Democrat-led jurisdictions have faced little in the way of fallout for their historical refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, but now that the Trump administration is in charge, things are beginning to change.
As Fox Business reports, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced over the weekend that its regional office in Los Angeles will be relocated out of the city due to local authorities' unwillingness to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Trump agenda.
The SBA's decision was precipitated by a statement issued by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in response to a surge in federal immigration enforcement efforts in the city she leads.
Bass posted her take on X, writing, “This morning, we received reports of federal immigration enforcement actions in multiple locations in Los Angeles.”
She continued, “As Mayor of a proud city of immigrants, who contribute to our city in so many ways, I am deeply angered by what has taken place.”
Bass went on, “These tactics sow terror in our communities and disrupt basic principles of safety in our city. My Office is in close coordination with immigrant rights community organizations.”
The mayor concluded her statement in a defiant tone, asserting, “We will not stand for this.”
It was not long before SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler responded to the Los Angeles mayor's declaration, taking to X herself to announce her agency's plans to depart the city.
“Los Angeles is openly refusing to cooperate with ICE -- siding with illegal aliens over American citizens and small businesses,” she wrote.
Loeffler's statement went on, “Therefore, effective immediately, @SBAgov will begin relocating its Regional Office out of L.A.”
Underscoring her rationale for the decision, Loeffler added, “If a city won't protect its people, we won't stay.”
As protests against ICE operations flared in Los Angeles on Saturday and saw projectiles thrown at law enforcement vehicles and a car set on fire, concerns of further escalation prompted action from the White House.
President Donald Trump signed a memo deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to the impacted area, as ABC 7 noted, with the commander in chief also noting that masks will no longer be tolerated among protestors.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth weighed in as well, decrying the “violent mob assaults on ICE and Federal Law enforcement” and stating that if National Guard troops are insufficient to quell the unrest in Los Angeles, “active duty Marines at Camp Pendleton will also be mobilized,” underscoring what officials appear to assess as the extreme volatility of the situation at present.
Republican lawmakers are not seeing additional opposition to President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" even after Elon Musk's calls to kill it, the Washington Examiner reported. The former head of the Department of Government Efficiency attacked the bill and the president.
Musk and Trump were on fantastic terms until recently, when the Tesla billionaire began his exit. Then Musk sent out a barrage of social media posts opposing the legislation due to its hefty price tag.
"I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it," Musk posted to X, formerly Twitter, on Monday.
I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore.
This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.
Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2025
The posts Musk made were extremely pointed and at times unhinged as he attacked Trump and his signature legislation. However, Musk began by warning that the bill was expensive and would add to the national debt.
He quoted Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson in their previous social media posts, in which they opposed such deficit spending. However, Musk also took his personal attacks to the next level by insinuating Trump had ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
"Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!" Musk posted in a since-deleted Tweet, the New York Post reported.
Trump said Musk must have "lost his mind" with these allegations, and the president has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in the past. In fact, Epstein was barred from Mar-a-Lago in 2007 after an incident involving the teenage daughter of one of the members.
"This is an unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted. The president is focused on passing this historic piece of legislation and making our country great again," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt explained.
Despite all that Musk has thrown at the bill, Republican lawmakers in the House have reported no change in what they're hearing from constituents. "We didn’t see an increase in calls at all," a senior aide told the Washington Examiner Friday.
GOP senators have also seen no noticeable change in calls to their offices about this issue. Even Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who is critical of the bill, says the "vast majority" of people demanding he vote against it weren't spurred on by Musk's remarks.
"My guess is that’s not coming from either my supporters or President Trump’s supporters. I take that seriously," Johnson said.
"But again, I’m going to do what I think is right for the American people, for our kids, and grandkids. That’s always been my position. It’s not easy. I said this is hard, and I hope people understand that," Johnson added.
Musk has always marched to the beat of his own drummer, but the world of politics seems to have brought out a new volatility in his personality. It's probably best that he parted ways with Trump, regardless of whether the legislation is right for the country or not.
A new poll shows that Sen. John Cornyn is losing ground in his reelection campaign, The Hill reported. The Texas Republican is trailing behind the state's Attorney General Ken Paxton in the Republican Senate primary by 22 points.
Republican pollster Robert Blizzard conducted the poll for the Educational Freedom Institute. It showed that Paxton is leading incumbent Cornyn by double digits in the primary that will be held in February 2026.
Most tellingly, those who consider themselves "MAGA" and older voters are choosing Paxton over Cornyn. While the incumbent has dismissed these results as part of the "silly season" for political polling, the fact is that voters are trending toward Paxton.
A GOP strategist said this means Cornyn will have to be more aggressive. "I think those numbers today are going to force Cornyn to go up on air and take a chunk out of Ken Paxton pretty damn soon. The question is, can he?" the strategist said.
Despite the troubling poll numbers, Cornyn's allies are hopeful that the long lead time until the primaries will give him time to turn the tide. "The primary is in nine months," Matt Mackowiak, a senior adviser to Cornyn’s campaign, pointed out.
"This is going to be a very close race, and Sen. Cornyn is fully committed to winning it," Mackowiak added. Others are burying their heads in the sand, hoping that the early polling is an anomaly as their only strategy.
"Cornyn’s folks are right, it is silly season for polling. But he definitely has an uphill battle," acknowledged Paxton supporter and Republican donor Dan Eberhart.
If Cornyn hopes to disrupt Paxton's momentum, his campaign will have to define the candidate and his opposition. "I think they’re going to have to spend a lot of money early to try and make their case given where we are in the polling right out of the gate," said Brenan Steinhauser, Cornyn's former campaign manager.
That's exactly what the senator's campaign attempted to do last week when it debuted ads charging Paxton with "funding the left." However, Cornyn will also have to contend with voters' very real and accurate impression that he is a RINO candidate.
The problem for Cornyn isn't just that Paxton is gaining ground. In fact, the reason he has made such headway is in part because of Cornyn's record of betraying staunchly conservative GOP voters and those who support Trump, considering he didn't support his reelection bid in 2024.
In 2022, Cornyn signed on to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in the wake of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas. It was the kind of legislation that is hastily thrown together in the wake of a tragedy to strip law-abiding citizens of gun rights.
According to Fox News, the law imposed waiting periods and allowed for weapons to be confiscated under so-called red flag laws. Gun rights groups, including the Gun Owners of America, believe that Cornyn betrayed Second Amendment enthusiasts.
"Every time gun control gains steam in Congress, Senator John Cornyn is right there working with Democrats on a 'compromise.' That isn't conservative leadership, it's capitulation," GOA Federal Affairs Director Aidan Johnston charged.
Cornyn made the mistake of opposing Trump and going along with the Democrats' gun grab. While it's too early to tell how the primary election will shake out, there's no doubt Cornyn will eventually pay the price for it.
A federal judge temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's administration from deporting suspected firebomber Mohamed Soliman's wife and five children, the Daily Wire reported. The 45-year-old and his family overstayed their visas by months prior to the alleged terrorist attack.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Soliman allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at pro-Israel demonstrators at a protest on Sunday. He was allegedly heard shouting "free Palestine" and "end Zionism" while doing so.
Soliman is accused of maiming a dozen of the protesters, including an 88-year-old holocaust survivor. Soliman's family is being held at a Texas immigration detention center as authorities are "investigating to what extent his family knew about this heinous attack," the DHS said.
The man's wife, Hayem El Gamal, and five minor children arrived in the U.S. from Egypt in 2022. They were on a tourist visa, which expired in March after being extended by the Biden administration.
Despite the seriousness of the alleged crime and expired visas, Gallagher granted the request to halt deportation. "Defendants are temporarily restrained and enjoined from removing Hayem El Gamal and her five minor children from the State of Colorado or the United States," the decision states.
BREAKING: Colorado federal judge Gordon Gallagher, a Biden appointee, has issued an order blocking the Trump administration from deporting the wife and five children of Boulder terror suspect Mohamed Soliman. pic.twitter.com/Lo8R1Yp19E
— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 4, 2025
Federal immigration officials are barred from deporting Soliman's family pending action from the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Gallagher said the situation's "urgency and an ongoing jury trial resulting in the unavailability" of the judge warrants such swift action.
The restraining order will remain in effect until the next hearing scheduled to take place on June 13. Before the attack, Soliman applied for asylum on behalf of his family, which adds another layer of protection from immigration action, the defense's attorney Eric Lee claimed.
"It’s a basic principle of any democracy that individual responsibility is required for punishment or detention. Only in a police-state dictatorship are measures of collective punishment used against the population, especially against asylum seekers, and especially against asylum seekers as young as 4 years old," Lee said, according to the Denver Post.
While the courts make overtures to the downtrodden with this case, the fact remains that Soliman is accused of a truly heinous crime. According to the Associated Press, authorities are investigating whether Soliman plotted and executed Sunday's attack in Boulder, Colorado, with his family's help.
He has been charged under federal hate crime statutes and state attempted murder counts, while his family was also detained for immigration violations. Soliman allegedly confessed to the crime that left victims badly burned and witnesses shaken.
Rachelle Halpern, who was at the demonstration when the attack occurred, recalled seeing Soliman walking around with what looked like a pesticide spray canister just prior to the attack. Halpern realized the danger only when she heard the crashes and people crying out.
"A woman stood one foot behind me, engulfed in flames from head to toe, lying on the ground with her husband. People immediately, three or four men, immediately rushed to her to smother the flames," Halpern said.
The judge does not seem concerned that these are not ordinary asylum seekers by any measure. If Soliman was indeed the person who carried out this attack, his wife and children should receive extra scrutiny, and certainly not special treatment.
For months, the left-leaning media have tried to drive a wedge of division between President Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk, who just recently concluded a stint in the White House as the nominal head of the budget-slashing Department of Government Efficiency.
The media may have finally gotten their wish, as Musk recently trashed as unacceptable the "Big, Beautiful Bill" Congress has been working on to codify Trump's policy agenda in next year's budget, Fox News reported.
If the media had hoped for open conflict between Trump and Musk, however, they are likely to be disappointed, as the White House has downplayed and dismissed the impact of Musk's critiques, and the president has not yet responded directly to what his wealthy and influential friend said about the legislation.
Musk, who had previously raised concerns about insufficient spending cuts in the budget bill that Congress is still working on, lashed out on Tuesday against the legislation that he derided as a "disgusting abomination" while also calling out and shaming those who'd voted to support it.
"I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore," Musk wrote in an X post. "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it."
In a prior interview last week, Fox News noted that Musk had expressed how "disappointed" he was with the "Big, Beautiful Bill" that barely passed the House and faces some opposition in the Senate, as he felt its lack of sufficient spending cuts "undermines" the work he and DOGE did to highlight and eliminate examples of wasteful, fraudulent, and abusive federal spending.
The Daily Caller reported that during Tuesday's White House press briefing, Fox News reporter Peter Doocy asked press secretary Karoline Leavitt "how mad" President Trump would be once he found out about Musk's critical post, which he proceeded to quote verbatim.
"The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill," Leavitt replied, though she declined to specify whether that knowledge came from direct discussions or Musk's commentary in interviews and online.
The chief White House spokeswoman added of Musk's remarks, "It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it."
Though President Trump has not yet directly responded to Musk's trashing of the "Big, Beautiful Bill" currently under consideration in the Senate, he did offer up on Tuesday a strong defense of the legislation in response to some of the general criticism it has received.
In one Truth Social post, Trump wrote, "Passing THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL is a Historic Opportunity to turn our Country around after four disastrous years under Joe Biden."
"We will take a massive step to balancing our Budget by enacting the largest mandatory Spending Cut, EVER, and Americans will get to keep more of their money with the largest Tax Cut, EVER, and no longer taxing Tips, Overtime, or Social Security for Seniors -- Something 80 Million Voters supported in November," he added along with other policy highlights from the bill.
In a follow-up post just moments later, Trump also said, "So many false statements are being made about 'THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,' but what nobody understands is that it’s the single biggest Spending Cut in History, by far! But there will be NO CUTS to Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. In fact, they will be saved from the incompetence of the Democrats."
To be sure, Musk is not alone in criticizing the bill, and the legislation's future is uncertain in the Senate, at least as-is, as enough Republican senators have expressed their opposition to the lack of significant spending cuts -- though Trump and the White House remain optimistic that problem areas can be adequately addressed in a way to garner the necessary votes for passage.
President Donald Trump’s last-minute endorsement has turned New Jersey’s Republican gubernatorial primary into a high-stakes showdown, Fox News reported.
With early voting starting June 1, 2025, Trump’s backing of Jack Ciattarelli, a former state lawmaker and certified public accountant, has reshaped the race against conservative talk radio host Bill Spadea and state Sen. Jon Bramnick.
The primary, set for June 8, 2025, will decide who faces a Democrat in a state where Republicans have won six of the last 11 gubernatorial races. Ciattarelli, now in his third bid for governor, holds a polling lead and a fundraising edge, outpacing all five other GOP candidates combined.
Two weeks before early voting, Trump endorsed Ciattarelli, calling him “a true champion” during a tele-rally on May 31, 2025. Ciattarelli, quick to capitalize, said, “It’s a really big deal.” But banking on one man’s nod in a state Trump lost by 16 points in 2020 smells like a gamble that could backfire.
On May 31, 2025, Ciattarelli mingled with local GOP leaders at Trump National Golf Club-Philadelphia in Pine Hill, New Jersey. The next day, he hit the campaign trail in Hasbrouck Heights, touting Trump’s support as proof he’s the candidate to win in November. Yet, New Jersey’s blue lean suggests voters might not be so easily swayed by a MAGA stamp of approval.
Bill Spadea, a former businessman turned radio host, didn’t take Trump’s snub lightly, calling it “certainly disappointing.” He argued, “The president endorsed a poll, not a plan.” Spadea’s claim to the MAGA mantle, built on his conservative talk show’s massive audience, shows he’s not ready to cede the populist crown.
Spadea’s campaign has leaned hard into grassroots momentum, knocking on over 3,000 doors weekly after Trump’s endorsement of Ciattarelli. “Our supporters are galvanized,” Spadea said, boasting a surge in low-dollar donations. Sounds like he’s turning a slight into a rallying cry—smart move in a primary where every vote counts.
Ciattarelli’s fundraising haul has let him dominate primary advertising, blanketing airwaves with his message. “He knows we’re going to raise the necessary money,” Ciattarelli said, tying his cash flow to Trump’s confidence in his November chances. Money talks, but voters decide, and Ciattarelli’s ad blitz might not drown out Spadea’s hustle.
Spadea, not to be outdone, claimed to have outspent Ciattarelli on ads in the final two weeks before June 1, 2025. Campaigning at a Somerville street fair and chatting in downtown Princeton, he’s betting his radio fame—reaching a third Democrats, a third independents, and a third Republicans—can pull crossover support. That’s a bold pitch in a GOP primary, where purity tests often trump pragmatism.
The Democratic Governors Association has gleefully dubbed this a “MAGA battle,” framing the primary as a race to the right. Ciattarelli and Spadea’s months-long tussle over who’s the truer Trump disciple proves their point. But in a state where Gov. Phil Murphy’s term limit opens the door, Republicans might regret letting ideology overshadow electability.
Trump’s influence isn’t just talk—he held a massive rally in Wildwood, New Jersey, on May 11, 2024, showing his pull. Ciattarelli praised Trump’s policies, like halting offshore wind farms and pushing for higher SALT deductions, saying, “Those are big deals to New Jersey.” Tying himself to Trump’s agenda might energize the base, but it risks alienating moderates in a general election.
Spadea, meanwhile, insists Trump’s endorsement misfired. “Almost every Trump supporter thinks that Donald Trump made a huge mistake,” he claimed, arguing his common-sense conservatism resonates more. If Spadea’s right, Ciattarelli’s Trump card could turn into a liability by June 8.
Ciattarelli’s 2021 loss to Murphy by just three points shows he can come close, but close doesn’t cut it. “We were the spark that lit the fuse in ’21,” he said, eyeing a Republican upset in 2025. Yet, his dismissal of other endorsements in 2021—“There’s only one endorsement I seek, and that’s the voters”—suggests he knows Trump’s nod alone won’t seal the deal.
New Jersey and Virginia are the only states with gubernatorial races in 2025, making this primary a national bellwether. Ciattarelli’s confidence—“The country is watching”—reflects the stakes in a state where Republicans have a fighting chance. But overplaying the MAGA hand could hand Democrats an easy win in November.
Spadea’s radio platform gives him a unique edge, claiming, “I’m the only candidate who can pull in Democrats and independents.” His prediction—“We’re going to win”—is brash, but his grassroots surge shows he’s not bluffing. Still, banking on crossover appeal in a primary risks diluting his GOP bona fides.
As early voting unfolds, Ciattarelli’s lead in polls and cash keeps him ahead, but Spadea’s tenacity and Bramnick’s quiet campaign keep the race tight.
Trump’s endorsement has set the stage for a primary where loyalty to his brand is as crucial as policy. New Jersey’s GOP voters will decide if MAGA fervor trumps electability—or if both can coexist.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a reorganization plan for the State Department on Thursday that will make many of the changes DOGE suggested there permanent, according to Fox Digital.
More than 300 of the 700 offices and bureaus housed at the State Department will be eliminated or combined as part of the overhaul, which will be the largest since the Cold War era, an official said.
"We have too many godd--- offices," a senior State Department official told Fox News Digital. "We’re trying to shrink offices rather than create them."
Rubio said in April that the overhaul was coming because the agency was "bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission."
In addition to cost-cutting, the streamlining plan will make the agency more responsive to threats and help it to respond quicker when those threats do come.
About 3,400 personnel will be cut from the department's rolls, which is a 15-20% overall reduction in head count.
"We are really addressing a significant portion of the department's domestic offices and sort of merging them, combining them, trying to make them more efficient," the senior State Department official said.
An update on the reductions is expected by July 1.
Only domestic offices will be impacted, not embassies abroad, officials said.
"We're really shifting the focus towards our embassies out in the field, our ambassadors out in the field, giving them the tools… so that they can effectively implement the ‘America First’ diplomacy out there in the field," another senior State Department official told Fox News Digital.
Restructuring "is not designed to either cripple the department or in any way — it’s not even a cost-savings endeavor," Rubio told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on foreign affairs on May 20.
Despite Musk's departure last week, many DOGE employees will continue to be part of Trump's administration, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a briefing.
"Surely the mission of Doge will continue," Leavitt told reporters Thursday. "Many Doge employees are now political employees."
Musk will also be involved with the Trump administration as an advisor; he was limited to 130 days of employment by DOGE as a temporary figure.
As the old saying asserts, politics makes strange bedfellows, and that proposition was brought into stark relief once again this week when one of the Senate's most liberal voices sided with President Donald Trump on a key issue facing the nation.
As Fox Business reports, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) on Friday acknowledged that she is in agreement with the Republican commander in chief's opinion that the federal debt limit should be eliminated once and for all.
The liberal firebrand from Massachusetts has made her position clear when it comes to the debt limit, a mechanism which places a ceiling on the amount of money the Treasury may owe at any one time to pay the country's obligations.
Warren took to X to outline her stance, boldly revealing that she and Trump are of like minds on the issue, saying, “the debt limit should be scrapped to prevent an economic catastrophe.”
She went on to urge Congress to “pass a bipartisan bill and get rid of it forever.”
The lawmaker then took pains to distance herself from Trump despite their agreement on this one, discrete issue, however, attacking the “big, beautiful bill” he currently supports.
“But jacking up the debt limit by $4 trillion to fund more tax breaks for billionaires is an outrage,” Warren added.
It was soon after his November 2024 election to a second term in office that Trump made his stance on the debt limit quite clear, as NBC News noted at the time.
Trump declared in a phone interview with the outlet that eliminating the debt ceiling permanently would represent the “smartest thing [Congress] could do. I would support that entirely.”
The then-president-elect also pointed to the ability to garner bipartisan support for such a push, noting, “The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge.”
Trump went on to suggest that the debt ceiling itself has little practical meaning and that the consequences of its breach are nebulous, at best.
“It doesn't mean anything, except psychologically,” Trump mused.
While it is a rare thing indeed for the likes of Trump and Warren to see eye-to-eye on just about anything, the president referenced the common ground he shares with the senator on this key issue ahead of a Friday press availability.
Emphasizing that he “always agreed with [Warren]” on the debt limit question, Trump highlighted the highly unusual moment of connection with one of the upper chamber's most left-wing members, but whether that will ever translate into a collaborative effort of any sort, only time will tell.
President Donald Trump said Elon Musk is "really not leaving" even as his four-month stint as Department of Government efficiency head is coming to a close, Newsmax reported. Trump made this announcement Friday from the Oval Office.
Trump thanked the Tesla billionaire for his work in slashing government waste and spending. During Musk's tenure, he saved taxpayers billions of dollars while cutting thousands of employees.
Musk looked on as he stood behind Trump, who was seated at the Resolute Desk, when he made the announcement. "Elon is really not leaving. He's going to be back and forth," Trump said.
Trump: "Elon's really not leaving. He's gonna be back and forth." pic.twitter.com/5PsT7V6Edm
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 30, 2025
There have been reports that the relationship between the president and the SpaceX mogul has been rocky. The press conference seemed to be a way for Trump and Musk to show a united front even amid disagreements.
Musk touted his ability to cut from the budget, though he said the "banal evil of bureaucracy" prevented it from being much more. "This is not the end of DOGE but really the beginning," Musk said.
The positive tone of this news conference was in contrast to earlier in the week when Musk slammed Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" for its bloated price tag and cuts to green energy subsidies, The Hill reported. Musk said he was "disappointed" when it passed the House of Representatives.
"I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit … and it undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing," Musk said on CBS Sunday Morning. "I think a bill can be big, or it could be beautiful," Musk said.
"I don’t know if it could be both. My personal opinion," Musk added. Nevertheless, Trump presented Musk with a signed box containing a symbolic golden key, stating that it was reserved for "very special people."
The Daily Beast reported that Trump announced the plan in March for Musk to ease out of his role at DOGE because of Musk's volatility. The announcement came following an alleged blowup between Musk and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Now, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon is saying that Musk "got physical" with Secretary Scott Bessent in another blowup in Apil. They had a disagreement about the lackluster impact he made at DOGE as Bassent confronted Musk over disappointing results.
"Scott Bessent called him out and said, ‘You promised us a trillion dollars (in cuts), and now you’re at like $100 billion, and nobody can find anything, what are you doing?' And that’s when Elon got physical. It’s a sore subject with him," Bannon explained.
"It wasn’t an argument, it was a physical confrontation. Elon basically shoved him," Bannon clarified. On Friday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the disagreement existed but didn't elaborate on the physical nature of it.
Perhaps it's best that Musk back away from the administration and just allow Trump to call on him for advice from time to time. What Musk has accomplished was significant and a great start to a more austere Washington, D.C., mindset even if it fell short of his promises.
A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump's administration from abolishing a parole program for illegal immigrants on Wednesday, Fox News reported. However, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a similar ruling on the issue Friday, which could signal another future win for the administration on this issue.
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of Massachusetts ruled against abolishing the parole program created under then-President Joe Biden. Migrants from Ukraine, Latin America, and Afghanistan, along with their immediate family members, were given two years to reside in the U.S.
The program stipulated that parolees and their families must have an American sponsor to participate. Some were also granted access to the program after working as translators for the American military.
Abolishing the program immediately suspended the application for hundreds of thousands of migrants wishing to renew their legal status or apply for work permits. Trump targeted this as one of the many ways to crack down on illegal immigration.
Talwani ruled against the Trump administration's assertion that it had broad powers over the immigration system. The judge, an Obama appointee, said that it was within the purview of the Department of Homeland Security and granted class-action status to the migrants.
According to Talwani, it's "not in the public interest to manufacture a circumstance in which hundreds of thousands of individuals will, over the course of several months, become unlawfully present in the country, such that these individuals cannot legally work in their communities or provide for themselves and their families," she wrote. The decision also extended to humanitarian parolee cases.
"Nor is it in the public interest for individuals who enlisted and are currently serving in the United States military to face family separation, particularly where some of these individuals joined the military in part to help their loved ones obtain lawful status," the judge added. One of the plaintiff attorneys, Anwen Hughes from Human Rights First, championed Talwani's decision in a statement.
"This ruling reaffirms what we have always known to be true: our government has a legal obligation to respect the rights of all humanitarian parole beneficiaries and the Americans who have welcomed them into their communities. We share the judge’s hope that the government will adhere to this order and immediately resume adjudicating our clients’ applications for relief," Hughes wrote.
This decision is in line with Talwani's ruling last month for migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Haiti. In that case, the judge found that status determinations must be made on an individual basis, though it has since been overturned.
According to NBC News, the Supreme Court overturned Talwani's earlier ruling because she was not authorized to decide such matters. The high court weighed in after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem filed an emergency petition, which was granted Friday.
This impacts some 532,000 migrants from Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and Haiti who have now seen their status become immediately illegal. However, the affected individuals still have the option to apply for asylum, which many have already done.
Predictably, left-leaning Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented from the opinion. Jackson claimed that the court's short opinion ignored "the devastating consequences of allowing the government to precipitously upend the lives and livelihoods of nearly half a million noncitizens while their legal claims are pending."
Justice Action Center attorney Karen Tumlin cited the same concerns. "I cannot overstate how devastating this is: The Supreme Court has allowed the Trump Administration to unleash widespread chaos, not just for our clients and class members, but for their families, their workplaces, and their communities," Tumlin claimed.
With Talwani's initial block already overturned, it seems any subsequent decision could meet the same fate. This is good news for the Trump administration and all who value a tighter, more secure immigration system.