Page 44 - Trump Administration

Trump official urges probe of NY attorney general over mortgage transaction

In the summer of 2023, New York Attorney General Letitia James helped her niece buy a modest house in Norfolk, Virginia, by becoming a co-borrower on the mortgage loan. A top housing official in the Trump administration has now seized on a document in that transaction to argue that James should be prosecuted for bank fraud, asking the US Justice Department in a letter to open a criminal investigation into the Democrat. The request for an investigation comes as the administration has pursued a campaign of retribution against President Donald Trump's longtime foes in the legal world. James won a $454 million judgment against Trump last year in a lawsuit claiming he had lied about the value of his assets on financial statements given to banks. James called the allegations against her baseless." It is nothing more than a headline, nothing more than retaliation against all the actions I have taken successfully against Donald Trump," she said Wednesday in an interview on the New York cab

Lawsuit challenges Trump administration crackdown on international students

A class action lawsuit filed Friday asks a federal court to reinstate the legal status of international students caught up in a Trump administration crackdown that has left more than a thousand fearful of deportation. The suit filed by several American Civil Liberties Union affiliates seeks to represent more than 100 students in New England and Puerto Rico. "International students are a vital community in our state's universities, and no administration should be allowed to circumvent the law to unilaterally strip students of status, disrupt their studies, and put them at risk of deportation, said Gilles Bissonnette, legal director of the ACLU of New Hampshire. At schools around the country, students have seen their visas revoked or their legal status terminated, typically with little notice. About 1,100 students at more than 170 colleges, universities and university systems have been affected since late March, according to an Associated Press review of university statements, ...

Trump to invoke Schedule F to make it easier to fire some federal workers

President Donald Trump is preparing to make one of the controversial personnel changes laid out in the conservative Project 2025 blueprint for his second term. He plans to reclassify 50,000 federal employees under what's known as Schedule F, which means they'll have less civil service protection. The proposal follows an executive order signed at the beginning of his term, and it's expected to be published in the Federal Register on Friday afternoon. Trump announced the move on social media before the rule was published Friday. If these government workers refuse to advance the policy interests of the President, or are engaging in corrupt behavior, they should no longer have a job, he wrote on his Truth Social platform. This is common sense, and will allow the federal government to finally be run like a business.' Administration officials argue that it's necessary to increase accountability in the workforce. The change is expected to make it easier to replace career employees who hav

Trump defies court orders on deportation, judges launch investigations

Judges have called out the White House's disregard for their rulings against the deportation flight to El Salvador carrying US citizen Abrego Garcia

Pentagon axes $5.1 bn 'wasteful' IT deals with Accenture, Deloitte, others

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth estimates the Pentagon will save nearly $4 billion from the terminated IT and consulting contracts deemed non-essential

Trump escalates threat to fire US Fed Chair Jerome Powell: Here's why

Donald Trump has long pressured the Fed Chair to cut interest rates, especially after the administration imposed global tariffs on trade partners

Trump admin seeks expansion of nation's immigration detention system

Amid rural Louisiana's crawfish farms, towering pine trees and cafes serving po'boys, nearly 7,000 people are waiting at immigration detention centers to learn whether they will be expelled from the United States. If President Donald Trump's administration has its way, the capacity to hold tens of thousands more migrants will soon be added around the country as the US seeks an explosive expansion of what is already the world's largest immigration detention system. Trump's effort to conduct mass deportations as promised in the 2024 campaign represents a potential bonanza for private prison companies and a challenge to the government agencies responsible for the orderly expulsion of immigrants. Some critics say the administration's plans also include a deliberate attempt to isolate detainees by locking them up and holding court proceedings far from their attorneys and support systems. The acting director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Todd Lyons, said at a border .

Baltimore judge temporarily limits DOGE access to social security data

A federal judge on Thursday imposed new restrictions on billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency, limiting its access to Social Security systems that hold personal data on millions of Americans. US District Judge Ellen Hollander issued a preliminary injunction in the case, which was brought by a group of labour unions and retirees who allege DOGE's recent actions violate privacy laws and present massive information security risks. Hollander had previously issued a temporary restraining order. The injunction does allow DOGE staffers to access data that's been redacted or stripped of anything personally identifiable, if they undergo training and background checks. During a federal court hearing Tuesday in Baltimore, Hollander repeatedly asked the government's attorneys why DOGE needs seemingly unfettered access to the agency's troves of sensitive personal information to uncover Social Security fraud.

Trump threat to foreign enrolment puts Harvard's finances at risk

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued the threat, saying anti-American, pro-Hamas ideology was poisoning the university

US, Ukraine to sign critical minerals deal next Thursday, says Trump

The partnership accord would grant the US first claim on profits transferred into a special reconstruction investment fund that would be controlled by Washington

WH proposes eliminating Head Start funding as part of sweeping budget cuts

The Trump administration is asking Congress to eliminate funding for Head Start, a move that would cut early education for more than half a million of the nation's neediest children and child care for their families. The proposal is tucked in a 64-page internal draft budget document obtained by The Associated Press that seeks deep cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees Head Start. It is still in a highly preliminary phase as the White House prepares to send Congress its budget request for the 2026 fiscal year. It is not clear if the proposed cuts will be accepted by lawmakers. While Congress often ignores a president's budget request, the proposed elimination of Head Start highlights the administration's priorities as President Donald Trump seeks to overhaul education in the United States. The budget does not fund Head Start, according to the draft. It says eliminating the programme is consistent with the Trump administration's goals of returning control

Court calls Trump admin's defiance over mistakenly deported man 'shocking'

The Trump administration's claim that it can't do anything to free Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison and return him to the US should be shocking, a federal appeals court said Thursday in a scathing ruling in favour of the Maryland man. A three-judge panel from the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously refused to suspend a judge's decision to order sworn testimony by Trump administration officials to determine if they complied with her instruction to facilitate Abrego Garcia's return. The panel said Republican President Donald Trump's government is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further, it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody that there is nothing that can be done. This should be shocking not only to judges, but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from courthouses still hold dear, th

Who is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man wrongly deported to El Salvador?

Despite a court ruling that protected him from deportation, he was mistakenly sent to El Salvador last month - and is now locked inside one of the world's harshest prisons

Who is Chinmay Deore, Indian student challenging his US visa termination?

Chinmay Deore, 21, a computer science student at Wayne State University, claims with three others that their immigration status was unlawfully revoked by US officials without prior notice

Homeland Security threatens to revoke Harvard's ability to enrol foreigners

The US Department of Homeland Security has threatened to revoke Harvard University's ability to enrol foreign students if it failed to provide by April 30 records on its international student visa holders' "illegal and violent" activities. It also cancelled grants totalling more than USD 2.7 million to Harvard University. The latest action from the Trump administration against Harvard comes on the heels of a USD 2.2 billion federal funding freeze because the university rejected a list of demands. The administration also proposed the revocation of the university's tax-exempt status over its radical ideology. "Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem announced the cancellation of two DHS grants totalling over $2.7 million to Harvard University, declaring it unfit to be entrusted with taxpayer dollars," the DHS said in a statement on Wednesday. "The Secretary also wrote a scathing letter demanding detailed records on Harvard's foreign student visa holders' illegal a

IRS move to revoke tax-exempt status would be 'unlawful', says Harvard

With a $53 billion endowment, Harvard has emerged as the highest-profile university to contest Trump's attempts to force sweeping changes on higher education

California becomes first US state to file lawsuit to block Trump's tariffs

California challenges Trump's sweeping tariffs in court, arguing he overstepped authority under emergency powers law and caused economic harm to the state and nation

Trump officials likely in contempt over Venezuela deportations, says judge

US District Judge James Boasberg issued an order saying that officials acted in "willful disregard" of his verbal order on March 15 to turn around planes carrying Venezuelans

Trump admin urges judges to fast-track deportations, skip asylum hearings

Speeding up the flow of cases through immigration court could bolster the administration's effort to expand its mass arrest and deportation effort

Judge to order Trump officials to testify in Kilmar Garcia deportation case

A federal judge in Maryland will order sworn testimony by officials in President Donald Trump's administration to determine if they complied with her orders to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia from an El Salvador prison. US District Judge Paula Xinis issued her order after Trump officials continually refused to retrieve Abrego Garcia, saying they defied a clear Supreme Court order. She said the process could take two weeks and told the attorneys on both sides to cancel any vacations or appointments. The bottom line is it was a very simple directive, Xinis said of her own order. I've got nothing. I've got no real response. The afternoon hearing came a day after White House advisers repeated the claim that they lack the authority to bring back the Salvadoran national from his native country. The president of El Salvador also said Monday that he would not return Abrego Garcia, likening it to smuggling a terrorist into the United States. Here's the latest: Biden: 30 per c