian’s return.”

Harper, who submitted the declaration, works at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division as the acting deputy executive associate director.

Judge harshly criticized administration

The document was filed after U.S. District Judge for the District of Maryland Stephanie Gallagher Friday slammed the Trump administration for its “blatant lack of effort to comply” with her order earlier this month to report steps taken to bring back Cristian, who in court documents is said to be 20 years old.

On May 6, she affirmed her decision that the Trump administration must facilitate Cristian’s return.

Gallagher, whom Trump appointed in 2018, gave the Department of Justice until Monday to comply with her order.

Cristian was among roughly 300 men sent to the Salvadoran mega-prison CECOT. About 200 of those men were removed under an 18th-century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and the rest, such as Abrego Garcia, were removed under other immigration laws.

Cristian arrived in the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor and was part of a class action that barred removal from the U.S. while his asylum case was pending in immigration court.

Like the Abrego Garcia case, the administration said earlier it was powerless to compel the Salvadoran government to release Cristian, an argument Gallagher expressed frustration with Friday.

“Defendants simply reiterated their well-worn talking points on their reasons for removing Cristian and failed to provide any of the information the Court required,” Gallagher wrote in her order.

The Trump administration is paying El Salvador up to $15 million to detain removed immigrants from the U.S.

“As a Venezuelan native, he is in El Salvador only because the United States sent him there pursuant to an agreement apparently reached with the government of El Salvador,” Gallagher wrote.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is personally working to facilitate the return of a man wrongly deported to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador, at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, the Trump administration said on Monday in court documents.

If successful, the man, identified in documents in federal court in Maryland only by the pseudonym of “Cristian,” would be the first deported person returned from the brutal Salvadoran Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT.

Bringing him back to the United States would also contradict the Trump administration’s long-running argument in the courts and to the public that El Salvador has custody over hundreds of men sent there in March, not the U.S.

The Trump-appointed judge in Cristian’s case on Friday had blasted the administration for not detailing to her its actions to return him.

The Trump administration has made the same argument in the case of another wrongly deported man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia of Maryland, despite a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate his return.

Trump and other top U.S. officials have alleged Abrego Garcia is a gang member, though there is no evidence of that. President Donald Trump has also acknowledged he could bring Abrego Garcia back if he wanted to do so.

‘Prompt and diligent efforts on behalf of the United States’

The court document in Cristian’s case filed Monday by U.S. Department of Homeland Security official Mellissa B. Harper says that Rubio “has a personal relationship” with El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele and Salvadoran government officials that dates back over a decade to the Florida Republican’s time on the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

The case is being heard in Baltimore, in the District of Maryland.

“Based on this deep experience with El Salvador and the Secretary’s familiarity with political and diplomatic sensitivities in that country, he is personally handling the discussions with the government of El Salvador regarding persons subject to the Court’s order detained in El Salvador,” according to the document.

“Secretary Rubio has read and understands this Court’s order, and wants to assure this Court that he is committed to making prompt and diligent efforts on behalf of the United States to comply with that order,” the document continues.

The document notes that DHS has asked the State Department for “assistance in complying with the Court’s order, including by entering into negotiations to facilitate Cristian’s return.”

Harper, who submitted the declaration, works at Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division as the acting deputy executive associate director.

Judge harshly criticized administration

The document was filed after U.S. District Judge for the District of Maryland Stephanie Gallagher Friday slammed the Trump administration for its “blatant lack of effort to comply” with her order earlier this month to report steps taken to bring back Cristian, who in court documents is said to be 20 years old.

On May 6, she affirmed her decision that the Trump administration must facilitate Cristian’s return.

Gallagher, whom Trump appointed in 2018, gave the Department of Justice until Monday to comply with her order.

Cristian was among roughly 300 men sent to the Salvadoran mega-prison CECOT. About 200 of those men were removed under an 18th-century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, and the rest, such as Abrego Garcia, were removed under other immigration laws.

Cristian arrived in the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor and was part of a class action that barred removal from the U.S. while his asylum case was pending in immigration court.

Like the Abrego Garcia case, the administration said earlier it was powerless to compel the Salvadoran government to release Cristian, an argument Gallagher expressed frustration with Friday.

“Defendants simply reiterated their well-worn talking points on their reasons for removing Cristian and failed to provide any of the information the Court required,” Gallagher wrote in her order.

The Trump administration is paying El Salvador up to $15 million to detain removed immigrants from the U.S.

“As a Venezuelan native, he is in El Salvador only because the United States sent him there pursuant to an agreement apparently reached with the government of El Salvador,” Gallagher wrote.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security over the weekend took down a public list of cities and jurisdictions that the Trump administration labeled as “sanctuary” cities, after a sharp rebuke from a group representing 3,000 sheriffs and local law enforcement.

On Saturday, National Sheriffs’ Association President Sheriff Kieran Donahue slammed the list as an “unnecessary erosion of unity and collaboration with law enforcement.”

“The completion and publication of this list has not only violated the core principles of trust, cooperation, and partnership with fellow law enforcement, but it also has the potential to strain the relationship between Sheriffs and the White House administration,” Donahue said.

DHS published the list Thursday and it was unavailable by Sunday. It’s unclear when it was removed, but internet archives show Saturday as the last time the list was still active.

In a statement, DHS did not answer questions as to why the list was removed.

“As we have previously stated, the list is being constantly reviewed and can be changed at any time and will be updated regularly,” according to a DHS spokesperson. “Designation of a sanctuary jurisdiction is based on the evaluation of numerous factors, including self-identification as a Sanctuary Jurisdiction, noncompliance with Federal law enforcement in enforcing immigration laws, restrictions on information sharing, and legal protections for illegal aliens.”

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on Fox News Sunday did not acknowledge that the list was taken down, but said some localities had “pushed back.”

“They think because they don’t have one law or another on the books that they don’t qualify, but they do qualify,” Noem said. “They are giving sanctuary to criminals.”

List followed Trump executive order

Local law enforcement aids in immigration enforcement by holding immigrants in local jails until federal immigration officials can arrive.

The creation of the list stems from Donald Trump’s executive order in April that required DHS to produce a list of cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration officials in enforcement matters, in order to strip federal funding from those local governments.

Those jurisdictions are often dubbed “sanctuary cities,” but immigration enforcement still occurs in the city — there’s just no coordination between the local government and the federal government.

The jurisdictions are often a target for the Trump administration and Republicans, who support the President Donald Trump campaign promise of mass deportations of people without permanent legal status.

Congressional Republicans in March grilled mayors from Boston, Chicago and Denver, on their cities’ immigration policies during a six-hour hearing before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

‘Strong objection’

Local officials were puzzled by the list.

One law enforcement association in North Dakota questioned why several counties — Billings, Golden Valley, Grant, Morton, Ramsey, Sioux, and Slope — were listed as sanctuary jurisdictions because those areas cooperate with federal immigration officials.

In a statement, the North Dakota Sheriff’s and Deputies Association said the “methodology and criteria used to compile this list is unknown,” and there has been no communication from DHS “on how to rectify this finding.”

“The elected Sheriffs of these counties take strong objection with language in this release characterizing them as ‘deliberately and shamefully obstructing the enforcement of federal immigration laws endangering American communities,’” according to NDSDA.

“The North Dakota Sheriff’s and Deputies Association is working to gather more information regarding the lack of transparency and reasoning as to why the Department of Homeland Security did not fact check prior to incorrectly naming these North Dakota counties.”

Local advocacy groups also noted the problems with the DHS list.

“I assume they’ve removed (the list) because they were bombarded with complaints about inaccuracy and how and why these various jurisdictions got on the list,” Steven Brown, executive director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Rhode Island, said in an interview Monday.

GREENBELT, MARYLAND — A federal judge said Friday the Trump administration has “pretty broadly” invoked the state secrets privilege to withhold information on its efforts — or, the judge indicated, a possible lack of effort — to return a wrongly deported Maryland man from a prison in El Salvador.

President Donald Trump’s administration moved last month to invoke the so-called state secrets privilege to shield information about its process to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the United States after a top immigration official admitted his removal to a prison in El Salvador was an “administrative error.”

The judge handling the case, U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis, granted an expedited discovery process after she found last month that “nothing has been done” by the administration to return Abrego Garcia.

She did not make a public order regarding the state secrets privilege Friday afternoon before closing her courtroom to the public to discuss sensitive matters with attorneys for Abrego Garcia and the Department of Justice.

The state secrets privilege is a common-law doctrine that protects sensitive national security information from being released. The Trump administration has argued the need to invoke it in this case to protect diplomatic relationships.

‘He’ll never walk free in the United States’

During the public portion of Friday’s hearing, Xinis pressed the Department of Justice attorneys about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s comment that Abrego Garcia “will not return” to the U.S.

“That sounds to me like an admission that your client will not take steps to facilitate the return,” Xinis said. “That’s about as clear as it can get.”

DOJ attorney Jonathan D. Guynn disagreed and said the Trump administration is complying with court orders. He said Noem’s comment meant that if Abrego Garcia was back in U.S. custody he would be removed either to another third country or back to El Salvador.

“He’ll never walk free in the United States,” Guynn said.

He added that the Trump administration is “currently complying and we plan to comply.”

Xinis said she disagreed, and then she clashed with Guynn over the legality of Abrego Garcia’s removal.

Guynn said that he was lawfully deported.

Xinis answered that she found months ago that Abrego Garcia was unlawfully detained and removed from the U.S.

Few documents produced

One of the attorneys for Abrego Garcia, Andrew J. Rossman, said the Trump administration has invoked the state secrets privilege for 1,140 documents relating to the case. From that request, Rossman said his team received 168 documents, but 132 were copies of court filings and requests made by him and his team.

Xinis seemed visibly stunned by Rossman’s report and had to clarify that his team had only received 36 new documents, which Rossman confirmed.

Rossman said that none of the documents for which the government is invoking the state secrets privilege are classified.

“There’s ways to do this right, and they haven’t done it,” he said, noting that he has attorneys on his team who have security clearances and can review classified and sensitive information.

Rossman said that he and his team are seeking answers to three questions: the status of Abrego Garcia, what steps the Trump administration has taken, if any, to facilitate his return, and the steps the federal government will take, if any, to comply with court orders.

Guynn said the Trump administration received an update from El Salvador on Thursday that Abrego Garcia was in “good health” and had “even gained weight.”

The U.S. Supreme Court ordered that the Trump administration must “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia.

Rossman, said that it’s “deeply disturbing” that administration officials, including the president, have made public statements that contradict court orders directing the government to return Abrego Garcia to the U.S.

President Donald Trump has said he could easily pick up the phone and order El Salvador to return him but won’t because he believes Abrego Garcia is a member of the MS-13 gang.

Noem was pressed at a May 14 congressional hearing about a photo that appears altered to add letters across Abrego Garcia’s knuckles to indicate his inclusion in the gang. She said she was unaware of it.

A federal judge in the District of Columbia, in a separate case regarding Trump’s use of an archaic wartime law for deportations, questioned Department of Justice attorneys on the president’s claim that he could order Abrego Garcia to be returned. The attorney admitted that the president sometimes overstates his influence abroad.

El Salvador prison

Abrego Garcia has had protections from deportation since 2019, but he was one of nearly 300 men on three mid-March removal flights to a notorious prison in El Salvador known as CECOT.

Abrego Garcia has been moved to a lower security prison, according to Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who traveled to the country last month to meet with Abrego Garcia and inquire with Salvadoran officials about why he is being held there.

Those officials said Abrego Garcia was being held because of the agreement between the United States and El Salvador.

The U.S. has a $15 million agreement with El Salvador’s government to house immigrants removed from the U.S., mostly Venezuelans removed under the wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.

Dozens of signs outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in support of Abrego Garcia before Friday’s hearing. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)

The Trump administration has argued that Abrego Garcia is a national of El Salvador and in that country’s custody and the U.S. cannot force another government to return him.

Hours before Friday’s hearing, dozens of protestors gathered outside the court, calling for Abrego Garcia to be returned to the U.S., as well as criticizing the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey, who represents the area in Maryland where Abrego Garcia and his family live, appeared outside the court and led chants calling for the release of Abrego Garcia from El Salvador.

“The president has to obey the orders of the Supreme Court,” Ivey said. “The Supreme Court has spoken here, and it’s time for him to follow it and bring him home.”

WASHINGTON — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem Monday announced about 9,000 Afghans living in the United States who had been protected from deportation will no longer be shielded as of mid-July.

After the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in 2022, the Biden administration designated Temporary Protected Status, along with other legal temporary status pathways, for thousands of Afghans who aided the U.S. against the Taliban terrorist group and fled their home country. Thirteen U.S. military members were killed in the chaotic withdrawal at the Kabul airport.

About 80,000 Afghans came to the U.S. and settled in various programs that offered legal protections and work authorization. Of that group, 9,000 were designated TPS.

TPS is granted to nationals whose home country is deemed too dangerous to return due to violence or disasters.

The TPS designation for Afghanistan will expire on May 20 and deportation protections will lift on July 12. The order is likely to face legal challenges, since Noem’s moves to curtail TPS for other nationals have faced lawsuits.

“This administration is returning TPS to its original temporary intent,” Noem said in a statement. “We’ve reviewed the conditions in Afghanistan with our interagency partners, and they do not meet the requirements for a TPS designation. Afghanistan has had an improved security situation, and its stabilizing economy no longer prevent(s) them from returning to their home country.”

The termination of the status comes as the Trump administration fast-tracked the classification of refugees for white South Africans who landed in the U.S. Monday at Dulles International Airport in Virginia.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February that noted Afrikaners — an ethnic group in South Africa made up of European descendants, predominantly Dutch — are “victims of unjust racial discrimination” after South Africa’s government passed a land ownership law in an effort to address land dispossession that occurred under apartheid.

The Trump administration suspended all refugee services in late January and has resisted a district court’s order to reinstate the program, along with contracts to organizations that facilitate refugee resettlement services.

Noem said that determination to end TPS for Afghanistan was based on a review from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Afghanistan’s conditions along with input from the State Department.

The Taliban currently control the government and the State Department’s travel advisory for the country is the highest level, a 4, which means it advises against traveling.

DHS added in a statement that Noem “further determined that permitting Afghan nationals to remain temporarily in the United States is contrary to the national interest of the United States.”

Noem has also ended TPS for Venezuelans and Haitians.

The Trump administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court in early May to lift a lower court’s order that reversed Noem’s decision to end TPS for one group of Venezuelans.