Jan 23, 2025
(AP) — Donald Trump is redrawing Washington’s classic borders, issuing unprecedented executive orders and daring to stop it.
Here’s the latest:
Lawsuits mount over President Donald Trump’s immigration policies
The American Civil Liberties Union have sued to overturn fast-track deportations after the Trump administration announced it was expanding powers of immigration agents to deport people without a hearing before an immigration judge.
The “expedited removal” force has been applied to other people arrested at the border since 2004. Trump is expanding it nationwide in the country for up to two years.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington claims that other people can be wrongfully deported if they do not have documentation showing that they have been in the United States frequently for more than two years. They can apply for asylum, but the ACLU says it requires a screening interview that it considers insufficient.
Head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau still waiting to see if he has a job
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra is waiting for a phone call, a letter, an email, a text message — anything — from Trump’s management that can tell him if he’s going to be fired.
Their continued presence in the paintings shows how Trump’s preference to temporarily take over the government can lead to certain omissions. It also reflects the challenge of fully merging Trump’s populism with his pro-business calls to reduce regulations.
The CFPB has the ability, if Trump so chooses, to enforce his promise to cap credit card fees. But some banks and corporations consider it too competitive a regulator.
House gives final approval to immigration detention bill, sending Trump the first law he can sign
The House on Wednesday gave final approval to a bill that requires the detainment of unauthorized migrants accused of theft and violent crimes, marking the first legislation that President Donald Trump can sign as Congress, with some bipartisan support, swiftly moved in line with his plans to crackdown on illegal immigration.
The passage of the Laken Riley Act, named after a Georgian nursing student murdered last year by a Venezuelan, shows how the political debate over immigration has shifted sharply to the right following Trump’s election victory. Immigration policy has been one of the most entrenched problems in Congress, yet a very important faction of politically vulnerable Democrats joined with Republicans to lift the strict proposal and pass it by a vote of 263 to 156.
However, the bill would require extensive capacity building at U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but it comes with new funding.
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes visits Capitol Hill after Trump clemency
Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, the leader of a far-right organization convicted of seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack, visited the Capitol on Wednesday after President Donald Trump commuted his 18-year sentence.
Rhodes’ appearance came a day after he was released from jail following Trump’s clemency order that benefited more than 1,500 people charged with federal crimes in the Jan. 6 attack.
Rhodes was convicted in one of the most serious cases processed by the Department of Justice after the insurrection that left more than one hundred police officers injured.
Immigrant families worry about sending their kids to school amid Trump crackdown
As Trump cracks down on illegal immigrants in the United States, some families are wondering if he will send their children to school.
In many districts, educators have tried to reassure immigrant parents that schools are places for their children, despite the president’s crusader promise to provoke mass expulsions. But fears intensified for some when the Trump administration announced Tuesday that it would allow federal immigration agencies to make arrests at schools, churches and hospitals.
“What has helped calm my nerves is knowing that the school stands with us and promised to inform us if it’s not safe at school,” said Carmen, an immigrant from Mexico who took her two grandchildren, ages 6 and 4, to school Wednesday in the San Francisco Bay Area. She spoke on condition that only her first name be used, out of fear she could be targeted by immigration officials.
“Drain the swamp”? Instead, Trump rolls back ethics regulations
Trum pledged eight years ago to “drain the swamp” and end the dominance of Washington’s influence-peddlers.
Today, he begins his second term by repealing the ban on executive branch workers accepting giant gifts from lobbyists and removing the ban on lobbyists working in the executive branch, or vice versa, for at least two years.
The new president also has been benefiting personally in the runup to his inauguration by launching a new cryptocurrency token that is soaring in value while his wife, first lady Melania Trump, has inked a deal to make a documentary with Amazon.
Trump administration has paused US resettlement of ‘Afghan allies,’ citing vetting
Republican Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, the new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and a military veteran, told the AP that Trump’s leadership deliberately suspended the planned arrival to the United States of more than 1,600 Afghans whom They had already been allowed to resettle in the United States. States.
Mas cited “questions about the verification of these people. “
The Trump administration announced in its first days that it would postpone all admissions of American refugees for at least three months, while it evaluates resuming or ending the program.
The pause includes travel to the United States by the remaining Afghans who worked alongside U. S. infantrymen during the two decades of the U. S. war in Afghanistan, as well as family members and active-duty U. S. military personnel.
“Not everyone who is in Afghanistan is the other people we need to come to the United States of America” and “just because they necessarily claim something doesn’t mean it’s true,” Mast said Wednesday. and in the interest of being judicious, for our number one responsibility, protecting Americans, there is a pause on that until there is assurance that the correct review has been conducted. “
White House says with 1,500 troops Trump is fulfilling a campaign pledge
“This is something President Trump campaigned on. Other Americans have been waiting for a moment like this, for our Department of Defense to enforce national security,” said press secretary Karoline Leavitt.
U. S. officials announced last Wednesday that the Pentagon would begin deploying up to 1,500 active-duty troops to help secure the southern border in the coming days, implementing plans outlined by Trump in executive orders shortly after he took office to crack down on immigration.
The active-duty forces would join the roughly 2,500 U. S. National Guard and Reserve forces already there.
Trump monitors Nashville shooting
President Donald Trump and his team are following the fatal shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.
“The White House offers its utmost attention and prayers to those affected by this senseless tragedy and thanks the brave first responders who responded to the incident. “
Police say a 17-year-old shooter killed a female student in the before turning the gun on himself.
Musk questions the viability of Trump’s big AI project
Elon Musk has openly questioned the viability of a major AI project championed by Donald Trump, a rare public break with the president.
Trump announced Tuesday that the AI joint venture Project Stargate plans to spend up to $500 billion over four years to build knowledge centers in hopes of securing U. S. leadership in the new technology. , Softbank, OpenAI and Oracle, can act quickly.
Musk criticized the deal in a public forum.
“They don’t have the money,” the Tesla CEO and self-described “first buddy” of the president posted on his social media platform X. “Softbank has well under $10B secured. I have that on good authority.”
Musk, the founder of OpenAI, has since parted ways with its chief executive, Sam Altman, and sued the company and its executive for antitrust violations. Since then, he has created his own AI company, xAI.
Altman responded Wednesday, saying Musk “is wrong, as I’m sure you know” and inviting Musk to stop at the first site already under construction.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington to meet with Trump in a few weeks
Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said he believes Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington to meet newly elected President Donald Trump “in a few weeks.”
He told a news conference for visiting journalists on Wednesday: “He would be one of the first foreign leaders invited to the White House. »
Danon said he expects their discussions to include the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the release of hostages taken during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog will be coming to the United Nations on Monday to attend the U.N. commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, marking the Jan. 27, 1945 liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp 80 years ago, Danon said. He will meet with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres/
Trump has introduced a wide range of policy measures to reorient the U. S. government in his first days in office.
His executive orders cover issues that range from trade, immigration and U.S. foreign aid to demographic diversity, civil rights and the hiring of federal workers. Some have an immediate policy impact. Others are more symbolic. And some already are being challenged by federal lawsuits.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski: “I strongly denounce” the radical pardons granted through Trump on January 6
In an article on
“I strongly denounce the blanket pardons granted to violent criminals who assaulted those brave and uniformed men,” Murkowski wrote.
Murkowski is one of the few Republicans who has criticized Trump’s pardons for more than 1,500 rioters who attacked the Capitol and disrupted the certification of former President Joe Biden’s presidential victory in 2020. More than two hundred other people have pleaded guilty to assaulting the police
On Tuesday, Murkowski pointed to a police officer as she told reporters she fears “the message that is sent to these great men and women that stood by us.”
Judge says Trump’s Jan. 6 pardons “will not replace the fact of what happened”
President Donald Trump’s mass pardons for rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol “will not change the truth of what happened” in the nation’s capital four years ago, a federal judge wrote Wednesday as she dismissed one of nearly 1,600 cases stemming from the attack by a mob of Trump supporters.
U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said evidence of the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol is preserved through the “neutral lens” of riot videos, trial transcripts, jury verdicts and judicial opinions.
“These records are immutable and constitute the truth, regardless of how the events of January 6 are described by defendants or their allies,” he wrote.
Kollar-Kotelly is one of more than 20 judges tasked with handling a large number of cases stemming from the largest investigation in the history of the Breakdown of Justice. He published his written comments in an order dismissing the case against Dominic Box, a Georgian who was part of the first organization of rioters to enter the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump’s top adviser, Stephen Miller, talks about deportations, at a Republican Senate luncheon
Miller briefed Republican senators during their closed-door lunch at the Capitol on next steps, increasing pressure on the administration to invoke so-called Title 42 authority to close the U. S. -Mexico border to new arrivals. once they find a legal justification to help immigrants. project. action, the senators said.
“We talked about some of the deportations, what would happen… what is the administration going to do next,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican.
Miller also described in more detail other Trump actions on domestic energy production, senators said.
Trump’s supposed enemies fear squandering their pensions, being audited and paying high legal bills.
It’s not just the criminals’ fees that worry those who have crossed his path with President Donald Trump. There are more prosaic types of retaliation: having trouble renewing passports, being audited by the IRS, and wasting pensions. federal.
For many others who have become Trump’s enemies, his return to the presidency this week has sparked anxiety. Some are worried about going bankrupt and trying to make their name transparent.
Less than 24 hours after taking office, Trump fired the first shot, ordering the revocation of security clearances held by dozens of former intelligence officials he said sided with Joe Biden in the 2020 crusade or opposed him. Losing those authorizations can be costly for former public servants who work for defense contractors and who want continued access to classified data to perform their jobs in the personal sector.
“Anyone who disagrees with Trump wants to worry about retaliation,” said John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser and an outspoken critic of the president. “It’s a pretty long list. I think there are many other people who are very worried.
Does ‘fetal personhood’ language in executive order offer clues on Trump’s abortion approach?
Abortion was largely absent from the dozens of measures adopted through the executive branch in the early days of Trump’s term. This includes non-unusual policy measures on abortion that Republican presidents take after taking office, such as reinstating the Global Gag Rule, which limits investment for the family services they plan, said Mary Ruth Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law.
But there still may be more to come in terms of actions on abortion, Ziegler said. And there have already been quieter moves, including slipping the phrase “at conception” into an executive order rolling back protections for transgender people. This language is reminiscent of “fetal personhood” laws passed in some conservative states that declare a fetus should have the same rights as a person.
While the inclusion of this word will not directly affect abortion rights, it can have a long-term effect on legal cases similar to fetal personality by “setting a precedent for anti-abortion teams to say, ‘Look at how many articles the law puts in it. ‘”We already recognize that ‘life begins at conception,'” Ziegler said.
The word may simply be an attempt by the Trump administration to “throw a bone to parties in conflict on abortion” without affecting abortion policy, or it may simply foreshadow bigger decisions to come, Ziegler said.
Trump’s threat of tariffs and sanctions on Russia over Ukraine likely to fall flat
President Donald Trump’s risk of imposing harsh taxes, price lists and sanctions on Russia if a deal is not reached to end the war in Ukraine will likely fall on deaf ears to the Kremlin, because virtually all Russian goods are already banned from being imported into the United States. And the country has faced U. S. and European sanctions since the invasion began nearly 3 years ago.
In a Wednesday post on his Truth Social website, Trump suggested Russian President Vladimir Putin “get settled now and avoid this ridiculous war. “
He said he had no preference for harming Russia and had smart relations with Putin, but warned of sanctions if the war ends soon.
“If we cannot reach a “deal” soon, I still have no choice to impose high levels of taxes, price lists and sanctions on everything sold through Russia to the United States and other participating countries. »
The problem with the threat is that other than a small amount of fertilizer, animal feed and machinery, Russia currently exports almost no goods to the U.S. And, Russia is one of the world’s most heavily sanctioned nations. Many of those sanctions relate to Russia’s Feb. 2022 invasion of Ukraine and were imposed by the Biden administration, but others predate Biden and some were imposed during Trump’s first term in office.
Head of Anti-Racism Defense Lawyers Task Force Says DEI Is Important in Criminal Justice System
Kobie Flowers is a Washington, D. C. -based defense attorney and co-chair of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers’ Anti-Racism Task Force.
Flowers said diversity among attorneys is necessary in the criminal justice system. In an email, Flowers said anti-discrimination legislation offers safeguards, but that “equal justice for all requires more than simply the absence of overt bias. DEI within the offender defense bar isn’t just about compliance; It’s about cultivating a culture where each and every voice, regardless of their background, is heard, valued, and empowered.
Flowers said diversity fosters greater understanding of clients and is helping to build a more potent criminal justice formula. “DEI and similar formulas are being created to end discrimination. Ending discrimination is the right thing to do, in the criminal justice formula in particular, and in our country in general.
As Joe Biden notes the prosperity, peace and grace of the country under Trump
The former president revealed his wish in a traditional note to his successor.
Fox News was first to report on the contents of the hand-written note. It says:
“Dear President Trump,
“As I bid farewell to this sacred office, I wish you and your family the best for the next four years. The American people – and people around the world – look to this space for stability in the face of the inevitable storms of history, and my prayer is that the years ahead will be a time of prosperity, peace, and grace for our nation. May God bless you and consult you as he has done with our beloved country since our founding.
Fox News says he signed “Joe Biden 01/20/2025. “
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(AP) — Donald Trump is redrawing Washington’s classic borders, unleashing an unprecedented offshoot.