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IOWA CITY, Iowa — A powerful U.S. senator on Tuesday called on the Trump administration to fix a growing backlog and longtime management problems at the program that promises benefits when police and firefighters die or become disabled in the line of duty.
Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the Public Safety Officers’ Benefits program is failing the spouses and children of deceased and disabled first responders and needs new leadership. He said the mismanagement has caused significant hardship for grieving families, who often experience yearslong delays in processing and approving claims.
“This is absolutely unacceptable,” he wrote in a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi, in which he suggested she consider replacing longtime program leader Hope Janke.
Grassley’s letter comes days after The Associated Press published an investigation detailing the claims backlog at the program, which provides a nearly $450,000 one-time payment to the families of deceased and disabled officers and firefighters in addition to education benefits.
The AP found dozens of families are waiting five years or more to learn whether they qualify for the life-changing payments, and more are being denied. As of late April, nearly 900 claims had been pending for more than one year, more than triple the number from five years ago, with a small number languishing for a decade.
Grassley cited a Government Accountability Office report issued last year that detailed deficiencies in the program’s management dating back to 2009. He said the program had failed to make changes recommended by outside reviewers but that “government bureaucrats” such as Janke have never been held accountable.
Janke has not responded to AP emails seeking comment, including one Tuesday. A request for comment to the DOJ wasn’t immediately returned.
DOJ officials said earlier this year that they are adopting several recommendations from the GAO, including improvements to make the program’s electronic claims management system more user-friendly. They say they are responding to a surge of claims after Congress has made more categories of deaths and injuries eligible for benefits.
Grassley demanded the DOJ provide updates and documents within two weeks related to the status of those changes.
Texas widow Lisa Afolayan, who is still fighting the program for benefits 16 years after her husband died while training for the Border Patrol, welcomed Grassley’s oversight of the program.
“We need movement. We need change and not only for my family,” she said. “They’ve lost sight of why the program was started.”
WASHINGTON — President Trump isn’t the first president to order military strikes without congressional approval. But his decision to bomb Iran comes at a uniquely volatile moment — both at home and abroad.
Overseas, the U.S. risks deeper entanglement in the Middle East if fighting erupts again between Israel and Iran. At home, Trump continues to sidestep oversight, showing little regard for checks and balances.
His move has reignited a decades-old debate over the War Powers Act, a law passed in the early 1970s meant to divide authority over military action between Congress and the president. Critics say Trump violated the act by striking with little input from Congress, while supporters argue he responded to an imminent threat and is looking to avoid prolonged conflict.
Even after Trump announced late Monday that a “complete and total ceasefire” between Israel and Iran would take effect over the next 24 hours, tensions remained high in Congress over Trump’s action. A vote is expected in the Senate later this week on a Democratic Iran war powers resolution that is meant to place a check on Trump when it comes to further entanglement with Iran.
Here’s a closer look at what the act does and doesn’t do, how past presidents have tested it and how Congress plans to respond:
Dividing war powers between Congress and the president
Passed in the wake of American involvement in Vietnam, the War Powers Resolution prescribes how the president should work with lawmakers to deploy troops if Congress hasn’t already issued a declaration of war.
It states that the framers of the Constitution intended for Congress and the President to use its “collective judgement” to send troops into “hostilities.” The War Powers Resolution calls for the president “in every possible instance” to “consult with Congress before introducing United States Armed Forces.”
But when Congress enacted the law, “it didn’t install any hard requirements, and it provided a lot of outs,” said Scott Anderson, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“Habitual practice for presidents in the last few decades has been to minimally — almost not at all — consult with Congress on a lot of military action,” Anderson said. And “the language of the statute is so vague and open-ended that it’s hard to say it’s in clear contradiction” to the War Powers Resolution.
Unless a Declaration of War has already been passed or Congress has authorized deploying forces, the president has 48 hours after deploying troops to send a written report to congressional leadership explaining the decision. Trump did so on Monday, sending Congress a letter that said strikes on Iran over the weekend were “limited in scope and purpose” and “designed to minimize casualties, deter future attacks and limit the risk of escalation.”
In March, when Trump ordered airstrikes in Houthi-held areas in Yemen, he wrote a letter to congressional leadership explaining his rationale and reviewing his orders to the Department of Defense. President Biden wrote nearly 20 letters citing the War Powers Resolution during his term.
If Congress doesn’t authorize further action within 60 to 90 days, the resolution requires that the president “terminate any use” of the armed forces. “That’s the hard requirement of the War Powers Resolution,” Anderson said.
How past presidents have used it
Congress hasn’t declared war on another country since World War II, but U.S. presidents have filed scores of reports pursuant to the War Powers Resolution since it was enacted in 1973, over President Nixon’s veto.
Presidents have seized upon some of the vague wording in the War Powers Resolution to justify their actions abroad. In 1980, for example, Jimmy Carter argued that attempting to rescue hostages from Iran didn’t require a consultation with Congress, since it wasn’t an act of war, according to the Congressional Research Service.
President George W. Bush invoked war powers in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and persuaded Congress to approve an authorization for the use of military force against Iraq in 2002.
Throughout his presidency, President Obama faced pressure to cease operations in Libya after 90 days. But his administration argued that the U.S. use of airpower in Libya didn’t rise to the level of “hostilities” set forth in the War Powers Resolution.
What Congress is doing now
Trump’s actions in Iran have drawn the loudest praise from the right and the sharpest rebukes from the left. But the response hasn’t broken cleanly along party lines.
Daily developments have also complicated matters. Trump on Sunday raised the possibility of a change in leadership in Iran, before on Monday announcing that Israel and Iran had agreed to a “complete and total” ceasefire to be phased in over the next 24 hours.
Nevertheless, the Senate could vote as soon as this week on a resolution directing the removal of U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran that have not been authorized by Congress.
Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., the bill’s sponsor, told reporters Monday — prior to the ceasefire announcement — that the vote could come “as early as Wednesday, as late as Friday.” He expects bipartisan backing, though support is still coming together ahead of a classified briefing for senators on Tuesday.
“There will be Republicans who will support it,” Kaine said. “Exactly how many, I don’t know.”
He added that, “this is as fluid a vote as I’ve been involved with during my time here, because the facts are changing every day.”
Passing the resolution could prove difficult, especially with Republicans praising Trump after news of the ceasefire broke. Even prior to that, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., defended Trump’s actions on Monday and said he’s operating within his authority.
“There’s always a tension between Congress’ power to declare war and the president’s power as commander in chief,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. “But I think the White House contacted its people, as many people as they could.”
A similar bipartisan resolution in the House — led by Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie — could follow soon, although Massie signaled Monday that he may no longer pursue it if peace has been reached.
Khanna was undeterred.
“In case of a conflict in the future, we need to be on record saying no offensive war in Iran without prior authorization,” Khanna said. “We still need a vote.”
Askarinam and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Matt Brown contributed to this report.
Ever since President Trump seized control of the California National Guard and deployed thousands of troops to Los Angeles, calls from distressed soldiers and their families have been pouring in to the GI Rights Hotline.
Some National Guard members and their loved ones have called to say they were agonizing over the legality of the deployment, which is being litigated in federal court, according to Steve Woolford, a resource counselor for the hotline, which provides confidential counseling for service members.
Others phoned in to say the Guard should play no part in federal immigration raids and that they worried about immigrant family members who might get swept up.
“They don’t want to deport their uncle or their wife or their brother-in-law,” Woolford said. “… Some of the language people have used is: ‘I joined to defend my country, and that’s really important to me — but No. 1 is family, and this is actually a threat to my family.’ ”
Although active-duty soldiers are largely restricted from publicly commenting on their orders, veterans’ advocates who are in direct contact with troops and their families say they are deeply concerned about the morale of the roughly 4,100 National Guard members and 700 U.S. Marines deployed to Los Angeles amid protests against immigration raids.
In interviews with The Times, spokespeople for six veterans’ advocacy organizations said many troops were troubled by the assignment, which they viewed as overtly political and as pitting them against fellow Americans.
Advocates also said they worry about the domestic deployment’s potential effects on military retention and recruitment, which recently rebounded after several years in which various branches failed to meet recruiting goals.
“What we’re hearing from our families is: ‘This is not what we signed up for,’ ” said Brandi Jones, organizing director for the Secure Families Initiative, a nonprofit that advocates for military spouses, children and veterans. “Our families are very concerned about morale.”
Horse riders make their way past U.S. Marines near the Paramount Home Depot during the Human Rights Unity Ride on June 22, 2025.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
Janessa Goldbeck, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and chief executive of the nonprofit Vet Voice Foundation, said that, among the former Marine Corps colleagues she has spoken to in recent weeks, “There’s been a universal expression of, ‘This is an unnecessary deployment given the operational situation.’”
“The fact that the LAPD and local elected officials repeatedly said deploying the National Guard and active duty Marines would be escalatory or inflammatory and the president of the United States chose to ignore that and deploy them anyway puts the young men and women in uniform in an unnecessarily political position,“ she said.
She added that the “young men and women who raised their right hand to serve their country” did “not sign up to police their own neighbors.”
Trump has repeatedly said Los Angeles would be “burning to the ground” if he had not sent troops to help quell the protests.
“We saved Los Angeles by having the military go in,” Trump told reporters last week. “And the second night was much better. The third night was nothing much. And the fourth night, nobody bothered even coming.”
The troops in Los Angeles do not have the authority to arrest protesters and were deployed only to defend federal functions, property and personnel, according to the military’s U.S. Northern Command.
Task Force 51, the military’s designation of the Los Angeles forces, said in an email Saturday that “while we cannot speak for the individual experience of each service member, the general assessment of morale by leadership is positive.”
The personnel’s “quality of life,” the statement continued, is “addressed through the continued improvement of living facilities, balanced work-rest cycles, and access to chaplains, licensed clinical social workers, and behavioral health experts.”
U.S. Marines guard the Federal Building at the corner of Veteran Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
It is unclear whether the National Guard troops, federalized under Title 10 of the United States Code, had been paid as of this weekend.Task Force 51 told The Times on Saturday that the soldiers who received 60-day activation orders on June 7 “will start receiving pay by end of the month” and that “those that have financial concerns have access to resources such as Army Emergency Relief,” a nonprofit charitable organization.
U.S. Rep. Derek Tran (D-Orange), an Army veteran and member of the House Armed Services Committee, said he has asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “for his plan to manage the logistics of this military activation, but he has failed to provide me with any clear answers.”
Tran said in a statement to The Times that “the pattern of disrespect this Administration has shown our Veterans and active-duty military personnel is disgraceful, and I absolutely think it will negatively impact our ability to attract and retain the troops that keep America’s military capacity the envy of the world.”
Diana Crofts-Pelayo, a spokeswoman for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said in an email that the governor is “worried how this mission will impact the physical and emotional well-being of the soldiers deployed unnecessarily to Los Angeles.”
On June 9, Newsom posted photos on X depicting National Guard soldiers crowded together, sleeping on concrete floors and what appeared to be a loading dock. Newsom wrote that the president sent troops “without fuel, food, water or a place to sleep.”
Task Force 51 told The Times that the soldiers in the photos “were not actively on mission, so they were taking time to rest.” At the time, the statement continued, “it was deemed too dangerous for them to travel to better accommodations.”
Since then, according to Task Force 51, the military has contracted “for sleeping tents, latrines, showers, hand-washing stations, hot meals for breakfast, dinner and a late-night meal, and full laundry service.”
“Most of the contracts have been fulfilled at this time,” the military said.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement to The Times that Newsom “should apologize for using out-of-context photos of National Guardsmen to try and make a political argument.”
“Under President Trump’s leadership military morale is sky high because our troops know they finally have a patriotic Commander-In-Chief who will always have their backs,” Jackson wrote.
Troops have been posted outside federal buildings in an increasingly quiet downtown Civic Center — a few square blocks within the 500-square-mile city.
Their interactions with the public are far different from those earlier this year, when Newsom deployed the National Guard to L.A. County to help with wildfire recovery efforts after the Eaton and Palisades fires.
At burn zone check points, National Guard members were often spotted chatting with locals, some of whom brought food and water and thanked them for keeping looters away.
But downtown, soldiers have stood stone-faced behind riot shields as furious protesters have flipped them off, sworn at them and questioned their integrity.
Members of the California National Guard stand by as thousands participate in the “No Kings” protest demonstration in downtown Los Angeles on June 14.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
During the boisterous “No Kings” protests on June 14, a woman held up a mirror to troops outside the downtown Federal Building with the words: “This is not your job. It’s YOUR LEGACY.” On a quiet Wednesday morning, a UCLA professor, standing solo outside the Federal Building, held up a sign to half a dozen Guard members reading: “It’s Called the Constitution You F—ers.”
James M. Branum, an attorney who works with the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild, said that, in recent weeks, the task force has received two to three times more than the usual volume of referrals and direct calls. The upward trend began after Trump came into office, with people calling about the war in Gaza and increased military deployment to the U.S. southern border — but calls spiked after troops were sent to Los Angeles, he said.
“A lot of these folks joined because they want to fight who they see as the terrorists,” Branum said. “They want to fight enemies of the United States … they never envisioned they would be deployed to the streets of the United States.”
In his June 7 memo federalizing the National Guard, Trump called for their deployment in places where protests against federal immigration enforcement were occurring or “are likely to occur.” The memo does not specify Los Angeles or California.
California officials have sued the president over the deployment, arguing in a federal complaint that the Trump administration’s directives are “phrased in an ambiguous manner and suggest potential misuse of the federalized National Guard.”
“Guardsmen across the country are on high alert, [thinking] that they could be pulled into this,” said Goldbeck, with the Vet Voice Foundation.
Jones, with the Secure Families Initiative, said military families “are very nervous in this moment.”
“They are so unprepared for what’s happening, and they’re very afraid to speak publicly,” she said.
Jones said she had been communicating with the wife of one National Guard member who said she had recently suffered a stroke. The woman said her husband had been on Family and Medical Leave Act leave from his civilian job to care for her. The woman said his leave was not recognized by the military for the domestic assignment. He was deployed to Los Angeles, and she has been struggling to find a caregiver, Jones said.
Jones said her own husband, an active-duty Marine, deployed to Iraq in 2004 with the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment based at Twentynine Palms — the same infantry unit now mustered in Los Angeles.
The unit was hard hit in Afghanistan in 2008, with at least 20 Marines killed and its high rate of suicide after that year’s deployment highly publicized.
Jones said she was stunned to learn the battalion — nicknamed the War Dogs — was being deployed to Los Angeles.
“I said, ‘Wait, it’s 2/7 they’re sending in? The War Dogs? Releasing them on Los Angeles?’ It was nuts for me,” Jones said. “To hear that unit affiliated with this — for my family that’s been serving for two decades, it brings up a lot.”
The Los Angeles deployment comes at a time of year when the California National Guard is often engaged in wildfire suppression operations — a coincidence that has raised concerns among some officials.
On June 18, Capt. Rasheedah Bilal was activated by the California National Guard and assigned to Sacramento, where she is backfilling in an operational role for Joint Task Force Rattlesnake, a National Guard firefighting unit that is now understaffed because roughly half its members are deployed to Los Angeles.
“That’s a large amount to pull off that mission … so you have to activate additional Guardsmen to cover on those missions,” said Bilal, speaking in her capacity as executive director of the nonprofit National Guard Assn. of California.
National Guard members are primarily part-time soldiers, who hold civilian jobs or attend college until called into active duty. In California — a state prone to wildfires, earthquakes and floods — they get called into duty a lot, she said.
Many of the same National Guard soldiers in downtown Los Angeles are the same ones who just finished a 120-day activation for wildfire recovery, she said.
“You have the state response to fire and then federal activation? It becomes a strain,” Bilal said.
“They haven’t complained,” she added. “Soldiers vote with their feet. We’re mostly quiet professionals and take a lot of pride in our job. [But] you can only squeeze so much of a lemon before it is dry. You can only pound on the California Guardsmen without it affecting things like retention and recruiting.”
“I was hoping José Padilla would be here to ask a question. But unfortunately I guess he decided not to show up because there wasn’t a theater.”
“Theater” is how Vance described what happened a week earlier, when Padilla was handcuffed and detained at the federal building in Westwood for trying to pose a question to Homeland Security head Kristi Noem at a news conference.
The only wannabe thespian that day was Noem, who channeled her inner Evita when claiming that the deployment of nearly 5,000 National Guard troops and Marines to clamp down on L.A. activists trying to stop la migra from conducting immigration raids was necessary “to liberate this city from the socialist and burdensome leadership” of Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.
“José” is what Vance thinks of Alex. Anyone who thinks this was a slip of the tongue doesn’t know their anti-Latino history.
For over a century, Americans have used Spanish first names as catchall slurs against Latinos. Mexican men were dismissed as violent Panchos and stupid Pedros. Latinas of all backgrounds have endured being typecast as a slutty Maria or subservient Lupe.
“José” was originally deployed against Puerto Ricans, according to the Historical Dictionary of American Slang. By the 1970s, because of the name’s ubiquity, racists had adopted it to describe all Latino men. The Social Security Administration lists José as the most common Hispanic name for boys over the last 100 years.
Vance’s misnaming of Padilla “was the perfect linguistic and class storm,” said San Diego State English professor William Nericcio, who has spent his career documenting the psychology behind anti-Latino racism in this country. “The vice president was proclaiming to Sen. Padilla, ‘Yeah, I know you. I don’t even remember your name. That’s how little you mean. You’re a José. You’re a nothing, a nobody, a dirty Mexican.’”
Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) is removed from the room after interrupting a news conference with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at the Wilshire Federal Building in Los Angeles on June 12..
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
“It was the cherry on top of them actually throwing Padilla to the ground,” Nericcio added, referring to federal agents’ handcuffing of Padilla, which was captured on video.
Padilla went on MSNBC over the weekend to call Vance’s jab “petty and unserious,” adding, “He knows my name,” since the two of them served in the Senate together, and the vice president presides over the Senate.
I thought of all my friends who had their name butchered as children and even adults — “Joe-zay,” “Josie” or pronounced correctly but in an exaggerated tone.
I thought of my grandfathers, José Miranda and José Arellano, who came from isolated Mexican mountain towns that are brothers from another madre to Vance’s ancestral home in Appalachia, but who never let hard times sour their outlook — unlike the vice president’s clan. I thought of my Tía Maria’s oldest son, José Fernandez, whom everyone calls “Chepe.” We cousins all love him for his gregarious attitude, delicious carne asada and a career in cement that saw Chepe advance from laborer to supervisor.
None of the Josés in my family were jokes. Neither were the Josés I admire — Cuban revolutionary José Martí, Mexican singer-songwriter José Alfredo Jiménez, farmworker-turned-astronaut José M. Hernández. Nor was Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus — José is what we call him in Spanish. Vance, a professed Catholic, should know better than to use such a holy name as a joke.
That Vance reduced Padilla’s attempted questioning of Noem to a charade shows what a clown he is. Spitting out “José” like a villain in a low-budget western reveals his rank racism. And if you think I’m exaggerating, consider how Vance’s press secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, responded when Politico asked her to elaborate on his José insult: She said her boss “must have mixed up two people who have broken the law.”
Not only did Alex Padilla not break any laws, but Van Kirk’s vague allusion to a second supposed criminal confirmed the point I made a few weeks ago: to Trump and his crew, all Mexicans are interchangeable, not to be trusted and most likely felonious.
So to repeat: Vance misnames Alex Padilla during a press conference. His press flak insinuates it’s because the senator’s name sounds like that of a nameless criminal.
The common dehumanizing thread is “José.”
I called up two Josés I know to see how they were feeling after Vance’s verbal ballet of bigotry.
José R. Ralat represents the sixth generation of men in his family with the same name. Yet that pedigree meant nothing when he moved to the mainland from his native Puerto Rico.
The taunts of “No way, José!” followed Ralat throughout his childhood in North Carolina — the same line his father had heard from gringos in 1960s New York. An elementary school teacher didn’t even bother to try to pronounce “José,” instead calling Ralat “Whatever your name is.” A middle school instructor called all the Latino students “José.”
“At first I was really confused,” said Ralat, who’s the taco editor for Texas Monthly. “It’s the most boring-ass name in Spanish, where I came from. Make fun of that? But it just kept happening. It was weird. It was awful. It was almost as awful as being called ‘spic.’”
That’s why when Ralat heard Vance’s José dig, “I rolled my eyes and thought, ‘Here we go again.’ It’s such a childish, boring insult. Shakespeare he is not.”
José M. Alamillo is chair of Chicana/o Studies at Cal State Channel Islands. Named after his father, he has traced the Josés in his family tree all the way back to 1759. But growing up in Ventura as a Mexican immigrant, the 55-year-old said the mockery he endured over his first name was so pervasive that he went by Joe through high school.
Alamillo only started calling himself José again at UC Santa Barbara, after a professor on the first day of class pronounced it like it was any other name.
“The move was small,” he said, “but it gave my name back some dignity.”
When Alamillo saw the clip of Vance misnaming Padilla, he immediately thought of Ricardo “Pancho” Gonzalez. The L.A.-born Mexican American tennis player dominated the game during the 1950s, yet was labeled “Pancho” by opponents and the media — a nickname he eventually adopted but always hated.
“What Vance did was really messed up,” Alamillo said. “I can see a staff member doing that, but not the vice president of the United States.”
The profe quickly corrected himself. “Actually, I’m sure he did it to appease to his followers and especially Trump — ‘Yeah, you got him! Way to show up Padilla!’”
Alamillo laughed bitterly. “To them, we’re all just a bunch of Josés.”
In a high-stakes gamble, Wall Street hedge funds are offering to buy claims that insurers may have against Southern California Edison if the utility is found liable for causing the devastating Eaton fire in Altadena.
The solicitations are legal, but have alarmed California state officials — who loathe the idea of investors profiting from a disaster that claimed 18 lives and destroyed more than 9,400 homes and other structures.
“I think everyone in this room looks at a catastrophe, like what happened in Southern California, and our natural instincts are to say, ‘What can we do to help?’” Tom Welsh, the chief executive of the California Earthquake Authority, which manages the state’s wildfire fund, said at a recent public meeting. “There are other actors in the environment who look at that situation in Southern California and ask instead, “What can I do to profit?’”
The investors are aiming to buy so-called subrogation claims from insurance companies. These are claims that insurers would file against Edison seeking reimbursement for the money they paid to their policyholders for fire damages if it’s determined the utility’s equipment triggered the wildfire that began Jan. 7.
For the insurers, selling the claims — even at a steep discount — allows them to get at least some reimbursement for the money they’ve paid out. For the hedge funds buying the claims, it’s a gamble that could pay big if Edison is found liable and they can cash in those claims for much more than they paid.
More than $17 billion in insurance claims for the Eaton and Palisades fires has been paid out so far, according to the California Department of Insurance.
State officials say California has a stake in the trading of fire-related subrogation claims, which was previously reported by Bloomberg, because of the potential effect on the state’s wildfire fund.
That fund, which currently has about $21 billion, would be used to cover most of the costs of damage claims should Edison be found liable for starting the Eaton blaze. While the cause is still under investigation, a leading theory is that a decommissioned transmission line in Eaton Canyon was reenergized and sparked the blaze, Edison has said.
The wildfire fund is managed by a state board called the Catastrophe Response Council. At its last meeting in May, Welsh told the board that solicitations from New York brokers and investment firms began landing in his email inbox in March.
Ronald Ryder at Oppenheimer & Co., a New York investment firm, told Welsh in an email on April 15 that his company was currently trading the subrogation claims. Ryder wrote that there had already been 10 transactions worth more than $1 billion in recovery rights for the Eaton fire as well as the Palisades fire in Pacific Palisades, where the city of Los Angeles faces potential liability.
In another email, Ryder told Welsh that investors were bidding 47 cents on the dollar for the claims related to the Eaton fire. For the Palisades fire, the bidding was 5 cents on the dollar, Ryder wrote.
Welsh warned the council that “speculative investors” might hold onto the Eaton claims and “really try to get outsized profits by demanding settlements from Edison of 75, 80, 85 cents on the dollar.”
If that were to happen, the wildfire fund could pay out “hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars” more than if the claims were settled directly by the insurers, he said.
“That would really, very negatively impact the durability of the wildfire fund,” Welsh said.
Oppenheimer declined to comment, and Ryder didn’t respond to messages.
Under a 2019 state law, the state wildfire fund would be expected to reimburse Edison for most of the insurers’ payments to policyholders if its electrical equipment is found to have started the Eaton fire. The Palisades fire, which occurred in territory serviced by the L.A. Department of Water and Power, isn’t covered by the state fund.
California lawmakers created the wildfire fund in 2019 to protect the state’s three biggest for-profit utilities — Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric — from bankruptcy if their equipment sparks catastrophic wildfires.
The possibility of large settlements paid out by the wildfire fund has led to dozens of lawsuits against Edison, even before the cause of the fire has been determined.
If found responsible for the fire, Edison would negotiate settlements with the insurers, as well as with homeowners and others who have filed lawsuits, saying they’ve been harmed. The utility would then ask the state wildfire fund to cover those amounts.
If the insurers have sold their claims, however, the investors who bought them would reap the returns. Attorneys who handle the complex transactions would also get a cut and “generally take a very high percentage off the top,” Paul Rosenstiel, a catastrophe council member, said at last month’s meeting.
Already, Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state leaders are worried that the $21-billion wildfire fund could be depleted by damage claims from the Eaton fire.
Welsh recounted how a hedge fund had profited in 2019 by buying insurers’ subrogation claims against PG&E after its transmission line was found to have started the 2018 Camp fire that killed 85 people and destroyed much of the town of Paradise. Bloomberg reported at the time that hedge fund Baupost Group made a profit of hundreds of millions of dollars by buying the claims at 35 cents on the dollar and later getting a settlement valued at much more.
To stop hedge funds from profiting on the claims, Welsh said, the earthquake authority is now considering changing its claim administration procedures to make the settlements less lucrative for those investors.
One possible change being discussed, according to authority staff, would require a utility that ignited a wildfire to prioritize settling the claims of victims and insurers who have not sold their subrogation rights before those claims owned by hedge funds.
Los Angeles County’s looming agreement with its biggest labor union is expected to cost a little more than $2 billion over three years — the latest hit to a budget besieged by financial woes.
The cost estimate, provided to The Times on Monday by the county chief executive office, will necessitate more belt-tightening for a government that’s running out of notches.
The deadly January wildfires are expected to cost the county $2 billion. The Trump administration has threatened cuts that would ravage the county’s public health budget. The L.A. County supervisors agreed this year to a historic $4 billion sex abuse settlement — the largest of its kind in U.S. history — and required most departments to make 3% cuts to help pay for it.
The cuts aren’t done, Chief Executive Fesia Davenport warned the supervisors Monday as she walked them through the latest version of the county’s sprawling $49-billion budget.
To pay for salary bumps and bonuses for county workers in the tentative labor agreement, the updated budget slashes $50.5 million, cutting funding for parks, swimming pools and violence prevention, among other programs. Soon, each department will need to make an additional 5.5% cut, said Davenport, whose office drafts the budget and leads labor negotiations.
“We are taking this extraordinary step because we simply have no alternative,” she said.
The supervisors unanimously approved the recommended budget Monday, which included an initial round of cuts to pay for some of the expected labor costs and the multibillion-dollar sex abuse settlement.
Despite their unanimous vote, the supervisors had little nice to say Monday about the plan.
“While the budget may look like it’s healthy, it’s a sick patient,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis.
As a result of the cuts, two probation offices are expected to shutter. County swimming pools will shut down earlier. Regional parks will now close two days a week.
“Like every other Angeleno, I’m mad too,” said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who noted a petition she had seen on Nextdoor that morning protesting the two-day-a-week closure of Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area in her district.
The county announced last week that it had reached a tentative agreement with SEIU 721, which represents 55,000 county workers. The agreement, which still needs to be ratified by the union membership and the supervisors, includes a $5,000 bonus in the first year, followed by a 2% cost of living adjustment and $2,000 bonus in the second year and a 5% salary increase the third year.
The county is in negotiations with 16 smaller unions. The $2.1-billion price tag assumes that those unions will adopt similar salary increases and bonuses as SEIU 721.
To pay for the new labor costs, the chief executive office said the county will dip into its general fund for $778 million. The remaining $1.2 billion or so will come from federal and state funds meant for staffing costs.
David Green, the head of SEIU 721, said his members were “thrilled” with the tentative contract — the fruit of months of negotiations and a two-day strike this spring.
Last year, the city of Los Angeles agreed to contracts covering 33,000 union workers, many of whom would receive a pay increase of 24% over the next five years. The contracts, which the city estimated would add $3.5 billion in costs over five years, were a contributing factor in a massive budget shortfall that the City Council closed with layoffs and other spending cuts.
Green, who negotiated with both the city and county, said comparing the two was like “apples and oranges.”
“The economic climate has gotten worse in a lot of ways,” he said. “I think you felt a little bit of that in L.A. county bargaining.”
County supervisors appeared supportive of the agreement in Monday’s meeting, though quick to pan the overall financial picture.
“This is a budget I don’t like — I don’t think anyone does,” said Hahn.
But it could be worse, she noted.
“I know this is a budget … that won’t put us in the hole,” she said.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband, attorney Doug Emhoff, is joining the USC faculty to teach law students, the university plans to announce later Monday.
Emhoff, who received his law degree from USC in 1990, will start the job at the USC Gould School of Law on July 1. He taught at Georgetown University’s law school while his wife served as then-President Biden’s vice president and when she was the 2024 Democratic nominee for president.
“One of the best parts of my time as Second Gentleman was spending time with these students and young people all around the country — so I look forward to continuing to share my experiences with the next generation and hearing from them in the vibrant academic community at USC,” Emhoff said in a statement.
The announcement comes as Harris weighs running for California governor next year, a decision she is not expected to make until the end of the summer. On Monday, she made a surprise virtual appearance at a summit of Free & Just, an organization focused on highlighting the stories of people impacted by the reduction of access to abortion and other reproductive healthcare services.
Emhoff said mentoring law students is particularly critical at this time in the nation’s history.
“In this difficult moment for the legal community, I believe it is more important than ever to instill in the next generation of lawyers the same principles that drove me to the legal profession: the imperative of speaking out on behalf of the vulnerable, standing up for the rule of law, defending every citizen’s fundamental rights, and always fighting for justice, without fear or favor,” Emhoff said.
Emhoff, who lives in Brentwood with Harris, will remain a partner at the global law firm of Willkie Farr & Gallagher, which in April was among the firms that struck a deal with President Trump’s administration agreeing to conform with the president’s policies. The firm agreed to provide at least $100 million in pro bono legal work during Trump’s time in the White House and beyond, which the president said at the time will be dedicated to helping veterans, Gold Star families, law enforcement members and first responders.
Emhoff’s continued employment at the firm in the aftermath of the agreement raised eyebrows in progressive circles. He said Monday that he continues to disagree with his firm’s decision to settle with the White House, but remains at the firm because of his faith in his colleagues’ principles, which he said were demonstrated by pro bono work the firm’s attorneys from across the country did during the federal immigration raids by ICE agents and border patrol officers in Los Angeles
“I remain confident in the firm’s values, its phenomenal people, and meaningful work we’re doing for our clients and the communities we serve, which have not changed since the settlement—and that’s why I remain at the firm,” Emhoff said.
Days after the firm struck the deal, Emhoff said he disagreed with the decision.
“At this critical moment, this very critical moment, I urge my colleagues across the legal profession to remain vigilant, engaged, and unafraid to challenge actions that may erode our fundamental rights,” Emhoff said on April 3 at a gala dinner for Bet Tzedek, a Los Angeles-based legal aid organization where he has long volunteered. “Cause we know, the work of justice is never easy, but it is always necessary.”
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday the Trump administration may deport criminal migrants to South Sudan or Libya even if those countries are deemed too dangerous for visitors.
By a 6-3 vote, the conservative majority set aside the rulings of a Boston-based judge who said the detained men deserved a “meaningful opportunity” to object to being sent to a strange country where they may be tortured or abused.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a 19-page dissent and was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“In matters of life and death, it is best to proceed with caution. In this case, the Government took the opposite approach,” she said. “I cannot join so gross an abuse of the Court’s equitable discretion.”
Last month, the government put eight criminal migrants on a military plane bound for South Sudan.
“All of these aliens had committed heinous crimes in the United States, including murder, arson, armed robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault of a mentally handicapped woman, child rape, and more,” Trump’s Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer told the court. They also had a “final order of removal” from an immigration judge.
But U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston said the flight may have defied an earlier order because the men were not given a reasonable chance to object. He said the Convention Against Torture gives people protection against being sent to a country where they may be tortured or killed.
He noted the U.S. State Department had warned Americans: “Do not travel to South Sudan due to crime, kidnapping and armed conflict.”
Sauer said this case was different from others involving deportations because it dealt with the “worst of the worst” among immigrants in the country without authorization. He said these immigrants were given due process of law because they were convicted of crimes and were given a “final order of removal.”
However, their native country was unwilling to take them.
“Many aliens most deserving of removal are often the hardest to remove,” he told the court. “As a result, criminal aliens are often allowed to stay in the United States for years on end, victimizing law-abiding Americans in the meantime.”
In April, Murphy said “this presents a simple question: before the United States forcibly sends someone to a country other than their country of origin, must that person be told where they are going and be given a chance to tell the United States that they might be killed if sent there?”
He said the plaintiffs were “seeking a limited and measured remedy … the minimum that comports with due process.”
THE HAGUE — Whether the United States launches a broader war against Iran after bombing its nuclear facilities may come down to President Trump’s meetings with NATO partners this week at a summit of the alliance, a gathering long scheduled in the Netherlands now carrying far higher stakes.
So far, Washington’s transatlantic partners have praised the U.S. operation, which supplemented an ongoing Israeli campaign targeting Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, air defenses and military leadership. But European officials told The Times their hope is to pull Trump back from any flirtation with regime change in Iran, a prospect that Trump and Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have openly discussed in recent days.
Trump is scheduled to arrive in The Hague on Tuesday morning for two days of meetings, now expected to focus on the nascent crisis, as U.S. intelligence and military officials continue to assess the outcome of U.S. strikes over the weekend against Iran’s main nuclear sites at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan.
NATO was directly involved in the last two U.S. wars in the Middle East, taking part in a U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks and helping to train and advise security forces in Iraq. And while not a member of NATO, Israel coordinates with the security bloc through a process called the Mediterranean Dialogue, which includes work against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
At the Mauritshuis on Monday evening, overlooking The Hague’s historic court pond and under the gaze of Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” NATO officials, European military leaders and U.S. senators discussed the obvious: A summit that had been seen as an opportunity to show Trump that Europe is willing to pay more for its defense — with NATO members now committing to spend 5% of their GDP on military essentials and expenditures — will now be consumed instead with the possibility of a new war.
As the event was ending, Iran struck the U.S. military base in Qatar, its largest in the Middle East. But the Iranians gave Doha advance notice of the strike in an effort to avert casualties, the New York Times reported, indicating Tehran might be looking for an off-ramp from continuing escalation with Washington.
While the Pentagon said the U.S. bombing run, dubbed Operation Midnight Hammer, “severely damaged” Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, American and Israeli officials acknowledged to The Times that it is not entirely clear how much equipment and fissile material Tehran was able to salvage before the attacks began.
And as concerns emerge that Iran may have been able to preserve a breakout capability, Israel’s target list across Iran seemed to broaden on Monday to reflect military ambitions beyond Iran’s nuclear program, including the headquarters of the Basij militia and a clock in downtown Tehran counting down to Israel’s destruction.
“Trump spoke too soon,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon official and Iran expert at the American Enterprise Institute, of the president’s declaration that the United States had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capacity with its weekend strikes.
“We may have simply waited too long with our hand-wringing, and given the Iranians time to evacuate their enriched stockpiles. If so, that represents a failure of leadership,” he added, noting reports that trucks could be seen at the Fordo site leading up to the U.S. attack. “If they then scattered and the U.S. intelligence community lost track of where they went, then that is an intelligence failure that could potentially be as costly as the one that preceded the Iraq war.”
European powers, particularly France, Germany and the United Kingdom, have been careful to praise Trump for ordering the strikes. But they have also urged an immediate return to negotiations, and expressed concern that Israel has begun targeting sites tangential and unrelated to Iran’s nuclear program.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, warning of “volatility” in the region, encouraged Iran “to return to the negotiating table and reach a diplomatic solution to end this crisis.” And Germany’s foreign minister, Johann Wadephul, questioned whether Tehran’s nuclear knowledge could be bombed away. “No one thinks it’s a good thing to keep fighting,” he told local media.
“I called for deescalation and for Iran to exercise the utmost restraint in this dangerous context, to allow a return to diplomacy,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. “Engaging in dialogue and securing a clear commitment from Iran to renounce nuclear weapons are essential to avoid the worst for the entire region. There is no alternative.”
Later Monday, after Israel had struck Iran’s notorious Evin prison, where foreign nationals are held, France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, issued a more scathing rebuke. “All strikes must now stop,” he said.
One European official said that efforts would be made once Trump arrives to underscore his military successes, noting the example he has made — using military force to deter an authoritarian foe — could still be applied to Russia in its war against Ukraine. Now that Trump has demonstrated peace through strength, the official said, it is time to give diplomacy another chance.
But it’s unclear if Iran would be receptive to pleas for a diplomatic breakthrough.
In a post on X on Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, noted that Israel’s attacks last week and the U.S. strikes this week coincided with negotiations, torpedoing any chance for talks to succeed.
“Last week, we were in negotiations with the U.S. when Israel decided to blow up that diplomacy. This week, we held talks with the E3/E.U. when the U.S. decided to blow up that diplomacy,” he wrote, adding that European calls to bring Iran to negotiations were misplaced. The E3 represents France, Germany and Italy.
“How can Iran return to something it never left, let alone blew up?” he added.
On Monday, before its strikes against the U.S. base in Qatar, Iranian military leaders vowed vengeance against the United States for the strikes.
The retaliation “will impose severe, regret-inducing, and unpredictable consequences on you,” said Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaqari, head of the Iranian military’s central command headquarters, in a video statement on Iranian broadcaster Press TV. He added that the U.S. attack “will expand the range of legitimate and diverse targets for Iran’s armed forces.”
Times staff writer Nabih Bulos in Beirut contributed to this report.
On Sunday at approximately 2 a.m. Tehran time, seven B-2 stealth aircraft attacked the Iranian nuclear facilities in Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, strikes enabled as much by the belief that Iran had this coming as the particular technology of the American bombers. A drawling President Trump put it in stark terms shortly after the operation ended. “For 40 years, Iran has been saying death to America, death to Israel. They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs, with roadside bombs. That was their specialty.”
Convention drives coverage of Iran in the United States, from stock images of anti-American murals to the enduring menace of “Iranian-backed militias.” Now there is an emerging consensus that overthrowing the government in Tehran will accomplish what Israeli and U.S. missiles and air assaults have not: an end to Iran’s nuclear program and that country’s destabilizing aspirations for regional hegemony, not to mention an end of the oppressive Islamic Republic itself. A series of headlines, analysts and politicians have in recent days presented regime change as a natural certainty, nothing less than a magic bullet. This too is seen as Iran’s due.
Very few of these expert voices have taken the next step by asking, “Then what?” Where does the magic bullet land? Sovereign imperatives await the next group to come into power. Democratic or otherwise, the government that replaces the current regime will be laser-focused on Iran’s survival. And there is very little reason for Israel or the U.S. to think that a reconstituted Iran will become more conciliatory toward either country once the war ends.
The reality is that nationalism, not theocracy, remains what what the historian Ali Ansari calls the “determining ideology” of Iran. There is a robust consensus among scholars that politics in Iran begins with the idea of Iran as a people with a continuous and unbroken history, a nation that “looms out of an immemorial past.” Nationalism provides the broad political arena in which different groups and ideologies in Iran compete for power and authority, whether monarchist, Islamist or leftist.
And that means that the patriotic defense of Iran isn’t a passing phase, produced under the duress of bombs, but the default position, the big idea that holds Iran together, hardened over the last two centuries of Iranian history and the trauma of the loss of territory and dignity to outside powers, including the Russians, the British and the Americans.
Getting rid of Islamic rule won’t change this dynamic; it is almost sure to guarantee that something worse will come along, sending Iranian politics in unexpected and more corrosive directions. Americans, after all, need only look to their current administration (or past interventions in the Middle East) for examples of how populist responses to foreign invasions, real or imagined, can lead to unthinkableoutcomes.
“Trump just guaranteed that Iran will be a nuclear weapons state in the next 5 to 10 years, particularly if the regime changes,” Trita Parsi of the U.S.-based Quincy Institute wrote Saturday night. This is especially true if a new regime is democratic. The promised “liberation” of the Iranian people through devastating bombing campaigns presents the worst-case scenario for Israel and the U.S., as no future elected government would survive unless it sustained, and perhaps surpassed, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s current belligerence.
There is tragedy here. Ordinary Iranians, like most people, want peace and security, preferably through diplomacy and dialogue. The unprovoked attacks of the last week and their subsequent justification by not only the U.S. but also nearly all of the European Union, a disastrous sequence that began with Trump’s wanton violation of President Obama’s Iran deal in 2018, have convinced an increasing number of Iranians that the restraint of arms, nuclear or otherwise, is national suicide.
Insofar as the Islamic Republic can claim that it is the only Iranian government in more than 200 years to have lost “not an inch of soil,” it continues to cling to power. Of course, such legitimacy comes with a dual edge. This regime may survive in the short term, but if and when it does fall it will be because its leaders failed to keep Israeli and American arms out, munitions that have already killed more than 800 of their fellow citizens in less than a week, according to the Washington-based group Human Rights Activists.
One of the most common conventions when it comes to Iran, typically presented as a gesture of grace, is to draw a distinction between its government and the people, to lay blame on “the mullahs” and not the country’s long-suffering citizens for their country’s status as a rogue actor. As a way to appeal to Iranians of the righteousness of his cause, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his surrogates have deployed tropes of civilizational greatness that would make even the most ardent Persian chauvinist blush. On Thursday, the Israeli prime minister announced that the time had come for the Jews to repay an ancient debt: “I want to tell you that 2,500 years ago, Cyrus the Great, the king of Persia, liberated the Jews. And today, a Jewish state is creating the means to liberate the Persian people.” Regime change, by this logic, is a project of recovery and revivalism, a surefire way to make Iran great again.
Iranians are proving to be less nuanced, and unconvinced. The distance between the Iranian state and society has in the last week been reduced to almost nothing. Across the range of experience and suffering, from imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureates and formerly imprisoned Palm D’Or winners to working-class laborers left behind by the revolution, the overriding sentiment today in Iran is clear: These clerics may be scoundrels, but they’re our scoundrels, our problem to solve.
Nearly 50 years into an unwanted dictatorship, Iranians have developed a refined capacity for identifying bad faith. They know who has Iran’s interests at heart and who is trying to save his own skin.
Iranian AmericanShervin Malekzadeh is a visiting assistant professor of political science at Pitzer College and author of the forthcoming book, “Fire Beneath the Ash: The Green Movement and the Struggle for Democracy in Iran, 2009-2019.”
WASHINGTON — The massive tax and spending cuts package that President Trump wants on his desk by July 4 would loosen regulations on gun silencers and certain types of rifles and shotguns, advancing a longtime priority of the gun industry as Republican leaders in the House and Senate try to win enough votes to pass the bill.
The guns provision was first requested in the House by Georgia Rep. Andrew Clyde, a Republican gun store owner who had initially opposed the larger tax package. The House bill would remove silencers — called “suppressors” by the gun industry — from a 1930s law that regulates firearms that are considered the most dangerous, eliminating a $200 tax while removing a layer of background checks.
The Senate kept the provision on silencers in its version of the bill and expanded upon it, adding short-barreled, or sawed-off, rifles and shotguns.
Republicans who have long supported the changes, along with the gun industry, say the tax infringes on 2nd Amendment rights. They say silencers are mostly used by hunters and target shooters for sport.
“Burdensome regulations and unconstitutional taxes shouldn’t stand in the way of protecting American gun owners’ hearing,” said Clyde, who owns two gun stores in Georgia and often wears a pin shaped like an assault rifle on his suit lapel.
Democrats are fighting to stop the provision, which was unveiled days after two Minnesota state legislators were shot in their homes, as the bill speeds through the Senate. They argue that loosening regulations on silencers could make it easier for criminals and active shooters to conceal their weapons.
“Parents don’t want silencers on their streets, police don’t want silencers on their streets,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
The gun language has broad support among Republicans and has received little attention as House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) work to settle differences within the party on cuts to Medicaid and energy tax credits, among other issues. But it is just one of hundreds of policy and spending items included to entice members to vote for the legislation that could have broad implications if the bill is enacted within weeks, as Trump wants.
Inclusion of the provision is also a sharp turn from the climate in Washington just three years ago when Democrats, like Republicans now, controlled Congress and the White House and pushed through bipartisan gun legislation. The bill increased background checks for some buyers under the age of 21, made it easier to take firearms from potentially dangerous people and sent millions of dollars to mental health services in schools.
Passed in the summer of 2022, just weeks after the shooting of 19 children and two adults at a school in Uvalde, Texas, it was the most significant legislative response to gun violence in decades.
Three years later, as they try to take advantage of their consolidated power in Washington, Republicans are packing as many of their longtime priorities as possible, including the gun legislation, into the massive, wide-ranging bill that Trump has called “beautiful.”
“I’m glad the Senate is joining the House to stand up for the 2nd Amendment and our Constitution, and I will continue to fight for these priorities as the Senate works to pass President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill,” said Texas Sen. John Cornyn, who was one of the lead negotiators on the bipartisan gun bill in 2022 but is now facing a primary challenge from the right in his bid for reelection next year.
If the gun provisions remain in the larger legislation and it is passed, silencers and the short-barrel rifles and shotguns would lose an extra layer of regulation that they are subject to under the National Firearms Act, passed in the 1930s in response to concerns about mafia violence. They would still be subject to the same regulations that apply to most other guns — and that includes possible loopholes that allow some gun buyers to avoid background checks when guns are sold privately or online.
Larry Keane of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who supports the legislation, says changes are aimed at helping target shooters and hunters protect their hearing. He argues that the use of silencers in violent crimes is rare. “All it’s ever intended to do is to reduce the report of the firearm to hearing-safe levels,” Keane says.
Speaking on the floor before the bill passed the House, Rep. Clyde said the bill restores 2nd Amendment rights from “over 90 years of draconian taxes.” Clyde said Johnson included his legislation in the larger bill “with the purest of motive.”
“Who asked for it? I asked,” said Clyde, who ultimately voted for the bill after the gun silencer provision was added.
Clyde was responding to Rep. Maxwell Frost, a 28-year-old Florida Democrat, who went to the floor and demanded to know who was responsible for the gun provision. Frost, who was a gun-control activist before being elected to Congress, called himself a member of the “mass shooting generation” and said the bill would help “gun manufacturers make more money off the death of children and our people.”
Among other concerns, control advocates say less regulation for silencers could make it harder for law enforcement to stop an active shooter.
“There’s a reason silencers have been regulated for nearly a century: They make it much harder for law enforcement and bystanders to react quickly to gunshots,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety.
Schumer and other Democrats are trying to persuade the Senate parliamentarian to drop the language as she reviews the bill for policy provisions that aren’t budget-related.
“Senate Democrats will fight this provision at the parliamentary level and every other level with everything we’ve got,” Schumer said earlier this month.
When she made it back inside the privately run facility in the Mojave desert last week, things weren’t much better.
“It is just scandalous as to how it has not improved,” she told me.
Truth be told, conditions are likely to get worse, if only because of sheer numbers and chaos. Which makes it all the more important to have elected leaders like Chu willing to put themselves on the front lines to give a voice to the truly, really voiceless.
Shortly after the unannounced visit to Adelanto by Chu and four other members of Congress a few days ago, ICE announced new rules attempting to further limit access by lawmakers to its facilities — despite clear federal law allowing them unannounced entrance to such lockups. While Chu and others have called these new curbs on access illegal, they are still likely to be enforced until and unless courts rule otherwise.
The narrow, fragile line of the judicial branch is holding, for now.
But families and even lawyers are struggling to keep track of those who vanish into these facilities, many of which — including Adelanto — are operated by private, for-profit companies raking in millions of dollars from the government.
When the Trump administration started its attack on Los Angeles a few weeks ago, Chu started receiving calls from her constituents asking for help. She represents Altadena, Pasadena and other areas where there are large populations of immigrants, and as the daughter of an immigrant, she relates.
Her mom came here from China as a 19-year-old bride. Chu’s dad was born in the United States.
“I feel such a heavy responsibility to change things for them, to change things for the better,” she said. “I am surrounded by immigrants every day. This is a district of immigrants. My relatives are immigrants. My friends are immigrants. Yes, my life is immigrants.”
A few days ago, she tried to visit the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, where many of the recent protests have been focused, and where many of the people detained in Los Angeles have reportedly been held at first. She’d heard that even though it’s not meant to be more than a stopover, folks have been staying there longer.
“The fact that these raids are so severe, so massive, it just seems very obvious to me that they would not be treating the detainees in a humane way. And that’s what I wanted to find out,” she told me.
But no luck. Authorities turned her away at the door.
So a few days later she decided to show up unannounced — which is her right as a federal lawmaker — at Adelanto.
Guess what: No luck.
Officers there chained the gate shut, she said, and wouldn’t even talk to her.
“To actually just be locked out like that was unbelievable,” she said. “We shouted that we were members of Congress. We held signs up saying that we were members of Congress, and in fact, there was a car parked only a few feet away inside the facility. The job of that person was just to watch us. Wow.”
Wow indeed.
Undeterred, she came back a few days later when the gate was unlocked. This time, she drove straight inside, not asking permission.
Her staff “deliberately dropped me off inside the lobby before they knew that we were there,” she said.
She got out at the front door and was granted entry.
“The ICE agent said, ‘Oh, well, we thought you were protesters the time before,’” she said. “And that cannot be true, you know, considering all of our yelling and signs. But anyway.”
She was armed with the names of people from her district who had been detained, and she asked to see them. She got to speak to some of them, but everyone wanted her help. At the start of the year, Adelanto held only a handful of people, having been nearly closed by a court order during COVID-19. Now it holds about 1,100, and can take up to about 1,900.
“These detainees were jumping up and down trying to get our attention,” she said. What they told her was disturbing, and casually cruel. No ability to change clothes for 10 days. Filthy showers. No access to telephones because they need a PIN number and no matter how many times they request one, it never seems to materialize. No idea how long they would be held, or what would happen next.
“It could be weeks,” she said. “It could be years.”
Vanished.
“It is horrendous,” she said. “And it is ripping our communities apart,”
Indeed it is, especially in Southern California, where immigrants — documented and not — are entwined in the fabric of our lives and our communities.
Which is why people like Chu are so vital to what happens next. Not enough of our lawmakers have spoken up, much less taken action, against the erosion of civil rights and legal norms currently underway. Chu has spent a decade trying to bring accountability to immigration detention and knows this sordid industry better than any. It’s work that many never notice but that matters to the families whose loved ones are scooped up and disappeared into a system that, even in its best days, is convoluted.
“These are not the criminals and rapists that Trump promised he would get rid of,” Chu said. “These are hard-working people who are trying to make a living and doing their best to support their families. These are your friends and neighbors, and as we’ve seen, U.S. citizens have also been arrested. So next it could be you.”
Or her. Other lawmakers have been arrested and charged for attempting to enter detention centers on the East Coast, and Sen. Alex Padilla was knocked over and handcuffed recently for interrupting a news conference by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
We are in the era when questions are often met with mockery or silence — or even violence — from authorities, and everyday champions are vital. Propaganda and lies have become the norms, and few have the ability to bear witness to truth inside places of state power such as detention centers.
So it’s also an era when having people who will stand up in the face of increasing fear and chaos is the difference between being vanished for who-knows-how-long and being found.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Randolph Bracy and LaVon Bracy Davis are taking sibling rivalry to a new level as the brother and sister run against each other in a race for a Florida state Senate seat on Tuesday.
Not only that, one of their opponents for the Democratic nomination in the district representing parts of metro Orlando is Alan Grayson, a combative former Democratic U.S. congressman who drew national attention in 2009 when he said in a House floor speech that the Republican health care plan was to “die quickly.”
The headline-grabbing candidates are running in the special primary election for the seat that had been held by Geraldine Thompson, a trailblazing veteran lawmaker who died earlier this year following complications from knee-replacement surgery. A fourth candidate also is running in the Democratic primary — personal injury attorney Coretta Anthony-Smith.
The winner will face Republican Willie Montague in September for the general election in the Democratic-dominant district. Black voters make up more than half registered Democrats in the district.
Florida Sen. Randolph Bracy, rear, makes a point during a Senate Committee on Reapportionment hearing in a legislative session, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, in Tallahassee, Fla.
(Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press)
Both siblings have experience in the state legislature. Bracy Davis was a state representative, and Bracy was a former state senator. Adding to the family dynamics was the fact that the siblings’ mother, civil rights activist Lavon Wright Bracy, was the maid of honor at Thompson’s wedding and was one of her oldest friends. She has endorsed her daughter over her son.
The siblings’ family has been active in Orlando’s civic life for decades. Their father, Randolph Bracy Jr., was a local NAACP president, a founder of a Baptist church in Orlando and director of the religion department at Bethune-Cookman University.
It wasn’t the first time the family has been caught up in competing endorsements. When Bracy and Thompson ran against each other for the Democratic primary in a state senate race last year, Bracy Davis endorsed Thompson over her brother. Campaign fliers sent out recently by a Republican political operative start with “Bracy Yourself!”
Bracy, 48, who one time played professional basketball in Turkey, told the Orlando Sentinel that it was “disappointing and hurtful” for his sister to run after he had announced his bid. But Bracy Davis, 45, an attorney by training, said she was running for the people in state senate District 15, not against any of the other candidates. She said that she intended to continue Thompson’s legacy of pushing for voters’ rights and increasing pay for public schoolteachers. Thompson’s family has endorsed Bracy Davis.
Grayson was elected to Congress in 2008 and voted out in 2010. Voters sent him back to Congress in 2012, but he gave up his seat for an unsuccessful 2016 Senate run.
Donald Trump’s coalition has always been a Frankenstein’s monster — stitched together from parts that were never meant to coexist.
Consider the contradictions: fast-food fanatics hanging out with juice-cleanse truthers chanting “Make America Healthy Again” between ivermectin doses, immigration hardliners mixing with business elites who are “tough on the border” until they need someone to clean their toilets or pick their strawberries, and hawkish interventionists spooning with America Firsters.
Dogs and cats living together — mass hysteria — you know the bit.
Navigating these differences was always going to be tricky. But in recent days — particularly following Israel’s bombing of Iran, an operation widely believed to have been greenlit by Trump — the tension has reached new highs.
Signs of strain were already emerging earlier this year. We got early hints of discord during the “Liberation Day” tariff fiasco — where Trump declared an “emergency” and imposed steep tariffs, only to suspend them after they riled markets and spooked his business-friendly backers.
The tariff blunder was a harbinger of things to come. But it was the House’s passage of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — a budgetary monstrosity that self-respecting Freedom Caucus deficit hawks should’ve torched on principle — that truly exposed the rift.
Enter Elon Musk, the billionaire tech bro and MAGA ally, who publicly trashed both the bill and Trump in a flurry of posts. He even referenced Trump’s name reportedly appearing in Jeffrey Epstein’s files — a claim that, though unverified, was tantamount to “going nuclear.”
But before there was enough time to say “Republican civil war,” Musk deleted his mean tweets, adding to the evidence that this is still Trump’s party; that modern Republicans view deficits the way the rest of us view library late fees — technically real, but nothing to lose sleep over; and that ketamine is a hell of a drug.
The next internecine squabble was over immigration. Trump proudly ran on rounding ’em all up. Mass deportations! Load up the buses! But then it turned out that his rich buddies in Big Ag and Big Hospitality weren’t so keen on losing some of their best employees.
It even started to look like some exemptions were coming — until his Department of Homeland Security said “no mas.” (The raids will presumably continue until the next time a farmer or hotelier complains to Trump in a meeting.)
But the real fissure involves some prominent America First non-interventionists who thought Trump was elected to end the “forever wars.”
In case you missed it, Israel has been going after Iran’s nuclear capabilities with the same gusto that Trump aide Stephen Miller applies to deporting Guatemalan landscapers, and Trump is all in, calling for an “unconditional surrender” of the Iranian regime.
This didn’t sit well with everyone in the MAGA coalition.
“I think we’re going to see the end of American empire,” warned Tucker Carlson on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. “But it’s also going to end, I believe, Trump’s presidency — effectively end it — and so that’s why I’m saying this.”
And Carlson (co-founder of the Daily Caller, where I worked) didn’t stop there. “The real divide isn’t between people who support Israel and those who support Iran or the Palestinians,” he tweeted. “It’s between warmongers and peacemakers.”
Then he named names, alleging that Fox’s Sean Hannity, radio firebrand Mark Levin, media titan Rupert Murdoch and billionaire Trump donors Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson were among the warmongers.
Trump hit back, calling Tucker “kooky” and repeating his new mantra: “IRAN CAN NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON.”
It’s tempting to see this spat as the beginning of a schism — a break that might finally yield a coherent Trump Doctrine, at least, as it pertains to foreign policy (possibly returning the GOP to a more Reaganite or internationalist party). But that misunderstands the nature of Trump and his coalition.
These coalitional disagreements over public policy are real and important. But they mostly exist at the elite level. The actual Trump voter base? They care about only one thing: Donald Trump.
And Trump resists ideological straitjackets.
If Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu rubs him the wrong way next week (as he did by congratulating Joe Biden in 2020), or if Israel’s military campaign starts slipping in the polls, Trump could flip faster than a gymnast on Red Bull.
There is no coherent philosophy. No durable ideology. What we’re watching is a guy making it up as he goes along — often basing decisions on his “gut” or the opinion of the last guy who bent his ear.
So if you’re looking for a Trump Doctrine to explain it all — keep looking. There isn’t one.
There’s only Trump.
Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”
SACRAMENTO — California really does still have a Legislature, even if you haven’t been reading or hearing much about it. In fact, it’s currently making a ton of weighty decisions.
They’ll affect many millions of Californians — with a gamut of new laws and hefty spending.
Plus congressional wrangling over Trump’s “Big Beautiful” ugly, debt-hiking bill — and the eruption of a Middle East war.
Meanwhile, it’s one of the busiest and most important periods of the year in the state Capitol. This is budget time, when the Legislature and governor decide how to spend our tax dollars.
The Legislature passed a $325-billion so-called budget June 13, beating its constitutional deadline by two days. If it hadn’t, the lawmakers would have forfeited their pay. But although that measure counted legally as a budget, it lacked lots of details that still are being negotiated between legislative leaders and Newsom.
The final agreements will be tucked into a supplementary measure amending the main budget bill. That will be followed by a long line of “trailer bills” containing even more policy specifics — all currently being hammered out, mostly in back rooms.
The target date for conclusion of this Byzantine process is Friday. The annual budget will take effect July 1.
Some budget-related issues are of special interest to me and I’ve written about them previously. So, the rest of this column is what we call in the news trade a “follow” — a report on where those matters stand.
Californians cast more votes for Proposition 36 last year than anything else on the ballot. The measure passed with 68% of the vote, carrying all 58 counties.
Inspired by escalating retail theft, the initiative toughened penalties for certain property and hard-drug crimes, such as peddling deadly fentanyl. But it offered a carrot to drug-addicted serial criminals. Many could be offered treatment rather than jail time.
Proposition 36 needs state money for the treatment, more probation officers to supervise the addicts’ progress and additional law enforcement costs. The measure’s backers estimate a $250-million annual tab.
Newsom, however, was an outspoken opponent of the proposition. He didn’t provide any funding for it in his original budget proposal and stiffed it again last month when revising the spending plan.
But legislative leaders insisted on some funding and agreed on a one-time appropriation of $110 million.
Woefully inadequate, the measure’s backers contend. They’re pushing for more. But some fear Newsom might even veto the $110 million, although this seems doubtful, given the public anger that could generate.
Greg Totten, chief executive of the California District Attorneys Assn., which sponsored the initiative, says more money is especially needed to hire additional probation officers. Treatment without probation won’t work, he insists.
Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) is trying to change the $110-million allocation mix. There’s nothing earmarked for county sheriffs who now are handling lots more arrests, she says.
“I want to make sure we uphold the voters’ wishes and are getting people into drug treatment,” Blakespear says. “This passed by such a high percentage, it should be a priority for elected officials.”
Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Santa Ana) predicts the Legislature will still be fiddling with the budget until it adjourns in September and vows: “I’ll continue to advocate for adequate funding for 36.” He asserts the budget now being negotiated won’t hold up because of chaos under Trump, who’s constantly threatening to withhold federal money due California.
Newsom and the Democratic-controlled Legislature decided a few years ago to generously offer all low-income undocumented immigrants access to Medi-Cal, California’s version of federal Medicaid for the poor.
But unlike Medi-Cal for legal residents, the federal government doesn’t kick in money for undocumented people. The state foots the entire bill. And it didn’t set aside enough. Predictably, state costs ran several billion dollars over budget.
The Newsom administration claims that more adults enrolled in the program than expected. But, come on! When free healthcare is offered to poor people, you should expect a race to enroll.
To help balance the books, Newsom proposed $100 monthly premiums. The Legislature reduced that to $30. They both agreed to freeze enrollments for adults starting Jan. 1.
The Legislature also wants to freeze Medi-Cal enrollment for even more people who are non-citizens: those with what it considers “unsatisfactory immigration status.” What does that mean? Hopefully it’s being negotiated.
The governor wants to “fast-track” construction of the $20-billion, 45-mile tunnel that would transmit more Northern California water to Southern California. Delta farmers, local residents and coastal salmon interests are adamantly opposed. Fast-track means making it simpler to obtain permits and seize property.
Legislative leaders told the governor absolutely “No”: come back later and run his proposal through the ordinary committee process. Don’t try to fast-track the Legislature.
For 24 years, immigrants lacking documentation who graduated from high school in California have received in-state tuition benefits at public colleges and universities under a law that’s given tens of thousands access to higher education that many couldn’t otherwise afford.
When the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 540 in 2001, it was the second state in the nation — after Texas — to embrace such tuition policies. Bipartisan efforts quickly grew across the country, with more than 20 states adopting similar policies.
But recent court actions by the Trump administration are causing alarm among immigrant students and casting a shadow over the tuition benefit in California, the state with the largest population of people living in the U.S. without legal authorization.
On June 4, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Texas over its tuition statute for immigrants without authorization, alleging it violated a federal law that prevents people who do not have legal status from receiving public benefits. Texas did not defend its law and instead put its support behind the Trump administration, leaving 57,000 undocumented college students in the state in educational limbo after a federal judge blocked the statute.
Last week, the DOJ launched a similar suit in Kentucky, asking a federal judge to strike down a state practice that it says unlawfully gives undocumented immigrants access to in-state college tuition while American citizens from other states pay higher tuition to attend the same schools.
“Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Atty. Gen. Bondi said of the Texas lawsuit in a statement that signaled a broader fight. “The Justice Department will relentlessly fight to vindicate federal law and ensure that U.S. citizens are not treated like second-class citizens anywhere in the country.”
Is California next?
Legal experts say that it’s not a matter of “if” but when and how the Trump administration will come for California’s law. The White House is already battling the state over liberal policies, including support of transgender students in school sports; sanctuary cities opposing ongoing federal immigration raids; and diversity, equity and inclusion programs in education.
“We are just waiting to see when it’s California’s turn,” said Kevin R. Johnson, the dean of the UC Davis law school, who specializes in immigration. Johnson predicted the White House was going after “lower-hanging fruit” in more conservative states before California, where Trump will face “firm resistance.”
The potential threat has shaken California’s undocumented students.
“If I no longer qualify for lower tuition, I really don’t know what I would do,” said Osmar Enríquez, who graduated last month with an associate’s degree from Santa Rosa Junior College and will enroll at UC Berkeley in August to embark on an undergraduate degree in media studies.
The difference between in-state and out-of-state tuition for people like Enríquez can be thousands of dollars at a community college and tens of thousands at CSU and UC campuses. International students pay out-of-state rates. At Santa Rosa Junior College, the average tuition for two semesters for an in-state student is $621. For an out-of-state student, it’s $5,427.
“What I see the Trump administration doing is trying to exclude us,” said Enríquez, who aspires to one day operate a public relations company. “They don’t want us to get educated or to reach positions of power. And with everything going on now, they are just trying to dehumanize us any way they can.”
More than 80,000 undocumented college students in California
Campus and university-level data on undocumented student populations can be difficult to estimate.
Although universities and colleges keep track of how many students without documentation receive tuition exemptions under AB 540, the data also include citizens who qualify for in-state tuition. These students grew up in the state and graduated from a California high school before their families moved elsewhere.
Numbers are also complicated by changes in the California Dream Act Application, which was established for students lacking documentation to apply for state aid but has expanded to allow students who are citizens and have an undocumented parent.
Out of the University of California system’s nearly 296,000 students, it estimates that between 2,000 and 4,000 are undocumented. Across California State University campuses, there are about 9,500 immigrants without documentation enrolled out of 461,000 total students. The state’s biggest undocumented group, estimated to be 70,000, comprises community college students and recent graduates such as Enríquez.
Born in Mexico and brought by his family to the U.S. when he was a 1-year-old, Enríquez said in-state tuition has made his education monumentally more affordable. At his next stop, UC Berkeley, in-state tuition and fees last year amounted to $16,980. Out-of-state and international students had to pay a total of $54,582.
What students say
Several undocumented students from UCLA, Cal State Los Angeles and other schools declined interviews with The Times or requested to be cited without their names, saying they were fearful of identifying themselves publicly as the federal government undertakes a third week of immigration raids across Southern California.
“I just want to go to school. What is wrong with that?” said an undocumented graduate student at Cal State Los Angeles who received his undergraduate degree at a UC campus. The Latin American studies student asked for his name to be withheld because of concern over immigration enforcement agents targeting him.
“I don’t only want to go a school, I want to go to a public university. I want to contribute to my university. I want to become a professor and teach others and support the state of California,” he said. “Why are we so bent on keeping students from getting an education and giving back?”
Sandra, a Cal State Northridge student who asked to be only identified by her first name, had a similar view. An undocumented immigrant whose parents brought her from Mexico to Los Angeles at age two, she said she would not be in college without the in-state tuition law.
“I was not eligible for DACA, so money is thin,” Sandra said, referencing the Obama-era program that gave work authorization to undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children but hasn’t taken new applications since 2021. “We save and we squeeze all we can out of fellowships and scholarships to pay in hopes that we use our education to make a difference and make an income later.”
Legal questions
The Trump administration’s challenge to the tuition rules rest on a 1996 federal law that says people in the U.S. without legal permission should “not be eligible on the basis of residence within a state … for any post-secondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit … without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.”
“There are questions about exactly what that means,” said Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at UCLA Law School. “Does that apply to universities that do not use residency as a requirement for the tuition rate but instead use high school graduation in the state?” he said, explaining that state practices differ.
In California, an undocumented immigrant who did not graduate from a high school in the state would typically not qualify for reduced tuition.
The Justice Department has argued in court that giving in-state tuition to immigrants without proper authorization violates the federal law. Some Trump opponents point out that the law does not speak specifically to tuition rates, although courts have interpreted the word “benefit” to include cheaper tuition.
In the recent Texas case, undocumented students, represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, have filed a motion in court, asking the judge to allow them to argue in support of upholding reduced tuition rates.
The tuition policies have survived other legal challenges.
Before Trump administration intervened, the Texas law appeared to be legally sound after a federal appeals court ruled in 2023 that the University of North Texas could charge out-of-state students more than it charges in-state undocumented immigrants. In that case, the court said the plaintiffs did not make good case that out-of state students were illegally treated differently than noncitizens. But the court suggested there could be other legal challenges to tuition rates for immigrants lacking documentation.
The California law has also withstood challenges. The state Supreme Court upheld its legality in 2010 after out-of-state students sued. The next year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of the case.
The California court concluded that undocumented immigrants were not receiving preferential treatment because of their immigration status but because they attended and graduated from California schools. Justices said U.S. citizens who attended and graduated from the state’s schools had the same opportunity.
Still, momentum has built to abolish in-state tuition rates for immigrants without legal documentation.
This year, lawmakers in Florida — which had a rule on the books for more than a decade allowing tuition waivers for undocumented students — eliminated the option. Prior to the federal action against Texas, legislators in the state also tried and failed to follow Florida’s lead. During this year’s legislative sessions, bills were also introduced in Kansas and Minnesota, although they have not passed.
SACRAMENTO — The vast majority of California voters support expanding access to translated ballots for people who speak limited English, an effort that would likely increase turnout, a new poll found.
That finding comes from a poll released Monday by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which conducted the survey in five languages — English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and Vietnamese — to capture voter sentiment in a state where more than a quarter of residents are foreign born.
The poll, conducted for the nonprofit Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, found that about 70% of California’s registered voters agreed that eligible voters who speak limited English should be provided with ballots translated into their preferred language. Support was strong among all age groups, races and ethnicities, as well as among Democrats and independent voters. Republicans were closely divided.
“I think in the country as a whole there’s a lot of debate and struggle over how inclusive a democracy we’re going to be and a lot of controversy over immigration, immigrant rights, immigrant inclusion,” said political scientist Eric Schickler, co-director of the Institute of Governmental Studies. “It’s timely just thinking about the question of inclusion of different groups — who feels fully American and is allowed to feel fully American in our political system.”
Schickler and others said that, according to the latest estimates, more than 3 million registered voters in California self-identify as limited-English proficient. As of February, just under 23 million Californians were registered to vote.
Under state and federal law, California is required to provide bilingual voting assistance to Spanish speakers. Nine counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara — must provide voting materials in at least one language other than English or Spanish.
Translated sample ballots and other assistance also must be made available in Spanish or other languages in counties or precincts where the state has determined at least 3% of the voting-age residents are members of a single-language minority and don’t understand English well enough to vote without assistance.
The Berkeley survey found that 82% of Democrats supported providing translated ballot materials to limited-English voters, as did 72% of voters registered as “no party preference.” Among Republicans, 45% supported providing the translated ballots, while 42% did not.
According to the poll, most California voters also favored a proposal that recently went before the state Legislature that would have allowed all limited-English-speaking communities that meet a minimum threshold in a county to receive translated versions of all voting materials.
Legislation to that effect, SB 266, proposed by Sen. Sabrina Cervantes (D-Riverside), failed to pass out of the Senate Appropriations Committee. A more ambitious bill to expand access to translated ballots and materials, AB 884, passed the Legislature in 2024, but was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The governor stated that while he supported expanding ballot access, the bill would have cost tens of millions of dollars not included in the budget.
Providing translated ballots to California voters with limited English proficiency is critical in a state that is home to such a diverse electorate — and is known for its complex state and local ballot measures, said Rosalind Gold of the National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund.
“Even folks who are very educated and native-born English speakers find trying to decipher the description of a ballot measure and what it means to be challenging,” Gold said.
Providing translated sample ballots and other election materials to voters does not go far enough, she said: The official ballots themselves, whether for Californians who vote by mail or those who vote at polling stations, should be provided in a voter’s preferred language.
“It is difficult to basically, kind of go back and forth between the ballot you’re going to be marking your choices on and a sample ballot or a facsimile ballot that’s in your native language,” Gold said. “When people can directly vote on a ballot that is in a language that they are more familiar with, it just demystifies the whole process.”
The Berkeley survey found that, among limited-English speakers who lacked access to translated election materials or were unsure if it was provided, 87% said they would be more likely to vote in future elections if they received a ballot in their preferred language. A similar number said receiving those translated ballots would make it easier for them to vote.
The poll surveyed 6,474 registered voters throughout California from June 2-6.
The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” now before the Senate takes the current preoccupation with making every governmental relationship transactional to an immoral extreme. It puts a $1,000 price tag on the right to seek asylum — the first time the United States would require someone to pay for this human right.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights holds that “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.” U.S. law incorporates that right, stating that “any alien … irrespective of such alien’s status, may apply for asylum.” Neither makes this right contingent on being able to pay.
Bear in mind that asylum seekers in the United States do not have the right to court-appointed attorneys. That means the system already profoundly disadvantages indigent asylum seekers — they can’t afford a lawyer, often don’t speak English and have no road map for navigating arcane immigration law.
The new law would make asylum even more inaccessible for a poor person, in effect, creating two classes of those seeking refuge here. Those wealthy enough to pay $1,000 up front would have their protection claims heard; those unable to pay would be shunted back to face persecution and the problems that drove them from their home countries to begin with.
If this part of the bill isn’t modified before its final passage, Congress will have piled on to the obstacles the Trump administration has already put in place to block the right to seek asylum. On Inauguration Day, President Trump proclaimed an invasion of the United States by “millions of aliens” and “suspend[ed] the physical entry of any alien engaged in the invasion across the southern border.” Until the president decides the “invasion” is over, the order explicitly denies the right of any person to seek asylum if it would permit their continued presence in the United States.
Since Jan. 20, asylum seekers trying to enter the United States at the southwestern border have been turned away and, in some cases, loaded onto military planes and flown to third countries — Panama, for example — without any opportunity to make asylum claims.
“I asked for asylum repeatedly. I really tried,” Artemis Ghasemzadeh, a 27-year-old Christian convert from Iran, told Human Rights Watch after being sent to Panama. “Nobody listened to me …. Then an immigration officer told me President Trump had ended asylum, so they were going to deport us.”
On top of the basic fee for asylum seekers, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would also require an asylum seeker to pay a fee of “not less than $550” every six months to be permitted to work in the U.S. while their claim is pending. The bill would also impose an additional $100 fee for every year an asylum application remains pending in the heavily backlogged system, punishing the person fleeing persecution for the government’s failure to provide sufficient immigration judges.
Children are not spared. For the privilege of sponsoring an unaccompanied migrant child, the bill would require the sponsor, often a relative who steps forward to care for the child, to pay a $3,500 fee. Congressional priorities for spending on unaccompanied children who arrive at our borders show a distinct lack of compassion: The bill directs that a $20-million appropriation for U.S. Customs and Border Protection “shall only be used to conduct an examination of such unaccompanied alien child for gang-related tattoos and other gang-related markings.”
Add to these barriers the complete shutdown of the U.S. refugee resettlement program, except for white South Africans; the termination of “humanitarian parole” for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans; the end of temporary protected status programs that have provided protection to people coming from countries of widespread conflict, and the travel ban that bars entry from some of the world’s top refugee-producing countries, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Iran and Sudan.
In the meantime, Trump hypes the idea of selling $5-million “gold cards” for super rich foreigners who want to buy U.S. permanent residence. When asked who might be interested, Trump replied, “I know some Russian oligarchs that are very nice people.”
The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” includes $45 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention capacity (by my calculations, that would more than triple capacity). It also specifies $14.4 billion for ICE transportation and removal operations, $46.5 billion for the border wall and $858 million to pay bonuses to ICE officials.
With all the money Congress is prepared to spend, it’s a wonder the bill didn’t add a few dollars for sanding down the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty and re-chiseling it to say, “Give me your rich and well-rested … yearning to breathe free.”
Bill Frelick is refugee rights director at Human Rights Watch and the author of the report “‘Nobody Cared, Nobody Listened’: The US Expulsion of Third-Country Nationals to Panama.”
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Sunday called into question the future of Iran’s ruling theocracy after a surprise attack on three of the country’s nuclear sites, seemingly contradicting his administration’s calls to resume negotiations and avoid an escalation in fighting.
“It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change,’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change???” Trump posted on social media. “MIGA!!!”
The post on his social media platform marked a stark reversal from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s Sunday morning news conference that detailed the aerial bombing of Iran early Sunday.
“This mission was not and has not been about regime change,” Hegseth said.
The administration has made clear it wants Iran to stop any development of nuclear weapons, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that any retaliation against the U.S. or a rush toward building a nuclear weapon would “put the regime at risk.”
But beyond that, the world is awash in uncertainty at a fragile moment that could decide whether parts of the globe tip into war or find a way to salvage a relative peace. Trump’s message to Iran’s leadership comes as the U.S. has warned Iran against retaliating for the bombardment targeting the heart of a nuclear program that it spent decades developing.
The Trump administration has made a series of intimidating statements even as it has called for a restart of negotiations, making it hard to get a read on whether the U.S. president is simply taunting an adversary or using inflammatory words that could further widen the war between Israel and Iran that began with Israeli attacks on June 13.
Until Trump’s post Sunday afternoon, the coordinated messaging by his vice president, Pentagon chief, top military advisor and secretary of State suggested a confidence that any fallout would be manageable and that Iran’s lack of military capabilities would ultimately force it back to the bargaining table.
Hegseth had said that America “does not seek war” with Iran, while Vice President JD Vance said the strikes had given Tehran the possibility of returning to negotiate with Washington.
But the unfolding situation is not entirely under Washington’s control, as Tehran has a series of levers to respond to the aerial bombings that could intensify the conflict in the Middle East with possible global repercussions.
Iran can block oil being shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, attack U.S. bases in the region, engage in cyberattacks or accelerate its nuclear program — which might seem more of a necessity after the U.S. strikes.
All of that raises the question of whether the U.S. bombing will open up a more brutal phase of fighting or revive negotiations out of an abundance of caution. In the U.S., the attack quickly spilled over into domestic politics, with Trump spending part of his Sunday going after his critics in Congress.
He used a social media post to lambaste Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a stalwart Trump supporter who had objected to the president taking military action without specific congressional approval.
“We had a spectacular military success yesterday, taking the ‘bomb’ right out of their hands (and they would use it if they could!)” Trump wrote.
NASHVILLE — A federal judge in Tennessee on Sunday denied the U.S. government’s motion to keep Kilmar Abrego Garcia in detention before his trial on human smuggling charges and ordered his release.
But Abrego Garcia, whose mistaken deportation to El Salvador has become a high-profile case in President Trump’s immigration crackdown, is not expected to go free because U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement will probably take him into custody and possibly try to deport him.
In denying the Trump administration’s motion Sunday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara Holmes scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to discuss the conditions of his release.
The U.S. government has already filed a motion to appeal the judge’s decision and is asking her to stay her impending release order.
Abrego Garcia pleaded not guilty on June 13 to smuggling charges that his attorneys have characterized as an attempt to justify his mistaken deportation in March to a notorious prison in El Salvador. That hearing was the first chance the Maryland construction worker had in a U.S. courtroom to answer the Trump administration’s allegations.
The smuggling charges stem from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding in Tennessee during which Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers. Although officers suspected possible smuggling, he was allowed to go with only a warning.
A federal indictment accuses Abrego Garcia of smuggling throughout the U.S. hundreds of people living in the country illegally, including children and members of the violent MS-13 gang. He has denied the charges.
The investigation was launched weeks after the Supreme Court ordered the administration to facilitate his return from El Salvador amid mounting public pressure.
Holmes acknowledged in her ruling Sunday that determining whether Abrego Garcia should be released is “little more than an academic exercise” because ICE will probably detain him. But the judge wrote that the government failed to prove that Abrego Garcia was a flight risk, that he posed a danger to the community or that he would interfere with proceedings if released.
“Overall, the Court cannot find from the evidence presented that Abrego’s release clearly and convincingly poses an irremediable danger to other persons or to the community,” the judge wrote.
The acting U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee, Rob McGuire, argued on June 13 that the likely attempt by ICE to deport him was one reason to keep him in jail.
The judge suggested then that the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security could work out between themselves whether the government’s priority is to try him on the criminal charges or deport him. No date has been set for the trial.
A 2019 immigration judge’s order prevents Abrego Garcia from being deported to his native El Salvador because he faces a credible threat from gangs there, according to Will Allensworth, an assistant federal public defender representing him.
The government could deport him to a third country, but immigration officials would first be required to show that that country was willing to keep him and not deport him back to El Salvador, Allensworth said.
At the detention hearing, McGuire said cooperating witnesses have accused Abrego Garcia of trafficking drugs and firearms and of abusing the women he transported, among other claims. Abrego Garcia also denies those accusations, and although he is not charged with such crimes, McGuire said they showed him to be a dangerous person who should remain in jail pretrial.
Most people in ICE custody who are facing criminal charges are not kept in the U.S. for trial but deported, according to Ohio State University law professor César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández. The government would not need a conviction to deport Abrego Garcia because he came to the U.S. illegally.
However an immigration judge rules, the decision can be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, García Hernández said. And the board’s ruling can then be contested in a federal appeals court.
Loller and Finley write for the Associated Press and reported from Nashville and Norfolk, Va., respectively.
